MFS - The Other News

                        Morning Posting.

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity in Indonesia 5.7! More info here.

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

• Obama: "We're Not Even Halfway There Yet"(RealclearPolitics)."It's been a long, tough journey. But we have made some incredible strides together. Yes, we have. But the thing that we all ought to remember is that as much as good as we have done, precisely because the challenges were so daunting, precisely because we we were inheriting so many challenges, that we're not even halfway there yet. When I said 'change we can believe in' I didn't say 'change we could believe in tomorrow.' Not change we can believe in next week. We knew this was going to take time because we've got this big, messy, tough democracy," President Obama said at a campaign fundraiser in Chicago on Wednesday night.Hmmmm......."Because we've got this big, messy, tough democracy"so we want dictatorship do we?Read and see the full story here.

• White House Says Taxpayers Will Pay For Obama’s Bus Tour Of Battleground States To Talk About Jobs.(WZ).President Barack Obama’s upcoming bus tour through the Midwest states typically viewed as swing states during presidential election years will be paid for by the taxpayers, the White House says.Obama will start the tour on Aug. 15 and will talk about strengthening jobs and the economy, the White House announced on Tuesday.“He is very happily getting out into the country again after a very sustained period here in Washington and he looks forward to talking to folks about growing the economy, creating jobs,” said White House Press Secretary Jay Carney. “We will have more details, as I said, about the specifics of the trip.”Carney indicated he did not know now precisely where the president would go or what he might be announcing.Hmmmm.......$ 2.2 Million price tag for the buses if not more.Read the full story here.

• Barack Obama feasts while Rome burns. Do America’s ruling liberal elites think they are the new emperors? (CNSNews).I don’t think anyone will begrudge the president for celebrating his 50th birthday. It’s a big milestone in life that deserves to be marked. But does he need to do it in such an extravagant and insensitive style at a time of tremendous economic turmoil when tens of millions of Americans are hurting financially and nearly one in ten are out of work? Barack Obama is not a Hollywood celebrity or corporate mogul. He is a public official, paid for by the American people, and is expected to lead the country by example.Is it really necessary to host a $35,800 a head campaign fundraiser in Chicago as the United States faces towering debts and the possibility of a double-dip recession? Details of the event emerged today in several US papers, including this report in The Washington Post: Good thing that debt-ceiling tussling is over. Now begins President Obama’s 50th-birthday week, with lots of fundraising fun and plenty of recruiting for the 2012 reelection campaign.There is the gala fundraiser Wednesday night in Chicago at the Aragon Ballroom featuring stars from that city — maybe Jennifer Hudson , Herbie Hancock and others. There’s also a dinner fundraiser planned for some high rollers for only $35,800 a person. (Must be serving some really good grub.)For America’s ruling liberal elites there is clearly no age of austerity, but there is undoubtedly an air of impunity with a rather vulgar let them eat cake mentality. I very much doubt the British prime minister would even dream of holding this kind of ostentatious bash on his upcoming 45th birthday while at the same time telling the British people they must be prepared to make historic sacrifices to restore the economy. And undoubtedly there will be significant costs to the American taxpayer with the intense security involved in these large-scale presidential events.With 75 percent of likely US voters believing the country is heading in the wrong direction, and with a job approval rating scraping 40 percent, this should be a time for humility from the White House. There is instead a great deal of imperious arrogance on display, coupled with increasingly bitter and nasty attacks on political opponents – witness vice president Joe Biden’s astonishing outburst against the Tea Party earlier this week.After 30 months of staggering levels of public spending, massive failed bailouts, rising unemployment, declining consumer confidence, and a collapsing housing market, the American economy is literally on its knees. This is no time for grand celebrations Mr. President, but should be a moment for pause and reflection, as the world’s only superpower heads towards the economic abyss under his leadership.Hmmmm....... “People who worship only themselves get a slick, polished look -- like monuments. Too bad they had to go so soon.”Vanna Bonta.Read the full story here.

