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 Vanuatu 5.1!More info here.

• Are you kidding me?FBI open to US Muslim Brotherhood groups "establishing a committee to review materials used in FBI anti-terrorism training"(AS). And you thought it was bad that the FBI submited to demands to purge counter terrorism materials of jihadic doctrine documentation: Obama disarms FBI counter terror training programs, purges truth about jihadYou ain't seen nothing yet. The Muslim Brotherhood and their jihadist brothers are on the march, emboldened by a pro-jihadist Obama adminstration."FBI officials say they are willing to consider a proposal from a coalition of Muslim and interfaith groups to establish a committee of experts to review materials used in FBI anti-terrorism training."Maybe the Taliban and Al Qaeda can review it as well. Hamas-CAIR is already all over it. Is there any rational man who believes that this makes us safer? Our government is clearly no longer a government by the people and for the people. It is now a government against the people.The Washington Post is reporting:"FBI officials say they are willing to consider a proposal from a coalition of Muslim and interfaith groups to establish a committee of experts to review materials used in FBI anti-terrorism training."“We’re open to the idea, but they need to submit a proposal first,” said Christopher Allen, an FBI spokesman who was in the meeting.Read the full story here.

• Trouble in Obamaland: U.S. May Hit Debt Ceiling Before November Election.(BP).President Obama held out last August for a debt increase that would take him past the November 2012 election. Obama didn't want the voters thinking about his gargantuan deficit spending right before election day. However, President Obama's inability to curtail spending may put him in that very situation anyway. A new study has predicted the government will run out of money again in mid-October.The United States Department of Treasury will reach the the statutory limit it is allowed to borrow money before election day, according to a new study by Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio., former director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget.“Following the contentious debt ceiling last August, President Obama promised that he would take action to address the country’s fiscal crisis. He has failed to do that," Portman said. "In fact, his new budget increases spending and projects that Washington will be hitting the debt ceiling again in mid-October – burning through a $2.1 trillion debt limit increase in just over 14 months."Read the full story here.

• Lawmaker Demands DHS Cease Monitoring of Blogs, Social Media.(Wired).Rep. Jackie Speier (D-California) said Thursday she wants the Department of Homeland Security to cease its social-media and news-monitoring operation.Speaking at a Homeland Security subcommittee hearing, the California lawmaker said she was “outraged” that the agency has hired a contractor to review a variety of social networking sites, including Facebook and Twitter, and that General Dynamics is being tasked with reviewing news sources, blogs and their bylines for all types of articles, including those containing anti-American sentiment and reaction to policy proposals.“This should not be a political operation,” she said.Read the full story here.

• US gets Barak to backtrack and deny Iran has reached nuclear point of no-return.(Debka). By suddenly stating, contrary to all informed estimates, that Iran’s nuclear arms program has not yet reached the point of no return, Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak implied that Israel was in no hurry to strike its nuclear facilities, a message for which Washington has been angling for months.In a Kol Israel interview from Turkey, Thursday, Feb. 16, the defense minister’s pronouncement contradicted every reliable evaluation, including those of Military Intelligence Chief Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi on Feb. 2 and his predecessor Amos Yadlin who wrote on Jan. 26 that Iran had passed the point of no return four or five years ago. But his words were a perfect fit for the recent assertions by US President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta that Israel had not yet made up its mind to attack Iran.Kochavi’s information was detailed: He reported that Iran had amassed 10 kilos of 20-percent enriched uranium and four tons of uranium enriched to 3.5 percent. In his view, nothing remains to stop Iran building a bomb but a decision by its ruler. Once taken, Iran’s nuclear program could produce its first bomb or warhead by the end of this year or early 2013 and four or five by 2015.The defense minister backtracked on a second issue: While noting that Iran was scattering or burying its nuclear facilities to “impede a surgical strike,” he avoided his previous estimate that no more than three to six months were left before all those facilities had been hidden in what he himself called “zones of immunity.Before these changes in outlook, Barak was indirectly criticized by Obama administration officials for underlining the mortal threat to Israel of a nuclear Iran. One official complained, “Israelis are looking at the problem too narrowly.”Why the defense minister suddenly changed course is unclear. It is also hard to know if Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu okayed his radical departure from Israel’s information strategy on the nuclear Iran issue.What is apparent, debkafile’s sources report, is that the change of tune coincides with the reports circulating in Washington and Jerusalem that the US and Iran have agreed to resume nuclear talks shortly. Those sources point to an article in the New York Times by Dennis Ross, President Obama’s former senior adviser on Iran, entitled “Iran is ready to talk.” Ross is too experienced to go out on a limb and make this sort of statement without being sure of his facts.Hmmmmm........"Trust me said the scorpion to the frog".Read the full story here.

