MFS -The Other News - What the main papers don't say.

  Morning Posting.

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity situation Philipines 6.9 - 6.8 - 6.2 - 6.0 - 5.7 - 5.6 - 5.2!More info here.

• Obama’s bogus jobs data - Congress should investigate cooked employment books.(WT).The White House hyped the news Friday that January payrolls had risen by 243,000. The hitch is the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) also dropped 1.2 million from the calculated workforce. Somehow this net loss of a million workers in a single month was transformed into an improvement in the unemployment rate. As the old saying goes, figures don’t lie, but liars can figure.“Job growth was widespread,” the BLS reported, but most Americans sense that something isn’t quite right with the numbers. The most important change was the deep decline in the workforce. While the overall population jumped an 1.6 million in January, the workforce declined a record-setting 1.2 million. This figure represents those who out of sheer frustration or for other reasons have dropped out of what the government defines as the active labor pool. They are worse than simply unemployed; they are both jobless and hopeless.The participation rate is a subjective measure and highly subject to manipulation. The lower it goes and the more people are dropped from the unemployment equation, the better the numbers will look for the White House. This figure has been dropping sharply since Mr. Obama took office. Last month, an analysis at the Zero Hedge financial website noted that by extending the logic of reporting progressively fewer labor-force participants, “America will officially have no unemployed when the Labor Force Participation rate hits 58.5 percent, which should be just before the presidential election.” Maybe that’s the plan.A year ago, there were 99 million people either officially unemployed or otherwise not working, and the official unemployment rate was 9.1 percent. Now, unemployment reported by the government is down to 8.3 percent, but the number without jobs has topped 100 million. The disconnect between increasing joblessness in America and the rosy White House official statistics should be the subject of a congressional investigation. Something does not add up.Read the full story here.

• Obama extends sanctions to Central Bank of Iran.(JTA).President Obama expanded Iran sanctions to include parties dealing with Iran's Central Bank.The executive order made public Monday and issued by the White House on Sunday cuts Iran's economy off from the United States' entirely by expanding existing sanctions to include those who deal with Iran's Central Bank, forcing interlocutors to choose between the two countries.The intended effect is to isolate Iran from much of the world's developed economy.A letter to Congress accompanying the order notes that it comports with the enhanced sanctions law passed by Congress in December and underscores its expansive intent, targeting entities determined "to be owned or controlled by, or to have acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to the order." The Obama administration had issued a warning in November that such sanctions were forthcoming. A key factor in timing the sanctions was the effort to coordinate with other nations to avoid a spike in oil prices.Hmmmm....Now lets see if Iran will keep it's promise of closing the strait of Hormuz if America sanctioned their Central Bank?Read the full story here.

• Iran Unveils Several Military, Technological Achievements.(Fars).Iran on Monday unveiled 21 new home-made achievements and projects in defensive and technological fields.The projects were unveiled on the occasion of the Ten-Day Dawn, celebrating the victor of the Islamic Revolution back in 1979. Speaking to reporters on Monday, Iran's Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi said that nine production lines have been inaugurated, which include those for advanced laser-guided systems of a cannon type, guiding systems of an anti-armor missile, a warning apparatus of a laser defense system meant to protect sensitive and important areas in the country, three advanced radars and a powerful microwave lamp. He added that eight other products including thermal cameras, laser systems, air-defense, and electronic communications for submarines were delivered to Iran's Armed Forces. Vahidi also noted that four research projects in the field of electronic warfare have been completed, which will enter the phase of industrial production in the near future.The minister reiterated that the achievements would considerably increase Iran's defense powers.Hmmm.....That powerfull microwave lamp will help to throw popcorn at the great Satan.Read the full story here.

