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LAREDO — A former hit man for the Zetas cartel calmly related to jurors his role in killings on both sides of the border, testifying Monday in the drug conspiracy trial of a man prosecutors say was also a hired killer. From the witness stand in U.S. District Judge Micaela Alvarez's courtroom here, Rosalio Reta pointed to Gerardo Castillo Chavez, 25, and identified him as a fellow Zeta. Pressing his fingertips together and speaking in a slow, soft voice, Reta, 22, told jurors that he had been in a team of hit men headed by Gabriel Cardona, an admitted Zeta...

Nigeria imposed a 24-hour curfew Saturday in the northern city of Kano after assailants killed scores of people and wounded others in a hail of gunfire and coordinated bombings of eight government sites. The Islamist group Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the blast....

This is chilling. This is in Texas. Iranian grad student, activist killed in Houston KSAT News (hat tip Armaros) HOUSTON - A woman whom Houston police described as an activist on behalf of Iranian women's civil rights was found shot dead at the wheel of her car after it crashed into a townhouse garage. Houston police said the shooting happened around 12:30 a.m. Monday in a posh development near the Galleria. According to investigators, someone walked up to the passenger's side of 30-year-old Gelareh Bagherzadeh's car and shot her in the head. Bagherzadeh's body was found inside her running car,...

CAIRO (SANA): Egypt’s two main Islamist parties have scored a crushing victory in the seats declared so far. Egyptians were voting on Tuesday in second-round run-offs for the third and final phase of staggered elections to choose the first parliament since mass protests ousted Hosni Mubarak in February last year. Egypt’s two main Islamist parties have scored a crushing victory in the seats declared so far, reflecting a regional trend since Arab Spring uprisings overthrew authoritarian secular regimes. Under the complex electoral system, voters have been asked to cast three ballots — two for individual candidates and one for a...

Today, Keisha Head is a wife and mother of three. But more than decade ago, she was the victim of a notorious human trafficker. At 16-years old, Head says she was being sold on the streets of Atlanta for sex. “I did not know that a normal, average man who was a preacher, who was a lawyer, who was a senator - could turn into this monster,” Head said. “That is the scariest moment when you are amongst people who claim to be normal yet they purchase you and they turn into these monsters. They rape you. They beat you....

According to MehrNews, the mouthpiece of the Islamic regime in Iran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said that the Knesset’s decision to declare al-Quds (Jerusalem) the capital of Israel not only will not save the Zionist regime but also will speed up the regime’s annihilation. Ahmadinejad made the remarks during a meeting with the head of Turkey – Iran parliamentary friendship group, Murat Yildirim, in Tehran on Tuesday. He said that the Judaization of al-Quds (Jerusalem) is in line with the domineering powers’ colonialist policies to save the Zionist regime and dominate the region. Elsewhere in his remarks, Ahmadinejad said that...

A group of young Egyptians launched a page on Facebook entitled “The Egyptian Revolutionary Guard” and their profile pictures show the Iranian flag with modified colors to match the colors of the Egyptian flag. Other profile pictures show the Egyptian flag where the picture of Ayatollah Khamenei replaces the eagle. These young Egyptians declared on their page that the Islamic revolution in Iran, led by Ayatollah Khamenei, is their source of motivation and inspiration. … In a call to Al Arabiya, the reporter Mustafa Barakat affirmed that the movement is currently calling for people storm the U.S. embassy on the...

MAIDUGURI (AFP) – A purported spokesman for Islamist group, Boko Haram, has issued an ultimatum to Christians in the country’s north and threatened to confront troops after the president declared a state of emergency in hard hit areas. Abul Qaqa, who has spoken on behalf of the group blamed for scores of attacks in numerous times in the past, said he was giving southerners living in the north a three-day ultimatum to leave. “We find it pertinent to state that soldiers will only kill innocent Muslims in the local government areas where the state of emergency was declared,” he told...

