Δευτέρα 22 Σεπτεμβρίου 2014

Sheikh Abubakar Shekau, leader of the Boko Haram sect, has reportedly been killed in a battle with the military in Konduga, a border town between Nigeria and Cameroon.

https://news.vice.com/article/boko-haram-leader-abubakar-shekau-reported-killed-again-this-time-by-cameroons-army
By Senator Iroegbu with Agency Report

Nigerian security agencies are reviewing information that Abubakar Shekau, the leader of the Boko Haram Islamist militant group, may have been killed in a battle with the military, a person familiar with the investigation was quoted as saying by Bloomberg at the weekend.

Shekau may have been killed in the fighting near Konduga in Borno State, according to a security official who asked not to be identified because an official statement had not been made by the government.

The Nigerian armed forces last week said in a Twitter posting that over 60 Boko Haram militants had been killed and a senior Boko Haram leader had been captured in the battle at Konduga, a strategic town 40 kilometres away from Maiduguri, the Borno State capital.

The leader, who wasn't identified by the armed forces, was being treated at a military hospital, the statement added.

The military last year said Shekau might have been killed in a June 30 battle. But he later appeared in a video sent to reporters as proof that he was still alive.
However, there appeared to be confusion among intelligence and military sources as to whether the person killed or captured in Konduga last week was Shekau or an imposter, as some sources were very emphatic that a body double, claiming to be the sect's leader, had been appearing in Boko Haram propaganda videos for months.

When contacted on the issue, security sources confirmed that they were indeed trying to verify if Shekau or his impostor was either killed or captured in Konduga.
According to an intelligence source who spoke to THISDAY, the Boko Haram commander, who was reported to have been captured during the Konduga battle last Wednesday is suspected to be the person impersonating or acting as a body double for the terrorist leader.

THISDAY findings further revealed that the military and other intelligence agencies were still reviewing the information but would not make any official statement until they were 100 per cent certain that the commander, who shares similar features with Shekau was actually the Boko Haram leader or his double.
"We believe it may be the man acting as Shekau but we are not emphatic yet. The armoured personnel carrier that was captured during the Konduga battle was simply too similar to the one he uses in his video propaganda and the features are strikingly similar as well.

"The intelligence agencies are still studying his pictures and recordings and we are not in a hurry to make this official until we are very certain," the source said.
Speaking to THISDAY, another top military officer explained that the security and intelligence agencies were "being very cautious this time around because of the previous mistake".

"You know the issue of whether Abubabakar Shekau is dead or alive is still very much contentious, even though we believe that he was killed last year and what you are seeing right now are various impostors acting in his name. There were similar cases during the Second World War when Adolf Hitler had many doubles. The same applied to Saddam Hussein of Iraq when he was alive," the source explained.
Another source at Defence Headquarters (DHQ) said: "Still in the process of confirming that the person we have is the same as that character who has been posing as Shekau. He is definitely a very prominent terrorist commander. I don't want to say anything official on this yet please."

He however volunteered that the person who was captured last week held considerable sway in the sect's foot soldiers, as many of them were forced to flee to safe havens across the border in Cameroun in recent days.

This was confirmed by another military source who revealed that there had been fierce fighting between Boko Haram terrorists and Camerounian forces over the control of the key boundary town of Kirawa.

According to the source, the terrorists who escaped from the Konduga onslaught were chased by the military across the Camerounian border only to encounter another battle in the Central African country.

The source explained that Kirawa is the border town that transverses Nigeria and Cameroun, and was the same town into which close to a battalion of Nigerian soldiers escaped to last month in what DHQ described as a "tactical manoeuvre".
"Since Thursday night, there has been fierce fighting between Boko Haram and the Camerounian military in Kirawa," he said.

Kirawa is considered unique because it is a border town that cuts across the two countries and has boundaries that are blurred, making it very easy for its inhabitants to cross from one country to the other unimpeded.

"This was what happened to our troops who in pursuit of the terrorists suddenly found themselves on the Camerounian side," the source explained.
Meanwhile, THISDAY has learnt that the recent onslaught by the Nigerian Armed Forces is yielding results, as some members of Boko Haram were said to have surrendered and handed their weapons to the military following the defeat of the sect in Konduga and other parts of the North-east.

THIS DAY, 22 SEPTEMBER 2014

Nigerian security agencies are reviewing information that Abubakar Shekau, the leader of the Boko Haram Islamist militant group, may have been killed in a battle with the military, ... read more »

Photo: Cameroon Army/Facebook

A photo of Shekau from the Cameroonian army's Facebook page. The image is no longer available on the page.

