Roger Clemens pitches for the Skeeters again in a couple of days. He had a press conference about it this afternoon and said this:
He said he?s ?just having fun,? is not looking past his next indy league start and is not doing this to push his Hall of Fame clock back.
He also said that his real name was Anastasia Romanov, daughter to the Czar.
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I?ve been thinking about doing some home renovations.? I can handle painting, I?ve even become a semi pro at demolition but I?ve been thinking about taking on a bigger project.? I think I might try to put in laminate flooring.? Normally I would jump right in and take on the task but I?m admitting that I?m a little nervous about doing it.? I like to see the finished result and I know that this project will most likely take a few days for me to complete.
Patience will be key and I don?t always have it when doing home improvement.? What?s wrong with twitching your nose like Tabitha on ?Bewitched? or nodding your head like Jeannie on ?I Dream of Jeannie? and having the work all done?? I guess I could just have someone do it for me but I feel the need to be involved.? If I can?t use magic, then I guess I?ll use blood, sweat, and tears, then probably some yelling.? I should probably use some tools too.
Are you a ?do-it-yourself-er??? Is this floor a challenge?? Am I going into deep water?? Let me know what you think about the task ahead of me.
I?m feeling a little intimidated now?.
Source: http://wsrkfm.com/diy-do-i-dare-video/
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Companies with movie studios have released their earnings reports for the latest quarter. It generally covers the April-June period, though some companies have fiscal quarters that depart from that.
Here's a look at reports for selected movie industry companies.
? July 31: DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc. says net income fell 63 percent, to a level below analysts' expectations. Revenue fell 25 percent. Results for the movie studio were driven by the box office receipts from the movie "Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted." The movie has grossed more than $500 million in theaters worldwide since its June 8 release.
? Aug. 1: Time Warner Inc. says revenue at its Warner Bros. studio fell 8 percent to $2.6 billion because last year's quarter had strong releases. The blockbuster Batman movie "The Dark Knight Rises" didn't open in theaters until the quarter ended. In the second quarter last year, Time Warner Inc. had "The Hangover Part II" in theaters and the next-to-last Harry Potter movie on home video.
Comcast Corp. says its Universal movie studio lost money on its would-be summer blockbuster, the expensive and critically skewered "Battleship." Revenue in the filmed entertainment division fell 2 percent to $1.2 billion.
? Aug. 2: Sony Corp.'s movie division saw a 6 percent increase in sales with the hit "Men in Black 3," and better cable and network program revenue. But it had an operating loss partly because of marketing expenses for this year's films including "The Amazing Spider-Man."
? Aug. 3: Viacom Inc. says revenue at its Paramount movie studio dropped 29 percent. It released three movies in the quarter: "Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted," ''The Dictator" and "Titanic 3D." In the same quarter last year, it had four blockbusters: "Kung Fu Panda 2," ''Thor," ''Super 8" and "Transformers: Dark of the Moon."
? Aug. 7: The Walt Disney Co. says revenue at its movie studio was almost unchanged from a year ago at $1.63 billion, which was less than the $1.77 billion analysts expected. The Marvel superhero epic "The Avengers" helped boost profit in the segment. Studio profits jumped to $313 million from $49 million a year ago. The company says upbeat ticket sales to movies such as "The Avengers" and "Brave" were offset by fewer sales of DVD and Blu-ray discs. Prominent home video titles during the quarter included "John Carter" and "The Muppets."
? Aug. 8: News Corp. says revenue at its 20th Century Fox movie studio revenue fell 14 percent to $1.74 billion, due to tough comparisons against the box office success of "Rio" last year.
? Aug. 9: Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. says it lost $44.2 million in the April-June period, reversing a profit from a year ago, as it booked higher marketing costs to release movies such as "The Hunger Games." Lions Gate released five movies in theaters in the quarter, up from just one a year ago, and it has yet to benefit from home video sales of "The Hunger Games," which goes on sale on DVD and Blu-ray on Aug. 18. The company says two-thirds of the profitability of "The Hunger Games" is still ahead.
