MFS - The Other News

                         Afternoon Posting.

• The volatile Lybian situation live streams here.

Live Blog Libya - Al Jazeera. here.

• Turkey ....the go-between for Obama and the Muslim Brotherhood?Turkish president says strong army no guarantee for strong Egypt.Turkish President Abdullah Gül has delivered a message to Egypt’s new military rulers that a strong army is no guarantee for a strong country, during his critical visit to Cairo. ‘The council should aim for a strong Egypt,” says President Gül, strongly emphasizing democracy.Gül, whose visit comes after Ankara’s several telephone conversations with the Obama administration and who was accompanied by Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, held talks with a wide range of political groups in Egypt. He met with the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Badie, as well as the political reform campaigner opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei.“We convey the same message to every party: Everyone should work in unity for the transition process to take place healthily. Every party should listen to the people,” said the Turkish diplomat when asked about the president’s messages to Muslim Brotherhood.“Every party should channel the country’s internal dynamics for the welfare of the people. That was also the message conveyed to Tunisia,” the diplomat stated.He said Obama’s frequent telephone calls to the Turkish government demonstrated Washington valued Turkey’s views regarding the region and it wanted to utilize the Turkish experience to its benefit.“Turkey is not developing policies just because the United States wants her to do so. Turkey’s reasonable policies might be inspiring Washington,” said Dinçer.Boztemur said he did not believe Washington asked Turkey to play a role in Egypt’s transition process. "The U.S. has many channels for access to Egypt. Some 40,000 members of the Egyptian army have been trained in the U.S.," he said.Hmmmm......Turkey ....The worst violator of Human rights.....the go-between for Obama and the Muslim Brotherhood?Read the full story here.

• Turkey - PM Erdoğan asks Ford to expand Turkey output.Holding a meeting with Alan Mullaly, the chief executive of Ford Motors, Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan asks from the automotive giant to invest more in its Turkey production. Erdoğan has expressed his wish for Ford to produce passenger vehicles, as well as commercial vehicles, in Turkey, according to Industry Minister Nihat Ergün.Erdoğan told Mullaly that Ford should shift at least one passenger car production to its Turkish facility in Gölcük, a district of Kocaeli, according to Minister Ergün. “Ford should not consider Turkey only as the production center of the Transit Connect commercial vehicle,” Erdoğan told the Ford CEO, according to Ergün.Ford is set to make $650 million additional investment in its Gölcük facility and establish an engine facility worth $350 million, Ergün also said. “Ford is active in commercial vehicles in the Turkish market. We wanted them to design a new model in passenger cars.”A total of 510,000 vehicles are sold in the domestic market annually, but only 150,000 of this figure is produced in Turkey, Ergün said, adding that some 360,000 vehicles are imported. “This situation is not satisfying for Turkish consumers,” he said. “We want Ford to invest in Turkey in the passenger car area. Ford should produce one of its brands in Turkey. If we predict that the Turkish automobile market would reach 1 million units per year, the company that invests in Turkey will be grabbing a serious opportunity.Hmmmm......Obamanomics in action fire American workers to create jobs in Turkey!Read the full story here.

