MFS - The Other News

                        Morning Posting.

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity in Indonesia  5.1 , Marianna Islands 5.4 ! More info here.

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

• Strict Muslim Uzbek Man Charged With Threatening Obama, gaining possession of explosive material and a machine gun.(Fox).An Uzbek man, who was living illegally in the U.S., was indicted Tuesday by a federal grand jury for allegedly making multiple threats to assassinate President Obama, then gaining possession of explosive material and a machine gun.Ulugbek Kodoriov is accused of making four threats against Obama from July 9 to 13, the indictment says. Kodoriov, who lived in Jefferson County, Ala., eventually gained possession of a Sendra Corporation Model M15-A1 rifle, which was illegal because of his immigration status, according to the indictment. He also allegedly obtained an explosive intended for use as a grenade.He was residing at the Oak Mountain Lodge in Birmingham, according to a search warrant obtained by FoxNews.com. Authorities sought any information in his room regarding Obama, as well as sniper rifles, documents relating to assassinations and Jihadist manuals.On July 9, Kodoriov contacted an FBI source and asked about ways to kill the president by a long-range shot, according to the warrant. Kodoriov allegedly inquired about sniper rifles and said he didn’t care if he lost his life in an assassination attempt.Kodoriov, 21, is a strict Muslim from Uzbekistan who previously supported Islamic extremists, an FBI source said, according to the warrant.The Justice Department, in announcing the indictment, said it vindicates the government's "proactive and preventive" approaches to such threats.“We are constantly engaged with partners throughout the law enforcement community in order to keep the overall security picture in focus and to stay ahead of any emerging threats," said Roy Sexton, Secret Service special agent in charge.A person who knew Kodoriov at the Oak Mountain Lodge said he was “completely shocked” about the allegations.Kodoriov came to the United States in June 2009 and remained in the country on a student visa, according to the statement. His student visa was revoked April 1, 2010, for failure to enroll in school, according to the arrest affidavit.If convicted, he faces maximum sentences of five years in prison on each count of threatening the president and 10 years in prison on each of the weapons counts.Hmmm......Another 'misunderstander' of Islam?Read the full story here.

• House Democratic Leaders To Obama: Use The 14th Amendment.(HuffingtonPost).WASHINGTON -- House Democratic leaders emerged from a Wednesday Caucus meeting with a message for President Barack Obama: Invoke the Constitution to resolve the debt standoff.If Congress can't reach a deal on a long-term debt limit increase by August 2, Obama should "sign an executive order invoking the 14th Amendment," said Assistant Minority Leader James Cyburn (D-S.C.)."I am convinced that whatever discussions about the legality of that can continue," Clyburn said. "But I believe that something like this will bring calm to the American people and will bring needed stability to our financial markets."House Democratic Caucus Chairman John Larson (D-Conn.) acknowledged that Obama has previously expressed doubts about his legal authority to unilaterally raise the debt limit. But circumstances have changed, Larson said, and "we just want to let him know that his Caucus is prepared to stand behind him" if Congress fails to pass a long-term deal."We have to have a fail-safe mechanism," Larson said. "We believe that fail-safe mechanism is the 14th Amendment and the president of the United States."White House Press Secretary Jay Carney again ruled out the possibility of Obama using the 14th Amendment to resolve the debt dispute."Our position hasn't changed," Carney said during his Wednesday briefing. "There are no off-ramps. ... Only Congress has the legal authority."

UPDATE: 5:20 p.m. -- Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) and a handful of other Democrats are holding a Thursday press conference to urge Obama to use the 14th Amendment as a back-up option. Reps. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), John Garamendi (D-Calif.) and Del Donna Christensen (D-Virgin Islands) will join with Engel at 1 p.m. to call to Obama to "invoke the 14th Amendment in the absence of a bipartisan agreement agreement to raise the debt ceiling and avoid national default," according to a press release. The group also picked a symbolic location to deliver their message: the corner of Constitution Ave and 14th St.Hmmmm......Time to start impeachment?Read the full story here.

