MFS - The Other News

                        Morning Posting.

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity in Japan 4.8 , Indonesia 5.2! More info here.

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

• Syria Live Blog : "On Monday, there was a renewed assault by government forces on the town of Deir Al-zor. But the city of Hama bore the brunt" - here is the latest Al Jazeera report .

• Today is Emancipation Day.(GenealogyCanada). August 1st, 1834 slavery was abolished throughout the British Empire. The government of Upper Canada (Ontario) thereby formally enacted the Emancipation Proclamation. Today, it is known as Emancipation Day. It is, as the website says, a day which is “promoted as a great celebration in Upper Canada. It encouraged thousands to escape slavery in America, and follow the North Star to freedom in Canada”.There will be picnics held throughout the province, and one of them will be at Harrison Park which is in Owen Sound.Read the full story here.

• Barack Obama the Pessimist.(WSJ). His lack of faith in American exceptionalism has dashed any hope of a 'transformational' presidency.By Fouad Ajami.In one of the illuminating, unscripted moments of the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama said—much to the dismay of his core constituency—that the Reagan presidency had been "transformational" in a way that Bill Clinton's hadn't. Needless to say, Mr. Obama aspired to a transformational presidency of his own. He had risen against the background of a deep economic recession, amid unpopular wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; he could be forgiven the conviction that the country was ready for an economic and political overhaul. He gave it a mighty try. But the transformational dream was not to be. The country had limits. Mr. Obama couldn't convince enough Americans that the twin pillars of his political program—redistribution at home, retrenchment abroad—are worthy of this country's ambitions and vocation.Temperament mattered. Ronald Reagan was the quintessential optimist, his faith in America boundless. He had been given his mandate amid economic distress—the great inflation of the 1970s, high unemployment and taxation—and a collapse of American authority abroad. Through two terms and a time of great challenges, he had pulled off one of the great deeds of political-economic restoration. He made tax cuts and economic growth the cornerstone of that recovery. Economic freedom at home had a corollary in foreign affairs—the pursuit of liberty, a course that secured a victorious end to the Cold War. The "captive nations" were never in doubt, American power was on the side of liberty.By that Reagan standard, Mr. Obama has been a singular failure. The crippling truth of the Obama presidency is the pessimism of the man, the low expectations he has for this republic. He had not come forth to awaken this country to its stirring first principles, but to manage its decline at home and abroad. So odd an outcome, a man with an inspiring biography who provides no inspiration, a personal story of "The Audacity of Hope" yielding a leader who deep down believes that America's best days are behind it.Americans' confident belief in the uniqueness, yes the exceptionalism, of their country, rested on an essential faith in liberty, and individualism and anti-statism at home, and in the power of our example, and muscle now and then, in foreign lands. Mr. Obama is ill-at-ease with that worldview. Our country has had pessimism on offer and has invariably rejected it. At crucial points in its history, it has remained unshaken in the belief that tomorrow can be better.In 2008, shaken by a severe economic recession and disillusioned by a difficult war in Iraq, Americans voted for charisma and biography. The electorate could not be certain of the bet it made, for Mr. Obama had been agile, by his own admission he had been a blank slate onto which his varied supporters could project their hopes and preferences. Next time around, it should be easier. The man at the helm has now played his hand.Read the full story here.

