Report: Kosovo leader was criminal mafia boss

Kosovo’s Prime Minister Hashim Thaci headed a mafia-style organized crime ring in the late 1990s that engaged in assassinations, beatings, organ trafficking and other crimes, according to a draft report released on Tuesday.

In Pristina, the Kosovo government denounced the draft Council of Europe report as baseless and defamatory, and threatened to take legal and political action in response.

The report to the Council’s Parliamentary Assembly, released a day after Kosovo’s election commission said Thaci’s party won the first post-independence election on Sunday, also accused Western powers of complicity in ignoring crimes dating back to the late 1990s.

“Thaci and these other ‘Drenica Group’ members are consistently named as ‘key players’ in intelligence reports on Kosovo’s mafia-like structures of organized crime,” said the report by Dick Marty, the rapporteur for the Council’s committee on legal affairs and human rights.

“We found that the ‘Drenica Group’ had as its chief — or, to use the terminology of organized crime networks, its ‘boss’ — the renowned political operator and perhaps most internationally recognized personality of the KLA, Hashim Thaci.”

via Kosovo leader was criminal mafia boss, report says – World news – msnbc.com.

He is also accused of Serbian organ theft/trafficking, something that denounced some time ago Carla del Ponte, former prosecutor at ICC.

If there is enough evidence, I would like this guy tried the same that is being tried Radovan Karadzic. If not, justice will be only made to one side, not to the other.

Venezuela: Chávez Seeks to Censor Internet

Hugo Chávez is tired of your pokes, tweets and comments. If he has his way, a bill making its way through Parliament that includes restrictions on social media giants, will become law.

…The wording of the bill that would censor social networks calls for protecting citizens “moral and ethical honor”. As such, it would also control adult programming. It proposes applying limits on content in “electronic media” according to the time of day and would call on internet service providers to establish mechanisms to restrict nefarious adult content.

The bill comes at a time of turmoil for Venezuelan legislators as Chávez is once again seeking decree powers that would grant him special powers to enact laws as he sees fit.

via No More Pokes? Chávez Seeks to Censor Facebook, Twitter – Fox News Latino.

Some Venezuelans have protested outside the National Assembly.

Chávez has said the powers could extend up to 18 months. “The text of the law allows him to issue decrees across a wide range of areas including housing, land, finances and security“.

Background.

“Hamas will never recognise the Israeli state”

Well, nothing really new in this:

Hamas would consider a “truce” with Israel, but will never recognise the Jewish state, senior leader Ismail Haniya said on Tuesday as thousands of Gazans celebrated the group’s 23rd anniversary.

Speaking before flag-waving Palestinians from across the Gaza Strip, Haniya said the Islamist group would never recognise its sworn enemy.

“Let it be understood far and near that after the war, the siege, the internal and external plots: we will not recognise Israel,” he told the cheering crowds.

“Our founder Sheikh (Ahmad) Yassin said: Liberate what you can of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Jerusalem, and where it cannot be liberated, declare a truce,” he said, referring to the group’s spiritual leader who was assassinated by Israel in 2004.

Ahead of its anniversary celebrations, Hamas reiterated its aim to recover all of historic Palestine from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River.

“We will cede none of it, and we will not recognise the so-called state of Israel,” a statement said on Monday, adding that its aim was to make Jerusalem the “capital of the state of Palestine” and pledging to work against Israel’s “methods of Judaisation” in the Holy City.

The strident statements stood in sharp contrast Haniya’s remarks on December 1, when he suggested Hamas could accept a negotiated peace deal if the Palestinian population and diaspora approved it in a referendum.

Hamas “will respect the results of a referendum even if the results conflict with Hamas’s positions,” he told foreign journalists at the time.

“We accept a Palestinian state with full sovereignty on the land occupied in 1967 with Jerusalem as its capital and a solution to the issue of refugees.”

Meanwhile, we are sending more money to them through the Palestinian authority, and they are going to be very well off thanks to us.

The European Union continues his anti-Israeli stance and has “threatened” Israel with “recognising the Palestinian state” (which one?) if Israel continues building settlements, inside its borders. Although afterwards it seems that they have thought a little about that and have announced they will “wait for appropriate time” for recognizing it.

