MFS - The Other News

                      Morning Posting.

• Libya Live Blog - May 03. Here .(Al-Jazeera).

• Syria Live Blog - May 03. Here (Al-Jazeera). 

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity in Nicaragua  today  5.3! More info here.

• Japan - Latest official Situation Update No. 101.
  Source : Here .

• Japan  : For the most accurate info on the nuclear disaster go to : Paul Langley's Nuclear History Blog

• Live Blog on Qsama Bin Laden  Here (Al -Jazeera).

• WARNING !Warnings over Osama bin Laden malware scams.(NZHerald).Computer security experts have warned that online scammers have already started to exploit the death of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden to spread malware."Watch out for the links you're likely to come across in email or on social networking sites offering you additional coverage of this newsworthy event," Paul Ducklin of computer security firm Sophos said in a blog post."Many of the links you see will be perfectly legitimate links," Ducklin said. "But at least some are almost certain to be dodgy links, deliberately distributed to trick you into hostile internet territory."By late Monday, US time, researchers at US computer security firm McAfee were seeing email messages as well as updates at social network Facebook and microblogging service Twitter baited with promises of pictures or news of bin Laden."I suppose this was just inevitable," David Marcus of McAfee said in an online message.Ploys included a bogus promise of a look at a video debunking reports of his killing by showing the 9/11 mastermind holding up a newspaper with today's date, McAfee reported.Another trick was to promise graphic pictures of bin Laden's corpse.Mike Lennon of SecurityWeek said cybercriminals "typically use very attractive headlines to encourage users to click links and direct them to malware infected Web pages.""Links are already beginning to spread across Facebook, similar to what happened following news of the recent earthquake in Japan," Lennon said."Users should be cautious of spam containing links to photos, videos and other information that sounds remarkably interesting on bin Laden's death."Users also need to be cautious of tweets through Twitter, and Facebook posts, as cybercriminals gear up to attract unsuspecting traffic to spread malware," he continued.Cybercriminals frequently use high-profile news events in a bid to entrap unsuspecting victims.MFS : If you are in doubt of a website you can always check it by submitting it to Norton Safe web for instant verification: here.Read the full story here.

• Israel - MK Eldad: No doubt Obama is greater threat to Israel than Osama was.(JPost).MKs and officials on the Right expressed concern on Monday that Israel would end up paying the price for the American decision to assassinate al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.MKs questioned why Israel is routinely condemned by the world for assassinating mass murderers and terrorists, while the bin Laden assassination has been celebrated internationally. They also asked why an international leadership that has not criticized the Palestinian leadership for making a deal with Hamas, has universally praised the killing of the leader of al-Qaida.They warned that Israel could be targeted by Islamic fundamentalist groups avenging bin Laden’s death, and suggested that US President Barack Obama could use the assassination as an excuse to pressure Israel.“Israel will need to take action to prevent Obama from appeasing the Muslim world at our expense,” National Union MK Aryeh Eldad said. “Bin Laden was never a direct threat to Israel. Ahmadinejad, Arafat and our other real enemies didn’t need bin Laden for inspiration. There is no doubt that Obama is a greater threat to Israel than Osama was.”Eldad predicted that the assassination would only boost Obama’s political support temporarily, and then his popularity would fall again due to the economy in the US, and other reasons. Other frequent critics of Obama on the Israeli Right found themselves issuing rare praise for the president.“The elimination of bin Laden proves that even a president who carries out totally mistaken foreign and security policies can also make correct decisions, and on those few occasions he should be commended without reservation,” said Council of Jewish Communities in Judea and Samaria Chairman Danny Dayan.Deputy Negev and Galilee Development Minister Ayoub Kara (Likud) said “I am Israel’s sharpest critic of Obama, and I don’t want him to be in power, but I could tolerate Obama as long as he targets people like Osama. Obama in the past gave breathing space and support to the terrorists due to his naivete, but if he returns America to [former president George W.] Bush’s policies of fighting terror, I have no problem with him.”Kara suggested marking every Yom Hashoah by killing an international terrorist.Likud MK Danny Dannon added that he hoped the American administration realized that the fight against terror was far from over.“I am worried about the festivities at Times Square and the White House, because we in Israel have learned the hard way that fighting terror requires a daily struggle and not just one knockout punch,” Dannon said. “The president should focus his energy on targeting terrorists who threaten the US and Israel – and not on an ill-fated attempt to implement an unrealistic Middle East peace plan based on wishful thinking.”Hmmmm....I fear they're right Pakistan already a hotbed of terrorisme and Islamic extremisme could become the biggest threat to the world because of their nuclear arms stock pile!Read the full story here.