Sheikh Abubakar Shekau, leader of the Boko Haram sect, has reportedly been killed in a battle with the military in Konduga, a border town between Nigeria and Cameroon.

by Isi Esene

The Cameroonian military has released photos of a man believed to be the Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau.

According to a news website, Cameroon Concord, the man who parades himself as Abubakar Shekau was killed during a cross border raid inside Nigeria.

Here’s what they had to say about it.

In a rare public show by the Cameroonian Army, photos of the Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau were made public alongside a statement claiming he was killed during a cross border raid deep inside Nigeria by the Cameroon military.

A Cameroonian military source who spoke to Cameroon Concord late last night, revealed that Abubakar Shekau was killed following an aerial bombardment of his hideout inside Nigeria.

The Cameroon army has ever since yesterday been in serious combat against thousands of Boko Haram fighters trying to enter Cameroon via Fotokol from Gambaral Ngala in Nigeria.

Meanwhile, the Nigerian military also claims to have killed the same man during a fight in Konduga, Borno State.

According to a military source, “It is getting more certain that the terrorist’s commander, who has been mimicking Shekau in previous videos, is the one killed at Konduga, on September 17th, as massive relocation of terrorists to seek safe haven in independent locations in Cameroon has been noticed.”

This will not be the first time that Shekau has “been killed”. Officials first believed he had been killed in clashes between the military and Boko Haram militants in 2009. The massive security crackdown followed the July 2009 Boko Haram attacks on police stations in Borno state. Shortly after the attacks, the military succeeded in storming the group’s mosque and school complex in Maiduguri, and capturing Mohammed Yusuf, the group’s then charismatic leader.

However, in a videotaped interview in 2010, which proved that he was still alive, Shekau said he had been shot in the thigh during the fighting with security troops but was rescued by “fellow believers and protected by Allah”.

Two years ago, security officials again thought they had killed him. But he re-emerged shortly after in a video mocking the attempts on his life and threatening the Nigerian state.

NASA’s Newest Mars Mission Spacecraft Enters Orbit around Red Planet

Members of the mission team at the Lockheed Martin Mission Support Area in Littleton, Colorado, celebrate after successfully inserting NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft into orbit around Mars at 10:24 p.m. EDT Sunday, Sept. 21.

Image Credit:

Lockheed Martin

NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft successfully entered Mars’ orbit at 10:24 p.m. EDT Sunday, Sept. 21, where it now will prepare to study the Red Planet’s upper atmosphere as never done before. MAVEN is the first spacecraft dedicated to exploring the tenuous upper atmosphere of Mars.

“As the first orbiter dedicated to studying Mars’ upper atmosphere, MAVEN will greatly improve our understanding of the history of the Martian atmosphere, how the climate has changed over time, and how that has influenced the evolution of the surface and the potential habitability of the planet,” said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. “It also will better inform a future mission to send humans to the Red Planet in the 2030s.”

After a 10-month journey, confirmation of successful orbit insertion was received from MAVEN data observed at the Lockheed Martin operations center in Littleton, Colorado, as well as from tracking data monitored at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) navigation facility in Pasadena, California. The telemetry and tracking data were received by NASA’s Deep Space Network antenna station in Canberra, Australia.

“NASA has a long history of scientific discovery at Mars and the safe arrival of MAVEN opens another chapter,” said John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator of the NASA Science Mission Directorate at the agency’s Headquarters in Washington. “Maven will complement NASA’s other Martian robotic explorers—and those of our partners around the globe—to answer some fundamental questions about Mars and life beyond Earth.”

Following orbit insertion, MAVEN will begin a six-week commissioning phase that includes maneuvering into its final science orbit and testing the instruments and science-mapping commands. MAVEN then will begin its one Earth-year primary mission, taking measurements of the composition, structure and escape of gases in Mars’ upper atmosphere and its interaction with the sun and solar wind.

"It's taken 11 years from the original concept for MAVEN to now having a spacecraft in orbit at Mars,” said Bruce Jakosky, MAVEN principal investigator with the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado, Boulder (CU/LASP). “I'm delighted to be here safely and successfully, and looking forward to starting our science mission."

The primary mission includes five “deep-dip” campaigns, in which MAVEN’s periapsis, or lowest orbit altitude, will be lowered from 93 miles (150 kilometers) to about 77 miles (125 kilometers). These measurements will provide information down to where the upper and lower atmospheres meet, giving scientists a full profile of the upper tier.

