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• HT:AmericanThinker.Obama's Solar Nightmare.The Democrats have been busy the last two years, and not just reengineering the healthcare industry, restructuring the auto sector, assaulting Wall Street and the financial sector, harming our public finances. They have also been trying to transform America's energy industry at our expense. This is Barack Obama at his worst -- picking losers and winners by personal whim, donations for dollars deals, and ideological zeal.Who have been the losers and who have been the winners? And have the winners just been taking the taxpayers for a ride while their guy has been driving the bus -- with taxpayers sitting in the back?The Obama administration has tried to kill off the oil industry. Offshore moratoriums have been unilaterally imposed by executive orders and justified using scientific panel studies that were misrepresented-if not distorted- by the administration. The drilling permitting process has been afflicted with sclerosis. Federal lands are becoming less and less available for development.He tried and failed to get a cap and trade bill through Congress. He warned that if that effort failed he would do another end run around Congress and rely on his Environmental Protection Agency to do his dirty work.Who knows? Maybe Obama has personalized his gripes and made them the basis of public policy. We know how he feels about George Bush and Dick Cheney -- both with strong ties to the oil industry. Maybe he just doesn't care for the South where much of our carbon wealth is found -- a Republican redoubt that he may have just written off as a political wasteland for him.Hence, gas prices approaching $4 dollars a gallon -- and this is not yet the summer driving season that typically boosts gas prices as demand increases.Even the Spanish media have warned America that Obama is driving America off the green energy cliff. Other European governments are slashing solar tariffs as fast as they can as they to save themselves from drowning in red ink.Does anyone believe that Barack Obama listens or that this self-declared "student of history" would learn from the Spanish tragedy? Did he listen to Larry Summer, his own resident genius (who recently left the administration) when Summers highlighted a study from the OMB and Treasury Department that found severe problems with the "economic integrity of government support for renewables"? Only in Washington would a term such as ‘economic integrity" be used to describe a fiscally foolish program that will lead to massive problems in the future.This tsunami of bankruptcies is headed our way.The government is a notoriously bad investor when it comes to clean energy. Barack Obama and his band of zealots have very little real world business experience -- and seem to disdain free enterprise. But this green energy crusade may have more than just ideological zealotry fueling its drive. Recall, Obama likes to pick winners and losers, and not just in basketball tournaments.He hails from Chicago, after all.Darrell Issa, now chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, will investigate these green energy projects and get to the bottom of how we have been ripped off by green schemers and their friends in high places. He has already announced that one item on his agenda will be how the Obama administration has spent our money.Hmmmm....I hope he takes a closer look at the ex Shorebank.Read the full story here.

• Indictment lodged in Hariri probe. Prosecutor for UN tribunal investigating the 2005 assassination of ex-Lebanon PM submits indictment against suspects.A prosecutor for the UN tribunal investigating the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese prime minister, Rafiq al-Hariri, has filed the body's first indictment against suspects in the case.The confidential documents were handed to the registry on Monday, the tribunal said in a statement."The prosecutor of the tribunal has submitted an indictment and supporting materials to the pre-trial judge," it said, though details of suspects named and the charges against them were not released."The contents of the indictment remain confidential at this stage".Daniel Fransen, the pre-trial judge, must confirm the charges before any arrest warrant or summons to appear can be issued.The tribunal is widely expected to indict members of Lebanon's Hezbollah, a move many fear could rekindle violence in the country.Al Jazeera's Zeina Khodr, reporting from the Lebanese capital, Beirut, said the tribunal has been a source of tension in the country."It is widely believed to point the finger at Hezbollah members. Hezbollah has called it a US tool, and ... has alleged it is politicised. It has questioned the way [the tribunal] conducted investigations," she said."We heard the secretary-general of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, say yesterday that the group will reject any accusation and it will work to defend its reputation as well as its dignity and it will confront it.Hezbollah has several times denounced the Netherlands-based tribunal as a conspiracy by the US and Israel. On Monday, the group's al-Manar television said the US was behind the release of the draft indictment as part of a bid to sabotage efforts to solve Lebanon's crisis.It also accused the US of "pushing the indictment ahead to light the fuse to blow up the bridges for a solution", adding that the "Americans control the indictments in form and content".Hezbollah had demanded that Saad Hariri's government reject the court's findings even before they come out.But though he offered some concessions, Hariri refused to end co-operation with the tribunal, prompting Hezbollah's walkout.Read the full story here.More here.