• The Super Congress to raise taxes?(Redstate).By Erick Erickson.There are a lot of Republicans tonight willing to play the fool for the GOP in this debt ceiling plan. They say, for example, that there will be no tax increases from this super committee. Never mind that the Democrats are saying otherwise.I can prove to you right now that there will be tax increases.The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) expects the Bush tax cuts to expire. So all the commission has to do is two things: extend middle class Bush tax cuts and enact a permanent alternative minimum tax (AMT) patch. Those two together would look like an increase to the deficit in CBO scoring. So then the commission can start out of the gate with the ability to create several trillion dollars in new tax hikes to equal out to the cuts — cuts that will happen even without the commission most likely. And where will those cuts come from? Those making $250,000.00 or more, of course. And probably the Gang of 6′s ideas to eliminate most deductions to income taxes without revenue neutral rate reductions and the Gang of 6′s pièce de résistance — raising capital gains taxes from 15% to 28%.Have people not been paying attention? In every single address the President has given on the debt ceiling, he has insisted on new tax revenue. John Boehner even put $800 billion on the table, so it is already there.The House and Senate GOP leadership may have convinced themselves that they have snookered the Democrats, but even little ole me, a non-budget genius, can drive a truck through their argument. And their best response probably comes from Ryan Ellis of Americans for Tax Reform. That counter argument is best summed up as but . . . but . . . but . . . the House Leadership says so. And if puppies were unicorns, we’d all live in a fantasy land.Apparently, young lefty Ezra Klein who thinks no one pays attention to the constitution because, dude, it’s so old, is brighter than Ryan Ellis at ATR. Klein writes, “Boehner is misleading his members to make them think taxes are impossible under this deal. The Joint Committee could close loopholes and cap tax expenditures. It could impose a value-added tax, or even a tax on carbon.”There will be tax increases. The Deficit Commission will have at least one weak kneed Republican and the commission will only be as strong as its weakest link. The Bush tax cuts will also absolutely expire and not be renewed.The alternative for the GOP would be seeing massive defense cuts and being blamed for senior citizens seeing their medicare cut. “But,” House Republican leaders exclaim, “the cuts would not be to beneficiaries.”True, the cuts would be punishing doctors who will respond by denying access to medicare patients.The Democrats are happy to force through taxes in the committee and then, when the GOP opposes them, claim the GOP would rather hurt our soldiers and seniors than raise taxes on “fat cat millionaires.”And if we’ve learned nothing else these past few weeks, the GOP fears more than anything else what the Democrats say about them. Don’t believe me on taxes, then ask GOP leadership why they haven’t put in a clear statement prohibiting them or, even better, why there is no prohibition on decoupling the middle class Bush tax cuts from the upper income Bush taxes cuts.Last week in the Washington Post, the GOP Leadership in Congress planted a hit job about me. How do I know they planted it? If not obvious from the story itself, it was from the conversation between the reporter and those she talked to.One of the “attacks” on me was that I was too predictable. Yes, it is true. I am predictable conservative and am not willing to sell out my conservatism for the team. I hate to break it to you.There are stories in the press that (A) the White House and Treasury Department won’t give the GOP information about how much money the U.S. has on hand and (B) that both Democrat and Republican leaders are mad as hell that the markets haven’t crashed so they could scare conservatives into taking a deal.It is true — Republican and Democrat leaders are upset the market has not crashed.Now, having run out the clock and admitted that Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell wrote John Boehner’s plan (that was in the Washington Post), they now want to go back to a grand compromise that yet again includes a super committee of Congress that can pass tax increases with no way to block the committee.And if they do somehow stop the committee or kill its idea, then our soldiers in the field would see punitive cuts to the defense budget, even more so than seniors who will see cuts to medicare. In other words, cuts so painful to right and left that both will have to take the committee recommendation.“But it’s okay,” they tell us. “The committee is structured in such a way that they can’t get tax increases.” Having considered the matter carefully — this is utter bullcrap.So here’s what will happen. The people who are predictably willing to fold to save face with the GOP will ridicule you, me, and the tea party. And in November, when the chickens come home to roost and what I predict comes true yet again, they’ll pretend yet again that they were with us the whole time.But taxes will go up and the Democrats will have won, left wing hysteria notwithstanding.Hmmmm.......The King says "Pay your taxes" .Read the full story here.

