Articles all excerpted:
Facebook teams with Mideast ad company, anticipating rapid growth among Arab users
http://www.latimes.com/business/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-ml-mideast-facebook,0,3514174.story
ADAM SCHRECK
AP Business Writer
February 24, 2010 | 3:28 a.m.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Facebook Inc. said Wednesday it is teaming with a Middle Eastern digital advertising company as the online meet-up site looks to capitalize on rapid growth in the Arab world.
Facebook said it hopes the deal with Connect Ads will give it better exposure to advertisers in a socially conservative region where online marketing is in its early stages. The Cairo-based advertising booker already handles sales for Microsoft Corp.’s MSN regional portals and other local sites.
“They have the reach and ... they have the connections,” said Trevor Johnson, Facebook’s head of strategy for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
The tie-up with an outside ad sales provider mirrors a strategy Palo Alto, Calif.-based Facebook has used in other emerging markets, such as Eastern Europe and Asia, Johnson said in an interview.
It also signals the potential the social networking site sees for the young and growing Arab market, where it counts 10 million regular users.
The company expects Mideast user numbers to shoot significantly higher in the coming months, as it has in other markets, as more members follow their friends onto the site.
************
The Berlin-Dubai-Tehran Axis
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB40001424052748704240004575085222234577764.html
By Matthias Küntzel
Although Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ordered the increase of uranium enrichment to 20%—bringing Tehran much closer to weapons-grade nuclear material—China still opposes new United Nations sanctions. The responsibility for stopping the Iranian bomb thus rests with a “coalition of the willing.” The attitude of Germany—Iran’s most important Western trading partner—will be critical to the success of such a coalition. But while the recent announcement by Siemens and Munich Re to exit the Iranian market have garnered headlines, hundreds of German manufacturers remain determined to continue doing business as usual with Tehran.
Much of that business goes undetected via Dubai. Iran’s Mullahs use the United Arab Emirates as a back door through which to funnel goods that cannot be brought in through the front door because of existing sanctions. The role of the German-Emirati Joint Council for Industry & Commerce, founded only last year, on May 20, raises serious questions about the German government’s commitment to meaningful sanctions.
Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, the German economics minister at the time (who has since become defense minister), considered the Joint Council so important that he took time from his busy schedule to attend the founding festivities. Partly financed by German taxpayers, the council announced just a few months ago, on Nov. 5., the formation of an “Iran Working Group” to assess “how new trade and investment flows can be created—including [for] German companies—using the United Arab Emirates as a gateway to the Iranian market.”
This state-funded institution thus directly contradicts official German government policies.
************
Ivory shipment from Dubai seized by Thai Customs
http://www.arabiansupplychain.com/article-3742-ivory-shipment-from-dubai-seized-by-thai-customs/
by Robeel Haq on Feb 26, 2010
Customs officials from Thailand have confiscated more than two tonnes of ivory that was transported from Dubai International Airport.
The consignment of 239 African elephant tusks, which was reportedly being sent to Laos, had been declared as mobile phone parts and discovered after Thai authorities searched a transit cargo warehouse at Suvarnabhumi airport.
According to a statement from the Customs department, the shipment was flown on an Emirates flight and is the country’s largest-ever hail of ivory, valued at US$3.6 million. No arrests have been made so far.
“This is the biggest seizure we have ever had. This is a real accomplishment for Thailand,” stated Seree Thaijongrak, director of the investigation and suppression bureau for Thai customs. “Normally, this would have gone right through but we got the tip-off.”
************
US Rejects Iranian Claims Of Jundallah Links
http://www.rttnews.com/Content/PoliticalNews.aspx?Node=B1&Id=1223885
2/26/2010 4:48 AM ET
The Pentagon has rejected Tehran’s accusations of aiding and abetting the outlawed Jundallah (God’s soldiers) Sunni insurgent outfit prior to the arrest of its leader Abdolmalek Rigi by Iranian authorities earlier this week.
Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said Thursday Iranian claims that the United States supported Sunni extremist groups like Jundallah were “nothing more than Iranian propaganda.”
An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman told reporters Tuesday that there was strong evidence suggesting that Iran’s most- wanted fugitive was being supported by the United States.
“Not only are we aware of the many crimes against humanity committed by Rigi, but we also have more than enough evidence that this terrorist group was in fact acting on US orders,” he said.
Iranian Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi said besides staying at a US base in Afghanistan, Rigi had also met with the NATO military chief in April 2008 and also had links with some EU member states.
Meanwhile, the Iranian Parliament has expressed satisfaction over the arrest of the Jundallah leader. In a statement on Tuesday, over 200 Iranian lawmakers hailed Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei on the successful arrest of Rigi.
Pakistan-based Jundallah group, whose insurgency in southeast Iran has destabilized the Iran-Pakistan border region, has claimed responsibility for a slew of bomb attacks that killed dozens in recent years, including the October 18 bombing in the southeastern city of Pishin in which 15 of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards died.
**********************
Officials puzzle over millions of dollars leaving Afghanistan by plane for Dubai
By Andrew Higgins
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/24/AR2010022404914.html?hpid=sec-world
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, February 25, 2010
KABUL — A blizzard of bank notes is flying out of Afghanistan — often in full view of customs officers at the Kabul airport — as part of a cash exodus that is confounding U.S. officials and raising concerns about the money’s origin.
The cash, estimated to total well over $1 billion a year, flows mostly to the Persian Gulf emirate of Dubai, where many wealthy Afghans now park their families and funds, according to U.S. and Afghan officials. So long as departing cash is declared at the airport here, its transfer is legal.
But at a time when the United States and its allies are spending billions of dollars to prop up the fragile government of President Hamid Karzai, the volume of the outflow has stirred concerns that funds have been diverted from aid. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, for its part, is trying to figure out whether some of the money comes from Afghanistan’s thriving opium trade. And officials in neighboring Pakistan think that at least some of the cash leaving Kabul has been smuggled overland from Pakistan.
“All this money magically appears from nowhere,” said a U.S. official who monitors Afghanistan’s growing role as a hub for cash transfers to Dubai, which has six flights a day to and from Kabul.
snip
Last month, a well-dressed Afghan man en route to Dubai was found carrying three briefcases stuffed with $3 million in U.S. currency and $2 million in Saudi currency, according to an American official who was present when the notes were counted. A few days later, the same man was back at the Kabul airport, en route to Dubai again, with about $5 million in U.S. and Saudi bank notes.
One theory is that some of the Arab nation’s cash might come from Saudi donations that were supposed to go to mosques and other projects in Afghanistan and Pakistan. But, the American official said, “we don’t really know what is going on.”
******************
No comment.
Quinn did a segment at 7:05 this AM on the MDA logo. Said it wasn’t so much the resemblance to the obama logo, even though that was a given. He said what I have been badgering him about for several days now...that the thing that sticks out more than anything else is the islamic crescent and star. Then he reiterated what we all know: that obama LOVES to flaunt and taunt us in our face and thinks he gets away with it.
He mentioned the two times bam gave hillary the finger, etc.
But we do all notice these things, don’t we?
From my personal point of view, he is getting away with nothing and even the msm is starting to point this stuff out.
Lost count of the emails and newsflashes I have sent out there on this thing. Started about one minute after I saw the thing and just can’t think of anywhere else to go.
‘nother blizzard today. Dang!
Updated FR Excerpt and Link Only or Deny Posting List due to Copyright Complaints
April 5, 2004 | Jim Robinson
HHere’s an updated alphabetical list of the sites that have complained about copyright violations thus far. The posting program will only allow excerpts and or deny posting where designated from the following sites:
These sites must be excerpted and linked only:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1111944/posts
These publishers have asked us not to allow any material at all to be posted to FR:
SEE LIST (it’s huge)