MFS - The Other News

                    Morning Posting.

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity situation Vanuatu 4.9!More info here.

• US navy head Admiral Jonathan Greenert: Iran strait 'keeps me awake at night'.(JPost).WASHINGTON - The chief of the US Navy acknowledged on Tuesday that preparing for a potential conflict in the Strait of Hormuz is the kind of thing he loses sleep over."If you ask me what keeps me awake at night, it's the Strait of Hormuz and the business going on in the Arabian Gulf," said Admiral Jonathan Greenert, who became the chief of naval operations in September.The comments by Greenert follow threats by Iran last month to shut off the Strait of Hormuz -- the world's most important oil shipping lane -- if new US and EU sanctions over its nuclear program halted Iranian oil exports.The United States has said it would not allow Iran to block the Strait, calling it a "red line" for the US military. General Martin Dempsey, the top US military officer, said over the weekend said that would be a "intolerable act.""Yes, they can block it ... But we would take action and reopen the Straits," Dempsey told a television talk show.Greenert did not get into details about what steps the US Navy would take to re-open the Strait. But when asked what about the Strait kept him awake at night, he responded: "I'm an organizer, a trainer and equipper. I'd make sure that our people have the right equipment to do the right thing.""Our folks that transit in and around that area, I want to make sure that they're able to (deal) with the things that they need to deal with, basically self-protection, counter-swarm, ASW (anti-submarine warfare)," Greenert said.Air Force Chief of Staff General Norton Schwartz told Reuters on Monday the Air Force would "clearly" play a role in potentially unblocking the Strait of Hormuz, if the United States took on that job.He said the Air Force could ensure "either localized or broader air superiority," providing support to other US military assets and ensuring secure communications channels through satellites.It would also play a key role in providing surveillance data from its satellites and aircraft.Hmmmm......I sure hope they do better than in the "Millenium Challenge '02" war games we staged in the Persian Gulf , quote: "U Sank My Carrier!" Read the full story here.

• "Imperial" President Barack Obama still determined to close Guantanamo, says White House.(IndiaTimes). The White House insisted that President Barack Obama was determined to close Guantanamo Bay, despite failing to do so by the war on terror camp's 10th anniversary this week. Obama declared within a few hours of taking office in January 2009 that he would shutter the camp within a year, saying it was used as a recruiting tool for terrorists, and detrimental to US national security. But in the face of deep opposition in Congress to moving inmates to the US mainland and over the idea of holding civil trials for key Al-Qaeda suspects, Obama has failed to live up to his vow. "The commitment that the president has to closing Guantanamo Bay is as firm today as it was during the (2008) campaign," said White House spokesman Jay Carney. "We are all are aware of the obstacles to getting that done as quickly as the president wanted to get it done ... but the president's commitment hasn't changed at all." Carney said that Obama, top national security officials and senior members of the military still believed that closing Guantanamo was in US interests. "We will continue to abide by that commitment and work towards its fulfillment," he said. Given staunch opposition to closing the camp at the US base in southeastern Cuba, and pressures of election year politics, there does not appear to be a viable route to closing Guantanamo in the near future. Several key planners of the September 11 attacks in 2001 are among 171 prisoners still languishing at the camp and are awaiting military tribunals there. The US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba accepted its first prisoners from the newly drawn battlefields of the global war on terror on January 11, 2002. Hmmmm........"The latest defense bill adopted by Congress moved to mandate military detention for most future al Qaida cases. The White House withdrew a veto threat on the eve of passage, and then Obama signed it into law with a “signing statement” that suggested he could lawfully ignore it."Read the full story here.

