MFS - The Other News

                       Morning  Posting.

• Syria Live Blog - June 13. Here .(Al-Jazeera).

• Libya Live Blog - June 13. Here (Al-Jazeera). 

• Yemen Live Blog - June 13 . Here. (Al-Jazeera).

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity in Japan  today 5.0, New Zealand several between 4.6 and 6.0 ! More info here.

• Japan - Latest official Situation Update No. 129.Source : Here .

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

• Europe - Latest official Situation Update on E-Coli epidemic - 54 - On 13.06.2011 at 03:54 GMT+2
  
  At least 35 people have died from the E. coli outbreak in Germany amid government warnings that more fatalities are expected. The source has long been identified: organic sprouts from a farm in the north of the country. Germany's health minister said Sunday at least 35 people had died of complications caused by the rare E. coli strain that has spread from Germany throughout Europe. "More fatalities cannot be ruled out, painful as it is to say," Health Minister Daniel Bahr told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper, two days after the source was identified as sprouts grown at an organic farm in the north of the country. "The continuing fall in the number of new infections gives grounds for optimism," The Robert Koch Institute (RKI), Germany's center for national disease protection, said Sunday that, despite the rising death toll, the rate of new infections had continued to abate.
  
  All but one of the 35 deaths from the EHEC (enterohaemorrhagic E. coli) strain have been in Germany, with the other being a woman in Sweden who had recently travelled to Germany. Over 3,200 people have come down with the bacterial illness, with it now having spread to 14 countries in Europe as well as the United States and Canada, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). All but five cases were found in people who lived or had recently visited Germany. In some cases in Germany the bacteria has led to the serious kidney ailment haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS), which the WHO has been confirmed in 812 patients.
  
  In Germany, around 100 patients with HUS have suffered such significant kidney damage that they will need organ transplants "or will require dialysis treatment for the rest of their lives," Karl Lauterbach, a health expert for Germany's Social Democrats, told the Bild am Sonntag. "This wave of EHEC and haemolytic uraemic syndrome cases in Germany is the most significant recorded in the world to date," said Nele Boehme, spokeswoman for the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR). German authorities are now confident on where the outbreak began, having identified vegetable sprouts at an organic farm in Lower Saxony as the source. Various kinds of vegetable sproutsBildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Sprouts are to blame - not necessarily the producer Notwithstanding its responsibility for the outbreak, authorities said the farm in Bienenbüttel, which produced sprouts from produce including lettuce, alfalfa and lentils, had done nothing wrong, with Lower Saxony Agriculture Minister Gert Lindemann even lauding its "high hygiene standards."
  
  The RKI has yet to rescind its warning against bean sprouts, though it has said cucumbers, lettuce, and tomatoes - produce earlier suspected of carrying the mystery pathogen - can once again be eaten without harm. In response to the massive losses incurred by European farmers due to the false alarms, the European Commission has offered a compensation package of 210 million euros ($303 million). Unions in Germany have said the aid is not enough for farmers who have struggled for weeks to sell produce - at the height of the cucumber and tomato season. They are calling for damages to the tune of 600 million euros.Source.

• The "Muslims First" Foreign Policy.(Sultanknish).In France, American embassies and consulates have been directed to "empower" Muslim and push for the passage of "social reforms" that will benefit them. In the UK, American diplomats were directed to again "empower" Muslims and made outreach to them a top priority. In Israel, the US consulate in Jerusalem caters only to Muslims and does its best to pretend that Jews and Israel don't even exist. And when Obama visited Greece, what else did he do but push the political and religious authorities to open more mosques and Islamic schools. America's own interests and our obligations to our allies have been put aside to focus on a single goal of overriding importance. Pandering to the Muslim world. It's as if we have no other foreign policy goal anymore beyond keeping Muslims happy.

