MFS - The Other News

                    Morning Posting.

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity situation Indonesia 6.1 - 5.3 - 5.2 ; Peru 5.5 ; Mexico 5.3 ;  !More info here. \

• Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: "Bring Your Tanks Here"Read the latest stories here.

• What Is An Ex-Iran Guard Commander Doing At The White House?(BigPeace).If you worry about the growing influence of Iran in neighboring Iraq, look no further than the delegation that visited the White House to proclaim the end of the Iraq War. Standing with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki during the ceremony with President Obama was Hadi Farhan al-Amiri, who is the Transportation Minister in the Iraqi government. But previously he was a commander in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. As the Washington Times points out, Mr. al-Amiri was a commander in the Badr Corps, a battalion that operated in….Iraq.Worried yet about the future of Iraq?Hmmmm....“I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.”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.

• Belgium News reports say 2 dead, 25 wounded after hand grenade attack at busshelter in Belgian city of Liege.(yahoo)(HLN)Dutch Google translate- live updated).One victim was a girl of two years, reports Le Soir. She fights for her life in hospital.BRUSSELS - Belgian news organizations are reporting that two people have been killed and at least 10 wounded Tuesday in a hand grenade attack in the eastern Belgian city of Liege.Belgian media reported that one of the two dead was believed to be the assailant, a man believed to be about 40 years old.New reports said that at about 12:30 local time (6:30 a.m. EDT) the man lobbed several grenades at a bus shelter in Place Saint-Lambert, a busy downtown square. They said witnesses reported four explosions and gun fire. Phone calls to Liege authorities were not immediately answered.Belgium's VRT television network spoke with an unidentified man who was wounded in the attack and who said "someone threw grenades and fired shots."Police were on the scene quickly and sealed off the square. TV images showed blood splattered across the cobblestones.Valerie Schaaps, a spokeswoman for the prosecutors office, confirmed there had been explosions and gunfire, and that there were injuries.The daily La Meuse reported that the attacker had killed himself.Place Saint-Lambert is a busy crossroads: every day 1800 buses serve the square, which leads to downtown shopping streets.Read and see (Video)the full story here.Pictures here (Dutch).

• 17 Signs That The European Financial System Is Heading For An Implosion Of Historic Proportions.(BLN).The easiest way to deal with a debt spiral is to let it keep going and going. That is what the United States has done. Sure, “kicking the can down the road” makes the crisis much worse in the long run, but bringing the pain into the present is not a lot of fun either.Europe has decided to do something that is unprecedented in the post-World War II era. They have decided to put very strict limits on budget deficits and to impose tough sanctions on any nations that break the rules. They have also decided that they are not going to allow the European Central Bank to fund the debts of troubled nations with reckless money printing.Without a doubt, this is a German solution for a German-dominated Europe. Germany does not want to pay for the debt mistakes of other EU nations, and so they are shoving bitter austerity down the throats of those that have gotten into too much debt.But this solution is not going to be implemented without a massive amount of pain.In fact, this solution is going to make a massive financial collapse much more likely. The following are 17 signs that the European financial system is heading for an implosion of historic proportions….Read the full story here.