? Aug. 20: DreamWorks Animation says its films will be distributed by 20th Century Fox starting next year. The five-year deal replaces an existing distribution agreement DreamWorks has with Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Pictures.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/financial-reports-reveal-movie-studios-205410834--finance.html
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By BETH HARRIS
AP Sports Writer
Associated Press Sports
updated 7:19 p.m. ET Sept. 2, 2012
LOS ANGELES (AP) - A day after Josh Beckett won his first game with the Dodgers, the team's blockbuster trade paid off again with Adrian Gonzalez's game-winning double in the bottom of the ninth inning.
His hit scored the tying and winning runs in the Dodgers' 5-4 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks on Sunday to salvage a split of the series in which all four games were decided by two runs or fewer. Los Angeles remained 4 1/2 games behind NL West-leading San Francisco and a half-game behind St. Louis for the second NL wild card.
Gonzalez had struggled since the Aug. 25 deal that brought him, Beckett, Carl Crawford, Nick Punto to Los Angeles from Boston. He was 6 for 33 in eight games with his new team, then struck out twice and grounded out in his first three at-bats Sunday.
With the Dodgers down to their final two outs, Gonzalez lined an 0-2 pitch into the right field corner off J.J. Putz (1-5).
"I got ahead of Adrian right there and tried to elevate to get him to chase it, but I just didn't get it up enough," said Putz, who gave up a single to Mark Ellis with one out and a walk to Shane Victorino. "The walk is the one that hurts. I was rushing to the plate, trying to be quick and try to keep Ellis from trying to swipe the bag."
Facing a 3-1 count, Victorino was ready to pounce and his aggression carried over to the basepaths.
"I was going to go until Tim (Wallach) told me to stop," said Victorino, who came tearing around from first base to score. "He waved me and I said, `Here we go."'
Matt Kemp celebrated the Dodgers' ninth walk-off win of the season by running up to Gonzalez and soaking him with a container of water during a postgame interview.
"These are fun moments," Gonzalez said. "They don't come too often so you got to enjoy them."
Ronald Belisario (4-1) pitched a scoreless ninth and struck out three while allowing a double to Chris Johnson.
"We haven't played too well at home and it's something we need to do a better job of," Ellis said, noting a walk-off win could be a catalyst. "Sometimes that can get a team rolling. To build off it, you just got to have good at-bats."
Despite blowing an early one-run lead, the Dodgers recovered after winning 2-1 behind Beckett on Saturday night.
"It's a matter of time before this offense gets clicking on all cylinders. We're capable of scoring 10, 15 runs," said Victorino, who joined the Dodgers from Philadelphia a month ago. "Sometimes it takes a certain time to get people going in the same direction."
John McDonald and Miguel Montero each scored a run and drove in two others for the Diamondbacks.
Kemp hit his 18th homer leading off the second to put the Dodgers up 1-0.
Montero's two-run homer with two outs in the fourth inning gave Arizona a 3-1 lead after McDonald's homer leading off the third had tied the score 1-1.
The Dodgers pulled to 3-2 in the sixth on Andre Ethier's RBI groundout to second base that scored Kemp, who walked and advanced to third on a double by Hanley Ramirez.
Arizona extended its lead to 4-2 in the seventh when McDonald reached on an infield single to pitcher Shawn Tolleson, scoring Paul Goldschmidt, who singled, took second on Montero's single, and was sacrificed to third.
The Dodgers made it 4-3 in the bottom of the seventh on Victorino's two-out RBI single that dropped in right field between Chris Young and Justin Upton.
Dodgers starter Chris Capuano gave up three runs and four hits in five innings, struck out four and walked none. He made 78 pitches, his second-fewest of the season.
Arizona rookie starter Wade Miley allowed three runs and nine hits in 6 2-3 innings, struck out three and walked two.
