MFS - The Other News

                       Morning  Posting.

• Syria Live Blog - May 22. Here .(Al-Jazeera).

• Libya Live Blog - May 21. Here (Al-Jazeera).

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity in Japan  today 5.2  ! More info here.

• Japan - Latest official Situation Update No. 115. Source : Here .

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

• There's a new "Player" in the Air,meet the Grimsvotn Volcano.By John Seach.(VolcanoLive)

64.42 N, 17.33 W - summit elevation 1725 m  - caldera

Read the full story here.Live webcam here and here.Google map location here.More info here.

• RSOE Emergency and Disaster Information Service Grimsvotn Volcano Info Situation Update No. 5  - On 23.05.2011 at 03:39 GMT+2
  
  An eruption by Iceland's most active volcano is set to keep the island's main airport shut, while other European nations watch for any impact on their air routes from a towering plume of smoke and ash. Experts said they saw little chance of a repeat of last year's six-day closure of airspace, which also hit trans-Atlantic flights, when another Icelandic volcano erupted, although airlines have been warned the new ash cloud will drift. So far Iceland, particularly the towns and villages to the south and east of the Grimsvotn volcano, have suffered most. Day turned into night when a thick cloud of ash descended on the area, smothering cars and buildings. The cloud had also begun to drift over the capital Reykjavik by late Sunday evening and the civil aviation authority said the prospects for re-opening the main international airport on Monday were not good. Europe's air traffic control organisation warned on its website that ash could spread southwards. "Ash cloud is expected to reach North Scotland on Tuesday 24th May. If volcanic emissions continue with same intensity, cloud might reach west French airspace and north Spain on Thursday 26th May," it said in a traffic bulletin. Iceland's meteorological office said the plume from Grimsvotn, which last exploded in 2004, had fallen to 10 to 15 km in height from a peak of 25 km.
  But the eruption was much stronger than the one at a volcano further south last year which closed European airspace and halted trans-Atlantic flights, due to worries that particles could get into aircraft engines and cause accidents. The airline industry said it lost $1.7 billion in revenues.
  
  "It could lead to some disruption, but only for a very limited time and only over a very limited area," said University of Iceland Professor of Geophysics Magnus Tumi Gudmundsson. "We see some signs that the (eruption's) power is declining a bit, but it is still quite powerful," he said, adding that the eruption was the most violent at the volcano since 1873. Gudmundsson and other vulcanologists said the impact on air travel this time would be more limited as winds were more favourable, the plume's content was heavier and less likely to spread, and authorities had a higher tolerance for ash levels. Some airlines complained that authorities had been excessively cautious in imposing blanket closures of airspace during last year's eruption. Icelandair, the main airline on the island, stopped flights on Sunday and said on its website the halt could continue on Monday. It said 6,000 passengers had been affected by cancellations so far. Dave Mcgarvie, vulcanologist at Britain's Open University, said any ash which reached Britain would be less than last year and added that experience gained since the 2010 eruption would lead to less disruption. In emailed comments, he said "minor re-routing" should enable aircraft to avoid zones where ash is concentrated. Grimsvotn lies under the Vatnajokull glacier in southeast Iceland, the largest glacier in Europe. Areas to the south of glacier have been covered in thick layers of ash and the sun was blocked out for several hours. "It was like night is during the winter," said Benedikt Larusson, speaking in the town of Kirkjubaejarklaustur. "Now it is a little bit better. Now I can see about 100 metres, but before it was about one metre."Source :Here .

