World News Thread & Breaking News!!

[B.I.B.]

Because of the time they're taking and hinting at what they will and won't strike at thus giving the Syrians plenty of time to prepare for the attack,the whole thing has become a farce. they may as well go and blow up an empty warehouse somewhere and tell them not to do it again.

 

[SteelBird]

Wow, the Obama administration has so many faces that it is almost impossible to really know who or what they are.

This morning individuals on Obama's national security team are now saying he is not "bound," by what congress votes and that he would/could act unilaterally even if they vote against him in congress, and do it anyway!

These people are simply crazy and sophomoric when it comes to national security and international relations.

I am ashamed to say that they are the leaders of our nation.

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Please, no war. We don't want another Iraq!

 

[ManilaBoy45]

Philippines Says it Finds More Chinese Blocks on Reef

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POSTED: 04 Sep 2013 5:24 PM

MANILA: The Philippines said on Wednesday it had spotted more concrete blocks allegedly installed by China on a small group of reefs and rocky outcrops within Filipino territory in the South China Sea.Aerial surveillance discovered about 75 blocks scattered on a section of the Scarborough Shoal, said defence department spokesman Peter Galvez."These can be used for platforms (or) foundations, that is why we said earlier this could be a prelude to any other form of construction," he told reporters Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei rejected the Philippine allegations."What has been said by the Philippines isn't true. Huangyan Island is China's inherent territory," Hong told state television CCTV in an interview, using the Chinese name for the shoal.

The Philippines had earlier released an aerial photograph taken Saturday of what it said were about 30 concrete blocks at Scarborough.A second surveillance flight on Monday photographed more blocks scattered over a two-hectare (4.9-acre) section of the shoal, said Galvez, who did not release the newer photograph.It was unclear whether the extra blocks were newly laid or were missed by the earlier sweep, he said.He declined to speculate on whether Manila thought the Chinese would actually build structures there.Galvez said any construction would violate a 2002 non-binding agreement between China and its Southeast Asian neighbours to refrain from actions or hostile acts that could inflame tensions in the flashpoint region.

 

[no_name]

The blocks look rather disordered and looks like they have been there for quite some time with growth on them.

 

[AssassinsMace]

I'm sure one of those concrete blocks was responsible for ramming the Filipino ship not the Taiwanese fishing boat.

 

[joshuatree]

The blocks look rather disordered and looks like they have been there for quite some time with growth on them.

I noticed that too. The claim is that the blocks were noticed first on August 31st. The other claim is that a Philippine navy plane patrols the area every 3 days so that means 3 days prior, there are no blocks. I know algae can grow fast but in 5 to 6 days it's grown that much? There's also the issue of the weathered, disorderly look of the blocks. It leaves more questions, is this even Scarborough (no overview pic in relation to close up shots), is this simply old blocks that have already been there? Google probably wants to stay out of this, one only gets a blur if trying to view with maps or Google Earth.

 

[bd popeye]

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Eyewitnesses of the Sheppey car crash this morning have described how vehicles 'ploughed into each other like a concertina'.

A 100-vehicle pile-up on a bridge in heavy fog left at least six people seriously injured and 200 suffering minor wounds in what witnesses described as 'carnage'.

No one is believed to have died in the crash on the new Sheppey crossing bridge in Kent. It started at around 7.15am and continued for 10 minutes as cars and lorries crashed into each other in visibility that was down to 20 yards.

One witness, who would not be named, told Kent Online: 'There was debris on our side of the road from the accident, then we saw the first part of the crash - there was cars, lorries, vans, ploughed into each other like a concertina...I've never anything like this before in my life.'

Witness Martin Stammers, 45, from Minster, said: 'It's horrific. I've never seen anything like it in my life.

'All you could hear was cars crashing. We got out of our car and it was eerily quiet with visibility down to just 20 yards.

'Then you would hear the screeching of brakes and then a thud. It was all you could hear for about 10 minutes - crash after crash after crash.

'The whole top of the bridge is full of mangled cars and lorries. There are cars with their roofs ripped off - one is five feet in the air. There were a lot of people trapped.