NOTES: Miley hasn't allowed more than two walks in 24 consecutive starts, extending the longest active streak in the majors this season. ... RHP Chad Billingsley is considering having another platelet-rich plasma injection in his injured right elbow. Manager Don Mattingly said Billingsley, who had the first one on Friday, is feeling "a little bit optimistic," but Mattingly said the club won't allow him to start throwing until he's pain-free. ... The Dodgers selected the contract of OF Bobby Abreu from Triple-A Albuquerque and recalled RHP Chris Withrow from Double-A Chattanooga before placing him on the 60-day DL. Abreu returned after hitting .353 in five games with the Isotopes since being designated for assignment on Aug. 1. He struck out as a pinch-hitter in the ninth.
? 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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More newsGetty Images??Justin Verlander shut down Chicago after the first inning and Delmon Young hit a tiebreaking three-run homer in the sixth Sunday night to lift the Detroit Tigers to a 4-2 victory over the White Sox and a share of first place in the AL Central.
Getty ImagesHBT: Stephen Strasburg pitches well as the Nats beat the Cards, then learns his last start will be Sept. 12 before being shut down.
Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/48881417/ns/sports-baseball/
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GAPYEONG, South Korea (AP) ? The Rev. Sun Myung Moon was a self-proclaimed messiah who built a global business empire. He called both North Korean leaders and American presidents his friends, but spent time in prisons in both countries. His followers around the world cherished him, while his detractors accused him of brainwashing recruits and extracting money from worshippers.
These contradictions did nothing to stop the founder of the Unification Church from turning his religious vision into a worldwide movement and a multibillion-dollar corporation stretching from the Korean Peninsula to the United States.
Moon died Monday at a church-owned hospital near his home in Gapyeong, northeast of Seoul, two weeks after being hospitalized with pneumonia, Unification Church spokesman Ahn Ho-yeul told The Associated Press. Moon's wife and children were at his side, Ahn said. He was 92.
Church officials planned to meet later Monday to discuss mourning and funeral arrangements.
Moon founded his Bible-based religion in Seoul in 1954, a year after the Korean War ended, saying Jesus Christ personally called on him to complete his work.
The church gained fame ? and notoriety ? by marrying thousands of followers in mass ceremonies presided over by Moon himself. The couples often came from different countries and had never met, but were matched up by Moon in a bid to build a multicultural religious world.
Today, the Unification Church claims 3 million followers worldwide, including 100,000 members in the U.S., Ahn said. But ex-members and critics say the figure is actually no more than 100,000 worldwide.
The church's holdings included the Washington Times newspaper; Connecticut's Bridgeport University; the New Yorker Hotel, a midtown Manhattan art deco landmark, and a seafood distribution firm that supplies sushi to Japanese restaurants across the U.S. It acquired a ski resort, a professional football team and other businesses in South Korea. It also operates a foreign-owned luxury hotel in North Korea and jointly operates a fledgling North Korean automaker.
The church has been accused of using devious recruitment tactics and duping followers out of money. Parents of followers in the United States and elsewhere have expressed worries that their children were brainwashed into joining. The church has pointed out that many new religious movements faced similar accusations in their early years. Moon's followers were often called "Moonies," a term many found pejorative.
Born in 1920 in a rural part of what is today North Korea, Moon said he was 16 when Jesus Christ first appeared to him and told him to finish the work he had begun on Earth 2,000 years earlier. Moon, who tried to preach the gospel in the North, was imprisoned there in the late 1940s for alleged spying for South Korea; he disputed the charge.
When the Korean War broke out in 1950, he fled to South Korea. After divorcing his first wife, he married Hak Ja Han Moon in 1960. They have 10 surviving sons and daughters, according to the church.
In South Korea, Moon quickly drew young acolytes to his conservative, family-oriented value system and unusual interpretation of the Bible. He conducted his first mass wedding in Seoul in the early 1960s, and the "blessing ceremonies" grew in scale over the years. A 1982 wedding at New York's Madison Square Garden ? the first outside South Korea ? drew thousands of participants.