The United States has its first Special Representative to Muslim Communities in the person of Farah Pandith. We also have Rashad Hussain, a Special Envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference. (No relation to Barack Hussein Obama. The name Hussain is common among Muslims as a tribute to Mohammed's grandson, Hussain ibn Ali, the 'Martyr Of Martyrs' in Islam.) Hussain (Rashad, not Barack) had ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, which helped create both Al Qaeda and Hamas, and defended Islamic Jihad leader Sami Al-Arian. Farah Pandith is a Kashmiri Muslim who began her career as Barbara Bush's secretary. But just creating two new Muslim posts in the diplomatic sector isn't enough.

NASA Administrator Bolden told Al Jazeera that the agency's new priority is outreach to Muslims. After gutting NASA and killing its space program, the agency focused on its new top priority by appointing Waleed Abdalati, as its new Chief Scientist. Waleed Abdalati is a twofer, as a Muslim and a Global Warming researcher. So the Obama Administration gets to kill off the space program and replace it with Global Warming junk science headed by a Muslim. It's what the devil would call synergy.The only way we can justify our craven appeasement is through the belief in the discredited Blowback Theory of Muslim violence. The Blowback Theory holds that Muslim violence is only retaliatory. That every time Muslims kill people, it's only because they're retaliating for a wrong done to them. Whether that wrong be a Predator drone taking out a terrorist (who was only retaliating for being yodeled at), Whatever it may be-- the Blowback Theory holds that Muslims are always in the right to kill us. And we're always in the wrong to defend ourselves against being killed.The corollary to the Blowback Theory is the Infinite Muslim Terrorists Theory. The Infinite Muslim Terrorists Theory holds that every Muslim grievance creates new terrorists. Like an angel getting its wings every time a bell rings, the Infinite Muslim Terrorists Theory warns us that every time we offend Muslims, it bring forth new terrorists. And shooting them does no good. Because shooting terrorists only offends Muslims even more. And that generates still more terrorists. Kill a terrorist and four more take his place. And if the process keeps going, there will eventually be more Muslim terrorists in the world than there are Muslims, causing the entire world to implode into the event horizon of a singularity.The paradox of the Infinite Muslim Terrorists Theory is that it insists that the vast majority of Muslims is peaceful, and yet threatens that every single one of those peaceful people can be converted into homicidal maniacs if we're not careful. And when combined with Blowback Theory, it puts the blame for the instant terrorist conversion on us. Like Gremlins that we're afraid of feeding after midnight, we take care to step lightly around Muslims, for fear that they will suddenly turn into monsters bent on killing us. Such thinking might be considered bigoted, but with Blowback Theory we know that if they do turn into homicidal monsters, it will be entirely 100 percent our fault.Project this mode of conduct on a global scale, and this is what our foreign policy looks like. All our envoys to Islam. Our Muslims First foreign policy. Our retrofitting of policymaking at every level to accommodate the whims of the prophet's beard. And for all the cringing and crawling, appeasing and advocating, the violence continues to grow. Because you can end violence by taking a firm stand, not by falling to your knees.Read the full story here.

• Consumers' electric bills likely to rise 40 - 60 % as coal plants close.(ChicagoTribune).Consumers could see their electricity bills jump an estimated 40 to 60 percent in the next few years.The reason: Pending environmental regulations will make coal-fired generating plants, which produce about half the nation's electricity, more expensive to operate. Many are expected to be shuttered.American Electric Power, one of the country's largest coal-burning electricity generators, said Thursday it will retire nearly a quarter of its coal-fueled generating capacity and that it will spend up to $8 billion to retrofit remaining units to meet regulations that start taking effect in 2014. Those moves will have an impact."The sudden increase in electricity rates and impacts on state economies will be significant at a time when people and states are still struggling,'' AEP Chairman and CEO Michael G. Morris said.Exactly how much bills will go up is unclear.Hmmmm....If he really wanted to destroy America would he do anything different?Read the full story here.

