MFS - The Other News

                       Afternoon Posting.

• Live broadcast info from Japan directly ! Here.

• Libya Live Blog - April 10. Here .(Al-Jazeera).

• Middle East Live Blog April 10 here .(Al-Jazeera)

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world increased seismic activity in Turkey  today. More info here.

• Japan - Latest official Situation Update No. 81.On 10.04.2011 at 03:52 GMT+2 . Source .

• Video - Rare glimpse into Gaddafi forces. Exclusive footage obtained by Al Jazeera exposes the conduct of Libyan leader's army.Read and see the full story here.

• Barak: 750,000 citizens in bomb shelters is unacceptable.Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Sunday said that "Hamas, from our point of view, is responsible for everything that happens in the [Gaza] Strip and for all of the [terrorist] organizations that operate there."Speaking at the weekly cabinet meeting, he added, "we will not accept actions that harm our citizens, actions like the firing on the bus, or attempts to put three-quarter of a million citizens in bomb shelters." The defense minister was referring to an incident on Thursday when an anti-tank missile was fired at a school bus, leaving a 16-year-old in critical condition and the firing of over 120 rockets and mortar shells over the weekend.Despite calls coming from both Hamas and Defense Minister Ehud Barak for a ceasefire, Netanyahu reiterated that the IDF would not tolerate attacks on Israeli citizens, and would respond fully. "If Israeli citizens continue to come under attack, the response will be much harsher," Netanyahu said. The prime minister's praise for the Iron Dome rocket defense system came as the United States was expected to transfer $205 million to Israel for the purchase and deployment of additional Iron Dome batteries, Army Radio cited the security establishment as saying Sunday.Though the $205 million in funds will aid Israel to continue to deploy Iron Dome batteries, with the hopes of providing increased defense to Israel's more heavily populated civilian areas, greater funding is still required to adequately expand the defense system, which has cost an estimated $210 million thus far. Since its inception, many top security and military officials have said that Iron Dome only distracts from necessary offensive military actions against Hamas.Read the full story here.

• Black student leaders slam 'apartheid' characterization.Letter says "decency, justice and hope compel us to demand immediate cessation to deliberate misappropriation of words."NEW YORK – African-American student leaders from a variety of historically black colleges and universities took out full page ads in numerous American college newspapers Thursday, displaying an “Open Letter to Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP),” to convey that they were offended by SJP’s use of the term “apartheid” at recent Israel Apartheid Week events at campuses across the country.

The 16 signatories to the letter are students and alumni from historically black colleges and universities who are members of the Vanguard Leadership Group, a leadership development academy and honor society for top students. The letter ran or is slated to run in student newspapers at Brown University, University of California- Los Angeles, University of Maryland and Columbia University over the next few days.

“The Students for Justice in Palestine’s labeling of Israel, an extremely diverse and vibrant country, as an apartheid state is not only false, but offensive,” Vanguard President Michael Hayes told The Jerusalem Post. “Additionally, this rhetoric does absolutely nothing to help Israel-Palestine negotiations or relations. We feel this type of action serves to hinder the peace process domestically and abroad, and have made it our priority to take a stand to shift the tide of understanding.”In a statement released by the Vanguard Leadership Group as to why they authored the open letter to SJP, Vanguard described itself as “proudly involved in the pro-Israel movement in America.“The use of the word ‘apartheid’ by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) in its characterization of Israel is patently false and deeply offensive to all who feel a connection to the state of Israel,” the letter reads. “Your organization’s campaign against Israel is spreading misinformation about its policies, fostering bias in the media and jeopardizing prospects for a timely resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Such irresponsibility is a blemish on your efforts."The letter continues to state that “[p]laying the ‘apartheid card’ is a calculated attempt to conjure up images associated with the racist South African regimes of the 20th century,” and calls the strategy “as transparent as it is base.”“Beyond that, it is highly objectionable to those who know the truth about the Israelis’ record on human rights and how it so clearly contrasts with South Africa’s,” the letter reads, noting that under apartheid, black South Africans had no rights in a country in which they were the majority of the population.Saying that the analogy manipulates rather than informs, the letter requests SJP to “immediately stop referring to Israel as an apartheid society and to acknowledge that the Arab minority in Israel enjoys full citizenship with voting rights and representation in the government.”“Decency, justice, and the hope of peace and reconciliation in the Middle East compel us to demand an immediate cessation to the deliberate misappropriation of words and of the flagrant mischaracterizations of Israel,” the letter concludes. “Your compliance with this request will be viewed as a responsible and appropriate first step toward raising the level of discourse.”Hmmmm.......The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict.
Martin Luther King, Jr.Read the full story here.

