Turkish Internet servers reeling under huge cyber-attack by unknown assailants.

Turkish Internet servers reeling under huge cyber-attack by unknown assailants. (ToI).

Experts unable to identify source of hack, but newspaper reports suggest Russia may be behind it.

ANKARA, Turkey — Turkish Internet servers are suffering a powerful cyber-attack, slowing banking services and fanning fears that it could be a politically motivated attack from abroad.

Nic.tr, a non-governmental organization that administers addresses for websites using the “tr” domain, said Thursday that the attack appeared to be from “organized sources” outside Turkey.

Transport and Communications Minister Binali Yildirim called it a “serious” attack and asked an Ankara-based university to beef up security measures, saying they were “insufficient.”

Banking sources said the attack has seriously disrupted transactions.

Experts have been unable to identify the source of the attack.

Some newspapers said it could have originated in Russia, citing fraught bilateral relations since the downing by Turkey of a Russian fighter jet last month on the Syrian border.

According to local media, the Anonymous hacking group posted a message saying it would continue to attack Turkey for “supporting the Islamic State by buying their oil and tending to their injured fighters.”

Anonymous takes credit for massive cyberattack on Turkey: https://t.co/BDPRcuoFtA pic.twitter.com/Uj3uZjB4Mx

— The Hill (@thehill) December 25, 2015

ISIS advances in the DeepWeb among Bitcoin and darknets

ISIS advances in the DeepWeb among Bitcoin and darknets. (securityaffairs).

The Dark Web is a privileged environment for cyber criminals and state-sponsored hackers due to the anonymity offered by its services.

Unfortunately, another category of threat actors is exploiting the deep web, the terrorists, for this reason, the US intelligence plans to dive in the principal Darknets and explore the main hidden services to raise money and make propaganda in search of new followers to recruit.

The Dark Web is difficult to monitor for intelligence agencies and it is not so easy to locate members of terrorist organizations like the ISIS that share propaganda content. In the principal black markets hosted on the deep web it is possible to purchase any kind of illegal product and service, but in the dark part of the web it is possible to find propaganda videos and images.

Hidden services in the Deep Web also offer the possibility to download the mobile apps used by the jihadists to communicate securely and to transfer Bitcoins to terrorist cells in every place of the world.

“What keeps me up at night when I am thinking about digital currency…the real threats out there, these days we’re thinking a lot about ISIL,” Calvery declared. “How they’re moving their money, and how potential US-based individuals are becoming foreign fighters: Are they moving their money, can we identify them from the movement of their money? What does it mean if they start moving their money through bitcoin? We’ve started to see some public articles suggesting that has occurred.” Read the full story here.

'Support your local Terrorist ' - Anonymous OpISIS: CloudFlare refuses to block service to pro-ISIS websites.

'Support your local Terrorist' - Anonymous OpISIS: CloudFlare refuses to block service to pro-ISIS websites. (IBT).

Web hosting and cybersecurity firms in the US and UK have responded to revelations provided by the hacktivist group Anonymous that their services are being used by Islamic State (Isis) to spread online propaganda.

A list of pro-Isis websites and their corresponding web hosts compiled by members of the Anonymous faction GhostSec included Google, Yahoo! and GoDaddy. According to GhostSec, "by far the largest offender" was CloudFlare.

Speaking with IBTimes UK, co-founder and CEO of CloudFlare, Matthew Prince, said that his company would not be blocking its service to websites listed, as it would mean submitting to "mob rule".

"Individuals have decided that there is content they disagree with but the right way to deal with this is to follow the established law enforcement procedures. There is no society on Earth that tolerates mob rule because the mob is fickle," Prince said.

The criticism against CloudFlare includes claims that it is accepting blood money, however Prince believes that the sites listed use the firm's free service and that its position is not financially motivated.

A campaign has even been set up against CloudFlare accusing it of encouraging illegality by allowing criminals to hide behind their servers.

"I don't approve of this because DoS attacks are illegal," Daniel Brandt, founder of CrimeFlare, told IBTimes UK. "On the other hand, CloudFlare is notoriously arrogant and unresponsive to legitimate complaints, and I understand why some Op Isis supporters feel that they have to resort to this."Hmmmm......An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law. - Martin Luther King, Jr. Read the full story here.

Whatever happened to sanctions for  'Supporting terrorist organisations'?

Two activists “evict” Jesus from the Grande Place nativity scene in Brussels.

Two activists from the Anonymous collective “evict” Jesus from the Grande Place nativity scene in Brussels. (BT).

Two activists from the Anonymous collective, a group that presents itself as anarchic-poetic, entered the Grande Place nativity scene on Tuesday afternoon to symbolically evict the occupants.

Disguised as police officers, they wanted to denounce the Michel government’s policies. “We evicted a poor family who were probably illegal refugees.

They had been insolently squatting on our cherished Grande Place. Through this ironic gesture, we want to show our support for the Michel government and its new measures to punish those really responsible for the economic crisis”, said an Anonymous activist.

“We approve the government’s very therapeutic persecution of the unemployed, because although there is only one job available for 60 unemployed, we all know they are unemployed on purpose. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. We also applaud the criminalization of social movements”, he added.

“We are for a modern government that isn’t scared to say its right-wing, that it will be all against all, that the last will be the last. That solidarity and craftsmanship are finished. A government that listens to multinational companies’ plans to make an even more market-based and dissocialized town.

A government that supports the enlargement of the wonderful global European market. And to finish, lets the rich lull about in their tax havens. It was about time”, he concluded.

Video - Anonymous campaign against IS : to Qatar, Turkey & Saudi Arabia "you will not escape our wrath"

Video - North Korean sites hacked by Anonymous.

Video - North Korean sites hacked by Anonymous. HT: SunNewsNetwork.The notorious hacker collective Anonymous has taken credit for a number of successful attacks against North Korean websites.

