MFS - The Other News

Morning Posting.

• Syria Live Blog - May 12. Here .(Al-Jazeera).

• Libya Live Blog - May 11. Here (Al-Jazeera).

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity in Japan today 4.8 activity. More info here.

• Japan - Latest official Situation Update No. 105.
  On 12.05.2011 at 07:07 GMT+2
  
  Fuel rods in the No. 1 reactor at Japan's crippled nuclear power plant may have melted after being fully exposed, the plant's operator told the Kyodo news agency on Thursday. Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) said water levels in the damaged reactor where far lower than was earlier thought. "Based on the latest data after workers adjusted gauges for measuring the water level at the reactor, water could not be confirmed inside the pressure vessel at a point 5 meters below where the top of the 4-meter-long fuel rods normally are," Kyodo cited the utility as saying. The fuel rods are now being cooled by water at the bottom of the pressure vessel. The plant was badly damaged in a powerful earthquake and tsunami that struck of the northeast coast of Japan on March 11. More than 15,000 died in the twin disaster, and some 10,000 are still unaccounted for.
  
  Situation Update No. 107 - On 12.05.2011 at 06:54 GMT+2.
  
  The operator of Japan's stricken Fukushima nuclear plant reported new problems Thursday, including a water leak from a reactor vessel and another spill of contaminated water into the ocean. The update by Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) came as emergency crews have been battling to bring the tsunami-hit and radiation-leaking plant into stable "cold shutdown" some time between October and January. The giant ocean wave triggered by the March 11 magnitude-9.0 seabed quake knocked out the plant's water cooling systems, leading fuel rods inside several of the reactor cores to partially melt down. Pressure and temperature build-ups have triggered a series of explosions, and workers have since doused the reactors and fuel rod pools with water to stop them from overheating and releasing greater amounts of radiation.
  
  TEPCO on Thursday said new measurements taken this week, after workers in protective suits fixed gauges in the badly-hit reactor one building, indicated that water pumped into the pressure vessel had quickly leaked out. The water level inside had fallen below the bottom of the four-metre (12 foot) long fuel rods, suggesting they had been exposed to the air, increasing the risk of a dangerous full meltdown. However, the vessel's relatively low outside temperature of 100-120 degrees Celsius (212-248 degrees Fahrenheit) indicated that the rods had dropped to the bottom of the vessel and were under water there, TEPCO said. "The temperature of the pressure vessel was 100-120 degrees, which is considered to be the level where the fuel rods are being cooled down in a relatively stable manner," a TEPCO official told said. TEPCO has been injecting around seven tons of water per hour into the reactor one pressure vessel and also plans to flood the wider containment vessel around it to cool down the entire system. The dousing operations -- in which tens of thousands of tons of water have been injected with fire trucks, concrete boom pumps and other pumping systems -- have created massive amounts of highly contaminated runoff water.
  
  TEPCO has struggled to stop spills into the Pacific Ocean but reported another one on Thursday, saying water had leaked into the sea from a concrete pit near reactor three, one of the plant's six units. Samples of seawater taken near the plant contained caesium-134 at a concentration 18,000 times the permitted level, the utility said, adding that the spill had been stopped by filling the pit with concrete. TEPCO spokesman Yoshinori Mori said: "Today we have continued to investigate the route of the leakage into sea and why it happened." Top government spokesman Yukio Edano called the leak "deplorable" and apologised to the fishing industry and to neighbouring countries.
  
  Situation Update No. 106 - On 11.05.2011 at 19:00 GMT+2
  
  Tokyo Electric Power on Wednesday announced it had patched a newly discovered rupture permitting radiation-tainted water to flow into the Pacific Ocean from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan, Kyodo News reported. Significantly contaminated fluid was moving into a depression near the facility's No. 3 reactor, Reuters quoted a representative of the plant's operator as saying on Wednesday. The spokesman at the time said testing was being done to determine whether any radiation-tainted liquid was reaching the ocean. Workers are battling to prevent further radiation releases from the six-reactor site, which was severely damaged in the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that left more than 20,000 people dead or missing in Japan. Personnel again entered the plant's No. 1 reactor containment building on Tuesday to work toward achieving a cold shutdown of the reactor, the Asahi Shimbun reported. In cold shutdown, nuclear fuel rods within reactors are submerged in water that is kept under 100 degrees Celsius, curbing additional overheating and releases of radiation.
  