• $2,500 to Sup with Ayers and Dohrn–How Much for Dinner with Manson?(Biggovernment).The Daily Caller reported Sunday that “for the low, low price of $2,500, you can have dinner cooked for you by Weather Underground agitators and terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernadine [sic] Dohrn.”This is the low state of the world that we have become inured to. The absence of morality and the ability to distinguish between right and wrong and good and evil renders dinners with terrorists for… $2,500.In the sixties, Bill Ayers and his wife Bernardine Dohrn were members of the Weather Underground, a communist terrorist group that planted bombs at the Pentagon, the Capitol building, and other government buildings. Ayers himself planted a bomb at a statue commemorating police casualties during the 1886 Haymarket riots in Chicago. When a bomb he was hoping would kill American soldiers in New Jersey exploded prematurely in a house, Ayers became for ten years a fugitive from justice, but all charges against him were dropped in 1980 when an FBI program that was investigating the Weathermen was accused of improprieties.Ayers, however, remains unrepentant, saying in 2001: “I don’t regret setting bombs… I feel we didn’t do enough.”Yet this dinner is hardly the first example of the legitimization of the terrorist Ayers. As I explained in my book The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America, when he left his terrorist activities behind, Ayers served his cause as part of the left’s long march into America’s institutions. He became a respectable professor at the University of Chicago. One of his neighbors was an ambitious young man named Barack Hussein Obama. In 1995, Obama launched his political career with a run for the Illinois State Senate, and he began his campaign with a fundraising event at the Chicago home of Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.Later, State Senator Obama wrote a glowing endorsement of Ayers’ book A Kind and Just Parent: The Children of Juvenile Court. And when Obama served as Board Chairman of a philanthropic group known as the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, that group gave over $600,000 in grants to the Small Schools Workshop, an organization founded by Ayers and headed by Mike Klonsky, leader of the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) (CP-ML), a Maoist party in the United States.For his part, Obama was dishonest about the significance of this association, dismissing the aging terrorist as a casual acquaintance: Ayers, said Obama, was merely “a guy who lives in my neighborhood, who’s a professor of English in Chicago, who I know and who I have not received an official endorsement from. He’s not somebody who I exchange ideas from (sic) on a regular basis.” The terrorist attacks? “Now, Mr. Ayers is a 60 plus year old individual who lives in my neighborhood, who did something I deplore 40 years ago when I was six or seven years old. By the time I met him, he was a professor of education at the University of Illinois.”Yet records don’t justify his having been so dismissive. Ayers and Obama were also both Board members of Chicago’s Wood Fund between December 1999 and December 2002. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, “that board met four times a year, and members would see each other at occasional dinners the group hosted.”The old terrorist Bill Ayers, who just happens to live in Barack Obama’s old neighborhood, but who hardly knows the President and has had only the slightest casual contact with him over the years, visited the White House twice between January and October 2009.House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited only once during that span.And now dinner with these terrorists, Ayers and Dohrn, is being sold to eager buyers for $2,500.Yes, this is the absence of reason. This is the essential failure of our public education system. Take, for example, a talk I gave to a class at New York University last week. Listen to the first question posed by a student. It best illustrates the absence of reason. The class as a whole, by the way, was uniformly but politely hostile, all of the same mind. After the class, a couple of students quietly thanked me and said that they agreed with me. So they may not be free to speak in class, but they are free to think.And this is the kind of person whom we must encourage–the kind that wouldn’t dine with Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn at any price.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 'stimulus' working , now creating new jobs in Turkey!Turkey, US home to new T-Series Ford.(Hurriyetdaily).The Ford Motor Company will inject $1.7 billion into producing the new Ford Transit T-Series light commercial vehicle in Kansas U.S. and Gölcük in the northwestern province of Kocaeli, Turkey. The new Transit model is expected to hit global markets in 2013 and will be sold across all major continents. The current model, manufactured in Gölcük, is based on the one Ford has been producing since 1950. It has already been sold almost everywhere in the world except for the U.S., according to daily Hürriyet. Ford is now getting ready to launch the new T-Series model in the U.S. and is currently test driving the vehicle to prepare it for U.S. consumers and U.S. road conditions. The present U.S. favorite is the Econoline E-Series van. The Transit is expected to be 25 percent more fuel efficient. Read the full story here.

• Birthers - Hawaii Issued Subpoena For Obama's Original Birth Certificate and 1961 Microfiche Roll.(BR).Farrar, Roth, Lax, Judy, MacLaren v. Obama, Kemp, GA Democratic Party: Loretta Fuddy(Hawaii DOH) Served Subpoena Signed By Judge Michael Mailhi For Obama's Original Birth Certificate and 1961 Microfiche Roll - SUBPOENA HERE.Read the full story here.

• Internet piracy bill: A free speech 'kill switch'.(TheHill).What began as an attempt to restrain foreign piracy on the Internet has morphed into a domestic “kill switch” on First Amendment freedom in the fastest-growing corner of the marketplace of ideas.Proposed federal legislation purporting to protect online intellectual property would also impose sweeping new government mandates on internet service providers – a positively Orwellian power grab that would permit the U.S. Justice Department to shut down any internet site it doesn’t like (and cut off its sources of income) on nothing more than a whim.Under the so-called “Stop Online Piracy Act” (SOPA) the federal government – which is prohibited constitutionally from abridging free speech or depriving its citizens of their property without due process – would engage in both practices on an unprecedented scale. And in establishing the precursor to a taxpayer-funded “thought police,” it would dramatically curtail technology investment and innovation – wreaking havoc on our economy.Consider this: Under the proposed legislation all that’s required for government to shutdown a specific website is the mere accusation that the site unlawfully featured copyrighted content. Such an accusation need not be proven – or even accompanied by probable cause. All that an accuser (or competitor) needs to do in order to obtain injunctive relief is point the finger at a website.Additionally, SOPA would grant regulators the ability to choke off revenue to the owners of these newly classified “rogue” websites by accusing their online advertisers and payment providers as co-conspirators in the alleged “piracy.” Again, no finding of fact would be required – the mere allegation of impropriety is all that’s needed to cut the website’s purse strings.Who’s vulnerable to this legislation?“Any website that features user-generated content or that enables cloud-based data storage could end up in its crosshairs,” writes David Sohn, senior policy council at the Center on Democracy and Technology.Read the full story here.