About the only people having a Happy New Year in the Muslim world aren't the Christians who are huddling and waiting out the storm, but the Islamists who use a different calendar but are having the best time of their lives since the last Caliphate. The news that the Obama Administration has brought in genocidal Muslim Brotherhood honcho Yusuf Al-Qaradawi to discuss terms of surrender for the transfer of Afghanistan to the Taliban caps a year in which the Brotherhood and the Salafists are looking up carve up Egypt, the Islamists won Tunisia's elections, Turkey's Islamist AKP Party purged the...

Americans buy record numbers of guns for Christmas Americans bought record numbers of guns last month amid an apparent surge in popularity for weapons as Christmas presents. By Nick Allen, Los Angeles 7:17PM GMT 01 Jan 2012 According to the FBI, over 1.5 million background checks on customers were requested by gun dealers to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System in December. Nearly 500,000 of those were in the six days before Christmas. It was the highest number ever in a single month, surpassing the previous record set in November. On Dec 23 alone there were 102,222 background checks,...

This clip presents footage of an Egyptian soccer game, in which an antisemitic slogan appeared on a huge banner held by soccer fans. The footage was posted on the Internet on April 6, 2011. Slogan: "One Nation for New Holocaust"

The pyramids at Giza are the most stunning sight I have ever seen. True, their lonely eminence is threatened by Cairo's unlicensed building sprawl, with half completed houses inching their way towards them. Surveying them at night as the calls to prayer multiplied into a thunder of sound from central Cairo already told me a few years back what was coming. For now members of the Nour (The Light) Salafist party, which won 20 per cent of the vote in recent elections, are talking about putting an end to the 'idolatry' represented by the pyramids. This means destruction - along...

The Arabic School Textbooks Which Show Children How To Chop Off Hands and Feet Under Sharia Law By LEON WATSON 23rd December 2011 Barbaric textbooks handed out in Saudi Arabian schools teach children how to cut off a thief's hands and feet under Sharia law, it has emerged. The shocking books, paid for and printed by the Saudi government, also tell teenagers that Jews need to be exterminated and homosexuals should be 'put to death'. Recent editions were obtained by the Institute for Gulf Affairs in Washington, D.C., which says they should raise fears in the West over the use...

(The Australian) — At least 675 Pakistani women and girls were murdered during the first nine months of the year for allegedly defaming their family’s honour, a leading human rights group said today. The statistics highlight the scale of violence suffered by many women in conservative Muslim Pakistan, where they are frequently treated as second-class citizens and there is no law against domestic violence. Despite some progress on better protecting women’s rights, activists say the government needs to do far more to prosecute murderers in cases largely dismissed by police as private, family affairs. “A total of 675 women and...

A 1-year-old boy who was shot in the head during the filming of a rap music video in Oakland was taken off life support Friday. Hiram Lawrence, who would have turned 2 on Dec. 28, was pronounced dead at 3:05 p.m., the Rev. Roosevelt Taylor said. Hiram was being held by his father, also named Hiram Lawrence, when gunfire erupted as about 20 people gathered outside a west Oakland liquor store Nov. 28, police said. Six other people were wounded, including Hiram's father, who was shot in the hand. Investigators have said the shooting occurred after one group of people...

CAIRO, Dec. 7 (UPI) -- The Muslim Brotherhood claimed its political party won the majority of runoffs in the first round of Egypt's parliamentary election. Meanwhile, representatives of several political parties and organizations said Wednesday they will move their demonstrations from Tahrir Square to outside a government building to protest the appointment of Prime Minister Kamal el-Ganzouri, saying he doesn't represent them, al-Masry al-Youm reported. Ganzouri's cabinet was sworn in Wednesday. Official election results aren't expected until Thursday, but the Freedom and Justice Party said it had won 36 of the 56 seats available in the first round of voting...

by John HillStand with ArizonaThere was a time when farmers were just concerned with protecting their animals. That's no longer the case. "Now I'm worried about am I going to come home at night after work," said Scott Blevins. The Pinal County farmer and father has every reason to worry. A recent run-in with drug smugglers on his farm hit way too close to home. That's why this farmer isn't playing around. For safety he wears a bullet proof vest and packs a handgun and rifle to work. "I’m convinced somebody’s going to see something they shouldn’t see and somebody’s...

