MFS - The Other News

                          Morning Posting.

• Thousands of German-Turks choosing to return to homeland Turkey.Many in Germany have long feared that Turkey’s European Union accession would result in a flood of Turkish workers to Germany, yet recent statistics suggest more and more German-Turks are choosing to return to their ancestors’ homeland.Some 40,000 German-Turks returned to Turkey in 2009, German daily Bild recently reported, covering the story with the headline “ ‘We German-Turks returned to Turkey.’”Hmmmm....The call of "Das Vaterland"?Read the full story here.

• Bomb hits Egypt church at New Year's Mass, killing 21.A powerful bomb, possibly from a suicide attacker, exploded in front of a Coptic Christian church as a crowd of worshippers emerged from a New Years Mass early Saturday, killing at least 21 people and wounding nearly 80 in an attack that raised suspicions of an al-Qaeda role.The bombing enraged Christians, who often complain of discrimination at the hands of Egypt's Muslim majority and accuse the government of covering up attacks on their community. In heavy clashes Saturday afternoon, crowds of Christian youths in the streets outside the Saints Church and a neighboring hospital hurled stones at riot police, who opened fire with rubber bullets and tear gas."The last thing I heard was a powerful explosion and then my ears went deaf," Marco Boutros, a 17-year-old survivor, said from his hospital bed. "All I could see were body parts scattered all over - legs and bits of flesh."Blood splattered the facade of the church, as well as a mosque directly across the street. Bodies of many of the dead were collected from the street and kept inside the church overnight before they were taken away Saturday by ambulances for burial.Some Christians carried white sheets with the sign of the cross emblazoned on them with what appeared to be the blood of the victims.But the Interior Ministry said later in a statement that there was no sign that the epicenter was a car. That "makes it likely that the explosives ... were carried on the person of a suicide attacker who died with the others," it said.Around six severely damaged vehicles remained outside the church, but there was little sign of a crater that major car bombs usually cause. Bits of flesh were stuck to nearby walls.Hours after the blast, President Mubarak went on state TV and vowed to track down those behind the attack, saying "we will cut off the hands of terrorists and those plotting against Egypt's security.""Now it's between Christians and the government, not between Muslims and Christians," shouted one Christian woman at the hospital.In a reflection of the deepening mistrust between Egypt's communities, many in the crowd believed police would not fully investigate the bombing, reflecting Christians' suspicions that authorities often overlook attacks on their community.Archbishop Arweis, the top Coptic cleric in Alexandria, said police want to blame a suicide bomber instead of a car bomb so they can write it off as a lone attacker. He denounced what he called a lack of protection."There were only three soldiers and an officer in front of the church. Why did they have so little security at such a sensitive time when there's so many threats coming from al-Qaeda?" he said, speaking to the AP.Hmmmmm....As usual no word from the US President Barrack HUSSEIN Obama when it comes to bombing Christians.Read the full story here.Video here.

• HT:WomenAgainstSharia.UAE: Court Rules Male Worth More Than Female, Even In Womb.The UAE Supreme Court has ruled that the blood money to compensate the death of a foetus in a road accident be calculated as if the newborn would have been a girl baby.While the blood money compensation for a man is Dh200,000, the amount is Dh100,000 for a woman.The landmark ruling made on Wednesday was in response to an appeal in a case where a Fujairah woman was hit by a lorry in 2007, reports The National.While she suffered serious injuries, the baby she was carrying in her womb died.While upholding the lower court’s verdict that asked the insurance company to pay Dh1.2 million in damages, the apex court however ruled that the compensation must include Dh100,000 as blood money. The blood money for a foetus dead in a road accident is calculated at 10 per cent of that of an adult woman – which would be Dh10,000.Some eight months ago, the President of the Federal Supreme Court Dr Abdul Wahab Abdul had called for reforms in the blood money laws to make it same for males and females.Several experts had argued for parity on the grounds that the traditional justification for lesser compensation for women does not apply in the modern world where members of both sexes are equal.Hmmmm.....Imam Rauf "Sharia Law is the same as the Constitution"Source.