• Britain 'working very hard' with US to close Guantanamo: PM.(HurriyetDaily). Prime Minister David Cameron said Wednesday that Britain was working "very hard" with the United States to help close Guantanamo Bay detention camp, on the tenth anniversary of its opening.One British citizen, Shaker Aamer, remains in the prison on Cuba and the government has been pressing for his release, including at talks between Foreign Secretary William Hague and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in December.A lawmaker raised Aamer's case at Cameron's weekly question and answer question in parliament and asked if the premier would commit to doing all he could to ensure 2012 is the last year that Guantanamo operates."The foreign secretary is working very hard with the United States to try and secure this issue and to bring this chapter to a close," Cameron said.He also highlighted a settlement agreed in 2010 with 16 former Guantanamo inmates who alleged British involvement in their arrest and transfer to the camp, and an ongoing inquiry into those claims."We have taken steps as a government, as a country, to try and achieve some closure about what happened in the past by a settlement with those people who were in Guantanamo Bay, and also setting up a proper inquiry to make sure the British government was not complicit in any way in terms of torture to those people who were in Guantanano Bay or indeed elsewhere." Although they initially welcomed the British torture inquiry, rights groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have now boycotted the process, saying it is neither sufficiently credible nor transparent.Hmmmm........Has the 'Emperial' President decided that he will 'release' all prisoners?Read the full story here.

 

 

 

• Remarks by the President at Campaign Event.You know, President Kennedy used to say after he took office what surprised him most about Washington was that things were just as bad as he had been saying they were. (Laughter.) And I understand what he meant. (Laughter.) When you’ve got the top Republican in the Senate saying his party’s number-one priority is not to create jobs, not to fix the economy, but to beat me -- that gives you a sense of the mentality here. Things aren't on the level. That’s how you end up with Republicans in Congress voting against all kinds of proposals that they supported in the past. Tax cuts for workers and small businesses, rebuilding roads and bridges, putting cops and teachers back to work used to be bipartisan ideas.   Now, I’ve said I will continue to look for every opportunity during the course of this year to work with Congress to move this country forward and create jobs.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: We can't wait!

THE PRESIDENT: But we can’t wait. (Laughter and applause.) When Congress -- whenever this Congress refuses to act in a way that hurts our economy and puts our people at risk, I’ve got an obligation as President to do what we can without them. (Applause.) I’ve got an obligation to work on behalf of you and the American people. (Applause.) I’m not going to let members of Congress put party ideology ahead of the people that they were elected to serve -- not when there's this much at stake. This is a make-or-break moment for this country, for the middle class in this country and folks who want to get into the middle class. So, for example, that’s why last week I appointed Richard Cordray as America’s consumer watchdog. (Applause.) Now, this is a man whose sole job is to look out for the best interests of American consumers -- to protect families from the kinds of unfair or deceptive, abusive financial practices that helped to bring the economy to its knees. That shouldn’t be controversial. Why would somebody be against that? (Laughter.) And yet, for almost half a year, Republicans in the Senate blocked his appointment. They wouldn’t even vote on it, not because they said he wasn’t qualified, because they couldn’t say that. Former attorney general -- you had Democrats and Republicans across the country, including his home state of Ohio, saying he was qualified. They just wanted to weaken Wall Street reforms. They thought, well, this might be too tough on these financial firms.Now, does anybody here think that the reason we got into this financial mess was because we had too much oversight? Hmmmmm......"whenever this Congress refuses to act in a way that hurts our economy and puts our people at risk, I’ve got an obligation as President to do what we can without them".Read the full story here.