• White House, congressional leaders reach debt-limit deal.(WashingtonPost).President Obama and congressional leaders Sunday night sealed a deal to raise the federal debt limit that includes sharp spending cuts but no new taxes, breaking a partisan impasse that has driven the nation to the brink of a government default.The agreement brings to an end a self-created crisis that has consumed Washington, rattled Wall Street, and shaken confidence in the American political system at home and abroad. The deal could clear Congress as soon as Monday night — barely 24 hours before Treasury officials have said they could begin running short of cash to pay the nation’s bills.Passage of the agreement, however, remained far from certain in the House, where skeptical Republicans were just beginning to digest the details. “This process has been messy. It’s taken far too long,” President Obama said in brief remarks at the White House. “Nevertheless, ultimately, the leaders of both parties have found their way toward compromise, and I want to thank them for that.”Obama said the agreement “will allow us to avoid default and end the crisis that Washington imposed on the rest of America. It ensures also that we will not face this same kind of crisis again in six months, or eight months, or12 months. And it will begin to lift the cloud of debt and the cloud of uncertainty that hangs over our economy.”The deal was negotiated primarily by Vice President Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). It teetered all day on the edge of completion as House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) bickered with Democrats over whether to freeze next year’s defense budget. In the end, Boehner conceded the point, and Obama finalized the agreement in phone calls to each of the four congressional leaders shortly after 8 p.m. The agreement would raise the $14.3 trillion debt limit in two stages by as much as $2.4 trillion. It represents a victory for Obama, allowing him to avoid another grueling fight over the debt limit in the heat of the 2012 presidential campaign. But he failed to secure other top priorities, including fresh measures to revive the flagging recovery and an end to tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy. Obama said he would pursue those goals later this year, when, under the terms of the deal, a new congressional committee would begin searching for further ways to control the national debt.“The ultimate solution to our deficit problem must be balanced,” Obama said Sunday. “That’s why the second part of this agreement is so important.”Republicans, by contrast, won severe cuts to agency budgets over the next decade and the prospect of deeper cuts to come, delivering on the campaign promises that helped them gain control of the House in the fall congressional elections. Democrats also agreed to stage a vote on a balanced-budget amendment, which has become a rallying point for tea-party-aligned conservatives.Read the full story here.

• Obama’s hollow claim of commitment to Israel’s security.(JPost).Is President Barack Obama committed to Israel’s security? Reassuring bromides to that effect in his recent speeches are nullified by specific statements that spell out dangerous Israeli concessions and disregard for Israeli vital interests. Worse, the administration’s wider Middle East policies further denude those commitments of meaning.Thus, when Obama said Israel must have secure, recognized borders “different than the one that existed on June 4, 1967,” many missed the point that this means little, when the new borders are to be “based on the 1967 lines, with mutually agreed swaps” and therefore be virtually indistinguishable from those lines. Indeed, with Palestinians unlikely to agree to any swaps, Obama gave the Palestinians a veto over any continued Israel presence beyond the pre-1967 lines.Moreover, Obama’s unprecedented call for a Palestinian state to have “permanent Palestinian borders with… Jordan” would require Israel ceding the Jordan Valley, whose retention successive Israeli governments have regarded as vital– another first for a US president.Obama has also become the first US president to suggest that issues of “territory and security” be agreed upon first, before proceeding to negotiations on all other matters, including Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees and their millions of descendants.Upholding Israel’s basic security would also mean repudiating the repatriation of the refugees and their descendants. Bush did so in his May 2004 letter; Obama has not. On the contrary, he has supported the so-called Saudi peace plan, which demands not only a return to the 1967 lines, but also the return of all refugees and their descendants.In May, Obama reiterated that the US “will hold the Palestinians accountable for their actions and their rhetoric.”But he never has – nor does he now.If Obama was genuine about holding the PA accountable, he would be demanding the disbanding of Fatah’s own Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades – a US- recognized terrorist group. He would demand the abrogation of the PA’s unity agreement with Hamas (which calls for a genocide of Jews) as a precondition of any future talks. He has done neither.It is also difficult to imagine what conception of American and Israeli security interests led Obama in January to ditch Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and call for political “transition… now” when protests erupted in Cairo. Still less clear is why his administration spoke immediately of involving “non-secular actors” – a clear allusion to the Muslim Brotherhood – given its virulent hostility to the US and Israel. Now, Obama has legitimized the Brotherhood by initiating contacts with it.THE NET result is that Egypt is on the road from lukewarm ally and peace-maker to a dependable enemy – one to which Obama has announced the sale of 125 state-of-the-art M1A1 Abrams tanks. It is also disturbing that Obama has not pressured Egypt to close its Gaza border at Rafah, whose recent opening has enabled the flow of weaponry into Hamas-run Gaza.For a year, Obama prohibited any new US sanctions to stop Iran developing nuclear weapons – a looming existential threat to both Israel and the US. Indeed, further measures which must be taken to stop Iran is precisely what Obama left untouched in his recent speeches.Thus Obama’s words and deeds not only fail to match his stated commitment to Israel’s security – they negate it.Hmmmmm.......Actions speak louder than words!Read the full story here.