• How Israel Keeps Us Safe.(AT).By Karin McQuillan.We have a president who has a problem with Israel. According to a New York Times column, "Don't Do It, Bibi," Obama called Bibi Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, in mid-January to demand a promise that Israel would not bomb Iran in the next few months. Obama doesn't want a spike in oil prices before our presidential election. The threat of unhappy voters is more important to Obama than a nuclear Iran. He is more concerned about his re-election than he is about a dirty bomb in the hands of a terrorist that could waste one of our cities, a destabilized Middle East, or a nuclear attack on Israel.Obama's indifference to Israel's safety is a moral problem, but it is more than that. It poses a grave threat to our national security.Israel's blessings don't stop with the gifts of individual Jews advancing high tech and medical care. Israeli inventiveness in those fields is of the greatest military importance to us. As a country, Israel does more than any other country in the world to keep the U.S. safe -- literally. This would be part of the foreign policy equation of our White House and State Department, if they didn't suffer from Arabism.Read the full story here.

• The Military Is Now Telling Catholic Chaplains What They Can And Can't Say About The Obama Administration.(BI).The emerging conflict between the Catholic Church and the Obama administration may have a new front: in the U.S. military itself.The Catholic Church is fighting mad about an HHS ruling that would have them buy insurance for things they consider sinful–contraception, sterilization and abortion. All the bishops in the country sent out a letter to be read in their parishes promising that the Church "cannot-and will not-comply with this unjust law."Even Archbishop Timothy Broglio, who is in charge of Catholic military chaplains sent out the same letter.  But after he did, the Army's Office of the Chief of Chaplains sent out another communication forbidding Catholic priests to read the letter, in part because it seemed to encourage civil disobedience, and could be read as seditious against the Commander-in-Chief. More than one Catholic chaplain who spoke to us off the record confirmed that many chaplains disobeyed this instruction and read the letter anyway. Others sought further instructions from their Archbishop. Now after much behind-the-scenes bureaucratic wrangling, a new version of the letter will be read, one that was edited of the language about "unjust laws."The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict". ~ Martin Luther King, Jr. Read the full story here.

• Turkey rules out military intervention in Syria.(BM).Istanbul (dpa) – Turkey on Monday ruled out the possibility that it might consider military intervention in neighboring Syria if the situation in the country does not improve.“We will do whatever is necessary, but military intervention is not an option for Turkey,” Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc was quoted as saying by the state news agency Anatolian.Pointing out that Turkey was bound by decisions made by the United Nations and the Arab League, Arinc was deeply critical of the rejection by China and Russia of a UN resolution calling for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to resign.“This was wrong,” he said adding that he was also deeply critical of both Iran and Lebanon for failing to criticize the actions of the al-Assad government.Anatolian also quoted Arinc as pointing out that is almost 30 years to the day since al-Assad’s father and predecessor as president, Hafez al-Assad ordered the military to bombard the central city of Hama, killing an estimated 20,000 people.Hmmmm....Turkey doesn't want military intervention At first in Libya then Egypt...Iran and Syria.But will be the first to call for Military action against Israel.Read the full story here.

• The Perversion of the Words of Our Lord Jesus Christ by the Sinner Barack H. Obama.(RedState).Posted by Erick Erickson. I’m afraid we need a little Sunday morning theology. Hopefully someone at the White House will read this and realize just how ill advised the President was to do what he did this week and we should be praying hard for him to see the error of his ways on this.Unfortunately for the nation, we have a President who claims to be a Christian who is willing to take God’s Holy Word repeatedly out of context, subsume God’s commands for individuals in their conduct with each other and with Him, and try to make the case for the government’s fiscal policy with that perversion.The President, through the Department of Health and Human Services, has ordered religious organizations — targeting more specifically the Catholic Church — to offer health plans that cover the costs of contraceptives and abortifacient drugs. I started this post with, unlike the President’s use of Luke and Proverbs, un-perverted scripture Christians use to show their objections to abortion. But moreso, these are non exhaustive passages of scripture Catholics rely on as foundations both to their opposition to abortion and to contraception. God himself said, “Be fruitful and multiply.”The President this week chose to pervert God’s Word to make the case for a tax increase, but he also chose to ignore God’s word on life and is ordering Christians, while he claims to be one, to violate their Christian conscience on abortion — requiring Christian organizations to provide health insurance that will cover the cost of drugs that induce abortions.He is trying to have it both ways. He is trying to use God’s Word to defend a tax policy that dissuades individuals from giving gladly and charitably to the poor as God instructs and is ignoring God’s Word in order to force fellow Christians into violating their Christian conscience — something about which God cares a great deal.This cannot end well for him, particularly doing this claiming to be a Christian. And it might not end well for the rest of us either. Barack Obama has gone to war with Christians’ consciences and he is perverting God’s word in the process to get his way on public policy.Read the full story here.