• Issa Investigates Project Gunrunner.(NationalReview).President Obama is hiding behind big government in the hopes that a scandal will fade away.Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.) is set to issue a number of subpoenas to federal officials who have ties to “Fast and Furious,” a secret program run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) that put thousands of semi-automatic firearms into the hands of Mexican drug cartels.Fast and Furious was a new addition to the ATF’s now-defunct “Project Gunrunner” program. It authorized (“pressed” is probably a more accurate word) U.S. gun stores located near the Mexican border to sell thousands of semi-automatic firearms to suspected and known straw-purchasers (those who buy guns for someone who can’t do so legally). The idea, apparently, was that the guns would lead the ATF to the heads of the cartels.But aside from CBS News, the mainstream media hasn’t been all that interested in investigating, and the Obama administration has been stonewalling. Two ATF agents — John Dodson, who is stationed in Phoenix, and Darren Gil, who was forced to retire as the agency’s attaché in Mexico City — became whistleblowers. Both Dodson and Gil have made the scandal public by speaking to CBS and other news outlets. Both agents say the orders for the program to send guns quietly into Mexico came from way over their heads, but neither knows how high up. Just where the idea began is what Representative Issa is hoping to discover. Representative Issa’s investigation has been so stymied by the Obama administration that on June 3, some 31 congressional Democrats wrote to the president to urge him to end the administration’s stonewalling on the Fast and Furious program. In the letter, spearheaded by Rep. Jason Altmire (D., Pa.), the lawmakers called the uncooperative tactics “extremely troubling” and found the Justice Department’s failure to provide information to congressional investigators “equally troubling.” They say Americans deserve “prompt and complete answers.”Perhaps, through Representative Issa’s investigation, we’ll find out how high up the ladder the authorization for Fast and Furious goes. When we do, it just be might be worth recalling that President Obama told a Univision interviewer last March, “Well, first of all, I did not authorize it. Eric Holder, the attorney general, did not authorize it.”Right now it’s amusing that when the Univision reporter asked if President Obama had been informed about the Fast and Furious program, Obama replied, “Absolutely not, this is a pretty big government, the United States government. I got a lot of moving parts.”So, President Obama is hiding behind big government in the hopes that this scandal — a scandal that wouldn’t even be under investigation by Congress if the American public had not handed the U.S. House of Representatives back to the Republicans in November of 2010 — will fade away.Read the full story here.

• Video - Bankrupting America - Is Washington creating our Jobs Crisis?(GraniteRock).Class Of 2011 Faces Highest Unemployment Rate In History: Graduates Face 21.1 Applicants Per Job.Read and see the full story here.

• Why Panetta? Is Slashing Defense the Real End Game Here?(TrevorLoudon).Why does President Barack Obama want Leon Panetta to be Secretary of Defense?Anyone familiar with Panetta’s record as a Congressman in the 1980s knows that Panetta is both a leftist markedly hostile towards the US military establishment.Panetta has no military backgound. he has a Budget background. He was once head of the Office of Budget Management.What does this suggest to you?Was Panetta specifically chosen to oversee large cuts in the US defense budget?At a time when the US is facing Islamic terrorism, an increasingly belligerent China, a resurgent Russia, and an ongoing “red tide” in Latin America, has Leon Panetta been commissioned to take a scythe e to the US Defense budget?By the second or third year of this recession, when stimulus is needed at the bottom, people may begin to discuss cutting the military budget…That, in my opinion sums up what this great game is all about. America’s enemies know that America can only be destroyed if its military is humbled, heavily reduced in size and capability.Americans will only accept the gutting of their military capability, if the economy is so fragile and prospects so dire, that they will be willing to sacrifice national security to ease the economic pain.In the last two years the Obama Administration has done everything it could to indebt and impoverish America and Americans.Now it is time for the socialists to harvest the fruits of their efforts.Leon Panetta, a leftist, with ties to communists, socialists and one degree of separation from several Soviet and/or Chines agents, may well turn out to be the Grim Reaper.Hmmmm.....If he really wanted to destroy America, would he do anything different?Read the full story here.

