MFS - The Other News

An aerial view shows tsunami damage and flooding in Natori city, Miyagi prefecture on March 12. (Jiji Press/AFP/Getty Images) Full photoreport here by 'The Big Picture'.


                          Morning Posting.

• Live broadcast info from Japan directly ! Here.
• Updated !Aftershocks between 5,1 and 6 epicenters of four of them near nuclear plants more info here.

• Breaking ! Live broadcast japan : Fuel rods at No. 2 reactor of #Fukushima No. 1 nuke plant fully exposed.‏Here.

• LIVE press briefing Broadcast now ! here .

• Updated : The wind direction will change land inwards on Tuesday this might blow radiactive contamination towards the evacuated people. Here.

• Latest Update.Meltdown threat rises at Japanese nuclear plant.SOMA, Japan – Water levels dropped precipitously Monday inside a stricken Japanese nuclear reactor, twice leaving the uranium fuel rods completely exposed and raising the threat of a meltdown, hours after a hydrogen explosion tore through the building housing a different reactor.Water levels were restored after the first decrease but the rods remained exposed late Monday night after the second episode, increasing the risk of the spread of radiation and the potential for an eventual meltdown.The cascading troubles in the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant compounded the immense challenges faced by the Tokyo government, already struggling to send relief to hundreds of thousands of people along the country's quake- and tsunami-ravaged coast where at least 10,000 people are believed to have died.Later, a top Japanese official said the fuel rods in all three of the most troubled nuclear reactors appeared to be melting.Of all these troubles, the drop in water levels at Unit 2 had officials the most worried."Units 1 and 3 are at least somewhat stabilized for the time being," said Nuclear and Industrial Agency official Ryohei Shiomi "Unit 2 now requires all our effort and attention."Late Monday, the chief government spokesman said there were signs that the fuel rods were melting in all three reactors, all of which had lost their cooling systems in the wake of Friday's massive earthquake and tsunami"Although we cannot directly check it, it's highly likely happening," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told reporters.Some experts would consider that a partial meltdown. Others, though, reserve that term for times when nuclear fuel melts through a reactor's innermost chamber but not through the outer containment shell.Officials held out the possibility that, too, may be happening."It's impossible to say whether there has or has not been damage" to the vessels, nuclear agency official Naoki Kumagai said.If a complete reactor meltdown — where the uranium core melts through the outer containment shell — were to occur, a wave of radiation would be released, resulting in major, widespread health problems.Hmmm....And tomorrow the wind turns landinwards over Japan, pray that God have mercy on them.Read the full story here.

• Update.Water level near empty at Japan nuclear reactor.Water levels inside a quake-stricken Japanese nuclear reactor were almost empty on Monday night, said the power plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co. The Yomiuri newspaper was reporting that the cooling system at the reactor has stopped, and additional reports said fuel rods were exposed. News agency Jiji said a meltdown of fuel rods inside the Fukushima Daiichi complex's No.2 reactor could not be ruled out.A meltdown raises the risk of damage to the reactor vessel and a possible radioactive leak, experts say.Earlier, a hydrogen blast at Japan's earthquake-stricken nuclear plant did not damage its primary containment vessel, the UN nuclear agency said.The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said it was told by Japanese nuclear authorities the control room of the unit No. 3 reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant remained operational, following Friday's massive earthquake and tsunami."The reactor building exploded but the primary containment vessel was not damaged. The control room of unit 3 remains operational," the IAEA said in a statement.A Japanese official said before the blast 22 people had been confirmed to have suffered radiation contamination and up to 190 may have been exposed. Workers in protective clothing used hand-held scanners to check people arriving at evacuation centers.US warships and planes helping with relief efforts moved away from the coast temporarily because of low-level radiation. The US Seventh Fleet described the move as precautionary.Broadcaster NHK, quoting a police official, said more than 10,000 people may have been killed as the wall of water triggered by Friday's 8.9-magnitude quake surged across the coastline, reducing whole towns to rubble. It was the biggest to have hit the quake-prone country since it started keeping records 140 years ago."I would like to believe that there still are survivors," said Masaru Kudo, a soldier dispatched to Rikuzentakata, a nearly flattened town of 24,500 people in far-northern Iwate prefecture.Kyodo said 80,000 people had been evacuated from a 20-km (12-mile) radius around the stricken nuclear plant, joining more than 450,000 other evacuees from quake and tsunami-hit areas in the northeast of the main island Honshu.Read and see the full story here.

• Update On 14.03.2011 at 04:25 GMT+2  - from :Emergency and Disaster Information Service.