• Video - Scores killed and injured as Syrian army shells Homs; shelling seen as ‘real war’.(AlArabiya).As many as 22 people have been killed and scores of others have been injured in intensive shelling of the Baba Amro neighborhood in Homs, Al Arabiya reported on Monday citing Syrian activists. “It is the most intensive shelling on Baba Amro since the start of the protests,” one witness told Al Arabiya by phone. Military helicopters are taking part in the shelling of Baba Amro, which caused a number of residential buildings to collapse, Syrian activists said.“Seven residential buildings collapsed as a result of the Syrian intensive shelling of Homs,” an activist at the Local Coordination Committees told Al Arabiya. “Homs is witnessing a real war,” he said.“The tally that we have received from various activists in Homs since the shelling started at six this morning is 50, mostly civilians,” the Syrian National Council opposition group’s Catherine al-Talli told Reuters.“The regime is acting as if it were immune to international intervention and has a free hand to use violence against the people,” she said.Assad’s troops shelled Homs overnight Friday, killing at least 260 civilians, the SNC said, while the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said about 100 women and children were among its toll of 237 dead.The tolls could not be independently confirmed. Damascus denied responsibility, blaming the deaths on rebels seeking to swing the U.N. vote.Read the full story here.

• French official: J'lem to be capital of ‘Palestine’.(JPost).BERLIN – The head of the French Consulate in Jerusalem told French and Palestinian municipal officials late last month that Jerusalem will be the capital of an independent Palestinian state.“Welcome to Jerusalem, capital of the future State of Palestine,” Frédéric Desagneaux said at a conference in the city, the French-language online news outlet JSS wrote.A participant who contacted JSS was “shocked and surprised at the anti-Israel craze” of the attendees.When asked by The Jerusalem Post during a telephone interview on Thursday about Desagneaux’s comment, Damien Cristofari, the French vice consul, stated that Desagneaux said “Jerusalem would be the capital of two states.”Cristofari added that the consul- general’s position conforms to international and EU policy calling for Jerusalem to be a divided capital of Israel and a Palestinian state. The vice consul said that JSS “misquoted” Desagneaux.Jonathan-Simon Sellem, the author of the JSS report, confirmed to the Post on Thursday the accuracy of his source, and said that Desagneaux called for Jerusalem to be the capital of Palestine. The JSS source has an audio recording of the comment from Desagneaux.Cristofari said the consulate was checking on a video recording of the January 23 conference to verify Desagneaux’s remarks. The top French diplomat in Jerusalem made his comments at a meeting on French-Palestinian cooperation in the fields of municipal construction, culture, democratic governance and water.JSS wrote that there was a total of 200 representatives from the Palestinian and French sides present. The Palestinian Authority mayors of Hebron and Bethlehem attended the event.JSS wrote that its source, who attended the event, said, “And after exchanging a few words with the assistant consul, I learned with astonishment that the consul also bears the title of ambassador of France in Palestine.An ambassador of France in Palestine whose offices are located in west Jerusalem...”Hmmm......Read the full story here.

