MFS - The Other News

                       Morning  Posting.

• Syria Live Blog - May 20. Here .(Al-Jazeera).

• Libya Live Blog - May 20. Here (Al-Jazeera).

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity in Japan  today 5.3  lots of activity In Turkey More than 20 quakes today! More info here.

• Japan - Latest official Situation Update No. 114.On 20.05.2011 at 02:47 GMT+2
  
  One of the few workers to be tested for radioactivity after March's nuclear disaster in Japan is exhibiting over 10 times the accepted levels . "My measured value exceeded the standard value by a double-digit factor. That's never happened before," a plant worker told Japan's Yomuri. The man, an employee of a company that works with TEPCO, installed power cables near a reactor building at the plant for a month beginning at the end of March. While a normal internal radiation level would range from several hundred to 1,000 counts per minute , he was told his level was 30,000 cpm. The report noted that there were high levels of radiation in the parts surrounding the mans work area. And although the masks worn by workers are supposed to be changed every three hours, he was told by a management that he did not have to change it if there was no radioactive contamination. He therefore used a single mask for five to six hours. As of May 8, 630 workers, or just 10 percent of all workers at the plant, had taken the test, the paper reported. More than two months after a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and a deadly tsunami set off the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. More than 70,000 people have been forced to evacuate their homes because of health risk and last week the government workers began killing more than a 1,000 cattle which were within the Fukushima "no-go" zone. The government has retaliated by declaring a plan to help the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) to pay the victims of the crisis with the money they draw from other organizations and taxpayers. The plan has to be approved by parliament as opposition has already showed its dissatisfaction.Source : Here .

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

• Assad forces kill 21 - 23 pro-democracy protestors, including a 1or 2 children.(Al-Arabia).Syrian security forces on Friday shot dead at least 21 people, including a child, during pro-democracy protests across the country, activists and witnesses told Al Arabiya. Pro-democracy protests erupted in several Syrian towns and villages on Friday, with demonstrators calling for more freedom in defiance of a brutal crackdown, as President Barack Obama of the United States put fresh pressure on Damascus to curb a brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protests.His exhortations obviously did not carry much weight with the regime of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria. The regime’s well-armed forces shot into crowds as they rallied in Damascus, Banias, Qamishli, Homs and Hama, defying heavy security deployed to quell an uprising against the autocratic rule of Mr. Assad, witnesses and activists said.The opposition had called for massive demonstrations across the country after the Friday prayers, promising a “surprise” for President Assad’s regime in the two major power centers, Damascus and Aleppo.“People are ready for this Friday,” said the Syrian Revolution 2011, a Facebook group spurring anti-regime protests, according to Agence-France Presse.“Damascus and Aleppo are preparing a surprise for the regime and the shabbiha,” it added in reference to pro-government “thugs,” without elaborating.“We will not be tolerant with the security forces or shabbiha,” it said. “We won’t let them arrest us and we will be like a thorn in their throat.”In a major speech Thursday on the Middle East, President Obama urged his Syrian counterpart Mr. Assad, who is facing the greatest challenge to his 11-year rule, to lead a political transition to democracy or “get out of the way.”“President Assad now has a choice,” Obama said in his speech. “He can lead that transition or get out of the way.“The Syrian government must stop shooting demonstrators and allow peaceful protests,” Mr. Obama said.Damascus, however, defiantly rejected the warning, countering that Mr. Obama’s appeal was not aimed at easing tensions in Syria but rather at sowing discord.“Obama is inciting violence when he says that Assad and his regime will face challenges from the inside and will be isolated on the outside if he fails to adopt democratic reforms,” the official news agency SANA said.The government newspaper al-Thawra also criticized the US president saying: “He (Obama) didn’t forget his arrogance in telling a sovereign country what to do ... and threatening to isolate this country if it fails to do as told.”More than 850 people have been killed and thousands arrested since the protests began in mid-March, according to human rights groups and the United Nations.Mr. Assad’s government has blamed the violence on “armed terrorist gangs” backed by Islamists and foreign agitators.Read the full story here.More here.

