MFS - The Other News

                       Morning Posting.

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity in Japan today 4.9 ! More info here.

• Japan - Nuclear disaster - Situation Update No. 141 - .Source .

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

• Ron Paul to Bernanke: “You could’ve given $17,000 to each citizen,”.(Forbes).Bernanke Fights Ron Paul In Congress: Gold Isn’t Money.Chairman Ben Bernanke faced-off with Fed-hating Representative Ron Paul during his monetary policy report to Congress on Wednesday. The head of the Fed was forced to respond to accusations of enriching already rich corporations while failing to help Main Street, while he was pushed on his views on gold. When asked whether gold is money, Bernanke flatly responded “No.” (See video above).While most of Bernanke’s reports to Congress serve politicians to pursue their own agendas by gearing the Chairman towards their issues, with Republican Rep. Bacchus talking of the unsustainability of Medicaid and Rep. Frank (D, Mass.) asking about the need to raise the debt limit without cutting spending, it was a stand-off between Bernanke and Ron Paul that took all the attention.Read the full story here.

• President Obama abruptly walks out of talks.(Politico). "President Barack Obama abruptly walked out of a stormy debt-limit meeting with congressional leaders Wednesday, a dramatic setback to the already shaky negotiations, according to GOP sources... 'He shoved back and said ‘I’ll see you tomorrow’ and walked out,' House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) told reporters... On a day when the Moody’s rating agency warned that American debt could be downgraded, the White House talks blew up amid a new round of sniping between Obama and Cantor, who are fast becoming bitter enemies.When Cantor said the two sides were too far apart to get a deal that could pass the House by the Treasury Department’s Aug. 2 deadline — and that he would consider moving a short-term debt-limit increase alongside smaller spending cuts — Obama began to lecture him.“Eric, don’t call my bluff,” the president said, warning Cantor that he would take his case “to the American people.” He told Cantor that no other president — not Ronald Reagan, the president said — would sit through such negotiations.
  "Hmmmmm......Childish or dictatorial behaviour....Or both?Read the full story here.