• Behind the Hunt for Bin Laden.(NYTimes).WASHINGTON — For years, the agonizing search for Osama bin Laden kept coming up empty. Then last July, Pakistanis working for the Central Intelligence Agency drove up behind a white Suzuki navigating the bustling streets near Peshawar, Pakistan, and wrote down the car’s license plate.The man in the car was Bin Laden’s most trusted courier, and over the next month C.I.A. operatives would track him throughout central Pakistan. Ultimately, administration officials said, he led them to a sprawling compound at the end of a long dirt road and surrounded by tall security fences in a wealthy hamlet 35 miles from the Pakistani capital.

On a moonless night eight months later, 79 American commandos in four helicopters descended on the compound, the officials said. Shots rang out. A helicopter stalled and would not take off. Pakistani authorities, kept in the dark by their allies in Washington, scrambled forces as the American commandos rushed to finish their mission and leave before a confrontation. Of the five dead, one was a tall, bearded man with a bloodied face and a bullet in his head. A member of the Navy Seals snapped his picture with a camera and uploaded it to analysts who fed it into a facial recognition program. And just like that, history’s most expansive, expensive and exasperating manhunt was over. The inert frame of Osama bin Laden, America’s enemy No. 1, was placed in a helicopter for burial at sea, never to be seen or feared again. A nation that spent a decade tormented by its failure to catch the man responsible for nearly 3,000 fiery deaths in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, 2001, at long last had its sense of finality, at least in this one difficult chapter.The code name for Bin Laden was “Geronimo.” The president and his advisers watched Leon E. Panetta, the C.I.A. director, on a video screen, narrating from his agency’s headquarters across the Potomac River what was happening in faraway Pakistan. “They’ve reached the target,” he said. Minutes passed. “We have a visual on Geronimo,” he said. A few minutes later: “Geronimo EKIA.” Enemy Killed In Action. There was silence in the Situation Room. Read the full story here.

• Pakistan's bin Laden Connection Is Probed.(WSJ).Obama administration officials said Monday they would probe whether Pakistani authorities helped al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden stay in hiding for years, one day after he was killed by U.S. special forces at an outsize mansion complex located in the same city as Pakistan's top military academy.Emerging details of the U.S. raid immediately raised questions about how bin Laden, the most wanted man in American history, had eluded a manhunt that dates back more than a decade. The al Qaeda leader was cornered not in a remote border hideout but in a three-story mansion complex in Abbottabad, a city roughly 40 miles north of Islamabad that is thick with active and retired Pakistani military personnel.Senior U.S. officials said Monday that bin Laden clearly had support from within Pakistan that allowed him to live there.

At a news briefing, President Obama's top counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, credited Pakistan with capturing and killing more terrorists inside its borders than any other country, part of White House efforts since the strike to play down unhappiness with Pakistan. But he also said it was "inconceivable" that bin Laden didn't have a significant "support system" there.A number of U.S. lawmakers on Monday said Washington should re-evaluate its multibillion-dollar aid package for Pakistan because of the suspicions that at least some in the government may have played a role in sheltering the fugitive al Qaeda leader."It is very intriguing: How could bin Laden be living in the area escaping the military intelligence?" said Khurshid Alam, a retired army officer residing in the town.

"At best, the Pakistanis look totally incompetent," said C. Christine Fair, an assistant professor and Pakistan expert at Georgetown University. "At worst, they look completely complicit."As a result of the discovery, U.S. officials and analysts say there is a significant risk that the U.S.-Pakistani alliance spawned in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks could fracture. The stakes for both sides are enormous. Despite the weekend's success, nuclear-armed Pakistan is still rife with Islamist militants who threaten both their own government and the West; most had only a tangential relationship with bin Laden and are unlikely to be affected by his death.Still, unhappiness was clear on Capitol Hill. Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Monday that the Pakistani army and intelligence arm have "a lot of questions to answer" given the location of the bin Laden house and the length of time he was there.Hmmmmm....Perhaps they only thought "we will stand with our Muslim Brothers"?Showing that it isn't about Al-Qaida but about ISLAM!Read the full story here.

