MFS - The Other News

                        Morning Posting.

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity in NewZealand: 4.9 and Indonesia 4.9! More info here.

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

• Hurricane Irene : Latest Updates here , more here.

• BREAKING ! Two of Muammar Qaddafi's sons, his wife and his daughter have entered Algeria, says Algerian press service.Hmmm....TWO days ago MFS - The Other News:"Was Qaddafi spotted fleeing?Six Armored Mercedes cars enter Algeria from Libya."Read the breaking story here.

• Obama Harvard Law Review: Lack of Writing Skills.(MaggiesNotebook).Those of us who try to put the pieces together of who and what Barack Obama is, have found it profoundly odd that the once-president of the Harvard Law Review wrote nothing under his own name during that the time. An article out today analyzes the one known letter the student Obama wrote, and contends that Michelle Obama also had no skill with the written word. Read and see the full story here.

• Dr. Simon Atkins: Hurricane Irene is being way over-hyped.(Rightscoop).Mark Levin had Dr. Simon Atkins on his show a bit ago, shortly after Dr. Atkins’ article was linked on Drudge, and his main beef is that Hurricane Irene is being over-hyped as if it were a much worse hurricane than it really is and it’s causing mass hysteria. He says this is no Katrina, no 1954 Hazel and it’s no Hurricane Ike. Right now it’s a strong category one hurricane and he doesn’t see it really strengthening. But his fear is that when a huge hurricane actually does hit the Northeast, it will be like the boy who cried wolf and people will simply ignore it because they’ve heard it all before. As for this storm, he says the strongest winds are in the eastern quadrant and that he doesn’t expect many places to get sustained winds over 60mph. That’s not to say that this storm won’t do damage. In fact he believes that it will be in the top 10 for power outages and the storm surge will certainly cause problems. But again, he simply doesn’t believe this hurricane warrants the mass hysteria or the closing of mass transportation.Hmmmm......Or was it orchestrated to 'project' the picture of a 'President' in "Controll" of everything.......even the Media?Read the full story here.

• Obama Supports VAT Sympathizer for Top Job at Council of Economic Advisers.(Cato).By Daniel J. Mitchell. The White House has announced that it is nominating Alan Krueger, a professor at Princeton, to be the new Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers.In a Freudian copy-editing slip, the Fox News story (at least as of 8:44 a.m.) says “Krueger’s job will be to provide policy prescriptions on ways to spur unemployment.”That’s obviously tailor-made for a joke about the Obama Administration not needing any help when it comes to stimulating joblessness.On a more serious note, though, I’m worried about Krueger’s sympathy for a value-added tax (VAT). Here’s what he wrote back in 2009.

…a 5 percent consumption tax would raise approximately $500 billion a year, and fill a considerable hole in the budget outlook. In addition, a consumption tax would encourage more saving in the long run. Many economists consider a consumption tax an efficient way of raising tax revenue, especially in a global economy. The prospect of greater revenue flowing into federal coffers would probably help lower long-term interest rates because the government would need to borrow less down the road, and further bolster the economy.

To be fair, Krueger was very careful to leave himself some wiggle room, even going so far as to write that, “I’m not sure it is the best way to go.”But it seems rather obvious that Krueger, like other leftists, wants this giant new source of revenue. Heck, President Obama also has semi-endorsed a VAT, saying it is “something that has worked for other countries.”Hmmmm......If he really wanted to destroy the US economy would he do anything different?Read the full story here.

• Will Congressman Eliot Ness Please Stand Up?(BigPeace)By Ben Barrack.As the United States continues on its downward trajectory, thanks to the policies of Barack Obama, the debate rages about whether he’s doing it all on purpose or is just incompetent. When talk radio giant Rush Limbaugh discusses this, he concludes that “it doesn’t matter” because the result is the same either way.Limbaugh misses a very critical line of distinction when he says that. If Obama is incompetent, it means he must be voted out of office. If he is intentionally destroying the country as it was founded, it means he has malicious intent and must be removed through impeachment and a Senate trial. It would also mean that he is a domestic enemy.It wouldn’t matter if Al Capone were president of the United States, impeachment and a Senate trial is the only way to remove a sitting president from office. As for Capone, the Chicago mob boss was guilty of many things, the worst of which was murder. The Feds knew it but they couldn’t prove it. They also knew Capone was guilty of income tax evasion, which they could and did prove. Perhaps he wasn’t convicted of his most egregious crimes but it didn’t matter; he could do no more damage.If this administration is intentionally destroying our nation (Rush at least doesn’t dismiss this possibility), the responsibility to remove Obama necessarily falls to 535 congressmen who took an oath to defend us against an occupant of the White House who is guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors. Maybe they can’t prove he’s doing it on purpose but if they know it, they should impeach and convict for a crime they can prove. It is their Constitutional duty to do so. With a solid majority in the House, speaker John Boehner would succeed, with the right message and the right case. Even if the House impeached and the Senate didn’t convict, Obama might think twice before usurping anymore power from the legislative branch.In May of 2010, then Republican minority whip, Eric Cantor spoke at the Heritage Foundation. Someone in the audience asked him the following question:“In light of what Obama has done… what would he have to do differently to be defined as a domestic enemy?”Cantor’s response was the following:“Listen, let me respond very forthright to that. No one thinks the president is a domestic enemy.”Now House majority leader, Cantor has an even greater responsibility to get to the truth. If he is ultimately proven wrong about Obama’s intentions, he will have violated his oath by not doing everything in his power to reveal them and help to prevent them from being carried out.There have only been two impeachments in the history of our republic. Both were Democrats – Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton – whose presidencies survived because the Senate failed to convict. The only other president who was certain to be both impeached and convicted was Republican Richard Nixon, who resigned when he saw the writing on his administration’s stonewalls.Read the full story here.

