Israeli troops blasted their way into the homes of three wanted Palestinians on Saturday, killing each in a hail of bullets and straining an uneasy security arrangement with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Israel’s military said the three, affiliated with a violent offshoot of Abbas’ Fatah movement, were targeted for killing an Israeli settler in a roadside ambush earlier in the week and had turned down a chance to surrender.

In the Gaza Strip, three young men approaching Israel’s southern border were killed by shots from an Israeli helicopter gunship. Saturday’s deaths made it one of the deadliest days in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since Israel waged war on Gaza’s Islamic militant Hamas rulers a year ago.

The violent Nablus raids, after months of relative quiet, embarrassed Western-backed Abbas, whose security forces have been coordinating some of their moves with their Israeli counterparts and share a common foe, Hamas.

Israeli soldiers are seen during an army operation in the West Bank city of Nablus, Saturday, Dec. 26, 2009.

At the funeral for the slain men, Abbas’ security policy was denounced by thousands of mourners, who chanted: “Why the coordination while we are under the bullets of the army?”

Abbas’ prime minister, Salam Fayyad, rushed to Nablus in an apparent attempt at damage control, paying his respects at a large communal wake and condeming Israel. “This attack was a clear assassination, and I believe it is targeting our security and stability,” Fayyad told The Associated Press.

Israel did not let Abbas know of the raid in advance, said Maj. Peter Lerner, an Israeli army spokesman.

Saturday’s killings put to the test an often strained relationship between Israel’s military and Abbas’ security.

Since the violent takeover of Gaza by Hamas in 2007, Abbas has gradually strengthened his control in West Bank towns to keep the Islamists there in check.

Palestinian leaders frequently complain that Israel is undermining these efforts by carrying out arrest raids in areas under Palestinian control. Israel counters that while the performance of the Palestinian security forces is improving, its military will step in when necessary.

The target of Saturday’s predawn raids were three longtime members of Fatah’s violent offshoot, the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades. The army said the three — Anan Subeh, 36; Ghassan Abu Sharah, 40; and Raed Suragji, 40 — were involved in Thursday’s deadly roadside shooting of an Israeli settler, and that Israeli forces entered Nablus to try to arrest them.

Dozens of Israeli soldiers, some of wearing black masks, poured into Nablus’ casbah, or old city, at about 2 a.m. They were backed by sniffer dogs and dozens of jeeps, bulldozers and other military vehicles

The forces surrounded the homes of the three. Lerner, the army major, said all three turned down a chance to surrender. However, relatives of Abu Sharah and Suragji said they were killed without warning. Lerner confirmed that none of the wanted men returned fire, including Subeh, who had two pistols and two assault rifles on him.

Soldiers used explosives to blow open the door of the Abu Sharah’s three-story apartment building, said Ghassan Abu Sharah’s brother, Jihad. The brother said that when Ghassan came downstairs, one of the soldiers opened fire and killed him.

Troops also used explosives at the home of Raed Suragji, said his wife, Tehani.

She said her husband opened the bedroom door. “Suddenly, shots were fired at us,” she said. “He fell down. I started shouting. I held his head in my lap and sat on the ground.”

In the third raid, troops ordered everyone to come out of the Subeh home, said Subeh’s brother, Jamal. The family evacuated, but Anan Subeh stayed behind.

Lerner said Subeh was hiding in a small crawl space in his home when he was killed. He said soldiers heard him shout “Allahu Akbar,” Arabic for God is great.

Asked why soldiers opened fire, Lerner said troops “had to operate under the assumption that they (the suspects) are dangerous.”

Subeh had recently been accepted in Israel’s amnesty program for Fatah gunmen, according to Nablus’ deputy governor, Anan Attireh. Subeh’s family said he had also joined the Preventive Security Service, a branch of the Palestinian security forces.

Suragji was released from an Israeli prison in January, after a seven-year term for involvement in shooting attacks. Abu Sharah was also held by Israel in the past, the military said.

The Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades carried out scores of shooting attacks and suicide bombings during the second Palestinian uprising, which erupted in 2000. Since then, the militia has been largely dismantled.