• Obama Was Ardent Communist.(JR).Barack Obamas isn't really a communist, he's a Communist.But is it really fair to suggest he may be a Marxist? Or was there evidence for it all along?Well, consider the words of John Drew, a man whom writer Paul Kengor calls “Obama’s Missing Link.” A contemporary of Obama’s at Occidental College three decades ago, Drew says that he himself was a Marxist at the time — and part of Obama’s inner circle. And what does he reveal?Obama was an “ardent” “Marxist-Leninist” who “was in 100 percent, total agreement with [his] Marxist professors,” said Drew.In fact, Drew states that while he was a more nuanced Marxist who tried to convince Obama that old-style communist revolution was unrealistic in the West, the future President would have none of it and considered Drew a “reactionary.”To his credit hasn't suggested that the Federal government start seizing private property.....yet.Read the full story here.

• Study Shows U.S. Mosques Repositories of Sharia, Jihad, and Muslim Brotherhood Literature and Preachers.(Jihadwatch).In 1998, Sheikh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani, a Sufi leader, visited 114 mosques in the United States. Then he gave testimony before a State Department Open Forum in January 1999, and asserted that 80% of American mosques taught the "extremist ideology."Then there was the Center for Religious Freedom's 2005 study, and the Mapping Sharia Project's 2008 study.Each independently showed that upwards of 80% of mosques in America were preaching hatred of Jews and Christians and the necessity ultimately to impose Islamic rule. And in the summer of 2011 came another study showing that only 19% of mosques in U.S. don't teach jihad violence and/or Islamic supremacism.And now here is more on the latter study: Study Shows U.S. Mosques Repositories of Sharia, Jihad, and Muslim Brotherhood Literature and Preachers.Peer-reviewed study most extensive empirical examination of U.S. mosques to date.December 12, 2011 – New York, New York: A leading international peer-reviewed journal specializing in the empirical study of terrorism has published a study that found that 80% of U.S. mosques provide their worshippers with jihad-style literature promoting the use of violence against non-believers and that the imams in those mosques expressly promote that literature.The study also found that when a mosque imam or its worshippers were “sharia-adherent,” as measured by certain behaviors in conformity with Islamic law, the mosque was more likely to provide this violent literature and the imam was more likely to promote it.The abstract for the study summarizes the research findings: A random survey of 100 representative mosques in the U.S. was conducted to measure the correlation between Sharia adherence and dogma calling for violence against non-believers. Of the 100 mosques surveyed, 51% had texts on site rated as severely advocating violence; 30% had texts rated as moderately advocating violence; and 19% had no violent texts at all. Mosques that presented as Sharia adherent were more likely to feature violence-positive texts on site than were their non-Sharia-adherent counterparts. In 84.5% of the mosques, the imam recommended studying violence-positive texts. The leadership at Sharia-adherent mosques was more likely to recommend that a worshipper study violence-positive texts than leadership at non-Sharia-adherent mosques. Fifty-eight percent of the mosques invited guest imams known to promote violent jihad. The leadership of mosques that featured violence-positive literature was more likely to invite guest imams who were known to promote violent jihad than was the leadership of mosques that did not feature violence-positive literature on mosque premises.The study was published in December 2011 by Perspectives on Terrorism, a scholarly international journal of the Terrorism Research Initiative (TRI), a global initiative that seeks to support the international community of terrorism researchers and scholars through the facilitation of collaborative projects and cooperative initiatives. TRI was established in 2007 by scholars from several disciplines in order to provide the global research community with a common tool than can empower them and extend the impact of each participant's research activities.The mosque study had previously been published by the Middle East Quarterly in September 2011, an academic peer-reviewed journal which specializes on Middle East regional issues. Because of the ground-breaking nature of the study, which brings a rigorous empirical methodology to the question of home-grown jihadists, MEQ granted permission to Perspectives on Terrorism to publish a more extensive analysis of the study’s conception, methodology, and results.The study’s authors, Professor Mordechai Kedar of Bar Ilan University in Israel and David Yerushalmi, who serves as general counsel to the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C., have both published widely on terrorism, Islamic law and its underlying doctrines of jihad and violence against unbelievers.

1. The study may be accessed here at the Mapping Sharia website.
2. The study may be accessed here at MEQ.
3. The study may be accessed here at Perspectives on Terrorism. Read the full story here.