• Homeland Security Considering Portable, Instant DNA Scanners.A portable, breadbox-sized scanner could map out your body's DNA in less than an hour -- and the Feds want it added to the agency's tool bag.The device is being studied in the research-and-development wing of the Department of Homeland Security, which provided a special small-business contract to Network Biosystems (or NetBio) to build it. The agency will use the scanner at first on asylum seekers and refugees -- but civil liberties guardians warned that the device has explosive potential for misuse.Sources at DHS assure FoxNews.com that evaluation of the DNA-screening technology will occur only after the department sets privacy and civil liberties safeguards -- a vitally important step to protect such highly personal information, insisted John Verdi, senior counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center."If it were used for routine criminal investigations, it would raise the specter of a national DNA database," Verdi told FoxNews.com. "There are a lot of legal and constitutional hurdles that would have to be overcome for it to be lawfully used."For example, DHS must take care to dispose of the information it gleans from a DNA scanning search once that information has fulfilled its purpose, Verdi said.And that's a white-hot issue in the public's mind, given the outcry over the advanced X-ray devices deployed by the Transportation Security Administration last November. Air travelers shouting "don't touch my junk" probably wouldn't be thrilled with a DHS agency scanning their DNA instead.Indeed, the TSA felt compelled to make a preemptive statement after word of the device emerged. Curtis Burns stressed on the company's blog that the scanner is for use by a TSA sister agency, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which plans to use it to test for family relationships for foreigners applying for asylum or refugee status."TSA is not testing and has no plans to use any technology capable of testing DNA," Burns wrote.Use in asylum cases is one thing. The true risk of the device lies in its sheer convenience, especially if the size and speed of the DNA scanner make state and local law enforcement agencies seek its use on a routine basis for everyday criminal cases, Verdi warned.We'll find out shortly.DHS spokesman Chris Ortman told FoxNews.com the agency expects to test a prototype of the rapid DNA screener this summer."The DHS Science and Technology Directorate expects to receive a prototype DNA analyzer device this summer to conduct a preliminary evaluation of whether this kind of technology could be considered for future use," Ortman told FoxNews.com. He was quick to caution that there are no clear plans for the device's usage."At this time, there are no DHS customers, nor is there a timeline for deployment, for this kind of technology -- this is simply a preliminary test of how the technology performs," Ortman said.In award notices and its fiscal 2012 budget documents, DHS revealed that $100,000 was awarded to NetBio for development of the device, which analyzes DNA through a process known as short tandem repeat (STR).Hmmmm.....In combination with the 'hummingbird' spy-drone bird who's native to the American continent it will certainly serve to keep track of the civilian population?Read the full story here.

• HT:ThePoliticalCommentator.Saturday caption contest: Commander in Chief or....? What is going through these soldiers minds?The need for some cojones in Libya.I wrote "The need for some international cojones in Libya!" yesterday after weeks of the Obama administration's handling, or more accurately non-handling of the Middle East crisis.Specifically the article discussed statements that President Obama and Defense Secretary Gates had recently made about Libya, implementation of a no-fly zone and war in general. Soon after writing that I saw a tape of the President getting on Air Force One, giving the customary salute to the soldiers at the foot of the stairs as the Commander in Chief of our nation when it struck me.What is going through these soldiers minds as they salute?I present below an incomplete list of the messages sent and decisions put forth by this President and his administration over the past 2+ years.Hmmmmm........Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power. Abraham Lincoln (1809 - 1865) Read the full story here.

• Iran - Human rights report: Concerns of torture for two missing opposition heads.International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran – Iranian officials should immediately end the illegal, incommunicado detention of four leading opposition figures: Mehdi Karroubi; Mir Hossein Mousavi; Fatemeh Karroubi; and Zahra Rahnavard, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran said today.The Campaign warns that the incommunicado nature of their eighteen day long detention in an undisclosed location increases the likelihood that the four are facing psychological and physical torture for the purposes of extracting false confessions.“Arbitrary and incommunicado detention in unknown locations is often associated with torture and ill treatment, and even extrajudicial execution in Iran,” said Hadi Ghaemi, the Campaign’s spokesperson.“Time and again opposition figures in Iran are detained without contact with their families or lawyers, only to undergo abuse and appear on TV weeks later confessing to baseless charges,” he said.Iranian intelligence and security services have a well-established track record of relying on torture against opponents to extract false confessions while held in incommunicado detention.Mousavi and Karroubi’s children have had no access to their parents and are extremely concerned about their well-being and health. In a statement issued today, Mousavi’s daughters said they attempted to visit their parents on the evening of 2 March in their home, but were turned away by guards.Authorities have been holding Mehdi Karroubi, Mir Hossein Mousavi, Fatemeh Karroubi, and Zahra Rahnavard incommunicado and have deprived them of their liberties since 14 February, when thousands of Iranians joined protests for which the opposition leaders had called. Several sources are reporting that all four have been transferred to either Heshmatiyeh Prison in Tehran, or to an undisclosed third location. Yet Iran’s Prosecutor General Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejei, told the semi-official ISNA news agency on 28 February that, “published news by some hostile media regarding the transfer of Mr. Mousavi and Mr. Karroubi to the Heshmatiyeh detention center is false.”Ejei claimed that the four leaders are confined in their homes and prohibited from communication with the outside world, including their family members. “Judicial action has been taken [against Mousavi and Karroubi], ultimatums have been issued … In the first step, their communications, including their comings and goings, and their telephone conversations have been restricted, and if need be, other steps will be taken,” Ejei said to ISNA.On 2 March, Tehran’s chief prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi, who was designated among a group of Iranian officials to be blacklisted and sanctioned for their human rights violations by the US government, also claimed that, “using the term house arrest is not correct.”The International Campaign for Human Right in Iran stresses that regardless of the location of the detentions, authorities are violating the due process rights of the detainees as they are being held, for weeks now, without formal arrest or charge, and without access to their families and lawyers.Several sources living in Mousavi and Karroubi’s neighborhoods told the Campaign that they are no longer inside their homes and have been transferred.The UN Commission on Human Rights stated in 2005 that, “prolonged incommunicado detention or detention in secret places may facilitate the perpetration of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and can in itself constitute a form of such treatment.”The UN International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance makes clear that a disappearance “is considered to be the arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty by agents of the State … followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, which place such a person outside the protection of the law.”Iranian law requires that authorities inform a detainee of charges against them within twenty-four hours of their arrest and allow them access to legal counsel, but allows judges to deprive detainees of a lawyer until the investigation is deemed complete.“Iranian authorities are clearly writing their own rules as they proceed, which absolutely contradicts the rule of law,” Ghaemi said.“Under these circumstances, anything could be happening to the four disappeared leaders,” he added.The Campaign holds Iranian authorities responsible for the safety and well-being of the four opposition figures.Hmmmm......Off course nothing is heard from the defender of liberty and the oppressed?Read the full story here.

