MFS - The Other News

                    Morning Posting.

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity situation Chile 5.5 !More info here.

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

• Canary Islands - El Hierro earthquake and volcano eruption – Update 21.  here , Live webcams here and here.

• Video - Egypt: Tantawi vows to transfer power.(Ynet).Damage control? Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, who heads Egypt's Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), addressed the Egyptian nation on Tuesday, amid growing civil unrest. The address was preceded by persistent rumors that the Military Council was planning to relinquish its powers to Cairo's Supreme Court. Tantawi's address, which was prerecorded and broadcast to hundreds of thousands of protesters who gathered in Tahrir Square, put an end to the rumors.The SCAF, Tantawi said, accepts the Egyptian government's resignation. He pledged to "continue placing the interests of the Egyptian people first," adding that the military would willingly transfer power to a civilian government by July 1, 2012. Throughout the speech, the masses in Tahrir Square called for Tantawi to step down immediately. Earlier, the Military Council announced that Egypt will hold its parliamentary elections on November 28 as scheduled, and set the next presidential elections for June. No exact date was set, but according to Cairo's media, SCAF seeks to have the new president sworn in by July of next year.Egypt's military ruler also floated the idea of a referendum on an immediate power transfer: "The Military Council does not seek to rule. We are more than willing to transfer power if a people's referendum demands it," he said. Egypt's Supreme Council of the Armed Forces has been the country's de facto ruler since President Hosni Mubarak was forced to resign in February. "The Armed Forces will not take the place of the people's government," Tantawi vowed. "We do not intend to cling to power. Our goal has always been to reinstate security to Egypt. "Running the country in this unusual time has not been easy. Talk is easy – but the reality on the ground is different… We have tried to manage things wisely," he said. Striving to maintain political stability amid growing civil unrest, Egypt's SCAF is reportedly considering naming former International Atomic Energy Agency Chief Mohamed ElBaradei as Cairo's new prime minister.ElBaradei has reportedly demanded extensive authorities, as well as a SCAF pledge that it will not interfere in government matters. Meanwhile, the White House on Tuesday called for an end to the "deplorable" violence in Egypt and said elections there must go forward. "We are deeply concerned about the violence. The violence is deplorable. We call on all sides to exercise restraint," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters.Read and see the full story here. 

• Breaking: Egypt - 71 dead in Cairo alone, medical sources.(BikyaMasr).CAIRO: A medical source in the Zeinhom morgue near Cairo’s Tahrir Square has told Bikyamasr.com that 71 Egyptians have been killed since clashes erupted Saturday. Some 14 were killed today alone, as fierce fighting between protesters calling for an end to military rule and the police and the army continues in the vicinity of the Interior Ministry.Some 24 people were killed Monday, while 33 were killed in clashes on Saturday and Sunday. Across the three days of violence some 2000+ have been injured, many collapsing under the use of CR gas by the police.At time of writing, hundreds of thousands are streaming into Tahrir Square, the epicentre of the popular revolution that ousted Hosni Mubarak at the beginning of the year. On current estimates, numbers may soon reach one million or more.Read the full story here.

• Related- Protesters reject military offer to cede power by July 2012.(BikyaMasr).CAIRO: Representatives from various political groups in Cairo met with General Sami Anan, the Army Chief of Staff in a five-hour crisis meeting on Tuesday evening, where the SCAF pledged to transfer power to a civilian government.Egypt’s interim ruling military council, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) has allegedly agreed to cede to several protester demands, and have accepted the collective resignation of Prime Minister Essam Sharaf and the Cabinet of Ministers.According to a statement from Abu el-Ela Mady, Chairman of the al-Wasat Party, the SCAF has agreed to form a new national salvation unity government “within days,” set to replace the cabinet.Tens of thousands of protesters in Tahrir roared upon hearing the news.“We will not leave until he leaves,” they said, referring to the head of Egypt’s ruling military council, Field Marshall Hussein Tantwai.Eyewitnesses tell Bikyamasr.com that violence in the square has raged on despite the announcement, as state security continues to wage its offensive on protesters in the square.“We will not leave until the situation is peaceful and we have a civilian led government,” one protester told Bikyamasr.com on Tuesday evening.The SCAF has also agreed to hold presidential elections before the end of June 2012, and still plans to hold parliamentary elections as scheduled.Previously, the SCAF said that they did not intend on holding presidential elections until 2013.The SCAF has promised to allow protesters to collectively demonstrate, and have vowed to immediately release all those detained or arrested since Saturday.Anti-military demonstrations across Egypt turned violent after military and police personnel waged a brutal offensive on peaceful protesters in Cairo’s Tahrir Square in the early hours of Saturday morning.33 have been reported dead in the clashes, according to official statistics from the Egyptian Ministry of Health. However, activists and eyewitnesses suspect that the number is much higher.Field Marshall Hussein Tantawi, the head of the ruling military council, is expected to speak with protesters in Tahrir Square tonight.Read the full story here.