• "There She Blows"! Is ‘Fast and Furious’ Just the Tip of Obama’s Gun Smuggling Iceberg?(BigGovernment).It was just over two and half years ago that the Obama administration entered the White House under promises of transparency and restoring America’s image abroad. Yet now we know that at the same time they were promising these things, Obama was simultaneously setting aside $10,000,000.00 for operation “Gun Runner” (via the stimulus package) and the ATF was looking the other way while 2,500 guns were sold to suspicious characters in Arizona who were supposed to take the weapons to Cartel members in Mexico.Now we all know that “Gun Runner” was followed by operation “Fast and Furious,” which quickly proved to be an utter disaster. Run from the top down, from the DOJ to the ATF and FBI, “Fast and Furious” turned out to be slow and impotent. Only 1,300 of the 2,500 weapons sold were recovered and what was supposed to be a sweep of the Mexican cartel turned instead into a gift of 1,200 weapons that we failed to find.In the aftermath of these operations, Acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson has given testimony under oath indicating that Attorney General Eric Holder pressured him not to speak openly with members of Congress about the operations, Obama has denied knowledge of either, and the crime rate in Mexico has jumped exponentially.Could it get any worse? Maybe so.For instance, over the weekend the El Paso Times detailed an alleged gun smuggling operation in which Obama administration officials were selling military grade weapons to drug cartel members in Mexico. Supported by at least one former DEA official and one “CIA contract pilot,” the allegations are that weapons have been regularly transported from the Dallas/Fort Worth area to El Paso, Texas and/or Columbus, New Mexico. From either of those locations they then crossed into Mexico.What kind of weapons are we talking about? According to Pajamas Media the weapons in view include “‘anti-aircraft weapons and hand grenades from the Vietnam War era,’…[as well as] grenade launchers, assault rifles, handguns and military gear including night-vision goggles and body armor.” The theory is that said weapons are being stockpiled in Mexico for a specific place and time: perhaps even the 2012 Mexico elections.It is alleged that these weapons were sold “through a little-publicized program…[referred to as] ‘U.S. Direct Commercial Sales.’” The program was put in place to “regulate the sale of U.S. firearms to other countries,” but if the allegations are true, the program has more or less served as a cover for other operations (like selling military grade weapons to drug cartels in Mexico).As a matter of fact, one Mexican drug cartel member who has been questioned claims that all the weapons he and his men possess “were obtained in the U.S., many of which were sold to them by the United States government.” It’s important to note that the difference between these guns and those tied to “Gun Runner” is that the DOJ was over “Gun Runner” but the State Department was allegedly behind direct sale to Mexican drug cartels.In other words, it’s a whole new level of crookedness and corruption.I know this is a lot of information coming at us awfully quick. And in a way it’s hard to believe. However, “Gun Runner” and “Fast and Furious” were also hard to believe when we first heard of them. But now it’s more than evident that the details of those two operations were true.The bottom line is that the mantra about transparency and restoring America’s honor abroad has become but a distant memory at this point. Now, nothing this administration does comes as a real surprise.Hmmmm.......Thugocacy in it's natural habitat?Read the full story here.

• Hillary Clinton Will Ask Obama To Veto House GOP’s Foreign Aid Bill That Slashes Aid To The UN, Islamic Countries.(Politico).Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is urging a group of House Republicans to give up their push for a bill that would slash payments to the United Nations and limit aid to Egypt, Pakistan and the Palestinian Authority, among other groups.Clinton said in a letter Tuesday that she would urge President Barack Obama to veto the bill if it passes in both houses of Congress because the measure “would be debilitating to my efforts to carry out a considered foreign policy and diplomacy, and to use foreign assistance strategically to that end,” The Washington Post reported.The bill cleared the House Foreign Affairs Committee last week in an effort to cut $6.4 billion from the president’s request for $51 billion in foreign aid for 2012. While it has the potential to pass the GOP-controlled House, it’s seen as unable to get through the Democrat-led Senate.The bill would impose “onerous restrictions” on State Department operations and foreign aid, Clinton wrote, and the “severe curtailing” of dues payments to international groups including the UN and the Organization of American States would be damaging.The legislation’s proposal to block funding to countries that don’t meet corruption standards “has the potential to affect a staggering number of needy aid recipients,” as do proposals to restrict aid to Egypt, Lebanon, Yemen and the Palestinian Authority. The bill would only allow the flow of money to those countries if the Obama administration was able to certify that no members of terror groups or their sympathizers were serving in their governments.Brad Goehner, a spokesman for Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), the chairwoman of the House committee, told the Post that the letter was “disappointing, particularly given the current debt crisis, that the Obama administration is fighting to keep sending taxpayer money to foreign organizations and governments that undermine U.S. interests.”Hmmmm......"We will stand with our Muslim Brothers"Against the US and Israel?When will Congress stand up to this 'fifth Column'?Read the full story here.