• How Is Obama's Middle East Policy Endangering Israel? Let Me Count the Ways.(BarryRubin).I have written about this dozens of times. The problem is that there are people who just don't want to hear. The only way they can maintain their beliefs is to pretend there is no evidence against them. But here's a list:

1. His support for the overthrow of the entire Egyptian system, thus inevitably bringing about a situation in which the Egyptians had a government dedicated to Israel's destruction and to supporting anti-Israel terrorism. He rejected State Department advice to try to limit the damage by changing the leadership and not the entire regime. The idea that the U.S. government didn't control events is correct; the idea that it couldn't and didn't influence them is nonsense.
2. His long engagement with Iran that wasted around two years and emboldened the Tehran regime. This strengthened Iran and its regional influence as forces concluded that the United States feared Iran and dared not confront it or try to stop it.
3. His long engagement with Syria which ended only because of a full-scale revolt there.
4. His closeness to the Turkish regime despite that country's hostility to Israel. U.S. policy has demoralized the Turkish opposition, persuaded Turkish voters that the regime's policy had no cost for the country's international interests, and emboldened the Islamist regime to be more aggressive against both Israel and U.S. interests.
5. His statements that he had no problem with the Muslim Brotherhood being in power in Egypt and the soft line he took toward that organization made it seem to people in that country, and in Tunisia as well, that the United States was endorsing the Brotherhood. This demoralized the moderates and swayed some votes in that direction while also making the Europeans believe they could also deal with the Brotherhood's. Israel's warnings that this endangered its security thus have fallen on deaf ears.
6. His pressure on Israel to reduce sanctions on the Gaza Strip to the absolute minimum--in response to the mere sending of a half-dozen small blockade-busting ships and what amounted to a minor confrontation--greatly strengthened and emboldened Hamas, helping to ensure its survival so that it can launch wars and subversion against Israel in future.
7. His support for the construction of a Syrian opposition leadership in which a majority of members are Islamists, managed by Islamist Turkey of all governments! This might lead to a future Islamist regime in Syria when that outcome was otherwise avoidable. Such a regime would pose a dire threat to Israel, especially in combination with allied Brotherhood-dominated Islamist regimes in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, and the Gaza Strip.
8. His failure to criticize or pressure the PA and never to blame it--but only Israel--for stagnation in the peace process. Thus, the PA had no need to compromise or return to the bargaining table or to reduce incitement to terrorism and the protection of terrorists. With the president of the United States saying that Israel was responsible for the lack of peace, many other institutions, countries, and people followed suit.
9. His initial rejection of a previous president's promise that Israel could keep settlement blocs in a comprehensive peace agreement. This showed Israel that it could not trust Obama and his promises.
10. His breaking the US agreement that Israel could continue building in Jerusalem during the settlement freeze. See point 9.
11. His failure to acknowledge Israeli concessions and efforts to get talks ith the PA going. See point 9.
12. His soft stand in practice regarding the PA-Hamas cooperation.This locked the PA into an even more intransigent position and strengthened Hamas.
13. His failure to back the democratic Iranian opposition when the election was stolen. This missed a chance to weaken the Iranian regime which has threatened to wipe Israel off the map and sponsors anti-Israel subversion and terrorism.
14. His administration's puerile claims that the problem is that Israel is isolating itself when the plethora of new Islamist regimes is the cause of the problem Israel is facing. This shows administration thinking that if revolutionary Islamists take power it is up to Israel to appease them. The radicals are shown that the United States does not really support Israel (they are far harder to fool than many Americans and American Jews) and thus they can escalate their hostility and attacks on Israel without fear of an American response.
15. His announcement of a new policy on the conditions for peace without consulting Israel when PM Netanyahu was actually on a plane headed to Washington. These and other actions of showing contempt and disrespect for Netanyahu are not merely personal quirks but weaken Israel's security by showing the world that the U.S. government does not stand behind Israel. It signals that enemies are safer in attacking Israel, that continued pressure can even further reduce U.S. support, and shows European states that Washington won't mind if they also become more hostile.
16. His statement about Israel returning to the 1967 borders with territorial swaps. Not because he advocated those borders but because he advocated that Israel withdraw from the territory before any actual deal was made. This undercut Israel's future bargaining position and further reduced any chance of PA flexibility.