A hydrogen explosion occurred Monday morning at the quake-hit Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant’s troubled No. 3 reactor, the government’s nuclear safety agency said. The 11:01 a.m. incident came after a hydrogen explosion hit the No. 1 reactor at the same plant Saturday, and prompted the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency to urge residents within a 20-kilometer radius to take shelter inside buildings. It also followed a report by Tokyo Electric Power Co., the plant’s operator, to the government earlier in the day that the radiation level at the plant had again exceeded the legal limit and pressure in the container of the No. 3 reactor had increased. The Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant has been shut down since a magnitude 9.0 quake struck northeastern and eastern Japan on Friday, but some of its reactors have lost their cooling functions, leading to brief rises in the radiation level over the weekend. On Monday, radiation at the plant’s premises rose over the benchmark limit of 500 micro sievert per hour at two locations, measuring 751 micro sievert at the first location at 2:20 a.m. and 650 at the second at 2:40 a.m., according to the report. The hourly amounts are more than half the 1,000 micro sievert to which people are usually exposed in one year.

The maximum level detected so far around the plant is 1,557.5 micro sievert logged Sunday. The utility had been pouring seawater into the plant’s No. 1 and No. 3 reactors to help cool their cores, which are believed to have partially melted after part of the fuel rods were no longer covered by coolant water when levels fell following the quake. The seawater injection stopped around 1 a.m. due to the shortage of water left in tanks, but resumed for No. 3 reactor at 3:20 a.m., according to the nuclear safety agency. The halt of coolant water injection apparently caused rising pressure in the reactor container and an increase in the radiation level at the plant, the agency said. TEPCO at one point planned to release radioactive steam from the No. 3 reactor container to depressurize it and ordered workers to vacate the site. But as the pressure later lowered, workers resumed operations at the site, according to the agency. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said pressure in the No. 1 reactor container has been stable and seawater injection for the reactor will resume later.Hmmmm.....How about reactor number 2?Full update history here.

• UPDATE:Japan earthquake: Meltdown alert at Fukushima reactor.Technicians are battling to stabilise a third reactor at a quake-stricken Japanese nuclear plant, after the latest explosion to rock the facility.Fukushima Daiichi plant's operators said they could not rule out a fuel rod meltdown, after a cooling system broke.They are frantically injecting more water into reactor 2 after its fuel rods became almost fully exposed.A cooling system breakdown preceded explosions at the plant's reactor 3 on Monday and reactor 1 on Saturday.The latest explosion, said to have been caused by a hydrogen build-up, injured 11 people, one of them seriously, and sent a huge column of smoke billowing into the air.The fuel rod exposure at Fukushima Daiichi number 2 reactor is potentially the most serious event so far at the plant.A local government official confirmed the fuel rods were at one point largely, if not totally exposed; but we do not know for how long.Without coolant around the rods, temperatures can rise to hundreds of degrees Celsius, almost certainly resulting in some melting.This opens the possibility of a serious meltdown - where molten, highly radioactive reactor core falls through the floor of the containment vessel and into the ground underneath.However, engineers appear to have restored some water flow into the reactor vessel and if they are successful, temperatures will begin to fall again rapidly. Read the full story here.

• Military Crew Said to Be Exposed to Radiation, but Officials Call Risk in U.S. Slight.The Pentagon was expected to announce that the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan, which is sailing in the Pacific, passed through a radioactive cloud from stricken nuclear reactors in Japan, causing crew members on deck to receive a month’s worth of radiation in about an hour, government officials said Sunday.The officials added that American helicopters flying missions about 60 miles north of the damaged reactors became coated with particulate radiation that had to be washed off. There was no indication that any of the military personnel had experienced ill effects from the exposure. (Everyone is exposed to a small amount of natural background radiation.) But the episodes showed that the prevailing winds were picking up radioactive material from crippled reactors in northeastern Japan. Ever since an earthquake struck Japan on Friday, the authorities worldwide have been laying plans to map where radioactive plumes might blow and determine what, if any, danger they could pose to people. Blogs were churning with alarm. But officials insisted that unless the quake-damaged nuclear plants deteriorated into full meltdown, any radiation that reached the United States would be too weak to do any harm.Washington had “hypothetical plots” for worst-case plume dispersal within hours of the start of the crisis, a senior official said Sunday. The aim, the official added, was “more to help Japan” than the United States, since few experts foresaw high levels of radiation reaching the West Coast. For now, the prevailing winds over Japan were blowing eastward across the Pacific. If they continue to do so, international stations for radioactive tracking at Wake or Midway Islands might detect radiation later this week, said Annika Thunborg, a spokeswoman for an arm of the United Nations in Vienna that monitors the planet for spikes in radioactivity. “At this point, we have not picked up anything” in detectors midway between Japan and Hawaii, Ms. Thunborg said in an interview on Sunday. “We’re talking a couple of days — nothing before Tuesday — in terms of picking something up.”On Sunday, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it expected no “harmful levels of radioactivity” to move on the winds to Hawaii, Alaska or the West Coast from the reactors in Japan, “given the thousands of miles between the two countries.” In interviews, some private nuclear experts called a windborne threat unlikely. Others urged caution. “We’re all worrying about it,” said Robert Alvarez, a nuclear expert who, from 1993 to 1999, was a policy adviser to the secretary of energy, who runs the nation’s nuclear complex. “It’s going to be very important,” he added, “for the Japanese and U.S. authorities to inform the public about the nature of the plumes and any need for precautionary measures.” While federal officials expected little danger in the United States from Japanese plumes, they were taking no chances. On Sunday, Energy Department officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the agency was working on three fronts. One main player is the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. Officials said they had activated its National Atmospheric Release Advisory Center, which draws on meteorologists, nuclear scientists and computer scientists to forecast plume dispersal.“We’re on top of this,” a department official said.Hmmm......"Prepare for the worst,pray for the best"?Read the full story here.