Occupy Oakland protesters claimed victory after they shut down one of the nation's busiest shipping ports - escalating a movement whose tactics had largely been limited to marches, rallies and camps. In a five-hour stand-off protesters vandalised businesses and smashed bank windows, as they tried to shut down the city - and police appeared to respond using tear gas and flash bang grenades. The California demonstrators blocked operations at the city's port and stopped traffic on Wednesday in protests against economic inequality and police brutality, marred by scattered vandalism. Police in riot gear arrested dozens of protesters who had marched...

Welcome to Occupy Phoenix, the latest violent embarrassment to American society. This group of occupiers is asking, "When should you shoot a cop?" Pamphlets asking this question and laying out justifications for doing so were left at the Occupy Wall Street location in Phoenix, Arizona and found by a Maricopa County Sheriff Deputy. That's right folks, according to the OWS crowd, changing society "almost always requires" killing law enforcement officers. Law enforcement officers in the Grand Canyon state have been placed on high alert and the Arizona Counter-Terrorism Information Center has published a safety memo in response to the threats...

Egyptian prime minister Isam Sharaf told Turkish television the 1979 Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty wasn't sacred and was subject to change. Egyptian Prime Minister Essam Sharaf on Thursday said the 1979 Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty is not sacred and is subject to change. "The Camp David agreement depends on what benefits the region," Sharaf said in an interview on Turkish television, adding, "Egypt will make changes to the treaty if necessary." Sharaf's statements follow the popular sentiments of the street in Cairo, but altering the treaty would require the consent of all three signatories - Egypt, Israel, and the United States. Contrary...

Following is an excerpt from a public address delivered by former Lebanese minister Wiam Wahhab at Damascus University. The address aired on New TV on July 9, 2011. Wiam Wahhab: They are trying to scare you that NATO will intervene [in Syria]. As soon as this happens, Syria and Hizbullah will fire 100,000 rockets at Israel. I say this loud and clear. Any NATO intervention will place Israel – not only Syria – in danger.

BAGHDAD — Two American soldiers were killed Sunday in Iraq, the military command said, making June the worst month in combat-related fatalities for United States forces in Iraq in more than two years. The casualties also reflected the dangers ahead as the United States prepares to withdraw all its troops from Iraq by the end of the year. The June total of so-called hostile-related deaths of American soldiers is now 11, the most since May 2009, when 12 were killed, according to icasualties.org, an online database that tracks the deaths of foreign forces in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. In...

Lebanon's Prime Minister Najib Mikati announced on Monday a long-delayed new government dominated by allies of Iranian-backed Hezbollah, which is likely to cause alarm among Western powers. Mikati was appointed to form a government after Hezbollah and its allies toppled Western-backed former premier Saad al-Hariri's coalition in January over a dispute involving the United Nations backed tribunal investigating the assassination of statesman Rafik al-Hariri, Saad's father. "Let us go to work immediately according to the principles and basis that we have affirmed our commitment to several times, namely ... defending Lebanon's sovereignty and its independence and liberating land that remains...

Actually, the federal deficit is already almost at $1 trillion for FY2011 after just eight months, as The Hill reports this morning (via Instapundit): Still, through eight months of the 2011 fiscal year the nation is facing its third straight $1 trillion-plus deficit — totaling $927.4 billion so far compared with $935.6 billion during the same period in 2010, about $8 billion less, according to the report. Taking the average of eight months and extrapolating it out to the end of the fiscal year, we will run a deficit of $1,391,100,000,000 by September 30th. That will be the third straight...