The state-controlled news site Uriminzokkiri was offline as of Thursday morning. Its Twitter account was taken over, posting links to other North Korean sites that were taken offline, including Air Koryo, the country's airline.

Uriminzokkiri's Flickr page was filled with unofficial pictures Thursday, including one depicting leader Kim Jong-un as a pig, one that said "We are Anonymous," and images of the iconic Guy Fawkes mask that serves as the hacker group's logo.

According to North Korea Tech, a Japanese site that monitors the state of technology in the censorship-heavy dictatorship, Anonymous has claimed responsibility for the attacks and has posted a list of 9,000 registered Uriminzokkiri users.

Very few people in North Korea have access to the Internet. The attacks comes as the reclusive nation ramps up its nuclear production and threatens the U.S. and South Korea.Read the full story here.

'Anonymous Korea' claim taking down N.Korean govt websites.

'Anonymous Korea' claim taking down N.Korean govt websites.(RT).

Follow events as they unfold with RT’s live updates.

The hacktivist group Anonymous_Korea published a list of the five government websites they claimed to have put out of action on their Twitter feed under the hash tag 'Tangodown.'

The sites included the Korean and English language versions of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the North Korean Committee for Cultural Relations and the state-owned airline Air Koryo.

The group later tweeted the attack was still under way, but they had not managed to bring down The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s site.

#OpNorthKorea- It is still attacking, however korea-dpr.com is still up. All others are #TangoDown"
— Anonymous_Korea (@Anonsj) March 30, 2013

Pyongyang stepped up its warmongering rhetoric on Friday night and declared it was “entering a state of war” with its southern neighbor.
“From this time on, the North-South relations will be entering the state of war and all issues raised between the North and the South will be handled accordingly,” a special statement by the country’s top military command reads, according to KCNA state news agency.Read the full story here.

March 31: Operation Global Blackout: Anonymous Hackers Intend to Shut Down the Internet by Disabling Core DNS Servers.

March 31: Operation Global Blackout: Anonymous Hackers Intend to Shut Down the Internet by Disabling Core DNS Servers.(SHTF).By Dan Graziano.The hacking group known as Anonymous intends to attack the core servers that control the routing of all internet traffic. DNS, or Domain Name Servers, are a critical backbone of the web and make it possible for internet surfers to reach web site destinations by typing in a domain name in their browsers. Once a particular web site is requested, a query is sent to a domain name server, which then redirects that web address to a specific IP address on the web. Without these servers, access to web sites through traditional means (typing in a ‘dot com’) becomes impossible, because there is no way to direct the traffic to the appropriate web site destination.
According to a statement released by Anonymous, it is these servers that will come under fire on Saturday, March 31. Anonymous says they do not intend to ‘kill’ the internet completely, but rather, the end game of Operation Blackout 2012 is a temporary take down of the internet where “it hurts most.” According to the group, the operation is being carried out to protest SOPA, Wallstreet, our irresponsible leaders and the beloved bankers who are starving the world for their own selfish needs out of sheer sadistic fun, on March 31, anonymous will shut the Internet down,” the group stated last month. “Remember, this is a protest, we are not trying to ‘kill’ the Internet we are only temporarily shutting it down where it hurts the most.” Read the full story here.


 

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 Indonesia 5.7 - 5.5 ; Solomon Islands 5.2 !More info here.

• Andrew Breitbart At CPAC, “I Have Videos” of Obama From His College Day.(TT).Andrew Breitbart took the podium at CPAC Friday afternoon, introduced to the stage with Rage Against The Machine’s Guerilla Radio, and revealed to the audience he had “videos” of Barack Obama from his college days. “I have videos, this election we’re going to vet him,” Breitbart disclosed to raucous applause. “We are going to vet him from his college days to show you why racial division and class warfare are central to what hope and change was sold in 2008.”Read the full story here.