  Personnel on Tuesday prepared a system to verify water readings taken at the site's pressure container. The plant operator said impaired monitoring equipment had prevented it from determining how much coolant had moved into the reactor's pressure container. The system had received 9,911 tons of fluid as of midnight on Monday. "In order to confirm whether work is being carried out under safe conditions, having the water and pressure gauges operating properly and accurately knowing the condition of the core, is indispensable," a Tokyo Electric Power spokesman said. Separately, workers started an examination of pipelines expected to be linked to a heat removal apparatus. Inside the plant's No. 3 reactor, a remote-controlled camera recorded footage of debris covering the system's fuel rods, the London Telegraph reported. The reactor's fuel, though, might not have been significantly harmed, according to specialists. In the Netherlands, officials intercepted five of 19 containers from Japan that were found to be contaminated with radioactive material, Kyodo News reported.Source : Here .

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

• Will Obama stab Netanyahu again in the back ?(DougRoss).Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to speak to Congress at the invitation of (Republican) Speaker Boehner. He will make his address on May 24. Netanyahu was expected to present new Israeli proposals to get the “peace process” back on track, but that was before the terrorist organization Hamas remarried the “moderate” group Fatah. Now the pressure is off and Israeli political sources say Netanyahu sees no need “to outline any far-reaching peace proposals.”Where does that leave Obama? The White House signaled that Obama would deliver a major address on Middle East policy "fairly soon." According to a senior administration official, Obama will meet the Israeli Prime Minister at (the front door of?...) the White House on May 22 and is considering giving his speech before he leaves on a trip to Europe early in the week of May 22.You do the scheduling. Is Obama so obsessed with backing Israel into a corner that he’ll buck both protocol and political prudence to publicly contradict a head of state, an ally and a guest of Congress just two days before Netanyahu’s remarks? This should be interesting, and we’ll soon find out.Hmmmm....No doubt in my mind what 'Hussein' will do.Stab and run the hell away leaving others with the mess.Read the full story here.

• Two (Muslim) Men Arrested in New York Terror Case.(NYTimes).Two men who the authorities said intended to carry out a terrorist attack in New York City were arrested late Wednesday, two law enforcement officials said. Details were not immediately available, and the identities of the men were not released. A law enforcement source characterized the suspects as “homegrown,” and another said they were of North African descent. The case was being prosecuted by the Manhattan district attorney’s office, and law enforcement officials said the men were expected to be charged under New York State’s terrorism law. It was unclear what had prompted the arrests, which, officials said, were made by the Police Department’s Intelligence Division. The F.B.I.-N.Y.P.D. Joint Terrorism Task Force, made up of police detectives and federal agents, chose not to become involved, the officials said. There has been a history of tension between the police and the F.B.I., though it was unclear if that played a role in this case. Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, did not return calls about the case. An F.B.I. spokesman and a spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office declined to comment.Hmmmmm......Read the full story here.

• Related - Two (Muslim) Men Arrested Over Alleged Synagogue Plot in New York.(FOX).Two Americans have been arrested by New York City police for allegedly plotting to attack a synagogue in the New York area, Fox News has learned.One source described the case as the latest example of “homegrown” radicalization. The two men were identified as Mohammad Mamdouh, of Moroccan descent, and Ahmed Serhani, of Algerian descent.Serhani allegedly made a general statement about wanting to attack a synagogue –- though no specific synagogue was mentioned, according to initial information obtained by Fox News. With a history of drug dealing, Serhani was hoping to make enough money to purchase weapons and possibly explosives for the attack, one source said.The plan, however, apparently never became operational, and the pair never acquired weapons for it, the source said.Serhani and Mamdouh are now being charged under a New York State terrorism law. Federal authorities usually prosecute terrorism-related offenses, but they declined to do so in this case.The New York Times and WNBC-TV report that the Manhattan District Attorney's Office plans to release further details about the men later Thursday.New York City police have been on high alert for threats to the city since the U.S. raid that killed Al Qaeda leader Usama bin Laden over a week ago.Hmmmm......Why not charged in Federal court?Is this part of the new 'outreach to Muslims' that Obama is planning?Read the full story here.