• Police say operation to regain control of Karachi base from Taliban over, 13 killed.(Al-Arabia).An operation to regain control of a Pakistani naval base assaulted by Taliban militants has been completed after almost 16 hours of fighting with up to 20 assailants holed up in a building, a security official told Reuters from inside the base.Taliban gunmen armed with rockets and explosives had stormed a major naval air base in the heart of Pakistan’s city of Karachi, destroying two US-made surveillance aircrafts and killing 13 personnel. “The operation is over. The main building has been cleared,” the official said. “For precaution, we are continuing search around for any more terrorists but the main operation is over.”It was the worst assault on a military base since the army headquarters was besieged in October 2009, piling further embarrassment on the armed forces three weeks after Osama Bin Laden was found living under their noses.“It was the revenge of martyrdom of Osama Bin Laden. It was the proof that we are still united and powerful,” Ehsanullah Ehsan told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location.Up to 20 militants crept into the base in the teeming port city of Karachi from three sides under the cover of night late Sunday, officials said, triggering gunbattles and a series of explosions.More than 30 troops entered the PNS Mehran base in the southern city of Karachi earlier as the battle resumed and eight blasts were heard in the space of 30 minutes, according to Agence-France Presse. Scores of people were wounded in the attack on one of the country’s most heavily guarded military installations, where jet fuel tanks appeared to have caught fire and exploded, according to Reuters.“They were carrying guns, rocket-propelled grenades (RPG) and hand grenades. They hit the aircraft with an RPG,” Navy spokesman Commander Salman Ali said earlier.The Taliban spokesman earlier said that the team of militants they sent into Karachi’s PNS Mehran naval base Sunday night had enough supplies to survive a three-day siege.“They have enough ammunition and food and they can fight and survive for three days,” Taliban spokesman said.He said up to 22 militants were assigned to launch the attack. Accounts are unclear, but up to five militants may have been killed by Pakistani troops. The remaining were holed up in a building on the base exchanging fire with commandos.“Our estimate is 10-15 terrorists are inside the base,” said Naval spokesman Mohammad Yasir. The Karachi attack evoked memories of an assault on Pakistan’s army headquarters in the town of Rawalpindi in 2009, and revived concerns that even the most well guarded installations in the country remain vulnerable to militants.Interior Minister Rehman Malik said the “terrorists” sneaked into the base from three points adjacent to residential areas in the city of 16 million people, whose port is a vital hub for NATO supplies bound for Afghanistan.“The situation is being tackled delicately to secure assets, minimize human losses and defeat the terrorists completely,” he said, according to Agence-France Presse.“It is not just an attack on a navy establishment, it is an attack on Pakistan,” Mr. Malik added, warning that those who sympathize with the Taliban and Al Qaeda should instead “join hands with us to save our country.”Karachi is Pakistan’s financial capital and its port is used by NATO to ship supplies to the estimated 130,000 US-led foreign troops fighting the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan.The city has recently seen a spike in attacks on the military. On April 28, four naval personnel and a passing motorcyclist were killed in a bombing, two days after four other people were killed in navy bus bombings.Last week, a Saudi diplomat was shot dead as he drove to the Saudi consulate in Karachi just days after attackers threw grenades at the mission.On Sunday, thousands of people demonstrated in Karachi to demand an immediate end to US missile strikes in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal belt on the Afghan border and a block on NATO supplies passing through the country.Read the full story here.More here.

• Video - Body Language Analysis: Obama’s “Icy” Disdain For Netanyahu.Read and see the full story here.

• Obama At AIPAC: Beneath The Flattery, He Revealed His Indifference to Israel’s Needs and His Tilt Against It.(RubinReports).I expected President Barack Obama’s AIPAC speech would be a bunch of feel-good clichés to persuade the audience that he is Israel’s best friend. Thus there would be nothing worth analyzing in it. But as I read the speech carefully I was astonished at how thoroughly Obama reveals his underlying miscomprehension, indifference, and even hostility toward Israel.Examine this speech and you see everything wrong—far more than in his Cairo or State Department speeches on the Middle East—with Obama’s view of Israel and why he cannot be trusted on this issue.There are some remarkable Freudian slips in his formulations and they have nothing to do with his discussion of the framework for Israel-Palestinian peace.He spoke at great length of his support for Israel, how he wants it to be strong and secure, and the common values of the two countries. Yet if he really thinks that, why didn’t he say such things in his State Department speech on the Middle East or elsewhere?Obama stated:

“We also know how difficult that search for security can be, especially for a small nation like Israel in a tough neighborhood….When I went to Sderot, I saw the daily struggle to survive in the eyes of an eight-year old boy who lost his leg to a Hamas rocket. And when I walked among the Hall of Names at Yad Vashem, I grasped the existential fear of Israelis when a modern dictator seeks nuclear weapons and threatens to wipe Israel off the map.”