• NYC Parks Deny 9/11 Screenings.(Kaffirkanuck).Christian Action Network (CAN) is considering legal action against the Parks and Recreation Department (PRD) of New York City for refusing to allow it to screen the documentary, Sacrifice Survivors : The Untold Story of the Ground Zero Mosque. The screenings were to take place during the week leading up to September 11th, 2011 at the following parks:

September 5, 2011 – Central Park, the Great Lawn

September 6, 2011 – Chelsea Park, off 9th Ave and 28th Street

September 7, 2011 – Peace Garden Park, near the United Nations

September 8, 2011 – Riverside Park, Pier 1, 70th Street

September 9, 2011 – Washington Square Park, 5th Avenue and West 4th Street

September 10, 2011 – James J. Walker Park at Hudson Street

September 11, 2001 – Battery Park

CAN writes:

Last month, the Department approved a screening of a movie named “Welcome to Shelbyville” at a Manhattan recreational center. The film focuses on a community of 1,100 Somalis in a Tennessee town and its struggles in assimilating. It has been promoted by groups that terrorism experts believe are tied to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, including the Council on American Islamic Relations, the Islamic Society of North America and the Muslim Public Affairs Council. However, CAN is facing more resistance.

After several written requests, the only response from PRD has been verbal. Insofar, these parks have not been booked for any other events.Hmmmm.......Thank you Sheik Mayor Bloomberg?Read the full story here.

• Oslo train station evacuated in bomb scare as police hunt 'dangerous' ex-prisoner tied to massacre suspect.(DailyMail).Part of Oslo's central train station was evacuated this morning after the discovery of an abandoned suitcase.And police were looking for a 'dangerous' and unstable man released from prison on Monday who claims to identify himself with the man who launched fatal bomb and shooting attacks last week.The Norwegian Railway Authority said the suitcase was found in on one of the buses which links the Oslo Sentral to the city's airport.Police sealed off the area, but the abandoned luggage was later found not to contain anything suspicious.A fireman at the scene said: 'There is some baggage that was left on a bus and that the police bomb squad is checking it out.An official for NSB, the national rail service, said: 'All the trains and the buses have been cancelled until further notice.'Under police orders nobody is allowed to go into the station.'Jack Vaadahl, the driver of a bus scheduled to travel to Oslo airport, said he reported the suspicious suitcase to security personnel.He said: 'A suspicious person left in a hurry... leaving his luggage on the bus.'NTB news agency reported that someone was spotted putting a suitcase on a bus near railway track 19 and then leaving the scene.The city is on high alert in the wake of Friday's bombing and youth camp shooting that killed at least 68 people.The first Cabinet ministers were due to return to their offices today after the car bomb exploded in the government district of the Norwegian capital.Anders Behring Breivik, a 32-year-old Norwegian, has confessed to the attacks, according to police and his lawyer, but pleaded not guilty to the killings.In a rambling 1,500-page manifesto, he claims to have been associated with two terror cells within the country, as well as others abroad.Read the full story here.

• ATF official: I told the White House about Fast and Furious.(HotAir).What did Barack Obama know about Operation Fast and Furious, and when did he know it? Rep. Darrell Issa’s committee uncovered an explosive nugget of information from the subpoena of ATF e-mail, which went public in yesterday’s hearings. The ATF manager of the Phoenix office notified a White House official of Operation Fast and Furious as an update on the overall Project Gunrunner effort, connecting the controversial operation directly to the White House for the first time:

