MFS - The Other News

                        Afternoon Posting.

• Syria Live Blog - May 14. Here .(Al-Jazeera).

• Libya Live Blog - May 14. Here (Al-Jazeera).

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

• Japan - Latest official Situation Update No. 109.Source : Here .

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

• Watch Live: Army Corps of Engineers to Open the Morganza Floodway at 4:30 (ET) to Ease and Direct Mississippi River Flooding in La.Here.

• Gingrich : Obama ‘food stamp president’.(WashingtonPost).MACON, Ga. — Newt Gingrich opened his presidential campaign here Friday night by introducing a jobs plan that would slash taxes and repeal an array of bureaucratic regulations.Returning to the state where he launched his political career more than three decades ago, the Republican former House speaker presented himself in sharp contrast to President Obama, whom he derided as a “food stamp president.” Gingrich sounded a hopeful tone as he pledged that a Gingrich administration would reaffirm American exceptionalism.“My theme is going to be: Together we can win the future. The right policies lead to the right results. And I’m going to argue that President Obama will lose the future because the wrong policies lead to the wrong results,” Gingrich said in a dinner speech before hundreds of activists at the Georgia Republican Party’s annual convention. He also signed his official statement of candidacy at the event.Gingrich, who has written more than a dozen non-fiction books — he plugged his latest, “To Save America,” on bookshelves now — opened his 30-minute address with a long rumination on American history. He predicted that the 2012 presidential election will be the most consequential since Abraham Lincoln was elected in 1860.“We’re at the crossroads,” Gingrich said, repeatedly sniffling from allergies. “Down one road is a European centralized bureaucratic socialist welfare system in which politicians and bureaucrats define the future. Down the other road is a proud, solid, reaffirmation of American exceptionalism.”Central to that promise, he said, would be eliminating the capital gains and estate taxes and reducing the corporate income tax from 35 percent to 12.5 percent. Those tax cuts, as well as freezing the personal income tax rates at their current Bush-era levels, is critical to creating jobs and spurring innovation, he said.“The most important social welfare program in America is a job,” Gingrich said.Gingrich sought to lay blame for the recession, as well as the economic and social upheaval in Detroit, on Obama and his policies. “President Obama is the most successful food stamp president in American history,” Gingrich said. “I would like to be the most successful paycheck president in American history.”Less than two weeks after Obama led a successful raid on al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, Gingrich said Obama “does not have a clue” about foreign affairs.Gingrich said the United States should reevaluate its diplomatic ties with Pakistan since bin Laden was found to have been living there for several years.“I was trying to figure out what the word ally meant,” he said. “I know what the word sucker meant. How stupid do you think we are?” Hmmmm......Dictatorship or Democarcy.Read the full story here.

• IMF boss Strauss-Kahn pulled off plane, arrested in oral sex probe.(NYPost).The French political bigshot who heads the International Monetary Fund was arrested for allegedly sodomizing a Manhattan hotel maid today — getting hauled off an Air France flight just moments before takeoff from Kennedy Airport, police sources told The Post.Three Port Authority detectives pulled Dominique Strauss-Kahn from the plane’s first-class cabin just two minutes before it was due to depart for Paris, the sources said.Strauss-Kahn, 62, was turned over to NYPD officers from the Midtown South precinct, and the case is being investigated by the Special Victims Unit.The trouble began around noon today, when a housekeeper entered Strauss-Kahn’s room at the Sofitel on West 44th Street.Strauss-Kahn was in his bathroom, said sources. He emerged from the bathroom naked, said the sources, and grabbed her.Then, Strauss-Kahn allegedly threw the housekeeper on the room’s bed and forced her to perform oral sex on him, said the sources.Strauss-Kahn let the maid leave — and soon afterward, headed off to Kennedy Airport for his flight to Paris.The NYPD’s special victims unit is investigating the case, the sources said.His arrest tonight could force him to postpone a planned meeting in Berlin on Sunday with German chancellor Angela Merkel.Strauss-Kahn, a leader of France’s Socialist Party, is the leading rival to President Nicholas Sarkozy in the 2012 election.Sarkozy was said in a news report yesterday to have begun a smear campaign against his rival that focused on his lavish lifestyle — including Strauss-Kahn’s purchase of suits from the same tailor who clothes President Obama.But Strauss-Kahn seems able to find trouble on his own. In 2008, he publicly admitted to "an error of judgment" for having an affair with an IMF subordinate.Hmmmm......Talk about getting a 'raise' in hard currency?Read the full story here.