Pakistan: Teachers in the crosshairs in Baluchistan

Separatists and Islamic militants in southwest Pakistan are increasingly targeting teachers, college professors and other school officials, stunting development in the poorest corner of the country, an international rights group said Monday.

The Human Rights Watch report on Baluchistan province shows that education in Pakistan is under threat not just in the northwest, where Taliban and al-Qaida-linked militants have long harassed teachers and attacked schools, especially those for girls.

Suspected militants murdered at least 22 educators in Baluchistan between January 2008 and October 2010, according to the report. The most prominent killing was that of Shafiq Ahmed, the provincial education minister, who was shot dead in October 2009.

Militant separatists have threatened teachers and school officials to stop teaching Pakistani history, flying the Pakistani flag, and singing of the national anthem. Partly as a result of the threats, bombs or other attacks, government schools in 2009 were open only 120 days — 100 days less than in the rest of the country.

Baluchistan is Pakistan’s largest province, covering 44 percent of the country and bordering Afghanistan and Iran. It also is the poorest of Pakistan’s four provinces and the most sparsely populated, with around 8 million people, or just 5 percent of the total population.

via FoxNews.com – Teachers in the crosshairs in southwest Pakistan.

Read it all.

Pakistan: Newspaper faked Wikileaks cables for propaganda war against India

The story was broken by The Guardian’s Declan Walsh, who discovered that none of the purported US assessments could be found on the WikiLeaks database. The Guardian, a British daily which has all the leaked WikiLeaks cables, could find no match for any of the claims made in the Pakistani press.

Now that’s hardly surprising. Whatever you may think about US State Department officials, on reading the WikiLeaked cables, you have to admit, as Roger Cohen put it in his New York Times op-ed, US diplomats write “clear, declarative English sentences”.

So if a US diplomat sends a cable calling a former Indian Army chief an “incompetent combat leader and rather a geek” with a “much far from reality” war doctrine of eliminating China and Pakistan, someone should have smelt a rat.

The stories were apparently generated by the Islamabad-based Online wire agency, that is known for its close links to the Pakistani intelligence services.

The Pakistani mainstream media’s willingness to toe the official military-intelligence line has been much noted, and is a subject worthy of discussion by other people – especially editors of international dailies such as the International Herald Tribune, whose Pakistani affiliate, Express Tribune, published the piece followed by a front-page retraction.

via Faking WikiLeak-ed Cables for Propaganda or How to Beat ‘The Onion’ at Farce | Les blogs.

Read it all.

PS: By the way, Assange has been freed on bail.

Iran: Iranian-born Saeed Malekpour sentenced to death on “Internet offences” charges

Saeed with his wife, back in Canada

An Iranian-born Canadian resident has been sentenced to death after spending two years in an Iranian prison, his supporters have learned. Supporters of Saeed Malekpour say the 35-year-old man has been tortured and forced to confess to “Internet offences” since he was arrested while visiting his ailing Iranian father in 2008.

via Celestial Junk: Behold the Peace of Islam.

Here is the letter he wrote to Iranian Judiciary about the torture he has endured. An excerpt:

While I remained blindfolded and handcuffed, several individuals armed with their fists, cables, and batons struck and punched me. At times, they would flog my head and neck. Such mistreatment was aimed at forcing me to write what the interrogators were dictating and to compel me to play a role in front of the camera based on their scenarios. Sometimes, they used extremely painful electrical shock that would paralyze me temporarily. Once in October 2008, the interrogators stripped me while I was blindfolded and threatened to rape me with a bottle of water.

Reat it all. It’s a miracle he is still alive.

More information here (only till Nov 1st, 2010), here.

PS: He is a Permanent Resident of Canada. Correction made.

Iraq: Suicide bomber kills 2 Shiite pilgrims

Another suicide terrorist in Iraq. While the former was against government buildings, this was against Shiite pilgrims.

An Iraqi official says a suicide bomber has killed two Shiite pilgrims north of Baghdad during an important religious ritual for the Muslim sect.Mohammed Maarouf, the mayor of Balad Ruz town in the northern Diyala province, says the bomber detonated an explosives belt during a body check and killed the policeman searching him and a woman standing nearby. Thirteen people were injured, Maarouf said.