• John Bolton: Obama worst president for Israel – evah.(JPost).US President Barack Obama is “the most anti-Israel president in the history of the state, without any question,” John Bolton, the former US envoy to the UN and a man considering entering the presidential race against Obama, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.“If you think that this is just a misunderstanding of where the green crayon went in 1949, then think again,” Bolton said of Obama. Bolton’s comments came during a meeting he had with the Post’s editorial board.Bolton, who is currently a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a Fox News commentator, said that Obama bought in to what he said was the “European line” that if you make progress between Israel and the Palestinians “sweetness and light” will break out in the region, and every other problem from Iran to terrorism will be easier to solve.“I think that is like looking through the wrong end of the telescope,” he said.Bolton, in the country along with former Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar and Nobel Peace Prize laureate David Trimble from Northern Ireland as part of a delegation of international dignitaries involved in an organization called Friends of Israel Initiative, said he was considering running for the Republican nomination, and would made a decision by Labor Day.“The problem is that we haven’t had an adequate discussion of national security issues for two and a half years,” he said, explaining why he was thinking about entering the race.“It is not a priority for Obama, and I think that is a big mistake for the United States.”Bolton said he conducted extensive “due diligence” about a possible race for the Republican nomination, including talking to fundraisers, pollsters, and campaign people in different states, including Iowa, where he has visited in advance of the Iowa caucuses, the first test in the US election calendar.Some of Bolton’s harshest criticism of Obama had to do with the administration’s Iran policy, with Bolton saying he believed the Obama administration’s “real Plan B for the Iranian nuclear weapons program is that it can be contained and deterred, much as we contained and deterred the Soviet Union in the Cold War.“I think that is fundamentally wrong,” Bolton said, adding that the only way to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons was through military action.“Diplomacy and sanctions are not going to work,” he said unequivocally.“The Obama administration certainly isn’t going to use force against the Iranian program, and Israel is obviously very reluctant to do it as well,” he said.“If Israel is not prepared to strike, then get ready for an Iran with nuclear weapons, and you can draw your own conclusions. If you think Iran’s behavior is bad now, imagine what it will be if it gets nuclear capability. I think we are all sleepwalking past this.”Bolton said the US would have an easier time destroying Iran’s control of its nuclear fuel cycle than Israel would, but that Israel has the capability to do this, and has had it for some time.“If I had been in charge of the Israeli government, I would have attacked in 2008 for several reasons,” he said.“First, it was three years ago, so you are much more likely to have eliminated the key elements of Iran’s nuclear weapons program.”Secondly, he said, “in 2008 you had a president sympathetic to Israel – so you calculate the next time that is going to occur.”Bolton had equally strong words to say about the Palestinian bid for some type of statehood recognition at the UN in September, something he said should not – as it is in Israel and elsewhere – be getting more attention and energy than the Iranian nuclear threat.Israel’s proper response to the move, he said, is “not to pay any attention to it, and to care no more about it than the grass you tread beneath your feet.”Without referring directly to Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s oft-quoted comment that Israel faced a “diplomatic tsunami” in September, Bolton – who served as US envoy to the UN from 2005-2006 – said “if you make the General Assembly into something more than what it is, than you are giving it authority and legitimacy it doesn’t have.”His comments were made against the backdrop of what is almost certain to be a US veto in the Security Council, the body whose approval is necessary for a state to become a UN member. In that case, the Palestinians are likely to take their bid to the General Assembly, which has no binding authority.Bolton acknowledged, however, that the move did have political significance, similar to the “Zionism Equals Racism” declaration of the mid-1970s.Leaning on past experience when he was head of the international organizations department in the State Department from 1989-1993, Bolton said that the only way to get this move stopped in the UN was for the US Congress to pass legislation saying that if the move did go through, Washington would cut off funding to the international body.He said that a threat by former secretary of state and chief of staff James Baker, backed up by the first president George Bush, to cut off funds to the UN if the PLO was accepted into the UN system as a full member is what kept the PLO from gaining acceptance as a state in 1989.Read the full story here.

• Obama: "Nobody can be messing with our embassy".(DougRoss).Why would CBS headline an article quoting Obama as saying "Nobody can be messing with our embassy"? In all seriousness, that's just bizarre.Look, no matter what you think about his policies, Barack Obama is an articulate and well-spoken man. So I do find it somewhat odd and offensive that CBS would pick out an inartful turn of phrase to use as a headline.CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley asked President Obama today about the attacks on the U.S. embassy."Yesterday the U.S. embassy in Damascus was attacked by a mob," Pelley said. "I wonder what you say to the dictator in Syria?""Well, you know, we've been very clear that what we've seen on the part of the Syrian regime has been an unacceptable degree of brutality, directed at its people," Mr. Obama said. "We've certainly sent a clear message that nobody can be messing with our embassy. And that we will take whatever actions necessary in order to protect our embassy. And I think they've gotten that message."Hmmmm..........Read and see the full story here.

• Mother 'with attitude' arrested after refusing TSA pat-down of daughter.(DailyMail).A mother has been arrested after refusing to let her child be searched by a TSA agent.Andrea Fornella Abbott, 41, was arrested at Nashville International Airport on Saturday after telling agents she did not want her daughter to be 'touched inappropriately' or have her 'crotch grabbed,' according to a police report.Mrs Abbott acted 'belligerent and verbally abusive to staff', yelling and swearing at them, according to the report. Police said after the woman refused to calm down she was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct.Speaking to police, airport officer Sabrina Birge said:'[Abbott] told me in a very stern voice with quite a bit of attitude that they were not going through that X-ray.'The officer then told Mrs Abbott: 'No, it’s not an X-ray,' before adding, 'It is 10,000 times safer than your cell phone and uses the same type of radio waves as a sonogram.'Mrs Abbott then reportedly replied: 'I still don’t want someone to see our bodies naked.'Mrs Abbott was also prevented from taking a video of the incident on her mobile phone.The news comes as the TSA finally changed its policy on patting down young children at airports this month.Airport security workers will now make repeated attempts to screen young children without resorting to invasive pat-downs.The agency is working to put that change in place around the country, and it should reduce, but not eliminate, pat-downs for children.The move comes after public outrage in April over a video of six-year-old Anna Drexel, who was patted down at New Orleans airport.Hmmmm......At a meeting of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee in Washington, Pistole told the members that TSA agents will be instructed to make “repeated efforts” to resolve security screenings without conducting pat downs on children younger than 10 years old.Read the full story here.