• Forbes Predicts U.S. Gold Standard Within 5 Years.(HumanEvents).A return to the gold standard by the United States within the next five years now seems likely, because that move would help the nation solve a variety of economic, fiscal, and monetary ills, Steve Forbes predicted during an exclusive interview this week with HUMAN EVENTS.“What seems astonishing today could become conventional wisdom in a short period of time,” Forbes said.Such a move would help to stabilize the value of the dollar, restore confidence among foreign investors in U.S. government bonds, and discourage reckless federal spending, the media mogul and former presidential candidate said. The United States used gold as the basis for valuing the U.S. dollar successfully for roughly 180 years before President Richard Nixon embarked upon an experiment to end the practice in the 1970s that has contributed to a number of woes that the country is suffering from now, Forbes added.If the gold standard had been in place in recent years, the value of the U.S. dollar would not have weakened as it has and excessive federal spending would have been curbed, Forbes told HUMAN EVENTS. The constantly changing value of the U.S. dollar leads to marketplace uncertainty and consequently spurs speculation in commodity investing as a hedge against inflation.The only probable 2012 U.S. presidential candidate who has championed a return to the gold standard so far is Rep. Ron Paul (R.-Tex.). But the idea “makes too much sense” not to gain popularity as the U.S. economy struggles to create jobs, recover from a housing bubble induced by the Federal Reserve’s easy-money policies, stop rising gasoline prices, and restore fiscal responsibility to U.S. government’s budget, Forbes insisted.With a stable currency, it is “much harder” for governments to borrow excessively, Forbes said. Without lax Federal Reserve System monetary policies that led to the printing of too much money, the housing bubble would not have been nearly as severe, he added.“When it comes to exchange rates and monetary policy, people often don’t grasp” what is at stake for the economy, Forbes said. By restoring the gold standard, the United States would shift away from “less responsible policies” and toward a stronger dollar and a stronger America, he said. “If the dollar was as good as gold, other countries would want to buy it.”An encouraging sign for Forbes is that key lawmakers besides Rep. Paul are recognizing that the Fed is straying well beyond its intended role of promoting stable prices and full employment with its monetary policies.Politicians need to “get over” the notion that the Fed can guide the economy with monetary policy. The Fed is like a “bull in a China shop," Forbes said. “It can’t help but knock things down.”“People know that something is wrong with the dollar," Forbes concluded. "You cannot trash your money without repercussions.”Hmmmmmm.....What is wrong with the Dollar is the Obama administration.Read the full story here.

• Guantanamo Bay detainees’ family members may be allowed to visit.(Washingtonpost).The Pentagon is considering allowing the families of detainees at Guantanamo Bay to visit them, an unprecedented step to ease the isolation of inmates who in some cases have been held at the U.S. facility for close to a decade, according to congressional aides.The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which monitors conditions at the military prison in Cuba and facilitates videoconferences between detainees and their families, has been in serious discussions with the Pentagon about a visitation program, the aides said.Some Republicans, after hearing about the talks, appeared to balk at such access to the Guantanamo Bay naval station. In an early version of the annual legislation to authorize the activities of the Defense Department, Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon (Calif.), the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, inserted language that would ban family visits, which have never occurred at the prison.But the latest version of the bill states only that Defense Department funding appropriated for fiscal 2012 may not be used “to permit any person who is a family member of an individual detained at Guantanamo to visit the individual.”That would not rule out a visitation program underwritten by the Red Cross.Because Guantanamo is off-shore, families would not necessarily need to enter the mainland United States to reach the prison, and the visits could be staged from a neighboring country willing to allow the families to move into and out of the base.Read the full story here.

• Catholic Scholars To Boehner: Your Agenda Defies ‘Church’s Most Ancient Moral Teachings’ On Helping Poor.(Thinkprogress).House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) will give the commencement address at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. this weekend. Ahead of the visit, dozens of faculty members from the school and other other Catholic universities are writing to Boehner — who is himself an observant Catholic — challenging his willingness to “gut” social programs while protecting “new tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy.” “Mr. Speaker, your voting record is at variance from one of the Church’s most ancient moral teachings” of caring for the poor, they write:Your record in support of legislation to address the desperate needs of the poor is among the worst in Congress. This fundamental concern should have great urgency for Catholic policy makers. Yet, even now, you work in opposition to it.The 2012 budget you shepherded to passage in the House of Representatives guts long-established protections for the most vulnerable members of society. It is particularly cruel to pregnant women and children, gutting Maternal and Child Health grants and slashing $500 million from the highly successful Women Infants and Children nutrition program. When they graduate from WIC at age 5, these children will face a 20% cut in food stamps. The House budget radically cuts Medicaid and effectively ends Medicare. It invokes the deficit to justify visiting such hardship upon the vulnerable, while it carves out $3 trillion in new tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy. The letter goes on to cite a separate letter from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, written last month, which also raised moral issues with the GOP budget. “A just framework for future budgets cannot rely on disproportionate cuts in essential services to poor persons,” the bishops wrote,“Speaker Boehner’s budget eviscerates vital programs that protect the poor, the elderly, the homeless and at-risk pregnant women and children. This is not pro-life,” Stephen Schneck, Director of the Institute for Policy Research & Catholic Studies at Catholic and a signatory of the letter, said in press release. The Church has also voiced support for labor unions.As Faith in Public Life notes, “in contrast to the Catholic right’s effort to intimidate Notre Dame into withdrawing its commencement invitation to President Obama, this letter does NOT call on the university to disinvite Boehner or ask Boehner to cancel.”Hmmmm.....About time someone spoke the truth.Read the full story here.

