MFS - The Other News

                         Afternoon Posting.

• HT:IsraelMatzav.Why Obama hates Israel.Rabbi Pruzansky has written an important analysis of why President Obama hates (and unlike the Rabbi, I will use the term without quotation marks) Israel and why there is nothing we can do about it, although we can certainly take actions to cope with it.Nothing in the Israeli narrative resonates with Obama and so his dislike for Israel is ill-concealed, and reflected in his policies and attitudes. Indeed, Obama’s discomfort with the narrative and foundational principles of Israel mirrors his discomfort with the narrative and foundational principles of the United States. There are several implications of this analysis.Hmmm....nothing new there almost every speech abroad he makes has the phrase"Islam is a great religion".Read the full story here.

• 'Israel can't rely on Turkey or NATO for its defense,' expert says.Given the Turkish governments animosity toward Israel, the Israeli government would be foolish to think a missile defense system in Turkey would defend it from an Iran attack, according to an American foreign policy expert.Ariel Cohen, from Washington think tank The Heritage Foundation, criticized what he called the Turkish leadership’s adamant position on not letting any data collected by a planned NATO missile defense system radar be shared with Israel."This position suggests an ill intention against the security of Israel," he told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review during a Tuesday interview."This position can be perceived as potentially a support for those who'd like to attack Israel.Israel has its own missile defense system against potential missile attacks, Cohen said. Iran does not need to use Turkish airspace to hit Israel, he said, adding that Israel has complicated relations with some other NATO countries that are critical of some Israeli policies.While he described the outcome of the NATO summit as a win-win situation for both Ankara and Washington, he warned the question of operational control of the system remains an important one.“Everything should be agreed in advance. And it should be agreed on in a way that the system could not be shut down on the whim of one general or politician," he said.Cohen believes Turkey's general strategic vector is worrying a lot of people. Turkey's refusal to let United States soldiers use Turkish territory to enter Iraq in 2003, as well as its refusal to let U.S. warships enter the Black Sea, the offer of the Turkish-Russian platform which excluded the European Union and the U.S. during the Russian-Georgian war in 2008 and more recently the Turkish-Brazilian initiative on the nuclear standoff between Iran and the West, are all examples of worrying developments, he said."Obama has spent tremendous political capital by coming to Turkey in the early days of his administration, to highlight Turkey as a model of a democratic Muslim state. But he was thinking of the Turkey of eight years ago. This image no longer applies. Turkey has wasted its goodwill in Washington. Many in the U.S. are disappointed," he said.Cohen also criticized the U.S. for remaining passive in public diplomacy, saying it should have objected to movies like "Valley of the Wolves" that depict a negative image of Americans.Hmmm...Finally someone with common sense,get Turkey out of NATO NOW ! Read the full story here.

• Woman: TSA Agents Singled Me Out For My Breasts.The head of the Transportation Security Administration said the agency will look further into allegations that two male TSA workers picked a woman for additional screening because of her breasts.Eliana Sutherland recently flew from Orlando International Airport and told Local 6 she felt the two male TSA workers were staring at her breasts and chose her for additional screening because of their size."It was pretty obvious. One of the guys that was staring me up and down was the one who pulled me over," said Sutherland. "Not a comfortable feeling."Experiences like Sutherland's have been reported across the country, leaving many people to join a group planning to boycott the TSA's new full body scan in an effort to clog security lines on the day before Thanksgiving. Whether it's pat-downs or full-body scans, the changes are making some people question who gets chosen and why.Read the full story here.