• Salman Rushdie: Pakistan's Deadly Game.(DailyBeast).Are we really supposed to believe that Pakistan didn’t know Osama bin Laden was living there for five years? Salman Rushdie on why it’s time to declare the country a terrorist state.Many of us didn’t believe in the image of bin Laden as a wandering Old Man of the Mountains, living on plants and insects in an inhospitable cave somewhere on the porous Pakistan-Afghan border. An extremely big man, 6-foot 4-inches tall in a country where the average male height is around 5-foot 8, wandering around unnoticed for ten years while half the satellites above the earth were looking for him? It didn’t make sense. Bin Laden was born filthy rich and died in a rich man’s house, which he had painstakingly built to the highest specifications. The U.S. administration confesses it was “shocked” by the elaborate nature of the compound.We had heard—I certainly had, from more than one Pakistani journalist—that Mullah Omar was (is) being protected in a safe house run by the powerful and feared Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) somewhere in the vicinity of the city of Quetta in Baluchistan, and it seemed likely that bin Laden, too, would acquire a home of his own.In the aftermath of the raid on Abbottabad, all the big questions need to be answered by Pakistan. The old flim-flam (“Who, us? We knew nothing!”) just isn’t going to wash, must not be allowed to wash by countries such as the United States that have persisted in treating Pakistan as an ally even though they have long known about the Pakistani double game—its support, for example, for the Haqqani network that has killed hundreds of Americans in Afghanistan.Pakistan’s neighbor India, badly wounded by the November 26, 2008, terrorist attacks on Mumbai, is already demanding answers. As far as the anti-Indian jihadist groups are concerned—Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Muhammad—Pakistan’s support for such groups, its willingness to provide them with safe havens, its encouragement of such groups as a means of waging a proxy war in Kashmir and, of course, in Mumbai—is established beyond all argument. In recent years these groups have been reaching out to the so-called Pakistani Taliban to form new networks of violence, and it is worth noting that the first threats of retaliation for bin Laden’s death have been made by the Pakistani Taliban, not by any al Qaeda spokesman.India, as always Pakistan’s unhealthy obsession, is the reason for the double game. Pakistan is alarmed by the rising Indian influence in Afghanistan, and fears that an Afghanistan cleansed of the Taliban would be an Indian client state, thus sandwiching Pakistan between two hostile countries. The paranoia of Pakistan about India’s supposed dark machinations should never be underestimated.There is not very much evidence that the Pakistani power elite is likely to come to its senses any time soon. Osama bin Laden’s compound provides further proof of Pakistan’s dangerous folly.As the world braces for the terrorists’ response to the death of their leader, it should also demand that Pakistan give satisfactory answers to the very tough questions it must now be asked. If it does not provide those answers, perhaps the time has come to declare it a terrorist state and expel it from the comity of nations.Hmmmm....But the root of the problem is not Al-Qaida ,but Islam ,the 'Great religion' as Obama calls it!Read the full story here.

• Bin Laden – the conspiracy?World Wide Web brims over with conspiracy theories regarding assassination of al-Qaeda leader.(Ynet).A mere day after US President Barack Obama announced that al-Qaeda leader and arch-terrorist Osama bin Laden has been killed by US Special Forces in Pakistan, and the World Wide Web is gushing with conspiracy theories, fed mostly by the White House statement that he was swiftly buried at sea, with nothing but reassurance from the US government that his body had been positively identified.US President Barack Obama, along with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and top National Security staff, watched a live feed of the operation. The footage of the battle however, has not been released and was described as "gory," feeding frenzied rumors even further. French website JSSNews, for example, found a striking resemblance between the Abbottabad compound used by bin Laden and the map of none other than the State of Israel.According to the Daily Telegraph, social media website Facebook already has several groups bearing titles such as "Osama bin Laden NOT DEAD"; and the blogosphere is humming with suppositions that the US government either faked the raid, or still has custody of the body.Many of the theories doubting bin Laden's death look at another dictator for support, saying that given the extent of coverage given to executions of Saddam Hussein and his sons, whose bodies were – as one Facebook wall said – "paraded around to prove they were dead," the method in which the body of the al-Qaeda leader was disposed of simply makes no sense.Meanwhile, Alex Jones, a US radio host, claimed that the US government had concocted the killing to justify a security crackdown; while others believe that bin Laden has been dead for years and some claimed that the killing was simply an elaborate part of Barack Obama's re-election plan. The "presidential campaign" theory was given extra credence, according to some, by the fact that the US president's announcement of bin Laden's death cut into a broadcast of Donald Trump's reality show "Celebrity Apprentice."Read the full story here.