• "Love to love you baby"?Big Love in Abbottabad: How Osama bin Laden Kept Three Wives Under One Roof.(Time).Osama bin Laden once crowed to an interviewer, "Believe me, when your children and your wife become part of your struggle, life becomes very enjoyable." The late Al-Qaeda chief uttered those words before 9/11, when he was able to keep his four wives and many children living comfortably in separate houses across Afghanistan. Every few weeks or so, Bin Laden would drop in on a wife to fulfill his husbandly duties.

But at the end, his rosy portrayal of being married to the Jihad was sorely tested. His family must have driven him nuts. During his last days in Abbottabad, bin Laden had to contend with three wives and 17 noisy children under one roof. He had no escape from the din, save for furtive pacing around the garden late at night or vanishing into his so-called Command-and-Control Center, a dank, window-less room. Swathed against the Himalayan chill in a woolen shawl, he recorded rants that displayed an ever-widening disconnect with the daily grind of terrorism: his last oddball offerings were on climate change and capitalism.Bin Laden, the world's most wanted terrorist, was also a family man. An Arab woman married to an al-Qaeda fighter told TIME that after 9/11, bin Laden and his lieutenants made provisions for their families to flee the impending NATO invasion of Afghanistan. His youngest wife, Amal, may have escaped to Yemen via Pakistan, while bin Laden's other wives are thought to have fled through Iran. But this terrorist got lonely. After setting up camp in Pakistan and breaking his own orders, he summoned back three wives: the most recent addition, Amal, plus two Saudi women he'd wed in the 1980s. Both these Saudis were mature, educated women — Khairiah a child psychologist and Siham a teacher of Arabic grammar. (They converted a room in the Abottabad mansion into a classroom.) Bin Laden had been their husband for 25 and 27 years, respectively. U.S. counter-terrorism experts, who are eager to interrogate the wives, now in Pakistani custody, will surely want to know how al-Qaeda smuggled the boss's wives and their kids up to Abbottabad to ease his solitude.

Under Islam, polygamy is allowed but only if the husband is able to treat all of his wives equally. Muslim law also states that a man may only have four wives at a time. Bid Laden married six times, but one marriage ended in divorce and the other was annulled. While in Afghanistan, the wives were able to steer clear of each other. According to a 2002 interview that "AS", presumed to be Amal al-Sadah, gave to the magazine al Majalla, "we did not live in one house. Each wife lived in her own house. There were two wives in Kandahar, each with her own house. The third wife had a house in Kabul, and the fourth in the Tora Bora mountains." Even then, a polygamous family is not without its frictions. When Amal joined the growing clan in 2000, "bin Laden's other wives were upset, and even his mother chastised him," according to Lawrence Wright, journalist and author of "The Looming Tower: al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11."

Judging from the blueprints of the Abbottabad house, bin Laden tried to keep his three families separate but equal. Each wife and her children were allotted their own floor, and bin Laden would spend time with each. When Navy Seals raided the compound, they found bin Laden on the third floor with Amal, the youngest. Initial White House accounts say she was shot in the leg while trying to shield her husband.In all, bin Laden had six wives.Hmmm.....Can you imagine 4 wives and 2 ex wives nagging at you?Read the full story here.

• Republican FCC Commissioner Baker Expected to Leave Post.(WSJ).Republican Federal Communications Commission commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker is planning to leave the agency for a job at Comcast Corp., according to people with knowledge of the matter.Ms. Baker is expected to announce her departure as soon as this week for an unknown position at the Philadelphia-based cable giant. Comcast declined to comment, a company spokeswoman said.Ms. Baker did not respond to several emails and phone calls for comment.She came to the FCC in 2009 from the Commerce Department, where she was the acting head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which oversees federal airwaves. At the agency, she oversaw a government coupon program that made it cheaper for Americans make the switch to digital-only television.She joined the Commerce Department in 2004. Prior to her government service, Ms. Baker served as a telecommunications attorney for various firms.Baker’s move to Comcast comes just four months after she voted, along with three of the agency’s other FCC commissioners, to approve Comcast’s $13.75 billion deal to acquire control of NBC Universal from General Electric Co.Her term at the agency is up in June although she was expected to be re-nominated for the seat. Her departure from the agency, however, leaves just one Republican on the FCC’s five-person panel. Another commissioner, Democrat Michael Copps, is also set to leave the agency by the end of the year when his term expires or as soon as a replacement is confirmed.Hmmmm.....Another Obama regime bastion,time for Congress to wake up and smell the coffee?Read the full story here.