“This was a very big day for MAVEN,” said David Mitchell, MAVEN project manager from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland. “We’re very excited to join the constellation of spacecraft in orbit at Mars and on the surface of the Red Planet. The commissioning phase will keep the operations team busy for the next six weeks, and then we’ll begin, at last, the science phase of the mission. Congratulations to the team for a job well done today.”

MAVEN launched Nov. 18, 2013, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, carrying three instrument packages. The Particles and Fields Package, built by the University of California at Berkeley with support from CU/LASP and Goddard contains six instruments that will characterize the solar wind and the ionosphere of the planet. The Remote Sensing Package, built by CU/LASP, will identify characteristics present throughout the upper atmosphere and ionosphere. The Neutral Gas and Ion Mass Spectrometer, provided by Goddard, will measure the composition and isotopes of atomic particles.

MAVEN's principal investigator is based at CU/LASP. The university provided two science instruments and leads science operations, as well as education and public outreach, for the mission. The University of California at Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory also provided four science instruments for the mission. Goddard manages the MAVEN project. Lockheed Martin built the spacecraft and is responsible for mission operations. JPL provides navigation and Deep Space Network support, as well as Electra telecommunications relay hardware and operations.

For more about the mission, refer to:

http://www.nasa.gov/maven

Σάββατο 20 Σεπτεμβρίου 2014

Leyre Valiente Spring/Summer 2015 | Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Madrid | ...

Energy driver BJ Baldwin.

Επειδη εχουμε και το dakar σε 3 μηνες και απο αυριο μεθαυριο αρχιζη και το baja ενα μικρο αφιερωμα σε αυτον τον πολυ μεγαλο οδηγο,και ευχομεθα τα καλυτερα!

Trophy Truck Madness: Recoil 2: The Recoil . . . ing

September 17, 2014 at 5:56 pm by James Tate | Photography by YouTube/Monster Energy

As if you needed further proof of how obscenely cool Trophy Trucks are, here comes the latest video from Monster Energy driver BJ Baldwin.

In “Recoil 2,” Baldwin’s 800-hp Chevrolet Silverado Trophy Truck cuts a swath through Ensenada, Mexico—home of the Baja 1000—as he sets out to get from the mountains outside of town to the beach in less than 20 minutes. The route chosen conveniently allows for Baldwin to pull 360s through flaming tunnels and to jump everything in sight.

Please excuse us. We have to go scour classifieds for old pickups and crate engines right now.

Δευτέρα 15 Σεπτεμβρίου 2014

ΣΥΝΑΝΤΗΣΗ BARACK OBAMA ΜΕ ΤΟΥΣ ΘΡΗΣΚΕΥΤΙΚΟΥΣ ΗΓΕΤΕΣ ΤΗΣ ΜΕΣΗΣ ΑΝΑΤΟΛΗΣ ΣΤΟΝ ΛΕΥΚΟ ΟΙΚΟ 11-9-2014

ΑΓΝΩΣΤΟ ΤΙ ΣΥΖΗΤΗΘΗΚΕ ΣΤΗΝ ΣΥΝΑΝΤΗΣΗ ΠΟΥ ΕΙΧΑΝ ΣΤΟ ΣΥΜΒΟΥΛΕΙΟ ΕΘΝΙΚΗΣ ΑΣΦΑΛΕΙΑΣ ΣΤΟΝ ΛΕΥΚΟ ΟΙΚΟ ΜΕ ΤΟΥΣ ΘΡΗΣΚΕΥΤΙΚΟΥΣ ΗΓΕΤΕΣ ΤΗΣ ΜΕΣΗΣ ΑΝΑΤΟΛΗΣ ΚΑΙ ΤΟΝ ΠΡΟΕΔΡΟ BARACK OBAMA

President Barack Obama drops a meeting held by National Security Advisor Susan E. Rice with Lebanese Maronite Patriarch Bechara Rai and Christian Religious Leaders of the Middle East in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Sept. 11, 2014. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

A trio of storms 15/9/2014

Hurricane Odile made landfall at 04:45 (UTC) on the Baja California peninsula in Mexico. It is the most powerful storm in decades to strike the area. Latest information and warnings are available atwww.hurricanes.gov. It is one of three active tropical cyclones in this composite image, comprising of infra red data from the Geostationary satellites of EUMETSAT, NOAA and the JMA and captured at 09:00 (UTC) on Monday 15 September 2014.

Typhoon Kalmaegi is regaining strength over the sea after bringing heavy rain and high wind to the Philippines - latest information on forecast track can be found on the JMA web site.

Hurricane Edouard is expected to strengthen in the Atlantic over the next couple of days, but remains far from land.

