Expert: Obama's Daughter Will be Kidnapped, Raped if America Attacks Syria

An Iranian strategic expert has warned that one of President Obama's daughters will be kidnapped and raped if America attacks Syria.

Alireza Forghani, also the former governor of southern Iran’s Kish Province, warned of mass abductions and killings of American citizens worldwide in the event the Obama administration launches a military strike in Syria.
"Hopefully Obama will be pigheaded enough to attack Syria, and then we will see the loss of U.S. interests through terrorist attacks," he threatened.
"In just 21 hours after the attack on Syria, a family member of every U.S. minister department secretary, U.S. ambassadors, U.S. military commanders around the world will be abducted.
And then 18 hours later, videos of their amputation will be spread around the world." he said.
The threat comes amid reports today that the U.S has intercepted an order from an Iranian official instructing militants in Iraq to attack U.S. interests in Baghdad if the attack goes ahead.

Claims: The U.S has intercepted an order from an Iranian official instructing militants in Iraq to attack U.S. interests in Baghdad in the event the Obama administration launches a military strike in Syria, it was reported today
The American embassy in Baghdad was a likely target, according to unnamed U.S. officials.
The Journal said the officials did not describe the range of potential targets indicated by the intelligence.
In addition, the State Department issued a warning on Thursday telling U.S. citizens to avoid all but 'essential' travel to Iraq.
President Barack Obama has asked the U.S. Congress to back his plan for limited strikes in response to a chemical weapons attack on civilians that the United States blames on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces.
The Journal reported that the Iranian message was intercepted in recent days and came from the head of the Revolutionary Guards' Qods Force.

Target: The American embassy in Baghdad was a likely target, according to unnamed U.S. officials quoted

Scrutiny: Iraqi security forces stand guard in Baghdad today. In addition, the State Department issued a warning on Thursday telling U.S. citizens to avoid all but 'essential' travel to Iraq
The newspaper said the message went to Iranian-supported Shi'ite militia groups in Iraq.
The Journal reported that the message informed Shi'ite groups to be prepared to respond with force after any U.S. military strike on Syria.
"Travel within Iraq remains dangerous given the security situation," according to the State Department's warning, which replaced an earlier one "to update information on security incidents and to remind U.S. citizens of ongoing security concerns in Iraq, including kidnapping and terrorist violence."
Group photo: Russia's President Vladimir Putin, center front, stands with G-20 leaders during a group photo outside of the Konstantin Palac

Sunshine smiles: President Putin, left, President Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel and PM David Cameron as they pose for the family photo
The department said that numerous insurgent groups, including al Qaeda's Iraq affiliate, remain active and 'terrorist activity and sectarian violence persist in many areas of the country at levels unseen since 2008.'
It added: "The ability of the embassy to respond to situations in which U.S. citizens face difficulty, including arrests, is extremely limited."
The State Department declined immediate comment. The CIA declined comment.
The US and France are so far the only nations attending the G20 to have backed the use of military force against the Assad regime, with Russia and China insisting that any action in the absence of UN Security Council approval would be illegal.
Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta - who also attended this morning's aid meeting - said in a tweet last night that "the G20 has just now finished the dinner session, at which the divisions about Syria were confirmed".

Man on a mission: Obama has expanded a list of targets in Syria as he struggles to gather international support for military action

President Barack Obama, left, listens as Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, speaks during the start of the G-20 Working Session
US frustrations over Russia's stance were reflected in comments by the American envoy to the UN, Samantha Power, who told a New York news conference: "Even in the wake of the flagrant shattering of the international norm against chemical weapons use, Russia continues to hold the (Security) Council hostage and shirk its international responsibilities.
What we have learned, what the Syrian people have learned, is that the Security Council the world needs to deal with this crisis is not the Security Council we have."
The US Government accuses Assad's forces of killing 1,429 people in a poison-gas attack in a suburb of the Syrian capital, Damascus, on August 21.
Britain announced yesterday that scientists at the Porton Down research laboratories have found traces of the nerve gas sarin on cloth and soil samples retrieved from the site of the attack.
Meanwhile, there were signs that Mr Obama may struggle to secure support in Congress for his proposal of "limited and proportionate" military action against Assad.
A poll commissioned by the BBC and ABC News suggested more than one-third of Congress members were undecided whether or not to back military action, while a majority of those who had made a decision said they would vote against the President.
The survey found that 226 members of the House of Representatives said they would oppose or were likely to oppose military action, against 45 who were certain or likely to support it and 189 who were undecided or did not respond.
Some 17 members of the Senate were certain or likely to oppose Mr Obama's plans, against 23 certain or likely to back him and 60 whose position was undecided or unknown.

