MFS - The Other News

                       Afternoon  Posting.

• Syria Live Blog - June 09. Here .(Al-Jazeera).

• Libya Live Blog - June 09. Here (Al-Jazeera). 

• Yemen Live Blog - June 09 . Here. (Al-Jazeera).

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity in Japan  today 4.8 ! 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 47- Source.

• Video - HDN exclusive: Hospital footage shows injured protesters in Syria.(HurriyetDaily).WARNING: This footage contains graphic content that might not be suitable for children or sensitive people.This video was obtained by the Hürriyet Daily News from a Syrian who took refuge in Turkey, escaping from the turmoil in the neighboring country. The Daily News was unable to verify the authenticity of the video.Read the full story here.

• Obama regime making a mockery out of Congress?(BigPeace).Obama Administration Shrouding Our Role In Libya.Yesterday, NATO aircraft pounded the Libyan capital Tripoli in what has been reported to have been the heaviest bombing of Tripoli since the initiation of western airstrikes in March. Reuters reported that the city was struck “several times an hour” as opposed to “at most a few times a day” in the past. Already over the weekend, NATO announced that it was carrying out “intensive and sustained” strikes on Tripoli. Were American aircraft involved in the assault?According to a report in the French daily Libération, France and Great Britain have each been carrying out 25% of the “offensive” flight missions in the NATO bombing campaign. Who is carrying out the remaining 50%? Only a handful of other NATO countries are known to be participating in the air campaign and none of them have anything like the military capacity of the United States. It is hard to imagine that NATO could undertake “intensive and sustained” strikes on Tripoli without American involvement.Already on April 13 – this is to say two weeks after the so-called “handover” of the Libya mission to NATO – the Pentagon quietly admitted that American aircraft were still attacking Libyan targets. Overall, the US was reported to be assuming some 35% of flight missions at the time, including reconnaissance and refueling missions. This means that US forces minimally constituted the logistical backbone of the air campaign.President Obama has refused to comply with the War Powers Act and seek congressional authorization for the Libyan campaign. The administration has attempted to justify this stance by claiming that American forces are merely serving a limited “support” role. Should not the American media and members of congress be demanding to know in just what this “support” consists?Hmmm......Dictatorship or Democracy...last chance in 2012!Read the full story here.

• Related - Time Running Out in Libya?(Cato).By John Samples.Even defenders of broad presidential prerogatives are starting to conclude that Obama’s war in Libya violates the original legal justification for it offered by the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) in the Department of Justice.Briefly put, the OLC said the Libyan war was not a war because the operation would be limited as to means, objectives, and duration. Thus, the OLC argued, neither the Constitution nor the War Powers Resolution constrained the president’s prerogatives.The objective has changed from protecting civilians to regime change. The war itself has gone on now for as long as the unauthorized war in Kosovo in 1999. Jack Goldsmith concludes: “as the days drag on, and as our deep involvement persists, it becomes harder and harder to represent that this mission is limited in nature, duration, and scope.”Hmmmm.......Dictatorship or democracy?Read the full story here.

• Hallelujah the 'Messiah' will speak!White House says it will answer Congress on Libya.(Msnbc).The White House now says it will respond to detailed questions on the U.S. mission in Libya within a two-week deadline set by the House in a resolution approved last week.Aides to President Barack Obama had previously brushed off the non-binding resolution, calling it unhelpful and unnecessary. The White House suggested earlier this week it had no plans to formally respond to the questions posed in the measure because officials were already providing details in dozens of briefings with lawmakers on Capitol Hill.While officials maintain that those briefings are sufficient, the White House now says it will also respond specifically to the questions in the resolution, which was sponsored by House Speaker John Boehner."We will answer the questions in that resolution within the time frame that he specifies," White House spokesman Jay Carney said Wednesday.The deadline for providing answers on the operation's objective, its costs and its impact on the nation's two other wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is June 17.Carney said the White House decision to directly respond to the House resolution is "in the spirit that we have answered questions that members have had in the past." He would not say how the White House would go about providing its response.The House resolution calls on the president to send Congress a detailed written report with answers to more than 20 questions. The resolution also chastised Obama for failing to provide a "compelling rationale" for the Libyan mission. Forty-five Democrats joined the Republican majority in passing the measure.Hmmmm.....Don't be all excited, he'll make again a mockery out of Congress,frankly speaking they deserve it for their lack of 'guts'.Read the full story here.