• Hope and Change: Employment Rate Among Black Men Lowest Ever Recorded.(Yahoo).If the election of America’s first African-American president was expected to give blacks an economic boost, it hasn’t emerged yet. Indeed, the percentage of African-American men with a job has dropped to its lowest level since records began in 1972, according to the government’s monthly jobs report released last week.Even as the economy added a better-than-expected 244,000 jobs, the percentage of black males over 20 who are currently employed dropped slightly to 56.9, the Labor Department’s April report shows. For whites, the equivalent figure is 68.1 percent.Before this recession, the percentage of black adult men with a job had never dropped below 60 percent, according to Labor Department statistics.And among blacks, it’s not just men who are suffering. Just 51.5 percent of African-Americans across the board — compared to 59.5 percent of whites — have a job, the numbers show. That’s the lowest level for blacks since 1984. (That group includes 16- to 19-year-olds, who are employed at a far lower rate than their elders.)Hmmmmm.....I think it's time there's a black President in the White House....Oh wait....there is?Read the full story here.

• House Panel Votes to Limit Obama’s Authority to Reduce Nuclear Weapons Arsenal.(Breitbart).A House panel voted Wednesday to limit President Barack Obama’s authority to reduce the nation’s nuclear arsenal and implement a U.S.-Russia arms control treaty overwhelmingly approved by the Senate last December.Over the objections of the Defense Department and Democrats, the House Armed Services Committee approved a series of amendments directly related to the commander in chief’s ability to make nuclear weapons reductions.By a 35-26 vote, the Republican-controlled panel approved an amendment that would prohibit money to take nuclear weapons out of operation unless the administration provides a report to Congress on how it plans to modernize the remaining weapons. The panel also adopted an amendment that says the president may not change the target list or move weapons out of Europe until he reports to Congress.The measures passed by similar votes.The New START treaty, signed by Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in April 2010, would limit each country’s strategic nuclear warheads to 1,550, down from the current ceiling of 2,200. It also would establish a system for monitoring and verification. U.S. weapons inspections ended in 2009 with the expiration of a 1991 treaty.START stands for Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.The Senate approved the treaty on a 71-26 vote, with 13 Republicans breaking with their party leaders.Hmmmm....Having driven us in the ditch,we take the keys back?Dictator temper tantrum in 3....2....1?Read the full story here.

• Demjanjuk guilty of Nazi crimes.(Ynet).Demjanjuk guilty of Nazi crimes Munich court finds Ukrainian-born John Demjanjuk, 91, guilty of helping to murder 27,900 Jews at Sobibor death camp. Demjanjuk sentenced to five years in prison. A German court sentenced John Demjanjuk to five years in prison on Thursday for his role in the killing of 27,900 Jews at the Nazi death camp Sobibor.His lawyers will appeal the verdict. The Munich court found the 91-year-old guilty of being an accessory to mass murder as a guard at Sobibor camp in Poland during World War Two. Demjanjuk had been exonerated in a separate Holocaust trial two decades ago in Israel, where he was initially sentenced to death for being the notorious "Ivan the Terrible" camp guard at Treblinka in Poland. The ruling was overturned by Israel's supreme court after new evidence exonerated him. Ukraine-born Demjanjuk, who was once top of the Simon Wiesenthal Center's list of most wanted Nazi war criminals, said he was drafted into the Soviet army in 1941 then taken prisoner of war by the Germans. Demjanjuk attended the 18-month court proceedings in Munich - birthplace of Adolf Hitler's Nazi movement - in a wheelchair and sometimes lying down, with his family trying to argue that he was too frail to stand trial. His son, John Demjanjuk Jr., said in an e-mail ahead of the verdict that his father was a victim of the Nazis and of post-war Germany. "While those who refuse to accept that reality may take satisfaction from this event, nothing the Munich court can do will atone for the suffering Germany has perpetrated upon him to this day," he said.Defense attorney Ulrich Busch told the Munich court on Wednesday that even if Demjanjuk did become a prison guard, he did so only because as a prisoner of war he would have either been shot by the Nazis or died of starvation. Demjanjuk emigrated to the United States in the early 1950s and became a naturalized citizen in 1958, working as an engine mechanic in Ohio.Hmmmm....Did the prisoners in the death camps have a lawyer?Read the full story here.