Naij

Where are the other oligarchs?

We were very pleased two days ago when the news broke that one of Nigeria’s most versatile businesses, Dangote Industries, had received a loan facility amounting to N537 billion for the development of an oil refinery, a petrochemical plant, and a fertilizer plant.
This news should come as a welcome development to anyone who has the interest of this nation at heart; if for anything, because of both the possibilities that these plants pose for our economy, and because of the track record of the group involved.
We are very pleased that Nigeria’s financial system is playing a major role in sourcing the funds for such a huge undertaking, especially given the past history between the Dangote Group and some of our banks.
We must not forget that in 2010, Dangote returned $1.27 billion to a slew of banks following the publication of his name as the owner of a non-performing loan. That singular action did more harm to the economy than good as banks are meant to create money through lending, and soaking them in liquidity would ultimately lead to a crash of the system.
Therein lies a potential banana skin in this deal. Are our banks ready for this kind of huge financing project?
However, we will be doing this bit of happy news a huge disservice if we choose to focus on the possible pitfalls when there are so many positives.
Top of the list of positives for us, and for every Nigerian, would be the fact that the factories will create about 9,500 direct and 25,000 indirect jobs. Given the current rate of unemployment in the country, which according to disputed figures from the National Bureau of Statistics, is as high as 48%, the combined figure of 34,500 people being taken out of the job market is not to be sniffed at.
Of course, with such a large number of people employed, the knock on effects in terms of other dependent jobs that will be generated cannot be over-emphasised, nor can it be counted.
At the same time, with the refining capacity expected to reach 400,000 barrels of crude oil per day and producing a variety of refined fuel products from local crude resources, Nigeria will cut its current volumes of imported fuel products by a massive 50%.
This figure easily rivals the NNPC’s four existing refineries at their current capacity. In addition, the fertilizer factory will essentially bring to a halt the importation of fertilizer in Nigeria. And this will create a massive boon for our agricultural sector, which also happens to be our largest employer of labour.
If the successes in cement and sugar are anything to go by; with Dangote Sugar on one hand already having a 70% share of the Nigerian market, and Dangote Cement, on the other, being the highest capitalised equity on the Nigerian Stock Exchange, then we can say that good times are in front of us.
However, this is also a time to ask questions of the other oligarchs that the government of President Olusegun Obasanjo attempted to create.
Following his astute retirement of politically influential military officers from the Nigerian Army in 1999, Mr Obasanjo set about a reform programme that relied heavily on privatisation of state assets and liberalisation of the economy. Clearly, Mr Obasanjo’s reforms were founded on the philosophy of trickle-down economics, where he saw a situation in which empowering a few people, and making them succeed, would lead them to empower others.
The promise of free market capitalism, it was thought, depended after all on a band of super-capitalists who would transform the economy by creating wealth. This notion, insofar as the Dangote Group is concerned, is on the right track.
However, the question must be asked about the other super-capitalists that were created during the Obasanjo Administration. Where are they? What has happened to the preferential treatment given to certain banks, mobile phone companies, petroleum marketers, and other sundry conglomerates?
The real parting gift by the Obasanjo Administration to Nigerians was a new moneyed class, entrusted with the nation’s industry, and with the potential to take millions out of poverty by creating jobs, by the hundreds of thousands, with the attendant knock-on effects.
So far, only Aliko Dangote, has come anything close to achieving that dream.

NigerianTelegraph

Inside the PDP By Seyi Olu Awofeso

Columnist: 