• Tunisia forms national unity government amid unrest.Tunisia has formed a national unity government, the country's prime minister has announced, days after a popular revolt ousted the president.The foreign, interior and defence ministers are to retain their jobs, with several opposition figures joining the government.The government will be led by incumbent Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi, and aims to prepare Tunisia for elections. He also announced a series of measures to open up political and media freedom.All political parties would be allowed to operate in Tunisia, political prisoners will be freed and the media will be permitted "total freedom", Mr Ghannouchi said."We have decided to free all the people imprisoned for their ideas, their beliefs or for having expressed dissenting opinions," the AFP news agency reported him as saying.The announcement of the new government included a pledge to abolish Tunisia's information ministry and to create a state where the media had "total freedom".One opposition figure, Ahmed Bouazzi, of the Progressive Democratic Party, said he believed the demonstrations would now be put on hold."It's not realistic to dissolve the ruling party," he told the BBC, citing the example of the chaos that engulfed Iraq after Saddam Hussein's ruling Baath party was dissolved in 2003. "We can go forward with this government, and can even go again into the streets if it is not working."But others were less convinced by the presence of several veterans of Mr Ben Ali's government in the new administration."It's as if Ben Ali's system is still there," Mohamed Mishgri told Reuters news agency. "It's for that reason that the demonstrations are continuing in Tunis. We want a new state with new people."Hmmmm......"Change"?Read and see the full story here.

• Killings of newborn babies on the rise in Pakistan.Imam orders babies stoned to death!The lifeless bodies of two tiny babies are being given their final bath before burial in Karachi, after they were left to die in the southern Pakistani city's garbage dumps."They can only have been one or two days old," says volunteer worker Mohammad Saleem, pointing at the two small corpses being gently washed by his colleagues at a charity's morgue.In the conservative Muslim nation, where the birth of children outside of marriage is condemned and adultery is a crime punishable by death under strict interpretations of Islamic law, infanticide is a crime on the rise.More than 1,000 infants -- most of them girls -- were killed or abandoned to die in Pakistan last year according to conservative estimates by the Edhi Foundation, a charity working to reverse the grim trend.The infanticide figures are collected only from Pakistan's main cities, leaving out huge swathes of the largely rural nation, and the charity says that in December alone it found 40 dead babies left in garbage dumps and sewers.The number of dead infants found last year -- 1,210 -- was up from 890 in 2008 and 999 in 2009, says the Edhi Foundation manager in Karachi, Anwar Kazmi.Tragic tales abound.Kazmi recounts the discovery of the burnt body of a six-day-old infant who had been strangled. Another child was found on the steps of a mosque having been stoned to death on the orders of an extremist imam who has since disappeared, he says."Do not murder, lay them here," reads a sign hanging outside the charity's Karachi base where it has left cradles in the hope that parents will abandon their unwanted children there, instead of leaving them to die."People leave these children mostly because they think they are illegitimate, but they are as innocent and loveable as all human beings," says the charity's founder, well-known humanitarian Abdul Sattar Edhi.Most children found are less than a week old.Hmmmm.....America's allies,"Together we thrive"?Read the full story here.