More information here.

Sudan: woman flogged savagely on the street

Watched here.

I’m not even considering the causes for this brutality, carried out in the open and without anyone putting a stop on it. I can’t really express how I feel each time I see videos or images of violence carried out against unarmed citizens. We’ll see if the investigation they have promised to do will have any results or not.

Afghanistan: Australian dog declared MIA in Afghanistan returns home

Sarbi

An Australian special forces sniffer dog that went missing for almost 14 months after a battle in Afghanistan has finally returned home to Australia.

Sarbi arrived in Sydney on a flight from Dubai, where she had been in quarantine for the past six months.

She has now been moved to a quarantine facility, where she will undergo further veterinary examinations.

The 10-year-old bitch went missing in September 2008 after her patrol was ambushed in Uruzgan province.

Nine Australian soldiers, including Sarbi’s trainer, were wounded.

After the attack, there was no sign of the dog, and months of searching failed to find her. Sarbi was officially declared Missing In Action (MIA).

But in late October 2009, the dog was found by a US soldier in the care of a local Afghan man. She appeared to have been well cared for.

via BBC News – Australian dog declared MIA in Afghanistan returns home.

As I always post so depressing stories I thought this one was different. Specially because the man who took care of Sarbi was an Afghan man. That’s shocking,  due to Islam’s take on dogs.

Sudan: Men fined over indecent fashion show makeup

Louis Vuitton, Autumn-Winter 2008-2009, Paris

A Sudanese court convicted seven men of indecency on Wednesday after police accused them of wearing makeup during a fashion show in Khartoum, their lawyer said.

The men, amateur models at the “Sudanese Next Top Model Fashion Show” in June, were arrested by the public order police, a body known for its crackdowns on perceived indecent dress and drinking in the Muslim north, one defendant told Reuters.

All seven were found guilty on Wednesday and each fined 200 Sudanese pounds ($80), as was a woman who faced the same charge for applying the makeup, said lawyer Nabil Adib.

“The court thought that they were indecently dressed … The judge thought that wearing makeup could be offensive for men and allowing a woman to put makeup on men was against the law,” said Adib.

via Men fined over indecent fashion show makeup | Reuters.

Photo: El Correo Digital.

Iraq: Suicide Attacks Kill 13

A suicide car-bomber attacked a checkpoint near the government administrative building in Iraq’s Anbar province capital of Ramadi, killing and wounding dozens. Iraqi security forces are also on alert for threats before the Shi’ite Ashoura celebration this week in the south of the country.

Eyewitnesses say a suicide car-bomber detonated his vehicle at a checkpoint leading to government administrative buildings in Ramadi, causing numerous casualties.

A top Anbar province official, Jassem Mohammed al Hamed indicated the bomber was probably hoping to hit the government complex, but did not quite make it that far.

He says the bomber hit a checkpoint on the road leading up to the provincial government offices and the provincial council, but he was not able to get beyond it to reach the government buildings.

Police reports say at least six security force members manning the checkpoint were killed at the Ziyout round-about in central Ramadi.

Again and again and again. How much hate some people have as to die killing others…

Pakistan: Two sisters murdered in honor

Police have registered a murder case of two sisters, murdered in honor killing, and handed over the bodies to the heirs after post-mortem.

… According to details, accused Mumtaz shot dead his two cousins 16-year-old Nadra and Khursheer, 18 in honor killing.

The police shifted the bodies to DHQ hospital for autopsy. Bodies remained outside post-mortem house for eight hours owing to absence of doctors and other paramedical staff.

Later, Kot Mubarak police handed over the bodies of the deceased to the heirs and registered a murder case against accused Mumtaz.

via Two sisters murdered in honor – GEO.tv.

Stop Honour Kilings and Pakistan News Blog also report on the issue but haven’t any other information.