• HT:Imra.Israeli Diplomat Guides Jordanian Armored Vehicle To Safety in Abidjan.
  Acting Ambassador Daniel Saada and 3 other Israeli diplomats were rescued under heavy gunfire from the capital Abidjan and will return to Israel on Sunday.An Israeli diplomat was injured while being rescued from the conflict-torn capital of the Ivory Coast over the weekend. A United Nations force, which included Jordanian soldiers with armored personnel carriers, evacuated the Israelis under heavy crossfire.Four Israeli diplomats were in the Ivory Coast city of Abidjan when the already-bloody conflict between backers of president-elect Alassane Ouattara and supporters of incumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo exploded.The diplomats had been holed up in the ambassador's residence, but were evacuated for fear that soldiers would take over the residence, something that had already happened to the Japanese ambassador to the Ivory Coast.Armed United Nations soldiers and vehicles arrived to evacuate the Israeli diplomats under heavy crossfire. The four Israeli diplomats ran outside and jumped onto the armored personnel carrier as it was in motion.In their hasty escape, Acting Ambassador Daniel Saada fell from one of the vehicles and was injured. One of the UN forces' medics determined that Saada's injuries were serious, and called for the fastest possible evacuation.The UN forces then lost their way on the streets of Abidjan and were unable to return to base. Deputy Ambassador Elad Ratzon then entered the first vehicle, which was being driven by Jordanian soldiers under UN command. Ratzon explained to the soldiers in Arabic how to leave the area and directed them back to the UN base.Acting Ambassador Saada was examined by medical personnel at the UN base, and the decision was made to immediately transfer the Israeli diplomats to Abidjan airport by helicopter, in order to evacuate them as soon as possible so that Saada could receive appropriate medical care.A UN plane filled with other diplomats and foreign nationals waited for the Israeli diplomats to arrive before taking off for Accra, the capital of nearby Ghana. The diplomats then received medical attention in Ghana, where it was deduced that Saada's injuries were only light.The Israeli diplomats were flown from Ghana to the United Kingdom late Friday night and will return to Israel on Sunday.Hmmmm.....The 'Jooooos' did it.Read the full story here.

• Discrimination remains at forefront of Turkish society, slain journalist's wife says.Discrimination based on ethnic or religious background remains persistent in all facets of Turkish state and society, according to Rakel Dink, the widow of slain journalist Hrant Dink.“A schoolbook in Armenian has been [introduced] to the curriculum for primary schools, but [it is not enough],” Dink said Saturday at the Building Peace conference at Istanbul Bilgi University.“The Kurdish language, which I speak, is still politically banned. Being a Christian is another concern in this country, nobody knows what is said to Christians every day,” she said.“How will discriminatory and racist speeches, moves, plans and projects be collected, removed, wrapped up and thrown into the garbage can in this country?” Rakel Dink asked, adding that all pressure against people made them turn in upon themselves, thus shutting themselves off from society.Dink also said nobody intended to apologize for terming the participants in the 2005 conference as “enemies.”“They might even say ‘enemies have gathered’ for this meeting. As long as an apology won’t be made, everything can happen again,” she said, referring to the Sept. 6-7 events of 1955, in which shops, houses, and churches belonging to the non-Muslim minorities, especially Greeks, were targeted in a coordinated pogrom.“Fears, anger, rage, jealousies, hatreds, prejudices and insecurity makes all of us even smaller,” she said, adding that people in Turkey were “poisoning” themselves with lies they try to believe. “There will be no change without maturity, although it might be painful and frightening.”“How can there be the thought of peace of without justice?” she said, adding that deferred punishments encouraged criminals and provided incentives for crimes to be committed. “We [know] the rapists and killers in our country. Do not show off by saying we are a social and a democratic state, a state of law.”Turkey is also a global “expert” in writing “reports full of lies” in the wake of catastrophic and painful social events, Dink said.Hmmmm.....Turkey....Obama's favorite ally.Read the full story here.