• Russian passenger plane explodes after emergency landing due to engine flameout.Death toll in plane explosion in Siberia reaches three.At least three people have died and over forty were injured after an ensuing explosion and fire of a Russian Tu-154M passenger jet that made an emergency landing in the Siberian city of Surgut on Saturday due to an engine flaming out on takeoff, a spokesman for the local branch of the Russia's Emergencies Ministry said.Meanwhile Al Jazeera claims the plane exploded at take off.Read the full story here.More here.

• Is Turkey a ‘pariah’ in NATO-EU club?Did US President Barrack Obama intervene at NATO to give Turkey one of the empty chairs for an assistant secretary-general position?Turkey was at the frontline of defense against the Russian-led Soviet threat for the transatlantic alliance throughout the Cold War, making its military and human assets readily available for deployment by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). With the second largest army in this military alliance, Ankara was what our Western friends often referred to as the “staunch ally” in the most troubled and volatile region of the world.But the picture has changed dramatically in recent years. Turkey no longer considers itself a frontline for anybody and Russia is a newfound friend who is ready and willing to boost trade and political ties with its historic foe, Turkey.We had a similar problem with new NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen in terms of an unfulfilled pledge, but that was recently settled. As part of a last-minute deal with Turkish President Abdullah Gül, brokered by US President Barrack Obama, to overcome Ankara’s objections to appointing Rasmussen, Turkey was promised a seat in one of the empty chairs for an assistant secretary-general position. At the first opportunity, Rasmussen bypassed Turkey and appointed a German national to one of the vacant positions, naturally infuriating Ankara. Turkey was calmed several months later with the announcement of Ambassador Hüseyin Diriöz’s selection as an assistant secretary-general for another chair. Undoubtedly the US intervention made a difference.The EU should do its own bidding as well and stop playing the blame game. It is time to pay heed to the concerns raised by Turkey if the EU really wants to boost the security aspect of the organization. As Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu made a cynical point to his colleagues during the ministerial meeting on the sidelines of NATO’s Lisbon summit, Ankara does not want to be part of what he called a “pariah category,” for which it enjoys neither full rights attributed to countries who are both EU and NATO members nor special privileges given non-EU and NATO countries, like Norway. After all, the petty interests of a tiny island cannot and should not be allowed to jeopardize the overwhelming interests of both organizations to cooperate. The responsibility is on the EU’s side.Hmmmm....."Spoken like a true defender of Democratic principles"?Read the full Ottoman dictatorial story here.

• 2010 Was By Far the Deadliest Year for U.S. Troops in Afghanistan—One American Killed Every 18 Hours.With 496 casualties, 2010 was by far the deadliest year for U.S. troops fighting a war in Afghanistan that has now entered its tenth year, according to casualty reports issued by the Department of Defense and tracked in a comprehensive database of war casualties maintained by CNSNews.com.There were 303 U.S. casualties in the Afghanistan war in 2009, making 2009 the second deadliest year of the war.Almost 17 times as many U.S. troops were killed in the Afghanistan war in 2010 as were killed in 2002, the first full calendar year of the war. In the past year, U.S. military personnel in Afghanistan were killed at a rate of about one every 18 hours.Thus far, 1,357 U.S. armed services personnel have lost their lives in the war in Afghanistan. The year-by-year casualty count is as follows.Hmmmmm.....Don't tell me the "Courageous restraint" has nothing to do with the increase of causalities?Read and see the full story here.

• Now coastal Queensland braces for 30-foot flood waters.Floods that have inundated 22 Australian towns and forced more than 200,000 from their homes headed toward the northeast coast on New Year's Day, forcing further evacuations and warnings of 30-ft flood waters.Australia has endured its wettest spring on record, causing six river systems in tropical Queensland to flood, as soaring temperatures in the states of Victoria and South Australia sparked warnings of devastating bushfires.The rain has flooded coal mines and hit farming hard, with many roads still impassable, and prompted warnings of the dangers of crocodiles and snakes in flooded homes.The inland sea that stretches across Queensland is dotted with the roofs of flooded homes, islands of dry ground crowded with stranded livestock and small boats ferrying people and emergency supplies.On Saturday, coastal areas were preparing for the worst. Evacuations were under way in the town of Rockhampton where the Fitzroy River, one of Australia's largest river systems, was expected to flood.The town's airport was closed to commercial flights, while relief officials warned the floods would likely reach more than nine meters (30 ft) in height.Read the full story here.