"International and intercultural marriages are the quickest way to bring about an ideal world of peace," Moon said in a 2009 autobiography. "People should marry across national and cultural boundaries with people from countries they consider to be their enemies so that the world of peace can come that much more quickly."
Moon began building a relationship with North Korea in 1991, even meeting with the country's founder, Kim Il Sung, in the eastern North Korean port city of Hamhung. In his autobiography, Moon said he urged Kim to give up his nuclear ambitions, and that Kim responded by saying that his atomic program was for peaceful purposes and he had no intention to use it to "kill my own people."
"The two of us were able to communicate well about our shared hobbies of hunting and fishing," Moon wrote. "At one point, we each felt we had so much to say to the other that we just started talking like old friends meeting after a long separation."
When Kim died in 1994, Moon sent a condolence delegation to North Korea, drawing criticism from conservatives at home. The late Kim Jong Il, who succeeded his father as North Korean leader, sent roses, prized wild ginseng, Rolex watches and other gifts to Moon on his birthday each year. Moon said Kim Il Sung had instructed Kim Jong Il that "after I die, if there are things to discuss pertaining to North-South relations, you must always seek the advice of President Moon."
The church also sent a delegation to pay its respects after Kim Jong Il died in December and was succeeded by his son Kim Jong Un.
Moon sought and eventually developed a good relationship with conservative American leaders such as former Presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
Yet he also served 13 months at a U.S. federal prison in the mid-1980s after a New York City jury convicted him of filing false tax returns. Moon was defended in that case by Laurence Tribe, a Harvard law professor and one of the foremost experts on constitutional law.
The church says the U.S. government persecuted Moon because of his growing influence and popularity with young Americans.
In later years, the church adopted a lower profile in the United States and focused on building up its businesses. Moon lived for more than 30 years in the United States, the church said.
As he grew older, Moon also handed over day-to-day control of his empire to his children. His U.S.-born youngest son, the Rev. Hyung-jin Moon, was named the church's top religious director in April 2008. Other children run the church's businesses and charitable activities in South Korea and abroad.
In 2009, Moon married 45,000 people in simultaneous ceremonies worldwide in his first large-scale mass wedding in years, the church said. Some were newlyweds and others reaffirmed past vows. He married an additional 7,000 couples in South Korea in February 2010. The ceremonies attracted media coverage but little of the controversy that dogged the church in earlier decades.
The church's acquisitions include dozens of companies ranging from hospitals and universities to a professional soccer team in Brazil and a ballet troupe. Hyung-jin Moon told The Associated Press in February 2010 that his father's offspring do not see themselves as his successors.
"Our role is not inheriting that messianic role," he said. "Our role is more of the apostles ... where we become the bridge between understanding what kind of lives (our) two parents have lived."
___(equals)
AP writer Sam Kim contributed to this story from Seoul.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/unification-church-founder-rev-moon-dies-92-185236876.html
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Islamic extremists said Sunday they have executed an Algerian diplomat who was kidnapped during their takeover of northern Mali, according to a statement published by a Mauritanian news agency.
Tahar Touati, the Algerian vice-consul "was executed this morning (Saturday) at dawn," said the statement from the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) published by online news agency ANI.
The agency often carries reliable information on extremist groups in the region.
"The Algerian government must take complete responsibility for the consequences of its stubbornness and the misguided and irresponsible decisions of its president and its generals," read the statement.
The communique was also posted on Internet sites in Algeria.
MUJAO had on August 24 given an ultimatum to Algeria, threatening to kill the hostage after Algiers rejected its demands for the release of three jihadists arrested in the south of the country.
"The execution of the diplomat came after the expiry of an ultimatum given to the Algerian government," said the statement.
"Algerian negotiators refused to agree on a deal to release the hostages at the last minute," it added.
Algerian authorities have said they are verifying the reports of the diplomat's execution.