• Obama appointee says Koran and Islam influenced Jefferson, Founding Fathers; writing book on sharia in US courts.(CreepingSharia).Azizah al-Hibri, Appointee for Member, United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. Azizah al-Hibri is a professor of law at the T. C. Williams School of Law, University of Richmond. She is the founding editor of Hypatia: a Journal of Feminist Philosophy, and founder of KARAMAH: Muslim Women Lawyers for Human Rights. Professor al-Hibri has written extensively on issues of Islam and democracy, Muslim women’s rights, and human rights in Islam. Professor al-Hibri has traveled extensively throughout the Muslim world in support of Muslim women’s rights and acted as a consultant to the Supreme Council for Family Affairs in Qatar in the development of that country’s personal status code. She has also guest edited a special volume on Islam by the Journal of Law and Religion and is currently completing a book on the Islamic marriage contract in American courts. Professor al-Hibri received a B.A. from the American University of Beirut, a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania.

al Hibri’s Youtube page has the following description of a video series, Dr. Azizah al-Hibri on Islam, Law, and the Concept of Democracy (Part I):

Uploaded by karamah1420 on Oct 16, 2009

"Were the freedoms outlined in the U.S. Constitution influenced by the Quran? Professor Azizah Y. al-Hibri, President of Karamah: Muslim Women Lawyers for Human Rights, Islamic scholar and law professor at the University of Richmond, discusses the influences of the Quran and early Muslim history on Thomas Jefferson and the Founding Fathers. Listen as Dr. al-Hibri explains the implications of the Quran on U.S. Constitutional principles from freedom of religion to the separation of church and state.Hmmmmm....."Outreach to Muslims"...or Changing America's history?Read the full story here.

• Hallelujah! US: Jesuit parish cancels Qu’ran reading.(TeaAndPolitics).“Just having something public is not going to be a big, big deal here, but to have someone come in and read from the Qur’an and to recognize publicly the existence of Islam and to reverence and respect is a good thing for the Church to do,” Father Patrick Earl, SJ, said on May 27. “I’ve heard from Muslim imams about what they and their congregations have suffered just from the fear, the fear of what they call Islamophobia.”

On June 7, Father Earl announced the cancellation of the event; he said that he had been unaware that 2004 Vatican instruction Redemptionis Sacramentum forbade such readings. The document states that “it is strictly to be considered an abuse to introduce into the celebration of Holy Mass elements that are contrary to the prescriptions of the liturgical books and taken from the rites of other religions.”Hmmmm......This just confirms what i always said it’s against the first commandment “You shall have no other Gods before me”.Read the full story here.

• Egypt: Somali terror cell planning attacks in Israel arrested.(Ynet).Egyptian authorities are questioning seven members of an alleged Somali terror cell planning attacks on Western interests in Egypt and Israel, a security official told AFP on Sunday.Authorities detained a Somali, Yussef Ahmed Hassan, at Cairo airport last month after suspecting he was travelling on a forged passport from Morocco, the official said.Hassan was searched and airport officials found dozens of fake passports on him, as well as fake birth certificates, visas and airline tickets. His arrest led to the capture and detention of other members of the group also coming from Morocco, the official said. During questioning, the men had confessed to "planning attacks against Western interests, particularly American interests, in the country."The official said the group also aimed to make contact with Islamist groups in Egypt before "entering the Palestinian territories to carry out attacks against Israel."Read the full story here.