• Pentagon: Cost Of Obama’s Time-Limited, Scope-Limited, Kinetic Military Action In Libya Soars To $750 Million.(WZ).US military operations in Libya are on course to cost hundreds of millions of dollars more than the Pentagon estimated, according to figures obtained by the Financial Times.Robert Gates, the outgoing secretary of defence, said last month that the Pentagon expected to spend “somewhere in the ball park of $750m” in the 2011 fiscal year as part of efforts to protect the Libyan people.But according to a Pentagon memo which includes a detailed update on the progress and pace of operations, by mid-May US operations in Libya had cost $664m, a figure confirmed by the Department of Defence.The document, entitled the “United States Contribution to Operation Unified Protector’’, adds that US costs are running at a rate of about $2m a day or $60m a month. The memo has been circulating on Capitol Hill since last week. The DoD declined to comment on the increased costs of the operation.Hmmmm......Costly to stand with your Muslim Brothers,i'm sure Al-Qaida will refund the US in Natura.Read the full story here.

• Are these people for real?Video - Napolitano: Screening Muslim Males Under 35, Not Good Common Sense.(BarracudaBrigade).Hmmmm.....Yup statistics show the average terrorist is an middle aged Italian decent woman.Read and see the full story here.

• Russia - Muslim priests to give spiritual guidance to servicemen.(RT).Muslim muftis will soon be sent to the Russian Army for spiritual guidance of Muslim servicemen, according to Russia’s Supreme Mufti Talgat Tadzhuddin. Currently, only Orthodox priests are present among Army staff.In an interview to the Echo of Moscow radio station, the Supreme Mufti said that the Russian Muslim University has launched a special course for priests who will work in the Army.Soon, around a dozen Muslim priests will start their jobs in various military units. But this is only the beginning as more will follow. The work in the Army requires some special skills so this category of clergy should have specific training, Tadzhuddin explained.“We think that retired officers could take special-purpose courses in the Russian Muslim University,” he said. “We should send to the Army those people who understand its specifics. At the same time, they should be able to make their spiritual contribution.”He added that heads of regional spiritual centers have already started attracting people.Talgat Tadzhuddin also said that those priests and their activities will be controlled by Russia’s Interconfessional Council. Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, head of the Russian Orthodox Church’s public relations, said on Wednesday that it is a common world practice to send representatives of major religions to the Army. He observed that the Church is now renewing the practice of assigning staff spiritual counselors to the military. He added that around 1,000 Orthodox priests have been working in the Army as volunteers.Deputy head of the State Duma Committee for Defense Yury Savenko told Echo of Moscow that representatives of the main confessions in the Army can reduce the number of interethnic and inter-religious conflicts.Islam is the second largest religion after Orthodox Christianity in Russia, with around 8 million believers. Most of them are concentrated in the North Caucasus, the republics of Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Western Siberia and also Moscow.Hmmmm.......Estimated total population of Russia :141,896,685.A minority dictating a huge majority.How things changed since Stalin's days ?Read the full story here.

• Hamas Says “Nothing Will Prevent Them” From Joining New Government With US-Funded Palestinian Authority.(Haaretz).Hamas will participate in any future Palestinian government, a senior official from the Islamist group said Thursday, refuting press reports that it might opt not to take part in a future administration.“Nothing would prevent us” from participating in any government after new elections, Salah al-Bardaweel, a high-ranking Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip told the German Press Agency DPA.The comments came after earlier media reports Thursday that Hamas might exclude itself from a future government – even if it won in elections – if that helped such a government to avoid international isolation.“This is totally incorrect and totally untrue,” said al- Bardaweel, arguing that the reports were intended to isolate Hamas politically and diplomatically.Hamas in April agreed to a reconciliation with the secular Fatah, the other major Palestinian bloc, after years of a sometimes bloody stand-off between the two, clearing the way for the two to form a unity government.But Hamas’ participation in any future government could turn into a diplomatic stumbling block for any Palestinian government, as Hamas’ refusal to recognize Israel’s right to exist and its refusal to honor past Israeli-Palestinian agreements keeps entities like the United States and the European Union from recognizing it.Hmmmm.....Will the Obama regime 'out' itselves and openly fund a terrorist organisation,against the will of Congress?Read the full story here.

