Threat Matrix: March 2007

Previous Thread ^

[Cindy]

Note: The following news brief is a quote:

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3377249,00.html

China says crucial period for peace in Taiwan Strait

Published: 03.16.07, 07:09 / Israel News

The next two years are going to be crucial for peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said on Friday, but added again that China opposes any form of independence for the self-ruled island.

"I have already stressed in my work report that we oppose any form of splittist activity giving Taiwan de jure independence," Wen said at his annual news conference. (Reuters)

[Cindy]

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/custom/tourism/orl-gunrunner16x07mar16,0,13049.story?coll=orl-business-headlines-tourism


"2 sides emerge of man linked to OIA breach
To police, he's a gunrunner. To his mom, he's a loving son who never even had a toy gun."


Pedro Ruz Gutierrez | Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted March 16, 2007
RELATED STORIES
All workers now screened
Mar 13, 2007


ARTICLE SNIPPET: "KISSIMMEE -- To government agents, he's the ringleader of a drug-and-gun-smuggling operation. Zabdiel Santiago-Balaguer also is the man posing on a Web site, holding an assault rifle in one hand and a wad of cash in the other."

ARTICLE SNIPPET: "Santiago-Balaguer was arrested shortly before midnight March 6 by an FBI-led task force of federal, state and local law-enforcement officers at his parents' modest home in Kissimmee's Buenaventura Lakes district.

Three other people, including two former Comair airline employees who are associates of Santiago-Balaguer's, also were arrested by authorities and charged in federal court last week.

Santiago-Balaguer's mother, stepfather and 19-year-old brother all work at Orlando International Airport for subcontractors and said they are upset he has been labeled the leader, because no contraband was found when agents raided their home last week. They noted that everyone else in the case has allegedly been caught with drugs and guns."

[Cindy]

Note: The following text is a quote:
---

http://www.assistnews.net/Stories/2007/s07030098.htm

ASSIST News Service (ANS) - PO Box 609, Lake Forest, CA 92609-0609 USA
Visit our web site at: www.assistnews.net -- E-mail: danjuma1@aol.com


Thursday, March 15, 2007

Tanzania: Lutheran Pastor Shot Dead
Three Suspected Robbers Open Fire on Vicar’s Car

By Wolfgang Polzer
Special to ASSIST News Service

LUSHOTO (ANS) -- A Lutheran pastor has been shot dead in an attempted robbery in Tanzania.

Reverend Sosthenes Kibanga (58) of the Evangelical Lutheran Church's North Eastern Diocese was gunned down March 11 by three unidentified persons.
According to Tanzanian police Kibanga was driving with a companion from Mlalo to Lushoto in the Usambara Mountains.

Guga Elias, who accompanied the cleric, said they were crossing a forest, when they were forced to stop by logs placed in the middle of the road.

Three people, two of them masked, emerged from the forest and advanced towards the car. One of the gunmen fired two shots through the window that hit the pastor on the chest, killing him instantly.

According to local reports they took a mobile phone from the car. They ran away from the vehicle, when they realized that the pastor was dead. Police have mounted a full-scale hunt for the killers.

Kibanga, who was married, was buried March 13 in Lushoto. All Lutheran institutions in the town, including a school for handicapped children, were closed for a day of mourning.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania has 3.5 million members.

Wolfgang Polzer (56), is senior news editor of the Evangelical News Agency idea, Wetzlar (Germany), which he joined in 1981. In all, he has spent 30 years in Christian media. Wolfgang can be contacted by e-mail at: Wolfgang.Polzer@idea.de.
** You may republish this story with proper attribution.

[Cindy]

PERSECUTION.ORG
http://www.persecution.org

[Cindy]

http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/pa/pa_1161.html

PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesman
This information is current as of today, Fri Mar 16 2007 04:09:16 GMT-0700.

Worldwide Caution

October 11, 2006

[Cindy]

http://www.satp.org
http://www.saag.org

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http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1173879099355&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Mar. 16, 2007 11:56
"6 wounded in bomb attack in northeast India"
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
GAUHATI, India

ARTICLE SNIPPET: "Suspected separatist rebels exploded a bomb in a crowded market in India's restive northeast on Friday, wounding six people and destroying three shops, police said.

Police suspect the United Liberation Front of Asom, or ULFA, as being responsible for the attack in Gauhati, the capital of Assam state, said S. N. Singh, a senior police officer.

The insurgents tied the explosives to a motorcycle in a busy market in the heart of Gauhati, Singh said.

Friday's attack came as the ULFA observed "Army Day" commemorating the launch of its military wing in 1980."

