MFS - The Other News

                 Afternoon  Posting.

• Live broadcast info from Japan directly ! Here.

• Libya Live Blog - April 04. Here .(Al-Jazeera)And  here (BBC).

• French forces take over Abidjan airport. Here . (Al -Jazeera).

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity in Japan between 4.7 and 5.1 today. More info here.

• Latest official Situation Update No. 74.

• HT:TheAstuteBloggers.What do Yemen,Egypt and Libya all have in common.Answer :They are all allies in the war against Jihado-terror.Gadafi, Mubarak and now Saleh.All helped us fight Jihadists and all are opposed by Obama..Obama doesn't oppose or seek to depose Assad or Hizballah or Ahmadinejad - or Karzai,each of whom opposes us and and our interests more and more.EXIT QUESTION:

IF OBAMA REALLY WAS A CRYPTO-MUSLIM WHO WANTED TO HELP THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD AND IRAN WOULD HE BE DOING ANYTHING DIFFERENTLY?....NOPE.Read the full story here.

• Egypt: Salafi Group Demands Implementation of Sharia Law, Calls on Non-Muslims to Submit to Islam.The Salafi group in Alexandria said it is seeking to implement Islamic Sharia law no matter how difficult the task.During a conference held at Amr Ibn al-Aas mosque in Giza on Friday, several of the group’s leaders called on non-Muslims to accept the rule of Islam which it argues provides sufficient protection for them.Salafi leaders also said they are holding their conference to respond to “media attacks” and “the lies of liberalism” and general “anti-Islamic” sentiment.Saeed Abdel Azeem, a Salafi leader, said that some people are waging a fierce campaign against the Salafi movement even though the group shuns violence. This began shortly after the results of the recent referendum on constitutional amendments were announced, he said, adding that the media, Mohamed ElBaradei, Amr Moussa and liberal parties consider themselves allied together against Islamists.“But no matter how strongly it is attacked, Salafism is continuously advancing, and this attack won’t affect it,” he said.Ahmed Farid, another Salafi leader, said liberal and secular attacks have become increasingly ferocious, even though Salafism represents the correct understanding of Islam, and the attackers are actually harming themselves.He said some claim that Salafis are more dangerous than Jews.Hmmmmm....The "War on Christianity" is about to get in a higher gear.Read the full story here.

• Egypt: Muslim Brotherhood Calls For Establishment of Saudi-Style Islamic Morality Police.Call adds to concerns among liberals that the country is going Islamic after attacks on Muslim mystic tombs, Christians.Officials of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's leading Islamic group, have called for the establishment of a Saudi-style modesty police to combat "immoral" behavior in public areas in what observers say in another sign of a growing Islamic self-confidence in the post-Mubarak era. In the political sphere, the Brotherhood led a successful drive to get voters to approve a package of constitutional amendments. On the street level, at least 20 attacks were perpetrated against the tombs of Muslim mystics (suffis), who are the subject of popular veneration but disparaged by Islamic fundamentalists, or salafis. After some initial hesitation, Islamic leaders have publicly praised the revolution."This is incredibly worrying to many Egyptians," Maye Kassem, a political scientist at the American University in Cairo (AUC), told The Media Line. "The salafis were always undercover in Egypt and now they are emerging as a political force. They are getting too vocal."Newly freed from the political strictures of the Mubarak era, Egypt has turned into a battleground between those who envision a liberal, secular state and those who advocate various shades if Islam. The conflict mirrors those taking place elsewhere in the region. In Bahrain, unrest has evolved into a conflict between Sunni- and Shiite Muslims and the US has pulled back from supporting Libyan rebels over concerns they are dominated by Islamists.Issam Durbala, a member of the Brotherhood's Shura council, told the Egyptian daily Al-Masri Al-Youm on Sunday, that he supported the establishment of a virtue police, or Hisbah, which had existed in medieval Islamic societies to oversee public virtue and modesty, mostly in the marketplace and other public gathering spaces. But he seemed to stop short of advocating a force along then lines of that which operates in Saudi Arabia today under the auspices of the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. It enforces a dress code, separation of sexes and the observances of prayer times."The new police must have a department with limited authorities to arrest those who commit immoral acts,” Durbala told the newspaper.Nevertheless, liberal, secular Egyptians, who led the protests that brought down President Hosni Mubarak and ushered in a new but as yet undefined era in Egypt, regard the proposal as the latest sign that Islamists are emerging as the dominant force in the country.Nagib Gibrail, a Coptic attorney and head of the Egyptian Union of Human Rights, said the Egyptian revolution had been kidnapped by Islamist radicals."There are areas in Egypt where Christian girls can't walk outside after eight o'clock in the evening for fear of being kidnapped," Gibrail told The Media Line. "Moderate Muslims should be more scared than Christians. It is very worrying that the military regime hasn't issued a statement declaring Egypt a secular state." Hmmmm......The youth in Egypt only has to look to Iran to see their near future.Used as cattle to force the barriers.Read the full story here.