• CAP (Center for American Progress) : 'Anti-Islamists small in number, but influential beyond US'(TodaysZaman).In fact, according to the study, the “majority of terrorist plots in America since Sept. 11 have been committed by non-Muslims, particularly right-wing extremists and white supremacists.”A report on the Islamophobia network in the United States released by the Washington-based Center for American Progress (CAP) has highlighted that although the sources that spread anti-Islam sentiments based on false information in the country are but a handful of people, their influence on American politics and public opinion reach beyond the US borders and reach distant corners of the world as well as extremists, including the Norwegian assailant who murdered 76 people in a matter of hours to underscore his claim that Islam is a threat to the world.The extensive research, titled “Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America,” was published in August with collaborative efforts by prominent experts of the center on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001, which traumatized not only the US but the whole world when planes hijacked by the al-Qaeda terrorist organization brought down the World Trade Center towers, a scene that still haunts the American psyche to this day.The center noted in the study that the anniversary of the tragic events might be an opportunity for right-wing extremists in the US to manipulate and “to ratchet up the nonexistent threat of Shariah and warn of apocalyptic dangers stemming from Muslims living in America,” while it claimed that the groups espousing anti-Islamic rhetoric were “small but effective,” with a reaching and extending influence over right-wing extremists across the world.Commenting on the ability of right-wing media outlets on cable TV and more abundantly on the Internet to disseminate ideas of hate and intolerance against Muslim with belief that the followers of the faith have been conspiring to control the US, the study drew attention to the rhetoric of right-wing officials elected at a state and national level, who “put these myths as facts and then craft political fundraising campaigns and get-out-the-vote strategies based on debunked information about Muslims and Islam.”Hmmmm......Did these 'authors' even contact the FBI for numbers?Read the full story here.

• Ground Zero Mosque Imam Calls For Integrating Sharia Law Into American And British Legal Systems.(WZ).(Herald Scotland) — AMERICA’S most controversial imam — the man at the centre of the storm over plans for the “Ground Zero Mosque” in New York last year — flew into Edinburgh yesterday to tell the Festival of Spirituality and Peace that greater integration between Islam and the West depends on the incorporation of Sharia law into the legal systems of the UK and the United States as well as Muslims adopting the culture of their host countries.Many see Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf as an Islamic moderate even though he has been vilified in the US press as an apologist for radical Muslims. In an interview with the Sunday Herald, Rauf said he believes the world is in the grip of a “dangerous myth” and “self-fulfilling prophecy” that “Islam and the West are at war. But the real battleground is not between Islam and the West, but between the wise, fair-minded people of all faith traditions and the extremists.”Although he is a pro-US imam who has argued that America is the embodiment of Islam’s ideal society, Rauf became a hate figure in the US over the so-called Ground Zero Mosque. The plan offended relatives of the victims of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, and led to a US pastor proposing a “Burn a Koran day”.Hmmmm.......We don't want to take over your country ....only your laws?Read the full story here.

• TSA agent arrested on six counts of lewdness with a child.(BlacklistedNews).A city officer arrested a Spring Creek man Wednesday morning at the Elko Area Regional Airport, where he works for the Transportation Security Administration, on a warrant charging six counts of lewdness with a child.The Elko County Sheriff’s Office was notified in July of possible sexual contact between David Ralph Anderson, 61, and a girl younger than 14.According to Elko Justice Court records, the victim told investigators that on seven to 10 occasions between 2010 and this year, Anderson allegedly taught the victim about various sexual acts and had sexual contact in the form of touching each other’s genitals.Investigators reported Anderson also told the girl to sleep in his bed and taught her to say various vulgar words associated with body parts and sexual activities.In addition, the girl stated he would rub lotion all over her body, placed his hand up her shirt to touch her breasts, had her watch pornographic films with him, encouraged her to consume alcohol and would French kiss her.Deputy District Attorney Tyler Ingram submitted a warrant request to Elko Justice of the Peace Al Kacin on Aug. 23, which was granted along with an objection to any reduction of bail.Anderson, who is a TSA employee according to Elko County Jail records, is being held on $250,000 bail. Read the full story here.

• Market crash 'could hit within weeks', warn bankers.(Telegraph).A more severe crash than the one triggered by the collapse of Lehman Brothers could be on the way, according to alarm signals in the credit markets. Insurance on the debt of several major European banks has now hit historic levels, higher even than those recorded during financial crisis caused by the US financial group's implosion nearly three years ago.Credit default swaps on the bonds of Royal Bank of Scotland, BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank and Intesa Sanpaolo, among others, flashed warning signals on Wednesday. Credit default swaps (CDS) on RBS were trading at 343.54 basis points, meaning the annual cost to insure £10m of the state-backed lender's bonds against default is now £343,540.The cost of insuring RBS bonds is now higher than before the taxpayer was forced to step in and rescue the bank in October 2008, and shows the recent dramatic downturn in sentiment among credit investors towards banks."The problem is a shortage of liquidity – that is what is causing the problems with the banks. It feels exactly as it felt in 2008," said one senior London-based bank executive."I think we are heading for a market shock in September or October that will match anything we have ever seen before," said a senior credit banker at a major European bank.Read the full story here.