• Egypt prosecutor summons Hosni Mubarak.Sequesters land belonging to billionaire Prince AlWaleed.Egypt's public prosecutor summonned ousted president Hosni Mubarak as part of investigations into the killing of protesters and embezzlement of public funds, the prosecutor said on Sunday. Mubarak's sons Gamal and Alaa were also summoned in the embezzlement probe, the prosecutor said in a statement, adding that comments by Mubarak on Sunday in which he denied accusations of corruption would not affect the investigations. Mubarak said on Sunday the allegations against his family were unfounded and he had the right to defend his reputation.Egypt's public prosecutor said on Sunday also said it had sequestered land belonging to Saudi billionaire Prince AlWaleed bin Talal at Toshka in the south of the country. The land is part of a desert reclamation project using water pumped from the reservoir behind Egypt's Aswan High Dam and delivered by canal.Hmmmm....It seems not only the Israelis are 'benefitting' from the winds of 'change'?Read the full story here.More here.

• HT:TheWhitehouseDossier.Gone Golfin’.by Keith Koffler.Yes indeed he has. Golf outing number 63, for those of you keeping score at home. From the pool report, by my dryly humored friend Steve Thomma of McClatchy.I’m particularly relieved since I promised to eat my computer yesterday if he didn’t go today.Motorcade arrived at the golf course at Andrews at 10:50 am EDT.The president’s foursome will include Eric Whitaker, David Katz and Marvin Nicholson.Assuming they tee off soon, they should make it back to the clubhouse, or the White House, in plenty of time to watch the final holes of the Masters.Hmmmm......"I will not rest"?Read the full story here.

• EU to warn Turkey on press freedom.The European Union is expected to convey a series of warnings to Turkey during the next meeting of the EU-Turkey Association Council, which will be held in Brussels on April 19.Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu is scheduled to attend the meeting of the council, which is reportedly getting ready to draw attention to a host of issues, ranging from press freedom to energy security, mentioned in a draft document of the EU Common Implementation Strategy.On the issue of press freedom, the EU report maintained a critical stance, calling on Turkey to enact further legislation in order to better harmonize its laws with the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights, while expressing concern over the recent arrests of journalists, bans on certain Internet sites and the seizure of a draft manuscript.The increasing trend of self-censorship among journalists was also mentioned as a source of concern.Regarding the Kurdish issue, the document said the EU regrets that the democratic initiative and measures announced by the government in 2009 in order to address the Kurdish problem have not met expectations. On Cyprus issue, it reminds that despite all the calls coming from the European Union, Turkey has refused to open its ports to ships with Greek Cypriot flags. “The fact that Turkey has not made any step will influence the entire negotiations,” said the document.Hmmmm.....Keep Turkey out of the European union!Read the full story here.

• Turkish PM's daughter walks out on play with 'undesirable elements'.Claims that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s daughter Sümeyye walked out on a theatrical performance that insulted her have caused an uproar in the capital.Sümeyye left a performance of “Youth Osman” staged Friday by the Ankara State Theaters because she was insulted by some scenes in the play, daily Radikal reported Sunday.Sources from the state theaters said the play contained some “undesirable elements” and that an investigation was being launched into the claims.The “insult” reportedly stemmed from an incident of eye contact between Sümeyye and one of the performers, who allegedly winked at the prime minister’s daughter.Sources said the play was performed in a way faithful to the original text, and that audience members did not know Sümeyye was among them. Along with Sümeyye and the people accompanying her, a 150-person police group that was also watching the performance left the hall as well, according to sources.Hmmmm.......Welcome to dictatorship...no winking or smiling allowed?Read the full story here.