17. Similarly, Obama's introduction of the idea that a freeze on all new construction on settlements must stop before negotiations can be held outbid the PA position. From that point on, this became the PA's minimal demand--which it had never been before--thus making it even harder to restart talks now or in future. Again, it allowed the PA to refuse to talk while still enjoying the advantage that Israel was blamed for the lack of talks. It weakened Israel's position since that country's signing of the 1993 accord with the PLO was party conditioned on the ability to continuing building on settlements.
18. His failure to keep the promises made to Israel about UNIFIL keeping Hizballah from returning to southern Lebanon and building up military fortifications there, to stop arms' smuggling from Syria to Hizballah. This has greatly strengthened Hizballah, making war more likely and Hizballah's ability to inflict higher numbers of casualties on Israel more likely.
19. The NATO operation in Libya that did not deal with the identity of the armed opposition and has set in motion an Islamist regime in Libya. The failure to act in order to prevent vast amounts of Libyan weapons, including anti-aircraft systems, to Hamas.
20. His policy, statements, and behavior signalling weakness which emboldened radical forces and demoralized moderate Arabs. This is a general point covering the many speeches by Obama and other administration officials to this effect. When countries see that Israel has lost (or if you prefer is losing) its main protector what effect do you think this has on the strategic situation?
21. His policy of not letting government officials talk about the threat of revolutionary Islamism has underrated that threat and reduced support for the kind of understanding and measures required by Israel's security. Since revolutionary Islamism is the main threat against Israel's security by saying, in effect, that this threat doesn't exist Obama undercuts Israel's ability to mobilize support and take actions in self-defense.
22. His administration's encouragement of J Street has been an attempt to split and subvert American Jewish support for Israel. American Jewish support for Israel is an important strategic asset. The administration has reduced this asset.
23. His disrespectful treatment of Netanyahu during the prime minister's visit to Washington and his caustic remarks caught on microphone display Obama's personal dislike for the democratically elected leader of Israel. Again, this signals the "wolves" that the "shepherd" doesn't care if they take a few bites out of the herd. What do you think the effect is of such things in, say, Tehran?
24. The fact that his secretary of state can speak openly about supposed fears about the future of democracy and women's rights in Israel (especially when coupled with the absence of such reflections regarding revolutionary Islamists) signals to Americans that they should be more critical of Israel and unfairly characterizes that country as not worth defending (or at least less legitimate and worth defending).
25. His administration's refusal to deal honestly with the problem of Muslim antisemitism (the most significant aspect of antisemitism in the world today) again undercuts Israel's posture as the victim of attacks and delegitimization. The remarks of the U.S. ambassador to Belgium, even if criticized by the White House, is perfectly in line with Obama policy. If, as the ambassador said, Israel retaliation (for attacks on Israel) is a major cause of antisemitism then Israel defending itself is the cause of its own problems. In other words, Israel shouldn't defend itself.
26. He and his administration have used their considerable influence with the mass media to ignore and understate Israel's needs and concerns while building up criticism and antagonism toward that country.
27. He did not engage in the battle to keep UNESCO from admitting Palestine as a state nor has his administration really confronted--beyond the minimum--the constant UN attacks on Israel especially in the Human Rights Council which his administration decided to rejoin.[Readers are welcome to let me know points I have missed.]My fingers are getting tired and I will stop there but I could go on for some time. Now, do you still not know what Obama's administration has done that has created problems for Israel?What is the effect of Obama's policy on Obama's support base? To create an insanity like this in which a New York Times columnist, Nicholas Kristof, who hates Israel decides that the Muslim Brotherhood are great people. After all, he had dinner with them and they were nice to him and didn't bite. By criticizing Israel and whitewashing Islamists who want to commit genocide on the Jews, the president is laying down this kind of line. Let's remember as Kristof has desert with the Brotherhood family the words of Qaradawi in January 2009, as Obama was being inaugurated:"The only thing that I hope for is that as my life approaches its end, Allah will give me an opportunity to go to the land of Jihad and resistance, even if in a wheelchair. I will shoot Allah's enemies, the Jews, and they will throw a bomb at me, and thus, I will seal my life with martyrdom. Praise be to Allah."Guess that must be the after-dinner entertainment.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.