• Immigration Wars: More States Looking at Arizona-Style Laws.Undocumented nannies, housekeepers or lawn caretakers in the state of Texas can perhaps breathe easier about deportation. While new legislation in the Texas House of Representatives would make it a state crime to hire undocumented workers, it excludes those employed in single-family households -- in other words, them.The bill, introduced by state GOP Rep. Debbie Riddle, is the first of its kind in the country. It's unique in that while it appeases those who want more stringent immigration laws, it doesn't subject Texas households to the rule that would mainly apply to businesses and large employers. Critics of the bill say it's hypocritical. Supporters charge it's needed in a state where the Hispanic population continues to climb swiftly. Though it remains stuck in political limbo, the bill reflects a wider push toward implementing tougher anti-immigration laws at the state level. More than 100 immigration-related bills are pending in the Texas legislature alone, including those that would give state and local police officers the authority to enforce federal immigration laws, make English the official language and prevent undocumented students from getting in-state tuition and scholarships. States across the country, including Georgia and Oklahoma, where the legislatures debated immigration bills this week, have been mulling controversial Arizona-style immigration laws.Thirty-seven states are considering tougher immigration bills, with multiple bills pending in some states."The mere fact that Arizona law has sprung up in over 24 other states within a few months of passage, I believe, is historic," said William Gheen, president and spokesman of Americans for Legal Immigration, a group that supports stricter immigration laws. "We are going to pass more immigration enforcement legislation in the states in 2011 than any year prior. And what we don't get done in 2011 we will get done in 2012," he vowed.Hmmmmm........."Remember the Alamo"?Read the full story here.

• HT:Politico.House Republican Wants Investigation of Common Cause.Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert wants Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate whether the liberal group Common Cause should lose its nonprofit status, after a conservative website published footage of protesters calling for the lynching of conservative Supreme Court justices.The footage shows enraged protesters making inflammatory and threatening comments about Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, as well as Thomas’s wife, Ginni Thomas.Gohmert said that the inflammatory remarks are more troubling given the attack on Arizona Democratic Rep. Gabby Giffords earlier this year.“We shouldn’t have any organization, especially one that says it’s nonpartisan, out there stirring up hatred and animosity to the point that people would say, “Let’s string up a justice of the Supreme Court as well as his wife,” Gohmert said.Rep. Steve King, a Republican who joined Gohmert in his condemnation of the group, said the protesters are part of a larger effort to smear the justices’ reputations.“This is an organized attempt of media lynching of Justice Thomas,” he said.Another protester encouraged mutilating the justice, saying that those who disagree with his conservative background should “cut off his toes one by one and feed them to him.”Hmmmm......Sounds more and more like 1939 Germany.Read the full story here.