• Euro bail-out in doubt as “hysteria” sweeps Germany.(Telegraph).Mrs Merkel has cancelled a high-profile trip to Russia on September 7, the crucial day when the package goes to the Bundestag and the country’s constitutional court rules on the legality of the EU’s bail-out machinery.If the court rules that the €440bn rescue fund (EFSF) breaches Treaty law or undermines German fiscal sovereignty, it risks setting off an instant brushfire across monetary union.The seething discontent in Germany over Europe’s debt crisis has spread to all the key institutions of the state. “Hysteria is sweeping Germany ” said Klaus Regling, the EFSF’s director.German media reported that the latest tally of votes in the Bundestag shows that 23 members from Mrs Merkel’s own coalition plan to vote against the package, including twelve of the 44 members of Bavaria’s Social Christians (CSU). This may force the Chancellor to rely on opposition votes, risking a government collapse.Mrs Merkel's aides say she is facing "war on every front". The next month will decide her future, Germany's destiny, and the fate of monetary union. Read the full story here.

• Wisconsin: Labor Day Parade Organizers Says No Republicans Will Be Allowed To Participate.(WAOW)Labor Day parade organizers confirm that no Republicans will be allowed to participate in this year’s Labor Day Parade.Council president Randy Radtke says they choose not to invite elected officials who have “openly attacked worker’s rights” or did nothing when state public workers lost most of their right to collectively bargain.The parade is sponsored by the Marathon County Labor Council. A Wausau city spokeswoman said the city does not contribute any money to the parade.Rep. Sean Duffy’s chief of staff, Brandon Moody, released a statement to Newsline 9:“Having walked in this parade in past years, Congressman Duffy was hoping that for a moment, we could set our differences aside and simply have some fun in a family-friendly event.”Hmmmm......What's next 'Kein Juden - Juden Raus (“Jews out") ?'Read the full story here.