At a lengthy hearing on ATF’s controversial gunwalking operation today, a key ATF manager told Congress he discussed the case with a White House National Security staffer as early as September 2010. The communications were between ATF Special Agent in Charge of the Phoenix office, Bill Newell, and White House National Security Director for North America Kevin O’Reilly. Newell said the two are longtime friends. The content of what Newell shared with O’Reilly is unclear and wasn’t fully explored at the hearing. …Congressional investigators obtained an email from Newell to O’Reilly in September of last year in which Newell began with the words: “you didn’t get this from me.”“What does that mean,” one member of Congress asked Newell, ” ‘you didn’t get this from me?’ ”“Obviously he was a friend of mine,” Newell replied, “and I shouldn’t have been sending that to him.”What’s less clear is why Newell informed him with the caveat “you didn’t get this from me”. Why wouldn’t the ATF report on Fast and Furious results to the White House when asked? Was Newell told to avoid linking the operation directly to the White House, or was the ATF worried about the implications of the operation even before it blew up in their faces? Given the hostility towards Congressional oversight already demonstrated at the ATF and Department of Justice during this investigation, this looks like even more evidence that the Obama administration let the ATF run wild, perhaps on purpose.The more important question will be who O’Reilly told at the White House about the operation. Clearly, O’Reilly wanted the information to prepare for key meetings on a very sensitive subject. It’s hard to believe that O’Reilly would have kept that information to himself. Issa’s committee needs to get O’Reilly into the hearing and on the record, and it may be time to subpoena some White House records, too.Hmmmm.......Gunwalker....These boots will keep on walking.Read the full story here.

• 'US paying salaries for jailed Palestinian terrorists'.(Jpost).The Palestinian Authority spends more than $5 million a month paying salaries to terrorists sitting in Israeli prisons, according to a Palestinian Media Watch report presented to congressmen in Washington on Tuesday.According to the report, written by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik, such payments contravene US law, which prohibits funding of any person who “engages in, or has engaged in terrorist activity.“The US funds the PA’s general budget,” the document reads. “Through the PA budget the US is paying the salaries of terrorist murderers in prison and funding the glorification and role modeling of terrorists.”Marcus, director of Palestinian Media Watch, met with Republican lawmakers on Tuesday to discuss the report, amid efforts to get US congressmen – on the eve of the Palestinian move to gain statehood recognition at the UN in September – to cut US funds to the PA, not because of the Hamas and Fatah reconciliation, but because of the PA’s support and glorification of terrorists.According to the report, “A law signed and published in the official Palestinian Authority Registry in April 2011 puts all Palestinians and Israeli Arabs imprisoned in Israel for terror crimes on the PA payroll to receive a monthly salary from the PA.”The report says this law “formalizes what has long been a PA practice.”Those eligible for the payments, according to the report, are “anyone imprisoned in the occupation’s [Israel’s] prisons as a result of his participation in the struggle against the occupation.”Quoting from Al-Hayat al- Jadida, an official daily newspaper of the Palestinian Authority, the report said that more than 5,500 Palestinian prisoners receive these funds.Palestinian car thieves in Israeli prisons will not receive a salary, but every terrorist in prison including murderers are on the PA payroll, the report said, adding that “the salary goes directly to the terrorist or the terrorist’s family.”The report said the average monthly salary for terrorist prisoners is NIS 3,129, more than the average monthly wage for a PA civil servant.According to the report, the payments are dependent on foreign funding, and the PA law governing the payments stipulates that they “will be implemented... on the basis of available sources of funding.”The US provided some $600m. to the PA in 2010, including $225m. in direct budgetary assistance to the PA.The 2010 appropriations act governing assistance to the West Bank and Gaza stipulated that the Secretary of State “shall take all appropriate steps to ensure that such assistance is not provided to or through any individual, private or government entity, or educational institution that the Secretary knows or has reason to believe advocates, plans, sponsors, engages in, or has engaged in, terrorist activity...”The report also documented cases of the PA honoring and glorifying terrorists for attacks, which is also contrary to US law that stipulated that no US funds to the West Bank “may be made available for the purpose of recognizing or otherwise honoring individuals who commit, or have committed acts of terrorism.”Among the examples listed in the report of the PA glorifying terrorists are a summer camp for children sponsored by PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad in which campers were divided into three groups named after terrorists: Dalal Mughrabi, who led the Coastal Road Massacre in 1978; Salah Khalaf, head of Black September that carried out the Munich Massacre in 1972; and Abu Ali Mustafa, the general secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine that carried out numerous terrorist attacks.Hmmmmm........Obama's 'peacepartners'.Read the full story here.