• Congressman King warns president not to go soft on Islamic extremists.(TheHill).Rep.Peter King (R-N.Y.) cautioned President Obama not to go too soft on U.S. communities that aid terrorists, as the president implements his administration’s latest strategy to combat violent extremism.The strategy, titled “Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States,” was released Wednesday after more than a year of preparation.The nine-page plan puts forward the administration’s goal to forge lasting partnerships with local governments, law enforcement and communities, which are frequently best equipped to identify radicalized individuals and the causes behind their extremism, according to the strategy.“The federal government will often be ill-suited to intervene in the niches of society where radicalization to violence takes place, but it can foster partnerships to support communities through its connections to local government, law enforcement … and many others who can help prevent violent extremism,” the plan states.But King, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, while supporting Obama’s new strategy, warned the president about any need to engage in “politically correct feel-good encounters” to avoid treating the Muslim-American community with delicate hands.The report stipulates that al Qaeda and its supporters are the largest looming threat to the U.S., but it recognizes that terrorists and violent extremists have come from many different ideologies and cultural backgrounds over the years.“My concerns are with language in the report which suggests some equivalency of threats between [al Qaeda] and domestic extremists and also with the politically correct inference that legitimate criticism of certain radical organizations or elements of the Muslim-American community should be avoided,” King said in a statement.“While I certainly support community involvement and initiatives, we must ensure that these do not become politically correct feel-good encounters which ignore the threats posed by dangerous individuals in the community.”Read the full story here.

• Mexican Kingpin Says U.S. Autorities Protected Cartel.(laht).CHICAGO – A Mexican man charged with smuggling tons of cocaine into the United States told a federal judge in Chicago that U.S. authorities protected his outfit, the powerful Sinaloa cartel, in exchange for information on rival gangs.The defendant, Jesus Vicente Zambada Niebla, is the son of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, reputed right-hand man of Sinaloa cartel boss Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, and played an important role in the organization until his March 2009 arrest in Mexico City.Zambada Niebla was extradited to the United States in 2010 and will go on trial this week in Chicago.In legal pleadings submitted to U.S. District Judge Ruben Castillo, Zambada Niebla said the collaboration between the Sinaloa cartel and U.S. law enforcement arose from the 1995 drug indictment of Mexican attorney Humberto Loya Castro, “a close confidante” of Chapo Guzman.Loya subsequently became a U.S. government informant, according to the pleading.“Sometime prior to 2004 ... the United States government entered into an agreement with Loya and the leadership of the Sinaloa Cartel, including Mayo and Chapo,” the document says. “Under that agreement, the Sinaloa Cartel, through Loya, was to provide information accumulated by Mayo, Chapo, and others, against rival Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations” to U.S. authorities.“In return, the United States government agreed to dismiss the prosecution of the pending case against Loya, not to interfere with his drug trafficking activities and those of the Sinaloa Cartel, to not actively prosecute him, Chapo, Mayo, and the leadership of the Sinaloa Cartel, and to not apprehend them,” the pleading claims.Just hours before his March 2009 arrest, Zambada Niebla said, he met at a Mexico City hotel with U.S. agents who assured him the arrangement was still in effect, but that he would start communicating directly with the Drug Enforcement Administration, rather than through Loya.The deal stipulated that Sinaloa bosses would be “informed by agents of the DEA through Loya that United States government agents and/or Mexican authorities were conducting investigations near the home territories of cartel leaders so that the cartel leaders could take appropriate actions to evade investigators,” the pleading says.U.S. officials also pledged, according to Zambada Niebla, not to “share any of the information they had about the Sinaloa Cartel and/or the leadership of the Sinaloa Cartel with the Mexican government.”Federal prosecutors responded to the pleading by asking the judge to order Zambada Niebla to produce “evidence that a specific American official or officials with actual or apparent authority expressly authorized” him to import cocaine and heroin into the United States or assured him “that these acts were not criminal.”Hmmmmm......Why does the term 'gunwalker' come to mind?Read the full story here.