• Voices of Opposition Speak Out Against Obama’s Contraception Mandate ‘Accommodation’.(Heritage).That’s the near-unanimous response to President Obama’s supposed “accommodation” offered to those who objected to Obamacare’s mandate that religious institutions pay for contraceptive products and services—including abortion-inducing drugs.That mandate — which tramples heavily on religious liberties — drew tremendous fire across the board, from Christians and Jews alike, drowning the President in a political maelstrom of his own design. And though today the President sought to calm that storm with a “compromise,” the voices of opposition are as strong as ever because, quite simply, it doesn’t remedy the moral and religious liberty objections to this mandate, and as a practical matter, it simply doesn’t work.Here’s a roundup of the reactions:Former Vatican Ambassador Mary Ann Glendon, Princeton Prof. Robert George, Notre Dame Law Prof. Carter Snead, Catholic University of America President John Garvey, and EPPC Fellow Yuval Levin wrote: This so-called “accommodation” changes nothing of moral substance and fails to remove the assault on religious liberty and the rights of conscience which gave rise to the controversy. It is certainly no compromise. The reason for the original bipartisan uproar was the administration’s insistence that religious employers, be they institutions or individuals, provide insurance that covered services they regard as gravely immoral and unjust. Under the new rule, the government still coerces religious institutions and individuals to purchase insurance policies that include the very same services…It is morally obtuse for the administration to suggest (as it does) that this is a meaningful accommodation of religious liberty because the insurance company will be the one to inform the employee that she is entitled to the embryo-destroying “five day after pill” pursuant to the insurance contract purchased by the religious employer. It does not matter who explains the terms of the policy purchased by the religiously affiliated or observant employer. What matters is what services the policy covers.The Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty noted: It’s not like President Obama has seen the light and is now committed to protecting conscience; he’s trying to, as the New York Times puts it, “shore up support among wavering Democrats, who have also expressed doubt about the rule, along with more liberal religious organizations and charities, who oppose the rule but not as vehemently as the Catholic leadership.”Pro-Life Caucus Chairman Chris Smith weighed in:The so-called new policy is the discredited old policy, dressed up to look like something else. It remains a serious violation of religious freedom. Only the most naïve or gullible would accept this as a change in policy.The newest iteration of Obama’s coercion rule utterly fails because it still forces religious employers and employees who have moral objections to paying for abortion inducing drugs, sterilization and contraception to pay for these things, because it is still the employers who buy the coverage for their employees.Republican Study Committee Chairman Jim Jordan said: This ObamaCare rule still tramples on Americans’ First Amendment right to freedom of religion. It’s a fig leaf, not a compromise. Whether they are affiliated with a church or not, employers will still be forced to pay an insurance company for coverage that includes abortion-inducing drugs.This is not just a problem for church-affiliated hospitals and charities. Under these rules, a small business owner with religious objections to abortion-inducing drugs and contraception must either violate his religious beliefs or violate the law.”And the Alliance Defense Fund wrote:The Obama administration’s rule change doesn’t change anything. Employees will still pay for this coverage. Through this sleight of hand, the administration is forcing indirectly what it can’t do directly. It is still forcing people of faith to subsidize practices and treatments that violate their values, their morals, and their religious beliefs. What’s next? Will the administration force Jewish schools to serve pork because it’s ‘good’ for Jewish students? When you take religious liberty from a few, you take religious liberty from all.The responses go on and on, but perhaps words laid down before the President even made his announcement sum it up best. Archbishop Donald Wuerl, Chuck Colson, and Meir Soloveichik joined forces in the Wall Street Journal this morning to warn of the common peril posed by Obamacare’s mandate for their faith communities: Stories involving a Catholic, a Protestant and a Jew typically end with a punch line. We wish that were the case here, but what brings us together is no laughing matter: the threat now posed by government policy to that basic human freedom, religious liberty.…[U]nder no circumstances should people of faith violate their consciences and discard their most cherished religious beliefs in order to comply with a gravely unjust law.”.Hmmmm......An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr. Read the full story here.

• Egypt bans British woman from leaving country over NGO row.(BM).CAIRO: Egyptian authorities barred a British woman from leaving Egypt on Friday, saying her name was on a list of foreigners working for NGOs in Egypt currently under investigation over receiving foreign funds and “interference in internal political affairs.”The British trainer at the National Democratic Institute (NDI) was stopped from the London-bound plane, however, she was not arrested, bit notified she is barred from traveling pending investigations.The Egyptian authorities barred another 6 Americans from traveling over the past two weeks for the same reason.Tensions have risen between the US, Europe and Egypt after an Egyptian investigation referred 43 NGO workers including 19 Americans and 27 others (European and Egyptian) to trial on charges of “illegally receiving foreign funds for political motives.”The 48-year-old woman is currently under investigation for the same case, and her travel ban was ordered by the Attorney General Abdel Maguid Mahmoud.On Saturday, the state-owned MENA news agency reported that the British Foreign Secretary announced that it is providing assistance to the British woman, which was charged of using illegal funds to stir unrest in Egypt.Read the full story here.

• Obama Gets Hit with Another Religious Freedom Lawsuit.(Heritage).The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty has already filed two lawsuits challenging the Obamacare regulation that requires many religious employers to provide health insurance coverage for sterilization, contraception, and what many people believe are abortion-inducing drugs.Those lawsuits are on behalf of Belmont Abbey College (a Benedictine Catholic college in North Carolina) and Colorado Christian University (a nondenominational Christian university in Colorado).This morning, the Becket Fund sued the Obama Administration again, this time on behalf of Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN), the Catholic television network that was started nearly 30 years ago by a cloistered nun named Mother Angelica in her monastery garage.According to its press release, the network objects to paying for—and refuses to pay for—“contraceptive services and for drugs that destroy human life”:“The federal government cannot force people to violate their religion like this,” said Mark Rienzi, Senior Counsel at the Becket Fund and a constitutional law professor at the Catholic University of America. “Mother Angelica founded EWTN to spread the teachings of the Catholic Church—not to betray them.”EWTN claims it is “the largest religious media network in the world” and transmits programming “24 hours a day to more than 148 million homes in 144 countries and territories.” If EWTN wasn’t already covering the Obama Administration’s “unprecedented” assault on religious freedom before, it seems likely that viewers will be provided ample coverage in the days to come.The Heritage Foundation has repeatedly criticized the Obamacare contraception mandate as a violation of religious freedom. Heritage has also pointed out that the Obama Administration’s actions, though entirely counter to the freedom of religion, “should not be surprising given the nature of the President’s health care law.” Religious freedom goes hand in hand with limited government and with freedom more generally. With intrusions of freedom as broad as those made by the Obamacare legislation, burdens on freedom of religious and moral conscience are likely to follow. Indeed, they have.Read the full story here.