Sunday's statement "is currently the focus of the necessary verification to ensure its authenticity," the Algerian foreign ministry said in a statement released by the official APS news agency.
"Contact has not been broken" with the kidnappers, it added.
MUJAO, an armed jihadist group which first surfaced in December 2011, presenting itself as a splinter group of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) is one of several extremist groups which seized Mali's north five months ago.
They claimed the April 5 kidnapping of seven Algerian diplomats from a consulate in the town of Gao, one of the main northern cities which has fallen into the extremists' hands.
In May they demanded the release of Islamist militants detained in Algeria and a sum of 15 million euros in return for freeing the Algerians.
Three of the hostages were freed on July 12.
A video MUJAO released on August 26 showed one of the four remaining hostages pleading with the government to save his life.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/algeria-checks-reports-diplomat-killed-captors-000148987.html
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However, now homemakers, chefs, mechanics, doctors, shopkeeper in short everyone is using a computer. A big count of these personal users cannot repair a computer if it breaks. This provides a great opportunity for the IT professionals and skilled people to plunge into the computer and laptop repair business. All you have to do is to open the business, advertise yourself and sit at a place where you can offer these services. Thousands of users who are using computers at their homes are all your potential customers. They will come to you with their troubled machines and you can charge them for the computer and laptop repair services. The business has huge potential to expand and grow. You can add variety to your services, such as a part from the computer and laptop repair; you can also offer dealership of the hardware and software, which the users might want to buy. Most of the hardware issues can force the users to replace a component or two in their system.
If the computer and laptop repair, shops also offer the components this becomes a great business idea. Another thing, which you can do, to expand the scope of your business is by making an online website for your business. Most of the computer users are internet users as well. So the internet can be the best medium to advertise your services. You can offer advice and present different packages, which you are offering on computer and laptop repair. It will help you attract a complete new lot of customers for your business. People often think that finding personal computer users and providing services to them is all what a computer and laptop repair business can offer. However, the better opportunity for any such business is the corporate sector. If you can get contract of a single big company, who are using computers, it can be a big break for your business. Various companies such as, call-centers, software houses and banks use hundreds of systems in one office. They often need repair or software upgrade services. If a repairing company can get a deal for one such company, it will provide a big boost to both the business and its income. PR can be the key to success here.
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San Leon Energy Plc notifies that, as at the date of this announcement, the Company's enlarged issued share capital will comprise 1,140,652,705 Ordinary Shares, with voting rights. The Company does not hold any Ordinary Shares in treasury. Therefore the total number of Ordinary Shares in the Company with voting rights will be 1,140,652,705, which figure may be used by shareholders in the Company as the denominator for the calculations by which they will determine if they are required to notify their interest in, or a change in their interest in, the share capital of the Company under the FSA's Disclosure and Transparency Rules.
In addition, San Leon maintains a blocklisting in respect of a further 11,008,844 Ordinary Shares to satisfy future requests by holders of exchangeable shares (resultant from San Leon's recent acquisition of Realm Energy International Corporation) to exchange such shares for new San Leon Shares.
This article is for information and discussion purposes only and does not form a recommendation to invest or otherwise. The value of an investment may fall. The investments referred to in this article may not be suitable for all investors, and if in doubt, an investor should seek advice from a qualified investment adviser. More
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Source: http://www.oilvoice.com/n/San_Leon_Energy_Total_voting_rights/802f3232e037.aspx
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GIMRY, Russia (Reuters) - Little girls in hijabs peek out of tin-roof houses and boys play at "cops and insurgents" in the narrow dirt streets.
At one end of the village of Gimry men are building a new, red-brick madrassa, one of many religious schools springing up across Dagestan, a region in the high Caucasus mountains on Russia's southern fringe, in the throes of an Islamic revival.
More than a dozen young men from the village have "gone to the forest" - the local euphemism for joining insurgents in their hideouts, says village administrator Aliaskhab Magomedov.