• Did Anthony Weiner, a Jew, convert to Islam to marry a Muslim?(BNI).Omar Abu-Namous is the imam of the Islamic Cultural Center in New York and he is encouraging Huma Abedin – a practicing Muslim – to stand by her husband, New York congressman Anthony Weiner. Why would this imam support Anthony Weiner, who was raised Jewish, in a marriage with a practicing Muslim woman?EVERY ISLAMIC SCHOLAR agrees that it is forbidden for a Muslim woman to marry a non-Muslim. Former Muslim Walid Shoebat has translated the Arabic declarations relative to the validity of the marriage between Weiner and Abedin last year. One such publication Shoebat translated was the Al-Marsid newspaper, which reported on the Weiner/Abedin marriage specifically:Dr. Anwar Shoeb of the faculty of Islamic law in Kuwait declared that the marriage between Anthony Weiner and Huma Abedin is null and void, considering it adultery as confirmed in the Sharia position, prohibiting the marriage of a Muslim woman to a non-Muslim, regardless of whether he is a Jew or a Christian. In this case, he assured the invalidity of the marriage certificate between them.Abu-Namous is in direct opposition to his Islamic superiors? Why? Huma Abedin was raised in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. In 2007, the New York Observer wrote (in an article no longer available but cross-posted at FreeRepublic.com) that her mother is a professor in Saudi Arabia and that her father was an Islamic scholar before his death.Weiner was raised Jewish but admitted to growing up in a non-religious household. If Abedin remains a practicing Muslim and her religion forbids her from marrying a non-Muslim, isn’t she failing to practice Islam? Wouldn’t that be the case unless Weiner converted to Islam? The New York Times reported that Weiner “sometimes fasts with her (Abedin) during Ramadan.” This would indicate that the congressman is more amenable to practicing Islam than Abedin is to practicing Judaism.Did Abedin reject Weiner because he was not Muslim? Why is a New York imam with ties to the ISNA and Feisal Abdul Rauf defending a non-Muslim male with a Muslim female?Perhaps there is a more important question that needs to be answered. Did a secular Jewish man convert to Islam or did his (still) practicing Muslim wife abandon her religion by marrying him?Read the full story here.

• The Beginning of the Panic.(DailyWealth).In the next few weeks, our country will enter a period without precedence in our experience.On June 30, the Federal Reserve has pledged to cease buying U.S. Treasury bonds. This is the second time since the financial crisis it has intervened in the Treasury market in a major way. The program of buying new Treasury issues has been dubbed "quantitative easing II" (QE2).We'd wager not one in 1,000 Americans has any idea (or at least any real understanding) of what has been going on in the market for U.S. Treasury bonds since the financial crisis. For the last nine months, the Fed has been printing up new dollars and buying huge amounts of newly issued debt from the U.S. Treasury – $600 billion of bonds. And these purchases followed a $1.75 trillion program of quantitative easing that ran from March 2009 to March 2010.It is no exaggeration to say that a printing press has kept our economy going for the last two years. But what will happen when the printing stops?While we honestly don't know, we're going to speculate that, in the short term, the U.S. dollar will rally and commodities will suffer a serious correction. We will see a dramatic slowdown in the rate of monetary inflation. People will think prices will stop going up. Economic activity will begin to decline. Fear will lead a lot of investors to "go to cash." That means buying short-term U.S. Treasury bonds because they're the most liquid, most frequently traded form of cash.As this process unfolds, we expect to see another global panic. Especially if Bernanke's decision to stop the presses coincides with a Republican political gambit – refusing to raise the debt ceiling, which could cause a default on U.S. Treasury bonds.Whether the debt ceiling is raised or not, it's only a matter of time before the Fed will have to turn on the presses again. And when "QE3" begins, it will send our creditors an unmistakable message: You will never be repaid in anything other than massively devalued paper.All around the world, more and more central banks are selling dollars and buying gold. They're doing so because they can plainly see America's credit has become unreliable and the value of the dollar is likely to decline.If you think you might be trading in something other than U.S. dollars in the future, you might not want to be holding U.S. dollars. You might want to be holding that currency.And if you can't hold that currency, consider holding gold.Good investing,Porter.Read the full story here.
• Related video - Must see! WARNING: THE FOLLOWING PRESENTATION IS CONTROVERSIAL AND MAY BE OFFENSIVE TO SOME AUDIENCES. Viewer discretion is advised.Read and see the full story here.