• HT:AhmadiyyaTimes.Afghans in east protest against Quran burning.As deadly demonstrations spread across Afghanistan, American Muslim leaders condemned the violence as well as the Quran-burning by a fundamentalist Christian minister in Florida whose actions were cited as provocation for the killings.“Clearly the Islamist agenda is to use any tidbit of information out of the West to try to paint America and the West as anti-Islam and anti-Muslim,” said M. Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy.He said the killings over the weekend in Mazar-i-Sharif and Kandahar were the result of extremist leaders using the burning of a Quran last month in Gainesville, Fla., as an excuse for violence.Jones did not return phone calls seeking comment. One of his group’s websites, StandupAmerica.org, posted a statement by Fran Ingram responding to what she said were calls to the church suggesting “you have the blood of the U.N. workers on your hands.”“The teaching of the Koran is to be blamed. The leaders of Islam who teach the violence and hatred it contains have blood on their hands,” she wrote. “Free speech. We still have that in America.”Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim advocacy group, said Sunday that his group tried to ignore Jones because he has a tiny following and is not representative of mainstream American thought.“We believe he’s just in the mode of pure publicity seeking,” Hooper said of Jones. “We’ve purposely downplayed it as much as possible.”Hooper denounced the violence as “a completely inappropriate reaction” to the Florida preacher.“Everybody has freedom of speech. In this case, even freedom to do stupid and reprehensible things. But everybody also has the responsibility to act in a way that doesn’t harm others or doesn’t lead to the harm of others,” Hooper said.Imam Shamshad Nasir, an Ahmadiyya Muslim leader with Baitul Hamid Mosque in Chino, Calif., called Jones “a foolish pastor” but said his community “rejects any killing in the name of religion anywhere even if it is done in the name of the most sacred scriptures.”Read the full story here.

• HT:BigPeace.Egypt’s ‘Save The Revolution’ Movement Splits Muslim Brotherhood.An estimated 100,000 protesters demanding to “Save the Revolution” demonstrated in Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt, on Friday, according to Ahram. The protesters have called for another rally next Friday.There had been no large scale demonstrations ever since the armed forces emptied the square on March 9, and it had been widely assumed that the revolution had fizzled out, but Friday’s huge crowds proved that assumption wrong.The reborn revolution fervor was triggered by a return to some of the abuses that had been common during the presidency of Hosni Mubarak, whom the January uprising forced to resign.Several people have come forward to say that they were detained and tortured by the military that had assumed power when Mubarak resigned, according to Global Post. Even Mubarak’s own National Democratic Party (NDP), widely criticized for corruption, is regrouping for a return to political prominence.Of greater concern to some young people is the potential rise in power of the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist political parties.The median age of Egyptians is 24, so most Egyptians are young, and have grown up in a secular Egypt with a Muslim Brotherhood that gave up violence decades ago. Young Egyptians wish to retain their secular freedoms, and to continue to coexist with Coptic Christians and other religious groups.The result has been a serious generational rift within the Muslim Brotherhood. On Saturday, two key leaders of the Brotherhood resigned, with the intention of joining a new political party, the Hahda Party, according to Al-Masry Al-Youm. This party will be conservative, but it will uphold the freedom of its members, and will represent a strong competitor to the Brotherhood, because it will draw large numbers of Brotherhood youth.In fact, the Brotherhood has been facing a rift since the Revolution began in January, according to an analysis by Ahram.Within a few days of the overthrow of Mubarak, a Facebook event called “Brotherhood Youth Revolution” was established, calling on the Muslim Brotherhood Youth to overthrow it leaders and senior members.The rift grew when Mubarak’s police and thugs were attacking the protesters in Tahrir Square. The leaders and senior members of the Brotherhood sided with the military, but the decision to back down was rejected by the Brotherhood youth. The result was a deadly battle of Tahrir Square that killed several dozen demonstrators.Young Egyptians today have as little desire to return to the harsh practices and attitudes of the Muslim Brotherhood of the 1950s and 1960s, any more than today’s young Americans or Europeans would like to return to the attitudes and behaviors of the 1950s.However, Egyptian society, especially the Muslim Brotherhood, is going through a kind of societal identity crisis along generational lines. The young people always win these generational battles since, after all, the old people die off. We should begin to see the early resolutions to some of these disputes when elections are held later this year.Hmmmm.....Unless Egypt transformes in to a second Iran,where there are more youth in prison than there are in the universities?Read the full story here.

• Bibi’s Choice!How Israel should handle pressure for a Palestinian state.By Elliott Abrams. With the Great Revolt of 2011 shaking Arab capitals, Israel briefly seemed a Middle Eastern Switzerland when March began. There were no demonstrations, there was no dictator to protest, and there had been three years without terror. Gone were the once omnipresent security guards at restaurants, challenging you before you entered with a careful look and the question “Do you have a weapon?” Then on March 11, terrorists savagely murdered five members of a family in the settlement of Itamar, and on March 24, a Palestinian bomber brought back the old days: one dead, dozens wounded at a bus stop in Jerusalem. Israel’s short vacation from history had ended.

