MFS - The Other News

                       Afternoon  Posting.

• Syria Live Blog - May 23. Here .(Al-Jazeera).

• Libya Live Blog - May 23. Here (Al-Jazeera).

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity in Japan  today 5.8  ! More info here.

• Japan - Latest official Situation Update No. 117..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. 6  -Source :Here .

• Joe Biden Does Not Applaud After Netanyahu Says Jerusalem Will Not Be Divided.Hmmm......Must obey Obama?Or doesn't approve and recognise autority of US Congress?Read and see the full story here.

• Transcript of Prime Minister Netanyahu's address to U.S. Congress. Here.

• Rumsfeld’s “Parade of Horribles” Released.(FedRaw)Read the "Horrible Naked truth" Here.

• Nato operations in Libya: "Kinetic" US Operations Still the largest chunk. (Guardian).Data journalism breaks down which country does what.Here's the most comprehensive analysis yet of who is doing what.What we got back provides a unique insight into the division of labour in an operation costing millions of dollars and tying up thousands of personnel - nearly 13,000 across 18 countries.What it shows is that, besides the US - which dominates operations with over 8,000 personnel in the area in several ships and aircraft at the peak of the first weeks of the war - the weight of the conflict has fallen on the British, Italians, French and Canadians. The British have flown around 1,300 sorties, some 25% of the total, followed by the French with 1,200 and the Italians with 600. The Canadians, who have the HMCS Charllottetown in the region, have taken part in over 350 sorties up to the 5 May this year.Simultaneously, the US, UK, Canada are heavily involved in combat operations in Afghanistan.Hmmmm.......Obama regime still doesn't need Congress.Read and see the full story here.

• The 'Ghosts' made me do it works as defence in 'Dishonor ' stabbing at the UK?(DailyMail). 'Possessed' teenager who stabbed her own mother five times is allowed to walk free after judge accepts she 'has strong spiritual beliefs'.A student who stabbed her mother five times said she was 'possessed' by her grandmother has been allowed by a judge to walk free from court.Teenager Lorraine Mbulawa was convicted of unlawful wounding after stabbing her mother as she slept in her bed in Braunstone Firth, Leicester.The 19-year-old was released when Mr Justice Keith accepted her arguments that her beliefs in witchcraft and evil led her to carry out the act.Despite being stabbed five times, Mbulawa's mother, Sisbsisiwe, did not blame her for what she did because they both believe in the occult.In delivering his sentence at Leeds Crown Court, the judge said: 'She believed spirits can enter the body and make you do things that otherwise you would not have done.'Her beliefs could have made her think she was possessed by evil spirits at the time.'The jury cleared the A-level student of attempted murder during a trial at Leicester Crown Court earlier this year but she was convicted of the lesser charge of unlawful wounding.Justice Keith added: 'In convicting Lorraine of unlawful wounding the jury must be treated as having rejected her claim of being in a dissociative state.When she took to the stand to talk about the events of May 13, 2009, Mbulawa said: 'I had a dream that seemed a bit real. It was my grandma and dad's youngest sister, Charlotte. Like they were right at the foot of my bed.'My grandmother said my mother was responsible for the death of my father Prosecutor James House said: 'Her mother has expressed a belief in the power of spirits common in the culture of Zimbabwe.'Had it happened there, her daughter would have been treated by a medicine man and would have been exorcised.'Psychiatrists said that Mbulawa was of sound mind and she was handed a 12 month custodial sentence suspended for 18 months along with 120 hours community service.Justice Keith added: I believe she's a young woman with much going for her. She struck me as being unusually confident and assured, also not unintelligent with a degree of charm and poise.'She is someone who is capable of possibly paving a good life for themselves.'Lorraine believes she was doing what the spirits told her to do which reduced her culpability significantly.'and I had to do the honourable thing to my father by killing my mother.'Hmmmm....So 'Dishonor' stabbings are allowed in the UK?Read the full story here.

