Tunisia ( Tunisians riot over economy leaving one dead )

TUNIS: Riots over Tunisia’s economy flared overnight in towns around the country, leaving one dead and posing an immediate challenge to the new prime minister and the country’s path to democracy.



Crowds protested late Friday outside the government finance buildings in the low-income neighborhood of Ettaddamon over new taxes levied by the outgoing government described as necessary to fill yawning holes in the country’s budget.
The tax hikes were hastily suspended by the outgoing prime minister, but the decision failed to calm angry crowds and casts doubt on future government efforts to rein in spending and raise revenues.
Police reported that local criminals took advantage and began looting stores and clashing with authorities. They were dispersed with tear gas, Interior Ministry spokesman Mohamed Ali Aroui said Saturday.
Nearly 50 people were arrested in clashes in suburbs of Tunis, Aroui said.
In another clash, one young protester was killed and a police officer was injured in the town of Bouchebka on the Algerian border, Aroui said. He said an investigation is under way into what happened.
The latest riots came hours after a new caretaker prime minister, Mehdi Jomaa, was charged with forming a technocratic Cabinet to guide the country to new elections.
“I will do everything in my power to confront the challenges, overcome the obstacles and restore stability and security to Tunisia,” the new prime minister told reporters after the swearing-in.
After the economy shrank 2 percent in 2011, growth returned at 2.7 percent in 2013, but that is far below the level needed to create jobs. Unemployment hovers at 17 percent.

Nasa Picture ( The " Hand of God " or nebula )

While science can explain how the nebula is formed, it is not able to explain why it is shaped like a hand. Many just see the photos as a coincidence, while others see them as proof that God exists.
The photos have caused several religious debates, but regardless of whether you think the images are an illusion or divine, they are no doubt spectacular and a demonstration of how far science and technology have come.
What do you think of these amazing photos and do you believe the image really could be the hand of God?

India ( India's government says there's no standoff with the US over the arrest )

NEW DELHI: India's government says there's no standoff with the US over the arrest and strip search of an Indian diplomat in New York, appearing eager to defuse a controversy that has threatened bilateral ties.


After meeting with Devyani Khobragade, India's deputy consul general in New York, following her return to New Delhi, Indian External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid downplayed tensions with the US
He said the two countries would sort their issues.
Khobragade was indicted by a US federal grand jury on accusations that she exploited her Indian-born housekeeper and nanny, allegedly having her work more than 100 hours a week for low pay and lying about it on a visa form. She denies the charge.
She was allowed to return home in an apparent compromise with India.

Mexico ( No not " Mexican Jihad's " the Self - defense group )

On drug trafficking and paramilitary called or self-defense, the newspaper notes that "there are strong similarities between the process that takes place in Mexico and Colombia which he lived, to the point that in the Mexican press is mentioned occasionally 'colombianization' of that country. "


However, the official position of Weather highlights the differences between the paramilitary phenomenon who lived in Colombia and Mexico AUC.


Read more: http://www.elblogdelnarco.net/ # ixzz2q34Pvylj
Follow us: @ MundoNarco on Twitter

Saudi Arabia ( Saudi youth robbed an " Asian Expat " impersonating as a security guard )

A Saudi youth in a police uniform was caught red-handed by the Riyadh Police as he robbed an Asian expatriate of his money.
According to a police report released on Friday, the youth in his twenties impersonating a security officer intimidated a newly arrived expatriate and snatched his money.


An official said that a police patrol in the vicinity of the industrial area west of the capital in Oreija district spotted an expatriate and a uniformed youth involved in a scuffle on the road. On seeing the police, the uniformed Saudi youth fled from the scene in his car.
The police car relayed a radio message to its check points to apprehend the fleeing youth. “He was arrested within hours at a nearby township in Azizia district,” the official said.
The Asian expatriate filed a complaint to the police saying that the conman had forced him to part with SR1,000.
The Saudi youth confessed that his police uniform was bought from a security agency which supplies uniforms. At the time of his arrest, he had in his possession a fake walkie-talkie, a toy pistol and handcuffs, all bought from a toy shop in the city. He also had the stolen money in his pocket.
Investigations revealed that he was an unemployed Saudi youth not connected with any government organization or security company.
The suspect was handed over to the Azizia police and will be produced before the court on completion of further inquiries.