• Secretary Clinton Supports UN Islamic ‘Defamation’ Resolution?(Answersforthefaith).Secretary of State Hillary Clinton apparently is supporting the UN resolution 16/18 introduced by OIC and plans to hold meetings on how it can be implemented:During the next few months, Washington plans to host a coordination meeting to discuss with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) how to implement resolution no. 16/18 on combating defamation of religions, and how to prevent stereotypes depicting religions and their followers; as well as disseminating religious tolerance, which has been endorsed by the UN Human Rights Council last March, in agreement with Western countries. The resolution was adopted after lengthy discussions held between the OIC and countries in which the phenomenon of Islamophobia is in the rise.The U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had announced the intention of the U.S. State Department to organize a coordination meeting during her participation in the meeting which she co-chaired with the OIC Secretary General, Professor Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu in Istanbul on 15 July 2011. The meeting issued a joint statement emphasizing the dire need for the implementation of resolution 16/18.Response: Incredible! This resolution actually restricts religious conversation and regulates what one might say about Islam, the Quran, and it’s founder Muhammad. How can a representative of our government like Sec. Clinton encourage or support this in any way. The resolution is called ‘defamation of religions’ but Islam is the only religion specifically sanctioned for special protection by the resolution. Islamic nations put forth this resolution to protect Islam from Western ‘Islamophobia’ including offensive Muhammad cartoons and Quran burnings.How this could ever be implemented in the USA is beyond me. It will actually restrict free speech and freedom of religion rather than protect it.Meanwhile, it is still open season on Christianity, Christians, Churches, and the Bible in the very same countries supporting this resolution.Read the full story here.

• Five U.S. Senators Urge Terror Designation for Turkish IHH Group.(InvestigativeProject).Five U.S. senators called for the designation of the Hamas-tied Turkish Charity IHH as a terrorist organization in a letter to President Obama late last month.The letter states that last June, 87 senators urged the president to investigate IHH for possible designation under Executive Order 13244 and now, "one year later, we urge your formal designation of the IHH without delay."The letter notes that IHH is a member of the Union of Good, an umbrella organization formed to financially support Hamas and designated by the Treasury Department in November 2008. It is signed by Senators Bill Nelson, D-Fla.; James Risch, R-Idaho, James Inhofe, R-Okla.; Mark Kirk, R-Ill. and Mike Johanns, R-Neb.IHH's ties to Hamas have been confirmed by the U.S. government and the group is under investigation for potential designation.IHH has partnered with Viva Palestina, a UK-based group which has delivered millions of dollars to the Hamas regime in Gaza. During Viva Palestina's third convoy that arrived in Gaza last January, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh told IHH members of the convoy that "The IHH has particularly delivered substantial amount of aid to the people of Gaza. IHH President Bulent Yildirim offered help and stood beside our side during the war."IHH also helped drive last year's deadly flotilla confrontation in the Mediterranean Sea which resulted in the death of nine activists and prompted international outcry.The group also has offices in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. "We only work through Hamas, although we don't limit our aid to its followers," said Muhammad Kaya, who heads the IHH branch in Gaza. "We consider Israel and the United Nations to be the terrorists, not Hamas."Read the full story here.

• Giving Obama another "F".(IsraelMatzav).Despite Barack Hussein Obama's professed love for Muslims, Beirut Daily Star columnist Michael Young gives him an "F" for his handling of the Middle East. What we have is a president with undeniable intelligence, but without particularly strong convictions, whose preference for standing away from the fray often allows his political rivals to outmaneuver him, and who will raise expectations then come up short in carrying through on them. Obama is an opportunist ill adept at creating opportunities.There is disarray in Washington on the Middle East because the president has repeatedly shown that, deep down, he just doesn’t want the region to draw his energies away from addressing America’s domestic priorities. That may be defensible in a narrow, parochial way, but it also has been catastrophic at a moment of far-reaching transformations in the Arab world and beyond.What Obama has shown is that (a) he hates Israel, (b) he wants to establish a 'Palestinian state' at all costs, and (c) he will find time for that despite his greater interest in his domestic agenda (which would destroy the American economy for the next 50-100 years). So yes, Obama's current term is a failure on the Middle East, as it is on so many other issues. But a second term would be even worse.Read the full story here.