• HT:Ross'sRightAngle.Jakarta going 'baconless'.Has anybody been trying to buy bacon in Jakarta recently?A futile quest in most kampungs, for they are mostly 95+% Muslim and even if there are unobservant devotees of that creed in the vicinity, they wouldn’t want to be caught purchasing forbidden piggy by the local bigoted busybodies.However, elsewhere, bacon and all pork products ought to be available, for there are about ten percent of Jakarta’s population that are Christian, Buddhist or Hindu, not counting the foreigners working here. That must surely amount to a million or more people.

Yet go to Blok M Plaza, walk round Giant Supermarket, no joy.

Go to Lotte Mart, at Ratu Plaza, no joy.

Go to Blok M Square, go up top to the food court, to Gang Kelinci resto, and here’s the sign you’ll see. Peer closely – the green oval in the middle – No Pork!

Go back downstairs, to Carrefour, still no joy.What kind of customer service is this? Especially from Carrefour!I can go to Carrefour here in West Jakarta and buy all the rashers I can carry, presumably since there is a large Chinese population around these parts (unlike the Lotte in West Jakarta which ignores its non-Muslim customers’ tastes – in West Jakarta as well as down town!)Nobody need be disturbed by my modest requirements. As Jakarta residents know, our beloved ‘haram’ goodies are always sequestered from wholesome ‘halal’ products, so infidel delights do not affront the faithful.Blok M and Ratu Plaza are cosmopolitan districts, peopled by all sorts, of every ethnic and religious type. All should be catered for!C’mon, managements, get the finger out, scrap sectarian service policies and let us bring home the bacon!Read the full story here.

• HT:Wired.Rocket War: 36,000 DIY Missiles vs. Israel’s ‘Iron Dome’.Israel is once again under rocket attack. But the few weapons being flung at it from their enemies in the south — Hamas — could be just a preview of a much larger rocket war in the north, courtesy of Hezbollah. Israel’s response to the missile threat: a next-gen rocket-blaster and a covert program of sabotage and assassination.WikiLeaks shared some of its classified State Department cables with the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. In the cables published today, Israeli intelligence officials tell their American diplomats they expect Hezbollah will launch between 24,000 to 36,000 rockets against it for over two months. That would be a big step up from the 2006 war which lasted 34 days and saw 4,000 rockets hit Israel. Israeli officials quoted in the cables also said that they expect the rocket fire to reach farther into Israel, saying that the terrorist group will target Tel Aviv, which wasn’t hit during the last round of fighting.To mitigate some of Hezbollah’s missile threat, Israel is expected to deploy its Iron Dome anti-rocket missiles on its northern border with Lebanon alongside its Arrow long range ballistic missile defense system. In the meantime, Israel has rushed Iron Dome to the southern border with Gaza last month to meet Hamas’ rocket fire. Since then, it has scored its first successes, taking out two rockets yesterday and three today headed towards the southern city of Ashkelon. But Iron Dome’s protection comes at a price. The advanced radar-guided system uses missiles to knock out cheap, sometimes DIY rockets at short range — and costs at least $25,000 per missile fired and $50 million per battery. Facing an arsenal of thousands of Hezbollah rockets up north, Iron Dome could quickly rack up a hefty bill in the event of another war.Israel is also turning to covert operations to disrupt Hamas’s supply of rockets. The Washington Times‘ Eli Lake reported late yesterday that an attack on a Hamas arms convoy in Sudan this week, the assassination of a Hamas official in Dubai in 2010 and the kidnapping of a Palestinian engineer in Europe, said to have designed rockets for Hamas, were all part of a covert Israeli policy of “intelligence-based prevention” against Hamas. During the last Gaza war, Israel struggled between its desire to project a ferocious deterrent image and still be seen as being responsible in its targeting practices. The aim of the new covert policy, Lake reports, is to avoid some of the condemnation Israel faced for the deaths of civilians during the Gaza war by narrowing its focus on select Hamas figures abroad.Read the full story here.