That vacation had been partial, to be sure. Hamas and other terrorist groups had periodically lobbed rockets and mortars from Gaza into Israel, though here too the pace and range of the shots was suddenly climbing. And no doubt many terrorist attacks were foiled by steady police work. But the confrontation with the Palestinians was stalled, frozen, during the two Obama years. The leader of the PLO, Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, has spent these years touring the world, avoiding any serious engagement with Israel. He has been a happy man: Travel is less stressful than the difficult work of state-building, which is left to Prime Minister Salam Fayyad; the lack of negotiations means Abbas avoids the controversial compromises a genuine negotiation would entail; and his refusal to negotiate has been arranged and defended by the Obama Doctrine that “settlement activity” is the true obstacle to Middle East peace. For it has been American policy since January 20, 2009, that Palestinians need not come to the table unless there is a 100 percent Israeli construction freeze in Jerusalem and the settlements.The Obama administration abandoned that doctrine last November, and its champion, George Mitchell, ever since has been an invisible man. No policy has been proposed by the White House to replace its calamitous belief in the construction freeze delusion, at least not yet. But Israelis are sure something is around the corner and are debating whether to wait—or to act.

They fear two developments. The first is a Quartet Plan: a statement by the United States, the United Nations, Russia, and the European Union via the Middle East Quartet that proposes the outline of a final status arrangement. The Israeli nightmare has the leading nations of the world demanding terms about borders, security, and Jerusalem with which Israel cannot live—and then finding Israel further isolated and demonized. The EU is leading this Quartet effort, but every Israeli official with whom I spoke said the United States is waving the Europeans on and hiding behind them.

The second potential disaster is a Palestinian effort at the U.N. General Assembly in September, where the “State of Palestine” would be recognized on “1967 borders” and Israel’s presence in the West Bank would become the basis for a further expansion of boycotts, demonstrations, and delegitimization campaigns. These campaigns are well underway and especially in Western Europe would gain great strength from such U.N. action, it is argued. At bottom, the article suggests that Israel should act rather than wait fearfully for possible Palestinian Authority, Quartet, or United Nations actions. If Israelis believe that separation from the Palestinian population of the West Bank is both inevitable and beneficial, they should begin that process. Israelis and Palestinians may never live together in peace, but they can live apart in peace.Hmmm.....With all due respect......You are wrong!Read the full story here.

• HT:AhmadiyyaTimes.Pakistan: 'Convert or go to hell,' Islamists tell non-Muslim patients at government hospitals.KARACHI - Twenty-three-year-old Zain, a Catholic Christian, was admitted to the emergency ward of the Civil Hospital Karachi after he was shot and wounded as a passer-by in a crossfire. While his worried parents and sister stood around waiting for the doctor’s verdict, men in green turbans and high shalwars swooped down on Zain. “Brother, you must denounce your infidel ways. Kalma parhein (recite the Kalma),” they told the young man who was barely conscious and obviously in immense pain. “Become a Muslim, and god will forgive you all your transgressions against him. Die a Muslim!” Zain’s 17-year-old sister pleaded with them once to leave the family alone. “My brother is in pain. Please, let us take care of him,” she said. In response, one of the men turned around and gruffly told her to shut up. “Do not interfere in god’s work,” she was told.Such scenes are no longer an anomaly at government hospitals in Karachi: men from various religious factions – the Tablighi Jamaat in particular – stalk the hallways of emergency wards, hoping to earn ‘savaab’ by converting non-Muslims on their deathbeds. In their quest for supposed divine rewards, they ignore the pleas of the families to be left alone with their loved one, as well as any pain that the patient might be in. Zain’s parents pulled their aside. “We know the consequences of interfering,” his father, who works as a mechanic, said quietly after the men had left when Zain, who had lost consciousness by then, did not respond.Similar scenes are repeated regularly at every government-run hospital in the city. “These people are like vultures; they do this to everyone. If we try to stop them, they will accuse us of maybe insulting their religion. We don’t want to be charged with blasphemy. It will be our word against theirs. Who will listen to us?”While security at these organisations is minimal, even the guards that are present don’t try to stop the evangelists. “Who are we to interfere in the work of god,” Saleem, a guard on duty outside the emergency ward at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre claimed, shrugging helplessly. “If someone converts to Islam this way, we will get Savaab too. These men help the patients and their families get spiritual peace.“We wish they’d leave us alone,” Zain’s father maintained. “If my son wanted to convert, he would have done so on his own. What’s the point of harassing someone who is obviously already in pain? Whose god would allow that?”Hmmmm......"The religion of Peace".Read the full story here.