Guest Columnist

No honesty of purpose once followed PDP’s interpretation of its own party constitution since 1999.
The party’s long-running dishonesty is now the cause of its current crisis - ignited to induce “zoning of the presidential office to the north in 2015” by other means.
Two years ago, northern Nigerian elites had warningly protested PDP ruses they saw trending. “Nothing has taken place in the nation’s political arrangement on the issue of zoning to warrant any shift in the position of the Northern Political Leaders Forum (NPLF). The NPLF therefore wishes to state categorically that it continues to believe in the propriety of its cause, that the 2011 presidency be zoned to the North, until justice is done,” NPLF had said in a communique issued on 15th February, 2011.
But the problem since then has been the rabid mutation of the interpretive meaning of “zoning”.
By creative explications of the term "zoning", quite a few PDP officials have come up with definitions opposite to NPLF's understanding of the zoning clause in PDP's constitution. As it is, "zoning” now means just about anything inside PDP. For example, on November 12, 2012, “zoning” was given an entirely new and astonishing meaning by a federal Senator from President Goodluck Jonathan’s home state of Bayelsa; Senator Nimi Barigha-Amange.
According to him, “At the end of President Jonathan’s tenure, the next people to rule Nigeria should be the Igbo of the south-east. When we say power must shift, why are we restricting it to the North and South? We have six (6) geo-political zones and power must shift from one zone to the other; not from the south to the north. It can never be from the south to the north. When the south-south finishes its tenure, the presidency must then go to the Igbo in the south-east. After the south-east tenure, the presidency can go to the north-east. The Hausa-Fulani states in the north-west should not even think of the presidency until the year 2031.”
By PDP’s own machinations, “zoning” thus becomes a weapon for ethnic fights rather than a benign policy of ethnic peace it was designed for. And now, worse of all, as PDP's interpretive crookedness mutates severally into virulent strands, the tragedy of Nigeria today is silhouetted, as each meretricious interpretation of “zoning” predictably fosters ethnic distrust in Nigeria.
Indeed, following the declaration of PDP's National Working Committee in year 2010 stating that “zoning” means the constitutional right of President Jonathan to contest the 2011 election, and by inference his further right to re-contest a second term in 2015, moreso on the back of a subsequent decision of an Abuja High Court on December 1, 2010, the PDP mutilates a gentleman’s agreement to rotate presidential office between the north and south of Nigeria amongst the zones in either region in turns - as an objective interpretation of “zoning”.
Tellingly, two years ago, ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo, at the time the Chairman of the PDP Board of Trustees gave an even more tortuous and mind-blowing interpretation of the “zoning clause” at article 7.2 [c] of the PDP Constitution, which Justice Lawal Gumi of the Abuja High Court had earlier declared on December 1st, 2010 as “binding on PDP despite that the zoning and rotation clause is not enforceable by a court of law since it falls within the internal affairs of a political party.”
According to President Olusegun Obasanjo’s own publicly-stated interpretation, “Zoning is un-constitutional. It is not part of our national (1999) constitution.”
Till date however, nobody inside the PDP has before or afterwards agreed with Obasanjo’s declaration of Article 7.2 [c] of the PDP Constitution as null and void - not even incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan. Since then though, ex-President Obasanjo has himself not repeated his declaration of the “zoning” clause in the PDP constitution as null and void.
The said article 7.2 [c] says:- “In pursuance of the principles of equity, justice and fairness, the party shall adhere to the policy of rotation and zoning of party and public elective offices, and it shall be enforced by the appropriate executive committee at all levels," but this law was never once obeyed since 1999 - and that's what's now come home to roost as PDP risks implosion from the first transgression sown by two northern presidential candidates who'd ignored PDP's directive not to stand in the party presidential primary in the year 2003.
And now, for the first time in 14 years since monopolizing federal governance of Nigeria, PDP faces internal revolt it never experienced - except perhaps the party’s western split in 1999.
In 1999, the PDP had suddenly lost its entire south-west political leaders when Bola Ige led a walk-out of the party with the walk-away south-west leaders acidly deprecating PDP as “a political party functioning like a military barrack of retired ex-Generals and colonels.”
Last Saturday, 31st August, when 14 years later the PDP faced a similar walk-out but this time from its north-west members; four-fifth of which legislators on the party platform in the House of Representatives in the north-west including all eleven elected PDP members from Sokoto State, plus all legislators from Kano and Adamawa States, and some 46 others - including 11 out of the 13 legislators from Rivers State - it was déjà vu of a sort, although serious enough to weaken the party’s hitherto broad coalition.
For besides this legislative revolt, no fewer than five (5) north-west elected PDP state Governors also issued a similar public statement on 31st August, and went further to appoint a new PDP Chairman, all by themselves - ignoring all party procedures stated in the PDP constitution - requiring prior joint resolution for a national convention by both the party’s National Executive Committee and the National Working Committee.