• Presence of Malice: Against the Conservative Portrait of the President.(AmericanDigest).We can survive many traits in presidents, but malice is not among them. In the unfolding saga of the Libyan adventure I note that, even though it is early innings, a popular strain of conservative criticism centers around the always popular idea of 'stupidity in government;' with a variant on the subset of ‘the president is not as smart as he thinks.’ The popular variant this time is: 'deep down, Obama is shallow.' This notion includes various complimentary subsets such as 'he is lazy,' 'he is incompetent,' 'he's hooked on the perks and doesn't care for the work.' All comfortable notions that imply that the critic is, conversely, smarter, more diligent, and more fit to make governmental decisions than the president. The problem here is that the critic is not the president and hence has no power to do anything remotely presidential.I'm no friend of conspiracy theories. The truthers who imagine that hundreds of people have all kept the federal government's dark roll in 911 hold no attraction to me. Too complex and with a membership that is too substantial to keep such secrets. The birthers who look to finally exposing the odd origins of the president who seems to have sprung from the brow of Zeus? Too irrelevant if true, since it will not alter the election, and, if false, pure fritterware. At the same time, I acknowledge that there are conspiracies in the world. By extension, the most successful conspiracies would involve a very few people with a lot of access to money and power. Taking one more step, one would have to posit that the perfect conspiracy would not involve even a few people, but only one person with access to money and power. That person would be a sociopath but if he was the right sociopath in the right place at the right time his native intelligence, high or low, stupid or smart, wouldn't really matter. What would matter would be the level of his maliciousness. It would not matter what his real IQ was but rather his level of cleverness and his innate shrewdness. Indeed, to the clever and shrewd person a critical conversation involving whether he was being "stupid" or "lazy" only works to his advantage since is draws attention away from malice and gives him more time and space to pursue his goals. As Machiavelli knew, and Stalin proved, when the ends secure pure power, the means are irrelevant and history rewritable.A man with a much more reactionary bent to his thinking, such as myself, would note that 21 months is an extremely long time to have a rogue ego and malicious mind actively guiding and making the day-to-day, life and death, decisions of the nation. Twenty-one months of appointments, foreign policy, executive orders, and the odd military adventure here or there, can add up to a lot of problems unless your goal is the weakening of the United States. In that case, it might just be enough time after all.Even Obama's most rabid supporters outside of his army of apparatchiks must surely sense that there is something “off” in the psychic structure of the current president. Most attribute it to his “yearning” to make the country ‘worthy’ of it’s place at the head of the nations. I suggest that it is something alarmingly dark and destructive. I suggest it comes from a psyche that, for many, many reasons stretching back to infancy, is so structured that it loathes the country down to its marrow, much as the psyche must loathe itself, and that is working, daily, on dismantling the nation with nothing except pure malicious intent. Why? Because it can.Do I know this for a certainty? I cannot say, but “when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design.”Read the full story here.

• An Historic Failure of Presidential Leadership.(WhitehouseDossier).By KeithKoffler.I can hardly find the words to describe what happened at the White House today. But there are always words, and so I must find them.In an immense and nearly unparalleled – there’s always James Buchanan – abnegation of presidential responsibility, the White House today blithely acknowledged that President Obama did nothing to broker a deal in Congress to reduce the deficit and save the American economy, and it suggested it wasn’t Obama’s responsibility to do so in the future.The deficit reduction committee represented the best chance to achieve a deficit deal, because the next opportunity will not come before February or so, when we’re in full election mode, and because any agreement reached by the panel would have had special rules attached that would have eased its passage in Congress.But Obama, it must be clear as the Caribbean to all, is now solely interested in gaining a cudgel with which to whack Republicans next year instead of saving the union. He would rather the panel fail so that he can blame Republicans for something about the dismal economy over which he unhappily presides.Asked today what Obama had done to spur the committee on, White House press Secretary Jay Carney said he had done a lot. LAST SUMMER.Carney continued:This committee was established by an act of Congress. It was comprised of members of Congress. Instead of pointing fingers and playing the blame game, Congress should act, fulfill its responsibility.The nation’s future is solely Congress’s responsibility? The president’s responsibility is . . . golf and campaigning? Carney:  Now, let me just say that Congress still has it within its capacity to be responsible and act. As you noted, the sequester doesn’t take effect for a year. Congress could still act and has plenty of time to act. And we call on Congress to fulfill its responsibility.We call on Congress to fulfill its responsibility? Like a mother saying, “I call on my baby to learn to walk.”Congress will not act, because it will be 2012, and it knows full well the president isn’t serious.In his remarks this evening, Obama said tepidly that he would be “ready and willing to work with anybody that’s ready to engage in that effort to create a balanced plan for deficit reduction.”What he’s saying, really, is that Republicans must first cave, and then he’ll work with them. Because otherwise, he would have done so already.Which means the fragile economy will have to wait a year for Washington to work out an agreement on the deficit, during which time an economic collapse could come at any time.The president of the United States has decided not fulfill his oath to “preserve, protect and defend” the nation.Well, he promised change.Hmmmm......I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes. ~ Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776.Read the full story here.

