The Ukraine vote a draconian law against demonstrations

This text was adopted by 235 deputies out of 450, Freehand provides penalties ranging up to 15 days in jail or fines of more than EUR 500 for the installation of tents, scenes or unauthorized speakers in advance. In addition, if the law is promulgated by the president, the individuals and organizations responsible for providing equipment to offenders could risk a fine of more than EUR 1 000 or sentenced to ten days in jail.




THE OPPOSITION DENOUNCED "A VIOLATION OF THE LEGISLATION.

"What happened today in Parliament is a violation of the law," responded Vitali Klitschko, became one of the leaders of the opposition and possible rival of Viktor Yanukovych to the next presidential. The leader of far-right, Oleh Tyahnybok, another opposition figure, for its part felt that it was "simply a usurpation of power.

The challenge was born in November of the refusal of Viktor Yanukovich, increased with the Russia in favour of a continuation of the Ukraine in the sphere of Russian influence, to sign a free trade agreement with the European Union, in preparation for more than three years, in favour of economic cooperation.

Since then, hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated their disapproval in the streets of Kiev. Tents are still installed on the square of independence, in the heart of the capital. If Viktor Yanukovych should promulgate the text, this type of action would become illegal, as well as the wearing of masks that militant nationalists hostile to the president have become accustomed to wearing.

Jan Tombinski, Ambassador of the European Union (EU) in Ukraine, added its voice to that of opponents to condemn the way in which the text was adopted at hand rather than by the usual electronic vote. "There should be normal procedures, otherwise the credit given to democratic institutions and the law is at risk", concerned in a press release.

Signs of tension in the country, at least two members were injured in a fight, a few minutes after the adoption of the budget to Parliament. Opposition MPs are trying to block since the beginning of the week the work in the Parliament, after the Government refused to sign the agreement of free trade with the EU.

View the original article here

Friday, January 17, 2014 | 0 comments | Read More

Accenture new lead contrator on Obamacare website

Joe Raedle / Getty Images

Yanelis Diaz, waits on the HealthCare.gov website that reads, "HealthCare.gov has a lot of visitors right now!" as she helps people through the options available to them under the Affordable Care Act at a Miami Enrollment Assistance Center on Dec. 23, 2013 in Miami, Florida.
By Roberta Rampton and Eric Beech, Reuters
Accenture has been chosen to replace CGI Federal as the lead contractor on the Obamacare enrollment website, which failed to work when it launched in October for millions of Americans shopping for insurance, the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said on Saturday.

CGI Federal, a subsidiary of CGI Group, built the website, HealthCare.gov, which struggled with error messages and slow speeds for weeks after its launch. The glitches created a political crisis for President Barack Obama, threatening the roll-out of his signature healthcare law and emboldening its foes among Republican lawmakers to call for its repeal.

"As CMS moves forward in our efforts to help consumers access quality, affordable health coverage, we have selected Accenture to become the lead contractor for the HealthCare.gov portal and to prepare for next year's open enrollment period," the agency said in a statement.
CGI Federal said on Friday that its contract, which was originally awarded in 2011 and is scheduled to end February 28, would not be renewed. 
The Washington Post reported on Friday that Accenture will get a year-long contract worth about $90 million for the website.

Obama has said the fiasco with HealthCare.gov has made him want to overhaul the way the federal government buys technology services. Critics say the system favors large, established contractors such as CGI.

Although the site is vastly improved, technical glitches continue to bedevil enrollment. The improvements allowed more than 1.1 million people to shop for and enroll in insurance on HealthCare.gov by the end of 2013, far short of original hopes for early enrollment.

The deadline for signing up for 2014 health insurance under the Affordable Care Act is March 31, meaning the new contractor will take over at a time when the government needs the site to handle what it hopes will be a surge of last-minute sign-ups.
Copyright 2014 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.
View the original article here

Sunday, January 12, 2014 | 0 comments | Read More

Basque demonstrators rally in support of prisoners of ETA

Rafa Rivas / AFP - Getty Images


People March during a demonstration called by several Basque political parties, trade unions and social groups in the northern city of Bilbao Basque January 11, 2014.