According to a RAND report, the United States and the world have blown the chance to prevent an Iranian nuclear weapon.  Half a year ago, US air strikes and a no-fly zone might have prevented a nuclear bomb in the hands of the martyrdom ideology of Khomeinist Iran.  That window has now slammed shut.  In about 8 weeks, the RAND report concludes, Iran will have the nuclear material for its first bomb. RAND Corporation's Gregory S. Jones believes that Iran has produced almost 40 kilograms of uranium enriched near 20% percent.  Jones suggests that air strikes can no longer stop Ahmadinejad's...

LIBERTY COUNTY, Texas -- Dozens of bodies have been found in a mass grave in Liberty County, officials said Tuesday. The Liberty County Sheriff's Office said 25 to 30 bodies were buried at the intersection of County Roads 2049 and 2048 between Hardin and Daisetta. The bodies are those of children, according to preliminary reports. The FBI was called in to assist the investigation.

Libyan rebels accused of arbitrary arrests, torture ... and because the rebels do not clearly distinguish between civilian detainees and... At least one person is thought to have died while in the custody of Libyan rebels, Human Rights Watch said in its report.

Following are excerpts from an interview with PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, which aired on Palestinian Authority TV on June 2, 2011: Mahmoud Abbas: With regard to [Palestinian recognition] of a Jewish state, or whatever, this has never been an issue. Throughout the negotiations between the Israeli and us, from 1993 until a year ago, we never heard the words "Jewish state." Now, they have begun to talk about it, and our response was: "Go to the UN, and call yourselves whatever you want. We are not the party to address. Not only that – we refuse to recognize a Jewish...

The mixed signals regarding the economy's health are taking a toll. Americans are growing increasingly doubtful about direction of the US economy, according to the latest survey from business-advisory firm AlixPartners. In fact, an increasing number, some 61 percent, say they don't expect to return to their respective pre-recession lifestyles until the spring of 2014, if ever. What's worse, a full 10 percent said they expect they will never return to pre-recession spending. That's a more pessimistic view than last year, when those surveyed expected that they could be back to pre-recession spending levels by the middle of 2013. "Americans...

SANAA, June 1 (Xinhua) -- Al-Qaida's regional branch in Yemen took control over another large city in Yemen's southeastern province of Shabwa on Wednesday, a week after they controlled the southern Abyan province, local officials and residents said. "Following fierce battles with government forces, fighters of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) managed to seize the whole city of Azzan in the southeast province of Shabwa on Wednesday, announcing that the city of Azzan joins in their Islamic emirate," one local official told Xinhua. Some tribal leaders and residents confirmed the news in phone conversations with Xinhua. The tribal leaders...

The Iranian nuclear threat is much ado about nothing, says reporter Seymour Hersh. Writing in the latest issue of the New Yorker, the professional left-wing cynic ignores numerous signs that the Islamic Republic is dead set on achieving nuclear-weapons capability and claims there is “a large body of evidence … suggesting that the United States could be in danger of repeating a mistake similar to the one made with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq eight years ago - allowing anxieties about the policies of a tyrannical regime to distort our estimations of the state’s military capacities and intentions.” For Mr. Hersh, it’s...

U.S. single-family home prices dropped in March, dipping below their 2009 low, as the housing market remained bogged down by inventory and weak demand, a closely watched survey said Tuesday. The S&P/Case Shiller composite index of 20 metropolitan areas declined 0.2 percent in March from February on a seasonally adjusted basis, in line with economists' expectations. The price index was below the low seen in April 2009 during the financial crisis. The glut of houses for sale, foreclosures, tight credit and weak demand have kept the housing market on the ropes even as other areas of the economy start to...

Link only, per FR posting rules

'Stagflation" is an ugly word for an ugly situation: persistent high inflation combined with high unemployment and stagnant demand in a country's economy. The term was coined by British politician Iain Mcleod in a speech to Parliament in 1965. We haven't experienced it here in the United States since the bad old days of the 1970s. Yet with prices on the rise and unemployment still high, the U.S. economy again seems to be entering stagflation. April's producer price index for finished goods, which excludes services and falling home prices, rose 6.8%. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that intermediate goods...