• Obama Vows To Veto Any GOP Attempt At Sparing Pentagon Deeper Spending Cuts After Supercommittee Failure.((National Journal) — President Obama Monday evening blamed Republicans for the failure of the super committee to meet its deadline for a debt plan and warned that he will veto any attempt to eliminate the automatic spending cuts that go into effect with that failure.In an appearance in the White House briefing room a little more than an hour after the committee officially conceded failure, the president said his answer to those who want to eliminate those cuts “is simple: No. I will veto any effort to get rid of those automatic spending cuts to domestic and defense spending. There will be no easy off-ramps on this one.”He added, “We need to keep the pressure up to compromise, not the turn off the pressure.”Hmmmm.....If he really wanted to destroy America as a Superpower.....would he do anything different?Read the full story here.

• Obama signs New Law Cuts Ties Between FBI and Terror-Tied Groups.(PJM).When Barack Obama signed the continuing resolution this past weekend averting another potential government shutdown, it’s doubtful that he was aware that tucked into the bill, which funds several federal agencies through the fiscal year and extends the continuing resolution for the rest of the government until December 16, is a provision that may dramatically impact what Islamic groups and leaders the FBI and other law enforcement agencies can continue to work with.Under Division B, Title II of the bill, under the Federal Bureau of Investigation-Salaries and Expenses section, is the following provision:

Liaison partnerships- The conferees support the FBI’s policy prohibiting any formal non-investigative cooperation with unindicted co-conspirators in terrorism cases. The conferees expect the FBI to insist on full compliance with this policy by FBI field offices and to report to the Committees on Appropriations regarding any violation of the policy.

The most obvious group that this will impact is the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which was named unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation case — the largest terrorism-finance trial in American history. During the trial, FBI Dallas Agent Lara Burns testified that CAIR was a front for the terrorist group Hamas.Following the trial, which resulted in guilty verdicts on all counts and lengthy prison terms for all five Holy Land executives, the FBI was forced to cut ties with CAIR – a decision that CAIR claimed would hurt local communities and that prompted other Muslim groups, like the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), to threaten to stop cooperation with the FBI unless CAIR was reinstated. In a February 2010 letter to members of Congress, Assistant Attorney General Robert Weich forwarded evidence submitted by federal prosecutors in the trial and court testimony concerning CAIR’s ties to the Hamas-controlled Palestine Committee and that committee’s role in supporting Hamas.What impact this new legislation will have remains to be seen, but it is clearly intended to roll back the Obama administration’s penchant for relying on groups identified by government prosecutors as fronts for designated terrorist organizations as partners for “outreach.”As I reported here exclusively at PJ Media last April, the Department of Justice intervened and scuttled the planned prosecution of CAIR co-founder Omar Ahmad as a follow-up to the Holy Land trial, which prompted several congressional inquiries. And as a follow-up to that article, I reported an interview with a high-ranking DOJ official who told me that FBI General Counsel Valerie Caproni continued to meet with CAIR officials despite the FBI’s official ban on contacts with the Hamas front.This new law will also curtail relations with the administration’s favorite “outreach” partner, ISNA, which, despite being named unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land trial, was last month included in a top-level meeting with the Department of Justice where Muslim groups demanded a formal declaration by the DOJ that any criticism of Islam constituted religious and racial discrimination. ISNA’s president, Mohamed Magid, is also a regular at White House functions and has been appointed to several government positions, including advising the Department of Homeland Security.Congressional sources I spoke with on Monday said that this common-sense legislation was necessitated by the continued practice — in open defiance of the stated FBI policy — of dealing with and legitimizing individuals and groups that federal prosecutors had gone into federal court and identified as assisting terrorist groups.Perhaps the most notorious case was an instance I reported on last year: Kifah Mustapha, who was personally named in the Holy Land case and who prosecutors had on court evidence videotape singing “I am a member of Hamas,” was included last year in the FBI-Chicago Field Office’s six-week Citizens’ Academy training program and given an escorted tour through the FBI Academy at Quantico and the top-secret National Counterterrorism Center. When I contacted the FBI-Chicago Field Office about the discrepancy, they defended Mustapha’s inclusion in the program despite their warnings to other agencies about the terror cleric’s longtime support for Hamas.Congressional officials expressed skepticism that the new legislation would permanently stop the schizophrenic government policy of engaging groups and individuals that the government itself has said are tied to terrorist groups, but it puts the Obama administration on notice that the days of the “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” outreach policies are drawing to a close.Read the full story here.