United States ( American " Jihad's " return from Syria ) See story

  

The senior officials said that more than 50 "U.S. persons" -- a designation that covers both natural-born and naturalized citizens as well as those who have lived in the U.S. -- have returned here after battling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime in the Middle Eastern nation's bloody civil war. One of the senior counter-terrorism officials went further, saying the actual number of returning U.S. fighters from Syria is classified but is "much higher" than 50.
Not all of those who have returned are considered "jihadis" who adhere to the anti-U.S. violent ideology espoused by the late al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, but many are suspected of such sympathies, officials say.

Al Qaeda-aligned jihadi commanders in Syria screen new American arrivals in the ranks of foreign fighters to recruit those with clean passports who have the capability to conduct future operations against the West, two national security officials told ABC News.
One of the officials compared that process of selection to how the U.S. military screens raw recruits for Special Operations Forces qualification courses.
FBI Director James Comey said Thursday the threat is one of his "greatest concerns."
"My concern is that people can go to Syria, develop new relationships, learn new techniques and become far more dangerous, and then flow back," Comey told reporters.
Previous estimates put the number of Americans in the Syrian conflict at 16, but researcher Aaron Zelin at the Washington Institute for Near-East Policy in a report last month said as many as 60 from the U.S. may have fought among an estimated 11,000 foreign militants in Syria.
Only one American, Muslim convert Nicole Lynn Mansfield, 33, is known to have been killed in the Syrian war, though her daughter has insisted her mother was not a terrorist. Mansfield participated in protests against Israel in Michigan before joining combatants in Syria.
Several other reports of Americans killed in Syria fighting with al Qaeda-linked resistance groups have not been verified by the FBI, a spokeswoman told ABC News last week.

One "martyrdom" video supposedly featuring threats against his homeland by an alleged American killed with an al Qaeda group, "Abu Dujana al-Amriki," is considered a likely hoax by the Assad regime, which has capitalized on U.S. jihadis joining Salafist extremists.

Counter-terrorism officials in the United Kingdom and other Western European countries also have privately discussed with their American counterparts their difficulty in identifying citizens or residents of their nations who have slipped into Syria.

It is the easiest war zone for foreign fighters to reach since the Russians faced the insurgency in Afghanistan three decades ago, officials say, which makes tracing the volunteers' travel highly challenging if they're not already on watch lists.

Groups of foreign fighters -- many hardcore Islamist jihadis -- slip into Syria by the hundreds every month through Turkey. They often meet in places such as nearby Bulgaria and make their way there, often by car, said one senior U.S. official.

Kenya ( Kenya’s military has killed more than 30 Al-Shabab militants )

NAIROBI: Kenya’s military has killed more than 30 Al-Shabab militants, including commanders, a spokesman said, in its first major barrage of airstrikes in Somalia since the retaliation for the militants’ attack on a Nairobi shopping mall.


Kenyan fighter jets hit a camp at Garbarahey in the Gedo region on Thursday evening, where the militants, who profess links to Al-Qaeda, were holding a meeting, the military said.
Al Shabab has been weakened by African Union troops over the past two years, ushering in some stability in many parts of the Horn of Africa country after a campaign of cross-border raids and kidnappings of Westerners and security forces.
However, the rebels, who have waged a seven-year insurgency seeking to impose a strict interpretation of sharia law in Somalia, stunned the world in September when they attacked an upscale shopping mall in Nairobi, killing at least 67 people.
Thursday’s air raids were the first since October, when Kenyan warplanes bombed targets held by the militants in reprisal for the attack on the mall..
“There are remnants of Al-Shabab that are still trying to draw back the gains that have been made (against them),” Kenyan military spokesman Col. Cyrus Oguna told Reuters on Friday.
“Those remnants are the ones we are focusing on now.”
Despite more than two years of attacks on Al-Shabab positions by Kenyan and other east African troops, there is no clear picture of how many are involved in the movement or whether its numbers have been eroded by the intervention.
After October’s raid, the Kenya Defense Forces said it destroyed a training camp, killing or wounding many of the more than 300 fighters there.
The militants, who said they attacked the shopping center because of Kenya’s intervention in Somalia, denied there had been any attack then and was not immediately available to comment on Friday.
It was not immediately clear what, if anything other than opportunity, had triggered Thursday’s raids.
Residents in Gedo, however, said Al-Shabab has been regrouping its fighters in the area over the past days.