• Obama 'disrespected' Israel, threw it 'under the bus,' says Romney.(TheHill).President Obama "disrespected" Israel and threw it "under the bus" in a wide-ranging speech on the Middle East on Thursday, GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney charged. Romney strongly criticized Obama, who, in a speech at the State Department, called for Israel to return to its border lines as drawn before the 1967 Arab-Israeli war."President Obama has thrown Israel under the bus. He has disrespected Israel and undermined its ability to negotiate peace," Romney said in a statement. "He has also violated a first principle of American foreign policy, which is to stand firm by our friends," added the former Massachusetts governor. Romney led Republicans in criticizing the Obama speech, which touched on broader themes throughout the Middle East, including the popular movements for democratization, from Egypt to Yemen, during the first half of the year."President Obama has betrayed Israel and made a grievous mistake by suggesting borders of Israel go back to pre-1967 borders. This is an outrage to peace, sovereignty of Israel, and a stable Middle East," former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R), a 2008 Republican presidential candidate who's been a staunch supporter of Israel, said in a statement. Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.), meanwhile, suggested Obama's stance could represent "the beginning of the end as we know it for the Jewish state."The political battle lines emerged quickly on Thursday afternoon after Obama's speech, especially after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the president's call for a return to 1967 borders. Netanyahu will meet with Obama on Friday at the White House, and he'll stay in Washington over the weekend before addressing the AIPAC conference Monday and a joint meeting of Congress on Tuesday.Hmmmm....If i were Netanyahu i wouldn't want to talk to this hostile President and only address Congress.Read the full story here.

• But President Obama— There is No Such Thing as ‘Israel’s Pre-1967 Borders’.(BigPeace).Today President Obama called for any Israeli/Palestinian peace agreement to be based on the pre-June 1967 borders:So while the core issues of the conflict must be negotiated, the basis of those negotiations is clear: a viable Palestine, and a secure Israel. The United States believes that negotiations should result in two states, with permanent Palestinian borders with Israel, Jordan, and Egypt, and permanent Israeli borders with Palestine. The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states. The Palestinian people must have the right to govern themselves, and reach their potential, in a sovereign and contiguous state.Forgetting for a moment whether Obama was right or wrong for making that declaration, there is a serious problem with his statement…the pre-June 1967 borders do not exist!What President Obama refuses to admit is that there is no such thing as pre-1967 borders. That “green line” running through the West Bank is the 1949 Armistice Line. The armistice line was created solely because that’s Israeli and Arab forces stopped fighting at the end of the War of Independence (with some added adjustments in certain sectors). It was if the whistle blew and everyone dropped their gear. That 1949 line, that people call 1967 border, is really only a military line.But don’t believe me, believe the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan:Article II of the 1949 Armistice Agreement with the Jordanians explicitly specified that the line that was designated did not compromise any future territorial claims of the two parties, since it had been “dictated by exclusively by military considerations.” Of course the Jordanian rationale for that clause is to allow them to claim territory inside the armistice line for their very own.Even the “famous” UN Resolution 242 which was passed by the UN Security Council five months after the Six-Day War recognized that the 1949 Armistice line was not supposed to designate final Israeli borders.Anti-Israel forces changed the meaning of 242 by adding one simple article to the resolution: “the.” They claim that 242 calls for Israel to withdraw from “the” territories taken during the Six-Day War. The resolution actually says that “Israel should withdraw from territories” taken during the war (no article). Adding the article changes the meaning from withdrawing from some territories to all territories.It was no accident “the” was left out. Diplomats are very exact in their language. During the negotiations to create resolution 242, Arab governments tried three times to have “the” inserted in the resolution and their request was rejected. But, by repeating what they wanted the resolution to say all these years, the Arabs succeed in convincing many people to accept their distorted interpretation of 242.When it comes to Israel, President Obama has a very short memory. Not only were there no 1967 borders, but there was never an intention for Israel to move back to the 1949 armistice lines. That’s also why the president’s call for Israel to stop building communities outside the 1949 armistice lines is so absurd. It is also why the UN is being disingenuous every time they call for Israel to retreat to the 1967 borders, since it was the UN who first declared that there were no such thing as 1967 borders.”Hmmmm.....If you want to hit a dog you will allways find a stick?Read the full story here.