• HT:Ahmadiyya Times.Eye on Extremism: Sunni clerics denounce Aasia sympathizers, threaten Judges' lives.ATAS central leader, Pir Muhammad Afzal Qadri said that if Justice Arif Iqbal Bhatti of the Lahore High Court could be assassinated for acquitting two Christian brothers accused of blasphemy, government functionaries supporting Aasia Bibi should not expect to be spared.Religious clerics have announced sit-in in front of the President’s House if Zardari pardons her while a legal aid organisation appeals for clemency.An appeal for protection.Chairman of Free Legal Assistance and Settlements Advocate Anis AA Saadi, in a statement issued on Tuesday, said that there was no evidence against Aasia and that she was given capital punishment under pressure from extremist elements. He said that judges in lower courts remained under intense pressure during trials dealing with blasphemy.He condemned the conviction of Aasia Bibi and said that Aasia and her family’s life was at risk. He said that the human rights activists supporting her were also not safe.Referring to Pope Benedict’s statement about Zardari trying to send Aasia aborad, he warned the president that if such a step were taken, the ATAS would stage a sit-in in front of the President’s House for an indefinite periodHmmmm...Obama "Islam is a great religion" Anybody notices how silent he is in cases like this?Does he aprove of the extremists?Read the full story here.

• U.N. Secretary General Eyes New Aid, Better PR Campaign, for North Korea.Even as the world struggles to find workable ways to constrain North Korea’s expanding nuclear weapons program and unpredictable belligerence, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is planning how to channel new streams of aid and development money to the dangerous regime.Ban, the former foreign minister of South Korea, wants to engage more deeply in confidence-building measures to reassure a skeptical world of the positive impact of engaging North Korea peacefully.Those efforts are going to be harder, in the wake of North Korea’s most recent unprovoked artillery attack on a South Korean island that left at least two dead and 13 wounded.Moreover, it appears from a highly confidential U.N. planning document obtained by Fox News, the job of making sure any such aid gets to North Korea’s starving citizens is more difficult than the U.N. customarily admits.The U.N. has already declared its intention to send at least $290 million to North Korea through various aid agencies over the next four years, despite the still escalating nuclear tensions. One of the major aims of the proposed p.r. blitz contemplated in the Policy Committee document is to open that faucet even wider, and to keep it separate henceforth from political and security tensions.If Ban’s plan is endorsed and proceeds, the North Koreans who insist on “No Aid-No Access” might indeed be satisfied. If, that is, they consider the aid to be enough.Hmmm...so the N.Korean aggression gets rewarded?While Israel gets hammered for constructions?Read the full story here.

• Federal Reserve to Obama: Yeah, You’re Probably Doomed.If unemployment really is 8 percent or higher on Election Day 2012, then President Obama’s reelection chances are toast. Oh, I suppose the GOP could nominate a terrible nominee, or there could be some giant last-minute factor like a terror attack, but a president who presides over four years of exceptionally high unemployment in his first term won’t get a second term. What’s more, a long, sustained period of economic misery like that might discredit Obamanomics in the public’s mind for a long, long time.Hmmmm....Happy Thanksgiving Mr President ? Read the full story here.

• HT:GadiAdelman.Video : "TAQIYYA" The song and video!And "Lets all Just Fly Naked!

• China, Russia quit dollar.St. Petersburg, Russia - China and Russia have decided to renounce the US dollar and resort to using their own currencies for bilateral trade, Premier Wen Jiabao and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin announced late on Tuesday.Chinese experts said the move reflected closer relations between Beijing and Moscow and is not aimed at challenging the dollar, but to protect their domestic economies. "About trade settlement, we have decided to use our own currencies," Putin said at a joint news conference with Wen in St. Petersburg. The two countries were accustomed to using other currencies, especially the dollar, for bilateral trade. Since the financial crisis, however, high-ranking officials on both sides began to explore other possibilities. The yuan has now started trading against the Russian rouble in the Chinese interbank market, while the renminbi will soon be allowed to trade against the rouble in Russia, Putin said. "That has forged an important step in bilateral trade and it is a result of the consolidated financial systems of world countries," he said.Hmmm...the end of the $ is in sight ...Great job Mr President !Read the full story here.

