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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
1/24/2013 5:02:02 PM

700 alleged militants held in limbo in Pakistan


Associated Press/B.K. Bangash - Irfan Qadir, right, attorney general of Pakistan speaks to reporters at the Supreme Court in Islamabad, Pakistan on Thursday, Jan. 24, 2013. Pakistan's attorney general says the state is holding 700 suspected militants without charges under a controversial law that has been criticized by human rights organizations. (AP Photo/B.K. Bangash)

Hamid Munir, center, the brother-in-law of Pakistani officer Kamran Faisal, talks to reporters at the Supreme Court in Islamabad, Pakistan, Thursday, Jan. 24, 2013. Officer Faisal was investigating a corruption case against the prime minister and was found dead in what police are calling a likely act of suicide. Faisal's death came days after the Supreme Court ordered the arrest of Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf and 15 others in connection with an old corruption case that the officer was investigating. (AP Photo/B.K. Bangash)

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan is holding 700 suspected militants without charges under acontroversial law that has been criticized by human rights organizations, the country's attorney general said Thursday.

The admission, made during a Supreme Court hearing, will likely fuel concerns about Pakistan's conduct over the past several years as it has battled a domestic Talibaninsurgency in the country's northwest.

The 700 suspected militants are being held in internment centers in the country's semiautonomous tribal region along the Afghan border, the main Taliban sanctuary in the country, said Attorney General Irfan Qadir.

They will be held until the military concludes operations against the Taliban, and then authorities will determine whether they can be tried in court, said Qadir. He justified the detention under a law passed in 2011 known as the Actions (in Aid of Civil Power) Regulations.

"It's a war-like situation there," said Qadir. "While the operation is on, their status will remain the same."

Amnesty International criticized the law in a December report, saying both it and colonial-era regulations in the tribal region "provide a framework for widespread human rights violations to occur with impunity."

The London-based rights group said the Pakistani military regularly holds people without charges and tortures or mistreats them in custody. It said some detainees do not survive and their bodies are returned to their families, or dumped in remote areas.

The Pakistani military called the report "a pack of lies."

The attorney general's comments came during a Supreme Court hearing into seven suspected militants who have been held without charges since May 2010.

The seven men were among 11 suspected militants captured in connection with a 2007 suicide bombing against ISI personnel and a rocket attack a year later against an air force base. An anti-terrorism court ordered them to be freed in May 2010, but they were picked up again near the capital, Islamabad. Four died in custody under mysterious circumstances.

The ISI produced the seven surviving men in court last February in response to a judicial order prompted by their relatives, who were looking for them. Two of the men were too weak to walk. Another wore a urine bag, suggesting a kidney ailment. In a meeting with their families on the court premises, they complained of harsh treatment during their detention.

A lawyer for Pakistan's most powerful intelligence agency said Monday that his client held the suspects for over a year and a half without sufficient evidence to try them and then handed them over to the internment centers in the tribal region. He said officials were convinced they were "dangerous people and involved in terrorism."

Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry told the attorney general that the men should be tried in a court of law or released if there isn't sufficient evidence. His remarks seemed to challenge the constitutionality of the new law.

"We don't want them to be released if they are criminals or militants," said Chaudhry. "They should be tried under law, and you cannot keep them in custody illegally."

The court ordered officials from the tribal region to produce a detailed report about the evidence against each suspect when the hearing resumes on Jan. 28.

The Supreme Court has also been pressing the government on a case involving corruption allegations against Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, which he has denied. The chief justice ordered the government's anti-corruption chief, Fasih Bokhari, to arrest Ashraf last week, but he refused, citing lack of evidence.

The case took a strange turn at the end of last week when one of the anti-corruption officials working on the case, which involves alleged kickbacks for the construction of private power stations, was found dead, hanging from a ceiling fan in a government lodge in Islamabad.

The police are treating Kamran Faisal's death as a suicide, but his family has raised doubts, claiming there were marks on his wrists indicating they had been bound.

The chief justice ordered a judicial probe into Faisal's death on Wednesday, citing the family's concern that the government would not conduct an impartial investigation because of the high-level politicians involved.

On Thursday, the two-judge panel ordered officials to provide video footage from the security cameras at the government lodge where Faisal was found. They also ordered Pakistan's telecommunications authority to provide a record of Faisal's calls and summoned relevant officials to appear before the court on Jan. 28.