• Commander Charles Kerchner(Ret) to NH House Majority Leader Bettencourt: Your Loyalty Must Be to the Constitution.(BirtherReport).Dear NH Rep. Bettencourt: Please stand with the U.S. Constitution and your oath to support and defend it. Your loyalty must be to the Constitution and the Citizens of NH and not to the establishment Republican Party bosses in DC who wish to use the Constitution when it suits them and ignore it when it suits them. The Constitution is the fundamental law of our land. It needs to be enforced and protected equally for everyone. Does your bottom line loyalty to the party trump your loyalty to the Constitution? Search your conscience after reading the rest of my email and the attachments. Never before in the history of our country have the major political parties allowed a person whose father was a foreign national and not a Citizen of the United States into the office of the Presidency and to gain command of our military.Obama's father was a foreign national and never was a U.S. Citizen or even wanted to be one. In fact Obama's father was not even an immigrant to the this country nor was he even a permanent resident. Obama is not a "natural born Citizen of the United States" to constitutional standards. He is NOT constitutionally eligible to be President of the United States per Article II Section 1. He should not be allowed on the ballot in NH since your election law since 2010 requires the candidate to be a "natural born Citizen". That was added to your laws since the 2008 election due to the Obama fiasco in the 2008 election. Obama is not a natural born Citizen of the United States. He may be native-born, but he is not a natural born Citizen to Article II constitutional standards. Enforce your new 2010 NH election law change.To be a natural born Citizen of the United States the person must be born in the USA to two (2) U.S. Citizen parents. That is the law of nature and said laws were referred to in our founding documents. That definition comes from natural law, the legal treatise the Law of Nations or Principles of Natural Law Vol.1 Chapter 19 Section 212, U.S. law via the Supreme Court decision of Minor v Happersett (1875) which was never over turned and other SCOTUS decisions as recent as 1939, and international law. Wong Kim Ark (1898) only decided who is a born "Citizen of the U.S." under the 14th Amendment, not who is a "natural born Citizen of the U.S." under Article II. The words natural born do not appear in the 14th Amendment and only appear in the Constitution in Article II as to who can be the President, and then later per the last sentence of the 12th amendment who can be the VP. Obama's father was a foreign national and never a U.S. Citizen so Obama is born with dual Citizenship and dual allegiances and is NOT a natural born Citizen of the USA. Why both major political parties allowed this to happen in 2008 is beyond comprehension. But for the Republican Party to allow it to happen again in 2012 is completely unfathomable given how much more we have learned about the lack of a true legal identity for Barack Obama given that it has been revealed he is using a forged digitally created birth certificate and a Connecticut SSN not legally issued to him.Images on the internet are proof of nothing, especially when digital image and typography experts say the images are forgeries and digitally created images and not scans of real paper documents. Read the attached essays and reports for more information on this subject. It is time for you to stand up for your sworn solemn oath of office to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. It is time for you to stand up for your duty to protect the Citizens of New Hampshire from a person, Barack Obama, who is committing election fraud and identity fraud in your state. His signing the application to be put on the ballot in your state has created a legal NEXUS between him and the Citizens of your state and your state now has jurisdiction to investigate his election fraud and identity theft and fraud. He is perpetrating a false identity and documents on the Citizens of NH. Your state now has jurisdiction to investigate this man ... Barack Hussein Obama II, or whoever he really is and whatever is real legal name is.Please do the right thing by your oath and lead the effort in your state to call for a full and thorough investigation of Obama's true legal identity, to conclusively determine it, under oath with sworn testimony, subpoenaed witness testimony including if necessary Obama himself, and certified true and correct paper documents with raised seals DIRECTLY from the original issuing authority (not Obama's campaign or team) and subjected to forensic analysis by document experts. The Obama fraud and charade and deception of the electorate must be stopped. The ongoing constitutional crisis created by Obama must be ended. Please stand for the U.S. Constitution the New Hampshire Citizens who are looked to vet candidates for President as an early primary state and demand an investigation immediately into the charges of election fraud and identity fraud perpetrated by Obama on the Citizens of New Hampshire. Do NOT allow the election fraud of 2008 to be repeated in 2012.CDR Charles Kerchner (Ret).Lehigh Valley PA USA.Read the full story here.

• Expired due date canisters of Tear gas used in Egypt banned, causes liver, heart damage, miscarriages.(BikyaMasr).Cairo: The tear gas being employed by the Egyptian military and police in the past 48 hours, beyond being expired for at least five years, according to canisters obtained by Bikyamasr.com, cause severe pulmonary damage, as well as causing damage to the heart and liver. It is also reported to increase the risk of miscarriages, according to international studies of the substance, known as CR gas.A lethal does can be inhaled within minutes if in a poorly ventilated area.According to the United States Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine, CR emits “very toxic fumes” when heated to decomposition, and at specified concentrations CR gas is an immediate danger to life and health. The report also stated that those exposed to CR gas should “seek medical attention immediately.”In large doses, human tissues have also revealed that cyanide levels in the body are discovered. It can also “melt” one’s skin if sweat on the body comes into contact with the substance.Egyptian demonstrators have been exposed at high levels over the past two days, with many calling the use of the gas a “crime against humanity” as it has resulted in severe injuries due to its indiscriminate usage by both police and military forces.Under the Paris Convention on Chemical Warfare of 1993, CR Gas was officially listed as a restricted substance and eventually was banned, but it has not stopped governments across the world from deploying the gas on civilians. The United States, Sri Lanka, Israel and others including Egypt, have continued to use the gas on its people.At a field hospital along Mohamed Mahmoud street on Sunday evening, the military slammed the area with the substance, causing scores of Egyptians to run in panic as clouds of tear gas billowed forth. A few individuals succumbed to the extraordinary amount of gas, coughing and vomiting.“I can’t believe this is happening,” said one doctor to Bikyamasr.com. “This is causing people to pass out, vomit and cough blood. It isn’t safe.”The company producing the gas being used in Egypt, Combined Tactical Systems of Jamestown, Pennsylvania in the United States, refused to respond to Bikyamasr.com requests for information pertaining to expired canisters and its effects on people.But on the ground in Tahrir and the surrounding streets, it is clear that the tear gas is having massive effects on demonstrators.“It is wrong, horrific and scary to think the military has purchased so many they just shoot them like they have an endless supply from the US,” said one demonstrator, using a tissue to wipe his blood-shot eyes.Read the full story here.