• An Anti-Israel President .The president's peace proposal is a formula for war.(WSJ).Say what you will about President Obama's approach to Israel—or of his relationship with American Jews—he sure has mastered the concept of chutzpah. On Thursday at the State Department, the president gave his big speech on the Middle East, in which he invoked the claims of friendship to tell Israelis "the truth," which to his mind was that "the status quo is unsustainable, and Israel too must act boldly to advance a lasting peace." On Friday in the Oval Office, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered his version of the truth, which was that the 1967 border proposed by Mr. Obama as a basis for negotiating the outlines of a Palestinian state was a nonstarter. Administration reaction to this reciprocal act of friendly truth-telling? "That was Bibi over the top," the New York Times quoted one senior U.S. official, using the prime minister's nickname. "That's not how you address the president of the United States."Maybe so. Then again, it isn't often that this or any other U.S. president welcomes a foreign leader by sandbagging him with an adversarial policy speech a day before the visit. Remember when the Dalai Lama visited Mr. Obama last year? As a courtesy to Beijing, the president made sure to have the Tibetan spiritual leader exit by the door where the White House trash was piled up. And that was 11 months before Hu Jintao's state visit to the U.S.When this president wants to make a show of his exquisite diplomatic sensitivity—burgers with Medvedev, bows to Abdullah, New Year's greetings to the mullahs—he knows how. And when he wants to show his contempt, he knows how, too.The contempt was again on display Sunday, when Mr. Obama spoke to the Aipac policy conference in Washington. The speech was stocked with the perennial bromides about U.S.-Israeli friendship, which brought an anxious crowd to its feet a few times. As for the rest, it was a thin tissue of falsehoods, rhetorical legerdemain, telling omissions and self-contradictions. Let's count the ways.For starters, it would be nice if the president could come clean about whether his line about the 1967 line—"mutually agreed swaps" and all—was pathbreaking and controversial, or no big deal. On Sunday, Mr. Obama congratulated himself for choosing the hard road to Mideast peace as he prepares for re-election, only to offer a few minutes later that "there was nothing particularly original in my proposal."Yet assuming Mr. Obama knows what he's talking about, he knows that's untrue: No U.S. president has explicitly endorsed the '67 lines as the basis for negotiating a final border, which is why the University of Michigan's Juan Cole, not exactly a shill for the Israel lobby, called it "a major turning point."And then there was that line that "we will hold the Palestinians accountable for their actions and their rhetoric." Applause! But can Mr. Obama offer a single example of having done that as president, except perhaps at the level of a State Department press release?What, then, would a pro-Israel president do? He would tell Palestinians that there is no right of return. He would make the reform of the Arab mindset toward Israel the centerpiece of his peace efforts. He would outline hard and specific consequences should Hamas join the government. Such a vision could lay the groundwork for peace. What Mr. Obama offered is a formula for war, one that he will pursue in a second term. Assuming, of course, that he gets one. Hmmmm......The Most Anti - Jewish President Evah!Read the full story here.

• Is this why Obama fled to Europe?EU Backs Obama's Mideast Offensive.(Spiegel).The European Union is backing US President Obama's call for a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders, Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn says in an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE. He also argues that, if the Israelis remain stubborn, the EU must consider taking political action.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Netanyahu has said that Abbas must choose between a peace with Hamas and a peace with Israel.

Asselborn: This is not about an either-or choice. The plan is that the transitional government should sit down with the Israelis as soon as possible to negotiate a two-state solution. In this way, Fayyad wants to prevent a vote at the United Nations General Assembly in September on the unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state. If Abbas negotiates with Israel and Hamas is part of this transitional government, then Israel will implicitly recognize it.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Should the European Union hold talks with Hamas?

Asselborn: Four years ago, when the first attempts at reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas took place, I harbored reservations myself. Today, I ask myself if it was a mistake not to have provided stronger support for reconciliation at the time. I can understand that it requires a lot of strength to sit down at the table with people who only promote violence. But time hasn't stood still. We need to make an attempt to draw Hamas into a democratic process and bring it on to the path of freedom -- just as we succeeded in doing with Fatah during the 1990s. That would also include informal talks with Hamas.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Israel is not alone in demanding that Hamas forswear the use of violence. The Middle East Quartet, of which the EU is a member, is also calling for that.

