MFS - The Other News

                          Morning Posting.

• HT:RightTruth.The Rest of the Story.Coptic Christians attacked again by Muslims, possibly al-Qaeda, at a New Year's Eve mass in Egypt attended by 1,000 worshipers. (hat tip R.J. Godlewski) Attacks on Christians and Jews by Muslims are happening so often they don't even get a 'news alert' by the media. The propaganda would have you believe that the poor Muslims are the ones being attacked and suffering from Islamophobes, but the truth is very different. As Pamala Geller points out:Just-released New York 2009 report: Hate crimes against Jews: 251. Hate crimes against Muslims: 11. [snip]... "NY sees a surge in hate," by Fredric U. Dicker for the New York Post, December 31 (thanks to Ken): ALBANY -- Hate crimes across New York state jumped 14 percent in 2009, led by an increase in attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions, state records released yesterday show.Those statistics don't mention Christians,not yet anyways. We haven't even touched on the Muslim-on-Muslim violence. I'll leave that for them to work out themselves. I'm very concerned about the increasing attacks on Christians, not just physical attacks around the world, but the attacks by the liberals, progressives, atheists, etc. who continue to chip away at Christians in every area of Western civilization.We've got a lot of work to do this year. I hope the Christians and Jews in the West are prepared.Hmmmmmm.....Don't doubt it Christianity is under attack...The Ninth Crusade is already underway.Read the full story here.

• Pope Benedict XVI to hold religious peace summit.Pope Benedict XVI has said he will organise a summit in Assisi with religious heads to discuss how they can promote world peace.In a New Year message, the Pope also condemned inter-religious violence, including attacks against Christians in the Middle East.The summit in the Italian city will be held in October, 25 years after Pope John Paul organised a similar event.His announcement came hours after a bomb went off at a church in Egypt.At least 17 people died in the blast at the Coptic Christian Church in the northern Egyptian city of Alexandria, sparking a clash between Christians and Muslims."Facing the threatening tensions of the moment, especially discrimination, injustices and religious intolerance, which today strike Christians in a particular way, once again, I make a pressing appeal not to give in to discouragement and resignation," he said.Hmmmm....We all know which "Faith" is causing the killings on other religions.Read the full story here.

• "The War on Christianity ".Pepsi's new super bowl add will be insulting to Catholics.Who makes these commercials? Now bashing Christians is the new norm.Hmmm....Apparently there's money to be made in bashing Christianity?Read and see the full story here.

• HT:StrategyPage.The Mighty KGB Reassembles Itself.There's a bureaucratic battle going on in Russia, as angry intelligence officials try to resurrect the Cold War era KGB. When the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991, the new Russian government broke up the KGB, creating a domestic intelligence agency (the FSB) and a CIA like operation for foreign intel (the SVR), and several other separate operations that used to be part of the KGB. But because of a recent SVR debacle, and a certain nostalgia for the powerful KGB of yore, FSB officials want to absorb the smaller SVR.According to Russian officials, the ten Russian spies arrested in the United States last June were betrayed by a Russian SVR official (identified only as "colonel Shcherbakov"). The U.S. claimed they had been watching the ten sleepers for several years, which may indicate that Shcherbakov revealed a lot more if he was on the American payroll all that time. Shcherbakov was in charge of the SVR sleeper cell operation. The Russians use military ranks in the police and intelligence services, and colonels are middle-management. There is political pressure on the head of SVR to resign, indicating that the damage was greater than anyone wants to admit. That escalated into calls for SVR to become part of the FSB.The FBI were puzzled by how little useful information these ten were able to obtain. As far as the FBI could tell, these ten spies never obtained anything important. But the Russians were eager to get them back, and avoid a trial in the United States. It's unclear why Russia undertook such an inept operation, although Shcherbakov should know. If he did, that information has not gone public.The FSB still relies on conscripts for many low level security jobs. But, as in the Soviet period, getting drafted into the FSB is an attractive proposition for many young Russian men. Doing well in this job (guarding nuclear weapons, or other important national assets) marks you as someone worthy of other jobs within the security services. What bothers many Russians is the ultimate purpose of the FSB. The KGB was known as the main protector of the Communist Party. The FSB is seen as the supporter of wealthy criminals who used their KGB connections and powers after the Soviet Union collapsed, to grab ownership of many state owned assets. The current Russian government is acting more and more like the autocratic rulers Russia has suffered under for centuries. The FSB seems to act more like the palace guard, than public servants. The guards want more power, and are likely to get it.Hmmmmm....Tsar Putin?Read the full story here.