• Will Obama Comply with the War Powers Resolution?(Cato).By Christopher Preble. Six Republican senators are challenging President Obama’s authority to conduct an open-ended war in Libya without congressional authorization. The six conservative lawmakers (Rand Paul (R-KY), Jim DeMint (R-SC), Mike Lee (R-UT), Ron Johnson (R-WI), Tom Coburn (R-OK), and John Cornyn (R-TX)) sent a letter to the president on May 18th asking if he intends to comply with the War Powers Resolution. The full text of the letter can be found here.The law stipulates that the president must terminate military operations within 60 days, unless Congress explicitly authorizes the action, or grants an extension. The clock on the Libya operation started ticking on March 19, 2011. Congress has neither formally approved of the mission, nor has it granted an extension. Therefore, the 60-day limit expires today, May 19th.Last week at The Skeptics, I noted Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg’s testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in which he suggested that the administration wanted to comply, but was consulting with Congress about how to do so. The New York Times presented some of the creative ideas that the administration was considering in order to adhere to circumvent the law. But the senators can read the Times, too. In their letter to the president, they write:

Last week some in your Administration indicated use of the United States Armed Forces will continue indefinitely, while others said you would act in a manner consistent with the War Powers Resolution. Therefore, we are writing to ask whether you intend to comply with the requirements of the War Powers Resolution. We await your response.

Let me be clear about one thing: I’m not a huge fan of the War Powers Resolution, per se. To me, it is silly, sort of like a law that affirmed the Congress’s authority to levy taxes, borrow and coin money, and establish Post Offices. In the same section where these powers are delegated, the Constitution clearly stipulates that Congress shall have the power to declare war. So why does there also need to be legislation?Most presidents have complied with the spirit of the War Powers Resolution, but more out of deference to the notion that Congress has some role in whether the United States goes to war, not out of genuine conviction that Congress does/should have the most important role in deciding such things. By all appearances, President Obama is bypassing the charade.I anxiously await his response to the senators’ letter, and am likewise curious to see if other senators raise questions about the administration’s intentions.Hmmmm......Dictatorship rising?Read the full story here.

• Netanyahu associate: Obama detached from reality.(Ynet).Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s associates expressed their disappointment with Barack Obama’s speech Thursday, with one aide saying that the US president is detached from regional realities. The PM’s associates told Ynet early Friday that Netanyahu, who departed to the US Thursday night, is prepared for a confrontation withPresident Obama on vital issues.Referring to the US president’s Mideast policy speech, a Netanyahu associate said: “He (Obama) didn’t deliver the goods…Obama apparently does not understand the reality in the Mideast."The PM’s aides added that Obama’s historic speech lacked many key points and that his address was “bad for Israel.” Netanyahu himself issued a quick response to the speech earlier, demanding that the president reaffirm previous US pledges that Israel will not be asked to withdraw to the 1967 borders in the framework of a peace deal with the Palestinians. In his Washington speech, Obama said that a Jewish, democratic state must be based on the 1967 borders, with territorial tradeoffs. The president voiced his objection to the Palestinian intention to seek UN recognition of statehood in September, but refrained from addressing the contentious issue of Palestinian refugees. Obama also refrained from harshly slamming the Fatah-Hamas reconciliation agreement, and reminded Netanyahu that the international community was getting tired of a process that has not culminated in a peace deal. A Netanyahu associate told Ynet that the president apparently “forgot the conditions set forth by the International Quartet, which Obama himself endorsed.” The aide added that Obama did not meet any demand set forth by the prime minister, referring to Netanyahu’s recent speech where he declared that Israel will not give up settlement blocs and maintain a military presence along the Jordan River. Obama also did not address in his speech the issue of Palestinian recognition of the Jewish State as a pre-condition for negotiations. “Netanyahu is willing to offer painful concessions. In his Knesset speech, the prime minister went far,” a Bibi associate said. “He contends with a problematic rightist coalition. We expected Obama to understand this and take these issues into consideration in his speech.” Hmmmm....."Obama detached from reality" i wish it was true ,but i fear he knows pretty well what he's doing.He's setting up Israel for a confrontation with the UN.Read the full story here.