• Egypt Military General: “There is an invisible hand in the square”.(BikyaMasr).CAIRO: A member of Egypt’s interim ruling Military Council visited Tahrir Square Monday afternoon for a brief media interview, claiming that those in the square are “thugs,” not peaceful demonstrators.“There is an invisible hand in the square causing a rift between the army and the people,” the general claimed, calling upon to crowd to return to their homes and consider the economic impact their demonstration will have on the country.He claimed that the council supports demonstrators’ prerogative to peacefully demonstrate, insisting that security forces had not initiated the violence that has wrought the capital city since early Saturday morning.The general’s ascertains come despite innumerable eyewitness accounts, videos and pictures of both Egyptian police and soldiers in full uniform waging a brutal offensive on protesters, attacking hoards of people indiscriminately with live ammunition, tear gas, rubber bullets and clubs.Egyptian state security continues its violent offensive on anti-government demonstrators in the city’s iconic Tahrir Square, which has already left at least 20 confirmed dead, and 1,500 injured since Saturday, according to statistics from the Egyptian Ministry of Health.Hmmm....Are 'fresh'protesters being bused in?Read the full story here.

• Cynthia Farahat: End US Military Aid to Egypt.(BigPeace).Egyptian Coptic writer and activist, Cynthia Farahat, recently escaped violent religious persecution of the Egyptian domestic security forces. Today she joined Fred Grandy in the Secure Freedom Radio studio and is reporting in English on that persecution, the nature of the forces taking power, and up to the day events on the ground. The U.S. government policy makers and media are not getting the whole story and are especially missing the most important intelligence requirements of the political and human rights state of play. The U.S. government is, in fact, currently arming and funding the violent persecution of religious minorities in Egypt, including Sufi Muslims.Listen to the whole story here.

• UAE to bypass Hormuz with new pipeline project.(HurriyetDaily).The United Arab Emirates (UAE) could soon start pumping oil via a key pipeline that will allow it to bypass the Straits of Hormuz and protect exports if Western powers resort to military action in a row over Iran’s nuclear program.The Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline (ADCOP) project, a 480-km pipeline with a capacity of up to 2.5 million barrels per day (bpd) will allow the UAE to boost exports from its Fujairah terminal outside the Straits and on the Gulf of Oman, four industry sources told Reuters.“There’s a hurry to get this operational as the noises about an attack on Iran gets louder,” an industry source said. “Oil could flow through the pipeline from end-December initially at 1 million bpd and gradually increase to 2 million bpd.”Tension over Iran’s nuclear program has increased since the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported on Nov. 8 that Tehran appears to have worked on designing a nuclear bomb.The Strait of Hormuz is the most important oil transit channel in the world, with some 15.5 million barrels or about a third of all sea-borne oil passing through in 2009.Even though some analysts believe an imminent military action against Iran rather unlikely, they think the pipeline is crucial for the sustainability of oil exports with political tensions in the region on the rise.“It is opening up an export channel that is invulnerable to any disruption in Hormuz,” oil and gas analyst Saket Vemprala at Business Monitor International said.“I don’t think the military action scenario is likely anytime soon but such routes are useful for the Gulf states. If you remember, the Iraqi crude pipeline through Saudi Arabia was very important during the Iran-Iraq war.”Read the full story here.

• Egypt’s military rulers eye ElBaradei for a national salvation government: report.(AlArabiya).Egypt’s military rulers consider assigning presidential hopeful Dr Mohammed ElBaradei to form a national salvation government following the resignation of the government of Prime Minister Dr Essam Sharaf, an Egyptian daily reported on Tuesday citing political sources.The sources told Egypt’s al-Youm al-Sabe daily that the members of the new proposed government have not been decided yet.ElBaradei, the former chief of the U.N. atomic watchdog, on Monday denounced violence against protesters and called for a national salvation government. He called on the SCAF to meet the demands of protesters that include the cancelling of military trials of civilians.Egypt’s cabinet said on Monday it had resigned, as clashes raged for a third day in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. “The government of Prime Minister Essam Sharaf has handed its resignation to the (ruling) Supreme Council of the Armed Forces,” cabinet spokesman Mohammed Hegazy said in a statement carried by the official MENA news agency.State television quoted a military source as saying the ruling military council had rejected the resignation, but Information Minister Osama Heikal told MENA the matter had not yet been decided.Sharaf's resignation, if accepted, threatens to derail parliamentary elections scheduled for Nov. 28 -- the first polls since Mubarak was toppled in February.But the military council is seeking agreement on a new prime minister before it accepts Sharaf’s resignation, a military source told Reuters.The source said no formal announcement would be made until the ruling military council had agreed on the candidate. He did not provide further details.Meanwhile, presidential hopeful Amr Moussa warned that those who call for the toppling of the military council aim mainly at spreading more chaos and unrest in Egypt.Moussa said that what is currently happening in Egypt is definitely not a new revolution, adding there is a kind of misunderstanding due to weakness of the government and the slowness in implementing its decisions. Moussa called on the military council to specify a timeline for handing over the powers to a civilian authority.Read the full story here.