• "The war on Christianity".Christian women attacked, publicly humiliated in Lahore based on false blasphemy accusations.Two Christian women, mother and daughter, who recently suffered violence and humiliation, are now in a safe place. An angry mob turned against them in Lahore, beating them, after they were accused of blasphemy. The incident began with a dispute between the two and a Muslim woman, who is married to their son and brother, over the religious education of the mixed couple’s daughter. Mgr Rufin Anthony reacted to the fact, slamming Pakistani society’s increasing intolerance, a sociological problem it must deal with the utmost urgency.Speaking from their hideout, John Chand, son and brother of the victims, told AsiaNews that the two women “are afraid of being attacked by extremists” and are hiding to avoid being killed.The mob beat Saira Chand and her mother so badly that both lost consciousness. At some point during the attack, some of the abusers put necklaces made of old shoes around their necks, smeared their faces and put them on the back of donkeys to parade around their east Lahore neighbourhood. After regaining consciousness, the two women vehemently rejected the accusations of blasphemy, touching their feet repeatedly, to demand pity from their tormentors. A local Muslim leader, Mian Muhammad Sameer, said he did everything to get the two women to “confess” their crime of blasphemy.A member of Sameer, the same organisation to which Malik Mumtaz Qadri, Punjab Governor Salman Taseer’s murderer, belonged, he said he was proud of his wife, who “beat Saira more than anyone else.”Matters were already difficult from even before. Amina’s father Zaheer Malik had already objected to her marriage unless John converted to Islam. However, the two got married in court and each kept their religion.The issue became more complicated when their daughter was born. John wanted to name her Sonia and raise her in the Christian faith. His wife and father-in-law wanted her to grow up a Muslim.The blasphemy charge was levelled when Saira and Amina had a row that involved Saira’s mother.When Amina left her mother-in-law’s home, she began accusing the two Christian women of insulting the Prophet Muhammad, and this sparked action by local Muslim extremists.Speaking to AsiaNews, Mgr Rufin Anthony, bishop of Islamabad-Rawalpindi, said, “Our society is becoming more and more violent, intolerant and wild.”The problem is not religious or ethnic but “sociological”, one “that needs to be addressed quickly”.“Events have come to this stage in the country’s history where religion is being abused to settle personal scores,” said Fr Xavier Joseph.“State and religion must be separate,” he added; otherwise, “there will be a civil war and that will be the end of the Pakistan as we know it”.Hmmmm....Give them another Ten Billion Dollar?Read the full story here.

• HT:IsraelMatzav.Touchy, isn't he?Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan got all bent out of shape over being booed at a soccer stadium on Saturday night. Erdoğan left the arena before the opening match Saturday night after Galatasaray supporters started booing him when his arrival was announced on the stadium’s big screen. The protests intensified during a speech by TOKİ Chairman Erdoğan Bayraktar. Other ministers, football federation officials and some club chairmen joined the prime minister in leaving the stadium following the outcry.The fans present at the stadium were not the ones responsible for the protests, Erdoğan said. “The Galatasaray community also felt indisposed [by the events],” he said.Hmmmmm.....The Sultan booed, the insolence of these peasants?That's what you get whe becoming "popular" like Ahmadinnejad.Read the full story here.

• Boehner declines state dinner invite.This week, House Speaker John Boehner raised eyebrows by turning down an offer to ride on Air Force One with President Obama and others headed to a memorial service in Tucson. Instead, he appeared at a reception for Republican operative Maria Cino. Now, on the heels of renewed calls for bipartisanship and toned-down political rhetoric, Boehner is saying “thanks, but no thanks” to another offer to appear at an event with the president – Wednesday’s White House state dinner.The dinner, honoring the Chinese President Hu Jintao, will pull together leaders on both sides of the aisle, along with celebs, CEOs, Cabinet members, Supreme Court justices and media bigwigs. A Boehner aide confirmed that the House speaker was invited to the dinner but will not be attending. Boehner also turned down invitations to the previous two state dinners held during Obama’s presidency, one honoring Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in November 2009, and the most recent state dinner honoring Mexican President Felipe Calderon in May 2010, the aide said.Though Boehner was invited, other prominent Republican leaders were not. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor has not yet received an invitation, an aide told POLITICO. Though the guest list is still being finalized, Cantor’s empty mailbox could certainly be seen as a slight, considering the most recent former House majority leader, Democrat Steny Hoyer, attended the most recent state dinner.On the other side of the aisle: Rep. James Clyburn, the third-ranking Democrat in the House, was invited and plans to attend. Aides are still confirming whether other Democratic leaders, including Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Minority Whip Hoyer, will be in attendance. Read the full story here.