• Rabbi: 'The President of the United States is Asking for Ethnic Cleansing'.(CNSNews).President Barack Obama has made an unprecedented demand on Israel, Jewish leaders said today after the president called for Israel to redraw its borders to where they were in 1967 before the Six Day War. One rabbi said Obama was, in essence, asking for "ethnic cleansing" of thousands of Jewish families.“It’s immoral in that basically the president of the United States is asking that 500,000 people who live, work, and raise families around Jerusalem – Jewish families – that they be uprooted, resettled, deported from their homes, have their families broken,” Rabbi Aryeh Spero, founder of Caucus for America, told CNSNews.com.“The president of the United States is asking for ethnic cleansing,” said Rabbi Spero. “It’s ironic that the president, who speaks in humanitarian tones regarding the Palestinians, doesn’t have any humanitarian concerns toward 500,000 Jewish people and families that will be uprooted and deported from their homes.”“It’s par for the course, but not to this extent,” Tannenbaum told CNSNews.com. “In other words, other presidents have also pressured Israel with the hope of achieving some kind of peace. But considering the history and considering facts on the ground, no president has been as severe as President Obama.”However, Tannenbaum thinks the proposal is a non-starter primarily because the borders have never been the issue.“The suggestion is going to die, this is not going to work,” he said. “It won’t go anywhere. If you notice, there was an attack on all the borders of the state of Israel. There was an attack on the 1967 borders. The problem with Israel for the Palestinians is the very existence of the state of Israel -- not its borders -- but that it exists at all. They will not rest until there is no Israel.”But Spero is not so sure the proposal will just go away, even without support from Congress.Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla), in a statement released after the president’s speech, said: “This proposal is a slap in the face of our friend and democracy’s only ally in the Middle East: Israel. As a nation, we should support and promote freedom and democracy in the region, but we should not do so at the expense of Israel. That land belongs to Israel – period.”“Based on archeological evidence and historical right, that land belongs to Israel,” said Inhofe. “As I have outlined several times before, Israel is a strategic ally to the United States that acts as a roadblock to terrorism. Every other country in that region hates Israel and would stop at nothing for Israel’s destruction just as they would stop at nothing to see our own destruction.”“President Obama’s speech today kowtows to the very forces that hate us,” said the senator. “I will try to address all these issues on the Senate floor next week to refute President Obama’s message today.”.Read the full story here.

• Obama's borders Caused 60 Years of War.(AmericanThinker).Obama has just given an eager world his fantasy answer for the last sixty years of Arab-Israel conflict. The Great One's long-awaited solution is for Israel to pull back to the cease-fire lines of the 1948 War of Independence, or what Obama, in a moment of historical amnesia, calls "the 1967 borders." People have fought and died over those borders since 1949, not 1967. Make that sixty years of regular warfare.  Take a quick glance at the Green Line on the map, and see if you can honestly answer this question: Would I want my family and children to live on the scary side of that lengthy, convoluted and meandering border, with Hamas and Hezbollah trying to breach the fence every night with knife-wielding maniacs and Grad rocket launchers? If you answered that question honestly, you cannot be a liberal. You know too much.  However, if you think the answer is "Yes, I'll do anything for peace, including putting my kids' lives on the line," then you are sucker bait for the most delusional political party in American history. And that includes the Bull Moose Party. Robert Frost wrote that "Good fences make good neighbors." It's also true that "bad fences make bad neighbors." The Green Line is militarily dreadful, as the map shows. Obama's proposal is therefore strategically destructive. What's worse, by raising impossible expectations in the Islamic world, expectations that are bound to be disappointed, Obama will end up making things much worse rather than much better. We'll be very lucky if a major Middle East war doesn't break out in the next few years, among emerging nuclear powers. You don't have to be a military genius to figure out how bad the Green Line is as a defensible border, because we have the evidence of The "1967 borders" are an invitation to catastrophe, just as the Peace of Versailles led to Hitler and World War II. Woodrow Wilson came back from Versailles announcing Peace Forever to a skeptical American public. But the Germans and the French (and V.I. Lenin) knew better. They knew there would be another war.This is completely typical of Obama's approach to reality. Has anything actually been solved since Obama's election? Are race relations better? Is the economy barrelling out of the Great Recession? Are freedom and prosperity growing around the world? This is Inspector Clouseau in a glassware factory, knocking down crystal chandeliers and champagne glasses wherever he goes, and never noticing that anything is wrong. The movie was a lot funnier. The coming election will be fought over Obama's media-made fantasy that he's already solved America's domestic problems, real and imagined. Like the Great Svengali, The One and his cheering mediots will try to mesmerize enough voters to believe that wacky fantasy; they may even succeed, because we have enough slack-jawed deadheads in the country to give President Calamity another four years.Hmmmm.....Wake up America you gave the keys of the family car to the keystone cops.Read the full story here.