Yet his regional policies have undermined Israel’s security:

--Without getting anything from Hamas (the group that shoots rockets at Sderot) he pressed Israel to reduce sanctions against Hamas, helped bring into power a pro-Hamas government in Egypt, and sent $400 million in U.S .taxpayer money that objectively strengthens the Hamas regime.

--By not actively opposing Hizballah and Syria taking over Lebanon, thus increasing the threat on Israel’s northern border.

--By waiting so long before he moved on Iran sanctions and by failing to support the Iranian democratic opposition.

--By acting as apologist for the Syrian terrorist-sponsoring dictatorship.

--By not keeping U.S. promises to Israel on countering Hizballah’s return to southern Lebanon and arms’

--By helping create a situation in Egypt that will definitely lead to a radical, anti-American, anti-Israel takeover and probably leading to an Islamist regime there.

--By becoming an apologist and booster of the most anti-Israel (and Islamist) Turkish government ever he has done nothing to help Israel deal with the enmity of its closest regional ally. Obama quickly capitulated to the Gaza flotilla.

--By never really criticizing or pressuring the Palestinian Authority on anything at all, even when it rejected his initiatives, broke its promises to him, or made him look foolish. Consider Vice-President Joe Biden’s temper tantrum about a Jerusalem zoning board okaying a construction project in the distant future to the administration’s basic indifference to ongoing PA incitement and the naming of things against terrorists who murdered Israelis.That’s not a complete list.Obama can quote the Talmud but he can’t deal with the impending catastrophe in Egypt. How can he speak at AIPAC and not mention that the most important country in the Arab world is moving quickly to tear up its peace treaty with Israel, end sanctions on Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and create a massive new security problem for Israel! A fitting symbol of his total indifference about, “How difficult that search for security can be.”On the surface, President Obama’s speech to AIPAC will reassure many about his care and commitment to Israel. Yet a careful reading of the speech shows the exact opposite.Hmmmm.....The most anti -Israel president evah!Read the full story here.

• The Obama Administration and private business.(GraniteGrok).Here's information on the percentage of each past president's cabinet who worked in the private business sector prior to their appointment to their cabinet positions. Uhhh...you know, "the private business sector"? As in…a real-life business, not a government job? Here are the percentages of Presidential Cabinet members who DID work in the private sector prior to being appointed:

T. Roosevelt...........38%

Taft........................40%

Wilson ...................52%

Harding..................49%

Coolidge............... 48%

Hoover ..................42%

F. Roosevelt...........50%

Truman..................50%

Eisenhower............57%

Kennedy................30%

Johnson.................47%

Nixon....................53%

Ford......................42%

Carter....................32%

Reagan..................56%

GH Bush...............51%

Clinton ...............39%

GW Bush..............55%

Obama..............................8%

See that last percentage? That's right, only eight percent...the least, by far, of the last 19 presidents. And these people are trying to tell large corporations how to run their businesses?How can the president of a major nation and society, the one with the most successful economic system in world history, stand and talk about business when he's never worked for one? Or about jobs when he has never really had one? And the 92% of his senior staff and closest advisers? They've got the same problem: By far they have spent most of their time in academia, government, and/or non-profit jobs...or as "community organizers."Hmmmm.......Amazing ,not the lunatics are running the Asylum ,but the babies are running the maternity.Read the full story here at GraniteGrok.