• Underpublicized Muslim Threat Deep in White House.(WND).FBI: Penetration by radical agents worse than thought.Infiltration of the federal government by members of the radical Muslim Brotherhood is worse than some have warned recently, says a former FBI special agent in Washington.The agent confirmed that at least three operatives of the Egypt-based Brotherhood – whose credo is “Jihad is our way and death in the cause of Allah is our dream” – have penetrated the Obama administration.The shocking charge was first leveled by Muslim reformer Tarek Fatah during a recent speech in Toronto.“When someone says that there is penetration of jihadi Islamists within society, do not dismiss it as some right-wing, xenophobic, racist rant,” warned Fatah, a Canadian journalist.“Today in the White House, there are three members of the Muslim Brotherhood that influence Obama’s policy,” he told the audience gathered for an IdeaCity conference. “One is Rashad Hassan, who is the American ambassador to the 52-nation Organization of Islamic (Conference).”Fatah also named “Dalia Mogahed, who writes (Obama’s) speeches, who comes from the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt; and another woman, an academic, (who) was appointed in that circle.”Former FBI special agent John Guandolo says Obama’s ties to agents for the Muslim Brotherhood are even more extensive.“The level of penetration in the last three administrations is deep,” he said. “For this president, it even goes back to his campaign with Muslim Brotherhood folks working with him then.”Equally alarming, the Brotherhood also has placed several operatives and sympathizers within key positions in Homeland Security and the U.S. military, notes Guandolo, a former Marine Corps officer.The veteran federal agent says such infiltration threatens national security, because the U.S. leadership of the international Brotherhood has outlined a secret plan to “destroy” the U.S. and other Western governments “from within.”After the 9/11 attacks, he says the FBI discovered the plan written in Arabic among documents seized from the basement of a prominent Brotherhood leader living in a Washington suburb.Guandolo says the stated Muslim Brotherhood strategy for change “from within” includes the installation of loyal Brothers into political office.President Obama’s top Muslim ambassador, Rashad Hussain, has raised suspicions. He is U.S. special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference, a powerful international group headquartered in Saudi Arabia and closely aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood.Before first joining the White House as a lawyer, Hussain regularly spoke to Brotherhood front groups and defended Brotherhood leaders like Sami al-Arian. Hussain at first denied defending the convicted terrorist, claiming he was misquoted, but then recanted after Politico.com produced a tape-recording of his remarks.Recently, he has been overseas encouraging devotion to Islam, including in terror hotspots like Afghanistan.In fact, Hussain has told Afghans the antidote to Islamic violence “is Islam itself.”“I am of the opinion that one of the strongest tools that you can use to counter radicalization and violent extremism is Islam itself, because Islam rejects violent extremism,” he said during a recent speech in Kabul.Hussain, a devout Muslim, says promotion of the Muslim faith is “key” to the administration’s strategy to turn Muslims away from violence.“We see that as one of the key elements of a strategy to address this type of violence,” he said.The strategy is at odds with what the co-chairmen of the 9/11 Commission recently recommended in their follow-up report on homegrown terror, “Assessing the Terrorist Threat: A Report of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s National Security Preparedness Group.”The study found that Islam was motivating terrorists not just abroad, but inside America’s Muslim community. And it scolded U.S. leaders for pretending religion is not a factor in growing violence.Still, Hussain insists: “When it comes to the problem of violent extremism, Islam is not the problem.”Hussain helped draft Obama’s conciliatory Cairo speech to Muslims. Also helping with the president’s speeches and policies toward Muslims is Mogahed, whose pro-Islamist statements have been posted on the Muslim Brotherhood’s website, ikhwanweb.com.Obama appointed the hijab-wearing Mogahed to the President’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. On a British television program, Islam Channel, Mogahed defended Shariah law, the barbaric Islamic legal code that treats women as second-class citizens.Muslim women actually “associate gender justice or justice for women with Shariah compliance,” she argued. “It is ‘only a small fraction’ that associate Shariah with ‘oppression of women.’”She added that Muslims should work to integrate Islamic law into public law.Another Brotherhood-tied figure influencing the White House is Azizah al-Hibri.Obama this June appointed her to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. A Muslim professor, al-Hibri is also the granddaughter of a sheik, who claims the Saudi criminal justice system is more moral than the American one because it accepts blood money from murderers.Al-Hibri herself has proclaimed: “Islamic fiqh (law) is deeper and better than Western codes of law.”She served on the advisory board of the American Muslim Council and made joint appearances with its leader Abdurahman Alamoudi. Now defunct, the AMC was a front group for the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood, and Alamoudi was the Brotherhood’s top leader in America. He is now behind bars as one of al-Qaida’s top fundraisers in America.Al-Hibri has also made appearances at Islamic Society of North America conferences. The Justice Department says ISNA is a Brotherhood front and recently named the group an unindicted co-conspirator in a plot to provide material support to Hamas terrorists.Guandolo identified several other Brotherhood-connected agents of influence – all of whom are just as politically savvy and moderate sounding – who have worked their way into government positions, including:Arif Alikhan, who was assistant Homeland Security secretary for policy development and is now a distinguished visiting professor of homeland security and counterterrorism at the National Defense University.Syrian-born Kareem Shora, who is Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano’s senior policy adviser.Navy Cmdr. Youssef Aboul-Enein and Jocelyne Cesari, a Muslim convert who previously worked with Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, both of whom teach at colleges within the National Defense University.Guandolo blames the advances Brotherhood figures on political correctness and lax vetting at government agencies.Even at the FBI, he notes, an Iranian-born Muslim has taken over the agency’s weapons of mass destruction program.Stung by workplace discrimination lawsuits by Arab and Muslim employees, the FBI has come under pressure to hire more Arab and Muslim agents and language specialists and promote existing ones, while clearing them for higher security levels, according the best-selling book “Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That’s Conspiring to Islamize America.”The book cites internal FBI records showing the agency has been sued by no fewer than 14 Arab and Muslim employees since 9/11. Some of the lawsuits have been solicited or aided by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, another Muslim Brotherhood front group. The FBI in 2008 cut off formal outreach with CAIR and its branch offices.“This is happening as we remain silent. And I say that as a liberal Democrat who worked and campaigned for Barack Obama,” said Fatah, a Pakistan-born journalist and activist who founded the moderate Muslim Canadian Congress to fight the spread of “Islamofascism.”“Muslim Mafia” also has prompted a lawsuit from CAIR over the acquisition by the authors of CAIR documents.In the lawsuit, CAIR, a self-described Muslim civil-rights group, does not defend itself against the book’s claims, and the FBI has seized the CAIR material from the Washington law office of one of the attorneys for the authors. A previous filing in the case revealed a federal grand jury is investigating CAIR for possible violation of laws that ban financial dealings with terrorist groups or countries under U.S. sanctions.CAIR’s complaint seeks to expunge all copies of “Muslim Mafia” in an attempt, according to defense lawyers, to eliminate evidence that could lead to criminal prosecution.Read the full story here.

• Senior Official in Egyptian Islamic Jihad: If We Come to Power, We Will Launch a Campaign of Islamic Conquests to Instate Shari'a Worldwide.(Memri).On August 13, 2011, the Egyptian daily Roz Al-Yousef published an interview with Sheikh 'Adel Shehato, a senior official in Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ), who, on March 23, 2011, was freed from prison in the wake of the Egyptian revolution. He was imprisoned in 1991 upon returning from a three-year sojourn in Afghanistan.Hmmmm....The 'People' the Obama administration is pledging 2.57 Billion dollar and Abrams tanks to.Read the full story here.

• Imprisoned Egyptian blogger enters fifth day of hunger strike.(IW).Prison officials have refused to officially record the hunger strike by Maikal Nabil Sanad, the first blogger to be arrested after the overthrow of Mubarak for allegedly defamatory remarks about Egypt's ruling military council.Egyptian blogger Maikal Nabil Sanad has entered the fifth day of his hunger strike at El-Marg prison where he is serving a three-year sentence for defaming the military.According to Sanad’s family, Maikal Nabil decided to begin his hunger strike in opposition to the military council’s decision to pardon certain political activists and protesters while ignoring others imprisoned after military trials.Human rights activists stated that his health has, in the past few days, been deteriorating and that the prison officials have, as yet, refused to officially record his hunger strike.Maikal Nabil Sanad was accused of defaming the Egyptian Armed Forces and was handed a three-year sentence. Sanad’s act of sedition, in the eyes of Egypt’s de-facto rulers, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, was a blog post, published last March, called “The army and the people are not one hand” in which he accused the SCAF and the army of working against the revolution.He was the first Egyptian blogger to be arrested and convicted after the toppling of president Hosni Mubarak. Furthermore, he was the second Egyptian blogger, after blogger Abdel Karim Amar, in Egypt to face prison time because of his opinions and writings. Nabil was heading an online campaign against the mandatory military service of youth in Egypt.There is currently an online solidarity campaign with Maikal Nabil. Last Saturday, many Egyptian Twitter users started a tweeting campaign, using the hash tag ‘#FreeMaikal’ which drew the support of many activists, even those totally against his controversial views on religion and Egyptian-Israeli relations. These activists have set these differences aside, citing the primacy of ‘freedom of expression.’Read the full story here.