• HT:Memri.Al-Azhar Sheikh Rejects Invitation To Pray With Obama.Al-Azhar Sheikh Dr. Ahmad Al-Tayyeb has rejected an invitation to participate in prayer with U.S. President Barack Obama and other figures from all over the world in Washington on February 3. He called on the U.S. to solve the problems of the Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the other oppressed Islamic countries before holding token events that do not advance a solution to the problems afflicting the world.Ahmad Al-Tayyeb Explains "Wife Beating in Islam".Hmmmm.......But,But i keep saying everywhere that "Islam is a great religion".Read the full story here.

• HT:TheGhostfighters.Elena Kagan and Barak Obama dockets.For a couple of years, I heard that Snopes was not honest and reliable. I guess this proves the point.Snopes is heavily financed by George Soros, a big time supporter of Obama!NOTE THIS ONE“…. In our Search for the truth………department, we find what I have suspected on many occasions . I went to Snopes to check this out and they said it was false and there were no such dockets so I ‘Googled’ the Supreme Court, typed in ‘Obama-Kagan,’ and guess what? Yep you got it. Snopes lied. Everyone of those dockets are there.So Here is what I wrote Snopes:Referencing the article about Elena Kagan and Barak Obama dockets: The information you have posted stating that there were no such cases as claimed and the examples you gave are blatantly false.I went directly to the Supreme Court’s website, typed in Obama Kagan and immediately came up with all of the dockets that the article made reference to.. I have long suspected that you really slant things but this was really shocking.Thank You, I hope you will be much more truthful in the future.That being said, I’ll bet you didn’t know this.Kagan was representing Obama in all the petitions to prove his citizenship. Now she may help rule on them.Folks, this is really ugly.Chicago Politics; and the beat goes on and on and on…Once again the US Senate sold us out!Well, someone figured out why Obama nominated Elana Kagan for the Supreme Court…. Pull up the Supreme Courts website, go to the docket and search for Obama.She was the Solicitor General for all the suits against him filed with the Supreme Court to show proof of natural born citizenship.He owed her big time. All of the requests were denied of course. They were never heard. It just keeps getting deeper and deeper, doesn’t it?The American people mean nothing any longer. It’s all about payback time for those who compromised themselves to elect someone that really has no true right to even be there.Here are some websites of the Supreme Court Docket:You can look up some of these hearings and guess what?? Elena Kagan is the attorney representing Obama!!!If you are not interested in justice or in truth delete this. However,If you hold sacred the freedoms granted to you by the U.S. Constitution…By all means, please… PASS it ON!…..…There truly is tyranny afoot.”Hmmmm.....Why am i not surprised?Read and see the full scandal story here.

• Martin Luther King III to Pay Tribute to Father; Eric Holder Will Speak.Saying the shooting in Arizona that killed six and seriously wounded Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords underscores the need for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s message, the civil rights leader's son was expected to address a crowd gathered Monday to mark the 25th anniversary of the federal holiday for his father.Martin Luther King III, president and chief executive officer of The King Center, was to deliver the keynote address at the annual holiday observance, held at Ebenezer Baptist Church, where his father preached from 1960 until his death in 1968.King is the only American who was not a U.S. president to have a federal holiday named in his honor. He has been recognized on the third Monday in January since 1986.Also scheduled to speak Monday was U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.Hmmmm....Can't wait to hear how Holder will drag Dr King's legacy in to the Obama goals ....again.Read the full story here.