• Misreading Obama.A must read!(EmergingCorruption).By Jack Cashill.From the moment Barack Obama took center stage at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, the world has been busily trying to decipher the man. No one has been more busy reading Obama in the years since than the chair of the Harvard History Department, the esteemed Dr. James Kloppenberg. At numerous symposia, on both sides of the Atlantic, he has shared his distinctive insights on our 44th president.In his new book, Reading Obama: Dreams, Hope, and the American Political Tradition, Kloppenberg has assembled his insights into a misreading of Obama so sincere and so profound that it causes one to doubt the entire academic enterprise. In the heat of the 2008 campaign, a book like this would have been understandable. No one seemed to know much about Obama. Two years into the presidency, one marvels at how much information the author, his readers and editors had to ignore to allow this book to go to press.Working from Obama’s early articles, his later columns in the Hyde Park Herald, his key speeches, and his two books, the 1995 memoir Dreams from My Father and the 2006 policy brief Audacity of Hope, Kloppenberg finds in Obama a philosophical pragmatist with a “firmer grip on America’s past” than any president since Woodrow Wilson.To arrive at this understanding, Kloppenberg had first to convince himself that Obama actually wrote his own material. This was not difficult, at least not for the good professor. “But since I began investigating Obama’s ideas,” he observes, “no one who knows him has expressed any doubt to me that both books are his work.” For Kloppenberg, this was proof enough. Immured in his academic keep, he apparently sheltered himself from the 20,000 or so words I had already put into cyberspace establishing that Obama had substantial help with everything good that he has ever said or is alleged to have written.Kloppenberg’s enthusiasm leads him to overlook the cautions of his own ideological allies as well. This was most evident in his discussion of Obama’s March 2008 Philadelphia speech, “A More Perfect Union.” As the reader will recall, Obama delivered this stem-winder to distance himself, without exactly disowning, the suddenly toxic Rev. Jeremiah Wright.For the Philadelphia speech, according to Kloppenberg, Obama “did not need the assistance of his speech writer Jon Favreau.” This one he wrote from the heart. Jonathan Raban, the esteemed British travel writer and novelist, suspects otherwise. Although once as blind to Obama’s limitations as Kloppenberg, Raban was “disconcerted” to learn that Obama used a speechwriter at all. He was more troubled to learn that the speechwriter in question, Favreau, was a video-game whiz whom Obama had recruited in 2004 when the lad was just 22 years-old.Raban traces his awakening to Obama’s 2009 inaugural address, one that, in his words, suffered from “moth-eaten metaphors,” “faux-antique dialect,” and jarring semantic errors like Obama’s use of the word “forbearers” when he meant “forebears.” Raban felt even more “let down” upon discovering that the “More Perfect Union” speech was “a joint Obama/Favreau production.” Kloppenberg apparently has not yet made this discovery.Read the full story here.