• Wyden Pressing Intel Officials on Domestic Location Tracking.(Cato).At a confirmation hearing this morning for Matthew Olsen, who’s been tapped to head the National Counterterrorism Center, Wyden repeatedly asked the nominee whether the intelligence community “use[s] cell site data to track the location of Americans inside the country.” This comes on the heels of a letter Wyden and Udall sent to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper demanding an answer to the same question. Olsen was unsurprisingly vague, calling it a “complicated question” but allowing that there were “certain circumstances where that authority may exist.” The committee was promised a memo explaining those “circumstances” by September. That means that just about ten years after Congress approved the Patriot Act, a handful of legislators may get the privilege of learning what it does. Ah, democracy.On a related note, one of the data points I cited in my previous post was that Wyden’s Geolocation Privacy and Surveillance Act had, somewhat unusually, been structured primarily as a reform to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which governs intelligence spying, only later incorporating the same protections into the statutes governing ordinary criminal investigations. Especially striking was the inclusion of a specific prohibition on the use of Section 215 for location tracking, above and beyond the general warrant requirement. Since that writing, however, the bill gained Republican co-sponsorship, and dropped the changes to FISA that had previously been the bill’s centerpiece. Instead, the bill now contains an explicit exception for FISA “electronic surveillance,” in addition to the section providing for location tracking authorized by either a criminal or a FISA warrant. I’m not privy to whatever negotiations necessitated that change, but it’s hard to imagine anyone would have insisted on such a substantial restructuring if the intelligence community weren’t doing at least some location tracking pursuant to a lower standard than probable cause.It’s not entirely clear exactly what the current version of the bill would permit, however. FISA is mentioned twice in the draft: once as part of a vague general exemption for “electronic surveillance,” and then again as one of the sources of authority for a “warrant” to do geolocation tracking. At a first pass, though, those two definitions ought to overlap, because FISA requires a secret intelligence court to issue a warrant based on probable cause (to believe the target is an “agent of a foreign power”) for government monitoring that falls within the FISA’s definition of “electronic surveillance,” in contrast with the far laxer standards that apply to the use of Section 215. It’s therefore an interesting puzzle what, exactly, that exception is meant to permit. Possibly the idea is to permit the (otherwise prohibited) “use” and “disclosure” of geolocation information already obtained without a warrant in order to target future judicially authorized “electronic surveillance,” but it’s hard to be sure. What does seem increasingly sure, however, is that location tracking is connected to the controversy over Section 215—and that Congress owes the American people a debate over the proper use and scope of that power, which it has thus far refused to have.Read the full story here.

• Pakistan's Iran blooming love affair test Saudi faith.(AsiaTimesOnline).ISLAMABAD - Saudi Arabian concerns over Pakistan's improving ties with Iran will likely be worsened by reports that Islamabad sent a secret delegation of hard-nosed and devout Sunni scholars to Tehran with the aim of fostering interfaith harmony with their Shi'ite counterparts. Asia Times Online has learned that more than a dozen Wahhabis (hardline Sunni Muslims) from Pakistan were recently sent to Iran to meet with Shi'ite clerics, the majority faith in Iran. Pakistan, like Saudi Arabia, is predominantly Sunni. Efforts to keep the religious dialogue secret were exerted at the government level. The meeting occurred weeks before a high-profile delegation, including President Asif Ali Zardari, visited Tehran for an anti-terrorism summit, suggesting that Pakistan-Iran ties were rapidly improving.High-placed sources say the main objective of the religious delegation sent to Iran was to illustrate to Sunni and Shi'ite sects that "non-Muslim actors" are responsible for sectarian tensions between the two schools of thought in recent years. Maulana Aamir Siddique, new custodian of the Red Mosque (Lal Masjid) in Islamabad, one of the young religious scholars who attended the confidential visit to Iran, told Asia Times Online, "The main objective of the delegation was to unite Muslim nations and narrow the differences among Muslim communities." Siddique's mosque has been seen as a hotbed of Sunni radicalism. It was stormed by security forces in 2007 for providing a safe haven to militants under the protection of two brothers who were its then custodians, Maulana Abdul Aziz and Maulana Abdul Rasheed Ghazi. Ghazi was killed along with 153 others in the offensive. Abdul Aziz was arrested while trying to escape disguised as a female student. Ghazi was Siddique's nephew. Saudi reaction to the recent blossoming of Iran-Pakistan relations has been swift, with King Abdullah inviting Zardari to Saudi Arabia last week, purportedly to discuss bilateral ties and the fight against militancy. With 90% of the Pakistani populace comprised of Sunni Muslims, Pakistan has been under Saudi influence for decades, with Saudis wielding power over internal, political and religious matters. If Islamabad takes its embrace of Iran too far, it will face face increasing pressure from Riyadh.Hmmmmm......One minute it's a Sunni Day, the next minute it's pooring down Shiite?Read the full story here.