• Over a Fifth of Navy Ships Aren’t Ready to Fight.(Wired).More than a fifth of the Navy isn’t ready to sail or fight, at a time when demand on the fleet is off the charts. And the number of unready ships is likely to rise as Navy officers try to fix their chronic readiness woes.According to statistics released by Rep. Randy Forbes, the Virginia Republican who chairs the House Armed Services Readiness Subcommittee, 22 percent of Navy ships didn’t pass their inspections in 2011. In 2007, just 8 percent of ships were rated as carrying junk equipment or insufficient spare parts. And more than half the Navy’s deployed aircraft — the F/A-18 Hornets, the jamming EA-18G Growlers, the P-3C Orion surveillance plane — aren’t ready for combat.The Navy’s surface fleet goes into the water banged up. Its aircraft carriers, frigates, destroyers spend nearly 40 percent of their deployment time with “at least one major equipment or systems failure,” according to a chart Forbes released at a hearing on Tuesday. That can include “anti-air defenses, radar, satellite communications, or engines.” Let’s not forget that even the new ships are disintegrating.And the demand on the Navy is huge. Consider the last year at sea. U.S. Navy ships and aircraft performed support missions for Iraq and Afghanistan. They helped with disaster relief after Pakistani floods and a Japanese tsunami/earthquake. They fought Somali pirates and spearheaded an ongoing war in Libya.At Forbes’ hearing, two senior Navy officers, Vice Adm. William Burke and Vice Adm. Kevin McCoy, signaled that the readiness problem’s going to get worse before it gets better. As engineers perform more detailed inspections — the admirals’ solution to the problem — they’ll probably expose even deeper maintenance woes. And ship maintenance “came up short” in the current defense budget, Burke said, with $5 billion devoted to patching up the fleet.Philip Ewing of DoD Buzz contends that today’s Navy is paying the bill for short-sighted Pentagon decisions in the late ’90s and early 2000s. As someone who documented “systemic, service-wide problems with preventive maintenance” at emerged at the end of the last decade, Ewing writes that the Navy cut back on maintenance crews, used computer programs instead of skilled chiefs for maintenance instruction, and “simple budget cuts meant ships didn’t get the regular maintenance or spare parts they needed.”Now consider that the Navy’s facing down three big trends. The Obama administration’s $400 billion, 12-year defense budget cut means it has to juggle priorities if it wants to get its ships and planes ready to fight. (Bye-bye, super lasers.) The Pentagon sees the U.S.’ most likely security showdowns occurring at sea and in the air, especially in the western Pacific — the Navy’s wheelhouse. Finally, unless the Navy goes on a shipbuilding surge in the next decade, the fleet might shrink by about 70 ships as the Reagan-era subs and combatants meet the end of their service life in the 2020s.The Navy, in other words, is staring down an era of doing more with less.Hmmmmmm........"CHANGED"?Read the full story here.