• Russian escapes massacre in Afghan town.A Russian diplomat escaped with his life from angry and murderous mob in Afghanistan, after telling them he was a Muslim.Outrage flared in the normally quiet city of Mazar-i-Sharif as Friday prayers brought news that a dogmatic American pastor had burned a copy of the Koran in Florida. An irate crowd then broke into a UN compound, killing three UN workers and desecrating two bodies.The angry faithful poured out of the mosque and set off to avenge their defiled holy book. The American embassy in the region has not yet been finished yet so the rabble went to the local UN office. Ata Mohammad Nur, the province’s governor, estimated the numbers at 20,000, Kommersant reported.Afghan police standing nearby did not intervene but four Nepali guards did fire over the heads of the crowd, before firing into it, killing at least five. This only provoked the mob, who raised knives and small arms and charged into the compound. The Nepali guards paid for their defiance with their lives, next were Lt. Col. Siri Skare, 53, a Norwegian pilot and her UN colleagues, Joakim Dungel, a 33-year-old Swede, and Filaret Motco, 43, from Romania, the Associated Press reported.Two decapitated heads were then tossed into a sewage ditchThe mission chief, Pavel Yershov, got away with a beating thanks to his ability to speak Dari, he told them he was a Muslim.The unrest has spread to Kandahar in the south of the country and generally seen as the heart of Afghan insurgency. At the time of writing 100 people have died there and police are firing on the crowds with automatic weapons. It has also spread to Jalalabad in the east, where at least 20 people have died.Hmmmm......"Afghan police standing nearby did not intervene"Karzai started the unrest,wouldn't you say it's government directed,as a response to the US interventions in their drug trafficking? Read the full story here.

• NATO Troops Killed by Man in Afghan Police Uniform.Kabul, Afghanistan (AP) - A person wearing an Afghan police uniform shot dead two NATO service members Monday inside a compound in northern Afghanistan, the military alliance said.NATO stressed that it was still investigating the incident in Faryab province. Authorities said the shooter fled the scene. The military coalition did not provide further details.It was not immediately clear if the shooter was an Afghan police officer. There have been incidents of both Afghan security forces turning on their Western counterparts and of insurgents donning uniforms to infiltrate bases and attack from the inside.Officials in Faryab could not immediately be reached for comment.Turncoat attacks by Afghan police and soldiers have appeared to increase over the past 12 months as NATO and Afghan forces work more closely together. In some cases, such shootings have been a result of arguments that turned violent; in others, the Taliban has claimed that Afghan shooters were sleeper agents.In the last such incident in January, an Afghan soldier approached two Italian soldiers who were cleaning their weapons and shot both of them dead before escaping from the base.Hmmmm.....Police who doesn't act and Government hitmen?Read the full story here.

• White House West Wing Under Construction for Foreseeable Future.Washington (AP) - The West Wing of the White House is vanishing.In recent weeks, an expanding and sometimes earsplitting zone of excavation has enveloped the mansion's famous office wing. Heavy equipment and metal-and-concrete superstructures are part of the vast construction project.The front door and the Marine who guards it have disappeared behind a high green-and-white plywood fence. From Pennsylvania Avenue, all that's visible is a sliver of second-floor roofline.For years to come, the front yard at 1600 Pennsylvania will remain a noisy building site, say officials in charge of the White House's "Big Dig."The White House describes the job as an overdue upgrade of underground utilities. That includes water and sewer lines, electrical conduits, pipes for chilled and hot water and steam heat systems, and storm sewers. Heating, air conditioning and fire alarm systems are being replaced. Some systems are getting backups.A mysterious tunnel is being built, too.Crews have poured huge concrete pylons, erected retaining walls and brought in truckloads of steel I-beams. The construction site has expanded from in front of the West Wing around to the side and across a parking lot to the next-door Eisenhower Executive Office Building.Inevitably, the work has fueled speculation that what's really being built is some secret, new underground lair.The West Wing dig is but the first step in a multiphase project that will eventually progress across the White House grounds -- and last for a total of four years.Its scope can be gleaned from its hefty cost: $376 million. Of that, $86 million is just for the West Wing.Hmmmmm.........A Bunker to receive openness awards without being seen?Read the full story here.More here .

• 60% of U.S. Military Deaths in Afghanistan Have Occurred Since Obama Was Inaugurated.At least 858 U.S. soldiers have died in the Afghanistan war since President Barack Obama took office in January 2009. That equals 60.13 percent of the 1,427 American soldier fatalities so far in the ongoing 10-year war in that country.For March 2011, there were 26 U.S. military deaths in Afghanistan, including 4 non-combat related fatalities. That brought the total combat and non-combat deaths for 2011 (January, February, and March) to 70. Those fatalities include 57 combat-related deaths and 13 non-combat deaths.For the 858 U.S. deaths since Obama’s inauguration, 791 have been combat-related. This means that for the 1,241 combat-related deaths that occurred since the Afghanistan war began in October 2001, about 64 percent happened in the two years since Obama took office.Hmmmm......It's called 'Courageous restraint'and results in more fallen soldiers?Read the full story here.