• Suicide bomber kills Kandahar mayor in Taliban birthplace.(AlArabiya).The mayor of Kandahar, the biggest city in southern Afghanistan and the birthplace of the Taliban movement, was killed in a suicide attack on Wednesday, police said.The mayor, Ghulam Haidar Hameedi, died when a suicide bomber set off explosives hidden in his turban as the mayor spoke with some citizens in the courtyard of the city hall, said police General Abdul Raziq.The death comes two weeks after the assassination of Ahmed Wali Karzai, the so-called “King of Kandahar,” who was a key strongman in the region and an alleged drugs baron who was also the half-brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.Kandahar -- home to President Karzai’s family and scene of some of the war’s bloodiest fighting over the course of a decade -- is a hotbed of tribal rivalries over local influence and money.Hameedi was killed while he spoke to local people about a land dispute in which the mayor had ordered some houses to be destroyed as they were built illegally, participants at the meeting said.Two children were reportedly killed on Tuesday while the houses were being knocked down.Read the full story here.

• Hezbollah warns Israel against 'stealing' gas.(Ynet).Hassan Nasrallah says Shiite group stronger than ever five years after Second Lebanon War.Hezbollah's leader is warning Israel against "stealing" Lebanon's natural oil and gas resources. A dispute is building between the two arch enemies over their maritime border and huge natural gas and oil reserves beneath the sea. Lebanon has submitted its own sea boundary proposal to the UN, and Israel's government earlier this month approved a conflicting proposal that it sent to the world body.Lebanon called it a violation of international laws and the country's sovereignty. Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Iranian-backed Shiite Hezbollah, warned Israel in a speech Tuesday that his group would retaliate for any future attack on Lebanon's oil and gas installations.Nasrallah said Hezbollah was willing to provide Lebanon with the necessary aid to retrieve the maritime territory. He said anyone daring to hurt Lebanon's gas facilities will suffer similar attacks, adding that Beirut is capable of defending its gas reserves.The Hezbollah leader mocked Israel and claimed it did not achieve its goals in the Second Lebanon War. He said the main outcome of the war was the collapse of trust between "the occupying nation and its army leadership." He also ridiculed Israel's air defense systems. Nasrallah slammed President Shimon Peres, who claimed that the fact that Hezbollah's leader hides in a bunker was a testament to Israel's achievements in the war. "The goal was to weaken Hezbollah and it only became stronger," Nasrallah said. "The goal was to create a new Middle East and that has ended." Nasrallah added, "Israel forgets it was the one to create aggression, carries out slaughters and occupies our land."He advised Israeli leadership to listen to "the generals who were beaten in Lebanon." "The current chief of staff was the commander of the division that was beaten in Lebanon in 2000 and abandoned the South Lebanon Army. The current Northern Command chief was in Lebanon and was ambushed by Hezbollah men. He took four bullets to the chest. Your fate in Lebanon can only be defeat."Read the full story here.

• Libya's Colonel Gaddafi's enters in the Car designs business creates:'safest car in the world'.(Emirates24/7).Colonel Muammar Gaddafi has always been internationally recognised for his vibrant fashion sense, sleeping in Bedouin tents wherever he goes, wearing huge provocative buttons, being guarded by heavily armed women, just to name a few.However, a report on Yahoo! Now features a car he designed for himself, which Libya claims is the safest vehicle on earth.The Saroukh El Jamahiriya, which means Libyan rocket, is a five-seater saloon with the nose and tail of a rocket and powered by a 230bhp V6. Launched at a conference called the Organisation of African Unity and organised by Colonel Gaddafi in 2009, the Libyan Rocket comes with airbags, an electronic defense system and collapsible bumpers that supposedly help out in a crash…The report quotes Dukhali Al Meghareff, chairman of the Libyan Arab Domestic Investment company which produced the prototype, as saying, "The leader spent so many hours of his valuable time thinking of an effective solution. It is the safest car produced anywhere."Hmmmmm........Just test drive it a while Omar.Read the full story here.