• Navy Says 17 Americans Were Treated for Contamination.WASHINGTON — American Navy officials in Japan said early Monday that 17 military personnel who had been aboard three helicopters assisting in the earthquake relief effort had been exposed to low levels of contamination.Cmdr. Jeff A. Davis, a spokesman for the American Seventh Fleet in Japan, said the Navy personnel — who apparently had flown through a radioactive plume from a damaged nuclear power plant — had been ordered to dispose of their uniforms and to undergo a decontamination scrub that had successfully removed radioactive particles. “They received very, very low levels of contamination,” Commander Davis said in a telephone interview from Japan early Monday. “It certainly is not cause for alarm,” he said. “It is something we have to watch very carefully and make sure we are able to monitor, and to mitigate against this environmental hazard.” The Navy personnel aboard the three helicopters had received the equivalent of one month’s natural background radiation from the sun, rocks or soil, he said.Hmmmm......Helicopter...it's not harmfull...but we moved the aircraft carrier who's so much further?Read the full story here.

• Japan - Monster aftershock could strike within days.NORTH-EASTERN Japan can expect another monster earthquake large enough to trigger a tsunami within days, the head of the Australian Seismological Centre says.The director, Kevin McCue, said there had been more than 100 smaller quakes since Friday, but a larger aftershock was likely.''Normally they happen within days,'' he said. ''The rule of thumb is that you would expect the main aftershock to be one magnitude smaller than the main shock, so you would be expecting a 7.9. ''That's a monster again in its own right that is capable of producing a tsunami and more damage.''The US Geological Survey estimated the quake moved the Japanese coast about 2.4 metres.''It basically pushed the sea floor up and down on opposite sides of the fault by 10 metres, causing the tsunami,'' Dr McCue said. ''It is a sudden rupture that has occurred, but it has occurred because the two plates are converging at about eight centimetres a year and have been for about 100 years. That eight metres is released suddenly when the plate snaps and breaks and produces the earthquake.''A seismology research fellow at the University of Melbourne, Gary Gibson, said the world averages one magnitude 8 quake a year, but the rate was inconsistent. The 1980s and 1990s had far fewer large quakes than average, for example.''There is more variation than you would expect from a random occurrence of earthquakes, and we really don't have a mechanism to describe why that is the case,'' Dr Gibson said. ''But there is no question that the last two years have been very active and well above average.''Hmmmm......Any links to the coming" Supermoon" are not proven .....yet!Read the full story here.

• Japan : 2nd explosion at stricken Japan nuclear plant.SOMA, Japan – The second hydrogen explosion in three days rocked Japan's stricken Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant Monday, sending a massive column of smoke into the air and wounding 11 workers. Hours later, the U.S. said it had shifted its offshore forces away from the plant after detecting low-level radioactive contamination.The aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan was about 100 miles (160 kilometers) offshore when it detected the radiation, which U.S. officials said was about the same as one month's normal exposure to natural background radiation.It was not clear if the radiation had leaked during the Monday explosion.Yeah! That blast was felt 25 miles (40 kilometers) away, but the plant's operator said radiation levels at the reactor were still within legal limits.Operators knew an explosion was a possibility as they struggled to reduce pressure inside the reactor containment vessel, but apparently felt they had no choice if they wanted to avoid a complete meltdown. In the end, the hydrogen in the released steam mixed with oxygen in the atmosphere and set off the blast.Tokyo Electric Power Co., which operates the plant, said radiation levels at Unit 3 were well under the levels where a nuclear operator must file a report to the government.On Saturday, a similar explosion took place at the plant's Unit 1, injuring four workers and causing mass evacuations.Shortly after the Monday explosion, Tokyo Electric warned it had lost the ability to cool Unit 2. Takako Kitajima, a company official, said plant workers were preparing to inject seawater into the unit to cool the reactor, a move that could lead to an explosion there as well.Hmmmm....Sounds more and more like a Chernobyl II ,what will happen if the second unit also explodes and all this is followed by a 7.9 earthquake?Read the full story here.

• Hell on Earth: I've seen 20 wars. But nothing prepared me for this... nothing prepared me for the sight of a town reduced to a morass of splintered wood, jagged concrete and twisted metal where 10,000 have died.The first thing you notice is the silence which seems to hang over the place. There is no sound as we approach this once-thriving coastal town. Driving round the final bend in the mountain road before making the descent into Minami Sanriku, nothing can quite prepare you for the sight of such destruction. In my 30 years as a war correspondent I have covered more than 20 conflicts and several major earthquakes, but I have never seen anything on this scale.One minute you are passing through towns and villages completely untouched by natural disaster – not even a pane missing from the windows – and then as you turn the corner it hits you.The most astonishing view stretches out below towards the sea for at least four miles. An entire town of around 17,000 people has simply ceased to exist here.At least 95 per cent of the buildings are not merely ruined; they have been reduced to a morass of splintered wood, jagged concrete and twisted metal. All of this is hideously decorated with the details of destroyed family lives: a woman smiles up from her wedding photographs, a smashed guitar lies in the debris. I see a broken doll, and pages from a child’s school exercise book.Hmmm.......No words can express the 'damage' seen in these pictures.Read and see the full story here.