• Hama assault unacceptable, Turkish foreign minister says.(TodaysZaman).The Syrian military's tank-backed assault on the city of Hama, which killed dozens of civilians in the scene of a 1982 massacre, is unjustifiable, Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said on Monday, lamenting that the attack marred the spirit of Ramadan.“The timing is utterly wrong, taking place on the eve of Ramadan. We strongly condemn it," Davutoğlu told reporters before departing for a visit to Norway, where he is due to attend a funeral for a Turkish girl, Gizem Doğan, who was killed in a shooting spree in the island of Utoya last weekend. "We in Turkey were unable to enjoy the spirit of Ramadan because of what happened in Syria.”Davutoğlu also criticized the dispatch of tanks to a residential area, saying it was obvious that such an operation would result in casualties. “It is impossible to approve the timing and methods of this operation,” he said. “It is unacceptable that Ramadan begin with casualties while we were expecting the Syrian regime to implement reforms swiftly.”Despite criticism, however, Davutoğlu also said Turkey remains in contact with the Syrian government, advising it to act with "commonsense and restraint."Davutoğlu's remarks came after a Foreign Ministry statement on Sunday, which said that Turkey was “deeply disappointed” and “saddened” by the Syrian assault in the city of Hama. Estimates of Sunday's death toll, which were impossible to verify, ranged from around 75 people to nearly 140 on a day when the attacks began before dawn and witnesses said they were too frightened to collect corpses from the streets.European leaders also criticized the Syrian regime, saying they were shocked and appalled by Syrian forces' use of tanks to storm Hama. Some analysts regarded the offensive, as an attempt to deter further unrest during the Muslim holy month of fasting.“This attack and the continuing crackdown in other Syrian cities is even more unacceptable coming on the eve of the holy month of Ramadan,” said European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton. “The Syrian army and security forces have the duty to protect citizens, not to massacre them indiscriminately.”EU governments plan to extend sanctions against Assad's government on Monday by slapping asset freezes and travel bans on five more people. The EU has already imposed sanctions on Assad and at least two dozen officials and targeted military-associated companies in Syria.“I am appalled by the reports that the Syrian security forces have stormed Hama with tanks and other heavy weapons this morning, killing dozens of people,” British Foreign Secretary William Hague said. “The attacks are all the more shocking on the eve of the Muslim holy month. President Bashar is mistaken if he believes that oppression and military force will end the crisis.”Italy called for a UN Security Council move on Syria, something opposed by Russia up to now.Hmmmm......If this were Israel instead of Syria the whole world would be up in arms Hypocrisy rules the UN.Read the full story here.More here.