“They are only trying to create an impression of factions in PDP so that all elected PDP legislators and Governors can then lawfully defect to another party without forfeiting their posts”, a PDP official hissed as he told the media that the dissenting north-west members are malicious in intent, although that was not saying anything new, since one of the five dissenting Governors, Rear Admiral Murtala Nyako of Adamawa State had since last month made clear that their plan is “to help bury the PDP and give it a decent burial.”
Contrastingly, the south-west leaders who’d initially split the PDP in 1999, and almost wholly excluded the party from Yoruba-dominated old western region of Nigeria, announced no similar grand plan “to kill the PDP for a decent burial.” Hence, the initial 1999 south-west fall-out in the PDP, although serious and electorally costly till now, is totally unlike the present revolt from mostly north-west PDP members who seem viscerally bent on killing the PDP - at least, according to their own declaration.
But despite Nigeria’s local media getting ahead of itself, neither the north-west dissenting members nor those others from Rivers, Kogi and Adamawa, have yet announced any immediate plan to quit the PDP. Rather, their stated plan is simply to “kill the PDP, whilst remaining inside it as catalyst.” Their exiting the PDP for a formal alliance with any of the opposing parties is far-fetched, as current facts stand.
Getting serious to kill the PDP as sole objective, the north-west dissenting members have lately taken one more step. They’ve reportedly filed a lawsuit, oddly in a Lagos High Court, asking for judicial declarations that the PDP has split; that factions have arisen, that elected members are free to move into any other party without losing their posts, and that the putative PDP Chairman, Bamanga Tukur holds office illegally for having been previously expelled without undergoing a re-admission process, before his supposed election as current party chairman.
Not done, the north-west PDP dissidents have expressly sought to overthrow the existing PDP leadership and take over the PDP. They have thus asked the Lagos High court to declare their own self-appointed Chairman, Alhaji Kawu Baraje, as the lawful PDP Chairman - notwithstanding anything in the PDP constitution.
Notwithstanding that INEC itself had witnessed the unanimous election of Alhaji Bamanga Tukur as Chairman at PDP’s penultimate national convention, and approved Bamanga Tukur holding that office, the dissident north-west members still want a judicial declaration overriding all of these facts.
They press on regardless of the precedent of Nigerian courts never to interfere with a political party’s internal affairs - which include the admission by waiver of its own party members.
Local Nigerian media are reporting that the dissident north-west members have also separately delivered a 4-point demand to the PDP Board of Trustees Chairman, 80-year-old Chief Anthony Anenih. One of it is a demand that under no circumstances must President Goodluck Jonathan present himself for PDP primary election in 2015, despite last year’s Abuja court order that President Jonathan is legally entitled under the 1999 Constitution, as amended, to present himself.
This particular demand to bar President Jonathan from contesting the 2015 primary election must have sounded to President Jonathan’s cabinet members like an attempted coup, and likely infuriated them to harden their own position by threatening severe punishment for the dissidents who'd made this particular demand.
Perhaps a dis-proportionate reaction, but the demand itself hardly sounds like a negotiation position, to be sure, because short of asking for Jonathan’s head there’s hardly any benefit in the demand of self-ban to induce President Jonathan’s voluntary acceptance. To the contrary, this self-ban demand grates President Jonathan’s long-stated position.
Since 13th June last year, Ahmed Gulak, a political adviser to President Jonathan had said, “God has given us President Goodluck Jonathan in Nigeria. He is the President of Nigeria today. He is not going to stay in office as President for more than eight (8) years. Nigeria belongs to us all and not to any individual.”
But partly because “The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is an agglomeration of interest groups formed around persons of prominence and power, which are loosely tied together by a desire to remain in office and maintain access to the “national cake” or resources of the Nigerian state,” according to the United States Embassy Charge d’ affaires, Ms. Lisa Piascik, who'd issued this descriptive statement on October 19, 2007, the concept of “zoning” in the PDP Constitution has continually been observed in breach, and usually invoked contradictorily, even by its stalwart defenders.
For instance, earlier this year, on 17th January, 2013, the Adamawa State Governor, Rear Admiral Murtala Nyako, whilst refusing to abide the argument that “zoning” precludes a state governor of PDP and a PDP Chairman from emerging from the same senatorial zone, had said, “There is no provision in the Constitution of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) that says the governor of a state must not come from the same zone with the party chairman. The zoning system in Nigeria is only valid to nominate officials for appointments; not for elective offices. The idea of zoning is a PDP arrangement - which is not above the Constitution or the laws of Nigeria. Zoning is for appointive and not for elected offices.”
With “zoning” being disparately interpreted by each PDP official, the party is now unlikely to ever agree on what “zoning” means; to enable it answer the second question of whose interpretation of “zoning” will then bind the party - especially given that Justice Lawal Gumi who’d pronounced “zoning” as binding on PDP, had also rightly recused himself from declaring what “zoning” and “rotation” mean under article 7.2 [c] of the PDP constitution.
“PDP’s laws keep changing at night,” a diplomat said.
…………………………….Seyi Olu Awofeso is a Legal Practitioner in Abuja
 