• US drone now Iran's 'property': defense minister.(HurriyetDaily).A U.S. drone captured by Iran is now the "property" of the Islamic republic, Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi said Tuesday, after a request by US President Barack Obama for its return."The American espionage drone is now Iran's property, and our country will decide what steps to take regarding it," Vahidi was quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency."Instead of apologizing to the Iranian nation, it (the United States) is brazenly asking for the drone back," Vahidi also said, according to another news agency, Mehr.Obama on Monday acknowledged that Iran was holding the reconnaissance drone - a bat-winged RQ-170 Sentinel - by saying: "We've asked for it back. We'll see how the Iranians respond." Iran last week displayed on state television what it said was the drone. A lawmaker said the Islamic republic was unlocking the aircraft's software and was going to reverse-engineer the drone.Hmmmm......'Brazenly' more like 'pretty please'?Read the full story here.

• Israel closes access ramp to al-Aqsa; Hamas says ‘war’ declared on Muslim holy sites.(AlArabiya).Israel has closed a controversial wooden access ramp to the al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem’s Old City on concerns over public safety, a police spokeswoman told AFP on Monday. “Based on an order from the city council, they have closed the ramp,” Luba Samri told AFP, referring to the Western Wall Heritage Foundation which is responsible for the upkeep of the structure, known as the Mughrabi ramp.Hamas warned that Israel’s closure of the ramp is tantamount to a declaration of war on Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem.“This is a serious step that shows the Zionist scheme of aggression against the al-Aqsa mosque,” Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum told AFP. “This is a violent act that amounts to a declaration of religious war on the Muslim holy places in Jerusalem.”Jerusalem’s city council on Thursday ordered the closure of the access ramp, saying it poses both a fire hazard and is at risk of collapse.But Muslim leaders fear work on it could have a destabilizing effect, accusing Israel of failing to coordinate renovation plans with the Waqf, the Islamic organization that has jurisdiction over Muslim parts of the site.There are 15 gates leading into al-Aqsa mosque compound, 10 of which are in use.The Mughrabi Gate is the only access for non-Muslims to enter the site, meaning its closure will prevent both Jews and tourists from visiting until a replacement structure is built.Last week, city engineer Shlomo Eshkol had sent a letter ordering the Foundation to close the bridge by the evening of Dec. 14.The structure has been at the center of a complex row between the city council and the Jewish and Muslim groups which respectively oversee the Western Wall plaza and al-Aqsa mosque compound next to it.Plans for the imminent closure of the ramp drew sharp condemnation last week from the Palestinians and from Jordan, which is the custodian of Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem.“This shows their determination to judaize Jerusalem and to take over the city’s Muslim holy places,” Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told AFP last week.And Gaza’s Hamas rulers said implementing the closure would be a “criminal act which constitutes a flagrant violation of the sanctity of al-Aqsa Mosque and a provocation to the feelings of millions of Muslims.”The ramp leads from the plaza by the Western Wall, the most sacred site at which Jews can pray, up to the adjoining compound, known to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif, which houses al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam.The plaza which houses the mosque complex is venerated by Jews as the Temple Mount, the site where King Herod's temple once stood before it was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. It is the holiest site in Judaism, but Jews are forbidden to worship there.Jordan warned Israel on Friday against closing the ramp.“Jordan rejects any Israeli attempt to affect Jerusalem’s holy sites, identity and heritage, including al-Mughrabi Gate,” Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh said.The kingdom, which signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994, “is in daily contact with the Israeli side to make sure it does not change the status quo of the gate,” Judeh told the government-owned al-Rai Arabic daily.Jordan’s powerful Islamists have condemned the city council’s decision. “Israel is disregarding all Arab and international warnings,” said Hamzeh Mansur, head of the opposition Islamic Action Front party, accusing Israel of pursuing a “policy of Judaizing the Holy Land.”Last month, Amman warned that any Israeli “threats and aggressions” against the holy site would lead to “endless” violence in the Middle East.Read the full story here.

• France may punish denial of ‘Armenian genocide’.(HurriyetDaily).France’s parliament might finally approve a law penalizing the denial of Armenian genocide claims, a deputy who helped prepare a new draft on the matter has said ahead of legislative discussion on the bill, which has prompted a Turkish reaction.“The draft law [to penalize the denial of genocide], which was prepared back in 2006, ran the risk of challenging the constitution. The new draft law has a stronger basis as it completely complies with European Union norms,” said deputy Valeri Boyer. The bill, however, has caused some worry in Ankara. “At a moment when Turkey and France have entered into a process in which they could increase their cooperation at bilateral and international level, we hope no unrecoverable steps will be taken,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. France recently officially recognized the 1915 incidents as genocide.“This draft law will penalize not only the denial of genocide but also the denial of tragedies that France has recognized as genocide. Above all, racism and xenophobia will be penalized,” Boyer recently told the Hürriyet Daily News in an email interview. Noting that Turkey emphasizes the Algeria issue when 1915 incidents are in question, Boyer said, “the incidents of Algeria were a decolonization project which ended with the Evian Accords in March 19, 1962; they were not genocide.” Boyer added that she had Algerian origins in her family. Boyer said France and Turkey might have radically different visions about the tragedies yet could continue their economic and cultural relations. “The general opinion in France is in favor of penalizing the denial of genocide.” Hmmmm.....Erdogan : "Muslims don't commit genocide".Read the full story here.

• Pakistan police rescue 45 students chained in Islamic seminary.(AlArabiya).Pakistani police rescued 45 students found chained in the basement during a raid late Monday on an Islamic seminary in the southern port city of Karachi, police said.Officers also arrested two clerics at the Madrassa Zakarya in Karachi’s central Sohrab Goth area but the head of the seminary managed to escape, police official Mukhtiar Khaskheli told AFP.“At least 18 of those chained are aged 20 or younger, while the rest are older,” Khaskheli said.Some Islamic schools in Pakistan are accused of training militants and supporting violent extremist groups, with some dispatching fighters to neighboring Afghanistan.“The madrassa officials claim that they had chained those students because they were drug addicts and they wanted to rehabilitate them and make them better Muslims,” the police official said.Khaskheli said a full scale investigation had been started which would also inquire about any possible links with militants.“Every possibility including its involvement in militancy will be investigated upon,” said Sharfuddin Memon, a spokesman for the home department of Sindh province, of which Karachi is the capital.Memon said the incident highlighted the brutality in society.“It showed the brutalized aspect of our society and our police's effort was aimed at eradicating that element,” he said.Local private Samaa TV showed footage of the madrassa and the chained students, who danced in jubilation as police started to release them.According to government records, there are at least 15,148 seminaries in Pakistan with more than two million students ─ around five percent of the 34 million children in formal education.But officials suspect thousands more go unregistered, providing sons of Pakistan’s poverty-stricken majority the only education they can afford.Read the full story here.