• Eager to recuperate votes Obama shifts on domestic drilling.(TheHill).The White House will take a series of steps — including expediting drilling plans on government lands in Alaska — designed to show that the administration is serious about expanding domestic oil production and lowering gas prices.President Obama announced Saturday the government would hold annual onshore lease sales in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve; extend the life of leases in the Gulf of Mexico and in some areas off the coast of Alaska for one year; speed up ongoing Interior Department testing in the mid- and south-Atlantic to gauge the level of resources; and establish an interagency task force to coordinate permitting for offshore drilling in Alaska.The White House is making the policy shifts after taking intense criticism from Republicans in recent weeks over energy policy as gas prices have topped $4 per gallon in some parts of the country.Many of the proposals are incremental expansions of existing policies and had been set in motion prior to Saturday’s announcement. It’s also unclear by how much the plan will increase domestic oil production.In his weekly radio address, Obama said his administration is working to “increase safe and responsible oil production here at home,” while also pushing his previously stated support alternative fuels and eliminating tax breaks and subsidies for oil companies.The president acknowledged that there are “no quick fixes” to high gas prices and stressed that price spikes “are often temporary,” but he outlined a series of steps meant to show that the administration is taking action to help consumers.Hmmmmm.....Once re-elected all these measures can and will be turned back,so that i can finish my electric car dream?Read the full story here.

• You're Nuts !Federal gun legislation would greatly expand who qualifies as mentally ineligible from owning a gun.(DailyCaller).Recently introduced federal gun legislation would codify and greatly expand the definition of those barred from owning a gun because they suffer from broad, umbrella-like definitions of mental health problems. Mental health advocates, however, say legislators reacting to “deranged” people going on shooting sprees are “completely missing the point.”Last week, New York Democratic Rep. Carolyn McCarthy introduced the Fix Gun Checks Act of 2011, a nearly-identical resolution to that introduced in the Senate in March by her New York colleague, Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer. Both bills include a section dedicated to further codifying in federal law what it means to be “adjudicated as a mental defective.” The proposed change would label any person a “mental health defective” who appears to “lack the mental capacity to contract or manage his own affairs,” or is “compelled” to receive counseling or medication.Other, seemingly more obvious, definitions of a “mental health defective” include anyone who has been found criminally insane, found incompetent to stand trial or found not guilty by reason of mental deficiencies.According to the legislation, decisions of whether someone is of subnormal intelligence, competency and/or mental illness are to be decided by a “court, board, commission, or other lawful authority.” No medical qualifications or background in psychological sciences are specified as necessary for such lawful authorities.Read the full story here.

• Bill Clinton: Create Internet agency.(Politico).Bill Clinton doesn’t like all the misinformation and rumors floating on the Internet. And he thinks the United Nations or the U.S. government should create an agency to do something about it.“It would be a legitimate thing to do,” Clinton said in an interview airing Friday on CNBC.The agency, Clinton said, would “have to be totally transparent about where the money came from” and would have to be “independent” because “if it’s a government agency in a traditional sense, it would have no credibility whatever, particularly with a lot of the people who are most active on the internet.”“Let’s say the U.S. did it, it would have to be an independent federal agency that no president could countermand or anything else because people wouldn’t think you were just censoring the news and giving a different falsehood out,” Clinton said.“That is, it would be like, I don’t know, National Public Radio or BBC or something like that, except it would have to be really independent and they would not express opinions, and their mandate would be narrowly confined to identifying relevant factual errors” he said. “And also, they would also have to have citations so that they could be checked in case they made a mistake. Somebody needs to be doing it, and maybe it’s a worthy expenditure of taxpayer money.”At the same time, though, political figures in other countries “will be careful what they say to America’s representatives around the world for a while because they’ll have bad memories of the, you know, the leaked memo,” he said.Stressing the dangers of putting some information online, Clinton said that he and his wife keep hard copies of their living wills that can’t be tampered with.Hmmmm......."Bill Clinton doesn’t like all the misinformation and rumors floating on the Internet" one name:Monica Lewinsky.Read the full story here.

• Osama Bin Laden porn Movie titles released.Here.