• Palestinian 'Head of State' at the U.N. -- Get Ready for the Statehood Steamroller.(Fox).By Anne Bayefsky.The United Nations showed its hand this week and sent out a provisional list of speakers for the opening session of the General Assembly in September listing the speaker from “Palestine” as “H.S.” or Head of State. Everybody knows that U.N. goings-on concerning anything Israel-related are about as crooked as it gets. But the much talked-about Palestinian statehood bid threatened for September is being sold as a test of legitimacy. So much for that bill of goods.In the past, the speaker from Palestine has been given the title in the speakers’ list “H.L.” or High Level – short for high level delegation – precisely because Palestine is not a state member of the United Nations. Though the Palestinians themselves have put a cover page on their speeches that labels Mahmoud Abbas “President of the State of Palestine,” the U.N. has, until now, resisted following suit.Not this year, however. Negotiations are out. U.N.-imposed solutions on Israel are in.The U.N. founding document – the U.N. Charter – promises the equality of states “large and small.” But in reality, Islamic states and their cronies form an automatic General Assembly majority. In 2010, for example, this meant 78% of all the Assembly resolutions condemning any of the 192 U.N. members for human rights violations were directed at Israel alone.To date, the U.N. has pretended that the parties themselves must take responsibility for recognizing each other; dozens of U.N. resolutions and the U.N. Middle East Roadmap pay lip service to the necessity of negotiations. After all, negotiations require a willingness to live in peace and acceptance of the other party’s existential rights.But that has never gone down very well in the Palestinian and larger Arab world and the U.N. has been their safety net for any and all excuses for a six decade rejection of a Jewish state.Some Palestinians put it more clearly than others. As co-founder of Hamas and member of the Hamas leadership in the Gaza Strip, Mahmoud al-Zahar, declared on July 29: “we are not going to accept Israel as the owner of one square centimeter because it is a fabricated state."The Palestinian unilateral declaration of statehood without negotiations is most likely to play out in some combination of U.N. bodies. The guessing at this point is that the Palestinians will go first to the Security Council demanding full U.N. membership in order to embarrass the president and force an Obama veto and then will proceed to the General Assembly for a statement of support. This course will not result in official U.N. membership, since a Security Council blessing is required for that, but additional trappings of statehood will – they hope – have been endowed.Though the Obama administration is pretending they have little control of the Palestinian Authority or Mahmoud Abbas and company, it is clear that the Palestinians are proceeding apace because they have not been presented with sufficiently negative consequences. Obama isn’t leading from behind. He is hiding in the bushes.His shyness is partly a consequence of the fact that a U.N. end-run around a negotiated settlement challenges his administration’s foreign policy yardstick of multilateralism at virtually any cost. He joined the U.N. Human Rights Council and gave it American credibility knowing that half of its resolutions and decisions on specific states are dedicated to Israel-bashing. It waited for Security Council approval to do something about Colonel Qadaffi’s threatened genocide – a delay proving more costly by the minute. It has handled Syrian butchery by waiting for tepid noises from the Security Council. It put Iranian nuclear non-proliferation in the hands of U.N. entities that have no hope of preventing an Iranian nuclear bomb. So U.S. objection to U.N. action to undercut Israel – yet again – presents a problem for this president.The U.N. understands that very well, as do the Palestinians. So why not jump the gun on “Head of State”? American taxpayers pay 25% of the U.N. bills and the costs in 2010 represented a whopping 21% increase over the fiscal year 2009. The Palestinians see nothing but a president unwilling to put an end to their gravy train.Without a major pushback, steamroller here we come.Hmmmm......"I will stand with my Muslim Brothers"?Read the full story here.