• HT:BigGovernment.BOMB THREAT at Scott Walker News Conference–Leftist Protester Arrested!Far Left protester Patrick J. Knauf, 43, of Eau Claire was arrested on Wednesday for the violation of making a bomb scare under state statute 947.015.He was released on a $3,000 signature bond.On Wednesday a bomb threat was made at an aviation business in Eau Claire just hours after Governor Scott Walker spoke there. Police brought in a man who was protesting this week against the Republican governor.An investigation continues into a bomb threat made this week at an aviation business in Eau Claire, just hours after Governor Scott Walker held a news conference there.Authorities said a 43-year-old Eau Claire man allegedly called in a threat to Heartland Aviation on Wednesday evening. The facility is next to the Chippewa Valley Regional Airport in Eau Claire. The man is free on a signature bond. No charges have been filed yet, but the man is due back in Chippewa County Circuit Court on April 19th.Investigators said the man took part in public demonstrations at the airport on Monday and Wednesday. His home was searched yesterday, and police are checking phone records and interviewing people. Eau Claire Police have asked for tips with more information.Amazing!A bomb threat was called in on a Walker rally and the media doesn’t report on it?Hmmmm......Move along, nothing to see here?Read the full story here.

• Abbas: Time for Palestine in UN.In joint press conference with Chilean counterpart, Palestinian president reiterates his objection to interim agreement with Israel. Pinera: Palestinians should have their own state, freedom of movement.Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday reiterated his objection to the initiative to launch negotiations for an interim peace agreement with Israel."We know there was an idea in the past to establish a state within temporary borders, and if this idea is raised again – we won't accept it," Abbas said. He added that it was time to establish a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, which would join the United Nations in September.Hmmmm.....Obama....."It's Israel's fault",but next time i'll vote for the Palestinians when it counts?Read the full story here.

• HT:BigPeace.Where Are The Moderate Muslims?Who represents “Moderate Muslims”? What do Moderate Muslims believe and how is it different from what Islamists believe?Dr. Zuhdi Jasser will be testifying before the House Homeland Security Committee on the radicalization of Muslim communities next week. An American patriot who believes in freedom of religion, he is a friend of Frank Gaffney and Secure Freedom Radio. As Dr. Jasser’s credibility as a Muslim is already under attack from Muslim Brotherhood fronts and the radical left (in the form of Soros-funded Media Matter), Frank had a few things to say about it.Hmmmm.......Have you ever seen an unicorn?Read and hear the full story here.

• Turkey - Two arrested in Turkey over alleged plot to kill Christian.Turkish anti-terrorism police have arrested two men suspected of plotting to kill a Christian religious figure in Istanbul, the Anatolia news agency reported Saturday. They were picked up in a raid on an apartment in Gaziosmanpasa, a working-class district on the European side of the city, the report said, adding that police seized two pistols.Several violent and sometimes lethal attacks have targeted Christians in mainly Muslim Turkey in recent years.Last year a 26-year-old Turk was convicted of the stabbing death of the then head of the Catholic Church in Turkey, Luigi Padovese.Hmmmm.....anyone willing to wager which religion they follow?Read the full story here.

• Russia blasts US for pushing to deploy missile defense in Poland.Moscow has demanded an explanation from the US about its plans to station an air force base with F-16 fighters and build a missile defense system in Poland. US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton has confirmed Washington’s intention to deploy a rotating US squadron of F-16s in Poland. Last December, leaders of the two countries announced the plans to establish a new permanent US air detachment. The US also intends to “build missile defenses in Poland,” Clinton said after talks with Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski.The previous administration of President George Bush was planning to deploy elements of its missile defense shield in Poland and the Czech Republic. President Barack Obama scrapped the plans, but nevertheless promised to expand co-operation with Poland in missile defense and air defense areas.Clinton made it clear that NATO countries support the new US plans regarding Poland. However, Russia will oppose any moves to deploy air detachments in that country. Washington and Warsaw are continuing military co-operation “despite their reset of the relations with Russia that took place last year,” Kommersant daily said, citing Russian diplomats.It is not known when Washington will start deploying the squadron of F-16s. But the plan will complicate US talks with Russia about the creation of a joint European missile shield, Moscow’s envoy to NATO Dmitry Rogozin said. Even now the prospects of such talks do not look bright, he told the paper.President Dmitry Medvedev and US Vice President Joseph Biden may discuss the deployment of F-16s on March 9. Anyway, the issue “will not be left without Russia's most close attention,” Rogozin warned.The idea of deploying an air base in Poland was first mentioned by US military officials in March 2009. However, the White House did not announce the plans until quite recently.Hmmmmm....."It was first mentioned in 2009"another Obama 'brainchild'?Read the full story here.