[Godzilla]

placemark

[all4one]

I received a call from SlowBoat about this shutdown of I-95 and he wanted me to pass this on...:

8,700 Gallons of Gasoline Spill in Swamp After 18-Wheeler Overturns (Fayetteville NC - 3/16/07)

Saint Pauls — A tractor-trailer truck carrying gasoline overturned on southbound Interstate 95 Friday, closing down part of the highway and stopping traffic.

All southbound lanes of I-95 are closed at mile marker 35 south of Fayetteville, and are expected to remain closed until mid-afternoon. Motorists should seek alternate routes, according to the North Carolina Department of Transportation.

Link to Full Article

[drymans wife]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1802018/posts

FBI: Extremists Driving School Buses
Posted by Sopater
On 03/16/2007 2:37:16 PM CDT

"Fox News ^ | Friday, March 16, 2007 | LARA JAKES JORDAN
WASHINGTON — Suspected members of extremist groups have signed up as school bus drivers in the United States, counterterror officials said Friday, in a cautionary bulletin to police. An FBI spokesman said "parents and children have nothing to fear." Asked about the alert notice, the FBI's Rich Kolko said "there are no threats, no plots and no history leading us to believe there is any reason for concern," although law enforcement agencies around the country were asked to watch out for kids' safety. The bulletin, parts of which were read to The Associated Press, did not say how often foreign... "

[Cindy]

Thanks for the info.

I'm glad everyone is ok.
It looks like the truck driver will pull through.

[Cindy]

Adding 1 more link (2nd thread) to your post, dryman's wife.
Thanks to fanfan for the ping to this thread, too.


http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1801983/posts

"FBI: Extremists Signing Up to Be School Bus Drivers"
FoxNews.com ^ | Friday, March 16, 2007 | Associated Press

Posted on 03/16/2007 11:16:41 AM PDT by weef

WASHINGTON

[Cindy]

Thanks to Grampa Dave for the ping to this latest article on an ongoing saga:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1801910/posts

"Now Russia Leaves Iran’s Sinking Boat"
Iran Press Service ^ | March 16 2007 | Safa Haeri

Posted on 03/16/2007 8:37:50 AM PDT by knighthawk

Paris-Tehran-Moscow, 15 March. (IPS)

[Grampa Dave]

More news from a success in the WOT:

Rosie, the Bush Hating, hog sized maggot infested liberal lesbian, loves and cares for this self confessed Islamofascist serial killer:

[Cindy]

Thanks to Calpernia for the ping to this thread:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1801932/posts


"Campus radical group rises again [Students for a Democratic Society]"
Newhouse News ^ | 3/15/2007 | Bill Graves

Posted on 03/16/2007 9:09:31 AM PDT by Incorrigible

[Cindy]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=zimbabwe

---


Thanks to Clive for the ping to this thread:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1801778/posts


"Gono admits meltdown (Zimbabwe Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono)"
Mail & Guardian (SA) ^ | 2007-03-07 | Andrew Meldrum

Posted on 03/16/2007 4:41:14 AM PDT by Clive

Zimbabwe central banker Gideon Gono . (Photograph Muntu Vilakazi)

ARTICLE SNIPPET: "Zimbabwe is hungry and broke, the country’s central bank governor has warned in a frank admission that President Robert Mugabe’s government is unable to provide adequate food supplies or maintain many basic services.

Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono told a parliamentary committee that he was struggling to keep the country’s electricity on and the air force aloft. He admitted he had no funds to buy police vehicles or print passports and that, unless drastic action was taken on rampant inflation, Zimbabwe could slump “to levels never dreamt before”.

The battered economy has become Mugabe’s most potent opponent and public anger is growing, say civic leaders. Since the beginning of the year, the economy has taken a lurching fall, with inflation soaring to nearly 1 600% and food and fuel shortages gripping the nation.

Scant hope of better times was offered by Gono when he came to the parliamentary committee on defence and home affairs on Tuesday to respond to appeals from the police, army and other departments for foreign currency to buy vehicles, vital equipment and basic materials.

Gono is favoured by Mugabe for his optimism, so many Zimbabweans will have been surprised by his bleak assessment, published in the state Herald newspaper this week.

He told the parliamentary group he received desperate calls daily from state food and petrol distributors, the national airline, and the state railway and power utility -- all demanding hard currency for imports. An official from the power utility called at dusk saying: “If you don’t give us money, the nation will be in darkness.”

But he said the bank’s priority was to allocate hard currency for imports of maize, Zimbabwe’s staple grain, to avert a looming food crisis. He admitted currency had been diverted from almost every government department to buy food.

Committee chairman of Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party, Claudius Makova, said its investigations showed that the police needed more than 15 000 vehicles but had 1 500. He said the air force needed $2-million to keep planes in the air.

The passport office had earlier said it had a backlog of 300 000 applications but could not produce any because it had no paper or ink. It is resorting to issuing emergency travel documents on plain paper.