The Discovery of Mexico's First Coca Plantation Could Upend the Cocaine

The Discovery of Mexico's First Coca Plantation Could Upend the Cocaine

Last week marked a troubling first in the long and sordid history of the Mexican drug world. There was no bloodshed, corruption, torture, or any of the grisly hallmarks of the country's ongoing narco war. There was only a plant, or rather many plants — a field of small shrubs with green oval-shaped leaves and bright red berries. For the first time ever in Mexico, the authorities discovered a coca plantation.

Until now, coca — the raw plant material used to manufacture cocaine — has been grown almost exclusively in the Andes. But there is virtually nothing to stop Mexican drug cartels from cultivating the plant domestically, and experts say it's actually surprising that it has taken this long for the crop to migrate north from South America. Now that the shift has seemingly begun, the consequences could be profound.

The coca crop in Mexico was located in Chiapas state in the southwest corner of the country, not far from the border with Guatemala. According to the Mexican newspaper Reforma, 1,639 plants were found on approximately 1,250 square meters of land (about one-third of an acre) near the tiny municipality of Tuxtla Chico. The crops were destroyed by the Mexican military and border police, and three suspects were detained at a nearby residence where unprocessed coca leaves were also found.

Both the UN Office on Drugs and Crime and a Mexican military commander confirmed to the Associated Press that the discovery of coca crops was a first for Mexico. But that's not to say the find comes as any sort of shock. Sanho Tree, director of the Drug Policy Project and a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, says conditions in Mexico have long been ripe for coca production.

"My only question is why it took so long," Tree told VICE News. "It's got cheap labor, remote land, and good climate. Add corruption, crushing poverty, and poor infrastructure for other types of commerce and you've got a perfect storm."

The Mexican crop was actually quite small by South American standards. It takes between 450 and 600 kilograms of coca leaves to produce one kilogram of cocaine, depending on the variety of coca that is being used, so the patch discovered in Mexico would hardly be enough to manufacture any significant quantity of finished product. But its mere existence shows that the country's drug cartels are working to cut out the Colombian middlemen who supply them with what is perhaps their most lucrative product.

The Mexican military destroys piles of cut coca plants. Photo by Edgar Moreno

Put in pure business terms, Mexican cartels are vertically integrated around most other commodities they distribute. They grow pot and poppies — mostly in the so-called Golden Triangle region of the Sierra Madre Occidental mountains in the states of Sinaloa, Chihuahua, and Durango — and produce meth by the ton in domestic labs stocked with chemicals from Asia. Cocaine is only a part of their business because the lengthy border with the United States is the most efficient way to bring to market goods produced in Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia by other criminal organizations. Mexico's cocaine trade didn't truly flourish until a US crackdown on Colombian cartels and their smuggling routes through the Caribbean redirected the flow of the product from sea to land and enabled Mexican organized crime to assert its dominance over much of the supply chain.

Once mere couriers for the Colombian cartels and now the wholesalers, Mexico's drug gangs seem to have turned their ambitions to the biggest prize of all.

"We can assume that some groups of Mexican drug traffickers are trying to see if they can develop coca cultivations in different territories than the traditional ones, so they can dominate the only rung on the cocaine production ladder that they still don't dominate, which is the cultivation end," Antonio Mazzitelli, a representative of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime in Mexico and Central America, told VICE News.

Jeremy McDermott, co-director of InSight Crime, an independent research group that tracks organized crime in Latin America, told VICE News that the recent discovery seems to reflect recent trends in the underworld. As Colombia's mafias have increased cocaine distribution to Europe and burgeoning domestic markets in Brazil and Argentina, the finite supply of the drug and growing demand has forced the Mexican narcos to seek out new sources. McDermott cited the case of suspected Sinaloa Cartel members who were caught recently in Peru and linked to a seizure of nearly eight tons of cocaine.

"It's clear the Mexicans are keen to get their hands on more product," McDermott said. "It would be a game-changer if — and it's a very big if — the Mexicans were able to produce their own coca and therefore their own cocaine."

200 varieties of coca plant, but only 17 lend themselves to cocaine production and just four are commonly cultivated. Like any other plant, coca grows differently depending on climate, altitude, soil, and other factors. Coca grown on the slopes of the Andes generally contains more cocaine alkaloids (the chemical compound that delivers the buzz) than the stuff from low-lying areas.