Didn't he get the memo that the Ikhwan is "moderate" and "largely secular?" "Brotherhood sheikh to run for president," by Hany ElWaziry for Al Masry Al Youm, May 29 (thanks to Zulu): Muslim Brotherhood Sheikh Hazem Abu Ismail announced his intention to run in Egypt’s upcoming presidential elections. He said that if elected he would implement Islamic sharia law and cancel the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. Ismail was the Brotherhood’s candidate in 2005 parliamentary elections for Dokki in Giza. The group announced earlier that it would not take part in the presidential elections and confirmed that it would...

George Will has in the past demonstrated intellectual disdain for conservatives that he deems unrefined in advancing conservative principles. His assault on Sarah Palin today is over the top. Does George Will think Sarah Palin is untrustworthy of presiding over our nuclear arsenal? Why would he make this statement if only to imply that Palin is mentally unhinged and therefore unsuited for office? George Will has contributed mightily to the conservative movement in a scholarly role, like a professor to a student. But like most students admire the intellect of the teachers they ultimately shed the presumptions of the ivory...

A federal court in Alexandria, Va. on Thursday struck down a federal ban on corporate campaign contributions, in a case with potentially dramatic ramifications for a campaign finance regulatory system under siege by legal and regulatory attacks.The ruling, from the U.S. District Court for Eastern Virginia, piggybacked on a January 2010 Supreme Court decision, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, that allowed corporations to spend money on ads supporting or opposing candidates.Citizens United stopped short of allowing corporations to give directly to candidates, but it did find that corporations are entitled to free speech rights.District Judge James Cacheris ruled that,...

Lech Walesa, Poland's Solidarity-era legend, ex-president and 1983 Nobel Peace Prize winner said Friday he would not accept an invitation to meet with fellow Nobel winner US President Barack Obama. "It's difficult to tell journalists what you'd like to say to the president of a superpower. This time I won't tell him, I won't meet him, it doesn't suit me," Walesa told Poland's public broadcaster TVP. Obama is due to arrive in Poland later Friday after the G8 summit in France. Walesa was originally scheduled to meet Obama Saturday along with other key figures in Poland's post-1989 transition from communism...

(Reuters) - Texas Governor Rick Perry on Friday ceremonially signed a bill making Texas the twelfth state to require photo identification from voters. "Today we take a major step forward in ensuring the integrity of our electoral process in Texas, a major step protecting the most cherished right that we enjoy as a people," Perry, joined by lawmakers who supported the legislation, told reporters. The measure was one of the Republican governor's "emergency" legislative priorities for the session, and he's not alone. Republicans across the country are pushing such legislation. This year, more than 30 states have considered adding or...

Witnesses in Yemen say suspected Al-Qaida militants have taken over the coastal city of Zinjibar. Residents say hundreds of militants gained control of Zinjibar on Friday. There are reports of fighting lasting into Saturday, resulting in casualties. Zinjibar is the capital of Abyan province in southern Yemen, one of the areas considered a stronghold of al-Qaida.

Egyptian protesters carried Mubarak Hitler signs a couple of months ago. Now there’s a Nazi party. Wasn’t Barack Obama just comparing himself to Reagan or Thatcher, or something? He’s more like the anti-Reagan. Where once was a pro-American ally, now there’s a Nazi party. Good grief. The Jerusalem Post reported, via Lucianne: A group of Egyptian political activists have announced plans to set up a local version “of the Nazi party,” an Egyptian newspaper reported on Thursday. Citing a leftist Egyptian news portal, the Al-Masry Al-Youm daily said that “the party’s founding deputy is a former military official,” and that...