• Final remarks by Geert Wilders at his trial in Amsterdam , May 2nd, 2011.(KleinVerzet).Mister President, members of the Court. I recently tried to have Your Honors removed from the case for your refusal to register a statement of perjury against Mr. Hendriks. My challenge of the court did not succeed. I must accept that. I do wish to say, however, that I was more annoyed by another declaration of the President of the Court on the day of the official hearing of Mr. Jansen. He said that I was a free man, that I could not be compared to Mr. Nekschot because I was a free man.Mister President, you could not be more wrong. For almost seven years now, I have not been a free man. I lost my freedom in 2004. I live as a prisoner with guards without you having convicted me. Without protection I am even less certain of my life than I am now. Mister President, you would not use the words “free man” if you could change places with me for one week...

This trial is not merely a political trial. It is also an unjust trial. When you look at the order of the court (to prosecute me) it is clear that the verdict has already been passed. The court has issued an order to prosecute me in which it concludes that I am guilty of incitement to hatred. The court has concluded that my statements as such are of an insulting nature. The court has concluded that I am guilty of the most serious charge: the incitement to hatred and discrimination. The court has concluded that it expects that the criminal prosecution will indeed lead to a conviction. Mister President, members of the court, the court has already done your job. Long before I was brought to trial before you, I was found guilty and was condemned. Hence my right to a just trial has been violated.

Alas, this is but the tip of the iceberg. Without any doubt, the judges who presided this case have conveyed a semblance of partiality. I have been denied 15 of the 18 witnesses whom I wanted to call. Every high representative of the judicial power has given his view on this case, and often to my disadvantage. But Counselor Schalken was the worst.Mr. President, members of the court, stop this unfair, political trial. Respect our Dutch freedoms. If this trial continues, despite the fact that the principle of the presumption of innocence has been violated, and if I am convicted, not only my freedom will be infringed, but also the right of all Dutch people to hear the truth. The 19th century black American politician Frederick Douglass, the son of a slave, put it as follows: “To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.”Mr. President, members of the court, I end with a quote of George Washington, who said: “If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” Mr. President, members of the court, do not let this warning become reality. Stop this charade, this political trial where I have already been convicted by the court even before I was a suspect. Stop it now. If you do so, and I passionately hope you will, this will benefit freedom of speech as well as the respectability of the judicial power and the rule of law. Hmmmm.....A perfect present day example of the Sovjet era Political trials.Read the full story here.

• Arabs Riot in Jerusalem Over Bin Laden's Demise, Hamas Angry.(ArutzSheva).While most of the free world praised the United States for having rid it of arch-terrorist Bin Laden, the Hamas organization - which has recently all but merged with Fatah, headed by Mahmoud Abbas - condemned the act. Similarly, Arabs in the village of Silwan, adjacent to the City of David neighborhood in Jerusalem, rioted Monday night in protest over the elimination of Osama Bin Laden. The rioters threw stones at police and attempted to block roads.The Gaza-based website Al Qassam reports that Gaza leader Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the local Hamas chapter that runs Gaza, told reporters on Monday that Bin Laden was an "Arab holy warrior."Meeting with journalists in his office in Gaza City, Haniyeh said, "If this news [of Bin Laden's killing] is true, then this means that it is part of the American policy based on the oppression and bloodshed in the Muslim and Arab world."Haniyeh expressed his strong condemnation for the killing or assassination of Bin Laden, whom he referred to as "Mujahed" - someone in engaged in jihad, holy war against infidels. He said he was praying for mercy for Bin Laden.Hamas reached a "reconciliation" agreement with Fatah last week, calling for the formation of a joint interim government in the coming days, and preparations for elections a year from now throughout Judea, Samaria and Gaza. The agreement was hailed by most left-wing and anti-Israel organizations, but even President Shimon Peres, a strong supporter of a two-state solution and the Oslo process, said, "Israel would like to see the Palestinian people become united for peace - [but] this is not an agreement, this is a split. Hamas is a recognized terrorist organization. According to this agreement Hamas doesn't have to change their charter that calls for the destruction of Israel, they can continue to shoot at us as they did when firing [last month] on a yellow school bus [and murdering a teenager]. Hamas is a branch of Iran - Iran, Hamas and Hizbullah want a union for war..."Read the full story here.