• HURT: Obama’s naked thuggery.(WT).By Charles Hurt.After all these years it took a great constitutional scholar who had spent a life cloistered in academia and street work to utterly rape our most cherished Constitution.This business of bypassing the Senate to pick “recess” appointments to positions most Americans have never heard of may seem trivial. It is anything but. What Barack Obama has done has been to disembowel the U.S. Senate and shred the most carefully worded document in the history of civilized society.Recess appointment powers were designed by the Founders as a way to fill important Senate-confirmed positions back in the days when the Senate would be out of session for months at a time. It was never intended as a way to skip confirmation in a Senate so deeply divided on a president’s nominees that it simply could not agree to confirm them.Shattering precedent, Mr. Obama is now installing his henchmen to Senate-confirmed positions without the “advice and consent” of the Senate as explicitly stipulated by the Constitution and explicitly directed by the very laws that created those positions.The very constitutional tenets he tossed out to make these appointments are the only tenets that require the president to seek Senate approval of Supreme Court nominees. What is to stop Mr. Obama now — or any future president — from simply “recess appointing” thugs to the Supreme Court in order to uphold his socialist platform?During the previous administration, a minority of Democrats in the Senate stalled dozens of nominees to the federal courts. For some, they steadfastly refused for years on end to give a final up-or-down vote.There was endless idle chatter in Senate hallways of breaking the impasse in various ways that would strain the Constitution. But it always came down to a deep reverence for the document and a larger system that slavishly protects the minority. And Republicans knew that one day they would again be in that minority.What Mr. Obama has done here, though, doesn’t just strain the Constitution. He has torn right though it. When he says it is all supportable by the Constitution, he is lying. There is simply no other explanation for such a learned scholar to say such a thing. Unless he is learned, yet illiterate, which is entirely possible considering the perniciousness of affirmative action at places like Harvard Law School.Whether it is staining our Constitution, killing U.S. citizens with his beloved drones, or drowning us in taxes and Orwellian health regulations, Barack Obama has become our homegrown enemy.He shreds the Constitution with the unflinching calmness of a suicide bomber, uncaring that he is destroying the only system on Earth that could have given him the life and success he has enjoyed, thinking only of the martyrdom that will come through his annihilation of what is most important to others.So, where are the so-called liberal voices of outrage? Are they so high on the elixir of power that they no longer care for the minority or the only refuge on Earth where they are protected? Or have their principled souls been lost in partisan blood thirst?It was no mistake that Mr. Obama chose the very day of the Iowa Republican caucuses to leak word of his decision to rescind the Constitution. It was a hellfire warning of what is to come and that he will stop at nothing to advance his socialist agenda.Hmmmmm.....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 hosts Saudi foreign minister at White House.(JPost).WASHINGTON - US President Barack Obama hosted Saudi Arabia's foreign affairs minister, Prince Saud Al-Faisal, in the Oval Office on Tuesday to discuss key issues related to the Middle East, the White House said."The president and Prince Saud affirmed the strong partnership between the United States and Saudi Arabia and discussed recent developments on key regional issues of mutual interest," it said in a statement. The meeting was not previously announced by the White House. Read the full story here.

• Obama to host Jordan's King Abdullah at White House.(Haaretz).U.S. President Barack Obama will host King Abdullah II of Jordan at the White House next Tuesday, in an effort to advance a negotiated peace between Israel and the Palestinians. According to a White House statement, Obama and King Abdulla II will discuss "a broad range of bilateral and regional economic and security issues during their Oval Office meeting," including their "shared goal of a negotiated peace between Israel and the Palestinians."The White House added that Obama "also welcomes the opportunity to underscore the strong bonds of friendship between the United States and Jordan, and to demonstrate support for the political reforms that King Abdullah II is leading to produce a government that is more transparent, inclusive, and responsive to the aspirations of the Jordanian people." The announcement comes one week after the first Jordanian-mediated meeting between Israeli and Palestinian envoys in months, and just one day after the envoys' second meeting. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's envoy Isaac Molho met chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat in Amman last Tuesday. They then met for a second time on Monday. Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh and representatives of the Quartet - the United States, Russia, the UN and the European Union - also attended Monday's meeting. The prime minister's aides refused to give details of the talks but said another meeting is scheduled before the end of January.Hmmmmm.........How to Fly to Iran from Israel........Jordan......Saudi Arabia.........Iran?Read the full story here.

• ADL offers $2,500 reward for info on anti-Semitic incidents.(JPost).The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) announced Wednesday that it was offering a $2,500 award for information leading the arrest and conviction of those responsible for a "spate of anti-Semitic incidents in New York City reported this past weekend." The incidents included graffiti of a swastika on the windows of four large stores on the Avenue of America in Manhattan, and anti-Jewish slogans on the 18th Avenue and Kingston Avenue subway stations.According to the ADL, Manhattan saw the most anti-Semitic incidents in 2010 of the five boroughs, with 52 out of 133 acts carried out there. Read the full story here.