• Syria: Follow The Region?(ElliotAbrams).The violence in Syria is awful to see. Today The New York Times reported that “Backed by tanks and helicopters gunships, Syrian army troops stormed the northern town of Jisr al-Shoughour on Sunday, after a bombardment that left much of the surrounding countryside in ruin and sent refugees fleeing to the nearby Turkish border.” The refugee numbers are heading toward 5,000 and will obviously go higher; the number of unarmed civilians killed by the regime passed 1,000 and is climbing fast. But even the violence of this past week is apparently not awful enough to jolt the Obama Administration out of its failed Syria policy.Secretary of State Clinton, interviewed yesterday in Lusaka, Zambia had this to say: “Syria, for example, is engaging in horrific, revolting attacks on its own people. The region, however, is trying to – behind the scenes – get the government to stop. And they believe that that, at the time, is the best way to go forward. So we listen very closely to what people in the neighborhood, in the region, say.”This is, I suppose, an improvement over the previous view that Assad was a “reformer,” or that (as President Obama put it on May 20) “President Assad now has a choice: He can lead that transition, or get out of the way.”But it is quite stunning that the United States appears unable to call for Assad’s departure—despite “horrific, revolting attacks” on the people of Syria—because “the region” thinks that private pressure on Assad to stop murdering his own citizens is “the best way to go forward.” Secretary Clinton was responding to a question about military intervention, but the United States does not need to choose between that step and silence. The Secretary is also establishing a precedent here that many Americans will find troubling, even astounding: that we pay more attention to “the region” than to our own moral standards. ”The region,” after all, contains regimes that do not permit women to vote, that persecute Christians, that wish the Jewish state would disappear. That is a strange place to look for moral or even political guidance.In any event those approaches to Assad have achieved nothing; the regime has killed Syrians at an increasing pace. This is no time for “leading from behind.”How many peaceful demonstrators have to die, how many refugees have to flee, how many days of military attacks on the people of Syria by the criminal Assad mafia in Damascus must be endured before the United States will call for Assad to go?Hmmmmm......Is Assad's friend Erdogan dictating Obama's policy?Read the full story here.

• Saudi airline accused of serving “donkey meat”.(Emirates247).Former airline official says some of the imported meat is diseased or donkey meat.Saudi Arabian Airlines could have served its passengers donkey meat, ignoring warnings by a local government food control body that imported meat from Tunisia could be diseased or is donkey meat.A Saudi Airlines executive made the accusations in a television interview this week, prompting many Saudis to write to local newspapers calling for the prosecution of those responsible for such an act.Abdullah Al-Bubou, a former senior inspector at the supply division in the Airlines, said Saudi Arabia’s General Food and Drugs Authority had repeatedly warned the airlines to stop import of foodstuffs from Tunisia and serving them on its aircraft following reports on the spread of diseases among cattle in that Arab country.“There were also reports about widespread sale of donkey and horse meat in Tunisia….but the Saudi Arabian Airlines did not heed that warning,” Bubou said in the interview on Rotana Khaleeji television.“This has prompted the Authority to stop all the meat and other food items imported by the airlines from Tunisia…but after nearly one month, these food items appeared on board Saudi aircraft, including meat without certificates of origin… the stuff could be diseased or donkey meat… the problem is that they (Saudi Airlines) started to opt for foodstuffs that are about to expire as they are cheaper,” he said, quoted by Saudi Arabic language newspapers.Bubou, a Saudi, blamed newly-appointed non-Saudi officials in the airline for such acts, which he said served their interests.“As a result, the quality of food served aboard Saudi Arabian aircraft has largely declined over the past few months and has become almost unfit for human consumption… but as you see, they still insist on serving these diseased meals,” he said, adding that he has documents supporting his accusations.“I have evidence to all what I say not only about the supply division in Saudi Arabia but in Cairo…one day, a consignment of donkey meat arrived in Cairo for the zoo there and at the same time, another shipment for the supply division arrived….tests showed this meat is similar to donkey meat yet it was later served for the passengers aboard Saudi Arabian aircraft.”“I would rather travel from Riyadh to Jeddah aboard a donkey than eat a donkey aboard a Saudi aircraft,” a reader commented.Read the full story here.