• Fatwa Prohibits Muslims From Joining Western Armies, Working As Police Informants.(Memri).In a fatwa published on the website of Minbar Al-Tawhid Wal-Jihad (MTJ), prominent Salafi-Jihadi cleric Abu Humam Al-Athari said that Muslims living in the West should not join Western armies or police forces, since such an act is considered heresy, and might remove the sanctity [i.e. immunity] from the blood and money of any Muslim doing so.Read the full story here.

• The Arabs of Palestine Saw Themselves as Part of Syria 90 Years Ago.(PAD).Arab demonstration, Jerusalem, 1919/1920. The banner on the left reads "We resist Jewish immigration", the banner on the right reads "Palestine is part of Syria". The picture reflects the political tensions in Palestine after the British captured the area from the Ottoman Empire. The region was being divided up by the Great Powers with France taking over Syria and Lebanon, and Great Britain assuming the mandate of Palestine (both sides of the Jordan River) and Iraq. And in accordance with the 1917 Balfour Declaration, Palestine was to house the national Jewish home. By 1922, the British had lopped off the eastern bank of the Jordan (some 70 percent of Palestine) to establish the Kingdom of Transjordan for Emir Abdullah.Some Arabs in Palestine objected, particularly to the division of the single former Ottoman region of Syria and southern Syria (Palestine). The Library of Congress photos were taken on March 8, 1920, the same week that the Syrian Congress proclaimed independence for Syria and Palestine. The demonstrations by Arabs in Palestine were echoing the sentiment expressed in Syria.This historical period is discussed by Stanford University scholar Daniel Pipes: "No Arabic-speaking Muslims identified themselves as "Palestinian" until 1920, when, in rapid order this appellation and identity was adopted by the Muslim Arabs living in the British mandate of Palestine.""Muslim distaste for the very notion of Palestine was confirmed in April 1920, when the British authorities carved out a Palestinian entity," Pipes wrote in 1989. "The Muslims' response was one of extreme suspicion. They saw the delineation of this territory as a victory for the Zionists; in their more paranoid moments, they even thought it reflected linger­ing Crusader impulses among the British...." "By the end of World War I in November 1918," Pipes continued, "the notion of a Syrian nation had made considerable headway among the Arabs of Palestine. They agreed almost unanimously on the existence of a Syrian nation. With few exceptions, they identified with the Syrian Arab government in Damascus, headed by Prince Faysal, a member of the Hashemite family. Palestinian enthusiasm for Pan-Syrian unity steadily increased through mid-1920.""Four major events occurred in 1920. In March, Faysal was crowned king of Syria, raising expectations that Palestine would join his independent state. In April, the British put Palestine on the map, dashing those hopes. In July, French forces captured Damascus, ending the Palestinian tie with Syria. And in December, responding to these events, the Palestinian leadership adopted the goal of an independent Palestin­ian state," Pipes concludes.Read and see the full story here.
  

• Former Azhar cleric slams religious extremism in Egypt.(BikyaMasr).CAIRO: A former deputy sheikh at Egypt’s al-Azhar has slammed recent “extremist” discourse in the country during the election period.Former Deputy of the Sunni Islamic world’s most respected institution Sheikh Mahmoud Ashour was speaking to al-Arabiya news network on Monday.He lashed out at recent statements from Egyptian Salafists – those who adhere to an ultra-conservative literal interpretation of Islam – who recently called on some of Egypt’s ancient monuments to be “covered” and said they were idols.“Those people are neither knowledgeable nor responsible enough to be talking to people,” he told the network.The former Azhar sheikh said that the supposed preachers in the country have little right to make statements that, in his view, go against the foundation of Islam as a tolerant and open faith.“None of those had a problem with ancient Egyptian monuments or thought they have to be destroyed or that they are against Islam,” he said in reference to Islamic conquerors of Egypt and leaders of the faith in the country over the past few centuries.He was also critical of the sentiments surfacing toward democracy and Islam. Ashour said that those who claim democracy is a form of apostasy are being misled, adding that democracy was mentioned in the Qur’an.“Several verses in the Quran talk about the concept of ‘shura’ or consultation and the prophet applied this concept all the time. This is what democracy is about,” he said.His statement was confirmation of earlier comments made by Dar al-Iftaa, the body in charge of issuing Islamic opinions, or fatwas, who argued that Islam and democracy have “no contradictions.”There is a growing fear inside Egypt that with the rise of the Salafist groups, most notably the al-Nour Party – which won a surprise 20 percent of first round votes – that a more conservative Islam could begin to take form in terms of governance and societal norms.Earlier this week, a representative of the al-Nour Party at a tourism conference in Aswan, in southern Egypt, said that if their party were to take power they would ban alcohol and bikinis, only giving foreigners the opportunity to drink inside their hotel rooms.Read the full story here.