• "Change" there was a time the best qualified got the job offer.Chicago Ordered to Hire 111 Black Firefighters.(NYTimes).CHICAGO — The City of Chicago must hire 111 black firefighter applicants who were passed over for jobs years ago and pay tens of millions of dollars in damages to about 6,000 other black candidates under a ruling issued on Friday by a federal appeals court. The decision from the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit is only the latest in a legal battle that began with a written employment test for firefighters more than a decade ago, wound its way to the United States Supreme Court by last year and remains a matter of division and concern among the city’s firefighters. “For some of the people involved, this is a very emotional moment,” said Joshua Karsh, a lawyer who represented black applicants who accused the city of employment discrimination. “The city could have cleared this up a long time ago.” In 1995, 26,000 people took an employment test to become firefighters. The city said anyone who had scored above 65 was considered “qualified,” but chose its initial hires from random sets among candidates who scored 89 or better, a group it deemed “highly qualified,” court documents say. But after complaints were filed, the city conceded that the 89-point cutoff created a “disparate impact” against black candidates — 6,000 of whom had gotten qualified scores — compared with white candidates, the documents show. The Supreme Court ruled 9-0 last year that despite claims by the city, the group of black job candidates had not waited too long to file its lawsuit. Still uncertain on Friday was precisely how the court’s decision would be carried out. Among the 6,000 black candidates who sought jobs, 111 of them — it is unclear for the moment which ones — will be given jobs after receiving physical tests and training. Those who do not seek the jobs will split back pay that would have gone to the 111 had they been hired years ago. Jennifer Hoyle of the Chicago Department of Law estimated that cost to be $30 million. Mr. Karsh said he expected that the amount would be larger.The costs come at a difficult time for the city, where some people are predicting a budget shortfall in the hundreds of millions of dollars next year. A spokesman for Rahm Emanuel, who is to be sworn in as mayor on Monday, declined to comment on the ruling.Hmmmm......The end of 'common sense as we know it'.Read the full story here.

• UN: Iran, N.Korea traded technology.(YNet).Diplomats say technology exchange, which violates UN sanctions, was enacted through China.North Korea and Iran appear to have been regularly exchanging ballistic missile technology in violation of UN sanctions, according to a confidential United Nations report obtained by Reuters on Saturday.The report also said that the illicit technology transfers had "trans-shipment through a neighbouring third country." That country was China, several diplomats told Reuters on condition of anonymity. The report was submitted to the UN Security Council by a UN Panel of Experts, a group that monitors compliance with UN sanctions imposed on Pyongyang after it conducted two nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009. The UN sanctions included a ban on trade in nuclear and missile technology with North Korea, as well as an arms embargo. The UN measures also banned trade with a number of North Korean firms and called for asset freezes and travel bans on a number of North Korean individuals. "Prohibited ballistic missile-related items are suspected to have been transferred between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) and the Islamic Republic of Iran on regular scheduled flights of Air Koryo and Iran Air," the report said.Several Security Council diplomats said that China was unhappy about the report. Beijing has prevented the publication of expert panel reports on North Korea and Sudan in the past. Earlier this week, Russia took similar steps to suppress an equally damning expert panel report on Iran.Hmmmm.....Sanctions that 'Byte"?Read the full story here.

• Tenerife beheading victim is retired female, British Norfolk County Council road safety officer.(edp.)Jennifer Mills-Westley, a retired Norfolk County Council road safety officer, was brutally killed whilst holidaying on the island.Her family paid tribute to her and said they were devastated by her death.Her daughter Sarah said: “Mum retired a number of years ago and was fully enjoying her retirement travelling between Tenerife and France where she spent time visiting her daughter and grandchildren, and her other daughter in Norfolk.“She was full of life, generous of heart, would do anything for anyone.“We now have to find a way of living without her love and light and we would ask at this difficult time for some privacy as we try to come to terms with our loss.”The 60-year-old was originally from Norwich, Norfolk, before retiring from her job as a road safety officer with Norfolk County Council and leaving the UK.A spokesman from Norfolk County Council said: Our deepest sympathies go to Jenny’s family and friends following this terrible news. “Jenny was a popular and well respected member of staff, who during her time with Norfolk County Council worked as a Road Safety Officer - working with many schools and children to teach cycling training and make Norfolk’s roads safer.”She had two daughters and five grandchildren.She died horrifically yesterday when a man attacked her in the Valdes shopping centre on Avenida Juan Carlos in Los Cristianos.Witnesses spoke of their horror and disbelief after she was stabbed and decapitated in a supermarket.The suspect, who was arrested. was named in reports as Deyan Valentinov D - with Spanish police only providing the first initial of his surname.He is believed to be 28 and a homeless Bulgarian with a police record.Police are investigating the man’s movements leading up to the killing and studying CCTV and witness statements to establish precisely what happened.The suspect was alleged to have carried Ms Mills-Westley’s head outside and was reportedly saying “God is on earth’’.Hmmmmm......Islam is the largest minority religion in Bulgaria. According to the 2001 Census 12.2% of the populationis Muslim.Most of the Muslims in Bulgaria are Sunni Muslims as Sunni Islam was the form of Islam promoted by the Ottoman Empire during their five-century rule of Bulgaria.Read the full story here.