• Beware the ‘Turkish model’. The so-called Turkish model, in which an Islamist party heads an ostensible democracy, has been posited in recent weeks as a likely outcome in postauthoritarian Arab countries. Likely, maybe; but Turkey’s experience under the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, suggests that such a path may also be a slippery slope.

The AKP does not aim to create a fundamentalist state in Turkey, but the ruling party’s conservative policies might inadvertently lead to just that. For several years the AKP has been transforming Turkish society by making religion the moral compass of the country’s body politic.This does not mean that the AKP wants to turn Turkey into a theocracy.But the problem is that once narrowly-defined faith becomes a guiding principle in policy, fundamentalists claiming ideological purity become more competitive politically. Their demands for an even stricter implementation of religion-based rules and values are triggering an ideological purity race and risk pushing Turkish society toward radicalization.History teaches us that fundamentalists always defeat conservatives in any competition for ideological purity. The AKP’s embrace of religious values is not Turkish secularists’ biggest problem.

The larger threat is that, now that the AKP has centered religion within Turkish society, fundamentalists will gain carte blanche to challenge the AKP as “not Muslim enough.”Already last November, the AKP was moved to fire Ali Bardakoglu, the liberal head of Diyanet, Turkey’s official religious authority, which has historically checked fanaticism by building mosques and training imams while promoting a liberal understanding of Islam. The AKP replaced Bardakoglu with another well-known scholar, Mehmet Gormez, who has an avowedly more conservative take on Islam.The new Diyanet chief’s first act was to fire Ayse Sucu, who headed the organization’s women’s branch. Sucu’s initiatives had included suggesting that women should be able to decide for themselves whether to cover their hair. Fundamentalist media and pundits were ecstatic at her ouster, claiming that it signalled that there is no room for a personal interpretation of Islam.Internally, the AKP has promoted socially conservative values, such as wearing the Islamic head scarf for women and a disdain for alcohol. Turkish bureaucrats and businesspeople complain that embracing these practices to prove that one is a “good Muslim” has become a precondition for getting government promotions and contracts.Or take the AKP’s new Kurdish policy. In an effort to expand its base among the Kurds before June polls, the party has emphasized Islam as a common denominator between Kurds and Turks to undermine the secular Kurdish nationalist party.The plan may well help the AKP win its upcoming elections.However, it will also invite competition from religious radicals, such as from Kurdish Hezbollah – a violent Sunni group not linked to the Lebanese Shi’ite Hezbollah, which already boasts a wide grassroots network in the southeast of Turkey.Recently, Hezbollah’s leadership, in jail since a crackdown in the late 1990s, was released from prison due to a legal loophole. The AKP’s emphasis on Islam may help replace the secular-nationalist Kurdish movement with a religious-nationalist one. Expect Kurdish Hezbollah to suggest that neither the AKP nor Diyanet are “Muslim enough” to represent Kurds.TURKEY’S SHIFT is also bad news for the US and Europe.The potential radicalization of the Turkish population is an especially pressing concern given that Turkey recently eliminated visa restrictions for a number of Muslim countries – including Iran, Syria, Jordan and Libya. Whatever happens in those countries, the move will facilitate crossfertilization among radical groups in Turkey. Washington should make contingency plans now to deal with radicals who will challenge the AKP’s cooperation with the US, particularly in Afghanistan.Turkey’s emboldened radicals will also no doubt take issue with Ankara’s European Union policy, as if Turkey’s EU accession plans did not already face enough problems.Given the large number of Turkish immigrants in Europe, the radicalization of the Turkish population, especially its Kurdish segment, will likely replicate itself in Europe.The AKP’s religious bent, disconcerting in itself, can easily spin out of control. The lesson of the AKP experience for the Arab world and likely Muslim Brotherhood governments there is that religious orthodoxy is an ideological beauty contest, in which the winner is always the ugly guy.Hmmmm.......Welcome to Turkey ...Iranian style?Read the full story here.

• No fried food: Health Dept. workers cringe at new rules restricting foods, fragrances, decorations.No overbearing perfume. No obscene pictures. And definitely no French fries for work lunches.That's the new edict for employees of the same city Health Department that brought you calorie-counting menus and snuffed out smoking on beaches and in parks.The updated rules - which range from what workers can serve at agency powwows to how loud they can talk in the office - come as the Health Department begins to move into its new Queens digs today.A set of guidelines for "Life in the Cubicle Village" sent to employees asks them to avoid wearing products with "noticeable odors" or posting "any displays, photos, cartoons, or other personal items that may be offensive."They also should avoid eavesdropping.If they can't - "at least resist the urge to add your comments," the cubicle rules recommend.Employees also got a bright-colored brochure stipulating what can and can't be served at meetings and parties.Tap water is a menu must when food or drinks are served. Other beverages must be less than 25 calories per 8 ounces."Cut muffins and bagels into halves or quarters, or order mini sizes. Offer thinly-sliced, whole-grain bread," the brochure states.Deep-fried foods are an absolute no-no and "cannot be served."For celebrations, cake and air-popped popcorn - "popped at the party and served in brown paper lunch bags" - are allowed.But when a "celebration cake" is served, cookies can't be offered."These standards are mandatory for meetings and events sponsored by the Health Department," the brochure states.Hmmmm......."America the policestate of the hungry"?Read the full story here.