• Attack on Iran will have 'calamitous' consequences, says Prince Turki.(ArabNews).RIYADH: Prince Turki Al-Faisal, the chairman of the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, on Monday called for the creation of a nuclear-free Middle East while supporting a system based on rewards and sanctions to deter nations in the region with nuclear ambitions.Prince Turki, who is extensively engaged in public diplomacy by touring and lecturing across the world, also said that any attack on Iran will have huge consequences for the region and its adverse implications will be felt worldwide.Prince Turki, speaking to an elite group of academics and faculty members at the prestigious Alfaisal University in Riyadh, said a zone free of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) was the best way to get Iran and Israel on board and to force them to abandon nuclear programs.“Such a zone must be accompanied by a rewards regime for those countries in the region that join the zone,” said the prince, while stressing and calling for “a nuclear security umbrella guaranteed by all the permanent members of the UN Security Council for the region.”Replying to a question about the possibility of an attack on Iran to force it to roll back its nuclear program and the impact of such an action, Prince Turki reiterated that the impact will be “calamitous … cataclysmic, not just catastrophic.”He said that Iranian actions have provoked worldwide opposition but at the same time suggests that Iran's nuclear program is being singled out, while Israel is being given a clean chit. Any unilateral decision to launch a military attack aimed at halting the nuclear program of Iran could have huge consequences, he warned.He, however, expressed his grave concerns that if Israel and Iran acquire a range of nuclear weapons, they would unleash a cascade of nuclear proliferation that would significantly destabilize the region and possibly destroy efforts to establish a nuclear weapons free zone in this part of the world.To this end, he also noted that the last year's nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference included in its final document a call for the establishment of a Middle East zone free of all weapons of mass destruction.Prince Turki, who also shook hands and stood with students for photo sessions, pointed out that an intergovernmental conference to discuss such a zone was scheduled for 2012. Most of the countries in the region except Israel and Iran are pursuing nuclear programs for peaceful purposes.The Kingdom has also announced it will build 16 reactors for nuclear power plants that should start active operations within the next 20 years.Hmmmm.....I presume they ment "while Israel is being given a clean 'sheat'.If Obama gets a second term then he will oppose the Israely Nuclear weapons.Read the full story here.

• Death Penalty Opposition: EU Set to Ban Export of Drug Used in US Executions.(Spiegel).Ever since January, when the Illinois-based pharmaceutical company Hospira elected to stop making a key ingredient in the lethal injection cocktail used by several US states to execute death-row inmates, the United States has been searching for alternative suppliers. As of Friday, obtaining the drug from the European Union will become much more difficult.According to a report published Monday in the daily Süddeutsche Zeitung, a new European Union regulation set to go into effect at the end of this week will prohibit the export of some barbituric acids unless a special permit has been issued. Among those chemicals on the list is the anesthetic thiopental, which is used broadly in the US for executions.When announcing its decision to cease production of thiopental, Hospira cited the drug's use in lethal injection cocktails as the primary reason. Numerous executions in the US have had to be postponed due to shortages of the chemical as a result of the company's decision. Simply replacing it with something else is not immediately possible due to the complicated process with which chemicals are approved for inclusion in lethal injection cocktails. As a result, many states have spent months searching for new suppliers abroad.In June, Germany's Vice Chancellor Philipp Rösler, who was health minister at the time, said he was asked by then-US Commerce Secretary Gary Locke to help in the search for new suppliers of thiopental. "I noted the request, and declined," Rösler reported saying in response. He also wrote to German pharmaceutical companies asking them not to sell the chemical in the US.The Süddeutsche reports that Rösler was a significant supporter of the new EU regulation. Just two weeks ago, the Swiss pharmaceutical company Naari AG, which produces sodium thiopental in India, complained that Nebraska had illegitimately obtained a supply via a middleman. Naari CEO Prithi Kochhar wrote a letter to Nebraska's Supreme Court Chief Justice Michael Heavican as well as to the state attorney general saying he is opposed to the use of the drug in lethal injections."I am shocked and appalled by this news," Kochar wrote in the letter, which was first reported on by the Lincoln Journal Star. "I am writing to request that the thiopental which was wrongfully diverted ... to the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services be returned immediately to its rightful owners, that is, that it be returned to us at Naari." In April, Indian pharmaceutical company Kayem Pharmaceutical Pvt. Ltd. halted sales of the drug for use in death penalty cocktails. The Danish company Lundbeck followed suit in June.Read the full story here.