• Court Refuses to Unblock Oklahoma Ban on Islamic Law.(Vinienco).A federal appeals court on Tuesday blocked a proposed amendment to the Oklahoma constitution that would prevent the state’s courts from considering Sharia, or Islamic religious law.The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit in Denver affirmed a decision by U.S. District Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange to block the constitutional amendment, which garnered support from 70 percent of Oklahoma voters in a November 2010 ballot measure. Muneer Awad, the executive director of the Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, sued in November 2011 to prevent the Save Our State amendment from taking effect. He said the amendment would prevent Muslims from executing valid wills, asserting religious liberty claims in court and accessing the judicial system. He also argued that the amendment violated the First Amendment by singling out Islam for negative treatment.The First Amendment’s Establishment Clause prevents the government from discriminating among religions, unless serving a compelling state interest.The state election officials opposing the suit “do not identify any actual problem the challenged amendment seeks to solve,” Judge Scott Matheson wrote for the three-judge panel, noting that there was no evidence an Oklahoma court had ever applied Sharia law.The officials argued that the amendment banned all religious laws from Oklahoma courts, listing Islamic religious law as an example. But the court rejected that claim, finding it conflicted with the plain language of the statute, which mentioned Sharia law twice.“My office will continue to defend the state in this matter and proceed with the merits of the case,” said Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt in an emailed statement. With the temporary stay in place, the case now returns to the district court in Texas to determine the amendment’s constitutionality.“The First Amendment ensures that all faiths are treated equally. This amendment violates that central principle by sending a message that Muslims are religious and political outsiders,” said Daniel Mach, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who represents Awad.Mach said more than half of U.S. states have considered some type of legislation that would ban state courts from using international or Sharia law. Three other states have passed such laws, he said, but unlike Oklahoma, they do not single out Sharia by name.The case is Awad v. Ziriax et al, U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, No. 10-6273.Read the full story here.

• Companies being Fined for Not Using a Biofuel That Doesn’t Exist.(DougRoss).WASHINGTON — When the companies that supply motor fuel close the books on 2011, they will pay about $6.8 million in penalties to the Treasury because they failed to mix a special type of biofuel into their gasoline and diesel as required by law.But there was none to be had. Outside a handful of laboratories and workshops, the ingredient, cellulosic biofuel, does not exist. In 2012, the oil companies expect to pay even higher penalties for failing to blend in the fuel, which is made from wood chips or the inedible parts of plants like corncobs. Refiners were required to blend 6.6 million gallons into gasoline and diesel in 2011 and face a quota of 8.65 million gallons this year.“It belies logic,” Charles T. Drevna, the president of the National Petrochemicals and Refiners Association, said of the 2011 quota. And raising the quota for 2012 when there is no production makes even less sense, he said.Penalizing the fuel suppliers demonstrates what happens when the federal government really, really wants something that technology is not ready to provide. ...Even advocates of renewable fuel acknowledge that the refiners are at least partly correct in complaining about the penalties... “From a taxpayer/consumer standpoint, it doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense that we would require blenders to pay fines or fees or whatever for stuff that literally isn’t available,” said Dennis V. McGinn, a retired vice admiral who serves on the American Council on Renewable Energy.Yes, but don't ya know that a bunch of masterminds in Washington -- who have never produced a drop of oil, or refined a gallon of gasoline, or know jack-squat about anything related to energy -- are fully capable of producing regulations, fees, and fines, all with the force of law, to demand that technological innovation keep pace with their dreams and desires?These bureaucrats demand -- demand! -- that innovation keep up with their central planning! How else can they organize an entire society?Hmmmm.....Welcome to the plan bureau of"Obama in Wonderland"?Read the full story here.

• Iran - 'Car bomb kills nuclear scientist near Tehran university'.(JPost).A university professor and department head of a uranium enrichment facility was killed by a bomb placed on his car by a motorcyclist in Tehran on Wednesday, Iranian media reported, in an incident that looked similar to attacks on nuclear scientists in the city more than one year ago.The semi-official FARS news agency cited witnesses as saying a motorcyclist stuck a bomb on the side of the car which then exploded, killing one and injuring two people inside. Witnesses told Reuters one other pedestrian was killed in the bombing. FARS identified the victim as Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan. State-run Press TV said he was a university professor.According to the FARS report, Roshan, 32, was a graduate of an "oil industry university," and headed a department at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility in the Isfahan province in central Iran.    A local official likened the attack to previous ones against Iranian scientists, and implicated Israel in the bombing. The today bombing method was similar to the 2010 terrorist bomb attacks against the then university professor, Fereidoun Abbassi Davani - who is now the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization - and his colleague Majid Shahriari. "The bomb was a magnetic one and the same as the ones previously used for the assassination of the scientists, and is the work of the Zionists (Israelis)" FARS quoted Deputy Governor Safarali Baratloo as saying.Witnesses told Reuters they saw two people on the motorbike stick the bomb to the car. As well as the person killed in the car, a pedestrian was also killed by the blast. Another person in the car was gravely injured, they said. Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization said on Wednesday the country’s nuclear path will not change after Tehran accused Israel of killing one of its nuclear scientists in a “heinous act.”The agency said in a statement that the disputed nuclear program, which Iran says is for energy and the West says aims to make atomic weapons, would carry on despite international pressure, Iran’s Arabic language al Alam TV reported.“We will continue our (nuclear) path without any doubt ... Our path is irreversible,” said the statement quoted by the television channel.The statement said the lecturer, who was killed on Wednesday by a magnet bomb fixed to his car by a motorcyclist, was an Iranian nuclear scientist.The heinous acts of America and the criminal Zionist regime (Israel) will not disrupt our glorious path and Iran will firmly continue this path with no doubt,” the statement said.“The more you kill us, the more our nation will become awakened as our late leader of the Islamic revolution Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had said.”Read the full story here.More here (Video).