Coca has grown for thousands of years in the Andes and is still an important part of the culture there. Cocaine wasn't discovered until 1859, and the ensuing medicinal and recreational demand spawned plantations around the globe. In the early 1900s, Dutch-controlled Indonesia briefly surpassed Peru as the world's leading coca supplier. Tree said the plant was also grown in Sri Lanka, Japan, and even Hawaii. Today, virtually all of the world's cocaine originates in the Andean nations. But it doesn't necessarily have to be that way.

"Any Colombian peasant coca farmer can be brought in to show Mexicans how to grow it," Tree said. "Even videos would work. Then it's just a matter of fine-tuning the adaptation to local soil and climate conditions. I suspect this may have been a test plot or trial run, but that's speculative. They might even innovate new efficiencies. It makes sense for traffickers to spread cultivation to Mexico. Coca isn't as recognizable as cannabis or poppy — it looks like a generic bush or ficus."

Prior to the rise of Pablo Escobar and his Medellín Cartel in the 1980s, coca was actually not common in Colombia. It was introduced as a way to streamline the cocaine supply chain, and it changed everything. The struggle for control of the remote coca plantations and clandestine jungle laboratories that process the leaves into powder spawned paramilitary groups, warring drug gangs, and a decades-long conflict that has only recently simmered down. It's impossible to predict whether the introduction of coca to Mexico would have the same destabilizing effect.

McDermott explained that it has taken years of tinkering to optimize the plant for the tropical Colombian climate, and recent advances have allowed Colombian farmers to increase their yield from two or three crops per year to five or six with an alkaloid content higher than before.

"The Colombians have been playing with the coca, crossbreeding it with Peruvian strains," McDermott said. "I would be interested to see if the Mexicans are doing the same thing and have found a strain that takes to the conditions in Chiapas."

One of the coca plants — known for their distinctive red berries. Photo by Edgar Moreno

Chiapas is generally regarded as territory of Los Zetas, a gang known more for savagery - they acted as the enforcement wing of the Gulf Cartel before breaking with their former employers in 2010 - than agricultural ingenuity. They have also been weakened by the loss of top leaders and a prolonged campaign against them by the Mexican government and rival cartels.

"I don't know if the Zetas have the know-how to be able to crossbreed strains," McDermott said. "This would not be something that would not be done by some knuckle-dragging thug. This would have an agronomist involved."

Nevertheless, as a gang founded by deserters from the Mexican army, the Zetas are renowned for their efficiency and technical expertise. They also have an extraordinary international reach,so procuring a helping hand from producers in Colombia or elsewhere would not prove too troublesome.

Mexican cartels already have the knowledge and resources to process the dried coca leaves into cocaine. According to a 2013 report from the intelligence company Stratfor, the cartels run processing facilities in Honduras and Guatemala that turn coca paste smuggled from Peru, Colombia, and Bolivia into finished product. The refining of coca paste was previously the domain of Colombians, but police there have reportedly cracked down on the labs and restricted the availability of the requisite precursor chemicals. Even with the crackdown, the Department of Justice still estimates that 95.5 percent of cocaine seized in the US originates in Colombian labs.

Tree made the point that aerial eradication of coca crops by the Colombian government, paid for by more than $5 billion in US taxpayer money through the Plan Colombia program, has done virtually nothing beyond spur an increase of coca production in Peru. The enormous profits generated by the drug trade — Mexican cartels buy kilos of coke wholesale for around $2,000 in South America and sell them for $24,000 or more in the United States — means that there will always be a will and a way to manufacture the drug.

"Forced eradication is an exercise in futility," Tree said. "There simply too much poverty, demand, and ungoverned territory on this planet. Combine that with the astronomical 'price support' offered by drug prohibition and we've accomplished what the alchemists couldn't do: We turned minimally processed agricultural commodities into gold. Cocaine should cost pennies per dose, but the risk premium created by our ever escalating drug war gives us the modern alchemy."

Tree also speculated that, even if the US were to somehow stamp out coca in Latin America, it wouldn't take long to appear elsewhere.

"I suspect sub-Saharan Africa could be next," Tree said. "Lots of cheap labor and ungoverned territory."

The discovery of one small field of coca in Mexico is not going to change anything overnight, but it could certainly be a harbinger of things to come. Gaining further control over the cocaine supply chain would make the country's drug cartels even more rich and powerful, a nightmare scenario for both the US and Mexican governments.

It is important to make the distinction that last week's find was the "first known" coca crop in Mexican history. The implication, of course, is that other fields could already be growing elsewhere in the country, perhaps on a much larger scale. After all, if campesinos in the isolated corners Sierra Madre can tend massive plantations of pot and poppies without interference from the government, what's to stop them from sowing another lucrative illicit crop in their fields?