• HT:StrategyPage.Nigeria:Widespread Islamic Attacks On Christians. Islamic radical violence against Christians in the last ten days has left over 80 dead, hundreds wounded and over a hundred suspects arrested. In the northeast, police have arrested nearly a hundred actual or suspected members of Boko Haran. In the process, eight people have died, including three policemen. Police believe they have the chief financier of Boko Haran, and several other members of the group's leadership. Security forces tactics often backfire, as many army and police commanders allow their personnel to loot homes that are raided, and raid any home they want. The police and troops will often release suspects if a large enough bribe can be arranged. Troops and cops also tend to be pretty brutal, and at times trigger-happy. Read the full story here.

• U.S. efforts fail to convince Pakistan's top general to target Taliban.ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN - Countless U.S. officials in recent years have lectured and listened to Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, the man many view as the most powerful in Pakistan. They have drunk tea and played golf with him, feted him and flown with him in helicopters. But they have yet to persuade him to undertake what the Obama administration's recent strategy review concluded is a key to success in the Afghan war - the elimination of havens inside Pakistan where the Taliban plots and stages attacks on coalition troops in Afghanistan. Kayani, who as Pakistan's army chief has more direct say over the country's security strategy than its president or prime minister, has resisted personal appeals from President Obama, U.S. military commanders and senior diplomats. Recent U.S. intelligence estimates have concluded that he is unlikely to change his mind anytime soon. Despite the entreaties, officials say, Kayani doesn't trust U.S. motivations and is hedging his bets in case the American strategy for Afghanistan fails.In recent months, Kayani has sometimes become defiant. When U.S.-Pakistani tensions spiked in September, after two Pakistani soldiers were killed by an Afghanistan-based American helicopter gunship pursuing insurgents on the wrong side of the border, he personally ordered the closure of the main frontier crossing for U.S. military supplies into Afghanistan, according to U.S. and Pakistani officials. In October, administration officials choreographed a White House meeting for Kayani at which Obama could directly deliver his message of urgency. The army chief heard him out, then provided a 13-page document updating Pakistan's strategic perspective and noting the gap between short-term U.S. concerns and Pakistan's long-term interests, according to U.S. officials. Kayani reportedly was infuriated by the recent WikiLeaks release of U.S. diplomatic cables, some of which depicted him as far chummier with the Americans and more deeply involved in Pakistani politics than his carefully crafted domestic persona would suggest. In one cable, sent to Washington by the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad last year, he was quoted as discussing with U.S. officials a possible removal of Pakistan's president and his preferred replacement. On the eve of the cable's publication in November, the normally aloof and soft-spoken general ranted for hours on the subject of irreconcilable U.S.-Pakistan differences in a session with a group of Pakistani journalists. The two countries' "frames of reference" regarding regional security "can never be the same," he said, according to news accounts. Calling Pakistan America's "most bullied ally," Kayani said that the "real aim of U.S. strategy is to de-nuclearize Pakistan.Kayani "is one of the most anti-India chiefs Pakistan has ever had," one U.S. official said. "Hmmmm.....Afghan, Pakistani leaders to meet in Turkey? Joint military exercises for Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan?Turkey did not invite India on Afghan meet to appease Pakistan.Anyone thinking the same i do?Get Turkey (Iran)out of NATO !!Read the full story here.