• Missing Al Jazeera reporter deported to Iran.(Al-Jazeera).Al Jazeera's Dorothy Parvaz, missing since arriving in Damascus almost two weeks ago, is now understood to be in Tehran.Parvaz, who holds Iranian, American and Canadian citizenship, has been missing since she arrived at Damascus airport on April 29 to cover protests in Syria.Syrian officials had previously told Al Jazeera the 39-year-old was being held in the Syrian capital and would be released."We have now received information that she is being held in Tehran," an Al Jazeera spokesman said in a statement on Wednesday."We are calling for information from the Iranian authorities, access to Dorothy, and for her immediate release. We have had no contact with Dorothy since she left Doha on April 29 and we are deeply concerned for her welfare."In a statement issued on Tuesday, the Syrian embassy in Washington DC said Parvaz had attempted to enter Syria illegally on an expired Iranian passport and subsequently been extradited to Iran.On May 1, Parvaz was "escorted by the Iranian consul to Caspian Airlines flight 7905 heading to Tehran," the statement said.Iran's foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, told Al Jazeera on May 2 that he had no knowledge of Parvaz’s whereabouts and urged Syria to look into the case.Parvaz’s family has also called for the journalist to be released."Dorothy is a dearly loved daughter, sister and fiancée, and a committed journalist,” they said in a statement."It is now nearly two weeks since she was detained. We appeal once again for Dorothy to be released immediately and returned to us."Parvaz is an experienced journalist who joined Al Jazeera in 2010.She graduated from the University of British Columbia, obtained a masters from the University of Arizona, and held journalism fellowships at both Harvard and Cambridge.Read the full story here.

• Netanyahu's US speech raises speculations. (Ynet).Likud elements close to Benjamin Netanyahu estimate PM won't declare Israeli concessions, withdrawal from West Bank territories during address to Congress later this month, but may tone down speech depending on results of meeting with US president.Likud sources close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu estimated Thursday that he will not announce Israeli concessions or a withdrawal from West Bank territories during his speech in Congress later this month. The sources, nevertheless said that should Netanyahu receive significant strategic guarantees from US President Barack Obama he may tone down his Congress address. "Netanyahu planned on giving a security-oriented Zionist speech before Congress, he had no intention of discussing compromises or concessions. The meeting with Obama may change the picture and the content of his speech may change tactically," a close associate of Netanyahu said. Likud sources estimated that guarantees by Obama may cause Netanyahu to tone down his speech, which could be similar to the one Defense Minister Ehud Barak gave recently at the Kirya IDF base in Tel Aviv.Barak presented an outline for renewed talks with the Palestinians including Israeli conditions. Barak suggested that should Hamas accept the outline, negotiations could be resumed. The Prime Minister's Office refused to comment on the speech, but Netanyahu associates said Barak was speaking only for himself. Meanwhile, state officials estimated that Netanyahu will not declare willingness to negotiate on 1967 borders or dividing Jerusalem, but will present conditions to reignite peace talks with an Abbas-led Palestinian Authority.Hmmmmm.....No matter what Netanyahu says ,Obama will stab Israel in the back.Read the full story here.

• Diskin: I'm 'very worried' by September statehood bid.(Ynet).Outgoing Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) Chief Yuval Diskin said he is "very worried by what [is expected to] take place in September," referring to a Palestinian initiative to seek statehood in the United Nations.Speaking at Tel Aviv University on Wednesday, Diskin said, "September is always a very bad month in the Middle East. I'm not sure that things will happen on the first of October. I expect that it will set in motion processes that can also deteriorate if no developments take place.Speaking at the same event, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon also addressed the Palestinian initiative to seek statehood in the United Nations in September, saying that Israel is powerless to prevent it."Israel will no succeed to prevent recognition of a Palestinian state in the [UN] General Assembly, driven by an automatic Arab majority," Ayalon said in a speech at Tel Aviv University."But such a decision will not be taken in the Security Council," he added, "where there is a majority of responsible countries."Regarding the responsibility of other countries to the peace process, Ayalon said that the United State, Russia, the European Union and several other countries are all obligated by the Oslo Accords, which demand a diplomatic process involving dialogue.The Shin Bet chief also addressed the recent US operation that killed Osama bin Laden. The United States has more legal leeway than Israel, enabling it to carry out operations like the one which killed bin Laden in Pakistan earlier this month, Dsikin said.“In comparison to Israel which is under constant criticism regarding its war on terror, the US can permit itself to launch operations like these without facing a trial afterwards,” Diskin said. “The Americans can influence international courts. Israel has more difficulty doing so.”Diskin also said that while terrorist attacks are down in recent years, Palestinian terrorist groups are still motivated. He said that the Shin Bet foiled over 100 attacks, including suicide bombings, in recent years against Israeli targets.Read the full story here.