• Egyptian Daily: Egypt Prevents Wife of Iranian Shah From Visiting Cairo.(Memri).The Egyptian daily Al-Yawm Al-Sab'a reported that for the first time in 30 years, Egyptian authorities prevented Farah Diba , the wife of the late ousted Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, from visiting his grave in Cairo on the anniversary of his death.The daily estimated that the reason for preventing her from attending is her association with the Mubarak regime.The Iranian website Asr-e Iran claimed that this move is a positive message from Cairo to Tehran.Hmmmm.......Welcome to Egypt ......Iranian style.Read the full story here.

• Turkish human rights commission to monitor racism across Europe.(TodaysZaman).The Turkish Parliament’s Human Rights Investigation Committee has announced that it will closely monitor extreme right and Islamophobic movements in Europe, including hatred and hostility toward European residents of Turkish origin.Committee president and a deputy of the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) Ayhan Sefer Üstün said it has launched a program to monitor the course of the investigation into the Oslo massacre. Üstün further stated that they were in contact with Dutch authorities regarding an investigation of police officers thought to be responsible for the death of Turkish immigrant İhsan Gürz in a Dutch prison on July 2.Speaking to Today’s Zaman, Üstün said European politicians should start questioning themselves and their immigration policies in the aftermath of the Oslo massacre, and also in light of a sharp increase in the number of reports of Turks and other nationals of Muslim background being killed in prison due to alleged police brutally.According to Üstün, the committee was planning to send a delegation to various European countries. “As the Turkish Parliament’s Human Rights Committee, we are drafting a report on the reasons for increasing hostility toward Turks in Europe and on the possible measures that can be taken to combat it. We will meet with European parliamentary officials and get involved in the efforts to curb increasing racism in Europe.”Üstün believes that European politicians, in a simple bid for votes, had fanned the flame of xenophobia in Europe by staying silent in the face of developments that have turned innocent foreigners into outsiders in European societies, failing to see that far right and racist movements had turned monstrous.The committee president went on to explain that European bureaucrats and administrators were no more rational in assessing the right-wing threat than the politicians.“They went so overboard with measures to protect their countries from outside attacks that they were completely intolerant to the distressed people fleeing Libya. Treating the most innocent foreigner as a potential aggressor, they failed to see what the bred and raised racist in Europe was capable of. Did such a huge price have to be paid to understand that violence and terror have no nationality or color?”Üstün described racism as a disease that would take at least one generation to treat, stating again that the price paid in Oslo was the cost of policies promoting xenophobia instead of preventing dangerous far-right movements.Üstün said he had no doubt that the obstacles Turkey has faced in its application for EU membership are due to this racist subconscious. “Particularly the French and German politicians have a huge responsibility in this. The came up with double-standards and unimaginably irrational obstacles to block Turkey’s membership in order to maintain the dual-hegemony they enjoy [over the EU]. These irrational efforts and attitudes of politicians secretly feed racist violence and hostility against Turks. The increasing number of attacks targeting Muslims, particularly Turks, including setting homes on fire and murdering innocent people, are all happening because of these damaging policies.”Üstün said that measures have to be taken immediately to prevent racist violence and terrorism from causing new anguish. European countries that had to endure tremendous grief due to racism in World Wars I and II had taken important legal measures to prevent future racist acts. “However, these measures have been relaxed in later years. Racism, that was once thought would never return, has come back in the form of Islamophobia. The cost of negligence is too high. Our prime minister has many times in the past called for measures against growing racism and Islamophobia, but unfortunately, Europe has failed to take any steps. To the contrary, they took steps that covertly encouraged extremism, such as changing Schengen rules to keep out 3,000 terrified Libyans fleeing violence in their country.”Üstün said terrorism and racism do not come in “international” and “domestic” forms. Regarding Norway he stated, “They should do the same thing they would do if an attack of this kind had happened in a Muslim country. They should question themselves as rigorously as they question Muslim countries. There is now consideration of 21 years in jail [for the Norway gunman]. This would further injure society’s conscience. This would be a punishment that violates the logic of criminal law.”Hmmmm......Wouldn't the Turkish 'human rights commission' better look at all the so called 'honor killings' in Turkey , not mentioning the many innocent Journalist cast away in Turkish prisons just for trying to use freedom of speech?Or the Kurdish people being systematically persecuted?After WWII Europe recognised the Genocide of the Jews unlike the Turks who still don't recognise their Armenian Genocide.As PM Erdogan stated "Muslims don't commit Genocide"?And finally :The European Court of Human Rights " Turkey is worst human rights violator".Read the full story here.