• Southern Baptist leader: Christians should go to jail rather than comply with the Obama administration’s mandate.(BB).(LifeSiteNews.com) — One of the most influential evangelical leaders in the United States says Christians should go to jail rather than comply with the Obama administration’s mandate to provide all contraception, including abortion-inducing drugs, in their health care plans.Dr. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), told LifeSiteNews.com "we will not comply" with the Dept. of Health and Human Services’ mandate requiring religious institutions to cover abortifacient products such as Plan B, Ella, and the IUD."We want the law changed, or else we’re going to write our letters from the Nashville jail, just like Dr. King wrote his from the Birmingham jail," Dr. Land said.Dr. Land wrote an op-ed on Tuesday with Barrett Duke, vice president for public policy and research at ERLC, calling his fellow Southern Baptists and evangelical Christians throughout America to oppose any infringement on the First Amendment. "The Obama administration has declared war on religion and freedom of conscience," they wrote. "We consider this callous requirement by the Obama administration to be a clear violation of our nation's commitment to liberty of conscience and a flagrant violation of our constitutional protection to freedom of religion."Dr. Land told LifeSiteNews he hopes Baptist ministers will "preach from the pulpit just how serious and dangerous this initiative by the Obama administration is," and "encourage their parishioners to contact their congressmen and their senators and the president and let them know how deeply unhappy they are with this decision, and they want…legislation guaranteeing that it won’t happen again.""It is now in the providence of God," Dr. Land said. "Our responsibility is to stand and say, ‘We will not comply with this. We want the law changed, or else we’re going to write our letters from the Nashville jail, just like Dr. King wrote his from the Birmingham jail.’ We will not comply."Dr. Land, who earned a Doctorate of Philosophy from Oxford University, has been named by Time magazine as one of .The Twenty-five Most Influential Evangelicals in America."President Obama’s recess appointment of Chai Feldblum to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) provided an insight to the president’s views, Dr. Land said. Feldblum has said whenever religious rights come into conflict with sexual rights, that sexual rights must prevail. .That’s exactly what’s happening in the Health and Human Services contraceptive and abortifacient directive,. he said. .They are saying that a woman’s right to have free contraceptive services and free abortifacients trumps the deeply held religious convictions of Catholics and Baptists and others. That’s a war on religion.Read the full story here.

• Obama’s Big Non-Concession on Birth Control.(TWHD).By Keith koffler.As far as I can tell, and I admit it’s an early read, the administration’s “compromise” on its policy of forcing Catholic Institutions to provide free birth control is meaningless. Because while it may disconnect the institution’s money from the requirement, it does not disconnect the institution from it.Here’s what Obama did in his announcement today at the White House.The original Obama administration regulation said that Catholic institutions, like Catholic hospitals and others similar concerns, must provide health insurance for their employees that covers birth control for free. Today, Obama said that the Catholic institutions no longer have to pay the insurance plans that provide this coverage, but that the insurers the instituions are using will be forced to reach out separately to employees and offer it the birth control coverage directly to them.The employees could then effectively contract directly with the insurer to get the contraceptives for free.Here’s the problem. It’s all still part of the package being offered by the institution. Catholic groups are offering a plan that gives employees a chance to get free birth control coverage. They get it as a result of their insurance from their Catholic employer. They don’t get it if they work for an employer who does not provide insurance.Let me put it this way. Say the Obama administration originally mandated that you must invite a drug dealer into your home and required that you must pay him to provide your family with free heroin. But then say he changed the mandate and said, okay, you still have to invite the drug dealer into your home, but instead of you paying him, your individual family members can freely choose to have him give them free heroin.You see? You’re still being forced to have a drug dealer in your home handing out heroin.Obama is not providing a concession. He’s providing a fig leaf. The Catholic Bishops will never take it, nor should they.Hmmm.....When Pres. Obama says, "Everyone plays by the same set of rules," it means they conform to his rules. Read the full story here.

• US Disarmament Expert, 'The Risk that Nuclear Weapons Will Be Used Is Growing'.(Spiegel).Anxieties are mounting as nuclear weapons make their way into unstable regions. In a SPIEGEL ONLINE interview, US disarmament expert Richard Burt discusses the growing risk of their use, why allowing Iran to get the bomb could trigger a Sunni-Shiite arms race and how an attack could make citizens demand a police state.Read the full story here.

• Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: Iran to Unveil New Achievements in Nuclear Technology Soon.(FNA).TEHRAN - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced on Saturday that the country plans to unveil a series of big new achievements in nuclear technology in coming days."The world will witness inauguration of a number of big achievements in the field of nuclear (technology) in coming days," Ahmadinejad said, addressing millions of enthusiastic demonstrators in Tehran who had flocked to the streets to celebrate the 33rd anniversary of the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. He also underlined that the country's progress and advancement in the field of nuclear technology was achieved despite the pressures of the world arrogant powers, and added all needs of the Iranian nation to the nuclear technology will be met by Iran's talented scientists in the near future. Tehran stresses that the country has always pursued a civilian path to provide power to the growing number of Iranian population, whose fossil fuel would eventually run dry. Despite the rules enshrined in the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) entitling every member state, including Iran, to the right of uranium enrichment, Tehran is now under three rounds of UN Security Council sanctions for turning down West's illegitimate calls to give up its right of uranium enrichment.A crowd of an estimated 30,000 people in central Tehran cheered Ahmadinejad’s words. Many held aloft placards declaring “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.In pointed messages aimed at those two arch-foes, Iranian officials planted a full-scale model of a captured U.S. spy drone in front of the president’s stage, and hosted on the stage the Hamas prime minister of Gaza.Prominent MP Gholam Reza Mesbahi Moghaddam has lashed out at the President's supporters, saying that he believes in a "deviant current" which aspires to win 180 seats, almost two-thirds of the Majlis. He also warned Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, "I hope the President attend the interrogation session in parliament if not serious actions will be taken."
  Hojatoleslam Sayyed Hamid Rohani, went farther, accusing those around the President of pursuing an "Anjoman Hujjatieh” ideology to increase corruption, accelerating the return of Shi'a's 12th Imam, equated in their eyes to Ahmadinejad: "They want to make a kingdom for themselves and negotiate with enemies behind the scene. They claim they are standing for justice but in reality they have gathered around themselves the thieves of nation money. They are trying to negotiate and a start relationship with the Great Satan through promotion of American Islam in the name of Iranian Islam or Iranian school." Read the full story here.