• Oil hits 2.5-year high, nears $120.Iran oil minister says no need for Opec emergency meeting.Brent crude rose towards $120 a barrel and US crude hit a 2-1/2-year high above $108 on Monday. Unrest in the Middle East and North Africa kept the focus on oil supplies as economic growth bolstered demand.Iran's oil minister said there was no need for the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to hold an extraordinary meeting, adding to price support.Iran is holder of Opec's rotating presidency in 2011. ICE Brent rose $1.05 to a high of $119.75 a barrel, its highest since Feb. 24, before slipping back to trade around $119.50 by 1223 GMT.Edward Meir, senior commodity analyst at brokers MF Global, said investors seemed to be in no mood to sell the markets despite the "less than compelling fundamental backdrop".Analysts say the loss of oil from Libya has been more or less offset by Saudi Arabia, while the Japanese crisis should also reduce oil import demand, suggesting "there likely is a statistical surplus in the system right now", Meir said."However, participants are not bothering with data for the moment, as the focus remains on headlines out of the Middle East. Moreover, the fact that global growth has yet to show any significant sign of decelerating is also keeping the "buy commodities" theme very much intact," he added.Hmmmm.....Remember last year when the so called 'experts' said next year oil at 80$/barrel, i said "Lets see once Iran is chairman of Opec"?Read the full story here.

• The Inner Logic of Evil.A Stasi Expert Advises Egypt on Secret Police Legacy.Two decades ago, Herbert Ziehm helped storm the headquarters of the East German secret police, the Stasi. Now, he is advising Egypt on how to deal with its own legacy of official abuse. History, it would seem, is repeating itself.The Egyptian secret police had approximately 100,000 full-time agents. Most of them are still on the payroll. So far, all that has changed is the name of the organization and a handful of commanding officers have been replaced. Nobody knows what the full-time agents and their estimated 300,000 informants are currently up to or what should happen to them.This was the situation when Said Abu al-Ala and his friends stormed the headquarters of the secret police in early March.

Abu al-Ala, 27, is a young lawyer who, even before the revolution, wrote a critical book about the Egyptian secret police, leading the agents to keep him under surveillance and interrogate him on a number of occasions.He was well prepared for the meeting with Ziehm, and showed him documents from the secret police archives. "Ninety percent of the files have been destroyed," said Abu al-Ala, adding that the remains lay scattered about the rooms of Amn al-Dawla -- shredded, burned or drenching wet -- and some files had already been carted away in garbage trucks. He and his friends were able to salvage some documents, however. Abu al-Ala has already divided them into a number of categories and roughly sifted through them."There is a dossier on every former minister," he says. He was able to read what the secret police thought of the homosexual minister of culture, whose job apparently included advising the first lady on her wardrobe selections. He also read about the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), which is apparently described in the files as incompetent and a "loser." The crooked deals of the elite, their sex scandals, their close relations to the officially banned Muslim Brotherhood -- all of this, says Abu al-Ala, can be found in the files.But what is to be done with them? Should everything be made public to finish off the old guard? Abu al-Ala had a lot of questions for the German expert. What is the correct way to make an inventory of the files -- and what should be included in legislation concerning secret police files? Who should safeguard the papers for the time being -- and is it right for them to be stored in the homes of activists?Read the full story here.

• Rebel leader Umarov 'alive' after Russian air strike.The leader of the North Caucasus insurgency, whom Russian officials said was probably killed in an air strike last week, is alive and unharmed, a website with links to militants said Monday.Doku Umarov, 46, who heads the Caucasus Emirate rebel group, is "alive and well. He is not wounded and could not be harmed because he was not in the area of the bombing," the Kavkazcenter.com website said.Russian security forces on March 29 carried out an air strike on a militant base in the region of Ingushetia, officials said, adding some 17 people were killed in the raid.Umarov's right-hand man Supyan Abdullayev, his wife and his doctor were among those killed, officials said.Remains will undergo DNA testing to check whether Umarov was killed along with his close allies, officials said Friday, with some sources saying that the probability that he died in the strike was about 75 percent.The leader of Ingushetia, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, said Monday that Umarov could have gone into hiding, adding that there was no information about whether his remains had been identified."He is in hiding somewhere, that's clear. I do not rule out that he could be in Ingushetia," Yevkurov told the Interfax news agency.Kavkazcenter.com denied that a woman who was killed in the air strike was Umarov's wife and said that the number of the dead delivered to a local morgue was 10 people, not 17, citing a source.It has confirmed that Umarov's henchman Abdullayev was killed.Read the full story here.