• Breast-feeding mother 'told to leave council headquarters because she would offend Muslim visitors'.(DailyMail).A mother was ordered not to breastfeed her baby in public because she was in a ‘multicultural building’. Emma Mitchell, 32, was about to feed 19-week-old son Aaron when a receptionist at a town hall warned her to stop.Last night Mrs Mitchell condemned council staff, saying it was time people recognised the law which allows nursing mothers to breastfeed in public.‘It was just awful. I felt humiliated, intimidated and guilty through the whole thing,’ she said. ‘What I was doing was one of the most natural things a mother can do. You hear everywhere that breast is best for your baby, so why wouldn’t I be allowed to do that?’ The incident occurred when Mrs Mitchell, from Oldham, was in the Citizens’ Advice Bureau in Oldham Civic Centre.The mother of two was asking about hiring a babysitter for her two boys when Aaron became hungry and started crying. She then asked the receptionist if she could use a corner of the room to feed him, but she refused, saying it was a ‘multicultural building’.Mrs Mitchell, who is married to Neil, 43, a lorry driver, said: ‘She then rang the manager who told me that I couldn’t breastfeed here and to go into the shopping centre’s public toilets instead.‘A member of the complaints department came down and spoke to the receptionist. ‘But she then told me that I had caused an uproar. I just asked to be allowed a place to feed my crying baby.’ Michelle Booth, 38, a friend who was at the civic centre, said: ‘I don’t understand. It’s political correctness gone mad when they’re worried about offending people of other cultures over something so natural.’ Under UK law, mothers can breastfeed in public under the provision of goods, services and facilities section of the Sexual Discrimination Act, whatever the age of the baby, in places such as council buildings, cafes, restaurants, libraries and doctors’ surgeries.Last night councillor Shoab Akhtar, of Oldham Council, said: ‘We fully support the right of mothers to breastfeed their children and actively encourage it due to the long-term health benefits it provides.Hmmmm.....The religion of peace.Read the full story here.

• "To boldly go where no ship has gone before". Russia build the perfect vessel for it.(Wired).What the Soviets lacked in ability for effective governance, they made up for in ballsy engineering prowess. Really, who else would think to pack two nuclear reactors into a ship and set it loose in the Arctic breaking ice?The NS Yamal, named after the “Ends of the Earth” Yamal Peninsula in Northwest Siberia, is an Arktika-class nuclear-powered Russian icebreaker. Although construction on it began back in 1986, the Yamal was not completed until 1992, after the fall of Soviet rule. Since the new Russian government no longer needed it for its intended purpose — keeping Arctic shipping lanes open — the 150 meters long, 23,455 ton Yamal has since been operated by the Murmansk Shipping Company as a converted 50-cabin cruiser for North Pole tours.This ship is powered by dual pressurized-water nuclear reactors, each of which contains 245 enriched uranium fuel rods. When fully loaded with 500kg of nuclear material, the Yamal can operate for up to five years without needing to refuel. Each reactor weighs 160 tons and resides within a closed compartment under reduced pressure and is shielded by steel, high density concrete and water. 86 sensors throughout the ship monitor radiation levels at all times.Breaking with the Soviet tradition of intuitive, straightforward design, the reactors are used to power Rube Goldberg propulsion system. The reactors power boilers which generate high pressure steam to power 12 dynamos which in turn power electric motors attached to each of the three propeller screws. These motors provide each screw with roughly 25,000 horsepower or 55.3MW. With that much power, the Yamal punches through ice up to 2.3m thick at a speed of 3 knots. And though the Yamal’s maximum rated ice thickness is 5m, it has been recorded smashing individual ice ridges as thick as 9m.But the Yamal doesn’t rely on brute force and a 48mm thick double hull alone. It’s coated with a special, friction-reducing polymer and also uses a water ballast system between the double hulls to concentrate additional weight in the stern. If those aren’t enough, the Yamal is equipped with a an air bubbling system that jets 24 m³/s of air 9m below the surface to help break up the floe (they also help with steering).Despite its ability to break through 20 vertical feet of ice at a time, the Yamal is effectively trapped in the Arctic. Because the reactors use the area’s frigid water for cooling, the Yamal is physically incapable of traveling near (and definitely not past) the equator without overheating and melting down its fuel supply.Hmmmm......Trapped by it's sheer force.Read and see the full story here.More here.

• Casualties in Kandahar mosque blast.(Al-Jazeera). Cleric reportedly killed by suicide blast during Kandahar memorial service for Afghan president's brother. Casualties are reported following a blast at a mosque in Kandahar during a memorial service for Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of Afghan president Hamid Karzai who was killed on Tuesday.Officials told the Reuters news agency that a senior cleric had been killed with three others, and said there were 11 other casualties.Afghan Interior ministry spokesman Siddiq Siddiqi told AFP the explosion was caused by a suicide bombing.Hmmmm.......Nothing personal i hope?Read the full story here.