"It's a full-fledged jihad," he said. "They don't recognize my authority. Islam does not separate the state from religion."
Throughout the 12 years since Vladimir Putin rose to power and crushed a Chechen separatist revolt, Russia has battled a simmering insurgency across its mainly Muslim Caucasus mountain lands: Chechyna and its neighbors Ingushetia and Dagestan.
With Putin back in the Kremlin after a four year hiatus as prime minister, he has tried to end the violence by emphasizing the unity of Russia, providing backing for mainstream clerics and cracking down hard on religious radicalism.
But the formula seems to be failing here, driving communities further into the embrace of radical religion, and sending more young men into the mountains to take up arms.
In the first half of 2012 alone, the Caucasian Knot website recorded 185 insurgency-related deaths and 168 wounded, making Dagestan one of the deadliest places in Europe. The number of men seized by security forces as suspected militants so far this year, tracked by Russia's leading rights group Memorial, has already exceeded last year's total.
And the violence has begun spreading beyond the Caucasus to other parts of the country, like Tatarstan, long a peaceful area on the Volga river in Russia's European heartland.
DIRTY BUSINESS
Fighting the insurgency is dirty business. In an empty office down in the provincial capital Makhachkala, police lieutenant colonel Magomed Gusseinov, 58, says his officers take out their anger and fear on petty criminals and other prisoners.
"If you're sitting on the second floor above the holding room, you can hear the screams. They beat them, rape them with bottles, torture them. They do such things here every day."
"Our boys have zero emotion at work. They have to stand there for eight hours in uniform and they know they can be shot at any moment," he said. "If my colleague is shot before my eyes, of course something burns in me, I want revenge. That's how war works. It's a crooked balance sheet."
In the streets of the sun-drenched Caspian Sea city, government banners proclaim: "We are against terror". Residents say they have become desensitized to near daily sniper and bomb attack on police.
"Not a day goes by without the killing of either a terrorist or a policeman. We're so used to it, we think that's the way things ought to be," said taxi driver Nabib Abdulvagabov, 35.
In one sleepy seaside neighborhood, a stray rocket-propelled grenade shell tore through the walls of family home in July, several blocs away from where security forces had laid siege to what they said was a rebel hideout.
Standing amid the charred and plaster-strewn shambles of his children's room, Magomedgusein Vagidov seethed: "Why with all their radars and satellite today can they still not find a bunch of guys hiding in the woods?" he said.
"They either don't know how or don't want to end this war."
Aisha, a former Russian-language teacher, said that most people in Dagestan were not caught up in new religious conservatism, but were sick of official corruption and wanted change like that seen in last year's Egyptian revolution.
"People have reached a breaking point. Bribes start at the maternity ward and end at the grave," she said. "Clearly it will be religious here, though most people dislike these religious people. I think 80 percent of people don't want Sharia law."
ISLAMIC REVIVAL
In Gimry, weathered tombstones pointing toward Mecca bear witness to the village's ancient Muslim roots. But the Islam practiced here today bears increasingly little resemblance to the village customs of old.
For centuries, the Muslim communities of Russia's Caucasus mountains practiced Sufism, a mystical form of Islam whose practitioners chant prayers in circles. There was little of the formal Islamic legal scholarship that prevails across much of the Sunni Muslim world.
In the two decades since the fall of the officially atheist Soviet Union, many Caucasus Muslims studied abroad in Saudi Arabia, Egypt or other parts of the Middle East. When they returned, they clashed with the religious establishment, demanding a "purer" Islam uncorrupted by local Sufi customs.
Government figures show 8,872 people are now studying Islam in institutions of higher education.
Dozens of madrassas, funded in part by zakat, a charitable contribution required by the Koran, have sprung up in villages across the region. The messages being taught are often from the Salafi school of Islam which seeks to recreate the 7th century practices of the Prophet Mohammed and his successors.
"You can't live by Sharia law where the Russian constitution rules," said Abdurakhim Magomedov, a charismatic Salafi preacher whose video sermons are popular on the Internet and whose schools in the village of Novosasitli teach 200-300 pupils.