• Is Bahrain the fuse in the Middle Eastern "Powderkeg"?Malaysia offers to send troops to Bahrain.(Al-Arabiya).Prime Minister Najib Razzak of Malaysia has offered to send his country’s troops as part of a peacekeeping force to help “de-escalate tension” in Bahrain. Mr. Razzak also backed Saudi Arabia’s efforts in resolving regional unrest, according to Agence-France Presse. Bahrain was rocked by protests in March when demonstrators took to the streets demanding greater personal liberties in the Shiite majority kingdom ruled by Sunnis.In March, at the request of the Bahrain government, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates sent their troops to quell the protests and restore calm. “Malaysia stands ready to contribute peacekeepers to Bahrain, if invited to do so by the leadership,” Mr. Razzak said in a statement late Friday following a meeting in Riyadh with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.“Malaysia will consider it a great honor to offer assistance in this noble effort,” the prime minister said.He said his country, where Malay Muslims dominate a population consisting also of Chinese and Tamils, “supported the national dialogue process launched by Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al-Khalifa in a bid to de-escalate tension in the country,” reported the AFP.Hmmmm.....Something tells me this will just escalate.Read the full story here.

• According to Al-Jazeera Bahrain is targeting Shia religious sites.(Al-Jazeera). The Bahraini government has destroyed a number of mosques in continuation of its aggressive crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, a special Al Jazeera investigation has revealed.At least 28 mosques and Shia religious institutions have been destroyed in the Gulf state since the crackdown on Shia-led protests began in Mid-March, the opposition group, Al Wefaq, told Al Jazeera's Charles Stratford.The Justice Ministry, however, said it was tearing down the mosques because they were not licensed."It is a war against identity," one man told our correspondent. "This Sunni government of Bahrain is fighting the Shia, destroying their places of worship and holy places."Adel Al-Moawda, deputy chairman of the Bahraini parliament, denied the report that mosques were being destroyed."The mosques that have been demolished, most of them are not mosques," Al-Moawda told Al Jazeera. "There were only expansions of mosques in some private territories. Very few numbers of mosques, which are illegally built, have been demolished."He said Sunni mosques were also among these few that had been demolished. "What is happening in Bahrain now ... everybody is following the law and order, that is all," he added.Earlier, Al Jazeera revealed that medics who worked to assist wounded protesters have been targeted, with hundreds facing arrest and investigation by the regime.Bahraini police also carried out raids on girls' schools, detaining and beating them, during its crackdown, secret filming by Al Jazeera's Stratford revealed.The government denied this report. "The allegations made by Al Jazeera English are totally baseless and without credibility," sources quoted by the Bahraini news agency said.Al-Moawda repeated the denial, saying "there is a big exaggeration in some of what I have just heard now about torturing doctors and nurses".Hmmmm....."We must cut off the head of the snake"?Read the full story here.