• HT:InfidelBloggers.What To Do To Prevent Radiation Sickness If Radiation Is Coming Your Way.Frequently Asked Questions on Potassium Iodide (KI).From the Food and DrugsAdministration.In December 2001, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a final Guidance on Potassium Iodide as a Thyroid Blocking Agent in Radiation Emergencies1. The objective of the document is to provide guidance to other Federal agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), and to state and local governments regarding the safe and effective use of potassium iodide (KI) as an adjunct to other public health protective measures in the event that radioactive iodine is released into the environment. The adoption and implementation of the recommendations are at the discretion of the state and local governments responsible for developing regional emergency-response plans related to radiation emergencies. The recommendations in the guidance address KI dosage and the projected radiation exposure at which the drug should be used. This guidance updates FDA’s 1982 recommendations.MFS : If you're a gardener and there's radioactive contamination DESTROY all your vegetable plants in your garden!Do not burn them!Don't use milk from the farm as long as the radiation persists in these region where the cows graze!Any animal grazing can be contaminated ,don't eat mushrooms growing in the wild!Read the full story here.

• Obama 'regime'criticizes Israeli settlement construction plan.JERUSALEM (AP) -- The U.S. Embassy said Monday it was "deeply concerned" by Israeli plans to build hundreds of new homes in West Bank settlements, calling the Israeli enclaves "illegitimate" and an obstacle to resuming direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians.In a defiant response to a deadly attack on a settler family over the weekend, Israel swiftly approved the construction of between 300 and 500 new homes in major West Bank settlement blocks. Jewish settlement construction is at the crux of the current impasse in peace efforts."They murder, we build," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday during a condolence call to the grieving family. Palestinian militants are presumed to have carried out the assault.A senior Israeli official responded to the U.S. criticism by reasserting Israel's expectation that the major settlement blocs, where most of the 300,000 West Bank settlers live, will remain in Israeli hands under any final peace accord."There is no contradiction in building inside existing blocs and the desire to move ahead in peace and for a solution of two states for two peoples," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the U.S. response on the record.An additional 200,000 settlers live in east Jerusalem, captured along with the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians want both territories, along with the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, for their future state.Hmmmm......Off course that "They don't trust me because of my middle name"will stand with his 'Muslim brothers'.Come to think of it when was the last time he went to church,not counting Golf?Read the full story here.

• HT:IsraelMatzav.Video :By 2021, we could have a 'restored caliphate'?Remember Niall Ferguson, who burst onto the scene with a surprising Newsweek column ripping Barack Obama?

Here he is again talking to London's Daily Telegraph. He makes six key points in this interview:

* China will be the largest economy in the world by 2021

* No guarantees the euro will still exist

* The U.S. could europeanize itself, or it could revitalize itself

* Tiny possibility we get western-style democracies in the Middle East

* More alarming to think about a "restored caliphate"

* Germany's love of European integration under threat. Hmmm......Nothing but 'nightmare'news.Read and see the full story here

• HT:CreepingSharia.Muslim Brotherhood to launch satellite TV channel in April.The Muslim Brotherhood intends to launch a satellite television channel on NileSat, said Abdel Rahman el-Barr, a member of the Brotherhood’s Guidance Bureau and the group’s Mufti. It will be the group's first legitimate TV channel.The channel will be tested in April and officially launched on 1 May. It will broadcast political, social and religious programs as well as talk shows. The channel will benefit from the expertise of Qatar-based Al Jazeera news channel and use some of the staff of ikhwanonline.com, the Brotherhood’s official website. The Guidance Bureau has contacted the group’s administrative offices around Egypt to ask them to recommend reporters.Applicants will be trained before sitting for a screen test. The door will be open for media professionals from across the spectrum to join the channel's crew, so that a variety of ideas can be presented, El-Barr added.The name of the new channel remains contentious. Some members want to name it Tahrir to honor the revolution, and others say it should carry the name of the group, sources said.Hmmm.....Another Channel that Obama can advise to the Cable compagnies?Read the full story here.