• Obama: Still the Alinskyite.(NationalReview).Here’s my take on the puzzle of Obama’s leadership style. Obama is still every inch the Alinskyite organizer. He talks about uniting, even as he deliberately polarizes. He moves incrementally toward radical left goals, but never owns up to his ideology. Instead, he tries to work indirectly, by way of the constituencies he seeks to manipulate.“Leading from behind” is classic Alinskyite strategy. The idea is for the organizer to find out what the people he’s organizing want, give them enough of that to gain authority and control, then slowly and quietly push the group in his ideological direction, all the while making it seem as though the plan is what the people themselves have asked for. Obama used to literally lead from behind, by stage-managing his group’s protests from the back of the room, while the ostensible leaders took charge on stage. That is what Alinskyite organizers do.Alinskyite organizers are tough when facing down the “enemy” (their word), but subtle, stealthy, and incremental when dealing with the members of their own group. Above all, they are never openly ideological. Everything is portrayed as pragmatism.The trouble with Obama’s Alinskyite leadership style is that he’s trying to adapt it to the presidency, a role it was never designed for. When he tries classic Alinskyite polarization, he’s treating people he’s supposed to be leading as his enemies. When he tries to bring about leftist results under the guise of a neutral pragmatism, he disappoints his base, which desperately wants him to turn his eloquence to the task of persuading the country of their principles.Obama is a bad negotiator because Alinskyite’s don’t negotiate, they intentionally polarize. As for their own groups, here they try to placate all factions and hide their own goals. That about describes Obama’s performance on the debt deal, which included a dollop of both of these stances.I’ve laid it all out in Radical-in-Chief, from standard Alinskyite operating procedure, to Obama’s own use of it in Chicago, to the contradictions inherent in the attempt to apply these lessons to the presidency. As far as I can tell, Obama is still moving according to this Alinskyite template. In his own words, it was his true political education. It’s still the key to what he’s up to.True, Alinksyite polarization and ideological reticence were never designed for the presidency. On the other hand, I doubt a president this leftist could ever have gotten elected without them. From Obama’s perspective, he’s already gotten more done on health care, and plenty of other issues, than any other Democrat in history. For Alinksyites, patience is all. Obama has at least an even chance of re-election. So despite the difficulties of his community-organizer-derived techniques, he’s likely to keep to them.The Tea Party is a difficult problem for Obama. As David Bromwich notes today at the Huffington Post, Obama has almost never actually used the words Tea Party. The left yearns for Obama to take on the Tea Party in an overt ideological battle. But that is exactly the sort of thing Alinskyite organizers are forbidden to do. Bromwich asks why Obama has steadfastly refused to recognize the existence of the Tea Party. The answer is Saul Alinsky.Hmmmmm........Did Alinsky ever mention Gulags a.k.a. 're-education camps'?Read the full story here.

• U.S. Admits “Dramatic Increase In Violence” Along Mexican Border.(JudicialWatch).While the nation’s Homeland Security secretary repeatedly assures Americans that the southern border is more secure than ever, a separate U.S. government agency has quietly issued an alarming report warning of “recent violent attacks and persistent security concerns” in the area. It’s like the Abbot and Costello version of government, where one agency can’t even coordinate with another to provide the country with a consistent story. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano claims the Mexican border region is “as secure as it has ever been.” In fact, she embarked on a publicity tour to the area, using sound-bite opportunities to specifically deny that it’s infested with drug-cartel violence that often spills into the U.S. It’s all a mistaken “perception” because the area is in fact a “secure and prosperous” region, according to Napolitano. During a trip to El Paso Texas a few months ago, she claimed that “misinformation about safety” is negatively impacting border communities by driving visitors away and hurting local business. She proceeded to say that “some of America’s safest communities are in the southwest border region.” The media was invited to tag along and Madame Secretary’s proclamations appeared in newscasts worldwide. No such promotion of what appears to be a more accurate assessment, issued this week by the State Department, of the situation along the U.S.-Mexico border. Unlike Napolitano’s rose-colored glasses version, it mentions a “dramatic increase in violence” and nearly 30,000 narcotics-related murders in the last few years. The State Department report bluntly says that “the security situation along the Texas border has changed markedly from a year ago.” The culprits are sophisticated and heavily armed drug cartels competing with each other for trafficking routes into the U.S. In fact, a war between two notorious cartels has led to a “dramatic increase in violence” in two northern border regions, according to the State Department report issued this week by the agency’s Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC). Large-scale gun battles often occur in broad daylight on streets and other public venues and U.S. citizens have been trapped and temporarily prevented from leaving the area, according to the OSAC assessment. Using the term “narcoterrorism,” it goes on to say that “continued concerns regarding road safety along the Mexican border have prompted the U.S. Mission in Mexico to impose certain restrictions on U.S. government employees transiting the area.” Local authorities aren’t helping because “police corruption and police involvement in criminal activity continue to be a problem in Mexico.”As a result the violence is increasingly flowing north, even as the nation’s top Homeland Security official denies it. Just last summer a myriad of bullets fired into El Paso, striking City Hall and a public university building. The local sheriff said the gun battles are breaking out everywhere but his hands are tied because he’s legally forbidden from intervening in another country’s war. The disturbing incident inspired Texas’s Attorney General to send President Obama a letter saying his state is under constant assault from illegal activity threatening a porous border.Hmmmm..........'Narcoterrorism'......A Hezbollah operative with a ton of drugs?,Read the full story here.