• Arabian Gulf or is it Persian Gulf?Prominent UAE businessman urges UN to identify the Gulf as Arab.(Al-Arabiya).If prominent UAE businessman Khalaf al-Habtoor has his way semantics will be the next battleground in escalating tensions between Iran and the Gulf states.Mr. Habtoor has asked United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and his Arab League and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) counterparts, Amr Moussa and Abdullatif Al-Zayani, in a letter obtained by Al Arabiya to officially refer to the Gulf as the Arabian Gulf.In making his request, Mr. Habtoor appears to be seeking to rekindle a long-standing dispute between Iran and the Gulf states over the correct reference to the region. The dispute has persuaded much of the world over the years in deference to the controversy to back away from calling the region the Persian Gulf and instead simply referring to it as the Gulf.Mr. Habtoor argued in his letter that reference to the region as the Persian Gulf was obsolete. “I think most members of the council agree about this,” he wrote. “We rely on present facts and realities that reflect history. The vast majority of Gulf people are Arabs, both from the Arab countries overlooking the Arab Gulf or from the areas controlled by Iran,” he added in a reference to the Iranian province of Khuzestan that is predominantly populated by Iranians of Arab origin.Mr. Habtoor’s proposal is likely to be politely rejected by Mr. Ban. The United Nations has enough Middle Eastern issues on its plate, including Iran’s nuclear development and the brutal suppression of anti-government protests in various Arab states, to want to take on another hot potato.GCC leaders like Mr. Habtoor are well aware that terminology in the Middle East almost always reflects a political view. If the identification of the Gulf is controversial so is the naming of Palestinians territories: to Palestinians the West Bank is occupied territory and part of Palestine; to many Israelis it’s Yehuda and Samaria, names that indicate that Israel too has Biblical claims to the land.As a result, GCC leaders despite their charges that Iran instigated the turmoil in Bahrain and ran a spy ring in Kuwait may not want to expand their dispute into the realm of semantics.In his letter, Mr. Habtoor argues, however, that that is the very reason why the GCC should take semantic action. It would constitute a response to “Iranian ambitions that exceed the bounds of reason,” he says. Mr. Habtoor argued that identifying the Gulf as Arab was “necessary to confront Iranian ambitions and reveal some truths and intentions of Iran to control the region and interfere in Arab countries’ domestic affairs and damage their social fabric.”Mr. Habtoor’s suggestion certainly taps into a widespread emotion across the Gulf. Yet, if adopted, it is unlikely to persuade Iran to change its views or policies. If anything, it would spark a war of words that would more likely than not clutter debate about the real issues that divide Iran and the Gulf states. The Gulf has sufficient burning issues that need to be resolved and is better off without distractions that may produce a feel good effect but no real solution.Hmmmm......The 'ball' is now in the Iranian camp.Ahmadinejad speech in 3....2....1?Read the full story here.

• Erdogans buddy and 'reformer' Assad breaks promises as more blood of pro-democracy protesters is spilled in Syria.(Al-Arabiya).President Bashar al-Assad of Syria keeps on breaking his promises to be conciliatory as more pro-democracy protesters fall dead because of the authoritarian regime’s brutal crackdown. On Saturday, fresh blood was spilled in the western border town of Tall Kalakh, close to Lebanon. A witness told Agence-France Presse that troops fired into a swarm of demonstrators, killing three people and wounding several others.“The security forces, who had been encircling Tall Kalakh since the morning, fired machineguns. At least three people were killed and several were wounded,” the witness told AFP.On Friday, at least six people were killed in protests in cities of Homs, Damascus and Deraa on Friday.A leading human rights activist told the Associated Press that three people were killed in Homs, two in Damascus and one in a village outside Deraa, the southern city where the revolt began two months ago.“At first they opened fire in the air, but the people continued on their way, and then they shot directly into the crowd,” an eyewitness said by telephone from Homs.Activist Louay Hussein said President Assad’s adviser Bouthaina Shaaban told him in a phone call on Thursday that “definitive presidential orders have been issued not to shoot demonstrators and whoever violates this will bear full responsibility.”Mr. Hussein was among four opposition figures that saw Ms. Shaaban this month and presented demands that included an end to violent repression of protesters and the introduction of political reform in the country, ruled by the Assad family since 1970, according to Reuters.The meetings were the first between the opposition and senior officials since demonstrations calling for political freedom and an end to corruption erupted in the southern city of Deraa on March 18.“I hope we will see (no firing at demonstrators) tomorrow. I still call for non-violent form of any protest regardless of the response of the security apparatus,” Mr. Hussein said in a statement sent to Reuters.Read the full story here.