• HT:Memri.Emir Supyan, Top Commander Of Islamic Emirate Of The Caucasus, Is Dead.According to an April 1, 2011 report on the kavkazcenter.com website. Emir Supyan (aka Supyan Abdullayev) was killed on March 28. The report describes Supyan as of the most experienced commanders of the mujahideen in the Caucasus, a mentor of young Muslims, and the closest companion of Emir Dokka Abu Usman (aka Dokka Umarov). Read the full story here.

• HT:JihadWatch.Obama's OIC envoy in Afghanistan: Islam is "one of the strongest tools that you can use to counter radicalization and violent extremism".A month before swarms of violent Afghans beheaded United Nations workers in the name of Islam, President Obama's top envoy to the Muslim world promoted Islam in a visit to Afghanistan, arguing it was one of the "strongest tools" against such violence.In February, Rashad Hussain, U.S. special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference, gave a talk in the Afghan capital of Kabul in which he called on locals to recommit themselves to their religion:

"I am of the opinion that one of the strongest tools that you can use to counter radicalization and violent extremism is Islam itself, because Islam rejects violent extremism," Hussain told the gathering of Afghans, according to a transcript obtained by WND from the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.He also said the Muslim faith is central to the administration's strategy to turn Muslims from jihadi violence:"We see that as one of the key elements of a strategy to address this type of violence," added Hussain, a former White House aide appointed last year to represent the U.S. to the Organization of the Islamic Conference, a 57-nation Muslim bloc, which includes Afghanistan and other terror hotspots....Hmmmm......"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion"?Can we start impeachment now?Read the full story here.

• US suspends arms aid to Lebanon.Fearing weapons would fall into Hezbollah's hands, US halts arms deliveries to Lebanon. Since 2006, US provided Lebanon with $720 million in military aid, Wall Street Journal reports. WASHINGTON - The US suspended its weapon deliveries to Lebanon in January, fearing that the munitions will fall into Hezbollah hands followings, US halts arms deliveries to Lebanon. Since 2006, US provided Lebanon with $720 million in military aid, Wall Street Journal reports. WASHINGTON - The US suspended its weapon deliveries to Lebanon in January, fearing that the munitions will fall into Hezbollah hands following the collapse of Saad Hariri's government. US Defense Secretary Robert Gates approved the moratorium recently, but the decision was not publicized in order to avoid interfering with the forming of a new Lebanese government, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. Meanwhile, the US continues to provide the Lebanese army with training and non-lethal equipment in order to preserve the good ties between the Pentagon and the Lebanese defense establishment.According to the report, the arms freeze is part of a broader inquiry into US aid to Lebanon. Spurred by pro-democracy hopes raised by the 2005 Cedar Revolution, the US upped its military assistance to Lebanon, not expecting that Hezbollah would gain political traction following the unrest.According to the Wall Street Journal, the US has provided Lebanon with more than $720 million in military assistance since 2006. The US delivered at least $18 million in ammunition to Lebabon, including antitank missiles and launchers, in 2010 alone. The article cited an unnamed Israeli official as saying that Israel has urged the US to stop arming the Lebanese military, for fear that the weapons "would end up in the wrong hands and eventually be used against us." The arms moratorium is expected to last until a new government is formed in Beirut, in accordance with the findings of the US inquiry.The Pentagon has expressed concern that the wave of pro-democracy protests in Lebanon and other Arab nations might eventually cause hostile and radical regimes to emerge. Hmmmmm.......Obama"The Changes in the Arab world might benefit Israel"is he really that sarcastic?Read the full story here.

• Boy, seven, beaten to death 'by Islamic school teacher for stealing £1.40'.An Islamic school teacher has been taken into custody in Malaysia for allegedly beating to death a seven-year-old boy accused of theft.Saiful Syazani Saiful Sopfideehad had been accused by the teacher at the Sekolah Agama Al-Furqan hostel in the state of Perlis of stealing seven Malaysian ringgit - around £1.40 - from a fellow student .According to reports he was allegedly tied to a window for two hours, beaten and strangled.News reports have described the tragedy as the worst known case of pupil abuse in at least 15 years.Mohamad Nadzri Hussain, a police chief in the Southern state of Perlis, said the child, who suffered multiple head injuries and internal bleeding, slipped into a coma following the beating on Thursday and died on Sunday morning.He added the 26-year-old teacher, who is also warden of the private school, could be charged with murder, which carries a penalty of death by hanging on conviction.'No one should take the law into their own hands' Hussain said. 'We do not condone beatings and torture of students.'Saiful's adoptive mother Hazirah Chin, 38, who had been raising him as her son since his own mother died in 2007, told the Malaysia Star that the seven-year-old was an 'obedient and cheerful' boy who had never had any problems at school.'I decided to send him to a religious school as he was keen on Islamic studies. I last saw him when I sent him there on March 27,' she said.She added that she found out about the incident after receiving a call from the teacher telling her that the boy had been admitted to the Tuanku Fauziah Hospital in the state capital Kangar after being injured, and seeking her permission for him to be transferred as his condition was worsening.'When I arrived at the Tuanku Fauziah Hospital, a doctor told me that he believed my son was tied up before being assaulted as there were rope marks on his wrists,' she said.Read the full story here.