• Finally, British workers come first: Jobs for migrants slashed by half in visa clampdown.Finally, British workers come first: Jobs for migrants slashed by half in visa clampdown.The number of jobs open to migrants from outside the European Union is to be halved, ministers will announce today. Foreigners are currently able to obtain work permits for around 500,000 posts that bosses say cannot be filled by British or EU workers. But from April that will fall to 230,000 when non-graduate jobs are taken off the Home Office ‘shortage occupation list’.Non-EU beauty salon managers, estate agents, florists, pipe fitters, steel erectors and welders will be among those barred.The Home Office has commissioned an expert review of all the remaining categories on the list. If the Migration Advisory Committee finds there are enough unemployed British workers with the required skills, tens of thousands more posts could be closed.Ministers want to ensure that priority access to Britain’s labour market is granted only where there are real skills shortages.Immigration minister Damian Green said the Government was determined to cut dole queues and make sure migrants were not the ‘first resort’ for firms with vacancies. Firms looking to fill jobs which appear on the shortage list do not have to advertise to British workers first, and applicants do not have to meet an earnings test.Last week, Mr Green attacked Labour for failing to impose controls on Eastern European workers when the EU expanded in 2004. He said the ‘mistake’ would never be repeated and much tougher restrictions would apply in future.More than 1.15million Eastern European workers have signed up to the Home Office’s worker registration scheme. Mr Green said the job categories listed as skilled under Tier 2 will be cut from 192 to 121. Midwives, chartered surveyors and management accountants stay on the approved list.Officials estimate around 65 per cent of the 8,400 work permits issued last year to workers on the shortage list would not have qualified under the new rules.Hmmmmm........"Change" and it's not the Obama kind of change.Read the full story here.

• Foreign bloggers vow to report other angles.Among the unfamiliar faces that arrived at the West Bank settlement of Itamar following the massacre of the Fogel family were members of a group of American and Canadian bloggers who arrive in the Holy Land upon an invitation from the Foreign Ministry, and sought to cover the Israel beat from an angle that is different from that of the foreign media.On Sunday night, Minister of Information and Diaspora Yuli Edelstein released the graphic photographs of the bodies of the three Fogel children, who were murdered Saturday. Former Minister Isaac Herzog disagreed with Edelstein's decision, saying it "weakens" Israel. "The decision to publish the photos broadcasts panic and leads to disrespect for the grief," he said. The fact that the photos are being published right after Israel announced the approval of more construction in the West Bank "creates confusion", he added.Chuck DeVore of California noted that the international media prioritized coverage of the Tsunami in Japan and the unrest in Libya over the terrorist attack on Itamar. DeVore explained that Israel is depicted around the world as Goliath, while the Palestinians are presented as the underdog. He cited a Los Angeles Times article, which reported that the attack on the Fogel family came as revenge for the uprooting of olive trees and the burning of Palestinian cars by settlers. "The LA Times implied in their article that the Jews instigated their own killing," Devore later wrote in a Twitter message. He said that while the world does take notice of what goes on in Israel, he came to the country in order to report on the situation in a way that is different from that of the Western media. Claire Berlinski, an American Jew who lives in Istanbul, Turkey called on the Israeli government to take a more aggressive approach towards the publicizing the attack. She said that releasing powerful material, such as the photographs of the attack victims' bodies, to the international media will help change the attitude that prevails in the international community towards Jews.The bloggers' host in Judea and Samaria, David Ha'ivry, stated that he would have preferred to receive the group during "normal days," in order to show them Samaria's thriving development, education and agriculture fields. "It's good that they saw that the settlers are not Satan, as the foreign media presents them, and sometimes as the Israeli media presents them, as well," he added. Ha'ivry, who directs the Samaria Liaison Office, said he contemplated releasing the pictures of the slain children, and finally decided to do so after the pictures were approved for publication. "If the heads of the state acted responsibly, we would not have needed such abject means of justifying ourselves to the world."Hmmmm.....Anyone with no prejudice in his heart doesn't need a visit to know the truth!Read the full story here.

• HT:TranslatingJihad.Hamas Praises Savage Attack on Jewish Settlers in Arabic, Denies Responsibility in English.The barbaric attack by a Palestinian Muslim on a Jewish family living in the West Bank settlement of Itamar on Saturday has been widely reported. Five innocent people--two parents and three of their children--were savagely stabbed to death in their sleep. On the English section of the website of the al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, there was only the following short statement, denying any responsibility on the part of Hamas for the attack : Palestinian National Movement Hamas official Ezzat Al-Rashak said that the movement is not responsible for the murder of the five family members from the Itamar settlement. Al-Rashak confirmed that harming children is not part of Hamas' policy, nor is it the policy of the resistance factions. He also confirmed that the possibility that the incident was carried out by settlers for criminal motives should not be ruled out. [emphasis added].But on the Arabic section of the website, an article was published praising the attacker as a 'mujahid' and deriding the slain Jews as "Zionist usurpers." What's worse, at the time I checked there were 34 comments on the article posted by readers, all praising the attack and the attacker (I translated the first 17 or so). Curiously, while the Hamas statement in the English article raised the possibility of the act being carried out by settlers, in the Arabic article there's no doubt that the attacker was a Palestinian 'mujahid'.Keep in mind that this is the same Hamas that CAIR refuses to condemn : Five Zionists Killed in Stabbing in the Usurper (Settlement) of Itamar .al-Qassam, 12 March 2011 .Five Zionist usurpers were killed the morning of Saturday, 12 March 2011, in a knife-stabbing carried out by a Palestinian in the usurper (settlement) of Itamar east of the city of Nablus. Our correspondent in Nablus reported that a Palestinian mujahid was able to break into the usurper (settlement) of "Itamar" south of Nablus in the occupied (West) Bank, and stabbed five Zionist usurpers. Zionist media sources said that "A Palestinian broke into the usurper (settlement) between the hours of 9:30 - 11:00 PM, and killed five usurpers from one family while they were sleeping." They confirmed that the perpetrator of the act was able to escape. Powerful forces from the Zionist military and police arrived at the location, including the chief of staff of the Army, Benny Gantz, and the head of (Israeli) Central Command, Avi Mizrahi.