Tens of thousands of demonstrators marched through the streets of Bilbao in the North of the Spanish Basque country, Saturday, in support of jailed members of the Basque ETA separatist group, defying a ban from the Court of Madrid.

A judge of the High Court had vetoed the market, originally organized by supporters of the prisoners to call for the detainees to be moved to jails closer to their homes.

But two of the main political parties in the region, the independence party Basque Bildu and moderate nationalist PNV (Partido Nacionalista Vasco) - have joined forces to reshape the rally on a market for "human rights, understanding and peace".
The treatment of prisoners of ETA is inconvenient for the Madrid government, which would be certain to anger the associations of victims if he makes concessions to prisoners.ETA - or Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, which means Basque homeland and freedom in Basque - is accused of killing more than 800 people over four decades, many with car bombs.

However, in 2011, the Group requested a cease-fire, and speculation has grown that he might soon announce a complete disarmament.

"This is a unique opportunity to show the world our desire for peace and the obstacles that the Spanish Government is getting started," said Jose Mari Agirre, 55, to the market.

Applications of ETA prisoners to see out their prison sentences in the Basque country could advance after they said last month that they would recognize the system of criminal justice of the Spain.

In a statement, the prisoners acknowledged the pain caused by decades of violence.

The Group has already greatly weakened by hundreds of arrests in Spain and France, but also a political and social support to the country Basque decrease.

Some 600 ETA members are in jail in Spain.

Reuters

View the original article here

Sunday, January 12, 2014 | 0 comments | Read More

Democrat heading bridge probe says Christie could be impeached if he knew of closures

Marcus Yam / Redux Pictures file


Traffic crosses the George Washington Bridge linking New Jersey to New York on July 15, 2012.
By Michael Isikoff, National Investigative Correspondent, NBC News



The chairman of a New Jersey legislative panel investigating the George Washington Bridge lane closures said Gov. Chris Christie's top aides had engaged in a "cover-up" and the governor could be impeached if it is determined he was aware of efforts to use the bridge for political purposes.

"Using the George Washington Bridge, a public resource, to exact a political vendetta, is a crime," New Jersey Assemblyman John Wisniewski, who is spearheading the bridge probe, told NBC News on Saturday. "Having people use their official position to have a political game is a crime. So if those tie back to the governor in any way, it clearly becomes an impeachable offense."

In a news conference on Thursday, Christie denied any prior knowledge of plans to use lane closures on the bridge as political payback against the Mayor of Fort Lee for refusing to endorse his re-election. He said he was "stunned by the abject stupidity that was shown here."

But Wisniewski said he does not find the governor's denials credible given the number of his top aides and appointees shown to have knowledge of the matter in thousands of pages of emails and text messages his committee has obtained.

"It's hard to really accept the governor's statement that he knew nothing until the other morning," Wisnieswki said.

New documents renew questions about what New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie knew and when he knew it. NBC News' Kelly O'Donnell reports.

Referring to Christie aides named in the emails and text messages, he added: "These people travel with him, these people discuss things with him every single day. This is not an isolated, unknown story. ... He knew there was an investigation. He knew people were looking at it, and his senior staff was involved (and) he expects us to believe he knew nothing? I just find that implausible."

Christie's press secretary, Mike Drewniak, did not immediately return a phone call and email request for comment. Wisnewski said Drewniak is one of the Christie aides that the documents show had some knowledge of the bridge lane closures.

 Wisniewski’s comments came shortly after New Jersey’s Democratic Assembly Speaker -elect Vincent Prieto said he plans to call a special session on Thursday to reauthorize subpoena power for Wisniewski's committee. That would enable Wisniewski to pursue what Prieto called "the abuse of power" in the bridge lane closures.

