Please Talk To Them Hopechange Man! [Reader Post]

Please Hopechange Man, we need you.

ISLAMABAD, Sept 20 (Reuters) – A suspected car bomb caused a huge explosion outside the Marriott Hotel in the Pakistani capital on Saturday and the Dawn television station said at least 17 people had been killed.

A reporter at the scene told CNN that as many as 200 people were feared to be inside the building.

Television images showed flames and smoke pouring out of the hotel and bodies being carried away.

“The explosion happened as a car reached the barricade outside the hotel,” a senior police official said, adding that it appeared to have been a suicide attack.

A Reuters witness said he could see fires in at least two places in the hotel and at least 20 cars parked on the street outside had been destroyed.

Television pictures later showed flames spreading to other parts of the 290-room hotel, located close to the city centre and very popular with tourists.

Witnesses reported that ceilings in the hotel lobby and dining area had collapsed.

The attack came soon after Pakistan’s new president, Asif Ali Zardari, had made his first address to a joint session of parliament, pledging that Pakistan would not tolerate any infringement of its territory in the name of the fight against militants.

Zardari is close to the United States and had earlier promised to maintain nuclear-armed Pakistan’s commitment to the U.S.-led “war on terrorism”, even though it is deeply unpopular. (Reporting by Simon Cameron-Moore and Robert Birsel, Editing by Robert Hart)

Please Hopechange Man, talk to the mean al-Qaeda men.

On a side note, Pakistan went from having an Army General in charge to a lawyer.  See what happens when you put lawyers in charge of things?  Isn’t Obama a lawyer?  Maybe he can bring the bad men to America and sue them for three sheep and 72 virgins.

Evo Morales, the Bolivian president, has begun talks with rebel state governors in an attempt to end political turmoil that sparked violent protests last week.

Several people were killed as anti-Morales protesters battled the president’s supporters in four opposition-controlled provinces seeking greater autonomy last week.

Morales has accused the Catholic church of siding with the governors and the US, which he says is inciting protests against him.

“This may be the last chance to solve the country’s problems in peace,” warned  Mario Cossio, governor of the southern Tarija province, as he arrived for the talks in the city of Cochabamba on Thursday.

Roman Catholic church officials and international envoys, including Jose Miguel Insulza, secretary-general of the Organisation of American States, are to observe the talks.

Ivan Canelas, a government spokesman, said “the government thinks an accord in four or five days of continuous work is possible if there is sincere will for dialogue”.

Please Hopechange Man, go talk to them!

Interesting comment from Kazee VerBees in the above article:

As an American from the US, I am sorry for the interference of my government all over Central and South America. I am keeping an eye on the events taking place in Bolivia and the rest of the Americas, and if/when I see unjust interference by the US, I will tell everyone I know and we will protest and/or riot here in the US. Bolivia should be free from US influence (as should so many other countries around the world).

Someone definitely should go talk to him.

(CNN) — In a video marking the seventh anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, al Qaeda’s top leader in Afghanistan vows more “large-scale” attacks against the United States and its allies.

In another segment, the personal adviser to Taliban leader Mullah Omar says al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is alive and well. Al Qaeda leaders featured on the video promise more violence against their enemies.

“We inform the forces of the Cross and their apostate agents that the Mujahedeen’s policy in the coming stage, God permitting, is going to be more major, large-scale attacks like the Kandahar prison operation, the Nuristan raid, the Sarobi ambush and Khost airport operation in which approximately 50 Americans and 100 apostates were killed and four helicopters were hit and destroyed,” Mustafa Abu al-Yazid says.

Please Hopechange Man, go talk to them.

Nigerian militants say they have attacked another pipeline in their so-called “oil war” in the southern Niger Delta.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta announced Saturday that its fighters destroyed an oil pipeline run by the local branch of Royal Dutch Shell in Rivers state late Friday.

The claim has not been independently verified.

In an e-mailed statement, the group said it will continue to “nibble” every day at the oil infrastructure in Nigeria until oil exports reach zero.

Royal Dutch Shell said Saturday that it has extended a “force majeure” (declaration of uncontrollable events) on crude oil shipments from one of its terminals because of a series of recent attacks on its facilities. The “force majeure” allows the company to suspend its contractual obligations to buyers.

Fighters from the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta have attacked oil facilities in southern Nigeria nearly every day for the past week, cutting the country’s daily oil production by more than 100,000 barrels.

Please Hopechange Man, go talk to them.

SANNA (AFP) — The British embassy in Sanna has been closed until further notice, a British diplomat told AFP on Saturday, days after a rebel attack on the US mission killed 16 people.

“The embassy has closed its doors until further notice and has suspended all the services that it provides,” said the source, who requested anonymity.

The decision comes as the Yemeni authorities tighten security around foreign diplomatic facilities after an Al-Qaeda-linked group, the Organisation of Islamic Jihad, claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s attack and threatened more.

Militants detonated a booby-trapped car before firing a volley of rockets at the heavily fortified US mission killing six soldiers, six assailants and four others, including an American and her Yemeni husband.

The group vowed to continue attacks “against Western interests,” Yemeni public figures and the Saudi embassy unless militants being held by Yemeni authorities were released.

Please Hopechange Man, go talk to them.

CARACAS, Venezuela, Sept. 20 (UPI) — Two staffers from Human Rights Watch were forcibly expelled from Venezuela after they issued a report critical of President Chavez, the group says.

Jose Miguel Vivanco and Daniel Wilkinson were confronted by Venezuelan officials at their Caracas hotel Friday, accused of anti-state activities, taken to airport and put on a plane to Sao Paulo, Brazil, Human Rights Watch told CNN.

The confrontation came shortly after the group issued a 267-page report linking Chavez’s presidential activities with an erosion of democratic institutions in the oil-rich South American nation.

“This is the first time this has happened in the Americas,” Conor Fortune, a Human Rights Watch spokesman, told the broadcaster. “The events basically prove many of the points made in the report: that Venezuela is still a very repressive country under Chavez.”

Please Hopechange Man, we know you see eye to eye with Chavez on most everything, surely you can talk to him, no?

When asked about his plan to address this world wide silliness, Hopechange Man responded with his usual grace.

Thank you Hopechange Man, surely the Nirvana your idiot ideology seeks is on the horizon.

If we could just get past the fact that America is racist.