"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
1/24/2013 5:11:26 PM

Irishwoman at centre of IRA tapes story, claims against Gerry Adams found dead at Dublin home


DUBLIN - Police say a veteran Irish Republican Army member at the centre of allegations againstSinn Fein leader Gerry Adams has been found dead at her home.

Dolours Price had alleged that Adams was her IRA commander in Belfast in the early 1970s and was involved in ordering several Catholic civilians to be abducted, executed and buried in secret.

The Northern Ireland police have been seeking her tape-recorded interviews from an audio archive in Boston College, a case expected to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The 61-year-old Price was imprisoned in 1973 for being part of the IRA's first car-bomb attack on London. She received early parole in 1980.

Ireland's police force said in a statement Thursday she was found dead at her home in Malahide north of Dublin.

"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
1/24/2013 5:16:53 PM

What's Behind the GOP's Fixation on Benghazi?

Clinton: 'What difference at this point does it make?'
Secretary of state spars with Republican Sen. Ron Johnson at Benghazi hearing

As Republicans grilled Hillary Clinton on the Obama administration's response to Benghazi in congressional hearings Wednesday, they repeatedly hit on a talking point that doesn't seem like it'd do them a lot of good: It's been four months. "Here we are, four months later, and we still don’t have the basic information," Sen. John McCain told Clinton Wednesday. "I’m not trying to be obnoxious here, I’m just trying to get the answers I believe the American people deserve to hear. It’s been four months," Sen. Ron Johnson told a Milwaukee radio show after he and Clinton had a testy exchange. "More than four months later its unacceptable that the State Department has made it so difficult" to conduct oversight, Ohio Rep. Steve Chabot told Clinton. Clinton will have to respond later in writing, because Chabot used up all of his time with his statement. But they all raise a good question: What have we been debating for four months?

RELATED: Hillary Clinton Falls on Her Sword

"The media has moved on," Virginia Rep. Frank Wolf lamented on the House floor, separately from the hearing, on Wednesday. Despite the frenzy of coverage of the Clinton hearings, he's mostly right. But that has at least something to do with the confused case Republicans have made in arguing that the Obama administration did something wrong in Benghazi. Initially, it was that President Obama supposedly apologized to the terrorists. This was the thrust of Mitt Romney's statement, issued hours after the attack, that Romney himself came to regret. This charge was mostly discarded. Then the focus was that Obama didn't call the attacks terrorism until two weeks later, a complaint Obama deflected during a presidential debate, when Obama demanded moderator Candy Crowley "check the transcript" of his Rose Garden speech the day after the attacks and he did use the word "terror," although rather obliquely: "No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation..."

RELATED: Presidents in Short Shorts: There's No Right Way for Candidates to Vacation

So, take three: Republicans moved on to U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice who said on five different Sunday shows that the attacks were inspired by protests in Cairo over an anti-Islam video. This charge was stickier, and cost Rice the Secretary of State nomination. But Rice's scalp did not end the Benghazi debate. In Wednesday;s hearings, Republicans had tough questions for Clinton, even if they didn't always allot enough time for her to answer them. Benghazi is still a rallying call for conservatives. But what do they think is the scandal?

RELATED: Mitt Romney Is 2012's Hillary Clinton

How come no one was punished?

RELATED: 'No Experience' Obama Is Too Fast a Learner for Romney

"To my knowledge, no one was held accountable" for the insufficient security, Sen. Bob Corker said. But four state department officials have been placed on administrative leave. Clinton said she did not read the cables related to the security situation at the Benghazi consulate. "I am the secretary of state and the [Accountability Review Board] made very clear that the level of responsibility for the failures that they outlined was set at the assistant secretary level and below," she said.

RELATED: Mitt Romney Enlists Hillary Clinton to Attack Obama for Him

How come no one got fired?

"People who make judgement errors should be fired and replaced," Sen. Rand Paul said. "Had I been president... I would have relieved you from your post." But Clinton explained that federal statute prohibits the state department from firing people for failure of leadership. (It's actually very difficult to fire civil servants.)

We circled back to, Wait, but the Sunday shows?

"I’m going back to then Ambassador Rice five days later going on Sunday shows and what I would say purposefully misleading the American public," Johnson said. Clinton said she had no role in preparing Rice's talking points. The Atlantic Wire has speculated that the obsession with Sunday talk show appearances might have something to do with how much senators love going on Sunday shows. He mentioned that in the hearings -- especially Rice's chief antagonist, John McCain. McCain mentioned his Sunday show cred in the hearings, saying, "By the way, as I said at the time -- I just happened to be on one of those talk shows -- people don't bring RPGs and mortars to spontaneous demonstrations. That's a fundamental."