Wisniewski  said he plans to use that power to subpoena official and private emails, text mesages and other documents from Christie's current and former top aides and then call them in "one by one" to testify.



Mel Evans / AP


New Jersey Assemblyman John Wisniewski answers a question at the Statehouse, in Trenton, on Wednesday.

One of the aides who Wisniewski and other Democrats said merit special scrutiny is Regina Egea, a senior staffer who Christie has designated to be his next chief of staff.  Documents released Friday show that Egea  was forwarded a copy of a scathing email from Patrick Foye, the Port Authority's executive director, at 10:44 a.m. on Sept. 13, 2012– four days after the  first lane closures and a few hours after Foye sent it. In the email, Foye called the lane closures "abusive," a threat to public safety, and a violation of "federal law and the laws of both states" (New York and New Jersey.)

Bill Baroni, a Christie appointee who was then deputy director of the Port Authority, forwarded the email from Foye, marked "Importance: High," to Egea three hours after Foye sent it to top Port Authority officials.

There is no indication from the documents whether Egea responded to the email. (She did not immediately respond to an email request for comment.) But Wisniewski said, "It's hard to believe that she got that email and she just filed it away or she said nothing."

"If you know anything about New Jersey statehouse politics, this is a governor --  all of our governors quite frankly -- are governors who really tightly manage that operation," he said. "There are no freelancers or independent operations there. And so it strains credibility to believe that the governor knew nothing."
Read and vote on readers' story tips and suggested topics for investigation or submit your own.

View the original article here

Sunday, January 12, 2014 | 0 comments | Read More

First 2016 States still high on Christie - for now

Error during deserialization of the body of the response message for operation 'Translate '. Overrun of the maximum string content length quota (8192) during the reading of XML data. This quota may be increased by changing the MaxStringContentLength property on the XmlDictionaryReaderQuotas object used when creating the XML reader. Line 1, position 8915.

 Carlo Allegri / Reuters

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie still has his backers in early primary states, despite the bridge scandal.

By Kasie Hunt, Political Reporter, NBC News

The Republican establishment in early presidential nominating states is standing by Chris Christie - so far.

Many of those closest to the action allow that the New Jersey governor could end up disqualified as a potential 2016 presidential candidate if it turns out that he wasn't telling the truth about the politically motivated lane closures on the George Washington Bridge during his marathon press conference on Thursday. Christie said he wasn't aware of or involved with a top staffer' plan s to snarl traffic in Fort Lee, N.J., and announced he was firing two top aides.

Yet interviews with numerous early - state operatives, establishment figures and party chairs show that even though there's skittishness in private, there's readiness to publicly rally behind Christie. His handling of the crisis so far, they say, could wear well over the next two years, eventually cast him as a decisive leader willing to take responsibility and fire top aides for their mistakes.

"At the end of the day, he's going to be just fine," said David Kochel, who led 2012 nominee Mitt Romney's efforts in Iowa.

'' He showed leadership. He held people accountable, '' said Jennifer Horn, chairwoman of the New Hampshire Republican Party.

"It's refreshing to see a leader step up and take responsibility," said Matt Moore, chairman of the South Carolina GOP.

The across-the-board defence reflects a combination of a fractured Republican Party's hopes and fears for the looming 2016 presidential nomination fight that will kick off two years from now in Iowa. Each early state is defensive of its position in the process and wants every candidate to compete aggressively there. It's still early, and it's clear influential players are wary of crossing someone who is still viewed as a frontrunner, a more-than-plausible nominee and a potential president.

And most of all, it's reflective of a GOP still bruised by a drawn-out 2012 appointment process that was defined by warring factions, forced its candidates to stake out right-wing positions to woo conservative activists and eventually produced a weak nominee who lost decisively to Democratic President Barack Obama in the general election.