• The March of the Mosques.(Faithfreedom).The first mosque in America was built by Albanian Muslims in 1915 in Maine. By 1919, they had established another mosque in Connecticut. Polish-speaking Tatars built a mosque in Brooklyn in 1926, which is still in use. African American Muslims established the first Mosque in Pittsburgh in 1930. The Lebanese Community of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, opened its first mosque in 1935. The State Street Mosque in New York City was established by Sheikh Dawood Ahmed Faisal in 1955. This mosque represents a special point in the development of the American Muslim community. The Darul Islam movement began from there. Darul Islam emphasizes a literal translation of the Koran, strict adherence to the words of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad and avoiding of assimilating non-Islamic and western influences. The Koran teaches a sustained suspicion and hatred towards non Muslim social, political, religious and educational institutions.The Darul Islamic movement is influenced in by the ideologies of Sheikh Syed Abul A’ala Mawdudi, a Sunni Pakistani journalist, theologian, Muslim revivalist leader and political philosopher and a major 20th century Islamist thinker from the city of Lahore.Mawhudi also founded Jamaat-e-Islami, a group which maintains close ties with international Muslim groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood. One of the objectives of Jamaat-e-Islami is the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. They also oppose western ideologies like democracy, capitalism and secularism.Darul Islam started the first conversions of African-Americans to Islam. They also established prayer areas and mini-mosques in correctional facilities and conversions of prisoners. They were instrumental in getting Muslim Chaplains into the US prison system. By the 1970’s, a network of Darul Islam Mosques was established across the United States, extending to New York, California, Missouri, Virginia, New Jersey, Florida and Arizona. The expansion across the USA continues and now includes Mosques in Canada and the Caribbean.The Mapping Sharia in America Project, sponsored by the Washington-based Center for Security Policy, has trained former counterintelligence and counterterrorism agents from the FBI, CIA and U.S. military, who are skilled in Arabic and Urdu, to conduct undercover reconnaissance at some 2,300 mosques and Islamic centers and schools across the country.“So far of 100 mapped, 75 should be on a watch list,” an official familiar with the project said. Many of the Islamic centers are operating under the auspices of the Saudi Arabian government and U.S. front groups for the radical Muslim Brotherhood based in Egypt.Frank Gaffney, a former Pentagon official who runs the Center for Security Policy, says the results of the survey have not yet been published. But he confirmed that “the vast majority” are inciting insurrection and jihad through sermons by Saudi-trained imams and anti-Western literature, videos and textbooks.The project, headed by David Yerushalmi, a lawyer and expert on Sharia law, has finished collecting data from the first cohort of 102 mosques and schools. Preliminary findings indicate that almost 80 percent of the groups exhibit a high level of Sharia-compliance and Jihadi threat, including:

* Ultra-orthodox worship in which women are separated from men in the prayer hall and must enter the mosque from a separate, usually back, entrance; and are required to wear hijabs.

* Sermons that preach:

1. Women are inferior to men and can be beaten for disobedience.
2. Non-Muslims, particularly Jews, are infidels and inferior to Muslims.
3. Jihad or support of jihad is not only a Muslim’s duty but the noblest way, and suicide bombers and other so-called “martyrs” are worthy of the highest praise.
4. An Islamic caliphate should one day encompass the U.S.

* Solicitation of financial support for jihad.

* Bookstores that sell books, CD’s and DVD’s promoting jihad and glorifying martyrdom.

Some of the 9/11 hijackers received aid and counsel from one of the largest mosques in the Washington, D.C., area. Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center is one of the mosques identified by undercover investigators as a hive of terrorist activity and other extremism. It was founded and is currently run by leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood. Imams there preach what is called “jihad qital,” which means physical jihad, and incite violence and hatred against the USA. All across the USA, the building of new Mosques or the expansion of existing ones continues, with little or no resistance. This has included virtually every state of the union in the last 12 months. Until the REAL agenda is exposed and the leaders of our communities attempt to understand what is behind the motivation of these buildings, they will continue to sprout up, akin to a noxious weed.They hide in the darkness, under the protection of the First Amendment, call their opponents haters and Islamaphobes and with the help of the Liberals, will conquer the USA.Hmmmmm......"The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers..." The teachers our generals?Read the full story here.