• Turks torpedo Israel Navy participation in NATO op.(JPost).Turkey has torpedoed an Israeli plan to contribute an Israel Navy missile ship to a NATO mission in the Mediterranean Sea, in what would have been the first time Israel actively participated in one of the Western military alliance’s operations.Diplomatic and defense officials told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday that Turkey had decided to prevent Israeli participation in the long-term operation – called Active Endeavor – following the Israel Navy raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla in 2010 in which nine Turkish nationals were killed.Diplomatic officials said that ever since its success, Turkey had been seeking to scuttle greater Israeli participation in the alliance.NATO launched Operation Active Endeavor in the wake of 9/11 and has succeeded in bringing together a number of countries to patrol the Mediterranean and share information concerning terrorism and suspicious ships.In 2008, Israel sent a navy officer to sit at the operation’s headquarters in Naples and in late 2009, Defense Minister Ehud Barak submitted an official request to NATO to contribute a missile ship to the mission. In 2010, Israel and NATO signed an agreement that was supposed to pave the way for the ship’s participation.“Israel’s navy anyhow patrols the Mediterranean and since we were interested in upgrading our ties with NATO, it made sense to offer to actively participate in the operation,” a senior government official said. “The Turks, though, torpedoed the move and refused to allow one of our ships to join.”While Israel has participated in numerous NATO activities over the past decade, it has never sent troops or navy ships to play an operational role in the military alliance’s operations.While Turkey succeeded in thwarting the navy’s participation in Active Endeavor, it has, however, failed to prevent Israel from upgrading its ties with NATO. Defense officials said this week that the sides were on the verge of signing a new cooperation agreement that would lead to a significant upgrade in relations.As a member of the Mediterranean Dialogue, which was created in 1994 to foster ties with Middle Eastern countries, Israel is frequently invited to participate in NATO workshops and exercises.The senior government official said, though, that the new agreement would enable Israel to participate in top NATO forums even though it is not a full-fledged member of the alliance.Israel is also considering a request by NATO to open an office at its headquarters in Brussels. Defense officials said that the offer was still open and that it was being “positively considered” by the government.Hmmm....NATO should kick out Turkey and replace them with Israel at least they can count on them, unlike Turkey who lately objects to most actions demanded by NATO or the U.S.They refuse actions against Iran but would drag NATO in a war with Syria.Read the full story here.

• Syrian Armored Forces Move Nearer to Israel.(VOC).According to reports from the Free Syria Army, the Syrian military has moved forces stationed in the southern part of the Syrian Golan Heights closer to Israel.The Syrian military did not come close to the border with Israel. However, armored forces that were stationed along the Syria-Jordan border, which were recently reinforced, were moved and are now closer to Israel, according to the report.The Free Syria Army is the largest opposition group in Syria and is partly made up of defectors from the official Syrian Army.Israel has been concerned that Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad, whose regime is on the verge of collapse, may try to defuse the uprising against him by starting a conflict with Israel.A Lebanese newspaper, The People’s Army, claimed Thursday in its news website that the IDF has been making an extra effort in the past few days to place landmines all along its border with Syria.Hundreds of Israeli soldiers are reportedly working at lining the border with mines. Israel had already placed mines along some stretches of the border with Syria after the Nakba Day events last year, in which hundreds of Syrians broke into Israel virtually unimpeded. The action had been orchestrated by the Syrian government, later reports showed.Hmmmm......30 Th of March the day of assault on Israel.Read the full story here.

• Hamas will never acknowledge Israel, says Haniyeh.(BM).Tehran (dpa) – Hamas would never acknowledge the Israeli state, said Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of the Palestinian movement in Gaza, on Friday in Tehran.“They (West) want from us to stop resistance and acknowledge Israel but I herewith announce that this will never happen,” Haniyeh said though an interpreter at a ceremony marking the 33rd anniversary of the 1979 Iranian revolution.“Our message and the message of all those who lost their blood in the Palestinian lands is that all occupied lands will eventually be liberated from Israeli occupation,” Haniyeh said.He thanked Iran for its constant support for Palestinian resistance groups and called on maintaining unity in the Islamic world.Haniyeh arrived in Tehran on Friday and is to meet President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.Iran, which does not recognize the state of Israel, is a supporter of Hamas but has constantly denied providing any financial and military aid to the movement.Read the full story here.

• Top Pentagon general meets with Egypt’s army rulers; strike fails to attract protesters.(AlArabiya).Egypt’s state news agency says the Pentagon’s top general is visiting the country for security talks with the country’s military rulers, amid tensions between the two allies over charges filed against 16 American civil society workers accused of fomenting unrest.MENA reported Saturday that Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey has met with Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi and several members of the country’s ruling military council, including his Egyptian counterpart Lt. Gen. Sami Anan.The report says that they discussed “the depth of the strategic relationship between Washington and Cairo.”A Pentagon official had said prior to Dempsey’s visit to Cairo that the nonprofit dispute would be raised in the meeting and that he would talk with Egypt’s leaders about “choices and consequences.”On Friday, Egypt’s military rulers warned in statement that the country faces conspiracies that seek to topple the state and spread chaos.“Never will we bow to threats, nor succumb to pressures, nor accept ultimatums,” it said.Hmmmm.......As i said yesterday:"Come to think of it....How about the U.S. sale of 125 - M1A1 Abrams tanks to Egypt?".Read the full story here.

• I am not Anonymous!(AM).CIA website hacked by "Anonymous".The website of the Central Intelligence Agency was unresponsive on Friday after the hacker group Anonymous claimed to have knocked it offline."CIA Tango down," a member of Anonymous said on @YourAnonNews, a Twitter feed used by the group. "Tango down" is an expression used by the US Special Forces when they have eliminated an enemy.Attempts to access the CIA website at cia.gov were unsuccessful.A CIA spokesman had no immediate comment.Anonymous last month briefly knocked the websites of the US Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation offline.Those attacks were in retaliation for the US shutdown of file-sharing site Megaupload.There was no immediate explanation from Anonymous for the targeting of the CIA site.Most Anonymous cyberattacks are distributed denial of service attacks in which a large number of computers are commanded to simultaneously visit a website, overwhelming its servers.Read the full story here.