• Five Muslim men accused of hate crime over anti-gay leaflet.(Guardian).Five Muslim men from Derby have gone on trial for allegedly handing out leaflets calling for gay people to be killed in the first ever prosecution under new legislation making such actions a hate crime.The men, Ihjaz Ali, 42, Mehboob Hussain, 45, Umar Javed, 38, Razwan Javed, 27, and Kabir Ahmed, 28, are accused of handing out to passersby and posting through letterboxes a leaflet calling for gay people to be given the death penalty, and stating that gay sex is a great sin that leads to hell.They are accused of stirring up hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation, the first prosecution under new legislation which came into force in March 2010. They deny the charges.A jury at Derby crown court heard that the five men had handed out a leaflet entitled The Death Penalty? outside and near the Jamia mosque in Rosehill Street, Derby, in July 2010, as well as putting it through nearby letterboxes. The pamphlet showed an image of a mannequin hanging from a noose.The leaflet was one of several that the men were distributing, but the charges relate only to one called The Death Penalty? the jury heard.Bobbie Cheema, opening the case for the prosecution, said: "The leaflets you will see are not educational or simply informative. They are, we suggest, threatening, offensive, frightening and nasty."A fourth leaflet, entitled Dead Derby, had been found but not distributed, she told the court. It described homosexuality as a "vile, ugly, cancerous disease" and stated: "Gay today, paedophile tomorrow?""A word of warning," she told the jury of seven men and five women. "This case is not about, and we must not make it about, an interference with the defendants' freedom of religion or freedom to express their religious views in an attempt to educate or inform people."The vast majority of Muslim, and indeed other religious people, or people with no religion but who have strong views about homosexuality, are able to express their views if they wish in a critical but lawful, moderate and self-controlled way. That's one of the rights we have."The Crown says Ali was charged with four counts because he was the person responsible for the distribution of the leaflets.Each of the five men admits distributing the leaflets, but Cheema said they would probably put forward various lines of defence.In police interviews, she told the court, Ahmed had said he did not feel that the views expressed in The Death Penalty? leaflet – which suggested three different ways to murder gay people – were wrong and simply expressed what Islam says about homosexuality, adding that it was his duty as a Muslim to condemn it.Read the full story here.