• Obama's buddy and NATO's so called 'ally' Turkish prime minister Erdoğan meets with Iran’s Ahmadinejad.(TodaysZaman).Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan met with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on the sidelines of the Fourth United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries (LDC-IV) in İstanbul on Monday.Ahmadinejad came to a room in his hotel in İstanbul’s Beşiktaş district five minutes before Erdoğan arrived and greeted journalists by making a peace sign and clinching his fist while saying “Assalamu alaikum,” the Anatolia news agency reported.The meeting lasted close to two hours and was closed to the press.Hmmmm....when to stab these 'infidels' in the back or was it when to attack Israel that was discussed?Read the full story here.

• Turkey the fastest growing in (DIS)honor killings signs convention to combat 'honor' crimes.(HurriyetDaily).Turkey was the first country to sign on Wednesday a new European convention to prevent and combat violence against women, including crimes based on custom, religion, tradition or “honor.”Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, the president of the Ministers Committee of the Council of Europe, signed the convention at the 121st meeting of the Council of Europe ministers, which is being held in Istanbul.The convention sets out standards for member states to act with integrated policies to tackle gender-based violent crimes and promote international cooperation. As member states of the council ratify the treaty, they become obliged to take legislative or other measures to ensure that acts such as domestic violence, violence in public places, sexual harassment, forced marriage, “honor” crimes, rape and genital mutilation are criminalized.Hmmmmm.......A June 2008 report by the Turkish Prime Ministry's Human Rights Directorate said that in Istanbul alone there was one honor killing every week, and reported over 1,000 during the previous five years.Recent government figures suggest the murders of women – including so-called honor killings – increased 14-fold in seven years.Read the full story here.

• Obama's buddies the Palestinians Ask Iran To Open Embassy In Gaza.(Memri).The Palestinian Islamic Jihad representative in Tehran, Nasser Abu Sharif, has called on Iran to open a mission in Gaza, saying that this would be a natural move considering the presence of Palestinian diplomats in Tehran. "It would be a natural move for Iran to open an embassy or representative office in Gaza," he said, adding, "Gaza is now a region almost free of occupation and Iran can have an active embassy in Gaza as it will have the same kind of mission in Egypt in future." "Iran was the first government which recognized Palestine and allowed opening of the Palestinian embassy and today the Palestinian ambassador is active in Iran," he added.Hmmm....With friends like Obama ,Israel has nothing to fear?Read the full story here.

• Six girls flogged after 'act of mischief' at Saudi Arabia orphanage.(DailyMail).Six orphan girls aged between 12 and 18 were flogged in Saudi Arabia after being convicted of attacking the head of their orphanage, an official said today.The girls received 10 lashes each under the country's strict interpretation of Islamic law at a women's prison in Medina, Islam's second holiest city, in the west of the desert state.‘The order against the six orphans is a legitimate court order,’ Mohammed al-Awadh, the public relations manager at the Ministry of Social Affairs, said. ‘The ministry does not have the right to interfere in a court order.’He gave no details of the ruling but the Arabic-language newspaper Okaz said the girls had been convicted of ‘acts of mischief’ and attacking the director of the orphanage.The girls defended their actions, saying they were harassed by the director, Okaz reported.International human rights groups have criticised the Saudi justice system for applying corporal punishment for petty crimes, as well as limb amputations for thieves and beheadings for murderers under its strict interpretation of Islamic law.Saudi officials say the practice is widely approved by Saudi society and is a deterrent to crime.In January 2010 a teenage girl was sentenced to 90 lashes and two months in prison for hitting her school principal on the head with a cup when she took away her mobile phone.Awadh said the Ministry of Social Affairs would continue to care for the six orphans after the floggings were carried out.‘What it will do is rehabilitate and take care of the girls' social wellbeing, which is part of its duties and responsibilities,’ he said.Hmmmm.....we don't want freedom of speech or free will do we? Read the full story here.