• Iranian Parliament's Website: Attack Israel this Year.(INN).The Iranian parliament's official website has published an article calling on the government to attack Israel before the end of the year.According to Israeli TV Channel 2's veteran Middle East expert, Ehud Yaari, the article cites three reasons for the call.First – a religious fatwa allowing such a strike. Second – threats from Israel regarding a planned strike on Iran. And third – Iran's alleged military capability to carry out such an attack.The article specifies that the area between Lod and Jerusalem should be targeted, as well as Tel Nof Air Force Base.The article seems to be part of a recent trend in Iran to step up the rhetoric regarding a possible attack on Israel. Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Friday that Israel is a “cancerous tumor that should be cut and will be cut.”“We have intervened in anti-Israel matters, and it brought victory in the 33-day war by Hizbullah against Israel in 2006, and in the 22-day war” between Hamas and Israel in Gaza, Khamenei was quoted as saying.He added, “From now on, in any place, if any nation or any group confronts the Zionist regime, we will endorse and we will help. We have no fear expressing this.”On Saturday, press outlets in Iran also widely quoted a blog post by Alireza Forghani, a computer engineer, who called upon Tehran to "wipe out Israel" by 2014.Forghani called on his leaders to target Israeli sites using land-to-land missiles. Ballistic Sijil missiles should be launched at Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa, he suggested, as well as power stations and other vital infrastructure. Then, Shahab 3 and Ghader missiles should target the rest of Israel's population centers. Nine minutes would suffice for "total annihilation," he predicted.Read the full story here.

• Fool me twice.(JPost).By Caroline Glick.Former US congressman Robert Wexler is a man worth listening to. Wexler served as then-senator Barack Obama’s chief booster in the American Jewish community during the 2008 presidential campaign. He appeared everywhere and said anything to convince the American Jewish community that the same man who sat in the church pews listening to Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s anti-Semitic vitriol for two decades, and listed among his closest friends and associates a host of Israel-haters as well as former terrorists, was the greatest friend Israel could ever have.Once Obama was elected, Wexler continued to serve as his Jewish shill. Wexler traveled to Israel multiple times in the early months of Obama’s presidency, to pressure Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to submit to Obama’s demand and embrace the cause of Palestinian statehood. After Netanyahu finally announced his support for Palestinian statehood at his speech at Bar-Ilan University in September 2009, Wexler returned with a new demand – that Netanyahu enact a moratorium on Jewish property rights in Judea and Samaria.Given Wexler’s close ties to Obama, it is reasonable to assume that his suggestion that Israel cease exerting its national sovereignty over its sovereign territory in the interests of the peace process is not simply his personal view.There is much to criticize about Wexler’s suggestion. But more important than its arrogant, insulting absurdity, and more disconcerting than Wexler’s own hypocrisy, is what his suggestion tells us about the dangers inherent in Netanyahu’s current negotiations with the Palestinians.Netanyahu is obviously under great pressure to continue with these talks. A day doesn’t go by without some US official or European leader talking about the need for talks, or a leftist politician or political activist at home blaming Netanyahu for the absence of peace. But none of this pressure can justify the damage that is done to Israel’s position by continuing to engage in these negotiations. As Netanyahu’s own experience with Obama (and Wexler) shows, concessions never bring a respite from the US leader’s pressure. They only form the baseline for demands for further concessions.Beyond the narrow confines of Obama’s personal hostility towards Israel, Netanyahu’s current engagement in negotiations with the Palestinians is devastating to Israel’s position in two ways.American “friends” like Wexler and Obama play Israel for a fool again and again.In truth, we should thank Wexler for coming here this week and reminding us of his bad faith, and the bad faith of the president he serves. But it is up to Netanyahu to draw the appropriate lessons.Read the full story here.