• HT:Memri.Following Invitation From Egyptian Tourism Minister, Oprah To Host Live Show From Al-Tahrir Square.According to an Alarabiya.net report, the well-known American talk show host Oprah Winfrey is to air a live episode from Al-Tahrir Square in Cairo, that will focus mainly on Egypt’s January 25 revolution. Egypt's newly appointed minister of tourism, Mounir Fakhry Abdel Nour, who announced a new initiative to bring to Egypt the world’s most famous actors, actresses and media figures in an attempt to revive and boost the country’s tourism industry that took a beating in the unrest, said that Winfrey has accepted his invitation without any hesitation.Hmmmm......Obama ....Oprah......"Let's meet the Muslim Brotherhood"in your diningroom?Read the full story here.

• Putin accuses BP of misleading him over Rosneft deal.MOSCOW — BP's historic alliance with Russia's state oil giant Rosneft hit a rough patch on Friday when Prime Minister Vladimir Putin accused the British firm of misleading him going into the deal.The $16 billion share-swap and Arctic exploration agreement was announced with much fanfare by the Russian government in January and was soon followed by a similar agreement between Rosneft and the US oil major Exxon Mobil.The Kremlin has billed the tie-up as confirmation of the West's continued interest in Russia despite criticism of its investment climate and treatment of Rosneft's one-time private rival Yukos -- now disbanded and its founder jailed. But BP found a source of unlikely revolt when its Russian joint venture TNK-BP -- the country's third-largest oil firm and one of the world's top 10 private producers -- tried to put a halt to the deal in a London court.The Russian billionaire owners of the joint venture feared that the deal could mark the end of their own company and argued that it violated the TNK-BP shareholders agreement.A top Putin deputy said last month that Russia remained confident that the deal with BP would go through because the British firm had given Moscow "all the necessary assurances".But Putin voiced clear frustration with BP's boardroom problems on Friday and accused its management of giving the Russian government false assurances prior to the Rosneft deal's announcement.He said neither BP nor its Russian venture "had informed Rosneft about the fact that they might have some sort of problems.""I, for example, had absolutely no idea," news agencies quoted Russia's former president and current de facto leader as saying."When I met with the management of BP, they did not say a word about it."Putin then delivered BP another blow by noting that he was open to the idea of TNK-BP itself taking part in joint Arctic exploration projects with Russia's biggest oil firm."We have adopted a law that entrusts (Arctic) shelf work to Rosneft and Gazprom," news agencies quoted Putin as saying."If TNK offers one of these companies suitable conditions, then why not? Of course," Putin added.Those comments came only hours after TNK-BP confirmed that it was now looking to take BP's place in the Rosneft deal.Various Western press reports said that TNK-BP's management was willing to pay BP $7.6 billion in cash for its place in the $16 billion Rosneft share-swap and Arctic exploration agreement.But the London Financial Times reported this week that Rosneft had a sceptical view of the joint venture's attempt to take BP's place in the deal.TNK-BP said it will hold a board meeting in Paris on March 12 to discuss the proposal.January's agreement would give Rosneft five percent of BP?s ordinary voting shares in exchange for approximately 9.5 percent of Rosneft?s stock.BP and Rosneft have also agreed to explore and develop Rosneft's three licensed blocks on the Arctic continental shelf -- a 125,000 square kilometre (50 square mile) region said to contain five billion tonnes of oil and 3.0 trillion cubic metres of gas.Hmmmmm...... "У Bac есть крыша"?Read the full story here.