• NJET !Big Brother Russia Refuses To Bail Out Belarus.(WSJ).MOSCOW (Dow Jones)--Cash-strapped Belarus may receive only $1 billion in aid this year to help shore up its dwindling foreign reserves, a top Russian official said Wednesday. The smaller-than-expected amount suggests the two countries may not have reached an agreement regarding the sale of key Belarussian assets, and throws into doubt whether authoritarian president Alexander Lukashenko will be able to stabilize his teetering economy. The two countries had initially discussed a loan of $2.7 billion, which was to be paid this year. Instead, Russia and a Moscow-led bailout fund for former Soviet states will give Minsk a total of $3 billion, but the money will come over the next three years, with the first third of the sum being delivered in 2011, Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said. Kudrin also suggested Belarus turn to other sources for cash. "Belarus should privatize state property. Other countries may be interested," Kudrin said. "Belarus also understands it may need to contact the International Monetary Fund." Kudrin said the final details of the deal will be finalized within a week. Russia has been eager to buy a stake in Beltransgas, a state-owned company that ships Russian gas to Europe. Officials in Belarus said last month the sale of a stake in the company--which is already 50% owned by Russia's Gazprom--was possible. Analysts said the lower than expected aid amount may be due to Lukashenko refusing to, in the end, part with the key state asset. "Russia may be a little tired of Lukashenko's promises on privatization, which never seem to be very serious in the end," said Julia Tseplaeva, chief economist at BNP Paribas in Moscow. "Ultimately, this is not an ideal turn of events for Lukashenko."Turning to the IMF may be difficult for the increasingly-isolated Lukashenko. A brutal crackdown on opposition protests during the elections led Western countries to impose sanctions on Belarus and a travel ban on Lukashenko and other top government officials. Belarus completed an IMF program in 2009, when it secured a $2.9 billion loan from the organization. Belarus has taken steps to stabilize its financial situation. The country's central bank said Wednesday it will allow retail cash exchange points to use a market rate, rather than fixed rates. Previously, exchange points were only allowed to trade foreign currency near the official rate of 3,061 rubles per dollar, while a free floating rate for companies allowed for trading at around 5,000 rubles per dollar. The discrepancy in rates has led to a shortage of foreign currency at exchange points and banks. Fearing a formal devaluation of the currency--which both Russia and the IMF have said would be a necessary step in stabilizing Belarus' financial situation--residents have started stocking up on staples such as vegetable oil and sugar. Belarus Wednesday raised its refinancing rate by 100 basis points to 14%, another step advocated by the IMF. And carrying out additional reforms may be difficult for Lukashenko, analysts said. "Lukashenko is not a reformer. He is right now interested in holding onto power and conserving the status quo," Tseplaeva said.Hmmmm.......Luka still a 'kolchosnik' in the eyes of Russia?Read the full story here.

• Health - New epidemic fears as deadly MRSA 'superbug' is linked to bedbugs.(DailyMail).As if the bedbug epidemic in the U.S. wasn't sickening enough, now there are fears the insects are carring the MRSA 'superbug.'The scare comes after scientists in Canada found MRSA, which is drug resistant, in bedbugs from three hospital patients who live in an impoverished area of Vancouver.Although bedbugs are not known to spread disease – they do lead to scratching – which can cause the skin to tear and make people more at risk over bacteria.Two other hospital patients from the area were found to have bedbugs carrying second less dangerous drug-resistant bacteria.Dr. Marc Romney, a medical microbiologist at St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver and author of the study, admitted the study is small and very preliminary.But he said 'it's an intriguing finding' that needs to be further researched.The hospital is the closest one to the poor Downtown Eastside neighborhood near the city's waterfront.Mr Romney said he and his colleagues decided to do the research after seeing a simultaneous boom in bedbugs and MRSA cases from the neighbourhood.Five bedbugs were crushed and analyzed. MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, was found on three of them.MRSA is resistant to several types of common antibiotics and can become deadly if it gets through the skin and into the bloodstream.Two bugs had VRE, or vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus Faecium, a less dangerous form of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.Both germs are often seen in hospitals. Medical experts have so far been more worried about nurses and other health care workers spreading the bacteria than insects.Mr Romney added that at present it's not clear if the bacteria originated with the bedbugs or if the bugs picked it up from already infected people.The study was released Wednesday by Emerging Infectious Diseases, a publication of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Jeffrey White, a research entomologist for Bedbug Central, a website dedicated to information concerning bedbug issues, said: 'While the findings of this study are likely to raise concerns about bedbugs and bacterial transmission in impoverished communities, our primary concern for the public at large remains to be the psychological impact bedbugs have on those suffering from infestations. 'We understand the anxiety this study’s findings may cause amongst the general public, however, the study only confirms what has long been suspected and more research needs to be conducted to understand the value of this information.'Hmmmm.....A worrysome evolution,and one to be monitored.Read the full story here.