• Obama tells Israel :Turn over the Tomb of Jesus to Hamas.(GatewayPundit).Today when Barack Obama told Israel to move back to the 1967 borders he effectively gave half of Jerusalem, the Wailing Wall, The Temple Mount, Old Jerusalem, The holiest Christian Church in the world, The Church of the Holy Sepulchre to the Hamas-Fatah terror alliance.Hmmmm....If there was a open position for current 'Anti -Christ' it was just filled.Read and see the full story here.

• And what do the people in Israel think? ..check out THESE polls.(VillagersWithTorches).By epaminondas.Haaretz:

Some 27 percent of Israelis believe that U.S. President Barack Obama is anti-Semitic, according to a Haaretz-Dialog poll conducted this week. Anpther 56 percent questions said they don't believe politicians who call Obama anti-Semitic or hostile to Israel, or who say he is "striving to topple Netanyahu." On the whole, Obama's popularity may be declining in American public opinion, but a sweeping majority of Israelis think his treatment of this country is friendly and fair. Advertisement The poll, which was conducted Tuesday and Wednesday and supervised by Professor Camil Fuchs, comes after reports of a crisis in diplomatic relations due to Israel's announcement during a visit by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden that it will build 1,600 housing units in East Jerusalem. Jpost:

Some 27 percent of Israelis believe that U.S. President Barack Obama is anti-Semitic, according to a Haaretz-Dialog poll conducted this week.Anpther 56 percent questions said they don't believe politicians who call Obama anti-Semitic or hostile to Israel, or who say he is "striving to topple Netanyahu."On the whole, Obama's popularity may be declining in American public opinion, but a sweeping majority of Israelis think his treatment of this country is friendly and fair.

The Poll itself:

Do you support Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's decision to continue construction in Jerusalem ?

Yes, 62% No 26%

Do you think that Prime Minister Netanyahu's decision will lead to more or less pressure from the United States ?

More 61%, less 9%, same 21%

Do you think that President Obama is:

pro-Arab 42%, pro-Israel 9% or neutral 34%

Some claim that if Israel were to withdraw to the '67 lines - including leave the Golan - it would enjoy peace for generations since the Arabs would no longer have any claims against Israel. Do you think that this is a naive or simplistic view or a reasonable and correct assessment?

Naive and simplistic 82% Reasonable and correct 8%

The idea that Obama is antisemitic?

•Jeremiah Wright (20 years in a pew for Obama)

•Samantha Power appointed after she urged US forces be sent to invade Israel and protect the west bank

•Genl Merrill McPeak appointed after claiming the reason there is no peace in the middle east because of 'certain groups' in NY and Miami

•Praising those who support Buchanan's ideas as valuable teachers and mentors (Zbig)

The idea that he is not?