The sprightly, white bearded 70-year-old who first translated the Koran into the local Avar language, says that while Dagestan is not yet ready for jihad, its Muslim population must not live under secular law and Russian rule.
"It's written that if a man steals something, his hand must be chopped off. But you can't do that today so we are not living by Sharia, and this isn't right."
Today in Gimry, along the single, potholed road to the remote scattering of houses, green signs proclaim "Allah is Great". Disputes here are ruled on by the local imam, alcohol is scarce, polygamy is common and people say there has been no theft in years - virtues they attribute to Sharia law.
Despite decades of Communist rule, most children know only the local Avar tongue and people speak of Russia as if it were another country, or an occupying force.
Federal forces recently encircled the village in a more than year-long counter-terrorism operation - squeezing its trade in apricots and other produce.
"They are kafirs (infidels) who are fighting against Islam," a 22-year-old gym teacher who gave his name as Gadzhimurat said of the federal troops. He and other young men loitering outside the mosque said they condoned near-daily attacks on police.
HIJAB ON THE BEACH
The influence of religious conservatism can be seen not only in remote villages but also on the streets of Makhachkala, Dagestan's Caspian Sea coastal capital. The Salafi community has its own media outlets, charities and even a football league.
A sex-segregated school that opened this year already has more than 250 students.
"Five years ago, there were no Islamic clothing shops. Now every other girl wears a hijab," said Fatima Ramzanova, 19, feet curled under her on the sand of a new women-only beach in a full, black Islamic dress she wears against her mother's wishes.
As the influence of Salafism has grown, insurgents have increasingly targeted state-backed Sufi religious leaders they accuse of assisting the government's crackdown on true Islam.
On Tuesday, a woman posing as a pilgrim entered a Sufi Muslim cleric's home in Dagestan and detonated an explosive belt packed with nails and ball bearings, killing him, herself and six others, including an 11-year-old boy visiting with his parents.
Earlier this month, masked gunmen opened fire in a mosque where Muslims were celebrating the end of Ramadan. In June, militants burned down another Dagestani mosque after killing the imam and a worshipper.
The Kremlin is particularly alarmed by the spread of the violence to other regions, including Russia's heartland. Last month a leading cleric was shot dead and another wounded by a bomb in the central province of Tatarstan.
DISILLUSIONED YOUTH
Today, the ranks of fighters are filled by youths disillusioned by police brutality, joblessness, corruption and the perceived persecution of religious conservatives.
Some are said to fund their activities by running protection rackets. At least two local entrepreneurs, speaking on condition of anonymity, described receiving USB memory sticks with video-taped threats to bomb their businesses if they refused to pay large sums of cash. One left. The other paid.
On a most-wanted board in Dagestan's capital, snapshots of smooth-cheeked teenagers and twenty year olds in army fatigues outnumber black-and-white mugs of bearded veteran fighters.
The insurgency is romanticized in online videos and chat forums. Locals refer to militants, sometimes with irony, as "Robin Hoods".
In recent months the relatively privileged sons of local officials have been among those who joined the rebels. The deputy mayor of the city of Khasavyurt on Dagestan's border with Chechnya was fired this month after his son was killed by security forces at an alleged rebel safe house.
In a survey, as many as 13 percent of Dagestanis under 30 said "yes" or "maybe" they could see themselves ending up as rebel fighters, sociologist Zaid Abdulagatov said. Some 95 percent view themselves as religious, he added.
The government's response is to round up young men, who disappear and are brutally treated in captivity. Zhanna Ismailova says three of her four sons were taken this year by masked members of the security forces.
One of them, Arslan, was freed after two days and went into hiding. Her cell phone holds pictures of bruises and burns on his body she says are signs of beatings and electric shocks, used to force him to admit to involvement in two suicide bombings on a police checkpoint that killed 12 people in May.