• From potentate to puppet?Is embracing the Islamists the only way Abdullah can preserve his rule? Is preserving Abdullah the only way Islamists can prevent ‘Jordan’ becoming ‘Palestine?’(MartinSherman).The eternal potential for perfidy – or at least the impermanence of loyalties – in pursuit of interests, personal or national, is being illustrated by the events unfolding in Jordan today.Crumbling of conventional wisdom?It has long been a pillar of conventional wisdom in the Middle East that the Hashemite kingdom is a bastion of moderate pro-Western stability. Accordingly, it has been held that the relationship between the monarchy and radical elements in the Arab world in general, and among the Palestinian in particular, will inevitably be adversarial. Consequently, the assumption has been that, by their very nature and the nature of their goals, these elements necessarily are an existential threat to the regime in Amman.Furthermore, with the eruption of the Arab Spring, the dominant view has been that the popular waves of support for resurgent Islam are a grave menace to the rule of incumbent autocrats, monarchical or military.After all, Islamic regimes have risen in the wake of deposed dictatorships in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia, while other are under siege in Syria and Yemen. The same scenario was presumed valid in Jordan.However, here it seems the Palestinian question might be disrupting – even reversing – this pattern, at least for the time being.For as the recent visit by Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal to Amman (his first official one since his 1999 expulsion) shows, a surprising, even counter-intuitive, truth seems to be emerging.Rather than radical Palestinian Islamic elements threatening to overthrow the monarchy, they appear to be articulating a rationale for sustaining it. At least in the medium term and at least as far as appearances are concerned. This may have dangerously deceptive consequences for Israel.As some analysts have noted, the public protests in Jordan have been subtly but qualitatively different from those in, say, Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Syria.Rather than being focused on revolution, they have centered on reform; rather than clamoring for forced removal of the autocrat and his regime, they have centered more on consensual transformation of the regime and the transfer of some powers of royalty to other institutions of government.This anomalous moderation in the tenor of public protest is intriguing and significant, particularly in light of Mashaal’s statement made during the meeting with the king, in which he affirmed Hamas’s concern “for Jordan’s security and stability.”As The Jerusalem Post’s Khaled Abu Toameh observes, the message was clearly “aimed at reassuring King Abdullah that Hamas does not challenge his monarchy.Hmmmm.....”Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose (The more things change, the more they stay the same– Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr, 1849.Read the full story here.

• Latest from Iran: "The Regime Will Demolish Ahmadinejad".(EAW).Mohammad Reza Khatami, the prominent reformist and brother of the former President, was careful not to say "boycott", even as he said true reformists would not participate in March's Parliamentary elections. This, however, was almost the only caution he displayed.Khatami said the result of the vote would be fixed before people went to the polls, and then he turned on the pretence within the system by savaging Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:  We do not say that we want to be President, but we are saying that a wise man should be the president. Today in our country, Ahmadinejad has no authority; those who made Ahmadinejad “Ahmadinejad” must be held responsible towards people. Khatami said the "deviant current" --- a label placed on Ahmadinejad's advisors by his critics --- was made by the very same people who made Ahmadinejad "Ahmadinejad", so they can control the President. Khatami claimed that the regime will bear and tolerate Ahmadinejad for two years, until the end of his second term, and "after that they will demolish him".Khatami's was not the only troublesome voice on Sunday. Former Minister of Interior Mostafa Tajzadeh, in his most recent message from Evin Prison, has criticised the Supreme Leader for Friday Prayer and asked him to apologise to the people. Tajzadeh said Ayatollah Khamenei had continued his policy of "threat against threat" and thus endangered Iran's security.And reformist MP Masoud Pezeshkian, commenting on the Friday Prayer, said, "An atmosphere has been created in the country which does not allow reformists to be active, let alone for the reformists to be able to compete with others in the election."Amidst the criticisms, Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani's four conditions for a successful Majlis seem rather tame: 1) maximum participation in the election; 2) care and accuracy by officials in holding a healthy election; 3) a lenient approach by the Guardian Council in approving candidates; 4) healthy competition among the candidates in which they do not insult and accuse each other.MP Mostafa Reza Hosseini has said the plan to interrogate the President has been submitted to Speaker of Parliament Larijani. The MP said Ahmadinejad has one month to appear before the Majlis.Read the full story here.

• China orders airlines not to pay EU carbon tax.(BM).By Bill Smith.Beijing (dpa) – The Chinese government on Monday ordered its airlines not to pay a carbon tax imposed by the European Union, saying the EU’s move had breached international civil aviation rules.Chinese airlines must not pay the carbon tax to the EU and were banned from raising prices or adding fees without government permission, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) said.The EU’s announcement of charges for carbon emissions for flights using EU airports was “contrary to relevant principles of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the international civil aviation regulations,” the CAAC said.“China objects to the EU’s decision to impose the scheme on non-EU airlines,” it said, adding that the government would “consider adopting necessary measures to protect the interests of Chinese individuals and companies.”It said China wanted to negotiate a solution to the dispute over the charges, which the EU introduced from January 1 under an emissions trading scheme.Read the full story here.More here .