• HT:LibertiesAlliance.Counterjihad Calendar 2011 – International Year of Truth About Islam.Read the full story here.

• HT:TomNelson.Sfgate : Snowstorm Caused By Evil Republicans.Looks like they need to re-open Alcatraz as a mental health institution."Welcome to the New Normal."Those words should be displayed at New York's airports as a welcome to bedraggled travelers during the Northeast's latest "snowpocalypse." Why? Because the Big Apple's much-lamented paralysis this week is a critical cautionary tale for everyone. The episode warns us about the kind of thing that's likely coming to the rest of America as we now willfully mix three toxic problems.The first of those is global climate change. Though no single mega-storm is the fault of climate change, scientists agree that weather - including snow patterns - will become more intense as the planet's ecosystem is transformed by human-produced pollution. So while New York's near-record snowstorm may not be the direct result of unbridled carbon emissions, powerful storms like it will undoubtedly be more frequent thanks to our head-in-the-sand attitude toward the environment.This might be slightly less alarming if our country were making investments to mitigate climate change's worst effects. But that gets to the second problem that the New York snowstorm epitomizes: America is still being eviscerated by conservatives' anti-tax, budget-cutting religion - a religion whose high priest is New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.Read the full story here.

• Putin tells governor, minister to mark New Year in darkness.Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Friday suggested that the Moscow Region governor, the energy minister and the head of the holding company MRSK managing energy sector companies, go to blacked out districts to mark New Year with their dwellers.Putin held a meeting with Governor Boris Gromov, Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko and MRSK head Nikolai Shvets. He reproached Gromov for failing to deliver on his promise to restore electricity supplies by 6 p.m. Moscow time (15 GMT)."If you were not sure, you shouldn't have promised. Thirty-five villages with 4,000 residents remain without electricity. I suggest that you go and celebrate New Year with them. The three of you," Putin said.The massive blackouts were caused by last weekend's ice storm. Freezing rain broke many power transmission lines, causing serious power outages, which still have to be dealt with.Gromov said 789 villages and towns with 400,000 dwellers were initially blacked out, and electricity supplies have been restored to most of them.Shmatko pledged to restore power supplies on January 1.Read the full story here.

• HT:WattsUpWithThat. And now for something completely Different.NASA’s Sunspot Prediction Roller Coaster.Santa brought us a new Sunspot prediction to be added to NASA’s incredibly high series of at least five ill-fated predictions starting in 2006. NASA’s latest peak Sunspot Number for Solar Cycle #24 (SC24) is down 60% from their original, but it still seems a bit too high, judging by David Archibald’s recent WUWT posting that analogizes SC24 and SC25 to SC5 and SC6 which peaked around 50, during the cold period (Dalton minimum) of the early 1800′s.According to Yogi Berra “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” Team leader Dr. Mausumi Dikpati of NASA’s National Center for Atmospheric Research and Solar physicist Dr. David Hathaway of the National Space Science & Technology Center have most likely learned that lesson well, having predicted, back in March 2006, that SC24 would start by the end of 2006 or early 2007 and would peak 30% to 50% higher than SC23, which would yield counts of 156 to 180. The latest prediction is 64 (I love their precision :^) but I predict it will have to be reduced further, kind of like an after-Christmas sale :^)Read the full story here.

• And now for something completely different.Extinction Countdown: Another record year for manatee deaths.Frigid waters off the coast of Florida have killed a record number of endangered manatees this year, according to state wildlife officials. The manatee—full name, the West Indian manatee (Trichechus manatus)—has been protected by the Endangered Species Act since 1974.As of December 10, 699 manatee deaths had been documented this year in Florida waters, 244 of which were attributed to "cold stress." Most of the year's deaths occurred in January during what the National Weather Service called Florida's coldest 12-day period since 1940.This year's death toll tops last year's record of 429 deaths, 56 of which were caused by unusually cold weather. That was more than twice the number of cold-related deaths in 2008.Hmmmm.....Pardon... Yes Global Warming must enforce new carbon emissions limits !Read the full story here.