china confidential
Friday, October 24, 2008
Islamist Threat to Syria Intensifying
Foreign Confidential....
With more than a half-million angry Iraqi refugees in Syria, the militant threat to the secular regime in Damascus is intensifying.
It's a question of blowback. Syrian President Bashar Assad allowed Islamist fighters to enter Iraq through its porous Syrian border to attack US troops. Assad saw the strategy as an opportunity to attack US interests and export mounting domestic militancy.
Under pressure from Washington, however, Assad has cracked down and begun to control the borders, leaving Damascus in the position to deal with the domestic threat, which includes Islamist infiltration of the armed forces and security services.
In what Syrian officials described as a rare act of terror, a suicide bomber killed at least 17 in the outskirts of Damascus on September 17.
Israeli Businessman Kidnapped in Ghana
Foreign Confidential....
The Jerusalem Post reported Friday that a businessman says his partner, an Israeli national, has been kidnapped by armed gunmen in the West African country of Ghana.
The paper said unidentified businessman said his business partner, whose name was not released, was abducted this week and his captors have demanded $300,000 for his safe release.
The businessman, who is reportedly heading up ransom negotiations with assistance from the Israeli Foreign Ministry, said his partner disappeared Wednesday.
Israel has no formal representation in Ghana, so the government was offering assistance in the matter through its embassy in the West African country of Nigeria, the Post said.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Yossi Levy would not offer additional details regarding the kidnapping, telling Ynetnews releasing details could exacerbate the situation.
The reported kidnapping is the most recent abduction of an Israeli national in West Africa since late September when 60-year-old Ehud Avni was kidnapped in Nigeria.
Avni was eventually released after nearly two weeks in captivity after his kidnappers demanded a $12 million ransom.How Low Will the Dow Go if Obama is Elected President and Found Constitutionally Ineligible?
Dateline USA....
Suppose Barack Obama wins the election and is found to have been Constitutionally ineligible to be President of the United States because he was--as this reporter strongly suspects--born in Kenya? Suppose it is proven that he is not even a citizen--that he was never naturalized--as a credible lawsuit alleges?
How low will the Dow Jones Industrial Average go if the President turns out to be an illegal alien?
Does anyone care?
Apparently not. Not the corrupt Democratic Party--that's obvious. Not the adoring mainstream media--Obama is their man. Even Fox News treats the lawsuit as a no-go zone (along with Obama's lost college years, dual US-Indonesian citizenship, and suspected ties to Muslim supremacist Khalid Al-Mansour). Not the mesmerized masses who see Obama as America's savior.
If the polls are accurate, America is setting itself up for the biggest political--and economic--crash in history.
As Dan Rather might say, hold onto your horses....Austrian Ultra-Rightist Leader May Have Been Gay
Foreign Confidential....
AP reports from Vienna:Was Austrian far-right leader Joerg Haider secretly gay?
Speculation that he led a double life raged this week after his political protege, Stefan Petzner, publicly called Haider "the man of my life" in a tearful tribute to the former Freedom Party boss killed in a car crash earlier this month.
Petzner, 27, did not say explicitly that he and Haider, a 58-year-old married father of two, were gay or had a sexual relationship.
But Petzner's tears and the tone of his remarks — along with photographs purportedly showing Haider in a gay bar on the eve of his death — have raised questions about whether the ultraconservative nationalist had something to hide.
"This can't go on," said Michael Fleischhacker, editor-in-chief of the daily Die Presse.
"Stefan Petzner needs to make a decision: Either he describes what was so special about his relationship with Joerg Haider, or he stops publicly playing the role of Haider's successor and widow," Fleischhacker wrote in his blog.
Haider died Oct. 11 after crashing his car in the southern province of Carinthia, where he was governor. Investigators say he was drunk and speeding at twice the posted limit when the car plowed into a concrete post and flipped.
Haider was alone in the vehicle, and although authorities have said there is no evidence to suggest foul play, his widow has refused to have Haider's body cremated until independent forensics experts take another look at the remains.
Click here to continue reading.
And click here and here for articles about Haider's anti-Semitic, extremist history and views--he was basically a Nazi--and Austria's shocking reaction to his death and what that reaction says about the country that gave the world the man Haider probably most admired--Adolf Hitler.
Friday, 24 October 2008
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