• Jewish American Paul Auster and Erdoğan controversy grows.(HurriyetDaily).A row between U.S. author Paul Auster and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan that began after the writer said he would not visit Turkey due to the number of imprisoned journalists is continuing to grow. According to daily Radikal, lawyer Turgut Kazan has contacted Turkish Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk to invite Auster to Turkey. Kazan and Pamuk were among the team who invited authors Arthur Miller and Harold Pinter to come to Turkey in 1985. The dust-up began when Auster gave an interview to daily Hürriyet last month in New York after his most recent book, “Winter Journal,” was published in Turkey. Auster said he refused to come to Turkey because of the number of imprisoned writers and journalists.In response, Erdoğan criticized Auster for having previously visited Israel. “Israel is supposedly a democratic, secular country, a country where freedom of expression and individual rights and freedoms are limitless. What an ignorant man you are. Aren’t these the ones that rained bombs down on Gaza? The ones that launched phosphorus bombs and used chemical weapons. How can you not see this?” he said.Hmmmmm.......There are even people who don't see the Armenian Genocide.Read the full story here.

• Lieutenant Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps Brigadier General Hossein Salami Vows to Hit Source of Threats against Iran.(Fars)."The point of origin of an enemy offensive against the Islamic Republic will be attacked by IRGC military units," Salami said on Sunday. Salami made the remarks during the ongoing IRGC military drills in Iran's Southern province of Fars. The drills, codenamed as Hamiyan-e Vellayat (Supporters of Religious Leadership) are underway in Jahrom general zone. Iran has warned that in case of an attack by either the US or Israel, it will target 32 American bases in the Middle East and close the strategic Strait of Hormuz. An estimated 40 percent of the world's oil supply passes through the waterway. Iranian officials have recently warned enemies that Iran is entitled to the right to close the strategic oil lifeline as a defensive option against foreign invasion or sanctions on its oil exports. The United States said it would not allow Iran to block the Strait, calling it a "red line" for the US military. In reply, Salami dismissed the US warning over the closure of the strategic strait, and stressed that powerful Iran acts on its own and never asks for anyone's permission to carry out what it desires. "The US is not in a position" to affect Iran's decisions, Salami told FNA late in December. "Iran does not ask permission to implement its own defensive strategies." Read the full story here.

• Analysis: Pilot over Auschwitz - maybe Iran too?(JPost).On September 4, 2003, Maj.-Gen. Amir Eshel served as the lead pilot in one of the Israel Air Force’s most memorable missions – a flight over the Auschwitz death camp in Poland.Under the agreement with the Polish government, the IAF F-15s were supposed to fly high above Auschwitz, and way out of sight.The day of the flight though, Eshel convened the other pilots and announced that they were going to fly below the clouds so they could be seen by the IDF officers who would be holding a ceremony along the train tracks below.“We listened to the Polish for 800 years,” Eshel was quoted as telling the other pilots at the time. “Today, we don’t have to listen anymore.”The picture of the three F- 15s over Auschwitz – a demonstration of Israel’s might and independence – can be found in hundreds of IDF offices these days.Most of the pictures were given out personally by Maj.- Gen. (res.) Elazar Shkedy, the former IAF commander who stepped down in 2008. Shkedy wrote on all of them: “To remember. Not to forget. To rely only on ourselves.”That message resonates even louder today as Israel faces a daunting dilemma – to allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon, or to embark on possibly one of the most difficult military operations in its history and try to bomb its nuclear facilities.Contrary to some media reports over the past month, the opinions of Eshel and his main contender Maj.-Gen. Yohanan Locker on Iran were irrelevant in the debate over who should be appointed the next IAF commander. Whether they view Iran as an existential threat or not is not something that played a role in deciding who would be tapped for the job.What is important, though, is what Eshel thinks about the viability of such a strike and whether it can succeed. One former IAF commander recently recalled the internal military and political debates ahead of Israel’s 1981 bombing of Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor.Eshel’s term as IAF commander will be marked by the way Israel deals with Iran, but his challenges will not end in Tehran.The Middle East is in the throes of a historic upheaval and from April, Eshel will, once again, be Israel’s lead pilot.Read the full story here.