• U.N. passes resolution condemning Iran human rights abuses with record amount of votes.(AlArabiya).The U.N. General Assembly on Monday passed an annual resolution condemning human rights abuses in Iran with a record number of votes in support.The assembly also passed resolutions condemning human rights in North Korea and Myanmar. All received record high backing.The resolution, which was introduced by Canada, “expresses deep concern at serious ongoing and recurring human rights violations in the Islamic Republic of Iran.”The Iran vote came only three days after the General Assembly condemned an alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to Washington – a plot which the United States accuses Iran of masterminding.The 193-member assembly passed the resolution condemning “torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment” by Iranian authorities with 86 votes in favor, six more than last year, 32 against, down eight from 2010, and 59 abstentions.The resolution condemned “flogging and amputations” carried out in Iran and deplored a “dramatic increase” in the use of the death penalty, particularly against minors. Many human rights groups say events have deteriorated in Iran over the past year.Iranian government representative, Mohammad Javad Larijani, an advisor to the country’s supreme leader, called the resolution “substantially unfounded and intentionally malicious” in a speech to the General Assembly’s human rights committee.“The document is an onslaught on the good conscience of the international community and an unforgivable insult to the whole institution of the U.N.,” Larijani said.Among the abuses listed in the resolution were torture, excessive use of the death penalty, discrimination against women, persecution of journalists and religious minorities, including members of the Baha’i faith, as well as the detention of key opposition leaders from the 2009 presidential election.Larijani also attacked Canada, Europe and the United States for what he said were their “serious human rights violations.”Among the examples he gave was “increasing discrimination against immigrants, Muslims and other people of foreign origin in Europe, United States and Canada.”British Foreign Secretary William Hague welcomed the committee’s adoption of the nonbinding resolution on Iran, which will be confirmed with a second vote in a General Assembly plenary session next month.“Iran has shown scant evidence of cooperation with the U.N. to improve its human rights record,” Hague said in a statement. “The fact that this resolution passed by a record majority shows the international community is strongly united in its condemnation of human rights abuses in Iran.”Russia and China, which have vetoes in the U.N. Security Council, were among those that voted against the resolution, highlighting the divide between Moscow and Beijing, which have close commercial ties to Iran, and the West, which would like Tehran to face new U.N. sanctions over its atomic program.Diplomats from several nonaligned developing countries criticized the annual ritual of adopting resolutions condemning a handful of individual countries.Syria, which faces a special human rights vote on Tuesday over its deadly crackdown on opposition protests, spoke out strongly for its Iranian ally.The North Korea vote was passed with 112 votes in favor, 16 against and 55 abstentions. On Myanmar the vote was 98 in favor, 25 against with 63 abstentions.The assembly raised “very serious concern” over the “torture” and “inhuman conditions of detention, public executions, extra judicial and arbitrary detention” in North Korea.It also condemned the “existence of a large number of prison camps and the extensive use of forced labor.”The Myanmar resolution welcomed recent talks between democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the military-dominated government, the release of some political prisoners and other changes over the past year.But the General Assembly said there were still “systematic violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms.”It highlighted “arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, rape and other forms of sexual violence, torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.” It also raised concerns about the treatment of ethnic minorities such as the Karen people.Western nations, which have sanctions against Myanmar, have sought to encourage the tentative reforms started by the government. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is to hold talks in Myanmar next month.Hmmm......'Record Majority'...86 votes in favor ...even not HALF?Don't let me laugh!Read the full story here.