• Obama regime their 'peacepartners' the Palestinian media Urges Breeding Next Generation of Mujahideen.(InvestigativeProject).Palestinian media continue to disseminate messages glorifying militancy, as a Palestinian researcher encouraged Palestinian women to raise their children to be jihadists.Preparations should begin before the women even get pregnant, instructed Khaled Al-Khaldi, head of the Center for Palestinian Historiography and Documentation. His July 10 article, "How did the Sahabiyat Rear their Sons," was published on the website of a Gaza newspaper and translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).Palestinian women, he wrote, should follow the example of the sahabiyat in hopes of raising mujahideen. Sahabiyat were considered "pure, virtuous crusaders of Islam" during the life of the prophet Muhammad."The women who lived in the time of the Prophet reared their sons with a religious and jihad-based education, raising a generation that defeated two empires - the Persian and the Byzantine - and led [the Muslims] out of the darkness and into the light." Al-Khaldi wrote. "The education they gave their children began even before conception, as even prior to pregnancy, they would resolve to give birth to mujahideen for the sake of Allah."Using hadiths to support each claim, al-Khaldi provides additional instructions for Palestinian mothers. In order to raise children who could physically bear the burden of jihad, mothers are told to watch what they eat during pregnancy and ensure they breastfeed long enough for their sons to grow strong.On a spiritual and psychological level, al-Khaldi advises teaching one's children the military exploits of Muhammad as examples to be emulated as well as ensuring children can keep secrets and live a disciplined life free from pleasure and temptation."These women taught their children Muhammad's life story and war [exploits], so that they would follow in his path of jihad," claimed al-Khaldi. "They taught [their children] good values... and to keep secrets...So that their children would be mujahideen who were stronger than the infidels, they raised them to live a hard life and distanced them from pleasure and luxury."Al-Khaldi concludes by appealing to the Palestinian mothers as essential to the effort of raising "a new generation that will liberate the [Muslim] lands and holy places."Hmmmm......."The religion of peace".Read the full story here

• Report: S. Sudan at greater terror risk than PA.(Ynet).Somalia is most at risk from terrorist attack, followed by Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan and the new nation of South Sudan, according to a ranking by global analysts Maplecroft, published on Thursday. South Sudan, which came into being last month on secession for the north, replaced the Palestinian Territories at number five due to the high average number of people killed per attack in violence there.The consultancy's latest Terrorism Risk Index said 20 states were at "extreme risk". Apart from the top five, the list includes Yemen (6), Palestinian Territories (7), Democratic Republic of Congo (8), Central African Republic 9, Colombia (10), Algeria (11), Thailand (12), Philippines (13), Russia (14), Sudan (15), Iran (16), Burundi (17), India (18), Nigeria (19) and Israel (20). A Maplecroft statement said increased dangers seen in Yemen and Uganda were caused by al-Qaeda associated violence, those in Iran stemmed from attacks by Sunni Muslim rebel group Jundollah and those in Egypt and Libya originated in terrorist and criminal attempts to exploit Arab Spring political unrest. Nigeria is beset by militant raids in the Niger Delta, by sectarian violence and by radical Islamist attacks in the north.The top four rankings were unchanged from Maplecroft's previous survey issued in November 2010 but The UK-based company's index rates 198 countries on the number, frequency and intensity of terrorism attacks, plus the likelihood of mass casualties occurring. While based on historical data, it is intended as a forward-looking assessment. South Sudan got its rating "primarily due to the intensity of terrorist attacks, with an average of 6.59 fatalities per terrorist incident, almost three times that of Somalia at 2.23." At least seven rebel militias are fighting the new government's forces which are trying to establish stability after winning separation as part of the climax to a 2005 peace deal ending decades of civil war with Khartoum. Hmmmmm.......The fact that South Sudan is Christian has nothing do do with it , all other top ranked countries are purely by coincidence Islamic.Read the full story here.