• Egypt’s al-Azhar wants Bill of Rights.(BikyaMasr).CAIRO: The head of al-Azhar in Egypt – the Sunni Islamic world’s top religious institution – has called for a Bill of Rights ahead of creating a new constitution this year.In the document put forth on Tuesday, Ahmed el-Tayeb, called for a document that upholds freedom of expression and belief before lawmakers are to put pen to paper in inking a new constitution following last year’s ousting of President Hosni Mubarak.Al-Azhar hopes the document, which The Associated Press reported was three months in the making and was the collaborative work of both Islamic scholars and secular leaders, will enable the institution to exert force as conservative groups gain power in the country.It also comes as the Muslim Brotherhood’s political arm, The Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) and the ultra-conservative al-Nour Salafist party, have won the lion’s share of votes in the first election in the post-Mubarak era, increasing fears that Islamic identities will be put into the new constitution.“We need a new revolution or something that brings together all parties in this country,” George Ishaq, a leading political figure and member of the National Coalition for Change, told Bikyamasr.com.“As we push on, the military must go and we must guarantee the rights of all Egyptians no matter what they believe or what they say. This will be the new Egypt, but right now, I am not convinced,” he added.Al-Azhar hopes the document will be able to support the change Egyptians died for during the 18 days of uprising last January and February. It also has the backing of the country’s intellectuals.A previous document by Al-Azhar, also backed by intellectuals, supported the Arab revolutions and the public’s rights to democratic change.But now, as the military junta appears entrenched in power, and the Islamists showing massive gains in the recent elections, worries abound over the rights of minority groups.Activist Farid Fahmy told Bikyamasr.com that “a lot of the struggle will continue and we believe in democracy and the rights for people, but with so much of the military taking power and the Islamists claiming victory, it will be hard.”El-Tayeb told reporters the bill of rights, which “preserves freedoms of worship, opinion, scientific research and art and creative expression,” was drafted to be a “basis for the country’s new constitution,” according to comments published by Egypt’s state news agency MENA.He argued that Islamic rulings protect freedom of religion and guarantee equal citizenship rights, in a message to Egypt’s increasingly frustrated and worried Christian minority.Read the full story here.

• Syrian patriarch says Christians feel betrayed by West.(BikyaMasr).Europeans and the Americans have come to the conclusion that it is inevitable that Islamist religious fanatics will come to power in the Middle East and they have given up. Istanbul (dpa) – Syria’s Christians, who make up more than 6 percent of the population, are fearful they will be caught up in the 10-month power struggle between the Alawite-dominated government of President Bashar al-Assad and the largely Sunni opposition movement.In an exclusive interview with dpa, Patriarch Ignatius Joseph III, head of the Syriac Catholic Church, which is in full communion with Rome, accused Western governments of sacrificing the rights of minorities in the Middle East in pursuing their geostrategic and economic interests.

dpa: In recent months there have been talks between Syrian churches on the position Christians should take in the conflict between al-Assad and the protest movement. What is the current position here?

Ignatius Joseph III: We Christians of the Middle East are disappointed at the policies pursued by the European Union and the United States, because we note that the Europeans and the Americans regard the problems of the Middle East solely from a political and economic viewpoint.They have come to the conclusion that it is inevitable that Islamist religious fanatics will come to power in these countries and they have given up. We Christians feel that we have been betrayed by them.

dpa: What do you say to the accusation from the opposition that Syria’s Christian churches are supporting the regime, even though it is violating human rights?

Ignatius Joseph III: Yes, we are accused of being on the side of the regime, but all we aim to achieve in the end is that our communities will be able to live in peace. We always have the negative example of Iraq in mind, where many of our co-religionists had to emigrate.

dpa: Certain Syrian Christians say they are, on religious grounds, unable to support a regime that uses violence and kills children.

Ignatius Joseph III: This is a totalitarian regime – that cannot be denied. This is regrettable. But in Syria there has been no democratic education. Apart from a brief phase following the end of the colonial period, we have never had democracy…It is true that this is a police state, and there are many political prisoners … But when there is conflict, and the security forces want to re-establish order in an area, then this cannot happen without the use of force.

dpa: Have you spoken to Western governments, which are banking on the fall of the Syrian government, in order to highlight the situation of the Christians?

Ignatius Joseph III: In May, I met French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe in Paris, and I realized that France and the EU have a preconceived opinion of the Baath regime in Syria. They think this is a monstrous regime that kills its own citizens.Yes, there have been and there are massacres. But nobody talks about the hundreds of thousands of deaths that took place in Iraq (after the US-led invasion) or of the tens of thousands who died recently in Libya.

dpa:What would a solution to the conflict in Syria look like, now that so many people have died in a way that has set in motion a spiral of violence on both sides?

Ignatius Joseph III: There should be dialogue … But in our society we still have the concept of revenge. It is not the way it is in Turkey, where there is an Islamic party in power, but which shows a certain tolerance of those who think differently…Why not have dialogue? Because 5,000 people have been killed? After World War II, which caused the death of millions, Germany and France also engaged in dialogue.Read the full story here.