Christie's enemies - Democrats and Republicans - ready to pounce

New documents renew questions about what New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie knew and when he knew it. NBC News' Kelly O'Donnell reports.

"The thing I think units our party across the spectrum is to defeat Hillary Clinton. And everyone knows that's going to be a very difficult task,"said David Carney, a New Hampshire-based operative who served as Texas Gov. Rick Perry's top strategist during his bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012.

Christie hasn't spent too much time in early primary states yet. But he made a number of visits on Romney's behalf in 2012, and it's clear he's interested - he made sure to send family Christmas cards to Republicans in Iowa, for example. Early polls have put him atop the potential GOP field, and his success winning over Hispanic, independent and even Democratic voters in New Jersey have cast him as someone with the potential clout and widespread appeal to take on a Democrat like Clinton.

To be sure, it's clear that there's plenty of private criticism and hand-wringing among early - state Republicans about the implications the scandal could have for Christie in the 2016 nominating process. Some acknowledge the episode could exacerbate his reputation as a bully, an image that might be damaging in always-nice Iowa gold in the genteel South.

"South Carolinians like people who are strong leaders, but they also like people who are courteous and polite," said David Wilkins, a GOP fundraiser and former ambassador under President George W. Bush who supported Texas Gov. Rick Perry's 2012 presidential campaign.

There's also frustration over the fact that the scandal could encourage a new round of the still-raging war between conservative activists and the party establishment. While the GOP has a history of falling in line behind the establishment's preferred presidential nominee, the recent discontent of the GOP base battered Romney during the last election and left party elders wondering how to change the process to protect future nominees.

That's where this scandal could damage Christie in early states, several GOP sources said privately. Potential GOP candidates are legion and include direction. RAND Paul, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. former presidential candidate Rick Santorum and Rick Perry; Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker; former vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan; and others. Conservative critics are already skeptical of Christie's positions on social issues and embrace of President Obama after Hurricane Sandy in the final days of the 2012 general election.

Democrat by-passing probe: Impeachment risk for Christie

Right-wing figures have been quick to add the scandal to their list of grievances against Christie. Iowa conservative activist Steve Feace, who's championed Cruz as a potential 2016 contender, slammed Christie and the GOP establishment on his Friday podcast.

"The Republicans would like to replace [President Obama] with somebody who shuts down the busiest bridge on planet Earth - assigned how many lives?" -simply to grind a political axis,"Feace fumed.

And Kentucky Sen. RAND Paul - who co-operatives in all three states said is by far the most active possible presidential candidate at this stage - took a swipe at Christie.

"I don't know who emailed who and who works for whom." "I have been in traffic before though and I know how angry I am when I'm in traffic and I've always wondered, ' who did this to me?'," Paul said Thursday.

Still, the criticism isn't universal. Steve King, a Western Iowa congressman with a reputation as a conservative firebrand, held back.

"I think that [Christie] manned up to it," said King, who carefully guards his own role in the Iowa caucus process and goes out of his way to short presidential hopefuls. "And now the investigation is coming along, it should be a vehicle that can scrub any questions clean and certify the statements he made."

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who was elected in 2010 a wave of Tea Party support, has also defended Christie, in writing a Facebook post that Christie "did the right thing in taking responsibility in a tough situation.

Haley, of course, is relying on Christie's fundraising support as she faces re-election this year. Several Republicans with establishment ties said that as chairman of the Republican Governors Association, Christie's next big political test is getting GOP gubernatorial candidates elected.

"What Republicans are looking to him for is to be a strong, successful RGA chairman." "And they have high expectations for him," said Haley Barbour, the former Mississippi governor and RGA chairman. "And I expect to see him directing his political energy and focus to running the RGA, not to running for president."