• HT:shtfplan.Insider Report: US Government Will Confiscate Gold When It Touches $2000.It’s no secret that the US government is broke, the US dollar is crashing and losing credibility globally, and the IMF, China, France and others have publicly stated their desire to eliminate the dollar as the world’s primary reserve currency. The IMF, for example, recently issued a call to replace the Federal Reserve’s fiat paper, ironically suggesting that it should be replaced with yet another synthetic instrument known as the SDR, or Special Drawing Right. The SDR is essentially a monetary unit made up of a basket of other global monetary units that include the euro, Japanese yen, pound sterling, and U.S. dollar. Incidentally, prior to the collapse of the Bretton Woods gold-backed US dollar monetary system in 1973, the SDR was actually ‘backed by gold,’ with one SDR being worth roughly 0.88 grams of gold, or at the time, $1 US dollar.It’s been suggested that a new SDR, which would likely include the Chinese Yuan within the basket, may also require some non-synthetic units of exchange such as gold.We’ve learned from well known metals analyst and commentator Roger Wiegand, in an email to silver analyst David Morgan which was subsequently published in Morgan’s latest Silver Investor newsletter available only to subscribers, that several of Wiegand’s high level inside sources have reported that the puppeteers behind the US government, in order to facilitate a move into a new world currency are considering, or may have already begun moving forward with, a plan to confiscate gold and silver from the American public.We’ve previously commented on the possibility of gold confiscation and other steps that may be taken by our financier controlled government in the event that gold does reach certain thresholds. Reaching these new thresholds, for example $2000 or $5000 per ounce, would suggest that the US dollar has likely crashed or begun a final collapse into oblivion, at which point, all credibility for this unit of exchange will have been lost in the eyes of the rest of the world.We cannot, however, dismiss outright the suggestion that precious metals will be physically confiscated from the people. The reasoning behind the 1933 confiscation and ban on owning gold until the mid 1970′s was primarily because the US dollar was backed by gold. One US dollar represented a specific amount of gold, 0.888 grams in fact. Today, no such backing exists, and gold has been called a relic of the past by modern day monetary experts.However, if the IMF gets its wish, and it very well may if the US dollar’s long term plunge continues unabated, then gold will become a part of the new world reserve currency unit, currently being referred to as the SDR. With the passage of President Obama’s health care bill, the American people found out, after the fact as usual, of the new 1099 requirements which will force gold/silver merchants to declare all precious metals transactions over $600. Thus, the mechanism for tracking and taxing even small cash transactions has already been put into place.So, if you’ve taken our past advice and hold physical precious metals, we recommend looking into some creative ways of making sure they don’t exist if someone ever comes knocking.Hmmmm.......The Saudis think that if Gold gets to 1500$ that it has reached it's actual real value.Read the full story here.

• HT:CrossroadsArabia.Saudi Arabia - Chikungunya at the Border.Arab News reports that Saudi Arabia is taking precautions to thwart the movement of chikungunya across the Yemeni border into the Kingdom. The disease is usually non-fatal, but debilitating, with arthritis-like symptoms lasting for up to years in the elderly. Children, luckily, seem only to have fevers that last a matter of weeks. In Yemen, however, it is seen as the cause of 65 deaths recently.The article says there is still some dispute about the diagnosis. According to the Wikipedia article, chikungunya is similar to several equine encephalitises. Those are endemic to East Africa, just across the narrow Red Sea from Yemen. Equine encephalitis, in addition to affecting horses as its name suggests, has a 35% mortality rate among humans, with no cure yet discovered.The disease is mosquito-borne, like malaria and dengue fever. That means that the tools necessary to contain its spread are already in the Saudi public health arsenal. Those tools, especially the spraying of insecticides, will need to be used promptly. The Saudi provinces bordering Yemen, such as Jizan, are among the poorer areas in the country. They lag in infrastructure development, so it is likely that public health assets will need to be moved into the region. The major cities of Taif, Jeddah, and Mecca, however, are along a northern route. None of them needs an epidemic.Read the full story here.

• HT:GroundReport.Iranian Factory Workers Say We Are Hungry. TEHRAN, IRAN--- During a recent speech in Khoramabad, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad received a surprise dose of reality: There are hungry people in Iran. A group of factory workers showed up to the President’s speech carrying a sign that said “We the workers of Parsilon [factory] are hungry”.Ahmadinejad stated on other occasions that since the 1979 revolution, “"Iran is among the few countries in the world where no one goes to bed hungry." In 2009, the Iranian President told a group of reporters that before the 1979 revolution, 95% of the Iranian population lived in total poverty under the Shah.The President’s statements are contradicted by Iran’s own official statistics. According to the country’s center for statistics, about 30 million Iranians live at or below the poverty line.According to the government, Iran’s official unemployment rate is about 11 percent. But among the unemployed, the younger Iranians carry the biggest burden as the government has been unable to create enough jobs to accommodate the country’s relatively young workforce.In real terms, Iran has had little or no per capita income growth since the Islamic revolution. Although the country’s cleric led government insists otherwise, Iran’s per capita income growth was zero between 1980 and 2005. Any rise in the country’s per capita income since 2005 was due to higher oil prices. But the growth has been negligible nonetheless.The lack of human capital, institutional infrastructure, and continuous brain drain make development of a free market economy difficult in Iran.Although the Islamic revolution brought with it a new form of government and a new political ideology, the revolution did nothing to brighten the economic future of the Iranian people.Read the full story here.