Mali called Friday for a regional push to train up to 75,000 troops within the next 18 months to combat militants in the Sahel desert region, home to Al-Qaeda's north African offshoot. "In the next 18 months our countries should train and mobilise 25,000 to 75,000 men in the fight against terrorism and transnational crime," Mali's Foreign Minister Soumeylou Boubeye Maiga told regional counterparts. He was addressing the opening of a regional meeting between Mali, Niger, Mauritania and Algeria in Bamako to discuss terrorism and transnational crime in the Sahel. "More than ever our people and our countries are exposed...

Yemen opposition signs transition of power deal SANAA (Reuters) - Yemen's opposition signed a Gulf-brokered transition deal on Saturday that will ease President Ali Abdullah Saleh out of power within a month, provided he ratifies the agreement as promised on Sunday. Saleh, a shrewd political survivor who has outlasted previous challenges to his nearly 33-year rule, faces mounting diplomatic pressure to sign after backing out twice before over technical details at the last minute. "We signed the initiative in the presence of envoys from the U.S., Britain, the European Union and the Gulf Cooperation Council secretary-general Abdullatif al-Zayani," the opposition...

Thailand's army says suspected Islamic insurgents set off a roadside bomb in the country's restive south, killing two Buddhist monks. ... More than 4,200 people have been killed in predominantly Buddhist Thailand's three Muslim-dominated southern provinces since an Islamist insurgency erupted here in 2004.

Two foreigners are among seven people who have been wounded in an explosion in the north-western Pakistani city of Peshawar, police say. Initial reports said a roadside bomb hit an armoured vehicle in which the foreigners were travelling. The blast rammed it into an electric pole. A passer-by was killed in the attack, police said. Pakistan has seen a spurt in violence since al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden was killed earlier this month. Al-Qaeda and its Pakistan Taliban allies have threatened to avenge the 2 May killing by US commandos.

Those of us who remember the tension in 1962 as President John F. Kennedy decided how to respond to the presence of Soviet missiles in Communist Cuba, with the overwhelming threat of nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union a real possibility, had a sense of déjà vu as we read the story [1] in Die Welt (the German newspaper) yesterday about the new possibility of a Venezuelan missile crisis looming on the horizon. Writing at the Fox News website, Reza Kahili notes [2] that Die Welt’s report: Confirms that the bilateral agreement signed in October [between...

ECRI: GLOBAL SLOW-DOWN IS COMING 18 May 2011 Cullen Roche I can’t figure out how their indices work for the life of me (they appear to just mirror the S&P 500), but the folks at ECRI have been remarkably accurate in recent years. Lakshman Achuthan, Chief Economist of ECRI, says global industrial growth is set to peak this summer. He says a slow-down is “for sure”, but not necessarily forecasting a new recession.(Click to the site to see the video)

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said that the Bushehr power plant is operational, Press TV reported on Wednesday. "As we have previously announced, Bushehr power plant has reached the criticality stage, meaning it has been successfully launched," Salehi reportedly said. Criticality is the stage in a nuclear reaction when the fissile material is self-sustaining. "This stage lasts for two months. We hope the plant will gain some 40 percent of its power within the next one or two months," Salehi added. The Iranian foreign minister also said that the Bushehr plant is one of the safest in the world....

Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom has declared a "state of siege" in the Peten region along the Mexican border where 27 people were killed over the weekend in an alleged drug gang massacre. The state of emergency will allow authorities to restrict demonstrations and police to carry out raids at night, among other things, media reported. Guatemalan soldiers take part in operations in Santa Elena, north of Guatemala City, on May 16, 2011 Colom said the order would last through Tuesday to allow authorities to try to track down the killers, adding that police had captured a suspect and killed two...

Last week Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh told his supporters that Osama Bin Laden was a martyr. Posted by Jim Hoft on Sunday, May 15, 2011, 6:32 PM Last week Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh told his supporters that Osama Bin Laden was a martyr. Today he told his Hamas terrorist followers to pray for the end of Israel. The Jerusalem Post reported, via Weasel Zippers: Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh spoke to Muslim worshipers on Sunday morning, telling them to pray for an end to Israel. “Palestinians mark the Nakba with great hope of bringing to an end the Zionist project...