• HT:Northeast Intelligence Network.The Islamic Threat to Our Children.By Sean Osborne.10 April 2011: Something’s are worth repeating. Over and over and over again with the hope that eventually the warning sinks in and our society as a whole brings wakes up to bring about the changes necessary of effect meaningful deterrence to a clear and present danger to our most beloved of all – our children. My concern about this issue is always acute in the fall when schools re-open after summer recess and now in the spring when warm temperatures exponentially increase outdoor school activities. Recent events I am about to bring to your attention serve to heighten my concerns at this time. To begin with and for reference, please click on and ‘save as’ one my favorite studies on this subject: “The Threat of Terrorism to U.S. Schools…Fact or Fiction” of August 2007 by Lt. Michael D. Baray of the Murrieta (California) Police Department.

Just over four years ago I wrote a follow-up warning regarding Islamic terrorists and school buses which was part of a chain of warnings that began on this website in 2004 and continued through to 2008 and the Northeast Intelligence Network published “Chilling Arabic Communication: “When School Bus Turns to Hell Bus.” These Beslan in America type warnings are repeatedly read and then forgotten until something along the lines of what occurred just days ago in Israel when a just emptied school bus was hit by an anti-tank rocket. Had this attack occurred moments earlier it would have been a “hell bus;” a “Beslan” on wheels in other words. Incidentally, please say a prayer for 16-year old Daniel Aryeh ben Tamar who remains in critical condition as a result of this terrorist attack on a school bus.

Over shadowed by this attack and the ongoing low intensity warfare between the HAMAS terrorists and Israel was another Islamic-inspired massacre of innocents inside a school that saw nearly a dozen children shot to death in cold blood and the wounding of 15 others between the ages of 9 and 14-years old . The school was not in Israel, but in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The Islamic Jihad-inspired assailant was a 24-year old former student at the Tasso de Silveira School who gained admittance to the school by posing as someone who intended to give a motivational talk to the students. Instead of a motivational talk the terrorist pulled two hand guns and promptly began his slaughter.

Closer to home, we have the New York State Education Department declaring as non-credible an anarchists email which made “specific threats of violence to New York state office buildings, the state Legislature and school buses.” Anarchists like this obvious nutcase are no different than vermin like Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols who worked hand-in-hand with Middle Eastern terrorists to execute their assaults upon ourselves and our children. Heed this screed my fellow Americans, the life you have to potential save by being alert and observant may be yours or your neighbor’s child if not your own.Hmmmm.....How long before the first US case?Read the full story here.

• Terror Tweeting, Brought To You By Homeland Security.Be relieved. You’ve made it through airport security with more than enough time before your flight boards. Go to the bar and order a drink. Wi-Fi’s inexplicably good here, so you might as well check Twitter. Suddenly @DHS lets you know: OMG UR ABOUT 2 DIE.Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano’s been embarrassed by the color coded terror alert system for most of her tenure. And justifiably so: it’s simultaneously alarmist and insipid, telling you nothing useful about what to do when the alert goes from Salmon to Fuchsia. But even though the Department of Homeland Security is junking the terror coloring book, don’t expect its newest plan to relieve your terror anxiety.That’s because the new terror alerts — more targeted and more informative — are coming directly to your social network of choice. A plan for the new system recommends sharing threat information over Twitter and Facebook. That way, explains the Associated Press, which reviewed the undisclosed plan, “an ‘imminent’ alert would warn about a credible, specific and impending terrorist threat or an on-going attack against the U.S.” All to your mobile! Lucky you!DHS has reserved the Twitter account @NTASAlerts (for National Threat Advisory System). It hasn’t tweeted anything yet, but it’s got 1,966 followers as of this writing.Not all its alerts will be particularly specific. Some would simply warn people to be on alert for unattended baggage or other items that everyone already knows to watch out for, thanks to the “see something, say something” campaigns. But they’d come with an expiration date, so you can know just how long to freak out.Hmmmm.....What if twitter gets hacked,do i call Wall-Mart?Read the full story here.