Comments :

Abu-Mus'ab -- Gaza :Praise be to Allah, the Lord of the worlds, who healed our hearts by this blessed operation. May Allah guide the strikes of our brothers the mujahideen in Gaza and the (West) Bank.

Abu-Bakr Nablus -- Nablus of the al-Qassam (Brigades) Praise be to Allah, the Lord of the worlds. The mujahideen have triumphed and humiliated the Jewish authorities. Allah is great, Allah is great. This is the promise of victory, as Nablus has been restored as the capitol of the resistance, the city of the martyrs, and the fortress of the al-Qassam (Brigades). The promise of victory is here, and a challenge to whoever conspires against the resistance and the resistors. More is soon to follow, Allah-willing. Allah is great, to Allah be the praise.

Al-Saqr al-Jarih [The wounded falcon] -- Gaza. The Most High said: "Put a barrier between their hands and behind them, and place a covering on them that they may not see." It was the will of Allah that those mujahideen were able to break through those defenses, come into their home, and slaughter them like lambs, then return safely and victoriously to their people, in the care of the Merciful, who does not sleep. Allah is great. The victory is for Islam and its people. Allah is great, to Allah be the praise. And many more.Hmmmm.....Pres Obama's "outreach to Muslims really works it seems?"I wonder why he thinks "They don't trust me because of my middle name"?.Read the full 'story' here.

• Turkey second largest US private arms buyer in Mideast in 2009.Turkey was the second largest US private arms buyer in the Middle East and North Africa in 2009, State Department figures, reported on Saturday, have revealed. The US government approved $40 billion in worldwide private arms sales in 2009, including more than $7 billion to Mideast and North African nations that are struggling with political upheaval, the State Department reported. Iraq, where US forces are still withdrawing from and the fledgling government is struggling against militants, was the biggest buyer ($1.51 billion), closely followed by Turkey ($1.50 billion) and the United Arab Emirates ($1.09 billion).Most of the biggest recipients of licensed arms deals in 2009 were US neighbors and allies, among them Japan ($4.5 billion), Britain ($3.4 billion) and South Korea ($1.9 billion). The leader in 2009 was Singapore, with $5.5 billion in approved defense buys -- largely because of a proposed $3.7 billion sale of American aircraft, supplies and logistics support. The State Department figures do not describe details of the sale, but Singapore has made repeated buys of US F-15 fighter jets in recent years, totaling 24 jets.The $7.3 billion in US-approved defense sales to Mideast and North African countries in 2009 totaled up to nearly a fifth of the entire $40 billion in licensed sales -- indications of both the region’s strategic importance and their governments’ willingness to pay top dollar for American defense equipment.Turkey also remains one of the largest clients of the US government in terms of arms sales. In September in 2009, the Obama administration notified Congress of a possible $7.8 billion sale of Patriot PAC-3 antimissile batteries and related gear to Turkey, a transaction that would be one of the biggest US government-to-government arms sales in years. Turkey has also sought six Predator unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and two armed versions of the Predator UAVs, also known as Reapers, last year from the US.Hmmmm.....Where's Israel in all this or is he really that obvious in his hatred towards Israel?Turkey the biggest violator of human rights gets the most weapons from Obama?That might be worth another Nobel peace price?Read the full story here.