Pakistan: assasination of Asia Bibi in prison, feared

Asia Bibi

The complaint by the Foundation is fully supported by Ansar Burney, renowned Pakistani Muslim intellectual and former Federal Minister for Human Rights in Pakistan. Burney sent a letter to President Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Gilani asking to increase security measures for Asia Bibi and prosecute all those who have invited the militants to kill her. As it says in the letter, a copy of which was sent to Fides, Burney is very concerned that Asia Bibi (or other members of her family) could be killed in custody or during the appeal process. Burney strongly urges the government to stop “the elements that have openly announced their intention to kill her,” thereby committing a crime, and notes that “because of widespread lawlessness and the weakness of the Government, the extremists may very easily carry out summary executions outside the law in the name of Islam.” There are already 33 people, accused of blasphemy, who have been killed in jail or during the process,” records Burney, “as happened to two brothers, Rashid and Sajid Emmanuel, gunned down in front of the court in Faisalabad in July 2010 (see Fides 20 and 21/07/2010). 

The “Human Rights Commission of Pakistan”, a prestigious local NGO, also remarked in a statement to Fides on the International Day for Human Rights, that “the rise of militancy and religious intolerance is a threat to human rights in the Country.” Asia Bibi’s death sentence for blasphemy, the Commission notes, is evidence “of the threats faced by citizens, based on an unjust law, and the selective application of these laws.” Furthermore, putting out an offer for her head, “lacks legal action, incitement to murder notwithstanding.”

Background:

1. Pakistan: Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy.
2. Pakistan: your signature to save Asia Bibi.
3. Asia Bibi: Pope appeals for “full freedom“.
4. Pakistan: Asia Bibi NOT pardoned, protests are announced in case she is.
5. Pakistan: Both Minister of Minorities and Punjab Governor threatened by Islamists over Asia Bibi’s release.
6. Pakistan: Taliban-linked cleric offers $5,800 reward for anyone who kills Asia Bibi.
7. Pakistan: Taliban-linked cleric offers $5,800 reward for anyone who kills Asia Bibi (II).
8. Pakistan: court orders government not to change blasphemy law.
9. Pakistan: “If they don’t hang Asia Bibi, we will kill her”.

Searching for the end of terrorism

This book is not only about Jihadist terrorism but rather a book that studies the end of terrorism in general:

Cronin notes that what usually brings terrorists to the negotiating table are generally threats to the organization itself rather than to its putative political purpose. She finds that terrorist groups rarely abandon the armed struggle due to achieving their official political goals. This conclusion is expected given the fact that terrorist groups virtually never attain their given political aims, a point underscored in this reviewer’s 2006 study in International Security, which compared the abysmal success rate of terrorist campaigns to other forms of protest.[2] Her case studies do, however, bolster the thesis that terrorism is inherently politically counterproductive by hardening governments and discouraging them from making concessions. She sensibly focuses on the handful of terrorist groups in modern history that achieved their policy demands such as the African National Congress and shows that they did so “despite the use of violence against innocent civilians [rather] than because of it.” The author is quick to point out that this does not mean terrorism accomplishes nothing at all; as previous studies have shown, terrorist acts can undercut the organization’s professed political agenda while simultaneously boosting membership, morale, and cohesion.[3]

So how then does terrorism end? By provoking government repression, its perpetrators have occasionally been stamped out. In fact, Cronin observes that “it is difficult to find cases” where governments did not use repressive measures, digging in their political heels. This does not mean that she endorses a policy of outright repression, however, since this response risks backfiring by turning the local population against the government and ultimately invigorating the terrorist group. A more frequent way for terrorism to end is by alienating potential supporters.

via Review of How Terrorism Ends: Understanding the Decline and Demise of Terrorist Campaigns :: Middle East Quarterly.

Stockholm terrorist attack: British police join probe

Taymour Abdel Wahab — named as the man behind the blasts by Islamist website Shumukh al-Islam — had studied and lived in Luton, Bedfordshire, just north of London.

Police refused to say whether the search was taking place in Luton.

Taymour Abdel Wahab moved from Baghdad to Sweden in 1992 and then to Britain in 2001 to study, according to the paper.

… The Guardian reported the man was an Iraqi-born Swede, and other reports said his family still lived in Luton.

… The website Shumukh al-Islam named him as the perpetrator of the attack on Sunday.

“It is our brother, mujahid Taymour Abdel Wahab, who carried out the martyrdom operation in Stockholm,” it said.