• Enterohaemorrhagic E. coli, or EHEC - 'A Totally New Disease Pattern'.(Spiegel).Doctors Shaken By Outbreak's Neurological Devastation.The patient at the Hamburg-Eilbek Hospital describes to doctors how she first had diarrhea, and then grew progressively weaker to the point where she could no longer eat and barely make it to the toilet. When blood appeared in her stool, she became terrified. The young woman at the hospital's intensive-care unit in the northern German port city suspects that lettuce was responsible for putting her in this deadly situation. She then breaks out in tears, completely distraught.

Thanks to several dialysis procedures, she will most likely survive her case of hemolytic-uremic syndrome (HUS), a particularly aggressive complication related to the enterohaemorrhagic E. coli, or EHEC, that has appeared in more than one-quarter of the patients infected by the bacteria. So far, around 2,800 people have been infected in the dramatic outbreak of this rare strain of E. Coli, with at least 722 contracting HUS and 29 dead so far in Germany and elsewhere in Europe. The number of new cases has diminished this week, but the outbreak has left doctors pondering serious questions about the new epidemic. Rolf Stahl, a nephrologist at Hamburg's University Clinic Hamburg-Eppendorf, explains that, "Neurologists are being confronted with a totally new disease pattern." Never before has an EHEC germ been as aggressive -- and many consider this to be a new epidemic.And although the majority will survive, some patients will have lasting and serious health problems. "A considerable number of the patients will permanently lose their kidney function and will be dependent on dialysis for the rest of their lives," says Stahl.Although the number of infections is slowing, no single treatment has been found that can be effective for the majority of patients. And that leaves people asking what will hapen the next time this super strain of E. coli infects a large number of people. Indeed, O104:H4 is giving the medical world a feeling of powerlessness it hasn't felt in a long time. Wertheimer compares it to the AIDS outbreak in the 1980s. "In the era of antibiotics, we suddenly had an infection that we couldn't treat. That was a shock."As in the AIDS epidemic, microorganisms are recapturing terrain once again, and doing so in a perfidious manner. The EHEC bacteria produce even more of their toxin when they die off. If antibiotics were used against the bacteria, the toxin would literally flood the body.And what of the appealing view of mankind triumphing over the infectious diseases of medieval times? A myth, says Wertheimer.Hmmmm.....A candidate for ' biological warfare'?Read the full story here. 

• Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood Democrats to Form ‘Perfect Slavery to Allah Party’.(BigPeace).Dr. Mohamed Badi, Chairman of the Muslim Brotherhood, now best described as The “Perfect Slavery to Allah” (hurriyya), or “Zabibah Party” (see discoloration from repeated prayer-induced skin trauma on his forehead) From Ikhwan Web:

Egypt’s largest political opposition the Muslim Brotherhood, has confirmed that it is preparing to establish a political party calling it the Freedom and Justice Party, or Horeya and Adala.”

Horeya or Hurriyya, Arabic for “freedom,” and the uniquely Western concept of freedom are completely at odds. Hurriyya “freedom” — as Ibn Arabi (d. 1240) the lionized “Greatest Sufi Master”, expressed it — “being perfect slavery.” And this conception is not merely confined to the Sufis’ perhaps metaphorical understanding of the relationship between Allah the “master” and his human “slaves.”

The late American scholar of Islam, Franz Rosenthal (d. 2003) analyzed the larger context of hurriyya in Muslim society. He notes the historical absence of hurriyya as “…a fundamental political concept that could have served as a rallying cry for great causes.”