Asselborn: And that's a position we Europeans are going to maintain. Still, you can't just put conditions on the Palestinian side, as they're not the only source of the violence. Israel has turned the Gaza Strip into a prison. There, 1.7 million people live in an area one-seventh the size of Luxembourg. To shut its borders and to only allow certain goods into the country and hardly any out -- this is also a form of violence. In the West Bank, Israelis continue to build settlements on expropriated land. It is a constant provocation.

 SPIEGEL ONLINE: Can the Europeans really exercise any pressure anyway? It seems like Israel can only really be influenced by its most important ally, the United States.

Asselborn: Obama is saying and doing the right thing. But there will be elections next year in the United States, and experience tells us that, in such situations, American presidential candidates grow less bold about taking a stance against the Israeli government. The pro-Israel lobby in the United States is very strong. We Europeans aren't exposed to the same amount of pressure. Hmmmm......So Europe would negociate with Hamas,does the Obama regime think the same way?Read the full story here.

• You got to be kidding!Iranian Lawmaker: Iran Will Create Data Bank Of Western Human Rights Violations.(Memri).Iranian Majlis Human Rights Committee chair Zohreh Elahian says that Iran is planning to create a data bank for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to help them investigate rights violations in the West. Ms. Elahian said yesterday that human rights violations in the U.S. and some European countries, such as Britain, are grave and cannot go unnoticed. She also called on Iranian NGOs to bring human rights abuse in the West into sharp focus. On May 16, member of the Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Mohammad Karim Abedi said that Iran plans to launch an English-language news agency to assert human rights in the West. Hmmmm....Perhaps they should rehearse by taking down the names of all people in prison and hanged in Iran?Read the full story here.

• Saudi Macho-Male Facebook Effort To Deter Women From Driving As Women Wage Another Campaign To Get Behind The Wheel.(Memri).Some 4,861 participants on the social network site Facebook vowed to physically beat men and women who support Saudi women driving their own four wheels. The anonymous founder of the Facebook page urged his male counterparts to use "all they can to stop women from driving," including the "Igal." "Igal" is the thick black-circled wiring that holds the usually white-red checkered scarf "Ghutra" which mainly Gulf Arabs don.The macho Facebook "Igal" campaign was formed to denounce a women-led Facebook campaign entitled "I will drive my car," which attracted 11,500 participants. Manal al-Sherif re-ignited the women rights to drive again, when she posted last week on YouTube a video of herself behind the wheel in the eastern city of Khobar. Saudi authorities have re-arrested her for defying the ban on female drivers in the conservative kingdom. Her YouTube video received 500,000 viewers as of yesterday.She was accused of "violating public order," and ordered held for five days while the case is investigated, an official said. In the macho campaign’s Facebook page, its founder used a picture of a man beating a fully covered woman with the "Igal." Presumably, that photograph was staged.Hmmmm......Welcome to A.D 620 revisited?Read the full story here.

• Related - Prominent Saudi Sheikh: Saudi Women Who Want To Drive Deserve Death.(Memri).Prominent Saudi Sheikh Dr. Abd Al-Rahman Al-Barak has called on women who plan to drive their cars on June 17 to change their minds and to stop the "I'll Drive My Car Myself" campaign on Facebook. He said that the Saudi women demanding to drive deserve death.Read the full story here.

• Soon Polygamy allowed in future hardline Islamic Iran Turkey? (HurriyetDaily).A family consultant and life coach who conducts seminars on inter-family communication for Istanbul municipalities has suggested legalizing polygamy, citing both secular and religious arguments in support of her position.  “A man looks for friendship, sexuality, motherhood and good housekeeping qualities in a woman. Unless you possess these attributes, you ought to be ready for being cheated upon. This is a righteous search for a man,” said 35-year-old Sibel Üresin, who has worked for the largely conservative municipalities of Fatih, Ümraniye, Bahçelievler and Eyüp, among others. “A healthy woman who analyzes what she will have to go through in the case of a divorce should, in my opinion, consider polygamy as a form of salvation.”Polygamy is already a fact of life because 85 percent of men already cheat anyway, according to Üresin. In conservative sections of Turkish society, this is referred to as an “imam-wed wife” and is called a mistress by other parts of society, Üresin said.“Rich men with solid careers and lots of sexual power can sometimes choose polygamy. No woman would ever become the second wife of a poor man. Men go after women who are more flirtatious, laugh more and who can satisfy them sexually. If I were a man, I would have been polygamous,” said Üresin, arguing that legalizing polygamy would empower women who are already engaged in polygamous marriages.Men can have up to four wives according to many interpretations of Islam, yet these wives have no legal rights in Turkey, according to Üresin, who added that legalizing polygamy would entitle such wives to their husband’s property.“Polygamy exists in our religion. Not everyone can do it, but you cannot ask someone why they did it; that amounts to polytheism. It is written in the Quran,” Üresin said.Hmmmm.......Keep Turkey out of the European Union!Read the full story here.