•Axelrod

•Emanuel

But of course, to those two we can say ...Finkelstein, Chomsky, Judt, Zinn

It is hard to accept the idea that behind what Obama does is some sick ignorant inner compulsion. But that it can be questioned OBJECTIVELY by his appointments and friends in a disturbance in the FORCE.Personally, I think his running to quell disquiet by 'allies' who keep telling him if Netanyahu gets in a pic with Abbas shaking hands over a peace of paper in front of the White House, the world will be Happy Madison's HAPPY PLACE is behind his behavior, but in the end that amounts to the same thing, since it is all a delusion. I also think he HE believes Israel is not a solution to problem in the world, but THE BIGGEST problem in the world. Hmmmm.......I agree he thinks Israel is the problem.Read the full story here.

• Obama and the Middle East: Taking sides.(HotAir).Ideology - One was this statement, under the heading of how US power is to be used in the Middle East: “After decades of accepting the world as it is in the region, we have a chance to pursue the world as it should be.”This is radical ideological terminology at its most basic. It is unaccountable, aspirational talk, the kind you can’t get away from in the college classroom – and the kind statesmen avoid for a reason. There is no way to audit outcomes with this kind of formulation. It’s an ecstatic expression, not a statement of actionable policy.But it does imply that “pursuing the world as it should be” is a basis for national policy. There is a reason why that has never been the basis for US policy: because of what it implies about mechanisms and processes. The American tradition does not involve posting a guard over the world, with an attendant bureaucracy, to “pursue what the world should be.” We are a friend to genuinely liberalizing popular movements, but the focus of our efforts is liberal, quiescent conditions, not prescribed outcomes.It is up to other peoples to pursue the world as they think it should be, if they have some corporate idea of that. We may or may not be there to stand with their idea – it depends on what it is, and what the situation is. As long as we continue to respect borders and national sovereignty, there will be important limits on what the US can or will do to intervene between the local authorities and the local street vendors.Obama also referred twice to the Palestinians suffering “occupation” by Israel (once adding the fillip of “suffering humiliation”). This is a statement of a political position, not an assertion of legal fact. The status of this territory in the modern era is undetermined, because the Arab nations have wanted it that way. There could have been a Palestinian state in 1948, if the Arab nations had accepted the partition proposal made at that time on the principles of UN Resolution 181. But they didn’t; Jordan invaded to avert partition, and the status of the West Bank has been unresolved ever since.Past US presidents have been careful not to introduce the partisan political freight of calling the Israeli presence in the West Bank an “occupation.” Obama doubled down, in breaking with this tradition, by referring to the Palestinians’ “suffering” under the occupation.The partisanship is what Obama’s audience will hear. His reference to using the pre-1967 armistice line as a border is a partisan position, not a mediator’s principle. Israel and the Palestinians are at liberty to adopt that position, but if the US imposes it, we are not acting as a neutral broker. The Israelis have made their agreement to the pre-1967 line (basically, the 1949 armistice line) contingent on other agreements by the Palestinians; Obama’s insistence on it – as the starting point for negotiations, rather than the end-state – eliminates leverage for Israel.Drudge, Fox, Limbaugh, Beck – all have interpreted Obama’s speech as an announcement that the US is siding with the Palestinians. This isn’t because they are ignorant of the arcana of the Peace Process; it’s because that’s the impression given by Obama’s speech.So Obama has set himself a conundrum: how much to breach the sovereignty of others, versus how much to ignore and abandon his own rhetoric. We can only hope he tends more toward the latter. That course will damage the reputation and influence of the United States, but at least it won’t make us a direct instigator of instability and chaos.Hmmmm.....It seems almost as An anti -Jewish totalitarian dictator is running America.Read the full story here.