An individual Muslim

…was expected to consider subordination of his own freedom to the beliefs, morality and customs of the group as the only proper course of behavior…

 Thus politically, Rosenthal concludes,

…the individual was not expected to exercise any free choice as to how he wished to be governed…In general, …governmental authority admitted of no participation of the individual as such, who therefore did not possess any real freedom vis-a-vis it.

Bernard Lewis, in his analysis of hurriyya for the venerated Brill Encyclopedia of Islam, discusses this concept in the latter phases of the Ottoman Empire, through the contemporary era. After highlighting a few “cautious” or “conservative” (Lewis’ characterization) reformers and their writings, Lewis maintains,

…there is still no idea that the subjects have any right to share in the formation or conduct of government—to political freedom, or citizenship, in the sense which underlies the development of political thought in the West. While conservative reformers talked of freedom under law, and some Muslim rulers even experimented with councils and assemblies government was in fact becoming more and not less arbitrary….

Lewis also makes the important point that Western colonialism ameliorated this chronic situation:

During the period of British and French domination, individual freedom was never much of an issue. Though often limited and sometimes suspended, it was on the whole more extensive and better protected than either before or after.

And Lewis concludes with a stunning observation, when viewed in light of the present travails of the so-called “Arab Spring,” and throughout the Muslim world, delusively optimistic assessments notwithstanding:

In the final revulsion against the West, Western democracy too was rejected as a fraud and a delusion, of no value to Muslims.Lastly, the pronounced prayer bump or “zabibah” on Mr. Badie’s forehead is pathogonomomic reminder of Islam’s Manichaen nature as described in Koran 48:29, and its mainstream understanding (Koranic commentary or “tafsir”):

[Pickthall translation] Muhammad is the messenger of Allah. And those with him are hard against the disbelievers and merciful among themselves. Thou (O Muhammad) seest them bowing and falling prostrate (in worship), seeking bounty from Allah and (His) acceptance. The mark of them is on their foreheads from the traces of prostration.

Tafsir on this verse from Maariful Quran, pp. 104-105: The first quality of the Companions mentioned here is that they are hard against the unbelievers, and merciful to one another. It was proven time and again that they were harsh against the unbelievers. They sacrificed all their ethnic and tribal relations for the sake of Islam. This was especially demonstrated on the occasion of Hudaibiyah….In a Hadith recorded by Bukhari, the Holy Prophet has said, “He who loves for the sake of Allah and hates for the sake of Allah has attained the highest degree of faith”Hmmmm.....The 'People' the Obama regime supports with Billions of tax payer Dollars!Read the full story here.

• Christian girl being sexually abused to make her convert to Islam.(Very graphic video).Read and see the full story here.‏

• The Sultan of Istancool.(Spiegel)One supporter of the Turkish prime minister says that he admires how the irascible Erdogan now manages to keep his temper under control. At the same time, it is interesting that the man is unwilling to be quoted on the record. It offers a small insight into a serious liability in Erdogan's Turkey: Its leader has a problem with authority. He can't get enough of it.The premier, says Sedat Ergin, the head of the Ankara office of the Turkish daily newspaper Hürriyet for many years, entered his first term eight years ago with great caution. He took stock of his adversaries in the army, the economy and the press, says Ergin, but he also treated them with respect. "He was decisive in advancing his policies, but he also exercised restraint," he says. According to Ergin, this changed after Erdogan's second election victory in 2007. "That was when he started using the power of the state more indiscriminately."

Ergin knows what he's talking about. The more critical newspapers were in their reporting on the government, the more sharply did the prime minister's office, the Basbakanlik, strike back. A cartoonist who took the liberty of portraying the prime minister as a cat found himself facing charges in court. The same thing happened soon afterwards to another cartoonist, who had drawn Erdogan as a blood-sucking tick on the back of a respectable citizen, as a comment on the government's taxation policies.The Dogan Group, which owns the secular Hürriyet and the Turkish division of the US news broadcaster CNN, was particularly hard-hit. In 2009, a dozen tax inspectors descended on the company. When they were finished with their audit, Dogan was slapped with an order to pay the government the equivalent of €2.2 billion ($3.2 billion)."That's the problem with Erdogan," says Ergin. "He is using the power of the state more and more arbitrarily to promote his political interests. There is no one left to keep him in check."