• Soviet Era SSN-26 Yakhont anti-ship missiles Slipped Into Syria.(StrategyPage).November 22, 2011: Despite the growing civil war in Syria, Russia is honoring an order, earlier this year, for an unspecified number of SSN-26 Yakhont anti-ship missiles. The order was finally confirmed eight months ago, after four years of haggling and efforts by Israel and the United States to block the sale. Apparently the missiles have already been paid for, and Syrian has assured Russia that the missiles can safely be delivered by ship. Russia is happy for any sale, but seems particularly anxious for this missile to get some combat experience.The Yakhont was under development throughout the 1990s, but was delayed by lack of funds. Now it's in production, and the Russians have been energetically seeking export sales. The Yakhont uses a liquid-fuel ramjet and travels 300 kilometers at speeds of over 2,000 kilometers an hour (using a high altitude cruise and a low-altitude approach; if it travels entirely at low altitude the range is cut to 120km). When the missile arrives in the area where the target is supposed to be, it turns on its radar and goes for the kill. Israel is the only one in the region the Yakhonts would be used against. However, because Iran is supplying (unofficially) the cash for the missiles, there is also the risk that some of the Yakhonts would end up in Iran for use against numerous targets in the Persian Gulf.The ground based Yakhont can use truck mounted or fixed launchers, with up to 36 missiles supported by a land based search radar and helicopter mounted radars (to locate targets over the horizon). Once a target has been identified and located, one or two missiles are programmed with that location and launched. The Yakhont is a 8.9 meter (27.6 foot) long, three ton missile with a 300 kg (660 pound) warhead.An improved version of the Yakhont, the PJ-10 BrahMos missile, was developed for India. The 9.4 meter (29 foot) long, 670mm diameter missile is an upgraded version of the Yakhont. Lacking money to finish development and begin production, the Russian manufacturer eventually made a deal with India to finish the job. India put up most of the $240 million needed to finally complete two decades of development, an effort which produced the long delayed Yakhont, and more capable BrahMos. The PJ-10 is being built in Russia and India, with the Russians assisting India in setting up manufacturing facilities for cruise missile components. Efforts are being made to export up to 2,000, but no one has placed an order yet. Russia and India are encouraged enough to invest in BrahMos 2, which will use a scramjet, instead of a ramjet, in the second stage. This would double speed, and make the missile much more difficult to defend against.The 3.2 ton BrahMos has a range of 300 kilometers and a 300 kg warhead. Perhaps the most striking characteristic is its high speed, literally faster (at up to a kilometer per second) than a rifle bullet. The high price of each missile, about $2.3 million, restricts the number of countries that can afford it. The weapon entered service with the Indian navy in 2005. The maximum speed of 3,000 kilometers an hour makes it harder to intercept, and means it takes five minutes or less to reach its target. The air launched version weighs 2.5 tons, the others, three tons or more.Read the full story here.

• Russia says U.S. sanctions on Iran ‘unacceptable’ amid Tehran’s condemnation.(AlArabiya).Russia’s Foreign Ministry denounced new U.S. sanctions against Iran on Tuesday as “unacceptable and contradictory to international law,” as Iranian lawmakers were expected to review cooperation with the U.N. atomic energy watchdog following the sanctions. “Russia sees such measures as unacceptable and against international law,” Interfax news agency reported citing a statement by the foreign ministry. “This practice seriously complicates moves for constructive dialogue with Tehran.”“Strengthening sanctions pressure -- which for some of our partners is also almost becoming an end in itself -- will not assist in increasing the readiness of Iran to sit down at the negotiating table,” the foreign ministry said.“We believe that the constant strengthening of sanctions has long ago gone beyond the bounds of decisions on non-proliferation tasks surrounding the Iranian nuclear program."Iran dismissed on Tuesday new sanctions announced by western countries as more a propaganda exercise than something that will hit the economy.“Such measures are condemned by our people and will have no impact and be in vain,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast told a news conference, according to Reuters.The United States, worried by Tehran’s nuclear program, named Iran late on Monday as an area of “primary money laundering concern” in a step designed to dissuade non-U.S. banks from dealing with it, according to Reuters.It also blacklisted 11 entities suspected of aiding its nuclear programs and expanded sanctions to target companies that aid its oil and petrochemical industries. “As long as Iran continues down this dangerous path, the United States will continue to find ways, both in concert with our partners and through our own actions, to isolate and increase the pressure upon the Iranian regime,” President Barack Obama said in a written statement, according to AFP.Iran can “fulfill its international obligations... or it can continue to defy its responsibilities and face even more pressure and isolation,” he said.U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, unveiling what she called a “significant ratcheting up of pressure on Iran,” said the United States was targeting Iran’s energy sector directly for the first time.Detailing sanctions against goods, services and technologies for the petrochemical sector, Clinton said “there have to be consequences of such behavior.”In tandem, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner issued a warning that any firms doing business with Iran’s banking sector could run the risk of funding illicit activities.But, Geithner warned, “financial institutions around the world should think hard about the risks of doing business with Iran.”Hmmmm.....Does this also include Obama's 'buddy' Turkey?Read the full story here.

• German Establishment Forced to Admit Mainstream German Society Hostile to Turks and Muslims.(IVE).Here is a translated extract from an interview Hans-Ulrich Jörges [on the right in the photograph] - one of the editors of the Stern news magazine - gave on the German news channel NTV.

How many murdered fellow citizens does it take, murdered by Neo-Nazis, till the mass of the people go on to the streets?

Jörges: …We note with some shock that there is no sympathy for the victims. At least not in the majority German society. In a minority milieu there is. Now and then we see a small group of people in a place where there were victims, stand in front of the door in the evening and light candles or hold up signs. Those groups are no larger than 100 people. The majority German society, we learn from this, apparently lives in a mixture of indifference, fear and even contempt towards the Turkish immigrant society that lives alongside it. They have very little to do with one another. They do not feel, do not consider them as fellow citizens. And if you look at where that comes from, I believe you need to look back at the last year. Last year Thilo Sarrazin rose up to be a folk hero. This man has transported the language of the NPD [German “far right” party they are now talking about banning in the wake of these murders, even though it had nothing to do with them] into the mainstream of society. He started the debate at the end of 2009 with phrases like “The Turks conquered Germany with their higher birth-rate”, they had “no productive function other than selling fruit and vegetables”, they “unceasingly produced little headscarf girls”. When you look back on it now, those are unbelievable phrases. And I say very deliberately that is the language of the NPD. And that book he wrote with over 1.3 million copies sold is the most successful political book since the war – incredible actually.