[video=youtube;SocHm-4Q9mc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SocHm-4Q9mc[/video]

 

[Jeff Head]

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​

KABUL: Indian national Sushmita Banerjee, whose memoir about her dramatic escape from the Taliban was turned into a Bollywood film, was shot dead in Afghanistan by militants, police said today.

Banerjee, 49, was killed outside her home in Paktika province. She was married to Afghan businessman Jaanbaz Khan and recently moved back to Afghanistan to live with him.

Taliban militants arrived at her home in the provincial capital of Kharana, tied up her husband and other members of the family, took Banerjee out and shot her, police were quoted as saying by BBC.

The militants dumped Banerjee's body near a religious school, police said.

A senior police official said Banerjee, also known as Sayed Kamala, was working as a health worker in Paktika and had been filming the lives of local women as part of her work.

Banerjee's book "Kabuliwalar Bangali Bou" (A Kabuliwala's Bengali Wife), about her escape from the Taliban in 1995, became a bestseller in India and was made into the Bollywood film "Escape From Taliban" in 2003. The memoir focussed on her life in Afghanistan with her husband and her escape from the militants. The film based on the book starred actress Manisha Koirala and was billed as a "story of a woman who dares (the) Taliban".

Banerjee also wrote about her experiences in Afghanistan for Outlook magazine. She went to Afghanistan in 1989 after marrying Khan, whom she met in Kolkata.

She wrote that "life was tolerable until the Taliban crackdown in 1993", when militants ordered her to close a dispensary she was running from her house, and "branded me a woman of poor morals".

She wrote that she escaped "sometime in early 1994" but her brothers-in-law tracked her down to the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, where she went to seek help from the Indian High Commission. They took her back to Afghanistan.

"They promised to send me back to India. But they did not keep their promise. Instead, they kept me under house arrest and branded me an immoral woman. The Taliban threatened to teach me a lesson. I knew I had to escape," she wrote.

"One night, I made a tunnel through the mud walls of the house and fled. Close to Kabul, I was arrested. A 15-member group of the Taliban interrogated me. Many of them said that since I had fled my husband's home I should be executed. However, I was able to convince them that since I was an Indian I had every right to go back to my country," Banerjee wrote.

"The interrogation continued through the night. The next morning I was taken to the Indian embassy from where I was given a safe passage. Back in Calcutta, I was re-united with my husband."

A sad thing. RIP, Sushmita, and God's blessings of comfort to all of your friends and loved ones.

Now, while I can understand her desire to live with her husband in Afghanistan...where she had lived when she was kidnapped years ago...I cannot believe that she did not know how bad an idea that was. She simply had to know. She escaped from the Taliban, which had to have put her on their list...but then she wrote a best seller book about it that was made into a movie. After that, there is no doubt that she would have been high on those animal’s kill list.

She and her husband should have moved to India, preferably a long distance away from the Kashmir. Like Bangalore or Madras or something like that.

 

[solarz]

A sad thing. RIP, Sushmita, and God's blessings of comfort to all of your friends and loved ones.

Now, while I can understand her desire to live with her husband in Afghanistan...where she had lived when she was kidnapped years ago...I cannot believe that she did not know how bad an idea that was. She simply had to know. She escaped from the Taliban, which had to have put her on their list...but then she wrote a best seller book about it that was made into a movie. After that, there is no doubt that she would have been high on those animal’s kill list.

She and her husband should have moved to India, preferably a long distance away from the Kashmir. Like Bangalore or Madras or something like that.

Yeah, I really don't understand her story. She moved to Afghanistan to live with her husband. For some reason, when she tried to return to India, her *brothers-in-law* tracked her down and took her back? Then she escaped again to be reunited with her husband? HUH???

 

[kwaigonegin]

Yeah, I really don't understand her story. She moved to Afghanistan to live with her husband. For some reason, when she tried to return to India, her *brothers-in-law* tracked her down and took her back? Then she escaped again to be reunited with her husband? HUH???

seems pretty straight forward to me. She escaped from the crazy inlaws but they caught her and brought her back to Afghanistan. She escaped again the 2nd time but got caught again except this time she convinced them to let her go. she reunited with her hubby in India (calcutta) not Afghanistan.

This all happened in the 90's. No mention on when they moved back to Afghanistan but my guess is probably much much later.