• HT:AhmadiyyaTimes.USA: Congressmen Franks and Shuler introduce religious freedom resolution condemning Pakistan assassinations.Following the brutal murder of Pakistan Minister of Minority Affairs Shahbaz Bhatti (42) on March 2, 2011, Congressman Trent Franks (R-AZ) and Congressman Heath Shuler (D-NC), co-chairs of the Congressional International Religious Freedom Caucus, have introduced a resolution calling for the U.S. to take a definitive stance in protecting religious freedom and condemning the intolerance that sanctioned these murders in Pakistan, which continues to threaten freedom everywhere.In a press statement just released by the co-chairs, Congressman Franks stated, “It has been said that no one is truly free when there remain others who are being oppressed.” In Pakistan today, those who want freedom have been silenced. Franks implored the Obama Administration to take an “offensive approach” against religious intolerance and “draw a line in the sand to distinguish who is for and who is against religious freedom.”For years Ahmadiyas, Christians, Hindus, and Muslims have been denied justice under the controversial blasphemy laws which both Punjab Governor Salman Taseer and Shahbaz Bhatti worked to amend, and both were killed.Tina Ramirez, Director of Government Relations at the Becket Fund, who collaborated with Congressman Franks’ office on House Resolution 141 said, “Congress is finally recognizing the dangerous nexus between Pakistan’s blasphemy laws and international advocacy for ‘defamation’ resolutions that defend the harmful effects of those laws on innocent lives. It is inexcusable that the international community has allowed these deaths to occur instead of standing behind the men who were willing to die for the freedom their country and the UN system was intended to protect.”House Resolution 141 calls for a UN Human Rights Council resolution in honor of Taseer and Bhatti’s “courage in defense of core principles of Pakistan’s democracy, enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”Based in Washington, D.C., The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty is a non-profit, public-interest law firm dedicated to protecting the free expression of all religious traditions all over the world. The Becket Fund has a 15-year history of defending religious liberty for people of all faiths. Its clients have included Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, and others. Its attorneys are recognized as experts in the field of international law.For more information or to arrange an interview with one of the attorneys please contact Montserrat Alvarado at malvarado@becketfund.org or call 786.246.5385.The Becket Fund is a non-profit, public interest law firm defending the freedom of religion of people of all faiths. Our clients have included Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, and Zoroastrians. www.becketfund.org.Hmmmm......Laws are not worth the paper they're written on if not inforced.Read the full story here.

• Pilots lock down cockpit over tefillin.An Orthodox Jewish prayer observance by three passengers aboard an Alaska Airlines flight on Sunday alarmed flight attendants unfamiliar with the ritual, prompting them to lock down the cockpit and issue a security alert, officials said. Alaska Flight 241 from Mexico City to Los Angeles International Airport landed safety at LAX and was met by fire crews, foam trucks, FBI agents, Transportation Security Administration personnel and police dispatched as a precaution. The three passengers had startled members of the cabin crew with what what was interpreted as suspicious behavior shortly after takeoff, airline spokeswoman Bobbie Egan said. "The three passengers were praying aloud in Hebrew and were wearing what appeared to be leather straps on their foreheads and arms," she said. "This appeared to be a security threat, and the pilots locked down the flight deck and followed standard security procedures."It turned out the passengers were engaged in the wearing of tefillin - small, black prayer boxes containing scripture that devout Jews bind to their foreheads and arms with black leather straps in a daily ritual accompanied by special prayers. Asked about the authorities' reaction to the alert, Eimiller said: "We're obligated, of course, to respond when the flight calls us to clear up concerns." Hmmmm......Some basic 'education' of aircraft staff is highly needed.Read the full story here.

• HT:IsraelMatzav.UN General Assembly to screen anti-Israel film.The United Nations General Assembly will be screening a virulently anti-Israel film called Miral on Monday. Sources said that invitations were sent out on Thursday afternoon for the Monday night screening. Members of the Israeli delegation to the UN said the decision to screen a feature film in the General Assembly hall – especially such a dramatically pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli film – was a “horrible” one. The decision seems to have been made unilaterally by Switzerland’s Joseph Deiss, the General Assembly’s president. Messages to his spokesperson left by the Post Sunday were not returned.Here is the plot from Wikipedia (it's actually based on a true story, which has been propagandized). A chronicle of Hind Husseini's effort to establish an orphanage in Jerusalem after the 1948 partition of Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel.Jerusalem, 1948. On her way to work, Hind Husseini (Hiam Abbass) comes across 55 orphaned children in the street. She takes them home to give them food and shelter. Within six months, 55 had grown to almost 2,000, and the Dar Al-Tifel Institute was born.So what's wrong with a highly visible film that's likely to get a lot of attention (even though it may be out of the running for an Oscar) and that shows the 'Palestinians' in a favorable light? Well, let's start with Hind Husseini. Does the name sound familiar? I thought it might. She was the sister of Haj al-Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem and a collaborator with Hitler. And she never apologized for that. And no, the movie isn't going to highlight it either.Do you all have a sense of where this is heading? This entire movie is one massive slander against Israel....Hmmmmm......History repeats itself it's 1939 all over again.Read the full story here.

• Israel demands CNN apology over attack coverage. American network reporters present tendentious coverage of Saturday's gruesome murder in Itamar, question fact it was a terrorist attack. Israel's Government Press Office 'dumbfounded, astonished'.Israel is demanding an apology from CNN over its coverage of Saturday's terrorist attack in Itamar claiming it was "tendentious and deceptive." Government Press Office director Oren Helman sent a letter to CNN's Bureau Chief Kevin Flower saying he was astonished at the network's coverage of the ruthless attack. A CNN website report avoided describing the event as a terror attack, noting that the Israel Defense Forces consider it an act of terrorism. "Only you decided to use the term terrorist attack in quotation marks, as if this were not necessarily the case," Helman wrote. "There is a limit to the extent of objectivity regarding such a horrific deed. The CNN report stated: "Five members of an Israeli family were killed in the West Bank early Saturday morning in what the Israeli military is calling a 'terror attack.'" The report went on to say: "According to a military spokeswoman, an intruder entered the Israeli settlement of Itamar near the northern West Bank city of Nablus around 1 am, made his way into a family home and killed two parents and their three children." The IDF's official statement noted that forces were searching for a "terrorist" and not an "intruder" as the CNN report noted. The terrorist was also referred to as an "assailant" later in the report. There was no mention of the possibility this was the act of a Palestinian terrorist. Hmmmm......These 'News'broadcasters only follow the policy of the Obama administration bash Israel ,protect Palestinians.Anyone willing to take a bet he will vote for the Palestian state in September at the UN?Read the full story here.