• Turkish Islamic hardliners preparing to crack down on the Internet. (HurriyetDaily).Turkish gov't to sit down with NGOs over Internet filtering.Representatives of nongovernmental organizations and government agencies will meet Wednesday to discuss a controversial plan to institute mandatory Internet filtering throughout Turkey following large civil-society protests against the proposal.“There will be broad participation at the meeting. We will talk about the future of the ‘Safe Internet’ application that will kick off in August based on a decision made by the BTK [Information Communication Technologies Authority] on Feb. 22,” said Serhat Özeren, the president of the Transportation Ministry’s Internet Council.“We invited civil-society organizations and particularly academics who expressed unfavorable views in the press concerning this application,” Özeren said, adding that representatives from all walks of life were invited to the conference to help generate a common public opinion on the issue.The meeting, which will bring around 60 people together at Istanbul’s Bilgi University, was organized based on a suggestion by former Transportation Minister Binali Yıldırım.A lawyer for a popular website said he did not have big expectations for the meeting, noting that the BTK had never asked for public opinion before making the filtering decision.“The Internet board did not even gather before such an important decision was made,” Başak Purut, a lawyer for Ekşisözlük.com, told the Hürriyet Daily News. He added that the meeting Wednesday would not have been called had thousands not gathered in Istanbul’s Taksim Square to protest the filtering announcement.“In my opinion, the only reason to organize such a meeting is to create a perception that the officials want to listen to NGOs,” Purut said.The European Commission has warned Turkey that it is keeping an eye on the filtering plans, something Purut said is very important, noting that Europe is taking the issue seriously. He claimed that the Turkish government will likely make small changes just for show without canceling the filtering system itself, just as it lifted a ban on the popular video-sharing website YouTube.com ahead of the release of an EU progress report.Filtering has already begun at Internet cafes with no notice, Purut claimed. “More than 1.2 million websites could not be visited, although the sites did not include undesirable content,” he added.Lawyers representing Facebook, Google and eksisozluk.com will take part in the conference, as will technology editors from newspapers and representatives from Internet media.Hmmmmm.....Welcome to Turkey ....Iranian A.D. 620 version.Read the full story here.

• Thousands flee North Sudan's Muslim violence in South Sudan’s Abyei region,Meanwhile Turkey opens a hospital and medical center in North Sudan.(Todayszaman). More than 15,000 people have fled Sudan’s Abyei region to Agok in the south after the northern army seized the disputed area, United Nations officials said on Tuesday.North Sudan’s army moved tanks into the main town of the oil-producing border region after weeks of tensions, leading to looting and burning by armed groups that forced residents to flee, UN officials said. South Sudan said the seizure of Abyei was a ploy by Khartoum to provoke war and derail secession by the oil-rich south, due in July. Southerners voted to split from the north in a January referendum agreed under a 2005 peace deal. North Sudan says it sent in troops to clear out southern soldiers who it said had broken agreements by entering the area.UN spokeswoman Hua Jiang in Sudan’s southern city of Juba said around 20,000 people had arrived in or around Agok, a town just across the border. Other UN officials put the number of refugees at more than 15,000. “We cannot give exact figures,” said Jiang, adding that a UN team was still trying to assess the situation.The UN said a team of its experts and aid groups visited Agok on Monday to assess the situation and estimate the number of refugees there, but gunfire erupted in the town while they were meeting local officials and the mission was cut short. Khartoum has defied calls by the UN Security Council and world powers to withdraw its forces from Abyei, which also has fertile grazing land.Hmmmm.....It's nice to see that so called NATO ally Turkey supports Muslims committing violence on Christians.Read the full story here