• HT:Memri.Ethiopia To Challenge Egypt By Constructing Nile Dam.Ethiopia last week announced that it was planning to construct a huge dam on the Nile River, despite the long-term dispute with Egypt regarding the use of the Nile waters and the concern that it might lead to war.Ethiopia announced that the construction of the Great Nile Dam will begin soon on the Ethiopian Sudanese border, designed to generate 5250 megawatts of power. Ethiopia plans to spend $12 billion to eventually generate 15,000 megawatts of power within the next 10 years. Ethiopia will finance the construction of the dam that will cost $4.78 billion from its resources and from the sale of government bonds. Egypt has pressured donor countries and international financial institutions to refrain from extending loans to Ethiopia for the construction of the proposed dam. Hmmmm......Interesting development.Read the full story here.

• Immigration coalition pressures President Obama.A coalition of immigration activists and lawmakers has challenged Obama to use his executive powers to change U.S. immigration policy. The campaign, called Change Takes Courage, will consist of events nationwide, including in Obama’s home state of Hawaii, in the coming months. It was launched a day after the president said he’ll push Congress to pass legislation that will grant citizenship to Latinos in college or the military, but quickly added that he’ll need “a little bit of help” from congressional Republicans. White House deputy press secretary Josh Earnest insists Obama is committed to immigration reform. The president’s broader agenda, Earnest said, includes a path to citizenship for undocumented residents, enhanced border security and cracking down on employers who hire illegal workers. Still, Demetrios Papademetriou, president of the Migration Policy Institute, predicts immigration reform will most likely languish for the rest of the year.“Unless the administration and Democratic part of Congress sits down and has conversations with Republicans about things on which they can agree on immigration, nothing will happen,” Papademetriou said.Hmmmm......"Democracy or Dictatorship"?Read the full story here.

• Blagojevich seeks interview notes with Obama.CHICAGO (AP) -- Rod Blagojevich asked a judge Monday to order the government to hand over notes of any FBI interviews with President Barack Obama about the ousted Illinois governor's corruption case, a request that comes less than three weeks before Blagojevich's retrial is set to begin.The request for the notes related to Obama, who has never been accused of any wrongdoing in the matter, came in a motion filed with the U.S. District Court in Chicago. Presiding Judge James Zagel rejected a similar request before Blagojevich's first trial last year.In the motion, the defense says the notes could "go directly to the heart of testimony of several government witnesses," particularly that of Chicago-based union leader and longtime Obama ally Tom Balanoff. He told jurors during the first trial that he talked to Obama about the Senate seat on the eve of the 2008 president election.Balanoff testified last year that Obama told him he preferred that family friend Valerie Jarrett continue to work with him in the White House but that she wanted to be senator and had the qualifications."I thanked him and I said I was going to reach out to Gov. Blagojevich and speak on Valerie's behalf," Balanoff testified.Defense attorneys claim Balanoff's testimony about the call appeared to contradict some other accounts and that Obama interview notes could help clarify the issue.Hmmm.....Good luck with that one.Read the full story here.

• HT:BigGovernment.Here Comes The Internet Regulatory Creep.Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the World Wide Web, has declared that content should be free and open to all Internet users and that any variation is a violation of the principle of network neutrality. The sentiment is quite different than his explanation of net neutrality some years back.Tim Wu, the man who coined the term “Network Neutrality,” was previously the chair at Freepress, and whose favorite book is Atlas Shrugged The Master Switch, and is now a senior policy advisor at the Federal Trade Commission for consumer protection in mobile and Internet markets has recently added an addendum to his ever growing list of Internet rules as well. He recently was noted stating that the government should create “term limits” for successful technology and Internet companies. And in his comments he makes no bones about his ideology of state socialism commenting that if a “company has clearly shown that it’s corrupt” then the federal government should “just nationalize their source code.” Wu fails to explain who would be making these decisions or advocate the federal governments authority to carry out these decisions. Being a legal scholar it would seem that this would be an appropriate and rational step.Both Berners-Lee and Wu seem to be opposed to the app model now booming on many Internet devices and additionally based on their comments find services that have a pay wall to be a violation of net neutrality principles being that certain groups, i.e. those that are not subscribed, are blocked access from that service.Proponents of net neutrality regulation repeatedly proclaim the notion that regulation will improve and encourage innovation on the Internet. What we have however are two individuals who have now been caught saying two different things. Net neutrality regulation will encourage innovation, yet if the innovation is too good and uses a subscription wall then it is a violation or if it becomes too popular and ventures into a zone that, based on some arbitrary system, someone declares monopolistic and corrupt then it is in violation. The last few months have seen the opening gestures of regulatory creep on the Internet. We can (as is usually the case) look to Europe to see what we can expect soon. The creep is on its way.Read the full story here.