• Government Orders You Tube To Censor Protest Videos.(PrisonPlanet).In a frightening example of how the state is tightening its grip around the free Internet, it has emerged that You Tube is complying with thousands of requests from governments to censor and remove videos that show protests and other examples of citizens simply asserting their rights, while also deleting search terms by government mandate.The latest example is You Tube’s compliance with a request from the British government to censor footage of the British Constitution Group’s Lawful Rebellion protest, during which they attempted to civilly arrest Judge Michael Peake at Birkenhead county court.When viewers in the UK attempt to watch videos of the protest, they are met with the message, “This content is not available in your country due to a government removal request.”We then click through to learn that, “YouTube occasionally receives requests from governments around the world to remove content from our site, and as a result, YouTube may block specific content in order to comply with local laws in certain countries.”You can also search by country to discover that Google, the owner of You Tube, has complied with the majority of requests from governments, particularly in the United States and the UK, not only to remove You Tube videos, but also specific web search terms and thousands of “data requests,” meaning demands for information that would reveal the true identity of a You Tube user. Google claims that the information sent to governments is “needed for legitimate criminal investigations,” but whether these “data requests” have been backed up by warrants is not divulged by the company.“Between July 1 and Dec. 31 (2009), Google received 3,580 requests for user data from U.S. government agencies, slightly less than the 3,663 originating from Brazil,” reports PC World. “The United Kingdom and India sent more than 1,000 requests each, and smaller numbers originated from various other countries.”With regard to search terms, one struggles to understand how a specific combination of words in a Google search can be considered a violation of any law. This is about government and Google working hand in hand to manipulate search results in order to censor inconvenient information, something which Google now freely admits to doing.Via a combination of cybersecurity legislation and policy that is hastily introduced with no real oversight, governments and large Internet corporations are crafting an environment where the state can simply demand information be removed on a whim with total disregard for freedom of speech protections.This was underscored last year at the height of the Wikileaks issue, when Amazon axed Wikileaks from its servers following a phone call made by Senator Joe Lieberman’s Senate Homeland Security Committee demanding the website be deleted.Lieberman has been at the forefront of a push to purge the Internet of all dissent by empowering Obama with a figurative Internet kill switch that he would use to shut down parts of the Internet or terminate websites under the guise of national security. Lieberman spilled the beans on the true reason for the move during a CNN interview when he stated “Right now China, the government, can disconnect parts of its Internet in case of war and we need to have that here too.”Except that China doesn’t disconnect the Internet “in case of war,” it only ever does so to censor and intimidate people who express dissent against government atrocities or corruption, as we have documented. This is precisely the kind of online environment the British and American governments are trying to replicate as they attempt to put a stranglehold on the last bastion of true free speech – the world wide web.Read the full story here.

• Cantor blames Arab 'hatred' for impasse.(TheHill).Taking a shot at President Obama, the second-ranking House Republican said Sunday that Arab culture – not the dispute over 1967 borders – is to blame for the long-standing absence of an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.Painting in broad strokes, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) accused the Palestinians – and the Arab world more generally – of harboring a "resentment and hatred" toward Israel that, he says, has made an accord impossible.Speaking to thousands of pro-Israel activists assembled in Washington for the annual gathering of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Cantor told the tale of an unnamed Palestinian woman who traveled from Gaza to an Israeli hospital for life-saving treatment. Some time later, he said, she returned with intentions of attacking the same hospital in a suicide bombing."What kind of culture leads one to do that? Sadly, it is a culture infused with resentment and hatred," said Cantor, one of just two Jewish Republicans in Congress. "It is this culture that underlies the Palestinians' and the broader Arab world's refusal to accept Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state."This is the root of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians – it is not about the '67 lines," he added to roaring applause and a standing ovation. "And until Israel's enemies come to terms with this reality, a true peace will be impossible."Before leaving the stage, Cantor took a final shot at Obama, who was characterized in a recent New Yorker article as "leading from the rear" in his approach to the recent turmoil in the Middle East."There is a time for talk; but now is the time for action," Cantor said. "There is a time for following; but now is the time to lead – from the front."Hmmmm.......Meanwhile in Europe Obama prepares to throw Israel again under the bus.Read the full story here.