• Report: Israel allows 1,500 Egyptian troops into Sinai.(Ynet).1,500 Egyptian soldiers deployed across the Sinai Peninsula on Monday following an agreement between Israel and Egypt to increase the number of Egyptian troops in the peninsula's areas B and C, the London-based al Hayat newspaper reported on Monday.According to the report, the sides are currently negotiating an agreement to deploy additional troops in the area.Former Egyptian Ambassador to Israel Muhammed Basioni told the newspaper that "the Egypt-Israel peace treaty provides in clause 4 that each one of the sides can amend the security arrangements if the other side agrees to it."Egypt relied on this article – which prohibits the entrance of Egyptian military forces into area C and allows only police force presence – in order to amend its deployment arrangements in the area," he said.According to Basioni, "In 2008, Palestinians infiltrated Egypt from the Gaza Strip. Egypt then asked for the deployment of 750 border guard officers and the request was granted."Following recent security developments in Sinai, the authorities decided to launch a wide-scale security operation with large military and police forces, and to that end we requested to scour the area between Rafah, al-Arish and Sheikh Zawid," the former ambassador said."We've reinforced our deployment to 1,500 soldiers and armored vehicles in areas B and C," stated Basioni without saying when the forces entered the area.Meanwhile, a senior Egyptian military official said that Cairo was "considering amending clauses in its peace treaty with Israel relating to deployment of forces, their scope and equipment stationed in the Sinai Peninsula in order to maintain security in the area," the Egyptian daily Al-Masry Al-Youm reported. According to the report, the military council is reevaluating the clauses to adapt them to Egypt's new foreign policy following the January 25 revolution.At the beginning of the year, the Israeli government unexpectedly decided to allow the Egyptian army to deploy 800 soldiers in the peninsula, for the first time since signing the peace agreement more than three decades ago.In the 1979 peace treaty, the Sinai Peninsula was declared as a demilitarized zone and was divided into areas A, B and C, with the latter only open to international peacekeepers and Egyptian civilian police forces. Meanwhile, IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz has ordered a reinforcement of army presence near the southern Gaza Strip and the Israel-Egypt border following a terrorist alert indicating that the Islamic Jihad was planning to perpetrate an attack in the area. It is estimated that the terrorist cell has already left the Gaza Strip to Sinai, which has become a hotbed of terrorist activity in recent months. The defense establishment has also passed on details of the alert to Egypt.Hmmmmm.......Great....Lets give the Muslim Brotherhood a bridgehead in the Sinai.Read the full story here.

• Egypt: We Will Not Establish a Buffer Zone on Gaza Border.(Memri).General Gaber Al-Arabi, North Sinai Governorate Secretary-General, has denied reports that Egypt intends to establish a buffer zone on the Gaza border.Al-Arabi also denied reports that Egypt would demolish tunnels on the Egypt-Gaza border.Read the full story here.

• Sit-Down Strike in Moscow for World Qods Day; Chants of 'Death to Israel' and 'Death to America'.(Memri).A Hamas website has reported that on August 25, a conference for World Qods Day was held at the headquarters of the RIA Novosti news agency in Moscow. It was attended by Russian journalists and Middle East experts, as well as Iranian representatives, and dealt with the dangers facing Jerusalem and the Palestinian matter.On August 27, a sit-down strike was held in Moscow, attended by members of the Arab and Islamic diaspora. Musa Gurbanov, an activist for the Iran-based international shi'ite foundation Ahl Al-Bayt, said that the Jews killed Allah's messengers, and therefore their current crimes are routine for them.Gurbanov added that in addition to its desire to conquer Arab countries, Israel strives to control all Islamic countries. He claimed Israel set its sights on Azerbaijan, where authorities have banned the wearing of the hijab, demolish mosques, and arrest clerics.Attendees of the sit-down strike carried signs protesting the siege of Gaza and calling for the liberation of Palestine. The crowd chanted "Death to Israel" and "Death to America."Read the full story here.

• Abbas: International Recognition Would Create An Occupied State; UN Would Become Source of Authority.(Memri).Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas told the Qatari daily Al-Watan that international recognition of a Palestinian state in the 1967 borders would create the situation of an occupied state, and would make the UN the source of authority to discuss the Palestinian matter.Abbas further said that the PLO, which represents 8 million Palestinians worldwide, would continue to operate until the Palestinian matter is completely resolved. He added that Hamas and Islamic Jihad could join the PLO if they commit to its charter, which cannot be changed.He said that the PA is suffering a true financial crisis, and accused Arab countries of not fulfilling their financial obligations to the PA. According to Abbas, the U.S. transfers $570 million to the PA annually, and discontinuing that aid would worsen conditions.Abbas stressed that he would not consent to an armed intifada during his term, and claimed that Israel refuses to discuss the refugee dossier, which deals with some 5 million people.Hmmmm.......Please re-examine the Conditions for statehood?"A sovereign state is a state with a defined territory on which it exercises internal and external sovereignty, a permanent population, a government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other sovereign states".Read the full story here.