• Woman held for wearing 'tight' pants ... even under a gown.(Emirates247).Police ran after woman to arrest her as she walked in a park in Dammam.Saudi Arabia’s most feared Islamic police arrested a woman while she was doing a walking exercise with tight pants worn under her gown, a local newspaper reported on Saturday.Members of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice stopped the woman as she was doing her regular exercise in a park in the eastern town of Dammam.“At first she ignored them when they shouted to her to stop,” Sharq Arabic language daily said. “They then ran after her and arrested her for wearing a tight pants under her gown.”Hmmmmm........Feel free to fill in the dots,it's getting beyond words!Read the full story here.

• Cairo, take two: Chairman President Obama to deliver second major Middle East speech.(DailyCaller).The president will deliver a second major speech on the Middle East to reset his foreign policy following the changes that have swept through the region since his much-lauded June 2009 Cairo speech.The contents of the planned Thursday speech are being closely held by administration officials, who only offer generalities, both off and on the record. “I’m sure that it will be a fairly sweeping and comprehensive speech about what we’ve all been privileged enough to witness since January,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said Friday. “I’m not going to say too much because I obviously want the president to have the field,” he added.The timing of Obama’s address is puzzling, because turmoil in the Arab countries — dubbed “the Arab Spring” — may rapidly invalidate any speech, said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the president of the GOP-affiliated American Action Forum, a libertarian-minded think-tank. “We’re still in spring, we’re not even in summer — why do you really want to talk in the middle of that?”The rapid pace of change was underlined Friday, when the president’s envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations resigned, citing personal reasons. The envoy, former Sen. George Mitchell, announced he was stepping down shortly before the president’s scheduled meeting with Israel’s visiting prime minister.The president is the chief author of the policies and words that will go into the the speech, which is to be delivered at the U.S. Department of State, said administration officials.He “has really been the central intellectual force in these decisions, in many cases, designing the approaches,” Thomas E. Donilon, the White House’s national security adviser, told the New York Times. The same article reported that the president “often surfs the blogs of experts on Arab affairs or regional news sites to get a local flavor for events … [and] has sounded out prominent journalists like Fareed Zakaria of Time magazine and CNN and Thomas L. Friedman … [and] ordered staff members to study transitions in 50 to 60 countries.”The president should use his official staff to gather needed information, said Holtz-Eakin, who served as director of the Congressional Budget Office from 2003 to 2005. “That’s why they’re there. [He should] ask them, and they’ll go find out,” he said.Obama’s emphasis on his personal role creates political risks. For example, Obama overrode his advisers and pushed for the resignation of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in February, partly because he wanted to aid Westernized activists, including Google executive Wael Ghonim, the New York Times’ report said. But Ghonim has since been sidelined by the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood group, and has signed a contract to write a book.Hmmmm....Sounds pretty dictatorial to me ...one man deciding a country it's future?Chairman Obama hasn't done such a good job so far,what's the next Obamination recognising the Palestinian state?Read the full story here.