• "SHARIA'S ANGELS" Coming to a UK neighbourhood near you?(DailyStar).CRAZED extremist Anjem Choudary is planning to set up teams of Islamic “Guardian Angels” to bring Sharia law to the UK.East London-based bigot Anjem Choudary reckons hardline “Sharia cops” will do a better job of policing Muslim areas than traditional officers. The 44-year-old firebrand hopes to roll out the scheme to high-density Muslim areas across Britain such as Luton in Bedfordshire, Bradford and Dewsbury in West Yorkshire, and Whitechapel in London’s East End, as well as Southall in west London and parts of the West Midlands. Last night he said: “In these ‘Emirates’, these Islamic enclaves, we are going to start implementing our own neighbourhood watch, our own police. “We will not stop and search you but we will be able to perform citizens’ arrests. We want to protect Muslims and their property. It will be like a Neighbourhood Watch scheme but on a larger scale. We want to police ourselves. “Of course we do not want people to break the law but we want them to be able to go out and protect themselves and their property. “I think this is the right direction. It is about time the Muslims took these things into their own hands. We cannot trust the Government, we cannot trust the police to look after the welfare of Muslims.”Last night a Home Office spokeswoman warned the preacher: “Any breach of UK law is dealt with by the police.” In another astonishing rant, the former lawyer revealed he also has plans to kick into touch government attempts to better integrate the Muslim community into the British way of life following the 7/7 bombings inquiry. The radical warned he is planning to print up to 10,000 copies of an Islamic version of the “Prevent Violent Extremism” strategy in which he outlines how Muslims can lead a purely Islamic way of life, separate from the “corrupt nature” of British values. He vowed: “The difference is when we talk about ‘violent extremism’ we are talking about the occupation of Muslim lands. “I believe the whole Prevent Strategy is designed to strip Muslims of their Islamic personality. They want to give us a different Islam, a British Islam, not the Islam of the Messenger Mohammed. “We are Muslim first and last and we have to integrate with Islam only.”Hmmmm....A militia like the "Black Panthers"?Islamic 'virtue police'24/7 - call Djin busters,not available during prayer times. Read the full story here.