• Israeli diplomats train on 'Twitter PR'.(Ynet).Staff members in Israeli missions worldwide are learning how to bolster their messages on the internet and social networks in preparation for September's UN vote on the Palestinian statehood bid. As part of efforts to form a "moral majority" among major powers, some 60 staff members of embassies in Europe and representatives of Jewish organizations are taking part in a seminar in Brussels which trains them on the combination between public diplomacy and online media.The diplomats are learning how to use the advantages of online media in such networks as Facebook and Twitter as well as PR activity in campuses. They are also learning how to use search engines to increase the exposure of Israel's messages. This is part of the NIS 10 million PR campaign the Foreign Ministry has been pushing this past year. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has hired the services of several European PR companies to this end. "More than 80% of articles that are read in newspapers and traditional media outlets originate from such social networks as Facebook and Twitter," David Saranga, one of the organizers of the seminar, said. "Our purpose is to upgrade the pro-Israeli coalition's abilities in Europe, particularly ahead of September," he added. Saranga, a European Parliament delegate and former Consul for Media and Public Affairs in New York said: "European Union nations cannot be considered one piece. The public opinion in Britain or France is different from public opinion in Italy or Poland, which are more sympathetic towards Israel."That is why our purpose is to see how we can adjust the Israeli message to each of these countries and reach the ultimate combination between public diplomacy and the tools provided by social networks."D.J. Schneeweiss, one of the seminar's organizers, noted that the course also aims to lift the pro-Israeli bloc's performances in Europe to a new level. "Handling the anti-Israeli bloc warrants activity on the ground, which is achievable by boosting contacts in the online arena." Read the full story here.

• Turkey - Gov't gives go ahead for return of seized property to non-Muslim foundations.(TodaysZaman).The Turkish government has adopted a decree to return all confiscated immovable property belonging to minority foundations in Turkey, a long-overdue step to expand the rights of minorities in the country.According to this decree, which was published in the Official Gazette on Saturday, minority foundations will be able to reclaim real property that they had declared back in 1936. All real property, cemeteries and fountains will be returned to their rightful holders. Immoveable property currently belonging to third persons will also be paid for.The government's move to return seized property to non-Muslim foundations came just before a fast-breaking (iftar) dinner during which Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan came together with the representatives of non-Muslim communities in Turkey at the İstanbul Archeology Museum on Sunday evening.“This is a first in the history of the Turkish Republic and a very significant move,” said Kezban Hatemi, an attorney specializing in minority rights.“This is restoration of a right. This is a move that is a requirement of the Lausanne Treaty and one which makes our non-Muslim citizens feel like equal citizens in Turkey,” Hatemi told Today's Zaman.She also noted that returning the seized properties of the non-Muslim foundations is the second most important thing following the end of the military tutelage in Turkey.Minority foundations will have to apply to the Turkish authorities within 12 months to reclaim their property.Most recently, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ordered the Turkish government to reregister a historic Orthodox orphanage to the İstanbul-based Fener Greek Orthodox Patriarchate and also told Ankara to pay 26,000 euros in total to the patriarchate for both non-pecuniary damages and costs and expenses. Turkey returned the orphanage to the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in November 2010.Turkey has so far been ordered to pay hundreds of thousands of euros to minority foundations in accordance with European court rulings. With the government's latest move, Turkey will have returned the property of the minority foundations even before some of the ongoing cases are concluded at the ECtHR.Professor Ayhan Aktar, author of various books on minorities, said the decision on minority property is a revolutionary one which deserves applaud, adding that this step may encourage the government to take further steps to expand the rights of minorities in Turkey who have long been deprived of their rights.“The most important thing is Turkey has done it with its own will before facing foreign pressure. If government didn't take any initiative, Turkey would have been faced with severe sanctions from the ECtHR regarding ongoing trails,” Aktar told Today's Zaman.Hmmmmmm........Is the keys to Europe the prize, or will it be Cyprus?Read the full story here.

• Netanyahu requests 6 months Marmara report delay.(JPost). Channel 2 reports Netanyahu told US that in 6 months time he expects to be stronger politically, better able to deal with consequences of report.The Prime Minister’s Office opted Sunday night not to respond to a Channel 2 report saying Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu asked the US to persuade UN Secretary- General Ban Ki-moon to delay publication of the Palmer Commission report on the Mavi Marmara incident by six months, because by then he might be stronger politically and able to apologize to the Turks for the incident.The report – which was originally to have been released in May – was to have been issued last week, but was delayed again at Turkey’s request, and Israel’s agreement, to give both sides more time to come up with a formula that would repair ties that have deteriorated badly since the raid in 2010.But now, according to the Channel 2 report, Netanyahu wants even more time, saying that both because of the restraint he showed last week in response to the terrorist attack near Eilat and the continuing missiles from Gaza, and the continuous cost of living protests, he was not in a strong enough position politically to issue any type of apology.But, according to this report, he said this could change in six months time.While Defense Minister Ehud Barak has come out in favor of doing what it takes to mend fences with Turkey, both Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya’alon and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman are adamantly opposed.The Palmer Commission completed its work a number of months ago, and the commission’s findings have been widely leaked and are believed to include upholding Israel’s legal right to maintain a naval blockade of the Gaza Strip, and its right to stop ships from breaking the blockade, along with criticism of the IDF for an “excessive” use of force in stopping the Mavi Marmara – an operation in which nine Turks who attacked IDF commandos who boarded the ship were killed.Hmmmm....So why apologise?Read the full story here.