View the original article here

Sunday, January 12, 2014 | 0 comments | Read More

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon dead at 85

 

Alex Kolomoisky / AP


An Israeli powerhouse, Sharon has been a central figure in the nation's military and political history.
By Martin Fletcher, Correspondent, NBC News

Ariel Sharon, the former prime minister and ex-general who embodied Israel's military might, has died, Israeli radio and television announced on Saturday.



The 85-year-old Sharon had been in a coma at the Sheba Medical Center near Tel Aviv for eight years after suffering a stroke in 2006.

Despised by Arabs for his hardline policies, Sharon was respected by Israelis for his military prowess and patriotism.

Eight years after a stroke left him in a vegetative state, the 85-year-old dies. NBC News' Martin Fletcher reports.

Sharon, Israel's controversial 11th prime minister, earned the nickname “The Bulldozer” early in his career because of his reputation for stopping at nothing.

By ignoring orders as a soldier, he turned defeat into victory over Egypt in the 1973 October War. When then Gen. Sharon led his troops across the Suez Canal, encircling the Egyptian Third Army, he violated orders from the military’s Southern Command.

Later, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan called Sharon the hero of the war. But, he added, had Sharon failed, he could have faced a court martial.

As Israel’s defense minister in the 1982 war against the Palestine Liberation Organization, Sharon sent the Israeli army all the way to Beirut, while being accused of misleading the cabinet about his true intentions. This action led to his greatest humiliation and his other nickname, given to him by Arabs: “The Butcher.”

When members of a Lebanese-Christian paramilitary group known as Phalangists entered the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila in Beirut, Sharon's soldiers, responsible for security in the area, allowed them in and even evacuated the wounded.

But they denied responsibility for what happened inside the camps, where the Phalangists massacred at least 800 Palestinian and Lebanese civilians over three days. The Sabra-Shatila massacre, as it came to be known, was one of the bloodiest chapters in Lebanon's 14-year civil war.

Israel's subsequent Kahan commission of inquiry found that Sharon should have anticipated what the Christian militants would do -- and thus established he bore "personal responsibility" for the massacre. It recommended he be removed from the defense ministry, with the understanding that he would never hold that office again.

Instead, in 2001, he became prime minister.

As part of his election campaign in September 2000, Sharon, then leader of the opposition party, led a Jewish delegation to the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism. The Al-Aqsa Mosque is part of the compound that Jews call the Temple Mount and is considered the third holiest site in Islam. The visit, which was aimed at emphasizing the Jewish claim to the holy place, sparked outrage among the Palestinians who called it a deliberate provocation.

The day after Sharon’s visit, following Friday prayers, large riots broke out around the Old City of Jerusalem. In the following days, demonstrations erupted across the West Bank and Gaza.

Many mark Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount as the start of the Second Intifada and the end of the peace process. An estimated 3,000 Palestinians and 1,000 Israelis were killed in the violence that did not end until 2005.

The violent uprising marked Sharon’s time as prime minister. But the man who had been known as the greatest field commander in Israel's history, the champion of Jewish settlers and of expanding Israel's borders, stunned the nation by ordering the evacuation of every single Jewish settler from Gaza. He had come to the conclusion that Israel could not have everything. To keep most of the West Bank it would have to give up Gaza and then negotiate peace with the Palestinians.

It was a total about-face for one of Israel's greatest right-wingers. But before he could continue with his plan, on Jan. 4, 2006, at the height of his political power, he was struck down by a massive stroke and remained in a coma until his death.

"He'll be remembered as the last of his generation of Israeli fighters and founders," Dedi Cohen, a 38-year-old lawyer, told Reuters in Tel Aviv.

"He was a bulldozer who got things done. I know he was controversial, but he had values. He stood for something. That's missing today," Cohen said.

His decision to pull out of Gaza was still considered controversial.

"As a prime minister he took a very brave step in leaving the (Gaza) settlements. He did something unexpected that was very surprising for a right-wing prime minister, for the better," Anat Harel, 25, a computer science student in the southern town of Ashkelon told Reuters.