• Malaysia - Islamic leaders do 'infidels' need rights?(TheMalaysianInsider).KUALA LUMPUR, May 22 – Several Islamic leaders have questioned the loyalty of non-Muslims in the country, declaring today the community’s rights must be re-evaluated if Malaysia is to call itself an Islamic state.Former president of Islamic Da’wah Foundation Malaysia (Yadim), Datuk Nakhaie Ahmad, said treatment of non-Muslims must be based on the social contract agreed and pointed out that the government has been too gracious to the community.“In attempts to get vote and support of non-Muslims, we have been very gracious in giving them their civil rights. Civil rights given to them includes the rights to vote, participation in politics, hold office, involvement in the military and so forth but we cannot just willingly give them everything.“Our offer must be based on religious practices. If we look at the prophet’s agreement in the Madinah constitution, civil rights were given to the Jews but the rights must be paid back with responsibility. They must have the responsibility and agree to defend our country and not insult the agreement,” he said during a forum on "Membina Negara Sejahtera" organised by the Persatuan Ulama Malaysia here.Former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad declared Malaysia an Islamic state a decade ago in a move to counter PAS’ growing influence among the country’s key Malay Muslim population.The issue cropped up this month when several groups asked for amendments to the Federal Constitution to stipulate only Muslims can be the prime minister after Utusan Malaysia carried an unsubstantiated report of a Christian plot to usurp Islam’s position as religion of the federation.Nakhaie stressed that non-Muslims that have broken the social contract must be expelled from the country and asked the government to adopt a tough approach in safeguarding Muslim interest.“If the agreement is broken then actions must be taken against them. If they break our agreement then they are our enemy and must be expelled from the country. We must not compromise with them. We must be stern with them when it comes to the social contract agreed,” he said.Nakhaie added it is important that high level government positions not be awarded to non-Muslims for national security.“We cannot give them important government position as it is not allowed for non-Muslims to become ministers in a Islamic state. Head of military must also not be given to non-Muslims.“Without thinking about the future of our country, we are so willing to give them everything. Granting them their civil rights must be balanced with Islamic preaching so they will understand justice in Islam and the Islamic system,” said the former PAS member who defected to Umno years ago.He also warned Muslims to unite as non-Muslims will become stronger if the community continues to quarrel among themselves.“They are brave now and are willing to say anything because they are becoming dominant. They (non-muslim political parties) are only working with us to only achieve their goals. It is a marriage of convenience. We know what is their programme. We are already losing economically and now we want to give political rights?” he asked.Malaysian Islamic Youth Movement (Abim) deputy president, Dr Mohd Rumaizuddin Ghazali, also stressed that Malaysia must never become a secular state.“This is why many non-Muslim politicians want to declare the country as a secular state because then the government will not have fund religious programmes.“They are scared that if we accept Malaysia as an Islamic state then there are many implications which means that only Muslims have the right to lead the country,” he said.Mohd Rumaizuddin added that the Malays are beginning to be trampled on and non-Muslims are starting to take advantage of the community.“Because of politics, we are still not free after more than 50 years of independence,” he said.Hizbut Tahrir Malaysia president Abdul Hakim Othman added the country’s constitution must be replaced as it has been stained by the colonial British.“A Caliphate state is based on divine revelation. It is not a democratic or a theocratic state. It is only an Islamic state when the constitution is based on the Quran and prophetic traditions,” he said.Hmmmm......Islam and Democracy can not coexcist?Read the full story here.

• Fukushima II waiting to happen in Iran?(TheTelegraph).Iran 'ignores' earthquake threat to nuclear plant. The Iranian government has rejected warnings of the potentially 'disastrous' threat earthquakes pose to the country's Russian-built nuclear power station in the Gulf.A secret report compiled by Iranian nuclear scientists delivered a stark warning that a future earthquake could have devastating consequences for Iran's nuclear plant in the Gulf port of Bushehr."The seismic danger to Iran and its implications for the reactor in Bushehr could be disastrous for Iran, similar to the disaster in Fukushima, Japan," states the report, which was commissioned shortly after the Japanese reactor was crippled by the tsunami on March 11.But nuclear experts advising the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna report that Iran is pressing ahead with plans to start operating the reactor.Iran is located in one of the world's most volatile earthquake zones. Concerns centre on the nuclear plant's foundations – laid in the 1970s – withstanding the force of a serious quake."Iranian officials have raised a number of serious issues highlighting the dangers earthquakes pose to the Bushehr plant," said a senior Western official. "But the government has just ignored them."The Russian company building the plant recently said the reactor had been brought up to "the minimum controllable level of power" as part of the final tests before going fully operational.A spokesman for the IAEA said it was unable to comment on the report.Hmmmm....Lets hope there are no scantly dressed women in the vicinity of the Bushehr plant.Read the full story here.