• HT:AhmadiyyaTimes.Pakistanis Rally in Support of Blasphemy Law."I call it a natural result of religious extremism that is on the rise in Pakistani society. The liberal and democratic forces in the country have retreated so much that it has created an ideological vacuum that is now being filled by the religious extremists.” [Mehdi Hasan, chairman, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan].ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A crippling strike by Islamist parties brought Pakistan to a standstill on Friday as thousands of people took to the streets, and forced businesses to close, to head off any change in the country’s blasphemy law, which rights groups say has been used to persecute minorities, especially Christians.The law was introduced in the 1980s under the military dictatorship of Gen. Mohammad Zia ul-Haq as part of a policy of promoting Islam to unite this deeply fractious society. Many attempts to revise the law have since been thwarted by the strong opposition of religious forces, which continue to gather strength.In fiery speeches across all major cities and towns, religious leaders warned the government on Friday against altering the law, which carries a mandatory death sentence for anyone convicted of insulting Islam.“The president and prime minister should take the nation into confidence and assure in unequivocal terms that there will be no change in the blasphemy law under any international pressure,” Sahibzada Fazal Kareem, a religious leader and member of Parliament, said at a rally in the southern port city of Karachi, where the police fired tear gas to stop protesters from marching toward Bilawal House, one of the residences of President Asif Ali Zardari.The human rights commission has documented scores of cases in which men have been harassed for being Christian or for being members of the Ahmadi sect, a minority group within Islam, and then accused of blasphemy. The mere fact of being a Christian or an Ahmadi in Pakistan makes a person vulnerable to prosecution, the commission says. Often the mere accusation of blasphemy has led to murders, lynchings and false arrests.Rights activists, critics and several government officials, including Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab Province, and Sherry Rehman, a lawmaker and former information minister, have urged the government to repeal or revise the laws.“These laws institutionalize injustice,” Ms. Rehman said. “People have to feel secure as first-class citizens of this country.”Ms. Rehman expressed disappointment that the government had distanced itself from her proposed amendments to the law.The general strike and protests on Friday show the power Islamists hold on the streets of Pakistan. They also contrast sharply with the campaigns by rights activists and opponents of the blasphemy laws who have vented their opposition and discontent mostly on the Internet and social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Protest rallies by rights activists have been ineffective and relatively small.“Their agitation potential is immense,” said Rasul Baksh Rais, a political analyst who teaches at Lahore University of Management Sciences in Lahore. “Their numerical strength is not enough for electoral wins but is enough to create trouble for any government in Pakistan.”Ms. Rehman, the former information minister, said the secular, democratic forces need not be deterred by the show of force by Islamists. “Eventually, I think we have to keep at it with the help of the civil society and media; their street power is disproportional,” she said, referring to religious parties. “The mainstream political parties need to push back and resist the religious extremists who hijack issues through street power.”However, analysts said the huge show of force by religious parties, and even the attention local news media outlets gave them on Friday, would only embolden the religious elements in the country. The dynamic is such that “the government may not be able to make any changes in the blasphemy laws in the coming years,” Mr. Rais predicted.
  Hmmmmm......Gen. Ashfaq Kayani "No one can separate Islam from Pakistan as the country was achieved in its name", the man many view as the most powerful in Pakistan was quoted as discussing with U.S. officials a possible removal of Pakistan's president and his preferred replacement.According to a released wikileaks document.Kayani "is one of the most anti-India chiefs Pakistan has ever had," one U.S. official said. Read the full story here.

• Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's car auction gets '$1m bid'.A 33-year-old car owned by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that has been put up for auction has reportedly attracted an offer of $1m (£640,000).Ahmad Esfandiari, head of Iran's welfare agency, was quoted by Iran's Irna news agency as saying that the bid had come from an Arab country.Proceeds from the sale of the Peugeot 504 will go to a fund for homes for disabled people and to needy women.Bidders have one month to submit offers for the car.Earlier, officials had said they hoped the car would fetch more than the $2,000 (1,500 euros; £1,300) such cars usually sell for in Iran.The sale comes at a time when Mr Ahmadinejad's government has cut food and energy subsidies, raising the cost of living substantially.Read the full story here.

• Egypt bomb kills 21 at Alexandria Coptic church.Warning Graphic images.The moment of the attack - Footage courtesy the al-Qiddissin ChurchPresident Hosni Mubarak has urged Egypt's Muslims and Christians to stand united against terrorism after a bombing outside a church in Alexandria.At least 21 people were killed and 70 hurt in the suspected suicide attack, which happened during a New Year's Eve service at the al-Qiddissin Church.In a rare televised address, Mr Mubarak said it bore the hallmark of "foreign hands" seeking to destabilise Egypt.Several hundred Christians later clashed nearby with Muslims and police.Read and see the full story here.

• J’accuse !A Copt highlights the hypocrisy of the Nuslim majority.Hypocrisy and good intentions will not stop the next massacre. Only a good hard look at ourselves and sufficient resolve to face up to the ugliness in our midst will do soWe are to join in a chorus of condemnation. Jointly, Muslims and Christians, government and opposition, Church and Mosque, clerics and laypeople – all of us are going to stand up and with a single voice declare unequivocal denunciation of al-Qaeda, Islamist militants, and Muslim fanatics of every shade, hue and color; some of us will even go the extra mile to denounce salafi Islam, Islamic fundamentalism as a whole, and the Wahabi Islam which, presumably, is a Saudi import wholly alien to our Egyptian national culture.And once again we’re going to declare the eternal unity of “the twin elements of the nation”, and hearken back the Revolution of 1919, with its hoisted banner showing the crescent embracing the cross, and giving symbolic expression to that unbreakable bond.Much of it will be sheer hypocrisy; a great deal of it will be variously nuanced so as keep, just below the surface, the heaps of narrow-minded prejudice, flagrant double standard and, indeed, bigotry that holds in its grip so many of the participants in the condemnations.[...]