• UK - Muslim fanatics who called for execution of gays and wanted to set up a 'medieval state' under Sharia law in Derby are jailed for up to two years.(DM).Three Muslim extremists who handed out leaflets calling for homosexuals to be hanged, stoned and burned to death have been jailed.The group handed out the material in the street as well as posting it through letterboxes in a hate-filled campaign calling for the execution of gay people who they claimed were at the root of society’s problems.Ihjaz Ali, Kabir Ahmed and Razwan Javed are the first to be prosecuted under new laws against inciting hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation. Ali was jailed for two years and Ahmed and Javed for 15 months each.Sentencing the men today, Judge John Burgess, Recorder of Derby, told them: 'You have been convicted of intending to stir up hatred.'It follows that your intention was to do great harm in a peaceful community.'He went on: 'Much has been said during the course of this trial about freedom of expression, and the freedom to preach strongly held beliefs; beliefs, which may have some foundation in scripture.'Freedom of speech is a cornerstone of democracy and a basic ingredient of any free society. Parliament clearly had this very much in mind when this legislation was passed.'Last month the trio were found guilty at Derby Crown Court. Residents had told of how the three fundamentalists wanted to transform their small area of Derby into a 'medieval state' under Sharia law.Anyone who dared to question their extreme agenda was branded an 'M15 agent' or a 'sell-out,' they said.It emerged that:

1. Muslim fanatic and hate preacher Anjem Choudary was secretly invited by the group's ringleader, Ihjaz Ali, for a series of meetings in Derby;
2. The group had links with the extremist organisation Al-Muhajiroun, which is banned under UK anti-terror laws;
3. Moderate Muslim leaders who spoke out against the group's activities were targeted in a hate campaign in which their faces were printed on 'wanted' posters;
4.  Police had to be called during local elections because the group's supporters were standing guard at polling stations, ordering Muslims not to vote.One gay resident summed up the atmosphere in the area.‘It used to be lovely round here,’ he said. ‘Now, because of these people, you don’t feel safe. I don’t have any problems with Muslims. But these lot need to realise we live in England, not some Islamic state.’Read and see (Video) the full story here.

• Iran Using Gold and Oil to Surpass U.S. Sanctions.(BigPeace).Since U.S. sanctions have dramatically cut the Islamic Republic’s ability to obtain financing via the dollar and euro, Tehran is aiming to use gold to deal in the world market. The republic is seeking to evade sanctions imposed by the United States, which were implemented earlier this year as a deterrent to continue building its nuclear program.According to a Thursday Reuters report, Iran has also used yen to buy large volumes of wheat and has already purchased a minimum of 200,000 tons of wheat on the soft market, mostly from Australia.According to a Christian Science Monitor Report:  Iran, which is still in the market to buy additional wheat supplies, is also considering barter deals to feed its 74 million people weeks before a presidential election, they said.Grain ships are stuck outside Iranian ports and exports of staples to Iran such as maize, sugar, palm oil and rice are being hindered as collecting payment from buyers gets harder.“Grain deals are being paid for in gold bullion and barter deals involving oil are being offered,” one trader said. “Some of the major trading houses are involved,” he added.Traders said details of how barter deals work were still unclear as the problem had developed so quickly.Iranian buyers have in the past side-stepped sanctions by booking business through third countries, especially Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, traders said. But this option had been suddenly closed as the UAE was not allowing sanction-breaking finance, they said.“As the shipments of grain are so large, barter or gold payments are the quickest option,” another trader said.Friday morning the Associated Press reported that despite US pressure to comply with American sanctions, the Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh was insisting that diplomacy was the best way to deal with Iran.Hmmm.......Notice how not a single paper points out Turkey's role in this.Read the full story here.

• Russians Rally for Kuril Islands.(RN).More than 4,000 people rallied in Russia’s Far East on Saturday in support of the country’s claim to the disputed Kuril islands in the Pacific Ocean, police said.Demonstrators in the port town of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk called for Russia to take a tougher stance in the decades-long dispute with Japan over the four islands, which were occupied by Soviet troops at the end of World War II.  The dispute has stopped the two countries from signing a peace treaty.On Tuesday, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said Japan was determined to “move ahead with negotiations.”He was speaking during a protest rally was held in Tokyo to demand the return of the islands, known as the Northern Territories in Japan.  Russian President Dmitry Medvedev sparked a diplomatic row with Tokyo in November 2010 by making the first ever visit by a Russian leader to the islands.He later said Russia would increase its military presence there. Japan’s then prime minister Naoto Kan called Medvedev’s visit an “inexcusable rudeness.”Read the full story here.

• Iranian Navy Receives 2 Light Submarines.(RN).The Iranian Navy has commissioned two Ghadir class diesel-electric submarines to boost Iran’s naval capability, official IRNA news agency reported.IRNA cited Navy Commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari as saying that the submarines were built and equipped by domestic manufacturers.The 120-ton Ghadir class submarines are highly maneuverable and best suited for missions in shallow waters. They are equipped with at least two torpedo tubes and feature elements of "stealth" technology.With the addition of two new subs, the number of Ghadir vessels in the Iranian Navy has reached 16. The first submarine of this class was commissioned in 2007.Ghadir class subs have been reportedly designed by Iran on the basis of North Korean Yono class vessels.In addition to Ghadirs, the Iranian Navy has three Soviet-built Kilo class submarines and a domestically-built Nahang sub.Read the full story here.

Anonymous Message To The State of Israel.

MFS - The Other News

                    Morning Posting.

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity situation Guam 5.7; Turkey 5.6; Indonesia 5.5 - 5.2 ; Russia 5.2;  !More info here.