• The pyramids are still standing,but where are the tourists?(Al-Jazeera).Amer El Shaer struggles to fill his days. He's cleaned his shop several times.He's sorted his stock and reorganised his shelves. And surprisingly, his paperwork is all up to date.So now he really has nothing more to do than wait.  Sometimes he waits on the chairs in his store. Sometimes he waits on the bench, outside in the sun. And sometimes he waits behind the counter, hoping somehow that will produce a customer.There was a time when his perfume store in the shadow of the pyramids at Giza would be packed with tourists. But not now.  The revolution which changed Egypt has scared the tourists away.For Amer, it's now not about living, but surviving: "Before the revolution, we were making a good profit from the goods we were selling, but it's dropped way down, but it is better than nothing. It is a struggle to feed my family."And he sees no immediate prospect of things getting better: "Not until a president is elected do I think out situation will improve."His story is not unique. Everywhere is struggling. Some stores don't even bother opening every day. Any new face is suddenly besieged by offers from guides and stores, offering cut price rates.The camels and horses, which transport visitors around the pyramids, look sad and exhausted. "We can't afford the good feed. We are not making enough," says Muhammed, one of the carriage drivers who used to make four or five journeys around the pyramids each day. Now he's lucky if he makes one.Figures released on Sunday by the government's statistics agency reveal that in the first three months of the year, tourism was down by 46 per cent. In February, just over 200,000 thousand foreign visitors came here. The year before it was 1.1 million. Egypt needs tourism. More than one in 10 jobs are directly linked to the industry. And at the moment, it is losing $40m a day.Samir Radwan, Egypt's finance minister, hopes so too. He knows that tourism will be the driver for any economic resurgence: "Tourists used to walk in the streets of Egypt at four o'clock in the morning or two o'clock in the morning, no problem. And we want this back so we can regain one of the main sources of growth in this economy."The traders here are worried. As the temperatures go up, the number of visitors drop off marking the end of the first high season. The next begins around September. But that's when elections are planned. And if there is any trouble then, 2011 could end up being a complete right-off.Amer El Shaer's family has run this business for 30 years, and they simply can't remember a harder time. He knows the new government is trying to make things better. He's just fed up waiting.Hmmmm.....Obama's "Change" has come to Egypt!By September Egypt will be bankrupt!Read the full story here.

• Sofia: Muslim threatened us with knife, says Ataka leader.(IslaminEurope).Via Novinite:Supporters of the nationalist Bulgarian Ataka (Attack) party were threatened by Muslims, one of whom carrying a knife, on Friday, according to its notorious leader, Volen Siderov.On Friday far-right extremists from the Ataka party assaulted praying Muslims. The outburst occurred while the nationalists led by their Siderov staged a rally near the Banya Bashi mosque in Sofia protesting against the use of loudspeakers by the mosque. Several people ended up injured, including Denitsa Gadzheva, an Ataka MP, who was presumably hit by a stone thrown by a Muslim.On Sunday, during a talk show on the private Nova TV, Siderov showed a picture of what he described as Gadzheva's "disfigured" face, as well as a photo of a man carrying a knife in front of the mosque. He refuted statements that his supporters were throwing eggs at the Muslims, stating it was the other way around. The nationalist leader reiterated the Ataka supporters were attacked by "Islamist extremists" while staging a "peaceful" protest. Siderov also said that suspected radical Ali Yuzeirov was at the center of the group outside the mosque.leader of Ataka party Volen Siderov told Focus News Agency .
  “He introduced himself to a certain television channel saying I am Ali Yuzeirov. He was in the centre of the group that was disposed on the prayer mats. That man is famous with his attempt to establish fundamentalist party, which was not adopted by the court. It is clear who are in the centre of the group that gathers in the mosque. Therefore I say that this is a nest of Islam extremists which had become what it is long ago. The mufti itself is a centre of extremism, because people that are trained to become ecclesiastics are trained in Jordan, Saudi Arabia and are heralds of extreme Islam”, Volenb Siderov said. The Ataka movie of events is available here.Read the full story here.