• Former German president to honor anti-Semitic pastor.(JPost).BERLIN – Roman Herzog, the president of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1994 to 1999, is slated to deliver a speech next week in honor of Reverend Mitri Raheb, a fiercely anti-Israel Palestinian Lutheran leader in Bethlehem who has argued that Jews have no right to be present in Israel.The decision by Herzog and Media Control, a German NGO, to praise Raheb has sparked criticism from US and Israeli NGOs. In a statement on Sunday, the Simon Wiesenthal Center urged Herzog to cancel his keynote address at the event.According to a letter sent to Herzog from the center’s associate dean, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, “Pastor Raheb consistently has used theological garb to cover an extremist political agenda to demonize the Jewish people.”Media Control, the German group, justified the award to Raheb because his “acts are a symbol of humanity.”The Wiesenthal Center, however, wrote, “In speeches given to various religious symposia and church summits (including the infamous 2004 US Presbyterian assembly that approved a boycott and divestment campaign against Israel), Raheb promoted a ‘Palestinian Theology’ that purports that Jews are not the Chosen People and therefore have no right to the Holy Land.”According to the Wiesenthal Center, Raheb said in a March 2010 address that “actually, the Palestinian Christians are the only ones in the world that, when they speak about their forefathers, they mean their actual forefathers, and also the forefathers in the faith… So, that is the reality of the peoples of the land. Again, they aren’t Israel. This experience I’m talking about, it’s only the Palestinians who understand this, because Israel represents Rome… It was our forefathers to whom the revelation was given.”According to NGO Monitor, “The Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb represents the antithesis of building peace and mutual understanding in the Middle East. He is a board member of Kairos Palestine, whose guiding document calls for BDS [boycotts, divestment and sanctions] against Israel, advances the Christian theological doctrine of supercessionism and denies the Jewish historical connection to Israel. The document also ignores the extreme harassment and violence committed against Palestinian Christians by Palestinian Muslims.”The organization added that “Raheb is a board member of ICCO, an intermediary funding channel for the Dutch government. As part of its support of radical projects related to the Arab-Israeli conflict, ICCO funds the anti-Semitic Electronic Intifada, which supports BDS and repeatedly uses anti-Semitic rhetoric that demonizes Israel. ICCO also funds Badil, an NGO also involved with anti-Semitic incidents, as well as demonizing language such as: ‘Israel’s colonial apartheid regime,’ ‘state-sponsored racism’ and ‘systematic ethnic cleansing.’” Both Badil and ICCO had their funds slashed because of their opposition to the Jewish state.“It is an outrage that the organizers of the German Media Prize would bestow their highest honor on a religious bigot who is re-introducing Replacement Theology to delegitimize the Jewish people and its right to pursue its spiritual and national destiny,” said Rabbi Cooper.Read the full story here.

• Iran warns neighbors not to facilitate strike.(JPost).TEHRAN - Iran will attack any country whose territory is used by "enemies" of the Islamic state to launch a military strike against its soil, the deputy head of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards told the semi-official Fars news agency on Sunday."Any spot used by the enemy for hostile operations against Iran, will be subjected to retaliatory aggression by our armed forces," Hossein Salami said, during military maneuvers.The Revolutionary Guards began the two-day ground exercises on Saturday as a show of military might as tension rises between Tehran and the West over Iran's disputed nuclear program.Iranian media said it was a small-scale exercise in southern Iran.The United States and Israel have not ruled out a military strike against the country if diplomacy fails to resolve the standoff. Iran says its nuclear program is purely peaceful, rather than aimed at developing weapons.Iran has warned that its response to any such strike will be "painful," threatening to target Israel, and US bases in the Gulf, along with closing the vital oil shipping route of the Strait of Hormuz.Read the full story here.

• Saudi Arabia blocks Iranian leader’s website.(E24/7).Saudi Arabia has blocked the website of Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei for security reasons, a newspaper in the Gulf kingdom said on Monday.The Telecommunications and Information Technology Authority (TITA), the country’s telecom regulatory body, blocked access to the website, which is titled “The office of the supreme leader.”“TITA moved to block access to this website as part of its ongoing efforts to protect internet users against sites that promote vice or seek to destabilize national security,” the Arabic language daily Sabq said.Saudi Arabia and Iran have been at political and ideological loggerheads for several years.Hmmm...."Promoting vice"?Read the full story here.