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

• David Axelrod's pattern of sexual misbehaviour.(Yahoo).By Ann Coulter.Herman Cain has spent his life living and working all over the country -- Indiana, Georgia, Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, Washington, D.C. -- but never in Chicago.So it's curious that all the sexual harassment allegations against Cain emanate from Chicago: home of the Daley machine and Obama consigliere David Axelrod.Suspicions had already fallen on Sheila O'Grady, who is close with David Axelrod and went straight from being former Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley's chief of staff to president of the Illinois Restaurant Association (IRA), as being the person who dug up Herman Cain's personnel records from the National Restaurant Association (NRA).The Daley-controlled IRA works hand-in-glove with the NRA. And strangely enough, Cain's short, three-year tenure at the NRA is evidently the only period in his decades-long career during which he's alleged to have been a sexual predator.After O'Grady's name surfaced in connection with the miraculous appearance of Cain's personnel files from the NRA, she issued a Clintonesque denial of any involvement in producing them -- by vigorously denying that she knew Cain when he was at the NRA. (Duh.)And now, after a week of conservative eye-rolling over unspecified, anonymous accusations against Cain, we've suddenly got very specific sexual assault allegations from an all-new accuser out of ... Chicago.Herman Cain has never lived in Chicago. But you know who has? David Axelrod! And guess who lived in Axelrod's very building? Right again: Cain's latest accuser, Sharon Bialek.Bialek's accusations were certainly specific. But they also demonstrated why anonymous accusations are worthless.Within 24 hours of Bialek's press conference, friends and acquaintances of hers stepped forward to say that she's a "gold-digger," that she was constantly in financial trouble -- having filed for personal bankruptcy twice -- and, of course, that she had lived in Axelrod's apartment building at 505 North Lake Shore Drive, where, she admits, she knew the man The New York Times calls Obama's "hired muscle."Throw in some federal tax evasion, and she's Obama's next Cabinet pick. The reason all this is relevant is that both Axelrod and Daley have a history of smearing political opponents by digging up claims of sexual misconduct against them.John Brooks, Chicago's former fire commissioner, filed a lawsuit against Daley six months ago claiming Daley threatened to smear him with sexual harassment accusations if Brooks didn't resign. He resigned -- and the sexual harassment allegations were later found to be completely false.Meanwhile, as extensively detailed in my book "Guilty: Liberal 'Victims' and Their Assault on America," the only reason Obama became a U.S. senator -- allowing him to run for president -- is that David Axelrod pulled sealed divorce records out of a hat, first, against Obama's Democratic primary opponent, and then against Obama's Republican opponent.One month before the 2004 Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate, Obama was way down in the polls, about to lose to Blair Hull, a multimillionaire securities trader.But then The Chicago Tribune -- where Axelrod used to work -- began publishing claims that Hull's second ex-wife, Brenda Sexton, had sought an order of protection against him during their 1998 divorce proceedings.From then until Election Day, Hull was embroiled in fighting the allegation that he was a "wife beater." He and his ex-wife eventually agreed to release their sealed divorce records. His first ex-wife, daughters and nanny defended him at a press conference, swearing he was never violent. During a Democratic debate, Hull was forced to explain that his wife kicked him and he had merely kicked her back.Hull's substantial lead just a month before the primary collapsed with the nonstop media attention to his divorce records. Obama sailed to the front of the pack and won the primary. Hull finished third with 10 percent of the vote.Luckily for Axelrod, Obama's opponent in the general election had also been divorced.The Republican nominee was Jack Ryan, a graduate of Dartmouth and Harvard law and business schools, who had left his lucrative partnership at Goldman Sachs to teach at an inner-city school on the South Side of Chicago.But in a child custody dispute some years earlier, Ryan's ex-wife, Hollywood sex kitten Jeri Lynn Ryan, had alleged that, while the couple was married, Jack had taken her to swingers clubs in Paris and New York.Jack Ryan adamantly denied the allegations. In the interest of protecting their son, he also requested that the records be put permanently under seal.Axelrod's courthouse moles obtained the "sealed" records and, in no time, they were in the hands of every political operative in Chicago. Knowing perfectly well what was in the records, Chicago Tribune attorneys flew to California and requested that the court officially "unseal" them -- over the objections of both Jack and Jeri Ryan.Your honor, who knows what could be in these records! A California judge ordered them unsealed, which allowed newspapers to publish the salacious allegations, and four days later, Ryan dropped out of the race under pressure from idiot Republicans (who should be tracked down and shot).With a last-minute replacement of Alan Keyes as Obama's Republican opponent, Obama was able to set an all-time record in an Illinois Senate election, winning with a 43 percent margin.And that's how Obama became a senator four years after losing a congressional race to Bobby Rush. (In a disastrous turn of events, Rush was not divorced.)Axelrod destroyed the only two men who stood between Obama and the Senate with illicitly obtained, lurid allegations from their pasts.In 2007, long after Obama was safely ensconced in the U.S. Senate, The New York Times reported: "The Tribune reporter who wrote the original piece (on Hull's sealed divorce records) later acknowledged in print that the Obama camp had 'worked aggressively behind the scenes' to push the story."Some had suggested, the Times article continued, that Axelrod had "an even more significant role -- that he leaked the initial story."This time, Obama's little helpers have not only thrown a bomb into the Republican primary, but are hoping to destroy the man who deprives the Democrats of their only argument in 2012: If you oppose Obama, you must be a racist.Read the full story here.

• FEMA/FCC Takeover Test Fails In Certain Areas, Weird Noises Heard In Others.(TheIntelhub).The FEMA/FCC takeover test was scheduled to happen nationwide about 17 minutes ago. Here in Portland we got a warning about 5 minutes before 11am pacific but then the test never happened.I repeat, we got no FEMA test here in Portland. Others on different forums are reporting that it didnt happen in their area either while at the same time many are reporting they did see the test at least for a few seconds.Right now I think its safe to assume the test DID NOT fully work.In Florida, Intel Hub reporter and radio host Bob Tuskin reported strange sounds coming form his radio that he described as a possible form of mind control! Update: A station manager in Florida confirmed the weird noises and diluted voices that Bob Tuskin heard.