1. I accuse those state bodies who believe that by bolstering the Salafi trend they are undermining the Muslim Brotherhood, and who like to occasionally play to bigoted anti-Coptic sentiments, presumably as an excellent distraction from other more serious issues of government.But most of all, I accuse the millions of supposedly moderate Muslims among us; those who’ve been growing more and more prejudiced, inclusive and narrow minded with every passing year.
2. I accuse those among us who would rise up in fury over a decision to halt construction of a Muslim Center near ground zero in New York, but applaud the Egyptian police when they halt the construction of a staircase in a Coptic church in the Omranya district of Greater Cairo.I’ve been around, and I have heard you speak, in your offices, in your clubs, at your dinner parties: “The Copts must be taught a lesson,” “the Copts are growing more arrogant,” “the Copts are holding secret conversions of Muslims”, and in the same breath, “the Copts are preventing Christian women from converting to Islam, kidnapping them, and locking them up in monasteries.”
3. I accuse you all, because in your bigoted blindness you cannot even see the violence to logic and sheer common sense that you commit; that you dare accuse the whole world of using a double standard against us, and are, at the same time, wholly incapable of showing a minimum awareness of your own blatant double standard.Hmmmm.....Emile couldn't have said it better.Read the full story here.HT:TundraTabloids.

• Report: Iran to commute Ashtiani's sentence.Prosecutor says case of woman charged with murdering her husband and sentenced to death by stoning is being re-examined. 'Anything is possible'.Iran's chief prosecutor told Iran's Fars news agency Sunday that it was possible that the death by stoning which Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani was condemned to over charges of adultery would be cancelled. And yet, he did not address the possibility that she would be executed by hanging.According to the senior prosecutor, the case was being re-examined and "anything is possible". He added that the authorities allowed Ashtiani to be interviewed by the foreign media on Saturday and said: "We aren't concerned."In an interview given yesterday to the foreign press, Ashtiani said that she would sue the two German journalists who were arrested in Iran two months ago and indicted for espionage charges.According to Ashtiani the two interviewed her son against Iranian law and caused her a great deal of embarrassment. Ashtiani also refuted claims in the western media that her confession to the charges ascribed to her was taken from her under duress. She also criticized her lawyers for politicizing her trial.Read the full story here. More here.

• HT:EmergingCorruptions.As Japan Abandons Emissions Caps, Obama Rushes Headlong Toward It.Even as the Japanese have abandoned its national emissions trading scheme because they’ve realized how many jobs would be lost as a result of the draconian regulations involved, President Obama continues to claim that he wants to impose similar jobs-killing regulations on America. Japan initially announced that its national carbon trading scheme was to have been approved in the now concluding parliamentary session. But common sense and business interests have delayed the bill until the next session begins in January putting the future of the law into question.Japanese authorities are coming to realize that the emissions cuts that the island nation had imagined it would achieve will cost jobs and severely hamper their business sector. Stark realizations are dawning on the Japanese that emissions goals would be “nearly impossible to meet” without deep cuts in emissions by manufacturers, the power infrastructure, not to mention homes and business buildings.Yet, even as the much smaller nation (it’s either the 2nd or 3rd largest economy in the world) of Japan is coming to realize that cap and trade ideas are ruinous President Obama who captains one of the largest economies in history seems hidebound on pushing the destructive ideas on the U.S.Not only is Obama pushing this jobs-killing scheme, he intends to ignore Congress and the voters by going around both by using his power to implement regulatory changes to impose the rules on the country by fiat instead of going through the legislative process.Hmmmm......Or perhaps ......,which brings me to the next question :Which bank is dealing with greenhouse gas emission regulations finances?Don't tell me it's the Shorebank Urban Partnership Bank?Read the full story here.

• HT:TundraTabloids.Jihad exposed : Choudary - Shoebat - Baki -Saleem go at it on ABNSAT TV.FK: “Jihadis Spilling the Beans! – Choudary Vs. Shoebat Vs. Bakri. This is great material, omar bakri takes off like a rocket, Highly entertaining. Apparently the creator of the universe said “dont feel sorry for the kafirs” – choudary quotes it live… lol”Read and see the full story here.