In Israel, right-wing critics of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his policy of easing travel restrictions in the West Bank was to blame for the shooting attack. Lerner said Israel did not plan to set up new roadblocks.

Also Saturday, an Israeli helicopter gunship killed three Gazans, ages 19 and 20, as they approached the border barrier with Israel. The army said the three were hit after they ignored warning shots.

Relatives of the three had tried to sneak into Israel for work and were not affiliated with political groups.

Israel does not allow Palestinians to approach its border area with Gaza, fearing militants will stage attacks there.

Bookmark & Share

The death toll from winter storms across Europe rose to at least 80 on Monday as transport chaos spread amid mounting anger over the three-day failure of Eurostar high-speed trains.

Airplanes standing on the snow-covered tarmac at the airport in Duesseldorf, western Germany. (AFP Photo)

With tens of thousands stranded by the cancellation of London-to-Paris trains and hundreds of flights across the continent, new accidents and mass power cuts added to the big freeze tumult.

A car veered off an icy road and knocked concrete onto rails, derailing a Paris commuter train and injuring 36 people, police said. Three hundred people had to be evacuated from the train.

Another train in the Croatian capital Zagreb hit a buffer injuring 52 people.

Croatian investigators blamed the minus 17 degrees Celsius (1.4 Fahrenheit) temperatures for a brake failure, national television reported. European temperatures as low as minus 33.6 degrees Celsius (minus 28.5 Fahrenheit) have been recorded in Bavaria.

In Poland, authorities said 42 people, many of them homeless, had died of cold over three days after temperatures plunged to minus 20 degrees Celsius (minus four Fahrenheit).

Ukraine reported 27 deaths while six people were killed in accidents in Germany and three in Austria.

France has reported at least two deaths of homeless people, and the national power company briefly cut electricity to two million people on Monday saying it was necessary to avoid an even bigger blackout amid surging demand.

More flights were cancelled in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain and main highways were blocked across Europe where some regions had more than 50 centimetres (20 inches) of snow.

The breakdown of the Eurostar service under the Channel, linking London with Paris and Brussels, has symbolised Europe’s suffering.

After the nightmare of more than 2,000 people stuck in the tunnel when five trains broke down Friday, tens of thousands more people have missed trains cancelled since then, with Eurostar announcing a “restricted” service for Tuesday.

But those trains will only run for passengers originally due to travel Saturday or Sunday, with the remainder of the backlog to be cleared over the next few days. Normal service is not expected to resume before Christmas Day.

The French transport ministry has ordered an investigation into the breakdown, which Eurostar said has been caused by trains unable to handle the change from freezing temperatures outside to warm temperatures in the tunnel.

Eurostar said it had launched its own independent review.

The winter storms caused other disruption across Europe.

Air traffic was again badly hit as temperatures remained glacial: minus 20 degrees Celsius in Sibiu in Romania, where more than 50 centimetres of snow fell, and minus seven Celsius in Venice, Italy.

Seven hundred people spent the night on camp beds at Amsterdam-Schipol airport and more flights were cancelled after dozens were grounded Sunday.

The Dutch rail network was also badly hit with the railway company advising commuters to stay at home.

Heavy snowfall led to more delays and cancellations at Frankfurt and Duesseldorf airports in Germany, where more than 500 flights were cancelled or redirected on Sunday.

Twenty percent of flights out of Paris-Charles de Gaulle were cancelled Monday. The main RER commuter train line running east to west across the Paris region has been out of action for 12 days because of a strike.

Spanish civil aviation authorities said 174 flights from Madrid-Barajas airport were called off. Flights from Lisbon to Madrid were among those hit while main roads in northern Portugal were cut by snow.

Brussels airport also reported cancellations and delays.

After more snow falls on Moscow, authorities sent out 13,000 dump trucks to clear the streets as chronic traffic jams built up.

In Britain, more airport delays hit passengers while snow forced the postponement of Wigan’s English Premier League football match against Bolton Wanderers.

Bookmark & Share

Some 200 cattle die in the cold front sweeping the north and central Vietnam (Photo: Hai Son)

A cold front in the north and central regions is forecast to last two more days, said the national weather bureau on December 20.