But in the Gaza Strip, Sharon was still reviled by many Palestinians.

"Ariel Sharon is going the same direction as other tyrants and criminals whose hands were covered in Palestinian blood," Hamas leader, Khalil al-Hayya, told Reuters.

And there was no sympathy either in the occupied West Bank.

"He's a terrible person," said Rauf Ramia, a laborer from the Qalandia refugee camp.

Regardless of his differing legacies among Arabs and Israelis, Sharon will always be remembered as a man who obeyed nobody's rules but his own.  

Reuters contributed to this report. 

View the original article here

Sunday, January 12, 2014 | 0 comments | Read More

Global jihadis or al Qaeda wannabes: Who are the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant?

Militant website via AP


This undated image posted on a militant website on Jan. 4, 2014, shows Shakir Waheib, a senior member of the al Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), left, next to a burning police vehicle in Iraq's Anbar province.


By Henry Austin, NBC News contributor
Extreme, violent and loyal to al Qaeda, the gunmen from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) who last week seized control of the Iraqi cities of Ramadi and Fallujah are refusing to withdraw despite government onslaughts and threats from local tribal leaders.

Now firmly entrenched in the cities that once witnessed some of the bloodiest battles for U.S. forces during the war in Iraq, their offensives have been well planned, coordinated and designed to spread terror.

In Syria, meanwhile, ISIL has become the strongest fighting group in the north of the country. In the last week alone, activists estimate that fighting between it and other rebels fighting the government of President Bashar Assad has killed nearly 500 people. It also claimed responsibility for deadly bombings in Lebanon.

Allegedly bolstered by an influx of foreign fighters, the group that now claims 5,000 members “expanded their influence significantly in 2013,” according to a recent report by military journal "Jane’s Defense Weekly."

Across the region, the ISIL positions itself as a Sunni Muslim vanguard against what it sees as domination by Shiite Muslims and Western governments.

So who exactly is behind this deadly organization and what are their goals?

Who are the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)?The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is an Islamist insurgent group active in both Iraq and Syria that pledged allegiance to al Qaeda in 2004.

Originally known as “al Qaeda in Iraq” the extremist group that believes in the strict enforcement of Shariah law is composed of and supported by a variety of insurgent groups and clans loyal to the Sunni branch of the Islamic faith.

The group is thought to be responsible for the deaths of thousands of Iraqi civilians as well as members of the Iraqi government and its international allies.

What are their aims?
Their stated aim is to create a Sunni Islamic religious state based on Shariah law, not just in Iraq, but one that straddles the border into Syria's rebel-held eastern desert provinces.

Summing up its aims in a June 2013 audio statement, the group’s current leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi vowed to erase the “Western imposed border with Syria” and called on his followers to “tear apart” the governments in both countries and their regional backers.

Ultimately, ISIL seeks to create an Islamic emirate from where they would launch a global holy war, according to Raffaello Pantucci, a senior research fellow at British think tank the Royal United Services Institute.

“Their final goal is to create an Islamic emirate which becomes a piece of territory which they control. And from there they will start to export jihad everywhere else,” Pantucci said. “Their vision is a stepping stone onto a bigger picture. Syria is basically the first stage in the process.”

Where do they come from? The group was established by Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, according to Brian Fishman, a counterterrorism fellow at the New America Foundation think tank.



U.S. Military via AP


This undated image released by the U.S. military in Iraq in 2006 purports to show Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al Qaeda-linked militant who led a bloody campaign of suicide bombings, kidnappings and hostage beheadings in Iraq.

After he was released from prison in his homeland, Zarqawi commanded fighters in Afghanistan, where he met Osama bin Laden, the founder of al Qaeda and mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

He reportedly moved to Iraq in 2001, and in anticipation of the U.S. invasion in 2003, built a network of contacts, recruited fighters and became the default "emir" of Islamist terrorists in Iraq, a report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies said. His group then targeted international forces, government infrastructure and personnel, aid workers and reconstruction efforts.