• 'Homs hit with an average of 4 rockets a minute'.(JPost).Syrian President Bashar Assad continued his bloody crackdown on protesters on Friday, marking the 14 days of heavy shelling in Homs. According to activist Hadi Abdullah, Friday's violence is the "the like of which we have never seen before, with an average of four rockets every minute,” AFP reported.In a telephone conversation with the Al Arabiya paper, Abdullah explained that the city's shelters were over-crowded with residents fleeing the indiscriminate bombardment. On Thursday, the 193-nation UN General Assembly ratcheted up the pressure on Assad by overwhelmingly approving a resolution that endorses an Arab League plan calling for him to step aside.Russia and China were among those opposing the resolution, which was drafted by Saudi Arabia and submitted by Egypt on behalf of Arab UN delegations. Unlike in the Security Council, there are no vetoes in the General Assembly, and its decisions lack the legal force of council resolutions.Read the full story here.

• Afghan government involved in U.S.-Taliban peace dialogue, says Karzai.(AlArabiya).The Afghan government is part of a three-way peace dialogue involving the U.S. and the Taliban, President Hamid Karzai reportedly said, despite the militia’s denunciation of his “puppet regime.”Kabul has expressed fear of being marginalized as United States officials explore a dialogue with the Islamist Taliban, who in turn have said they have no intention to talk to the president’s U.S.-backed government.But in an interview with the Wall Street Journal published Thursday, Karzai said the Afghan government was indeed involved in the dialogue and that most Taliban were “definitively” interested in a peace deal as foreign troops exit.“There have been contacts between the U.S. government and the Taliban, there have been contacts between the Afghan government and the Taliban, and there have been some contacts that we have made, all of us together, including the Taliban,” Karzai was quoted as saying in the interview, conducted Wednesday.The president, who is due to hold summit talks in Islamabad with leaders of Pakistan and Iran on Thursday, did not give any further details about the contacts.Karzai did not mention any Pakistani involvement in the Taliban dialogue, but said the cooperation of Afghanistan’s fractious neighbor “would make the whole matter easier for us, for the Taliban, and for the U.S.”The Taliban said last month that they planned to set up a political office in Qatar ahead of possible formal talks with the United States. Afghan and U.S. officials have said that exploratory contacts are already underway.To build confidence, President Barack Obama’s administration has confirmed tentative talks with the Taliban on a possible transfer of five inmates from Guantanamo Bay to Qatar, and on potential local ceasefires with the militia.The nascent dialogue comes as the United States and its foreign allies prepare to draw down their combat troop presence and hand full control of Afghanistan’s security to Afghan forces by the end of 2014.The Taliban have often decried Karzai’s government as a “puppet regime” propped up by foreign troops and cash, but the president dismissed such talk as rhetoric.In the interview, he said the Taliban might even accept a peace deal that allows for the long-term presence of U.S. troops.Afghanistan could give ground on the question of legal immunity for U.S. personnel in Afghanistan, he said, a stumbling block that prevented a similar strategic pact between the United States and Iraq last year.“That’s an issue that we can discuss,” the president told the Wall Street Journal. “We want a partnership with America. And we will do all we can to make that possible.” Read the full story here.