The four-day cold front with temperatures from 11-15 degrees Celsius has driven most people indoors. Some mountainous areas have seen temperatures as low as six degrees Celsius.

The cold snap has killed some 200 cattle, of which 140 were calves and young buffaloes, said the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

Most of the animals were reported to have died in the mountainous northern province of Ha Giang, Lao Cai and Yen Bai.

More cattle and poultry were also reported to have died from the cold in the central provinces of Thanh Hoa, Nghe An and Quang Binh. 

The ministry urged residents to make fires to keep cattle warm, feed them well, and not allow them to roam free. Vegetables and crops have also been hard-hit by the cold weather, according to the ministry.

Bookmark & Share

La actriz estadounidense Brittany Murphy falleció este domingo a consecuencia de un ataque cardiaco, según reporta la prensa de Estados Unidos. Murphy, de 32 años, sufrió del ataque este domingo por la mañana y no pudo ser revivida, informó la página nydailynews.com, que hace eco de TMZ.com.

Fue llevada al Centro Médico Cedars-Sinai, donde fue declarada muerta. Entre sus trabajos más sobresalientes se encuentran las cintas 8 Mile, Clueless y Sin City.

Murphy nació 10 de noviembre de 1977 en Atlanta, Georgia. Desde pequeña hizo audiciones para el cine y obtuvo algunos papeles menores. En 1995 protagonizó junto a Alicia Silverstone la cinta juvenil Clueless, adaptación de la obra Ema, de Jane Austen.

Descansa en paz Brittany siempre te vamos a extrañar y a querer mucho.

A mi siempre me gustaste mucho.

Melanie Fiona It Kills Me Remix Feat Ghostface Killah…Bump after the jump

Melanie Fiona Feat Ghostface Killah-It Kills Me Remix …:LISTEN::…

 I’m gonna transcribe a conversation I had with Hector Echavarria recently on facebook. I was pretty drunk and disappointed with the quality of his movies, so I decided to write him. I had no idea he would respond and this is as real as it can get. I’m as surprised as you are. I’ll put a link to the facebook page if I can.

At least three Somali police officers are killed by a roadside bomb in the port city of Bossaso in the Puntland region…. From BBC News. Full story

This site may contain information about: city year. The blog is also related to: world cities.

At least three people are dead as Cyclone Mick rips through Fiji’s main island, before heading for Tonga…. From BBC News. Full story

This site may contain information about: national hurricane center. The blog is also related to: hurricane david.

It’s about 11.30am in the UK and A Twisted Chimp has finally decided to get out of bed, get dressed and have breakfast before turning on the Xbox and starting up a game of COD: MW2, on free for all mode.

The first game is on the High rise Map and A twisted chimp has elected to use the Scar H with Silencer and Heartbeat monitor. He gets off to a strong start getting three kills before dying for the first time. He soon gets into the groove getting the 5 kill streak required for the predator missile before dying, he then uses his predator missile to get another kill, by now he’s on 8 kills for 3 deaths. He’s having a good time gradually getting more kills and getting deaths, a few nice camping positions being used as well as running around the map, people getting Attack Helicopters made the map more difficult forcing people into the 2 buildings.

By the end of the game almost every opponent at some point had seen the notorious kill cam of “You Were Killed by A Twisted Chimp”

Finishing first in the Free For All Game with 28 kills 20 deaths.

The story is here: http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2009/12/woman_98_charge.html

It is a story of a harsh way to die, especially when your a healthy 100 year old woman.  What’s eve more spaced out about this story is her killer was 98 years old.  She apparently got annoyed with her 100 year old roommate for “taking over the room” they shared in a Massachusets nursing home.  So, the 98 year old woman decided to end her roommate’s life the way they do it on tv in a hospital: hold a pillow down on the victim’s face until they stop moving.

She was indicted today, though the prosecutor doesn’t really see this case going all the way to or through a trial.

I am sitting in the middle between both sides of this coin.  Why try her?  She’s 98 and in a nursing home!  Are you going to be taking away her freedoms?  The nursing home has already done that.  Once you’re in a nursing home, you’re their property.