Another of her sons, Ruslan, is in detention, and her youngest is still missing: "It's been four months since my son was kidnapped and no one can tell me where he is," she said in the house outside Makhachkala. "If my son is guilty, why don't they charge him and try him?"
Kamil Sultanahmedov, a popular young Islamic scholar who has himself been detained several times, says the crackdown by the security forces is only driving more recruits to the insurgency.
"The security forces are making a lot of money off getting promotions in this conflict. We are just pieces of meat. Victims of our beliefs," he said. "I don't know what to say anymore to people who decide to join the insurgency. It's their choice. I can't judge it. At first, it is a form of self-defense."
CHECHEN WARS
Russia's attitudes towards Islamic militancy were largely shaped in the two brutal post-Soviet Chechen wars that ended with the defeat of separatists a decade ago after Russian forces killed tens of thousands of people to halt an independence bid.
As those wars wore on, rebel rhetoric turned from a nationalist message to an explicitly Islamist one. Defeated in Chechnya, rebels launched attacks in other parts of Russia.
Thirty-nine attackers and at least 129 hostages were killed after a two-day siege at a Moscow theatre in 2002. More than 380 people, mainly school children, were killed in the siege of a primary school in Beslan in 2004. Bombs in the past two years killed dozens in a Moscow airport and subway.
Today, the Chechen rebel leader, Doku Umarov, leads an underground movement to create an Emirate across the Caucasus region. He has called on Muslims across Russia to rise up.
Since the autumn of 1999, when an incursion of Chechen rebel leaders into Dagestan sparked what became the second Chechen war, Dagestan has outlawed Wahhabism - the austere form of Islam that is the state religion of Saudi Arabia and has become a derogatory term for Islamic radicalism in Russia.
In the eyes of Dagestan's authorities, beards, veils and other outward signs of religion were synonymous with terrorism.
"Many people are afraid to even look our way," said Akhmad Mogamedkamilov, who helps run a "Salafi football league" where "halal" rules are observed: No swearing, no tackling or arguing with the referee. Players break for prayer on the field.
Two years ago, the local government launched a policy of liberalization in an attempt to ease some of the tension. While Putin was serving as prime minister and his prot?g? Dmitry Medvedev was president, the local authorities relaxed the rules to decriminalize practicing Salafism. Salafi charity and social groups sprang up across Dagestan.
In November 2010, the government set up a commission to give rebels a path back to civilian life. The move was hailed by doves, who blamed the crackdown for driving youths to militancy.
"Medvedev put things the right way. He said we must extend a hand to those who will take it and eliminate those who won't," said the commission's head, Rizvan Kurbanov, formerly Dagestan's deputy prime minister and now a Russian parliamentarian.
But since Putin's return to the Kremlin, the commission's work has all but halted. Rights activists view this one of a number of signals that hawks have retaken the policy lead.
They fear the Kremlin is planning to impose a model in Dagestan and elsewhere similar to the severe authoritarianism it put in place in post-war Chechnya, where Moscow's cash has funded extensive rebuilding but rights groups accuse pro-Kremlin strongman Ramzan Kadyrov of crushing all dissent.
"I criticized the commission myself until I realized it could cease to exist," the International Crisis Group think tank's North Caucasus director Yekaterina Sokirianskaya said.
"It is a very dangerous situation because there are many signs of a rollback to the Chechen model being realized under Putin. It is Putin's model."
Gulnara Rustamova, a Salafi Muslim and human rights activist, said the rise of Salafism is in part a form of political protest against corruption and oppression.
"With Putin's return, the situation has gotten worse, and more and more people understand that if they don't change things for themselves, no one will change it for them," she said.
"This is a protest; only, here in the Caucasus, it's religious in nature... We can only trust in Allah, who else can we trust in if the state itself is carrying out crimes?"
(Reporting by Alissa de Carbonnel; Editing by Peter Graff)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/insight-brutality-anger-fuel-jihad-russias-caucasus-080227280.html
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