Wednesday, April 24, 2013

SIx In The Morning

Slick al Qaeda online magazine aims to train a generation of killers


By Erin McClam, Staff Writer, NBC News

It is as slickly designed as any magazine you would find at the supermarket checkout line, or in the seat pocket in front of you on an airplane. It even has snappy cover headlines — teasing articles like “Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom.”

And now Inspire, the recruitment magazine of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, probably has its next cover story: It allegedly helped inspire the two brothers accused of bombing the Boston Marathon.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the hospitalized suspect in the marathon attack, has told federal investigators that the brothers got information on building bombs from Inspire, law enforcement officials told NBC News.






NATO

Kerry urges NATO to deter Syrian chemicals threat


NATO members have been urged to draw up a contingency plan in the event of chemical weapons being used in Syria. US Secretary of State John Kerry made the appeal after fresh allegations of their use surfaced.
Kerry said on Tuesday that NATO should make plans about what it would do if the use of chemical weapons in Syria was proven.
"We should also carefully and collectively consider how NATO is prepared to respond to protect its members from a Syrian threat, including any potential chemical weapons threat," said Kerry, speaking in Brussels at his first NATO summit.



Order Amid Chaos: Syrian City Embodies Absurdity of Civil War

By Christoph Reuter


The city of Zabadani is full of surprises. Rebels have established a city council, a prison and court system, a financial office and even a Facebook page. And their efforts are not unusual: Locally operating rebel governments are springing up across the country, becoming an important new force in the Syrian civil war.

With just one hour to go before daybreak, the city emerges from between the mountain slopes. The sentry gives a hand signal and the rebels' couriers suddenly freeze. All that can be heard is the sound of exhausted breathing and a pebble rolling down the hill. The first man in the group surveys the landscape with night-vision goggles and speaks quietly into his radio set. "Everything quiet?" The answer crackles back that yes, everything's quiet, none of the enemy guards has stirred from their position. The army of dictator Bashar Assad can listen in on their radio communications, but they can't locate the devices. Another hand signal and the rebels gradually continue their descent into the valley, toward Zabadani.


Rising dissent fractures one-party state


April 24, 2013 - 2:43PM

Thomas Fuller



Vietnam's ruling party faces twin perils of stalled economic reform and its inability to open political space to an increasingly well-informed population.


Ho Chi Minh City: His bookshelves are filled with the collected works of Marx, Engels and Ho Chi Minh, the hallmarks of a loyal career in the Communist Party, but Nguyen Phuoc Tuong, 77, says he is no longer a believer. A former adviser to two prime ministers, Mr Tuong, like so many people in Vietnam today, is speaking out forcefully against the government.
"Our system now is the totalitarian rule of one party," he said in an interview at his apartment on the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City. "I come from within the system – I understand all its flaws, all its shortcomings, all its degradation," he said. "If the system is not fixed, it will collapse on its own."
Dissent is flourishing, but at the same time, so is repression. 


Morocco Islamists warn of 'explosion' amongst youth

Sapa-AFP | 24 April, 2013 07:02 Academic Carlyle Thayer



Morocco's main Islamist opposition group said the country is run by a shadow government and warned dire social and economic conditions could cause an "explosion" among disaffected youths.



Fathallah Arsalane, spokesman for Al-Adl Wal-Ihsan (AWI) - or Charity and Justice - told AFP in an interview that his movement aspires to play a political role in Morocco where the group is banned but tolerated.
"We believe in democracy and we believe that we could become a political party but the government does not allow it," said Arsalane.


FBI Most Wanted caught in Nicaragua: What draws US pedophiles to the region?

Stigmatized in the US, some registered sex offenders like Eric Toth decide to move abroad to start fresh in a foreign country – and Central America is becoming a popular spot.

By Tim Rogers, Correspondent / April 23, 2013


After nearly five years of living on the lam, accused pedophile Eric Justin Toth, a 31-year-old former school teacher sought for his alleged production and possession of child pornography inWashington, D.C. and Maryland, was running out of places to hide in the United States.

Mr. Toth, who is described by the FBI as an intelligent and charming individual who mastered the art of blending in wherever he hid, was chased through seven states across the US before finally giving law authorities the shake in 2009. The FBI eventually put Toth on their list of Top 10 Most Wanted Fugitives last year.


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