• U.S. closes its embassy, consulates in Pak till further notice.(TheHinduNews).The U.S. on Tuesday closed its embassy and consulates in Pakistan to the general public until further notice, a day after American special forces killed al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in a daring raid near the garrison city of Abbottabad.“The U.S. Embassy in Islamabad and the Consulates in Peshawar, Lahore and Karachi are closed for routine business to the general public until further notice,” Embassy spokesman Alberto Rodriguez said.Routine business includes matters like the issuance of visas.The Embassy and Consulates will remain open for “other business and for emergency American citizen services”, he said.The move came amid fears of reprisals by the Pakistani Taliban and al-Qaeda for the killing of bin Laden, who was hiding out in a compound located a few hundred metres from the Pakistan Military Academy.Read the full story here.

• Osama bin Laden’s Death: Watch Out For Revenge Attacks On Christians.(TheTelegraph).It is a huge relief for the Western world to learn that Osama bin Laden has been killed – but already, and quite justifiably, Christian leaders in countries with large Islamic populations have issued warnings to local Christians to be on their guard. Small congregations in Muslim societies are an easy target for Islamists, who are already engaged in an international campaign of violent intimidation against Christians. And let us not forget that the 9/11 attacks themselves were partly motivated by hatred of Christianity.The former head of the Catholic Church in Pakistan has just issued this statement. Note, however, that he is quite clear that, in the long run, the death of bin Laden is a hopeful sign for his country:

Pakistani Christians could suffer a backlash after the death of 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden, a former head of the Catholic Church in the country told ucanews.com today.“We are a soft target as they cannot attack America. We demand security; the government should control any retaliation,” Archbishop Emeritus Lawrence Saldanha of Lahore said.But despite the risk of short-term retaliation against Christians, bin Laden’s killing could return balance to the war-torn society of Pakistan, he said. He was hopeful that the killing of world’s most wanted terrorist will reduce the militant radicalism that has engulfed Pakistan in recent years.“At last we have hope that things will get better gradually”, he said.“Many looked on bin Laden as a hero of the Islamic revolution. But he was a role-model of extremism and a threat to world peace. His death will change the complexion and decentralize as well as demystify extremism,” the archbishop said.The West has paid little attention to the persecution of Christians in Muslim countries, and especially in Pakistan, recipient of so much – too much – British aid. (The Foreign Office and DfID have appeared shamefully ignorant of what is going on.) Now we must watch closely. Just last night, before the news about Osama broke, Pakistani police in Gujranwala had to intervene to stop a crowd of arsonists attacking a church after rumours that a copy of the Koran had been burned.Hmmmm.....And we all know how the US Pres loves the Muslim way of doing things?Read the full story here.

• US braces for "Summer Of violence"!(DailyMail).Police are being told to brace themselves for a summer of street violence as a record-low one in four U.S. teenagers will land a job.Experts said cities like Chicago, where summer unemployment among African-Americans aged 16 to 19 years approaches 90 per cent, could experience a rise in street violence.The summer employment rate among U.S. teenagers this year is projected to be between 25 and 27 per cent, according to an analysis by the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston.That would be a post-World War Two low and a significant fall from recent years. In 2006 the teenage summer employment rate was 37 per cent.Jack Wuest, executive director of the Alternative Schools Network, which commissioned the report, said: ‘We cannot continue to ignore the correlation between youth violence and teen employment.‘We know if our teens are in school or at a job they are not on the streets.’The report has raised concerns in cities such as Chicago, where nearly 700 children were hit by gunfire last year, with 66 deaths.Andrea Zopp, president of Chicago Urban League, said: ‘Both national and local leadership continue to ignore the plight of youth who are most at risk for potential violence as a result of being left on the streets in the summer months when crime is at its most explosive.’According the report, federal backing for summer jobs programmes will not be renewed, meaning 18,000 more Illinois teenagers will be jobless this summer.Hmmmm....."Yes we can" the Obama Style Change!Read the full story here.