Drzz.info writes:

Sweden pays the price for its irresponsible policy on Muslim immigration. Some parts of Stockholm and Malmö are under Islamic control. Thousands of Muslim settler families have settled in this country. The state has so decided, hosting hundreds of thousands of Muslims, fundamentally hostile to Sweden, as to any Western democracy. In Sweden, the city of Malmö has twenty five per cent of Muslims. The Jews are subject to frequent anti-Semitic violence.

…Sweden also pays the price of its unlimited support to the terrorist cause in the Middle East. The Palestinian cause has long been synonymous with violence, terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism. Seen as a just cause by the Swedish naive, the Palestinian cause… is at the heart of the discourse of leaders Sweden, who have no knowledge about the criminal intent of Palestinian fanatics.

Stockholm Imam has issued a condemnation of attacks “against innocent people”, but it’s not what you would think. Undhimmi has the facts.

Sweden police has reported that it’s possible he had accomplices. But the attacks have moved something… in Germany. Hans-Peter Uhl, parliamentary interior policy spokesman for Chancellor Angela Merkel‘s Christian Democrats, demanded the speedy introduction of a visa alert system to warn of potential terrorist threats. We will see if this alert is finally considered, on which basis someone could be considered a “potential terrorist threat”.

In Sweden, the PM has just said that about the attacks, that for him it was “unnaceptable” that a man “could be walking along Stockholm streets with explosives on him” as 1st reaction. As 2nd reaction, he thinks we “are lacking some answers”. Wow. This guy must be Zapatero in disguise…

Background.

Nobel Awards: Liu Xiaobo’s day

Liu Xiaobo with his wife.

This year, the lovers of freedom have enjoyed the selection made by the Norwegian Nobel Committee. The image of the kind China they tried to paint during the Beijing Olympics is now far away. Today the real China is portrayed to the world for not releasing Liu and for preventively arrestng the relatives, friends and associates of the awarded dissident. The economic fate of China has changed thanks to free market forces. But that doesn’t mean at all that the  Chinese leadership will allow a real political reform. At this time of global financial crisis, we can not forget that many governments have ignored their own volition and the deplorable human rights situation in the last Communist empire, thinking more than anything that China buys their debt and that that money can pay for their own domestic financial excesses. But in a fit of human decency, the Free World will celebrate Liu’s Award.

A Chinese proverb says: “One generation plants the trees, but another is enjoying the shade.” People like Liu Xiaobo are planting the trees. It may take more or less time, but future generations will definitely enjoy the shade.

El día de Liu Xiaobo | The Americano.

Pakistan: “If they don’t hang Asia Bibi, we will kill her”

A score of men who have completed their work in the field or in the construction business are going to listen to their imam. Although they acknowledge that Bibi and his family were quiet people who never had problems, that doens’t change their minds: the penal code says that anyone who blasphemes against the prophet should be hanged. At Wali Ittan, that Pakistan President Asif Ali Zadari, has yielded to international pressure (the pope included) and has said it would forgive Bibi, is of little value. ”If she is not hanged as the law states, we will kill her,” it’s heard in the group of men. One of them, wearing the traditional salwar kameez, steps forward and says proudly: “I’m ready to kill her.” Abdul Shakoor, 26, is followed by several of his neighbors who share his idea. ”I would too,” says Zuqar Nain, 20, with a smile.

The imam of the village, Mohammad Salam, has little time to answer questions before giving his sermon at the austere mosque. It was this long-bearded, 31-year-old man, the one who accused Bibi of blasphemy to the police, in June 2009. He tells us that a group of 25 laborers were on lunch break and that Muslim women would not drink the same glass as used Asia Bibi, the only Christian. She became angry and the argument became so heated that the woman blasphemed Muhammad, said the imam.

What was wrong? ”I could never repeat it,” the imam replied angrily. He ensures that it doesn’t matter Asia Bibi is a woman. ”She must be punished.” Salam, who learned of the quarrel by a young woman who witnessed it ensures that he conducted his own investigations.Five days after, he denounced her at the police station where, according to Christian sources, Bibi was pressured to convert to Islam. Her alleged offense, they argue, was to say that Jesus Christ is as sacred as the prophet.