• Egypt activists vow no Israeli pilgrimage to tomb.(AlArabiya).Egyptian Islamists and other activists vowed Wednesday to prevent Israelis from making an annual pilgrimage to the tomb of a 19th-century Jewish holy man in the Nile Delta.Pilgrimage opponents have decided to stage protests on roads leading to the tomb of Rabbi Yaakov Abuhatzeira in the village of Daymouta, 180 kilometers (112 miles) north of Cairo, said Gamal Heshmat of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group which is the country’s best organized political movement.He said that the late December and early January pilgrimage would be a “suicide mission” for Israelis, because of popular opposition to their presence in Egypt.“Normalization (of relations) with Israel is forced on the people, and the visits too come against the will of people and despite popular rejection,” said Heshmat, who recently won a seat in parliament in the country’s first elections following the ouster of former president Hosni Mubarak.Egyptian activists have rallied against the pilgrimage every year for most of the last decade. Egypt’s daily Al-Ahram newspaper reported Tuesday that 31 parties and groups had joined this year's campaign.The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights organization based in Los Angeles, denounced the attempts to block the pilgrimage. In a Tuesday statement, the center’s Abraham Cooper accused the Brotherhood of trying to “curb religious freedom of Jews.”“In their worldview, there is no respect for the traditions for Jews, dead or alive,” he said.A son to a chief rabbi of Morocco, Abu Hatzeira was revered by some Jews as a mystic renowned for his piety and for performing miracles. The elderly rabbi was making his way from his native Morocco to the Holy Land in 1879 when he fell ill and died in the Egyptian city of Damanhour near Alexandria.According to tradition, his followers tried to move his tomb three times, and three times heavy storms prevented them.After Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty in 1979, Jewish devotees - mostly of Moroccan origin - have traveled annually to the site. But Egypt has limited the numbers of pilgrims.In 2001 and 2004, two court orders banned the ceremony after opponents filed legal challenges.The tomb is a vestige of Egypt’s once-prosperous Jewish community, which at the time of the first war with Israel in 1948 numbered about 80,000 people.But the Arab-Israeli wars, and the resentment and expulsions that they engendered, have reduced the number of Egypt’s Jews to about 60 mostly individuals, living in Alexandria and Cairo, according to the Israeli embassy.Hmmmm.......“In their worldview, there is no respect for the traditions for Jews, dead or alive,”.Read the full story here.

• Israeli Mossad recruiting Iranian exiles in Iraq’s Kurdish region: report.(Stratrisks).The Israeli spy agency Mossad is using Iranian exiles living in the autonomous Iraqi region of Kurdistan to target Iranian nuclear experts and sabotage the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program, says an Iraqi security official quoted by the French daily Le Figaro.“The Mossad agents have increased their infiltration in the Kurdish regions of Iraq,” the unnamed security official was quoted as saying.He said Iranian refugees in the Kurdish regions opposed to the current regime in Tehran are being recruited by the Israeli agents to target Iranian experts in nuclear technology.Iran has regularly accused the United States and Israel of targeting its nuclear scientists in a bid to disrupt its nuclear program.On Monday, Iran’s Revolutionary Court sentenced an Iranian-American man to death on charges of espionage for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), a charge that the U.S. has denied as baseless.Hekmati, a 28-year-old of Iranian descent born in the southwestern U.S. state of Arizona, was arrested in December and Iran’s Intelligence Ministry accused him of receiving training at U.S. bases in neighboring Afghanistan and Iraq.Iran’s judiciary said Hekmati admitted to having links with the CIA but denied any intention of harming Iran, which has had no relations with the United States since its 1979 Islamic Revolution, according to Reuters. Mutual antagonism has reigned since.Iran, which often accuses its foes of trying to destabilize its Islamic system, said in May it had arrested 30 people on suspicion of spying for the United States and later 15 people were indicted for spying for Washington and Israel.Read the full story here.