Saharareporters

Top House Republican Rewrites History, Claims Reagan Stood Up To Chemical Weapons Use

By Hayes Brown

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL)

CREDIT: The Washington Post

A top Republican lawmaker on Thursday invoked Ronald Reagan to say that Obama was weak for not acting more directly in response to Syria’s alleged use of chemical weapons, ignoring the fact that Reagan’s White House looked the other way when chemical weapons were used in the 1980s.
Former House Foreign Affairs Committee chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) appeared on Fox News arguing for a military response to the Syrian government’s alleged use of chemical weapons on civilians. While pushing the same limited strikes plan that the Obama administration wants, Ros-Leithein attacked the president for not moving more forcefully against Damascus. In doing so, she told Fox that Reagan never would have stood for the sort of attack that killed an estimated 1,400 civilians:

ROS-LEHTINEN: It is against the norms of international standards and to let something like this go unanswered, I think will weaken our resolve. I — I know that President Reagan would have never let this happen. He would stand up to this. And President Obama — the only reason he is consulting with Congress, he wants to blame somebody for his lack of resolve. We have to think like President Reagan would do and he would say chemical use is unacceptable.

What Ros-Lehtinen seems oddly unaware of, however, is that Ronald Reagan did exactly the opposite. For the majority of the 1980s, Iraq under Sadaam Hussein was locked in combat with the Islamic Republic of Iran in a war that killed more than 1,000,000 people on both sides. The United States explicitly backed the secular Hussein over the Ayatollah Khomeini’s government in Tehran, still smarting from the embassy hostage crisis that had only ended when Reagan took office. That backing not only included the shipment of tons of weapons to support Baghdad, but also looking the other way when Iraq unleashed its chemical weapons stockpiles — including sarin and mustard gas — against Iranian civilians and soldiers alike.
Recently declassified documents from that time indicate that not only did the U.S. government know that Hussein possessed these weapons, but “conveyed the location of the Iranian troops to Iraq, fully aware that Hussein’s military would attack with chemical weapons, including sarin.” President Reagan also remained silent during the Al-Anfal campaign, in which Hussein used poison gas against the Kurdish population in Northern Iraq to put down a revolt against his rule. In what has later been called a genocide, more than 100,000 men, women, and children were killed, nearly 100 times more than the attack that took place outside of Damascus last month.

TP

The West Indian Day Parade 2013

Glitter, jerk chicken and dancehall music took over Brooklyn on Monday – Labor Day -   during the West Indian American Day Carnival, better known as the West Indian Day Parade.  People flocked from all over the world to view the elaborate costumes, eat authentic Caribbean food, and celebrate West Indian heritage.  Eastern Parkway, a street in New York City’s Crown Heights Brooklyn neighborhood,  was packed with dancers,  fancy floats and of course, the police –  a plethora of police officers to be exact, who in the past have had a strong presence at the parade because of high reports of violent activity. SaharaTV captured footage of the event. Stayed tuned for the clip coming up soon. In the meantime check out these vibrant photos!
 

Black & Jewish: 11 Celebrities You May Not Have Known Were Jews

Black Jewish Celebrities, Black And Jewish Celebrities, Lenny Kravitz, Rosh Hashanah 2013, Sammy Davis Jr., Black And Jewish, Black-Jews, Drake, Rosh Hashanah, Black Voices News

Lenny Kravitz, Sammy Davis Jr. and Drake--oy! Not only have these three entertainers broken hearts and topped the charts, they're also part of God's chosen people.
We're in the midst of the High Holy Days, a celebration of the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah. The two-day celebration is believed to be the anniversary of the creation of the first man and woman, Adam and Eve, with customs that include eating apples dipped in honey to commemorate a "sweet new year."
In honor of Rosh Hashanah, The Huffington Post has compiled a list of 11 black celebrities you may not have known had Jewish lineage or practiced Judaism. From musicians, to actors to NBA ballers, check out these stars who are all people of The Good Book.

Getty

These Trees Eat Things. Seriously.

HuffingtonPost

We may try to control it, but nature really can't be tamed.
Case in point -- these hungry, hungry trees munching on everything from signs, to cars to entire buildings.



Most of these photos were collected from an amazing Reddit page called TreesSuckingOnThings, and apparently, there are quite a few trees out there waging mini-battles to reclaim their land. The devouring of these objects could be considered a form of accidental arborsculpture, where trees are forced to grow in certain patterns through pruning, grafting or manipulation.
Basically, put anything from a bicycle to a pruning shears in the way of a tree, and over time, it'll just grow around it.



Take a look at more photos of these incredible plants below, and tweet us @HuffPostGreen if you have any shots of hungry trees near you.