• Police: 18 van passengers killed after blast in northwest Pakistan.Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) -- A planted bomb caused a blast that killed at least 18 people traveling in a passenger van in northwest Pakistan Monday, police said.Around 10 kilograms (22 pounds) of explosives were planted inside the van, police official Islam Ud-Din said. He said an earlier police report indicating that the explosion was caused by a head-on crash between two passenger vans was inaccurate.Earlier Monday, police said 11 people were injured in the blast.The explosion went off when the van was traveling from the district of Hangu to the bordering district of Kohat, Ud-Din said. It also damaged a second passenger van that was traveling nearby, he said.It was not immediately clear why the passenger van was targeted, but the district of Hangu sits in a region plagued by sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shias."Preliminary reports by investigators and bomb disposal squads indicate that explosive materials fitted with a timer was placed near a gas cylinder, triggering the explosion," Hangu district police chief said. Hmmm......"One minute it's a Sunni day the next minute you're covered in Shiitte"?Read the full story here.More here.

• HT:AmericanThinker.What Obama Has Said about His Own Birth.While Democrat Congressman Frank Pallone read the "natural born Citizen" clause of the U.S. Constitution on the House floor last Thursday, a spirited female in the audience shouted out, "Except Obama! Except Obama! Help us, Jesus!"Later that day, NBC's Brian Williams improbably chose to assign blame for the woman's outburst on newly elected House speaker John Boehner. "How much responsibility do you feel?" Williams asked pointedly. "The state of Hawaii has said Obama was born there," said Boehner, who is no more intimate with the "Birther" movement than Williams himself. "That was good enough for me."The person Williams should have been asking about "responsibility" is the president. Obama's conspicuous fabrications over the years have caused even the sober among us to doubt his origins story.There are clues in Dreams, however, which suggest that Obama was creating a fiction for future use that he already knew to be untrue. He tells of coming across an article from the Honolulu Advertiser celebrating Barack Obama, Sr.'s planned grand tour of mainland universities on his triumphant way to Harvard. Obama writes ruefully in Dreams, "No mention is made of my mother or me, and I'm left to wonder whether the omission was intentional on my father's part, in anticipation of his long departure." What Obama does not mention is that the article was dated June 22, 1962.Obama was reportedly born on August 4, 1961. He was not yet a year old at the time Obama Sr. left Hawaii for good. More to the point, Obama fails to mention that he and his mother, Ann Dunham, were living in Seattle at the time and had been since at least August 19, 1961, the day she enrolled at the University of Washington.In short, the family never lived together. There was no Obama family. The Obama camp surely knew this by the time he ran for president, but Obama kept dissembling about his origins nonetheless.Curiously, when Obama found the article about Obama Sr.'s departure, he found it "folded away among my birth certificate and old vaccination forms." Later in Dreams, in a passage heretofore overlooked, Obama unwittingly reveals that there may have been problems with that birth certificate.On the occasion of his father's death in 1982, lawyers contacted anyone who might have claim to the estate. "Unlike my mum," Obama tells his half-sister Auma in Dreams, "Ruth has all the documents needed to prove who Mark's father was." Ruth obviously could produce a marriage license and a birth certificate for her son Mark. Ann Dunham apparently could not do the same for her son Barack, at least not one that could tie him to Obama Sr. -- not even with a potential payoff on the table.The long form birth certificate could pose a number of problems other than country of origin, including the date of Obama's birth, the state of his birth, and the identity of his father. Any one of these revelations could unravel the yarn that Obama has been spinning.These problems derive from the fact that Ann Dunham enrolled at university on August 19, 1961 and returned to Hawaii only after Obama Sr. had left Hawaii for good. Both of these facts are more firmly established than President Obama's Honolulu birth on August 4, 1961.Hmmmm......"What exactly is or isn't on that birth certificate?What's the real story behind the "Make Believe" identity?Read the full story here.