• Hundreds Threaten Suicide At Microsoft Supplier Plant In China.(CBS).Some 300 Chinese Foxconn employees who manufacture X-box 360 machines said they would throw themselves from their Wuhan, China, plant if demands for lost wages were not met.China Jasmine Revolution, an activist revolutionary organization with a name borrowed from the Tunisian revolt that set off the Middle East unrest, reported that employees made their demands for a wage increase for 100 employees on Jan. 2.Management at Foxconn — the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer and a crucial link in the supply chains of Apple, Dell, Nintendo and Song — responded with an ultimatum. Employees could quit with one month’s compensation awarded for each year with the plant or go back to working.Many employees quit, but Foxconn allegedly dishonored the agreement and awarded former employees nothing.Around 300 workers returned to the plant in an uproar, and staged their protest on the plant’s roof on Jan. 3.A Microsoft spokesperson wrote CBS Seattle a statement saying, “Microsoft takes working conditions in the factories that manufacture its products very seriously, and we are currently investigating this issue. We have a stringent Vendor Code of Conduct that spells out our expectations, and we monitor working conditions closely on an ongoing basis and address issues as they emerge. Microsoft is committed to the fair treatment and safety of workers employed by our vendors, and to ensuring conformance with Microsoft policy.” Touring the Longhua plant in 2011, Terry Gou, the chairman of Foxconn parent Hon Hai Precision, said suicide rates among workers in his plants were smaller compared to the country’s and added a country’s suicide rate typically climbs when its GDP does, Forbes reported.Hmmmm......'kinect' ready?Read the full story here.

• Turkish belly-dancing to Persian santouri.(HuriyetDaily).In Tehran, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu may have told his Iranian hosts that the X-band NATO radar on Turkish soil would be used to intercept missile threats from Bolivia. His Iranians hosts may have nodded and smiled. And next month, Mr. Davutoğlu may tell U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that Turkey could perfectly parent the naughty mullahs in Tehran; that everything would soon come up roses in the Middle East thanks to Turkish polity; and that, by the way, Iran never intended to build the atomic bomb. Mrs. Clinton, too, may nod and smile. The fact is, Turkey has never been the maverick interlocutor in the Islamic world that it claims it has been. Turkey’s belly-dancing around the Western-Persian conflict is not new. Ankara naively thinks that it can win hearts and minds in Tehran by opposing the sanctions; in Washington, it thinks it can do so by agreeing to host the NATO radar hostile to Iran. Professor Davutoğlu may confidently believe that his powers of persuasion work more than perfectly in Tehran and Cairo – like they more than perfectly worked in Damascus and Beirut! The foreign policy wizard may think that “the rise of a ‘Shiite Crescent’ could turn into an opportunity if Turkey and Iran enhance their dialogue.” And, in response, the Iranian soldiers may have shot two Turkish villagers who had illegally crossed into their territory to smuggle fuel. Meanwhile, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may have grinned at Mr. Davutoğlu’s not-so-creative pleasantries. But he, too, probably nodded and smiled. In other words, the sky is the limit! Mr. Davutoğlu may even have gone as far as to believe that he fully agreed with influential Shiite politician Muqtada al-Sadr on the future of Iraq. What future? A Shiite Crescent over the skies of Iraq? The Shiite Crescent which will turn into an opportunity? All the same, sadly, Mr. Davutoğlu and his briefcase full of neo-Ottoman ambitions are simply not so wanted in Tehran, Baghdad, Damascus or in influential office rooms in Beirut. Soon, they will be unwanted in Egypt and Libya, too. Instead of living in his make-believe world, Mr. Davutoğlu should think over and over again to find out why the Algerian government told Ankara to stop referring to French colonization in Turkey’s fight with France over the Armenian genocide denial bill. Or why does one Arab leader after another should keep on saying the “Turkish model” is just unwanted in the “new Arabia.” Ankara increasingly fears that a sectarian split, which has been a bitter fact of life in the Islamic world in the last millennium, would finish off the remaining bits of Turkey’s ambitions to play the leader of Middle Eastern “Islamdom.” Ankara has hoped to play the “Muslim leader” role in the entire region, not just in its selected parts divided along warring sects. A sectarian conflict will completely push Turkey out of the “Shiite Middle East” and limit its target zone to the Sunni Middle East only, where Turkey will not be welcomed since it is too un-Muslim, too un-Arab, too western and too secular. Only in an undivided Islamic region would Turkey have had a limited influence. Hence the nervousness in Ankara…Despite his sometimes illusionary policy-making, Mr. Davutoğlu, no doubt, is a hard-working, decent man of knowledge. But perhaps the pillar of his policy assumptions is not so strong. Simple populism based on “Zionist-bashing” is too weak of a bond to keep Muslim solidarity up and running.Hmmmm.........Can NATO and the U.s. rely on Turkey?Read the full story here.