• Obamacare Grants Go To Eliminating Food Deserts.(Judicialwatch). More than $100 million in Obamacare grants to “reduce health disparities” between minorities and whites will also go to projects that help meet the First Lady’s goal of bringing healthy foods to the inner city. In fact, the agency that’s dishing out the cash, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is encouraging groups that can help eliminate “food deserts” in urban areas to apply for the recently announced “community transformation grants.” The goal is to reduce chronic diseases—such as diabetes, cancer and heart disease—disproportionately seen among poor and minority populations. The administration has already dedicated another federal agency, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), to revolutionize the inner city diet by providing affordable healthy fare such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains and low-fat milk in neighborhoods determined to be “food deserts” or poor census tracts with “low access” to a large grocery store. The agency even created an internet mapping tool (Food Desert Locator) that identifies areas with “limited access to affordable and nutritious foods.” Created by Obama’s Affordable Care Act, the new healthcare grants “will empower communities with resources, information and flexibility to help make their residents healthier,” according to Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. As a result the government will save millions in healthcare costs because chronic diseases are mostly caused by tobacco use, obesity, poor diet and lack of physical activity, according to the Health Department. This is why the administration is dedicating more than $100 million to help “population groups experiencing the greatest burden of chronic disease” (poor minorities) become tobacco free, more physically active and better nourished.As an example of a qualifying grant recipient the Health Department specifically lists “eliminating food deserts” and bringing healthier food to “corner markets in urban areas.”Read the full story here.

• Obama's buddies'the Palestinian Authority' passes law to pay salaries to all terrorists in Israeli prisons.(PalWatch).A law published in the official Palestinian Authority Registry last month grants all Palestinians and Israeli Arabs imprisoned in Israel for terror crimes a monthly salary from the PA. The Arabic word the PA uses for this payment is "ratib," meaning "salary." Palestinian Media Watch has reported numerous times on Palestinian Authority glorification of terrorists serving time in Israeli prisons. Following the signing of this new law, the PA is now paying a salary to these prisoners.The PA has defined by law which Palestinians would be considered "prisoners." "Anyone imprisoned in the occupation's [Israel's] prisons as a result of his participation in the struggle against the occupation.[Ch. 1 of Law of Prisoners, 2004/19,passed and published by the PA Chairman and Government, December 2004.The Prisoners' Centre for Studies,www.alasra.ps Accessed May 9, 2011]In other words, all Palestinians in Israeli prisons for terror crimes officially join the PA payroll. According to the definition in the PA law, Palestinian car thieves in Israeli prisons will not receive a salary, but Hamas and Fatah terrorist murderers will.The PA also gives a salary to Israeli Arabs convicted of terror crimes against Israel - the country of which they are citizens. PA benefits to Israeli Arab terrorists, in fact, are greater than the ones extended to Palestinian terrorists. Those serving more than 20-year sentences will receive a greater PA salary than prisoners serving shorter sentences, the new PA law establishes. Salaries are to be paid from the day of arrest until release. More than 6,000 Palestinian prisoners are currently serving time in Israeli prisons for terror-related offenses. Among those now eligible are Abdullah Barghouti, serving 67 life sentences; Hassan Salameh, serving 38 life sentences; and Jamal Abu Al-Hijja, serving nine life sentences, all of whom are imprisoned for planning suicide bombings. These three terrorists were recently called "heroic" by the official PA daily .

Donor Amount Source

1. European Union 158.5 million euros Al-Hayat Al- Jadida, January 20, 2010
2. Britain 60 million British pounds Al-Ayyam, February 11, 2010
3. India 10 million dollars Al-Hayat Al- Jadida, April 26, 2010
4. Norway 53 million dollars Al-Hayat Al- Jadida, June 18, 2010
5. France 19 million euros Al-Hayat Al- Jadida, June 22, 2010
6. World Bank 40 million dollars Al-Hayat Al- Jadida, October 1, 2010
7. Japan 18.5 million dollars Al-Hayat Al- Jadida, October 25, 2010
8. European Union 41.4 million euros Al-Hayat Al- Jadida, October 28, 2010
9.  Britain 30 million British pounds Al-Hayat Al- Jadida, October 28, 2010
10. United States 225 million dollars Al-Hayat Al- Jadida, November 11, 2010
11. Ireland 1.5 million euros Al-Hayat Al- Jadida, November 15, 2010
12. Japan 11.9 million dollars Al-Hayat Al- Jadida, December 28,

Hmmmmm.........Terrorist anonymous Thanks you for your generosity!Read the full story here.