• 'Italian PM Berlusconi maintained a harem of 14 women'.The septuagenarian Prime Minister of Italy, Silvio Berlusconi, maintained a harem of 14 glamorous young women, local media reported on Sunday.The chosen young women were housed in apartments in a gated complex outside Milan, leaks from prosecutors in the city revealed. They lived rent-free in the estate and were given large sums of cash by the billionaire politician in return for sex.Milano Due was one of the first gated housing estates in Italy, a sprawling complex of flats set in landscaped gardens, built by Berlusconi in the 1970s when he was a young property developer.With underground parking, a supermarket, bars and other facilities, it is one of the most reputed addresses in Milan. When he moved to media business, Berlusconi located the headquarters of his television company Mediaset to the complex.Its presence was revealed by Corriere della Sera newspaper in yet another blow to the battered image of the prime minister as he prepares to defend himself against the gravest crisis of his political career.The existence of the flats was revealed by Karima El Mahroug, a teenaged belly-dancer from Morocco who trades under the name of Ruby heart-stealer. She is the teenager Berlusconi is accused of having sex with when she was a minor.Ruby however admitted that the billionaire media mogul gave her 7,000 euro when she went to his Valentine's Day soiree."I met him (Berlusconi) on February 14th (2010), the Valentine's Day. I went there with a friend of mine whose name I cannot reveal," Ruby told the TV channel.Admitting that she received presents from Berlusconi she said, "I received 7,000 euro the first night I went to his place. Because the girl who came with me knew about my difficult situation... because I had just arrived in Milan and life there was a bit difficult and she spoke to him explaining my story, my family situation and everything, and he helped me."
  Hmmmmm....Charity makes the world go round?Read the full story here.

• Anti-Drilling Policies Costing Federal Government Billions in Lost Revenue.Billions of dollars in potential oil revenue that could help close the federal deficit is being lost as a result of President Obama’s anti-drilling agenda.Production in the Gulf of Mexico — which normally accounts for about 30 percent of all U.S. production — is expected to drop this year by 220,000 barrels per day, according to projections from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.With oil currently at $90 a barrel and the royalty rate at 18.75 percent, that equals $3.7 million in lost revenue each day.If the agency projections hold over the course of the year, the federal government would lose more than $1.35 billion from Gulf royalty payments this year.The number grows even larger when coupled with a lack of Gulf lease sales and fewer rental payments. Those three components — royalties, leases and rent — make up a sizeable amount of government revenue.The looming shortfall is raising red flags on Capitol Hill. Sen. David Vitter, R-LA, an outspoken critic of the Obama administration’s drilling moratorium and the subsequent slowdown in permitting, first called attention to it in September.“It’s not only about job loss along the Gulf Coast — the federal government is losing revenue as a result of the administration’s misguided moratorium,” Vitter explained.“I’ve been attacking the moratorium from multiple angles and will continue to do so until drilling can fully resume.”Interior Secretary Ken Salazar canceled a Gulf lease sale last October. He postponed another in the central Gulf of Mexico, originally scheduled for March, until 2012. One planned for October 2011 in the western Gulf also could be delayed until 2012. That would make 2011 the first year since 1965 that the federal government has failed to hold a lease sale in the Gulf.Bonus bids from lease sales averaged about $1 billion in 2009 and 2010, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE).The lack of lease sales ultimately means the government will collect less in rent payments by lease holders. Offshore rents currently generate more than $200 million per year.The Obama administration has dismissed the financial impact. The revenue loss would be “negligible,” Rebecca Blank, under secretary for economic affairs at the Department of Commerce, told a Senate committee in the fall.“It is difficult to speculate now on the specific impact the moratorium would have over the five- or 10-year budget window, but one would expect the impact on the deficit to be negligible,” Blank wrote to the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship in September.“Revenues may be higher or they may be lower depending on future years’ oil prices and the time profile of production,” Blank said.A report from the economic forecasting firm IHS Global Insight estimated that federal, state and local taxes related to the Gulf, combined with royalty payments, totaled $19 billion in 2009.Royalties, bonus and rent payments made up more than $6 billion of that number. That pot of money could go a long way toward deficit reduction. And that’s from the Gulf alone.Significant additional revenues would be generated if the federal government opened access to exploration and production in areas currently closed to development such as the eastern Gulf of Mexico, portions of the Rocky Mountains, ANWR, and the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.A recent study conducted by Wood Mackenzie for the American Petroleum Institute estimated that increased access to those areas would bring $150 billion into federal coffers by 2025.Why leave so much money uncollected, especially in a time of rising deficits?Hmmmm.......If you wanted to destroy America would you do things any different?Read the full story here.