Gono said he did not have the foreign currency to pay those urgent bills. He said Zimbabwe needed more than $2,5-billion “to function well” but he did not know where he could find the hard currency.

“If we were talking about local currency, I would say, ‘Don’t worry, in the next 30 minutes we will print money,’” he said, but added that he could not print US dollars or British pounds.

Gono blamed people who had taken over white-owned farms for failing to produce food. “There are some people who have become professional land occupiers, vandalising equipment and moving from one farm to another,” he said."

[Cindy]

Note: The following text is a quote:

https://www.osac.gov/Reports/report.cfm?contentID=65022

you are here: Home > Reports > Consular Affairs Bulletins > Report
Warden Message: Zimbabwe Instability, Political Violence
Consular Affairs Bulletins
Sub-Saharan Africa - Zimbabwe
16 Mar 2007

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Related Reports
12 Jan 2007
Zimbabwe 2007 Crime & Safety Report
11 Oct 2006
Worldwide Caution Public Announcement
U.S. Embassy Harare issued the following Warden Message on March 16, 2007:

This warden message is to warn American citizens in Zimbabwe of the possibility of instability and political violence in coming days. Early next week, a wake and funeral march are planned for Gift Tandare, a member of a political opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), who was killed on Sunday by the Zimbabwean Republic Police (ZRP) following an MDC prayer rally in Highfields. The wake is likely to take place outside Harvest House at the corner of Nelson Mandela and Angwa Streets in Harare. Police presence is expected to be heavy. American citizens should avoid downtown Harare during the funeral march and wake and exercise heightened caution when traveling around town.

Given the sensitivity of these events, there may be increased roadblocks and police presence across Zimbabwe over the weekend, particularly in urban centers. When instructed by police or other security officials to stop at a roadblock, comply with these instructions. Do not stop at any unofficial roadblocks. Avoid visiting high-density or industrial areas and any large gatherings or political rallies. If possible, carry a mobile phone or other means of communication.

For the latest security information, Americans living and traveling abroad should regularly monitor the Department's Bureau of Consular Affairs Internet web site at http://travel.state.gov, where the current Worldwide Cautions, Public Announcements, and Travel Warnings can be found. Up-to-date information on security can also be obtained by calling 1-888-407-4747 toll free in the U.S., or, for callers outside the U.S. and Canada, a regular toll line at 1-202-501-4444. These numbers are available from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time, Monday through Friday (except U.S. federal holidays).

American citizens can register their presence in Zimbabwe via the Internet at http://harare.usembassy.gov or in person at the U.S. Embassy in Harare, located at 172 Herbert Chitepo Avenue (Tel.: 263-4-250-593/4/5). In the event of an after-hours emergency, please call the above number and ask to be transferred to the duty officer.

[Cindy]

Note: The following text is a quote:

https://www.osac.gov/Reports/report.cfm?contentID=65024

you are here: Home > Reports > Consular Affairs Bulletins > Report
Warden Message: Increase Vigilance in Germany
Consular Affairs Bulletins
Europe - Germany
16 Mar 2007

Printer Friendly Email Article
Related Reports
23 Feb 2007
Warden Message: February 24 Downtown Frankfurt Demonstrations
22 Jan 2007
Germany 2007 Crime & Safety Report
28 Nov 2006
Turkish Terror Group's German Offices Raided
6 Nov 2006
EU Clarifies Carry-On Luggage Restrictions
11 Oct 2006
Worldwide Caution Public Announcement
U.S. Embassy Berlin released the following Warden Message on March 16:

In light of the continuing threat of terrorist actions and violence against Americans and U.S. interests overseas, the U.S. Embassy encourages American citizens resident in and visiting Germany to maintain a high level of vigilance and take appropriate steps to bolster their personal security.

The Department of State's October 11, 2006 "Worldwide Caution" Public Announcement, which can be found on the Internet at http://www.travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/pa/pa_1161.html , provides additional information on potential threats to U.S. citizens overseas, along with advice on how to reduce your vulnerability to such threats. Additional general information on residing and traveling abroad, including the latest Consular Information Sheet for Germany, may be found on-line at http://travel.state.gov .

Americans living or traveling in Germany are encouraged to register with the nearest U.S. Embassy of Consulate through the State Department's travel registration website, and to obtain updated information on travel and security within Germany. By registering, American citizens make it easier for the Embassy or Consulate to contact them in case of emergency. Please visit the U.S. Citizen Services section of our website at www.usembassy.de for additional information on travel registration, and for contact information for the U.S. Embassy and Consulates General in Germany.

[Calpernia]

Thoughts?

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1801739/posts
Berlin Residents to Protect Monuments (CT Vets Travel to Join Gathering of Eagles)

[Cindy]

It's good to see a gathering of patriotic citizens.

[Calpernia]

I just wish I was comfortable with who was who.