• US Ambassador to Turkey Ricciardone says US will never be at war with Islam. (TodaysZaman).US Ambassador to Turkey Francis J. Ricciardone has said the United States will never be at war with Islam, commenting on the killing of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden on Monday. Ricciardone said in a statement translated into Turkish late on Monday that the war on terror is not related to religion, the Cihan news agency reported.Ricciardone was responding questions by reporters at a meeting organized by the Turkish Contractors Association (TMB) in Ankara on Monday.Ricciardone said bin Laden was the chief enemy of world peace and that the terrorist leader was responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocents, including Muslims.The US ambassador reiterated US President Barack Obama's earlier remarks in Washington during a press briefing at which he announced that the al-Qaeda leader had been killed. Ricciardone said the US is not at war with Islam and will never be, adding that this war (on terror) is not related to religion. “Our fight is completely against terrorists and murderers,” Ricciardone said.He also said he agrees with President Abdullah Gül and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu's assessments.Gül welcomed on Monday the killing of bin Laden and stressed that this should serve as a warning to terrorist leaders elsewhere that they would be caught “dead or alive.”Davutoğlu also hailed the killing of the al-Qaeda leader as a “positive development,” said the terrorist organization led to misperceptions about Islam and noted that he hopes this latest development would correct this.Read the full story here.

• Obama faces new court appeal over claims birth certificate is 'doctored or fake'.(DailyMail).Leaders of the so-called 'birther' movement have claimed that the birth certificate produced by Barack Obama is a fake. Despite the president providing the the full long-form document last week, the 'birthers' - fronted by Donald Trump - have taken their case to a federal appeals court in Southern California. They claim the birth certificate had been doctored; that the document's serial number was out of sequence, the typing wasn't aligned, and it was printed on green paper instead of white paper like other Hawaiian birth records of that era.But it was unclear how far their arguments would go, given the previous failed lawsuits on the issue and concern from the court about whether the latest claim was filed too late to be considered.Obama's production of the vital record was aimed at quashing any lingering doubt among critics who contend he shouldn't have been elected because he couldn't prove he was a U.S. citizen - a prerequisite for the nation's highest office.But it has not deterred Orly Taitz, an lawyer at the forefront of the birther movement.On Monday, Taitz told a three-judge panel of the ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that the long-form birth certificate released by Obama is 'not a true and correct image.'It's very inventive computer art,' she said.Taitz and attorney Gary Kreep, on behalf of more than 40 plaintiffs, are seeking to revive a lawsuit challenging Obama's citizenship that was dismissed by U.S. District Judge David Carter in late 2009. They asked the panel to remand the case to Judge Carter in Orange County.Read the full story here.

• Time to go Back to reality!36 Statistics Which Prove That The American Dream Is Turning Into An Absolute Nightmare For The Middle Class.(TheAmericanDream).The U.S. middle class is being shredded, ripped apart and systematically wiped out. If you doubt this, just check out the statistics below. The American Dream is being transformed into an absolute nightmare. Once upon a time, the rest of the world knew that most Americans were able to live a middle class lifestyle. Most American families had nice homes, most American families had a car or two, most American families had nice clothes, most American families had an overabundance of food and most American families could even look forward to sending their children to college if that is what the kids wanted to do.

There was an implicit promise that this was the way that it was always going to be. Most of us grew up believing that if we worked really hard in school and that if we stayed out of trouble and that if we did everything that "the system" told us to do that there would be a place for us in the middle class too. Well, it turns out that "the system" is breaking down. There aren't enough good jobs for all of us anymore. In fact, there aren't very many crappy jobs either. Millions are out of work, millions have lost their homes and nearly all of the long-term economic trends just keep getting worse and worse. So is there any hope for the U.S. middle class?No, there is not.To mention a couple of indicators for this :

There are now about 7.25 million fewer jobs in America than when the recession began back in 2007.

The United States has lost an average of about 50,000 manufacturing jobs per month since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.

A New York post analysis has found that the rate of inflation in New York City has been about 14 percent over the past year.