• HT:Cnet.NASA reveals strange, bomberlike planes of 2025.Given that we are unlikely to get past 2012, perhaps it's churlish to even think of what 2025 might look like.However, the indelible optimists at NASA have revealed images of commercial aircraft designs that might well take to the air, should 2025 actually materialize.It seems that in the darker parts of 2010, NASA gave Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Northrop Brumman money to ponder what improvements might be made to our current aerial cattle carriers.The initial designs, published on NASA's own site, will make some drool and a few, perhaps, shiver.For at least two of them make me think of, well, war--specifically, military aircraft--while the third seems plain peculiar.Hmmmm....Perhaps the Chinese will come up with something better - bigger and Cheaper?Read and see the full story here.

• Erdogan: Robust Turkey has vigor EU badly needs. Turkish prime minster warns EU ties 'approaching turing point' as country becomes stronger, richer. Pushes for accelerated negotiation on EU entryr, richer. Pushes for accelerated negotiation on EU entry.The European Union needs Turkey's economic vigor and regional clout if it wants to retain its power in the new world order, Turkey's prime minister said, warning Turkey-EU ties were "fast approaching a turning point"."Europe has no real alternative to Turkey," Tayyip Erdogan wrote in a piece for Newsweek magazine published on Monday."Especially in a global order where the balance of power is shifting, the EU needs Turkey to become an ever stronger, richer, more inclusive, and more secure union." Hmmmm....Europe does not need a 21Th Century Ottoman Sultan,who's best friends include some of the biggest terrorists on this planet,like Iran,Hezbollah,Syria and others.Read the full story here.

• HT:TheAstuteBloggers.Barak quits labour to start new party,Netanyahu's coalition is stronger just as Lebanon weakens.Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak says he is resigning as head of the Labour party to form his own faction.Mr Barak is heading a breakaway group - Independence - which includes four other Labour MPs, reports say.Correspondents say the move strengthens Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing coalition, as it allows Mr Barak's party to remain in government.Read the full story here.

• And now for something completely different!The sun rises two days early in Greenland, sparking fears that climate change is accelerating.The sun over Greenland has risen two days early, baffling scientists and sparking fears that Arctic icecaps are melting faster than previously thought.Experts say the sun should have risen over the Arctic nation's most westerly town, Ilulissat, yesterday, ending a month-and-a-half of winter darkness.But for the first time in history light began creeping over the horizon at around 1pm on Tuesday - 48 hours ahead of the usual date of 13 January.The mysterious sunrise has confused scientists, although it is believed the most likely explanation is that it is down to the lower height of melting icecaps allowing the sun's light to penetrate through earlier.Thomas Posch, of the Institute for Astronomy of the University of Vienna, said that a local change of the horizon was 'by far the most obvious explanation'.He said as the ice sinks, so to does the horizon, creating the illusion that the sun has risen early.It has even been suggested that the sun's early appearance could have an astronomical explanation.Read the full story here.