In 2008, a group of former senior military leaders were put on trial for allegedly plotting to overthrow the Erdogan regime in its early years. The so-called Ergenekon trial, named, like the group of conspirators, after the mythical ancestral home of the Turks in Central Asia, had a cathartic effect on the people. For the first time, the previously untouchable officers were facing charges in a court of law.But the longer the trial dragged on, the wider the government cast its net, arresting professors, civil servants, attorneys and journalists opposed to the regime. In March, the astonished nation realized that what had been an important trial had turned into a vehicle with which the regime was eliminating its influential critics. That was when the police arrested and filed terrorism charges against investigative reporter Ahmet Sik, the journalist who had been one of the first to report on the Ergenekon group's alleged plans to overthrow the government, but then also looked at the pro-government Islamist network. Sik, along with 67 other journalists and dozens of professors, is still in prison today.In his self-aggrandizement, the premier who introduced historic change to Turkey, could become a growing liability for his country. His critics say that there is now little difference between Erdogan and Russia's strongman, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Of course, Russia hasn't applied for EU membership, but Turkey has. The prime minister's power trip is now backfiring on the Turks, increasing opposition to Turkey joining the bloc.

"This man is dangerous," says Celal Sengör, 56, a renowned seismologist. He experienced firsthand how the AKP intervenes in the autonomy of academia. In 2009, Sengör, the dean of Istanbul Technical University who holds a critical stance toward Islam, was told that he was being let go -- without any explanation or dismissal procedure. It was only the intervention of the president of the International Academy of Science that saved him from losing his job. Since then, Sengör has been even more disillusioned than he was before. "Europe shouldn't be naïve," he says. "Turkey simply isn't ready to be a true democracy."

• People like Sengör, who belong to Turkey's urban elite, are shocked when they open their morning newspapers to read horror stories from the provinces: of religious fanatics who sprayed acid onto the exposed legs of schoolgirls in Mersin; of a young woman near Malatya who was buried alive because she allegedly had a boyfriend; and of the rapes of two sisters in Siirt by almost 100 men.The brutality with which women are treated is as old as Turkey itself, and the previous regimes failed just as miserably when it came to protecting the victims. But between 2002 and 2009, the number of violent acts and so-called honor killings rose from 66 to 953. A woman dies every day, say human rights activists. The AKP argues that the figures are so high because more murders are now being reported and documented.Sociologist Binnaz Toprak acknowledges this as a possibility, but she also has another explanation: "The pressure to behave devoutly, to pray regularly, to fast and not to drink alcohol, has gone up. Society has become more conservative." A climate has developed in which women are no longer seen on the streets after dark outside the big cities, a climate in which some feel emboldened to interpret verses of the Koran in a misogynistic way.Toprak's analysis confirms the suspicions of secular Turks and skeptical Europeans that a broad segment of Turkish society espouses a view of the world and of women that is incompatible with that of the West. This casts a dark shadow over Turkey as an EU candidate.It's more likely that the Europeans and the Turks will continue to spend years talking at cross-purposes, but without expressing the two truths that everyone knows by now: that Europe doesn't want Turkey -- and that soon Turkey will no longer need Europe.Hmmmm......Keep the "Sultan and Teacher" Erdogan out of the European Union.Read the full story here.

• Syrian Website: Turkish Fighters Operating Against Syrian Security Forces.A Syrian website reports that in clashes in the Jisr Al-Shughur region in northern Syria, bordering the Turkish province of Alexandretta, 4,000 Turks are also participating, and so far some 200 of them have been captured by Syrian security forces. 'It was reported that the Syrian army was concentrating many forces in the region, anticipating a lengthy conflict, and that many residents had fled.Read the full story here.

• Iranian Website: Ahmadinejad Visit To Armenia Prevented Due To Ban On Entourage Members.The Iranian website Fararu said that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to Armenia, set for June 6, had been suddenly cancelled due to Iranian authorities' ban on leaving the country for two members of his entourage. Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi,senior advisor to Ahmadinejad, staid that the visit had been postponed for technical reasons, but it is thought that the matter is connected to the rift between Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Ahmadinejad.Read the full story here.