El País.

(Translated by T&P).

Background:

1. Pakistan: Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy.
2. Pakistan: your signature to save Asia Bibi.
3. Asia Bibi: Pope appeals for “full freedom“.
4. Pakistan: Asia Bibi NOT pardoned, protests are announced in case she is.
5. Pakistan: Both Minister of Minorities and Punjab Governor threatened by Islamists over Asia Bibi’s release.
6. Pakistan: Taliban-linked cleric offers $5,800 reward for anyone who kills Asia Bibi.
7. Pakistan: Taliban-linked cleric offers $5,800 reward for anyone who kills Asia Bibi (II).
8. Pakistan: court orders government not to change blasphemy law.

Climate Change UN Summit: from prayers to Mayan goddess to Bolivian anger

Mayan Goddess Ixchel

Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, invoked the ancient jaguar goddess Ixchel in her opening statement to delegates gathered in Cancun, Mexico, noting that Ixchel was not only goddess of the moon, but also “the goddess of reason, creativity and weaving. May she inspire you — because today, you are gathered in Cancun to weave together the elements of a solid response to climate change, using both reason and creativity as your tools.”

She called for “a balanced outcome” which would marry financial and emissions commitments from industrialized countries aimed at combating climate change with “the understanding of fairness that will guide long-term mitigation efforts.”

“Excellencies, the goddess Ixchel would probably tell you that a tapestry is the result of the skilful interlacing of many threads,” said Figueres, who hails from Costa Rica and started her greetings in Spanish before switching to English. “I am convinced that 20 years from now, we will admire the policy tapestry that you have woven together and think back fondly to Cancun and the inspiration of Ixchel.”

via Global Warming Summit in Cancun Opens with Prayer to Pagan Goddess Ixchel | NewsBusters.org.

Don’t put Quran verses on cake: Top Saudi cleric (UPD)

The top Saudi cleric

Saudi Arabia’s top Muslim cleric has warned against writing Quran verses on cake, saying this constitutes an insult of the Holy Book.Quoted by Saudi newspapers on Wednesday, the kingdom’s Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al Shaikh said he had noticed that Quran verses are written on cake during social events and other occasions at homes and schools.

“Writing Quran verses on cake or any other edible items amounts to an insult of the Quran and is unacceptable,” he said.

“Appreciating and respecting the Quran should not be done by eating its verses but by reading or listening to them and by sticking to their content…Quran verses must not be used in decoration of cake and eating it.”

Newspapers said the Mufti was responding to questions about the growing phenomenon of using Quran verses by some Quran memorisation centres in the Gulf kingdom to adorn cake at graduation events.

via Don’t put Quran verses on cake: Top Saudi cleric – Emirates24|7.

UPD: But marrying 10-year-old girls? Hey, that’s OK. (TX to BCF who has linked this post).

Egypt: “anti-Christian persecution has reached a new level with Talbiya’s attack on Christians”

The Copts are still in jail (including 20 children). Coptic Christians are protesting against this new level of persecution bby Egyptian authorities:

Aidan Clay, regional director for the Middle East for ICC, said: “While most attacks against Egypt’s Coptic Christians are committed by Muslim mob violence, the Talbiya attack on unarmed protestors was the first incident in recent memory authorized by branches of the Egyptian government and carried out by Egyptian security forces. Anti-Christian persecution in Egypt is reaching a new level, as Copts are no longer merely discriminated against, but are in fact being targeted and murdered by the government. We urge President Hosni Mubarak to take immediate action by bringing those who authorized this attack to justice and by releasing those who have been arrested unjustly, especially the children. If action is not taken, it will be clear to all that Mubarak’s regime and Egyptian courts condone, and even support, government induced violence upon Christians”.

via EGYPT Protests over block on church of the Pyramids. “The government discriminates against Christians” – Asia News.

Background:
Egypt: Islamists lay siege against Coptic church in Giza, 1 Christian killed.
Egypt: Security Used Live Ammunition on Christian Coptic Protesters, 4 Killed.
Egypt: Wounded Christians from Talbiya attack, mistreated at state hospitals.
Egypt: House Converted Into Mosque Overnight In Egypt to Prevent Church Services.