Given that Rice was punished for her Sunday show performance, what does that mean the hearing is really about? For a clue, look at the statement of Rep. Matt Salmon, who referenced another incident that no level of congressional Republican obsession could turn into a major issue. "From Operation Fast and Furious, where Attorney General Eric Holder repeatedly misled the American people and Congress…to U.N. Secretary Susan Rice who on five separate occasions went before the American people days after the attacks on Benghazi talking about a demonstration at the facility that never happened," Salmon said.

Perhaps the fixation on Benghazi has something to do with the fact that Republicans have been attacking Obama on Benghazi for four months and it hasn't damaged him. Let's review the incident: It was a terror attack, in which four Americans died. In Libya, a country whose dictator Obama controversially decided to help overthrow despite the advice of many staffers. On the anniversary of 9/11. As big anti-American protests spread across the Middle East. It's should have sunk Obama, but Romney, in his own words, "screwed up." Could you blame the GOP for wanting a do-over?


"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
1/24/2013 5:22:37 PM

NRA’s LaPierre responds to Obama’s inauguration speech



On Tuesday, National Rifle Association executive vice president Wayne LaPierre criticized President Barack Obama's inaugural address.

"In his second inaugural address, President Barack Obama quoted the Declaration of Independence and he talked about inalienable rights," LaPierre said during a speech at a hunting and conservation awards ceremony in Reno, Nev. "I believe he made a mockery of both."

During his inaugural speech on Monday, Obama said Americans shouldn't "mistake absolutism for principle, or substitute spectacle for politics or treat name-calling as reasoned debate."

"Absolutes do exist, words do have specific meaning in language and in law," LaPierre countered Tuesday.

"We believe we deserve, and have every right to, the same level of freedom that our government leaders keep for themselves, and the same capabilities and same technologies that criminals use to prey upon us and our families," he continued. "That means we believe in our right to defend ourselves and our families with semi-automatic technology."

The NRA leader added, "No government gave them to us and no government can take them away."

LaPierre's comments come on the heels of the last week's unveiling of a set of legislative proposals and executive actions by Obama and Vice President Joe Biden formulated in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., elementary school shooting that left 20 children and six adults dead.

[Related: NRA's LaPierre slams critics of school gun plan]

Last month, during a press conference to address the shootings in Newtown, LaPierre made the controversial suggestion that a "good guy with a gun" should be stationed at every school in the country. Two days later on "Meet the Press," LaPierre blasted critics of his plan.

“If it’s crazy to call for putting police in and securing our schools to protect our children, then call me crazy," LaPierre said. “I think the American people think it’s crazy not to do it."

Meanwhile, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., plans to introduce legislation later this week to reinstate a federal ban on assault weapons.

The "Assault Weapons Ban of 2013," which centers on banning military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition feeding devices—actions backed by President Obama—will be introduced during a press conference on Thursday morning in Washington. Feinstein will be joined by a coalition of Democratic lawmakers, law enforcement officers, and representatives from gun safety and gun violence groups, among others.


"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
1/24/2013 5:23:40 PM

Austrian police say arrest neo-Nazi gang members

VIENNA (Reuters) - Austrian police have arrested 10 suspected members of a neo-Nazi crime gangaccused of arson attacks, weapons and drugs dealing, illegal prostitution, assault and other crimes.

Police said on Thursday the gang maintained a reign of terror for years over red light districts inUpper Austria, costing businesses at least 3.5 million euros ($4.6 million).

Some leaders of the gang, which called itself "Objekt 21", were known to police as neo-Nazis, a police spokeswoman told Reuters.

Nazi symbols were found at the group's headquarters in the Voecklabruck district, the Austria Press Agency reported.

Austria, which was annexed by Nazi Germany in 1938, has banned neo-Nazi organizations in its constitution.

Police said the gang's suspected crimes included the kidnapping and abuse of a brothel manager and an arson attack on a sauna club in Vienna that caused 2.5 million euros' worth of damage.

They said they had questioned more than 80 people in connection with their investigations, which were continuing.

($1 = 0.7530 euros)

(Reporting by Georgina Prodhan; Editing by Jon Hemming)

"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

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