And what does that say about the mainstream of the society he was able to transport these theses to?

Jörges: The mainstream of society is receptive to such theses…

Why?

Jörges: Mainstream society rejects Turkish-Muslim culture. It is afraid of it. It doesn’t like it. Also it rejects integration. We’re always looking at the Turkish immigrants and their willingness to integrate. The German majority society also has no willingness to integrate, the majority society. And when we look at the mainstream again, on the internet there’s now a relatively well-known platform for inciting hatred against Turks and Muslims. It’s now had over 50 million visitors and more than 125 million page views. That is not a marginal milieu any more. That is the mainstream of society. So we shouldn’t just be looking at the right, although that’s correct; we need to look at the mainstream society too and see what’s happening out there.The internet hate platform he's referring to is, of course, PI (Politically Incorrect).Read the full story here.

• Brussels: Jewish girl attacked by Moroccan girls, told to 'go home'.(IslaminEurope).This story was originally reported by the Belgian antisemitisme site and translated by the Philosemetism blog. See both for more details.Via La Libre and Le Soir (French):  Océane, a 13-year old Jewish girl, was beat up Friday by five girls of Moroccan origin after a gym class at Neder-Over-Heembeek (Brussels).At the end of a football class at the sports center in Neder-Over-Heembeek, five Moroccan girls from the neighborhood insulted Océane for being Belgian and of a higher social level. Océane asked for a little respect, at which their leader told her to 'shut up'. One of the girls told their leader 'besides, she's just a dirty Jew'. The leader then slapped Océane twice. The young girl tried to escape, with no success. The leader then repeated 'shut you dirty Jew, and go back to your country', and the five girls caught her and started beating her.The incident was reported to the police. Océane did not at first want to go to the hospital, but after suffering from pains all weekend her father took her to the hospital on Monday, where the doctors diagnosed a concussion and inflammation of the cervical vertebrae. Océane fears retaliation and does not want to go back to school, where she's a first year student. The girls are second year students at the same school.Océane's father, Dan, says this is not the first time. "There's latent antisemitism at this school. My daughter was insulted with 'dirty Jew' at least a dozen time last year, and already a few times since the beginning of the year."Brussels MP Viviane Teitelbaum (MR), who has written in the past about antisemitism in local schools, denounced the attack and said she was shocked that this story did not get to the press and news sites. Read the full story here.

• King Abdullah: 'Israel Has an Expiration date'.(DocsTalk).King Abdullah of Jordan claims Israel has an 'expiration date' - unless it pursues a two-state solution. Israel Radio reported Monday morning that King Abdullah of Jordan said "Israel has an expiration date."Abdullah's comments were reportedly made to the BBC last week. During the interview Abdullah said Israel's survival was dependent on a two-state solution. Israel does not realize it needs such a solution, he added Abdullah added his government would increase pressure on Israel to reach a final status agreement with the Palestinian Authority.He did not, however, provide any concrete facts to buttress his oft repeated assertion of Israel's imminent doom.Israel remains a regional leader in the realms of economics, military, science, and technology. Meanwhile, former defense minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer said Israel cannot afford to cut the defense budget because Israel is likely to find itself in renewed conflict with Egypt in the long-run.Comment: Some would say that Jordan is certainly not our friend and I would concur. However he is signaling to us a particular message regarding the future of talks. Perhaps it would be useful to engage the King in public discourse-he needs us to succeed to save his entire monarchy.Read the full story here.

• Iran Threatens To ‘Bung Israel Into The Trash Bin Of History’ If Attacked.(Matzav).In case of an attack on the Iranian nuclear sites, “Iran would bung Israel into the trash bin of history,” a general of the Iranian revolutionary guards (IRGC) said today.“It is actually one of our biggest wishes that the Zionists regime [Israel] would make such a move,” Amir Ali-Hajizadeh, commander of the IRGC aerospace department, told Fars news agency.“In that case we would do what we wanted to do for quite a while; bunging the enemy of Islam and Muslims [Israel] into the trash bin of history,” he said.There has been mounting speculation that Israel would strike Iran’s nuclear facilities if Iran continues to defy international demands that it allay western concerns over it nuclear activities.Iranian military officials have several times warned Israel would regret such preemptive strikes and that Iran would in retaliation make use of its Shahab-3 missiles which could strike any part of the country.The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) published a report earlier this month that claimed that there was a high probability that Iran’s nuclear program has military aspects, prompting Israel and the U.S. to urge the international community to toughen economic sanctions on the Islamic Republic.Hmmm.......'Bunging"?Read the full story here.