• Swiss investigate Turkish minister for denying 'Armenian genocide'.(HD).A Swiss prosecutor has launched a probe into Turkish EU Minister Egemen Bağış for saying "the Armenian genocide doesn't exist," Hürriyet reported."There is no Armenian genocide. Let them arrest me," Bağış said last week following a question from a French reporter on the 1915 killings.Zurich public prosecutor Christine Braunschweig confirmed the probe and told Doğan news agency that they were looking into whether or not Bağış had said the words."We will look into Minister Egemen Bağış' immunity," Braunschweig further said. "If there is anything illegal and if he does not have the diplomatic immunity, then we will file the lawsuit."Bağış has refused to speak on the matter until the initial probe ends, daily Hürriyet reported.Hmmm....Erdogan"I will not go to Switzerland Anymore in 3..2...1?Read the full story here.

• Iranians bemoan sanctions hardship as vote approaches.(AlArabiya).Each day that he struggles to buy food for his family, vegetable seller Hasan Sharafi shoulders part of the burden of Iran’s defiance of the West over its nuclear program. He can hardly bear it.“Prices are going up every day, life is expensive. I buy chicken or meat once per month. I used to buy it twice per week,” the father of four said in Iran’s central city of Isfahan.“Sometimes I want to kill myself. I feel desperate. I do not earn enough to feed my children.”With just a month to go before a parliamentary election, Iran has been hit hard in recent months by new U.S. and European economic sanctions over its nuclear program, which Tehran says is peaceful but the West says is aimed at making a bomb.In conversations in towns and cities across Iran, people complained of rapidly deteriorating economic conditions, likely to be the main issue in an election that exposes divisions between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and hardline opponents.“My father lost his job because the factory he used to work for 30 years was closed last month. I am so pessimistic. Why is this happening to us?” lamented mathematics student Behnaz in the northern city of Rasht.“I don’t know whether the prices are rising because of sanctions. The only thing that I know is that our lives are ruined. I have no hope for the future.”Such rhetoric resonates with some Iranians, who say they are willing to endure pain to defend a nuclear program that has become a symbol of national pride.“America uses the nuclear issue as an excuse to replace our regime with a puppet regime to control our energy resources. But we will not let them. Nuclear technology is our right and I fully support our leaders’ view. Death to America,” said student Mohammad Reza Khorrami in the northern town of Chalous.But the West is hoping sanctions will turn ordinary Iranians against their leaders, and there are clear signs of discontent. When you ask Iranians about the nuclear issue, many seem to see it as a distraction from the real question of economic hardship.“I am not a politician. I don’t care about the nuclear dispute. Soon, I might not be able to afford food and other basic needs of my children,” said Mitra Zarrabi, a schoolteacher and mother of three.Read the full story here.

• “Lady Bitch Ray” writes doctor thesis about headrag.(CriticalAnalist).(SheikYerMami) The mullahs would have fun with this one: She wears bright red dresses that sport graffiti-like writing with “F*kc Sarazzin” and “C*nt Power” and she gets attention: (Thanks to Politically Incorrect) An Alevite Turkish female who calls herself ‘Lady Ray Bitch’ aka Reyhan Sahin claims she is being misunderstood. She wrote, supported by the deeply red Rosa-Luxemburg foundation, a dissertation titled ”The Meaning of the Islamic Headscarf – a dress-emotive inquiry into Muslim headscarf wearers in Germany”. Next month she wants to attain a doctorate at the deeply red university of Bremen. She already established a publishing firm called “Vagina-Style-Pussyjuice” to publish her ‘work’. Dr Bitch then plans to move on to become ‘professor’ Bitch. So much for successful integration….. Back in the US of A: Hezbo-b*tch in the dock for drunk driving: Ex-Miss USA, Rima Fakih, Meets the Judge For Driving Under Influence. Good thing she’s in the United States and just facing an irate judge rather than a public lashing…Read the full story HERE.