• Updated: Suicide attack hits memorial for Karzai's brother, 4 killed.(NDTV).Kandahar: A suicide bomber blew himself up inside a mosque in southern Afghanistan on Thursday, killing four people among those who had gathered for a memorial service for the president's assassinated half-brother, the government said.Among those killed in the explosion in Kandahar city was Hekmatullah Hekmat, the head of the clerical council for the province, the Interior Ministry said. At least 13 people were wounded, said Zalmai Ayubi, spokesman for the provincial governor.No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.The Sarra Jamai mosque in the southwest of the city had been filled with relatives and friends of the president's half-brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, who was killed earlier this week. They were offering their condolences to the family of the provincial leader.Wali Karzai was shot at close range by a confidant on Tuesday, leaving President Hamid Karzai without a powerful ally in Kandahar province, a former Taliban stronghold and the site of recent military offensives by the U.S.-led military coalition.Hmmm......I guess it was personal after all?Read the full story here.

• Euro Crisis - Berlin Retreats on Private Involvement in Greece Bailout.(Spiegel).The markets, it would seem, are becoming impatient. Even as Berlin seems content to move only slowly toward the establishment of a second bailout package for debt-stricken Greece, investors are getting nervous. As are rating agencies. Fitch on Wednesday downgraded Greek debt to one step above default status. The agency cited the lack of certainty on a second aid package for Greece as a factor in its decision. In addition, the International Monetary Fund on Wednesday worsened its outlook on the Greek economy, forecasting that it would shrink by 3.8 percent this year instead of the 3 percent it had earlier predicted.Still, sluggish progress is being made toward a second aid package for Greece. And according to a report in the business daily Handelsblatt on Thursday, Germany may be backing away from its demand that private investors make a "substantial contribution" to the bailout. "(German Finance Minister Wolfgang) Schäuble is under massive pressure," an unnamed European Union diplomat told the paper. "He is being forced to bow to reality."The Finance Ministry had been hoping that banks, insurance companies and investment funds would come up with €30 billion for the next bailout, which could be worth as much as €110 billion. But with many euro-zone countries opposed, the European Central Bank skeptical and rating agencies concerned, the word inside the Finance Ministry in Berlin, according to the Handelsblatt, is that such private involvement has reached a dead end.Hmmmm.....The birth of 'Euro bonds' just came a step closer.Read the full story here.