• France - Police Afraid to Set Up Police Stations in Muslim Housing Estates in Marseilles.(IslamVersusEurope).A new prefect for public safety, Gilles Leclerc, has just been appointed in Marseilles. His predecessors admitted that Marseilles was a "violent city, everywhere" and the state prosecutor even compared it to the "favelas" in Rio. Police stations were moved out of the Muslim-dominated public housing estates because the police were under constant siege there. La Provence newspaper interviews him."I can't solve on my own all the problems associated with being a poor city, one that has suffered from 50 years of immigration and a tradition of banditry".

La Provence: Why not put police stations back in the housing estates?

Gilles Leclerc: "It's not on the agenda and I don't think we'll come back to that. We have to think of the safety of the police officers! Nevertheless, I would like us to come back there..."Hmmmmm......."Interfaith dialog in it's natural habitat"?Read the full story here.

• Palestinian Authority distortion:Jerusalem, Hebron, Atarot, Shechem, Ashkelon and Tel Aviv originally had Arabic names.(Palwatch).An important aspect of Palestinian Authority policy, documented by Palestinian Media Watch, is to claim that the Jewish nation has no history in the land of Israel and at the same time claim an ancient Palestinian-Arab history in the land.As part of this rewriting of history, a regular columnist on religious affairs in the official PA daily recently made the false claim that the Jews changed the original Arabic names of places in Israel into Hebrew names. Is'haq Feleifel cited six cities that he said originally had Arabic names, when in fact all of those names appear in the Hebrew Bible long before Arabic names were given:

Jerusalem, capital of the nation of Israel/Judea (1000 BCE - 70 CE), mentioned 670 times in the Hebrew Bible. First reference: Joshua 10:1;

Hebron, first capital of the tribe of Judah, mentioned 73 times in the Hebrew Bible. First reference: Genesis 13:18;

Atarot, mentioned four times in the Hebrew Bible. First reference: Numbers 32:3;

Shechem, capital of Israel after the nation divided [922 BCE], mentioned 64 times in the Hebrew Bible (including a small number of references to two people of that name). First reference: Genesis 33:18;

Ashkelon, a Philistine city, mentioned nine times in the Hebrew Bible. First reference: Judges 1:18

The sixth city he mentioned, Tel Aviv, is also mentioned in the Bible [Ezekiel 3:15] as a location in Babylon where Jews settled after being exiled from Judea in 586 BCE. That name is the source for today's Tel Aviv. All these Biblical names predate by many years the names the PA religion teacher claims are the original Arabic names.Read the full story here.

• Tajikistan bans Muslim youths from praying in mosques.(HurriyetDaily).Tajik President Imomali Rakhmon has banned youths from praying in mosques and churches, prompting a local Muslim leader to call the move "a gruesome gift" for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.Rakhmon, in power since 1992, signed the bill on "parental responsibility" on Wednesday. He has said tough measures are needed to stop the spread of religious fundamentalism in his country of 7.5 million people, 98 percent of whom are Muslim. All people under 18, except those studying at religious schools, are banned from worshipping in the Central Asian nation's mosques, churches or other religious sites, said the law which came into force on Thursday.It also bans girls from wearing jewellery except earrings and prohibits people under 20 from getting tattoos, going to night clubs and watching films or reading material which "disseminates pornography, violence, extremism and terrorism".It is not clear what the punishment is for breaking the ban."During the month of Ramadan and just a month before the 20th anniversary of [Tajikistan's] independence, the authorities made a gruesome present to all believers," prominent Muslim theologist Akbar Turajonzoda told Reuters. "Prior to the adoption of this law, the authorities had already become too distant from their people and their needs, and now they turn this gap into an abyss of estrangement."Rakhmon, whose Moscow-backed secular government clashed with the Islamist opposition during a 1992-97 civil war, has ignored requests from the United States and European Union to respect the freedom of conscience.Rakhmon, who enjoys vast powers in the poorest of the former Soviet states, last year brought many Tajik students home from religious schools abroad and clamped down on a growing trend for Islamic dress.A total of 158 people were jailed for "religious extremism" in Tajikistan, which borders Afghanistan and China, in 2010, five times more than in 2009."The president must have forgotten that the law of God is superior to the earthly law," said Turajonzoda, a former opposition leader. "This is why I doubt that under fear of fines young people will stop paying respect to Allah by praying."Read the full story here.