• Turkey on trial.An Islamic 'Sledgehammer' to destroy Attaturks legacy?(AlJazeera).  A slew of trials in Turkey seem to resemble a bad Hollywood courtroom drama rather than legitimate litigations.In a Hollywood courtroom drama, you know that the hero, set up by the bad guys, will eventually be cleared - but not before the noose tightens around his neck. Just when it looks like the accumulating evidence has condemned him, a sudden turn of events will prove his innocence and expose those who framed him.If Turkey's ongoing political-military trials ever find their way to the screen, there will be no shortage of such denouements. In a series of bizarre prosecutions, Turkish courts have jailed hundreds of defendants - military officers, journalists, academics and lawyers - for allegedly plotting to topple the country's democratically elected government.Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan promotes the trials as evidence of Turkey's new turn towards democracy and the rule of law. They are also actively supported by news media belonging to the so-called Gülen group - a powerful ally of Erdogan's government comprising followers of the Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen. In reality, the trials amount to a grave breach of the rule of law, with the judiciary transformed into a political weapon aimed at opponents of the government and the Gülen movement.The cases are comical - or would be if they were not really happening in a country of 74 million people whose strategic importance is difficult to overstate. In fact, the prosecutions are riddled with such fantastic claims, imaginary conspiracies, outlandish fabrications, obvious set-ups, and credulity-straining plot twists that a Hollywood screenwriter who included them in a script might well be laughed out of the business.Consider the "Sledgehammer" case. More than 200 military officers are charged with plotting a coup in 2003 to dislodge the then newly elected government. The prosecutors have what looks like solid evidence: detailed plans, ostensibly authored by the defendants, describing a series of ghastly operations to destabilise the country. The officers proclaim their innocence and assert that the coup documents are fabricated, but who is to believe them, given what the prosecutors, government and major media say?The trial has already had more than its share of movie-ending moments. Several defendants have shown that they were outside the country and had no access to the computers on which they supposedly authored the plans. Others appear to have misspelled their own names or gotten their titles wrong. Two forensic reports have established that the handwriting on the incriminating CD was forged.Similar examples abound in other cases. A prosecutor questions a suspect about a plan to intimidate Christians before the police have actually "discovered" it. A journalist is jailed because his notes for an unfinished manuscript on the Gülen movement are construed as instructions from a terrorist organisation. A senior police officer who has written an exposé detailing Gülenist prosecutors' misdeeds is jailed after police find illegal recordings of intercepted calls in his office - which he had vacated days earlier.Vindication comes quickly in Hollywood movies, but not in Turkey, whose courts have so far seemed oblivious to the glaring problems with evidence presented by police and prosecutors. Ludicrous cases proceed, and more people are being dragged into them. The mainstream independent media do not even report the inconsistencies for fear of provoking the government or the Gülen network.These cases will eventually collapse under the weight of their collective absurdity. But the damage done will extend far beyond the suffering of hundreds of innocent individuals who have been locked up under false pretences. The hope that Turkey is finally shedding its authoritarian vestiges and becoming a stable democracy will lie in tatters.Hmmmm.......Welcome to Turkey........Iranian style?Read the full story here.

• Afghanistan's Romeo and Juliet: Teenage couple jailed and face being stoned for falling in love.(DailyMail).Two teenagers in Afghanistan face being hanged or stoned to death for the 'crime' of falling in love and trying to get married.When the pair met for their wedding ceremony, they were ambushed by a mob of 300 men who dragged them from their car, accused them of adultery and then started a riot.In the resulting violence in the village of Jabrail, near Herat, one man was killed, a police station was torched and the lovers, Halima Mohammedi and Rafi Mohammed, both 17, ended up in jail.During the riot Mr Mohammed, and his older cousin who drove him to meet Ms Mohammedi, were both badly beaten up.But there have been calls from locals and relatives for the lovers to be killed, as in their eyes they have disregarded strict rules whereby marriages are arranged by families. Even the father of Ms Mohammedi agrees with the punishment.Kher Mohammed told The New York Times: ‘What we would ask is that the government should kill both of them.’Along with her uncle, he visited her in jail, where she was told that she had brought shame upon the family and would be killed.The New York Times reports that although he cried during the visit, Ms Mohammedi’s father barely said a word to her.The pair’s story echoes that of William Shakespeare’s tragedy Romeo And Juliet, where two lovers, despite being from rival families – Montague and Capulet – pledge their devotion to each other.Mr Mohammed is a Tajik and Ms Mohammedi is from the Hazara community.They met in an ice-cream factory and would communicate using fleeting eye contact.One day Ms Mohammedi threw her mobile phone number on the floor for Mr Mohammed and from then on they would speak regularly to each other at night.Their decision to try and marry created a reaction that has left them both baffled.Mr Mohammed told The New York Times that ‘when you love somebody, you don’t ask who she is or what she is, you just go for it’.Ms Mohammedi simply asked: ‘God created us from one dirt. Why can we not marry each other, or love each other?’Despite the death threats from relatives, the pair do have the support of the provincial council, who has declared that they are not criminals and merit the government’s protection.Influential clerics have also refused to condemn them.However, the family of the man killed in the riot blame Ms Mohammedi for his death and say that her only way out is to marry one of their relatives.Their case now rests with prosecutors. Earlier this year horrific video footage emerged of Taliban insurgents stoning a couple to death for alleged adultery in northern Afghanistan.It took place in the district of Dashte Archi, in Kunduz, and was met with outrage in the West.However, a Taliban spokesman defended the practice, saying: ‘Anyone who knows about Islam knows that stoning is in the Koran, and that it is Islamic law. There are people who call it inhuman - but in doing so they insult the Prophet. They want to bring foreign thinking to this country.'Hmmmm......'Foreign' like "Thou shall not kill"?Read the full story here.