• Lukachenko an officer and not a 'Gentleman',is the end of the last Ex-Sovjet Dictator near?(Spiegel).Uprising in Belarus, the Internet Generation Takes on Europe's Last Dictator.The end of Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko's era appears to be approaching, as thousands take to the streets in Minsk to protest against the country's economic crisis. The Internet-savvy demonstrators are finding ever-more-creative ways to voice dissent, but Lukashenko is responding with violence. For weeks, thousands have been taking to the streets to demonstrate their dissatisfaction with the Lukashenko regime, but they are going about it in a playful and almost joyful manner. They meet in public squares, seemingly spontaneously, walk in groups through parks, suddenly start to applaud and organize peaceful motorcades. It's the Belarusian version of flash mobs.Lukashenko has ruled unchallenged for 17 years, during which he has eliminated the political opposition and the free press. But he seems overwhelmed by the protests of recent weeks. In fact, Lukashenko is so beside himself that he now has entire busloads of people arrested almost every day, without any legal justification.When people in Belarus "are no longer being arrested by the hundreds but by the thousands, an irreversible process has begun," says Ukrainian political scientist Vladimir Gorbach. Similarly, the Moscow newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta writes that the "end of the Lukashenko era" is approaching. In the wake of the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, are we now witnessing the twilight of a regime that has persisted for so many years, wedged between the Western European democracies and the new Russia?Lukashenko, 56, who was the political commissioner of a tank company during the Soviet era and later the director of a collective farm, was reelected to another term as president in December, but the vote was apparently blatantly rigged. With the help of the police and state security units, he managed to brutally suppress the established opposition, which called on its supporters to take to the streets after polling stations closed. His task was made easier by the fact that the regime's opponents, who are organized in very small parties and include former top government officials, are internally divided and have little support among the population.The president had bought the approval of many Belarusians with generous wage and pension increases. The unspoken agreement was that the people could enjoy economic security as long as they stayed out of politics. After the election, Lukashenko promptly got even with his adversaries, without encountering any resistance from the public, at least at first. They were jailed on charges of having incited "mass unrest." Several of the opposition's former presidential candidates are now in prison.But then an economic crisis occurred in the spring. Belarus's economy, already suffering from the high prices of oil and natural gas from Russia, ran out of money, and Lukashenko's irresponsible wage increase only made the situation worse. Because the country imports far more than it exports, its balance of trade also collapsed.What failed to happen after December's election is now happening half a year later: The population is rising up. The Independent Institute of Socioeconomic and Political Studies, which now operates in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius after having been expelled from Belarus, has documented the radical shift in the public mood with a detailed opinion poll.It concludes that the number of people who are dissatisfied with their material situation has tripled since March of this year. Some 73 percent of Belarusians complain that their quality of life has worsened dramatically, and almost one in two blame it on the president. Lukashenko's approval rating declined from 55 percent in December, the month of the election, to only 33 percent in June. Close to two-thirds of poll respondents say that it is "not good for the country" that Lukashenko now has absolute power. The radical shift in public opinion is so remarkable because it shows that criticism of the dictator has reached the middle class, which includes Belarus's small and mid-sized business owners. They feel that Lukashenko's state socialism is disastrous.Hmmmmm......Why does Russia allow Lukachenko to continue?Read the full story here.

• Hezbollah: We won't let Israel take our gas.(Ynet).Hezbollah flexing muscles over maritime border dispute with Israel – Deputy Chief of Hezbollah, Sheik Naim Kassam said that "Lebanon will not permit gas or oil to be extracted from its land or territorial waters."We will continue to closely follow the situation in order to restore Lebanon's rights, at whatever cost necessary,' he said.In a speech on Wednesday, Hassan Nasrallah's deputy noted that "Hezbollah supports the national position to defend the country's maritime rights and the government's delineation of a maritime border." Kassam commented on Israel's remarks vis-à-vis the maritime border, saying: "The Israeli threats do not frighten us. We will not change our position and continue to maintain our rights. "Israel knows its threats fall on deaf ears in Lebanon, after it tasted the bitter taste of the mighty Lebanese resistance." On Monday Lebanese President Michel Suleiman warned Israel against "taking any unilateral decision regarding the maritime border, which violates international law – as it often does on many matters."Suleiman's comments came after Jerusalem handed the United Nations its position on Israel's maritime border with the Land of Cedars, by which the border should be drawn further north, leaving Israel an area thought to contain natural gas as well as oil reserves.Read the full story here. 

• Sources say Iran prepares for nuclear work in bunker.(TodaysZaman).Iran is preparing to install centrifuges for higher-grade uranium enrichment in an underground bunker, diplomatic sources say, a development that is likely to add to Western worries about Tehran’s atomic aims.Preparatory work is under way at the Fordow facility, tucked deep inside a mountain to protect it against any attacks, and machines used to refine uranium could soon be moved to the site near the clerical city of Qom, the sources said. The Islamic Republic said in June it would shift production of uranium enriched to 20 percent purity to Fordow from its main Natanz plant this year and triple output capacity, in a defiant response to charges that it is trying to make atomic bombs.Tehran only disclosed the existence of Fordow two years ago after Western intelligence detected it and said it was evidence of covert nuclear activities. The facility has yet to start operating. “They are preparing (for the centrifuges to be installed) in Fordow,” one diplomatic source said. Refined uranium can be used to fuel nuclear power reactors and also, if enriched to much higher levels, provide material for atomic arms. Iran’s June announcement that it would move and boost output has drawn censure from the West, which has imposed increasingly tough sanctions on Tehran to try to force it to halt enrichment. Carrying out the process in Fordow could provide greater protection for Iran’s uranium-purifying centrifuges against any US and Israeli air strikes. Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons and says it is enriching uranium for electricity production and medical applications. But its decision in early 2010 to raise the level of enrichment from the 3.5 percent purity needed for normal power plant fuel to 20 percent worried countries that saw it as a significant step toward the 90 percent needed for bombs.Read the full story here.