Over the past 12 months the average price of gasoline in the United States has gone up by about 30%.Now go and read the full story here.

• Islamic Society in Brazil Prays that Allah Will "Reserve the Place for the Great Mujahideen" for bin Laden.(TranslatingJihad).Peace be upon you. Fitna is when a person sows intrigue among Muslims, causing disunity and enmity. Takfirism comes from takfir, which is when someone declares that a person is not a Muslim, whether done justly or unjustly. Remember that the Prophet (PBUH) said: "Whoever declares a Muslim to be a kafir (infidel), has himself become a kafir." Other hadiths classified as sahih (sound), as narrated by al-Tabarani, include: "Leave in peace those who say that there is no god but Allah. Don't declare them kuffar (infidels) for committing a sin. For whoever declares he who recites that there is no god but Allah to be a kafir, is himself closest to kufr (infidelity)." May Allah reserve the place for the great mujahideen for the Emir Khalifa (Caliph) Osama bin Laden.Hmmmm.......Obama called a 'Kafir' from the country he wants to buy oil from in future.Read the full story here.

• US Muslim Leader “Deeply Concerned About Violence” That Killed Bin Laden.(Daily Caller) — At a Monday morning press conference, Muslim-American leaders reiterated their contention that Osama bin Laden never represented Islam but cautioned America against continuing to use violence in Islamic lands.Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), somberly expressed relief that justice had been served, but reserved compassion for the “innocent.” . . .Imam Johari Abdul-Malik, deputy committee member on the Council of Muslim Organizations of Washington, D.C., reminded the audience that despite bin Laden’s evil, Americans should not respond to his death with jubilation.“We have been consistent since [9/11] of saying that the act of violence against the American people does not represent Islam,” said Malik. “While saying this, we are reminded of the words from the Vatican. . . . and others that as people of faith, it is not right that we dance on the grave of even a mass murderer.”Ibrahim Ramey, director of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, added that while some are relieved that bin Laden has been eliminated, he remains concerned about the ongoing violence in the Middle East.“Clearly we understood the killing of civilians in the Koran and any ethical system of judgment is something that cannot and should not be tolerated and when it happens in the name of faith, it is the responsibility of people in that faith to utterly and unequivocally condemn that violence — which we did,” Ramey said. “And so in that sense, we see the violence that came full circle around to claim the life of Osama bin Laden yesterday was certainly part of the dialectic of violence that all of us are deeply concerned about. We know that terrorism is wrong and we know that the killing of civilians is wrong, but we want to understand and promote the understanding that war itself in any manifestation is not a solution.”Hmmmmm.........Read the full story here.

• US court case: Is Jerusalem part of Israel?(Ynet).Supreme Court to discuss whether American born in Jerusalem can have Israel listed as birthplace on passport despite US policy not recognizing city as belonging to Israel.The Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal over whether an American born in Jerusalem can have Israel listed as his birthplace on his passport even though US policy does not recognize the once-divided city as belonging to Israel. The court said Monday it will review an appeals court ruling against Jerusalem-born Menachem Zivotofsky and his parents. They filed a lawsuit after State Department officials refused to list Israel as his birthplace. Zivotofsky was born shortly after Congress directed that Americans born in Jerusalem may have Israel listed as their place of birth. But the Bush administration said Congress may not tell the president what to do regarding this aspect of foreign relations. The Obama administration agrees with its predecessor.At issue is whether the congressional directive steps on the president's power.Hmmmm.....well you all know what you can expect from Obama.Read the full story here.

• Belarus currency crisis leaves half a million jobless.(HurriyetDaily).About 600,000 Belarusians lost their jobs due to the currency crisis plaguing the country, according to official figures released late last week.Uladzimir Zinowski, head of the National Statistics Committee, said the real sector, or the sector that produces good and services, of the Belarusian economy suffered because of problems in the exchange market, online news outlet BelaPAN reported.“We reported to the president, the National Bank and the Council of Ministers that some 600,000 workers employed in the real sector have had to suspend production activities at the initiative of the employers because the companies are not able to purchase imported raw materials. All this is caused by the exchange rate problem,” said Zinowski, who also chairs the Council for the Development of Enterprise in Belarus.There should be no delay in efforts to solve this problem Zinowski said.The total population of Belarus is about 9.,603,782. Read the full story here.