On the other hand…

Why let her go?  Why not show that, even though she was indicted for second-degree murder, she should just be set free because she’salmost the age of Moses.  She developed the mens rea to commit the crime.  Doesn’t that count

All in all, however, I can see why this would be gently swept under the rug and we never hear about it again, except maybe when the 98 year old woman dies and she’s remembered for killing her roommate on a late night talk show.  Talk about going out with a bang…

Artist The Kills Title Fried My Little Brains
Label/year Domino, 2003
Format 7″ Color Black

“The tongue like a sharp knife… Kills without drawing blood. I swear, it was the dopest horror movie I’ve ever seen. Scared the crap out of me!” Buddha

Reports say one damaged building belongs to the country’s main spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence…. From VOA. Full story

This site may contain information about: solar city. The blog is also related to: city codes.

Rwandan soldiers distributing water when at least one gunman opened fire… From VOA. Full story

This site may contain information about: tidal water. For a different topic see crowd levels at disney world. The blog is also related to: oceanic water.

A blaze triggered by fireworks in a nightclub in the Russian city of Perm leaves at least 109 people dead, officials say…. From BBC News. Full story

This site may contain information about: city planning. The blog is also related to: city search.

A fireworks blast in a nightclub in the Russian city of Perm leaves at least 101 people dead and 140 more injured, officials say…. From BBC News. Full story

This site may contain information about: florida city. The blog is also related to: surf city.

A blaze set off by fireworks in a club in the Russian city of Perm leaves at least 101 people dead and 140 injured, officials say…. From BBC News. Full story

This site may contain information about: top 10 cities. The blog is also related to: talk city.

A secret war policy to use Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) has been bumped up in recent months…..I did a post on the aircraft in mid-Novemeber…..The New York Times has done a piece on the policy and the ramifications of the policy to the Pakistani Military, Americans….and the  Pakistani public….

Aftgahnisatn is a declared war zone..the United States operates UAV’s there at it’s own free will…..

America’s Central Intelligence Agency, once free of the restraints against hunting down bad guys, and killing them, after 9/11, has expanded that policy (under National Command Authority) , and found success without losing any american lives….by adopting the Israeli policy of going after ’soft targets’ that are on a authorized list…the CIA, Army and Air Force have eliminated a good many bad guys…the program on the face of it …is a success…

The Pakistani military has been secretly cooperating with the United States for years…. Predator drones have been stationed in the country, with a small contingent of troops to run the aircraft….that fact was not well know to the civilians of the country, until a little while ago….the United States has been giviing The Pakistani’s intel, and access to it’s spy satellites data for a while….all of this information has been out there in the public domain……

While the UAV attacks have been sucessful..they cause problems for the Pakistani military who have to deal with their countrymen….

The Pakistani civilians are not all happy with the U.S. UAV’s who attack bad guys from the sky and sometimes make collateral hits, and damage…..

The fact is…the program is expanding, according to White House, and Pentagon reports…..and as with the Israeli campaigns….the weapons system is an unqualified success, that causes civilian political problems…

For now the policy and program continues………

Note: The most widly used UAV for airstrikes is the Predator model’s, operated by the Army, Air Force and the CIA……

An explosion in a nightclub in the Russian city of Perm leaves at least 90 people dead and many more injured, officials say…. From BBC News. Full story

This site may contain information about: rank cities. The blog is also related to: city bus.

An explosion in a nightclub in the Russian city of Perm leaves at least 76 people dead, media reports say…. From BBC News. Full story

This site may contain information about: largest city. The blog is also related to: windy city.

An explosion in a nightclub in the Russian city of Perm has left at least 15 people dead, media reports say…. From BBC News. Full story

This site may contain information about: city skyline. The blog is also related to: los angeles city.

At least 35 people are killed and dozens injured in an attack at a mosque in the Pakistani garrison city of Rawalpindi…. From BBC News. Full story

This site may contain information about: world’s largest city. The blog is also related to: peachtree city.

At least 35 people are killed and dozens injured in an attack at a mosque in the Pakistani garrison city of Rawalpindi…. From BBC News. Full story

This site may contain information about: cedar city. The blog is also related to: part city.