• Gaddafi's girl executioner: Nisreen, 19, admits shooting 11 rebel prisoners, now she is shackled to hospital bed awaiting justice.(DailyMail).First you see her large brown eyes and rosebud lips, framed by a pink headscarf. Then you notice that her bruised feet are secured by manacles to the foot of her bed.Nisreen Mansour al Forgani is a pretty 19-year-old. She was also a serial killer for Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.Yesterday, in a heavily guarded room at the Matiga military hospital in Tripoli, she admitted to the Mail that she had executed as many as 11 suspected rebel prisoners in the days leading up to the fall of the Libyan capital last week. Shot at point-blank range, in cold blood.‘I killed the first one, then they would bring another one up to the room,’ Nisreen said. ‘He would see the body on the floor and look shocked. Then I would shoot him too. I did it from about a metre away.’One of thousands of girls and young women recruited by Gaddafi’s all-female militias, Nisreen is now a prisoner of the rebels and in fear of her life. Yet despite her killings, it is impossible not to feel pity for her. Nisreen claims – and her doctors and even some of the rebel fighters believe her – that she had to shoot under great duress. She also says that she was sexually abused by senior military figures, one of whom was the commander of the elite Tripoli brigade tasked with protecting Gaddafi himself. ‘I told them [the rebels] what I did,’ she said. ‘They are angry. I do not know what will happen to me now.’So how did this slight young woman, who used to live with her mother in Tripoli and enjoy dance music, come to have so much blood on her hands?Nisreen says that her family were not supporters of the Gaddafi regime, although that is hard to verify at this stage in post-liberation Tripoli. Her parents split up when she was a child, and Nisreen did not like her father’s new wife so she went to live with her mother.One of her mother’s friends, a woman called Fatma al Dreby, was the leader of the female branch of Gaddafi’s Popular Guards militia – and this, it seems, was the fateful factor.Last year, Nisreen left college intending to look after her mother, who was sick with cancer. Instead, Fatma recruited her for the Popular Guards. The family protested, but Fatma would not be swayed. Nisreen was young and pretty – just the type they wanted. ‘There were about 1,000 girls from all over Libya,’ Nisreen recalled of their training camp in Tripoli. ‘I was there with a girl called Faten, whom I knew from college.’ The recruits were instructed in the use of firearms, and Nisreen was trained as a sniper. By the start of the uprising in February, the two girls were being housed by the militia in a mobile home near Tripoli airport. Their duties mainly involved manning checkpoints around the city.Their unit was based at the HQ of 77 Brigade, next door to Gaddafi’s Bab Al-Azizya residential complex, but Nisreen says she saw the dictator only once, when his convoy swept past her checkpoint. Fatma was a zealous supporter of the regime, says Nisreen. ‘She told me that if my mother said something against Gaddafi that I should immediately kill her. If I said anything about the leader that she did not like I would be beaten and locked in my room. She also told us that if the rebels came, they would rape us.’It was a shameless piece of manipulation from the militia leader who, according to Nisreen, pimped her female recruits for the sexual gratification of her senior male colleagues.‘Fatma had an office at the 77 Brigade base and there was a room with a bed next door. One day, she summoned me and put me in that room by myself. Mansour Dau, who was the commander of 77 Brigade, then came in and shut the door.’He raped her. ‘After it was over Fatma told me not to tell anyone, not even my parents,’ says Nisreen.‘Every time Mansour came to the HQ he was given another girl by Fatma. She was given presents in return.’Nisreen said she was later raped by Mansour’s son Ibrahim, also an officer in the brigade, as well as another military relative of the commander, called Noury Saad. It happened to many girls she knew. And as the Gaddafi regime began to crumble, the abuses increased.Tragically, her friend Faten was killed in bizarre and brutal circumstances as the rebels closed in on Tripoli in the past month.The two girls were on a checkpoint near the Bab Al-Azizya complex when Colonel Gaddafi’s son and heir, Saif Al-Islam, arrived with an entourage. ‘Saif was wearing a bulletproof vest, helmet and aviator sunglasses,’ Nisreen recalls. ‘Faten went to have a closer look, and Saif’s bodyguard shot her in the head. She had simply got too close.’The spiral of horror gathered pace. There is a saying in Libya: ‘Cut my throat but do not get a girl to shoot me in the back.’ One suspects that the deployment of Nisreen as an executioner of ‘traitors’ was meant as a final insult to the condemned. Nisreen explains that she was taken to a building in the Bosleem district of Tripoli, put in a room and armed with an AK 47 rifle. There, a black woman soldier in a blue uniform kept guard and prevented her from escaping.The rebel prisoners were tied up and kept under a tree outside,’ she says. ‘Then one by one they were brought up to the room. There were three Gaddafi volunteers with guns also in the room. ‘They told me that if I didn’t kill the prisoners then they would kill me.’She begins to cry. ‘Some of the prisoners looked like they had already been beaten. Others were beaten up in front of me in the room. They did not speak. I do not remember their faces ... most of them were about the same age as me.’She wipes her eyes and stares at a weeping wound on her elbow.‘I tried not to kill them ... I turned and shot without looking. But if I hesitated, one of the soldiers would flick off the safety catch of his own rifle and point it at me.‘I killed ten, perhaps 11, over three days,’ she says, slowly and almost disbelievingly, counting the murders on her fingers. ‘I don’t know what they had done.’She wails: ‘I never harmed anyone before the uprising began. I used to have a normal life.’Nisreen eventually escaped by jumping from the window of the second-floor room where she carried out the killings. Despite being injured in the fall and then hit by a reversing pick-up truck, she managed to limp out of the compound.‘I was found by some anti-Gaddafi people who took me to a mosque where I was given water,’ she said. ‘Then I was brought here.’Two fighters are on guard outside her door at the hospital. ‘We are here to protect her as much as to prevent her escaping,’ one says.A woman in a white coat, presumably a doctor, enters the room. She begins to talk seriously to Nisreen, who bursts into tears. In fact, the woman is a volunteer medical orderly who has come to give ‘the girl sniper’ a piece of her mind.‘How could your conscience let you kill all these people, just for Gaddafi?’ she exclaims. She leaves the room and a rebel fighter, no older than Nisreen and with a rifle slung over his shoulder, replaces her. He leans on the end of the bed and addresses the girl.‘Do you pray?’ the fighter asks her. ‘I used to,’ she whispers. ‘What time of day did you kill them?’‘In the mornings.’Her tears begin to roll again. He turns to us and asks: ‘If a girl killed 11 people in your country, what would you do?’Read the full story here.