• Egyptian preacher wants end to U.S. “humiliation” by replacing aid with local donations.(ALArabiya).Egyptian Salafist preacher Mohammed Hassan has called for the replacement of U.S. aid to Egypt with local donations, Egyptian daily Al-Ahram reported on Wednesday.Egypt receives around $1.3 billion annually in military aid from the U.S. government but Washington has threatened to cut off the flow of money after Cairo charged 43 activists, including 19 Americans, with violating laws regulating the operation of NGOs.Accusations against the activists include working for organizations not properly registered in Egypt and receiving foreign funds illegally.Egypt, as one of the main recipients of U.S. aid worldwide receives military assistance in the form of arms and services including maintenance.Hassan explained that his idea comes in response to what he called American “humiliation” of Egypt.“If America wants to cut military aid, very well; Egypt isn’t less than Iran which is self-dependent when it comes to producing its own military equipment,” Hassan said. “The Egyptian people will not be broken anymore.”Hassan received support for his statement by two Islamist lawmakers, Mohamed Selim El-Awwa ad Abdel Moneim Aboul Foutuh.Aboul Foutuh was quoted as saying that the aid served U.S. interests rather than being granted for charity purposes.Meanwhile El-Awwa said Hassan’s initiative would prevent interference in Egypt’s internal affairs.On Tuesday the dispute further escalated when state-run Egyptian newspapers accused the U.S. of spreading anarchy.Based on remarks by Minster of International Cooperation Faiza Abul Naga, Al Gomhuria newspaper declared on its front page “American is behind the anarchy.”While the front page of Al Ahram newspaper read “American funding aims to spread anarchy in Egypt.”In her remarks made in October but revealed only this week, Abul Naga linked between what she saw as the surge in U.S. funding for civil society groups in 2011 and the attempt to steer the course of the post-Hosni Mubarak transition in “a direction that realized American and Israeli interests.”“All the indications show that there was a clear desire to abort any chance for Egypt to emerge as a modern democratic state with a strong economy,” she was quoted as saying by the official MENA news agency, adding that that would be a threat to “American and Israeli interests.”Last week, Egypt’s ruling military council released a statement stressing that relations with the U.S. were government by common interest of both parties and “Egypt does not bow to the domination of anyone.”The Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted on Tuesday to urge Egypt to “immediately cease its intimidation and prosecution” of democracy activists. The chairman of the panel, Senator John Kerry, said lawmakers were “sending a signal that American patience is being tested” in Egypt.The row is one of the worst in over 30 years of close U.S.-Egyptian ties and has complicated Washington’s efforts to establish relations with the military council that took power from Mubarak after his overthrow in a popular revolt a year ago.Read the full story here.

• Israel's Netanyahu PM in Cyprus: sanctions on Iran not working.(JPost).NICOSIA - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s tour of Iranian centrifuges halls Wednesday is an indication that the worlds sanctions against Iran are not working, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Thursday.Netanyahu’s comments came during a press conference in Nicosia with Cypriot President Demetris Christofias.“If anybody needed a reminder that the sanctions have not stopped the nuclear program, it was the guided tour by the Iran’s president in the centrifuge hall yesterday," he said. “I hope they work, but so far they have not."Netanyahu characterized Iran as a regime that “breaks all the rules." A regime that was formed through the taking of the US embassy in Tehran, Iran -- Netanyahu said -- has ever since continued to show no respect for international rules. The most recent example, he said, was attacking foreign diplomats and their wives.“They send children into mine fields, they have suicide bombers, they send tens of thousands of rockets into our cites and towns," Netanyahu said. “Such a regime should obviously not have an atomic bomb, and I believe that the international community is becoming aware by the day of what it means for Iran” to have nuclear potential, he said.Asked about whether the US should fear an Israeli attack on Iran, Netanyahu said that Israel, the US and the rest of the world should be concerned about Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.Read the full story here.

• Online Jihadi Incites American Muslims To Lone Wolf Attacks, Recommends Following 'Inspire' Magazine and Fort Hood Shooter Nidal Hasan; Says: 'Mujahid Can Carry Weapons, Enter Public Places Where There Are Christians, And Kill'.(Memri).On February 10, 2012, a member of the Shumoukh Al-Islam jihadi forum, "Abu Asma' Al-Cubi" ("the Cuban") posted an article detailing how Muslims living in the West, particularly in the U.S., can aid the global jihadi movement and can weaken the U.S. from within.Al-Cubi writes that it has become clear to all that the two main forces operating in the geopolitical and ideological arenas are Al-Qaeda and its supporters on the one hand, and the U.S. and its allies on the other. Referring to Al-Qaeda as a "hidden phenomenon," he says that the organization has proven itself to be the force that is the stronger and more united of the two, especially after it defeated the U.S. and its allies in Afghanistan and Iraq.Read the full story here.