• Iraq says it will buy 36 US fighter jets.(HurriyetDaily).Iraq’s prime minister said Saturday he was reviving a stalled deal to buy multi-million-dollar fighter jets from the U.S. and affirmed the need for American trainers to help Iraqi forces operate and maintain the 36 F-16s.However, Nouri al-Maliki avoided saying whether the trainers would be active-duty troops or private contractors sidestepping the key question of whether American military personnel will be asked to remain past an end-of-year deadline for withdrawing. That question is Iraq’s top political issue and is being hotly debated among the country’s leaders.The fighter jet deal, which al-Maliki announced at a press conference, more than doubles the number of aircraft Iraq initially planned to buy. “We should provide Iraq with the means, including warplanes, to protect its sovereignty,” al-Maliki told reporters after addressing a closed session of parliament. It was a turnabout from earlier this year, when Baghdad abandoned the deal and decided instead that it would spend hundreds of millions of dollars on food rations for poor Iraqis.Al-Maliki did not say when the purchase of the F-16s would proceed, where the money would come from or how it would affect other government programs already in place. The U.S. is pushing for a fast decision, arguing that it will soon be too late for it to plan for an extension of its troop presence. The prime minister’s parliamentary appearance came after Iraq’s top political leaders postponed, for the second time in a week, a meeting to discuss whether U.S. troops would be asked to continue training Iraqi security forces beyond the end of the year.Hmmmm.......Read the full story here.

• Iranians stage 'water fight' in Tehran,behaving in a manner "that opposes Islamic values and social order". (Ynet).Men, women, and children of all ages beat the heat in Tehran on Friday with a water fight at the city's Water and Fire Park, drawing criticism from conservatives for their "immodest" behavior and dress. Local police threatened to arrest the revelers after press agencies published numerous photos of the event.The park's manager said the water fight had been coordinated. He added that many of the women's headdresses fell victims to the splashing water, "but police couldn't get control of those involved". Only after authorities halted the water flow – some three hours later – did the battle stop, the park manager said.Tehran Police Chief Hussain Sajedinia was quick to condemn the merrymaking in a country in which young men and women are strongly discouraged to mix. He said a number of people had tried to recreate the water fight on Sunday, behaving in a manner "that opposes Islamic values and social order". He added that police arrested the participants before they could get started.Iranians generally refrain from holding coed events in public, as Islamic code prohibits it. However this code has been broken a number of times, especially during the summer, which in Iran can manifest in temperatures of up to 38 degrees Celsius. Pictures from the water fight have been uploaded to a number of different social websites, causing some concern for participants whose faces can be seen clearly, as many fear reprisals from authorities.Read the full story here.