• HT:Memri.Kuwaiti Daily: Iran Tried to Assassinate Shi'ite Leaders in the Gulf.The Kuwaiti daily Al-Watan reports that a secret cooperative effort by Kuwait, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia thwarted an Iranian plot to assassinate Shi'ite leaders in these countries and then frame the regimes of perpetrating the killings in order to incite Shi'ite populations there against these regimes. It also reported that Kuwait foiled an attempt by an Iranian espionage network to blow up one of the country's central oil pipelines.Read the full story here.

• HT:Memri.Signs Erected in Jerusalem Indicating Arabic Names of Streets and Neighborhoods.The organization Aafaq Al-Quds has begun erecting signs bearing the original Arabic names of Palestinian streets and neighborhoods in East Jerusalem as part of its campaign of resistance against the Judaization of the city. Yesterday, April 9, a sign reading "Farouk Street," after the epithet of Islamic caliph 'Omar bin Al-Khattab, was erected south of Jerusalem's Old City, close to the Jabel Mukaber neighborhood, where the caliph is said to have cried out "Allahu Akbar" on setting out to capture the city.Read the full story here.

• HT:TheStrategyPage.The New Chinese Missile Looks Very Familiar.April 10, 2011: China recently introduced, for the export market, the M20 ballistic missile. This is a system where two of these 3-4 ton missiles are carried on a large truck transporter/launcher. What is worrisome to Russia is that the M20 looks very similar to the Russian Iskander (9K720) system. Increasingly, Russia has accused China of stealing a great deal of Russian military technology, and warned of repercussions if China tried to sell these copies to the export market. China has had plenty of time to steal Iskander's secrets. So far, China has not revealed details of the M20s operation sufficiently to make detailed comparisons with Iskander. But if the M20 contains too many of the Iskander special features, there could be, if not war, then litigation. Russia originally planned to build at least five brigades of Iskander (60 launchers, each with two missiles, plus reloads, which could amount to over a 150 missiles). Iskander was just entering commercial production three years ago, and only three brigades are believed in service. One was deployed near St Petersburg, much to the consternation of nearby Estonia.Russian missile production capabilities have sharply deteriorated since the end of the Cold War in 1991. This is one reason why the current Russian government is making so much noise about this imaginary NATO plot to surround and subdue Russia. Losing the Cold War did not go down well in Russia. Rather than forget and move on, many Russians prefer to remember, and use the imagined evil intentions of their Cold War foes to explain away defects in the Russian character.This threatened Russian deployment to Kaliningrad was all about a unique feature of Iskander, which is that it is not a traditional ballistic missile. That is, it does not fire straight up, leave the atmosphere, then come back down, following a ballistic trajectory. Instead, Iskander stays in the atmosphere and follows a rather flat trajectory. It is capable of evasive maneuvers and deploying decoys. This makes it more difficult for anti-missile systems to take it down. Russia is buying a special version (Iskanders-M) for its own military. This version has a longer range (400 kilometers) and more countermeasures (to interception). Russia will not provide details. Russia has admitted that it could use Iskander to destroy the U.S. anti-missile systems in a pre-emptive attack. Just in case Russia wanted to start World War III for some reason or another. This threatened Iskander deployment was mainly a publicity stunt, unless you want to seriously consider the possibility that the Russians are trying to start a nuclear war.The small (200 square kilometers, 400,000 Russians, the Germans were expelled 60 years ago) city is still the headquarters of the Russian Baltic fleet and protected by a large force of troops and warplanes. The Iskander missiles would feel right at home.Read the full story here.