• Indonesia Cleric Jailed for Marrying 12-Year-Old.An Indonesian Muslim cleric who sparked a national outcry by marrying a 12-year-old girl was sentenced Wednesday to four years in prison. Judges at the Semarang District Court said Pujiono Cahyo Widianto, 46, was found guilty of sexually abusing a minor. The cleric, who also ran an Islamic boarding school and owned several businesses, hosted a lavish wedding in Central Java province in 2008 that was attended by thousands of people. He claimed at the time he hadn't done anything wrong because he had no plans to consummate the marriage until the girl reached puberty. But few in the predominantly Muslim nation of 237 million were mollified, especially when he went on to say he also intended to marry two other girls, aged 7 and 9. Muslim men can have up to four wives in Indonesia but they must be older than 18. In addition to sentencing Widianto to prison, presiding Judge Hari Mulyanto ordered him to pay a 60 million rupiah ($6,690) fine. Widianto, who said he would appeal, has been in detention since early last year. Police returned his young wife to her parents soon after the wedding. Read the full story here.

• Lebanon on knife-edge over Hariri panel outcome.Lebanon is on a knife-edge amid mounting tension over a UN probe into the murder of the country's ex-premier and efforts by regional leaders to try to contain a potentially explosive situation."Everyone feels the danger and it's like a police thriller filled with suspense and where everyone is waiting to see who the murderer is," said Ghassan al-Azzi, political science professor at Lebanese University."The nerves of the Lebanese are frayed."Lebanon has been holding its breath since July when the secretary general of the militant group Hezbollah announced that he believed members of his party would be indicted by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) for the 2005 murder of ex-premier Rafiq Hariri.The powerful Shiite party has said it would not accept such an outcome, prompting fears of civil strife between supporters of current Sunni Prime Minister Saad Hariri -- son of the slain ex-premier -- and Hezbollah.Rafiq Hariri was assassinated on February 14, 2005 in a Beirut bombing that also killed another 22 people.Analysts say that even if the tribunal does indict high-ranking Hezbollah members, Lebanon is unlikely to see a repeat of the kind of sectarian violence that brought the country close to civil war in May 2008."I think it is unlikely that Hezbollah will do anything that threatens the country's security," said Paul Salem, head of the Beirut-based Carnegie Middle East Center.Experts and diplomats believe that the most likely outcome in the event Hezbollah members are indicted is that the court's decision will be ignored by the party and its members will not be handed over."I don't think the government will arrest anyone," Salem said. "Hezbollah now are thinking that they might survive the tribunal."Read the full story here.

• New Russian grenade launcher blasts through thick armor.The Hashim all-purpose grenade launcher, developed by Russian engineers especially for the King of Jordan, is capable of knocking out tanks with an armor thickness of 72 mm.Read and see the full story here.

• And now for something completely Different.85 Rare Singing Dogs Discovered At Pennsylvania Home.The New Guinea Singing Dogs are the rarest in the world. Just 150 were known to exist before the bust at Randy Hammond's home. Now there are 235.From the road, nothing seemed awry at the Willow Hill, Pennsylvania home of Randy Hammond. But Hammond had a secret: 85 of the rarest breed of dogs in the world were living in crowded, dirty enclosures on his property. Called the New Guinea Singing Dogs for their melodious howls and country of origin, just 150 were known to exist worldwide before Hammond's brood was discovered.The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture describes Hammond as a hoarder, and he's been charged with animal cruelty, among other offenses. Despite the 85 dogs living in 27 small enclosures, Wendt describes these fox-like canines who can climb trees as "pretty healthy.About ten of the adults will remain with Hammond. How can this happen? Wendt says Hammond has been very cooperative with his group and law enforcement, and that he truly cares about the dogs, who are attached to him. In the last two years, Hammond turned all his attention to care for his wife, battling cancer. The number of dogs "just exploded. It went from 50 to 85 dogs in two years," Wendt says. "That's when it turns into chaos."Hmmm..."Who let the dogs out?".Read the full story here.