• Have you been through a TSA body scanner recently?The Transportation Security Administration announced Friday that it would retest every full-body X-ray scanner that emits ionizing radiation — 247 machines at 38 airports — after maintenance records on some of the devices showed radiation levels 10 times higher than expected.The agency posted reports Friday from 127 X-ray-emitting devices on its website and said it would continue to release results from maintenance tests for the approximately 4,500 X-ray devices at airports nationwide. Those devices include machines that examine checked luggage. Of the reports posted, about a third showed some sort of error, Kimball said.The TSA announced steps to require its maintenance contractors to "retrain personnel involved in conducting and overseeing the radiation survey process."Some lawmakers remain concerned, however. The TSA "has repeatedly assured me that the machines that emit radiation do not pose a health risk," Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said in a written statement Friday. "Nonetheless, if TSA contractors reporting on the radiation levels have done such a poor job, how can airline passengers and crew have confidence in the data used by the TSA to reassure the public?""It is totally unacceptable to be bumbling such critical tasks," Chaffetz said. "These people are supposed to be protecting us against terrorists."In the past, the TSA has failed to properly monitor and ensure the safety of X-ray devices used on luggage. A 2008 report by the worker safety arm of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that the TSA and its maintenance contractors had failed to detect when baggage X-ray machines emitted radiation beyond what regulations allowed. They also failed to take action when some machines had missing or disabled safety features, the report shows.Chaffetz said the TSA's characterization of the maintenance mistakes "sounds like an excuse rather than the real facts.""I'm tired of excuses," Chaffetz said. "The public has a right and deserves to know. It begs the question, 'What are they still not sharing with us?' These are things you cannot make mistakes with." Chaffetz said he expects to address some of his concerns during a hearing Wednesday.Peter Rez, a physics professor at Arizona State University, said Friday he wanted to scrutinize the 2,000 pages of reports the TSA posted. He has expressed concerns about the potential for the scanners to break and the importance of proper maintenance and monitoring. "Mechanical things break down," Rez told USA TODAY in December. Rez also has voiced fears about the potential for a passenger to get an excessive dose of radiation or even a radiation burn if the X-ray scanning beam were to malfunction and stop on one part of a person's body for an extended period of time.He said Friday that the contractor mistakes TSA identified only heighten his concerns.Hmmmm......Do you want any Potassium Iodine against radiation sickness with that scan?Read the full story here.

• And now for something completely different.Has the real lost city of Atlantis finally been found... buried under mud flats in Spain?It has remained a tantalising mystery for thousands of years, but now a U.S. led research team believes it has found the legendary lost city of Atlantis.They claim to have pinpointed the exact location of the metropolis under mud flats in southern Spain.The team of archaeologists and geologists are convinced that Atlantis -swamped by a tsunami - is submerged just north of Cadiz.Professor Richard Freund of the University of Hartford, Connecticut, who lead the international team, said: 'This is the power of tsunamis.'It is just so hard to understand that it can wipe out 60 miles inland, and that's pretty much what we're talking about.'The team used a satellite photo of a suspected submerged city to find the site then surveyed it with a combination of deep-ground radar, digital mapping, and underwater technology.Buried in the vast marshlands of the Dona Ana Park they found a strange series of 'memorial cities,' built in Atlantis' image by the refugees who fled the destructive tsunami.Atlantis residents who did not die built new cities inland, claimed Freund.The team's findings will be unveiled on Sunday in 'Finding Atlantis,' a new National Geographic Channel special.Freund said the 'twist' of finding the memorial cities makes him confident Atlantis was buried in the mud flats.He said: 'We found something that no one else has ever seen before, which gives it a layer of credibility, especially for archaeology, that makes a lot more sense.'Greek philosopher Plato wrote about Atlantis some 2,600 years ago, describing it as 'an island situated in front of the straits called the Pillars of Hercules.'These pillars were known as the Straits of Gibraltar in bygone times.Using Plato's detailed account of Atlantis as a map, searches have focused on the Mediterranean and Atlantic as the best possible sites for the city.Freund says tsunamis in the region have been documented for centuries with one of the largest reported in November 1755 hitting Lisbon with a 10-story tidal wave.Debate about whether Atlantis truly existed has lasted for thousands of years. Plato's 'dialogues' from around 360 B.C. are the only known historical sources of information about the iconic city. Plato said the island he called Atlantis 'in a single day and night... disappeared into the depths of the sea.'Experts plan further excavations at the site where they believe Atlantis is and at the mysterious 'cities' in central Spain 150 miles away to more closely study geological formations and to date artefacts.Hmmmm......Read the full story here.