• Mumbai terror attacks: 18 dead, 133 injured in three bomb blasts.(NDTV).Mumbai: Mumbai woke to a rainy morning in the aftermath of its first terror attack since 26/11. Despite the special hubs for tackling terror strikes, it was left exposed yet again last evening - three blasts within 12 minutes. Eighteen people have died and 133 injured. The city has been sealed and is on high alert; so are Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata and Bangalore.Through the night, the hospitals in Mumbai were in overdrive. Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, who called the terror strike "an attack on the heart of India," visited JJ Hospital where 20 people were admitted, nine with serious burn injuries. All serious burn injury victims are being moved to JJ Hospital.Home Minister P Chidambaram, who reached the city last night, visited each of the three locations where Improvised Explosive Devices (IED) ripped through the Wednesday evening rush hour. Sources say upto seven IEDs may have been used in the three blasts. At a bus stop in Dadar, the IED was planted inside an electrical box; outside the popular snack shops in Zaveri Bazaar in South Mumbai, the IED was placed on a motorcycle under an umbrella; next to Opera House, the device, police say, was placed in a ditch on the road.The three explosions occurred within twelve minutes - a coordinated terror attack, said Mr Chidambaram. Chief Minister Chavan told NDTV that there was speculation that fuel was used in the IEDs, a sort of Molotov cocktail, but said he would prefer for the police to handle and confirm these details. The blast at Opera House was the most powerful. (Watch: YouTube videos on Mumbai blasts)Teams from the National Investigating Agency collected forensic evidence from the locations. Special officials from the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CSFL) in Hyderabad and Delhi are also handling the case. Traces of ammonium nitrate have been found.Despite the heavy rain, experts say, forensic evidence was not washed away. Samples have been safely collected and are being checked at a forensic lab in Kurla in Mumbai. The details they reveal will be shared this afternoon by investigators. The police also say security cameras opposite the bus stop at Dadar and from Opera House will provide important clues. As the explosions stabbed Mumbai last night, the city kept its calm. Mid-day newspaper reported that the city's trains were running on time on the Central and Western lines. Mr Chavan accepted that the attacks prove that "terror groups are active and able to strike at will."The first blast took place at 6.54 pm in Zaveri Bazaar in South Mumbai, a crowded market named for the many small jewelry stores that fill its narrow streets. A minute later, there was an explosion at Opera House, also in South Mumbai; the final strike was at 7.06 pm near Kabutarkhana at Dadar West in Central Mumbai.Read the full story here.More here ,warning contains graphic images.

• And now for something completely different!'Jewish Eurovision' strikes again.(Video) Hundreds of young adults from Jewish communities worldwide competed through YouTube for right to take part in Jewish world's song contest. You're invited to study vocal abilities of 30 finalists.After 20 years, the "Jewish Eurovision" is making a comeback: Close to 30 Jewish communities from across the world are sending representatives to the world's biggest Jewish song contest, Hallelujah, which will be held on August 25 in Ramat Hasharon. The finalists – from the United States, Mexico, Russia, Australia, Argentina, Sweden, Turkey, Costa Rica, Uruguay and other countries – were selected out of hundreds of contestants who took part in the early auditions. They're all young adults (aged 16-26) who posted their performances on YouTube in Hebrew on in their own language, and were carefully selected by a panel of judges. Israel is sending its own representative, IDF soldier Mor Mahlev, all the way from the Education Corps' military band. Eitan Gafni, Hallelujah's founder and head producer, says that "Hebrew songs are the most popular Israeli art. They are also sung by Jews who do not speak Hebrew in communities, youth movements and summer camps, and during their visits to Israel." Read and listen to the full story here.