• IDF Wants Robot Strike Force.(ArutzSheva).Robots to lead the way in the first stage of engagement, which usually results in heavy casualties.IDF battle lore reserves a special place for the call "Acharai!" – "follow me!" – uttered by commanders who lead their soldiers on a charge into enemy positions. If Israeli military technology firms succeed in meeting the IDF's latest challenge, though, the exclamation may soon be uttered by robots.According to the IsraelDefense website, Israeli defense companies are competing for the nod to develop a robot-based combat solution dubbed "Advance Guard,” which the IDF ground forces are keenly interested in."The basic idea is for robots to function as a strike force, leading the way in the first stage of engagement with the enemy, which usually results in heavy casualties," the website explained. "The defense establishment wants the industries to examine a range of possible robotic forms on the battlefield, from micro-robots to large unmanned vehicles. An essential feature of the program is that the robots will be capable of interacting with each other and not only as individual warriors." Brigadier General (ret.) Shmuel Yachin, former director of R&D in the IDF, told IsraelDefense that Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) is reviewing different types of robot designs, including "see-fire" systems that can identify a target in the field and zero in on it.One of the firms competing for the job of supplying the IDF with robot warriors may invest in the development of an unmanned tank.Robotic tools are already employed in surveillance, including unmanned ground vehicles like "Guardium," produced by a company jointly owned and run by IAI and Elbit Systems. In the past, the IDF revealed a robotic snake that can be used for infiltration of targets.Hmmmmm......Jewish droid to Arab: "We'll Be Back!" Read the full story here.Video here.

• And now for something completely Different.Spacecraft Earth to Perform Asteroid 'Flyby' This Fall, On November 8, asteroid 2005 YU55 will fly past Earth.(Nasa).Since the dawn of the space age, humanity has sent 16 robotic emissaries to fly by some of the solar system's most intriguing and nomadic occupants -- comets and asteroids. The data and imagery collected on these deep-space missions of exploration have helped redefine our understanding of how Earth and our part of the galaxy came to be. But this fall, Mother Nature is giving scientists around the world a close-up view of one of her good-sized space rocks -- no rocket required."On November 8, asteroid 2005 YU55 will fly past Earth and at its closest approach point will be about 325,000 kilometers [201,700 miles] away," said Don Yeomans, manager of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "This asteroid is about 400 meters [1,300 feet] wide – the largest space rock we have identified that will come this close until 2028."Despite the relative proximity and size, Yeomans said, "YU55 poses no threat of an Earth collision over, at the very least, the next 100 years. During its closest approach, its gravitational effect on the Earth will be so miniscule as to be immeasurable. It will not affect the tides or anything else."Then why all the hubbub for a space rock a little bit wider than an aircraft carrier? After all, scientists estimate that asteroids the size of YU55 come this close about every 25 years. "While near-Earth objects of this size have flown within a lunar distance in the past, we did not have the foreknowledge and technology to take advantage of the opportunity," said Barbara Wilson, a scientist at JPL. "When it flies past, it should be a great opportunity for science instruments on the ground to get a good look."2005 YU55 was discovered in December 2005 by Robert McMillan, head of the NASA-funded Spacewatch Program at the University of Arizona, Tucson. The space rock has been in astronomers' crosshairs before. In April 2010, Mike Nolan and colleagues at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico generated some ghostly images of 2005 YU55 when the asteroid was about 2.3 million kilometers (1.5 million miles) from Earth. (See related story: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-144. "The best resolution of the radar images was 7.5 meters [25 feet] per pixel," said JPL radar astronomer Lance Benner. "When 2005 YU55 returns this fall, we intend to image it at 4-meter resolution with our recently upgraded equipment at the Deep Space Network at Goldstone, California. Plus, the asteroid will be seven times closer. We're expecting some very detailed radar images."The chunk of space rock called YU55 weighs more than 55 million tons. An impact would be equivalent to 65,000 atomic bombs. The crater would be about 10 km wide and 500 meters deep.Rea the full story here.