• U.S. imams arrested for alleged Pakistani Taliban links.Miami (CNN) -- Two South Florida imams and a third family member were arrested Saturday on charges of providing support to the Pakistani Taliban, the Justice Department said.In addition, three others in Pakistan were also indicted on the same charges.FBI agents arrested Hafiz Khan and his son Izhar Khan in South Florida, the department said. They are expected to make their initial court appearance in federal court on Monday.Another of Hafiz Khan's sons, Irfan Khan, was arrested in Los Angeles and will appear in court there.Also charged are three Pakistani residents: Ali Rehman, Alam Zeb, and Amina Khan. Amina Khan is Hafiz Khan's daughter, and Zeb is his grandson.The four-count indictment alleges that all six defendants conspired to provide material support to a conspiracy to kill, injure and kidnap people abroad, and that they provided support to the Pakistani Taliban.Hafiz Khan is the imam at Flagler Mosque in Miami. Izhar Khan, is an imam at the Jamaat Al-Mu'mineen Mosque in Margate, Florida."Despite being an imam, or spiritual leader, Hafiz Khan was by no means a man of peace. Instead, as today's charges show, he acted with others to support terrorists to further acts of murder, kidnapping and maiming," U.S. Attorney Wilfredo A. Ferrer said. "But for law enforcement intervention, these defendants would have continued to transfer funds to Pakistan to finance the Pakistani Taliban, including its purchase of guns."The indictment describes a number of occasions where Hafiz Khan transferred money to Pakistan, and where money was withdrawn once there."Khan solicited and distributed funds for the Pakistani Taliban, both personally and on behalf of others, and worked with the co-defendants and others to support the Pakistani Taliban's jihad," the indictment states.The elder Khan also built a madrassa in Pakistan's Swat Valley that provided shelter for the terrorist group, the indictment states.The Pakistani Taliban represent a confederation of Taliban groups in northwestern Pakistan, where they are based, said Bill Roggio, military-affairs analyst who is managing editor of The Long War Journal.Those fighters attack targets in Pakistan and across the border in Afghanistan.The group, which is headquartered in Quetta, is different from the Afghan Taliban, which has been focused on re-establishing the Islamic Emirate in Afghanistan.Both groups swear allegiance to Taliban leader Mullah Omar and have close ties to al Qaeda, he said.Hmmmm....Two years After the Cairo speech the Middle East is even more negative towards the US than before!No More 'outreach'.Read the full story here.

• Russian sects: from Rasputin to the 'Jesus of Siberia'.(Telegraph).Russia has spawned a number of bizarre sects since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union as ordinary Russians have struggled to make the transition from state-sponsored atheism to a society where the Russian Orthodox Church is again in the ascendancy.Experts say there are as many as 700 sects in Russia attracting between 600,000 to 800,000 followers. The latest sect to make the headlines is an all-female group, which believes that Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister, is a reincarnation of early Christian missionary Paul the apostle. Read the full story here.

• Cops increase security for Bintan bikini beach party.(JakartaPost).Police will deploy extra security measures for a so-called Bikini Beach Party on Bintan in Riau.Islands on Saturday that will be broadcast by Fashion TV, following protests from hard-line Muslim groups.Police said the theme of the event did not violate the anti-pornography law as alleged by opponents.Bintan Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Dwi Sulistiyono told The Jakarta Post on Friday that the event, which would be held at the Nirwana Garden Resort in the Lagoi International Tourism Zone, would go on as scheduled.“In response to objections by a number of groups, the police will increase security for this events,” Dwi said.He added that it was normal for people to wear bikinis on the beach.“Furthermore, we were told that the event is not open to the public. The large signboards [advertising the party] are just to enliven the event,” he said.Dwi added 100 police officers would be deployed at the event.The head of the Riau Islands branch of the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI), Tengku Azhari Abbas, told the Post on Thursday that the MUI was shocked to learn the event would be held on Bintan, despite the fact that the ethnic Malays in Bintan and the Riau Islands are mainly Muslim.He claimed the event would have a negative effect on the public, so the MUI was strongly opposed to it.Event organizers expressed confidence the event would take place as scheduled despite the protests. They said the exclusive nature of the venue was added value as it prevented disturbances.Event organizers expressed confidence the event would take place as scheduled despite the protests. They said the exclusive nature of the venue was added value as it prevented disturbances.Nirwana Garden Resort general affairs and administrative director Anton told the Post that those invited to the event had been told the dress code was white bikinis.Fashion TV booked all 400 rooms at the Nirwana Garden Resort. The event is expected to draw 800 people. Fashion TV had requested a venue that could hold 1,000 guests.“All the rooms are fully booked for tomorrow’s event. Guests who are not accommodated here can stay in other resorts in Lagoi,” Anton said.Read the full story here.