Claiming to represent Iraq’s Sunni Muslims, the group also took aim at Shiite Muslims.

In October 2004, Zarqawi declared his allegiance to bin Laden and changed his group’s name to al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). He soon became Iraq’s most-wanted militant.

After Zarqawi's death in 2006 and with the group's extremist methods losing support among many members of Iraq's Sunni community, AQI “rebranded” to become the Islamic State of Iraq. The Islamic State of Iraq kept up the campaign of coordinated bombings against the Shiite targets across Iraq, before expanding into Syria after the civil war started there in April 2011.

The cross-border move prompted yet another name change and in April 2013 the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant was born. (Although the group is also sometimes referred to as the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham).

The group’s current leader, Iraqi Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, recently claimed to be a descendant of Prophet Muhammad.

Do they pose a threat to the United States?Although some Americans militants are thought to have fought with or alongside the ISIL in Syria, the group poses little threat to the U.S. mainland, according to Pantucci.

While members may wish to promote global jihad -- or global holy war -- the group's focus remains on Iraq and Syria and so an attack on American soil seems a distant prospect, he said.



AP, file


A member of the al Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) gives a lecture at the Engineering College in the northern city of Raqqa, Syria, in this picture released in Nov. 2013, and posted on the Facebook page of a militant group.

But others aren’t so sure.

FBI Director James B. Comey said this week that the prospect of Americans going to Syria, learning terrorist techniques and returning to the United States is one of his greatest worries.

"We are devoting more resources both to that subject and to that area," he said Thursday during a question-and-answer session with reporters

"People, including Americans, can go to Syria and learn about dangerous techniques, and it's easy to get in and get out. It's a challenge to identify people with bad intent and keep track of them, but we're spending an enormous amount of time on it," said Comey.

What does the future hold?Despite their resurgence in recent years, global intelligence company Stratfor predicted a bleak future for ISIL.

"For all the dedication and motivation of its fighters, ISIL simply does not have the manpower or the force to overcome its innumerable enemies and achieve its end goals of establishing its version of an Islamic caliphate in Syria and Iraq," Stratfor said in an analysis.

Imad Salamey, a professor in international relations at the Lebanese American University, said the Syrian opposition has also realized ISIL is a major liability -- not just for the image of the opposition but also for turning Syrians against the opposition.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

View the original article here

Sunday, January 12, 2014 | 0 comments | Read More

Heavy downpour, lethal flash flooding strike Florida Palm Beach County

 

J Pat Carter / AP




















Andre Francois wades through knee deep flood water in Boynton Beach, Fla., on Friday to get back to his house.
By Daniel Arkin, Staff Writer, NBC News
A torrential downpour lashed Florida's Palm Beach County before dawn Friday, shuttering schools, flooding an interstate and causing at least two deaths.

More than 22 inches of rain fell on Boynton Beach over a 24-hour period, according to the National Weather Service. The Sun Sentinel newspaper said the most rain was around Interstate 95 and Gateway Boulevard, while between 12 and 18 inches fell over just a few hours in Lantana and Delray Beach.

"An incredible rainfall rate," said Robert Molleda, a meteorologist with the NWS. "There is no way we could forecast that much rain in that short a time."

The first of the two deaths occurred just after 7 a.m. Friday in West Delray: Elsa Marquez, 56, steered her Toyota Rav 4 through a flooded intersection at Heritage Park and Via Flora into a lake, and her vehicle quickly sank.

Elsewhere in Delray Beach, a man died after drowning in a flooded ditch, according to NBC affiliate WPTV in West Palm Beach.

Several roads were closed and water gushed into homes and businesses, according to the National Weather Service in Miami. The rushing floodwater also forced the closure of Palm Beach County schools Friday, the Weather Channel reported.

View the original article here

Sunday, January 12, 2014 | 0 comments | Read More