Update: It is confirmed that it did not happen in many of the cities throughout the United States.Many people are reporting that they saw a completely different message depending on what part of the country they were in.Others are reporting strange blinking and noises that absolutely could be interpreted as some sort of mind control. There is a high possibility that this whole test or whatever it actually is was meant to confuse the public.

A poster on GodLikeProductions reported some very interesting information out of Tennessee:

guys im not afriad to say that i think youre all fucking nuts about shit all the time BUT…im in tennessee, eastern TN to be exact and we got the first one at the scheduled time, then about 10 mins later all our power clicked off and then right back on, so i turn on the tv and a few minutes afterwards at 2:30 ANOTHER test came on…i got really nervous when the power went out, then i read about ppl in this thread turning there pc’s back on having all kinds of registry errors…

Another report from the same forum is even more interesting:

TV is on . . . I have a DVR, so I can rewind any real-time program.
The show that’s on began at 12:30 am.
I was on pc and heard the EAS alarm sounding, I immediately looked around and saw a screen of print and all I could read was Emergency Alert System and I saw the date of November 9. Then the screen changed to a map of Texas on some news station I did not recognize and the guy started speaking Spanish! Then it went right back to the show that was on.
This all took place in the space of no more than 10 seconds.
So I got the remote to rewind it back so I could read the entire screen . . . and it will not let me rewind BACK beyond the time of 12:53 when the show resumed!

Others are reporting that they actually heard Lady Gaga music playing the background!Hmmm......FEMA?We have a problem.Read and see (Videos) the full story here.

• Republican Leaders are Helping Obama Destroy America.(DocsTalk).By Lawrence Sellin.Theodore Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States as well as an historian, particularly in naval affairs.— “Political parties exist to secure responsible government and to execute the will of the people. From these great tasks both of the old parties have turned aside. Instead of instruments to promote the general welfare they have become the tools of corrupt interests, which use them impartially to serve their selfish purposes. Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics, is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.” President Theodore Roosevelt spoke those words in August 1912. They could have easily been spoken today.Under Barack Obama, the Democrat Party has been transformed into an anti-American and anti-democratic movement funded from international sources, sustained by the ideology of anti-neocolonialism and executed through socialist and dictatorial policies.Obama indeed embraced the “Dreams from his Father.” In a 1965 paper “Problems Facing Our Socialism” published in the East Africa Journal, his Muslim father, Barack Obama Sr., proposed expanding government control, wealth seizure by the state and the confiscation of foreign owned land, all policies closely resembling those eventually implemented by President Robert Mugabe of totalitarian and moribund country of Zimbabwe.As Dinesh D’Souza wrote and the Obama-supported Occupy Wall Street mobs are now violently expressing throughout the country:“From a very young age and through his formative years, Obama learned to see America as a force for global domination and destruction. He came to view America’s military as an instrument of neocolonial occupation. He adopted his father’s position that capitalism and free markets are code words for economic plunder. Obama grew to perceive the rich as an oppressive class, a kind of neocolonial power within America. In his worldview, profits are a measure of how effectively you have ripped off the rest of society, and America’s power in the world is a measure of how selfishly it consumes the globe’s resources and how ruthlessly it bullies and dominates the rest of the planet.”The rich, according to the “Occupy Wall Street” protesters, Obama and the Democrat Party, aren’t paying their “fair share.” This by itself seems odd given that the top 1% of Americans pay 40% of all federal income taxes; the next 9% of income earners pay another 30%. So the top 10% pays 70% of the taxes.As D’Souza notes, Obama’s anti-neocolonialism explains his support for the U.S. Export-Import Bank offer of $2 billion in loans and guarantees to Brazil’s state-owned oil company Petrobras to finance exploration in the Santos Basin near Rio de Janeiro–not so the oil ends up in the U.S., but so that the oil can stay in Brazil.Coincidentally, George Soros invested nearly $1 billion in Petrobras shares for his hedge fund right before the Export-Import Bank announced the loan.Obama’s philosophy also explains why he supports a $100 million mosque near the site where terrorists in the name of Islam brought down the World Trade Center and his directive to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to improve relations with the Muslim world by finding “a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science and math and engineering.”It has never been clear who paid for Obama’s Harvard education, but it is possible, if not likely, that the money came from Saudi Arabia.It was Obama’s friendship with Khalid Abdullah Tariq al-Mansour and his sponsorship of Obama as a prospective Harvard law student, however, that probably helped merge Obama’s innate anti-colonialist views with those of an Islamic and black nationalist.Formerly known as Donald Warden, al-Mansour, an American, was a mentor of Black Panther founders Huey Newton and Bobby Seale in the early 1960s. He changed his name after studying Islam and learning Arabic. He is well known within the black community as a lawyer, an orthodox Muslim, a black nationalist, an author, an international deal-maker, an educator, and an outspoken enemy of Israel. His writings and books are packed with anti-American rhetoric reminiscent of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s disgraced former pastor. Al-Mansour has close ties to Saudi Arabia and is a personal advisor to Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the world’s 19th wealthiest person.Obama’s and the goals of his anti-American fellow travelers can best be achieved by assaulting the Constitution, fostering alternative legal structures like sharia law, economically weakening America to the point of global impotence and fragmenting America into a politically-correct and multicultural society.Those goals have been incorporated into the policies of the Democrat Party, a process which continues without any significant opposition from the Republican Party, both of whose members have become the tools of corrupt interests, which use them impartially to serve their selfish purposes.For over three years the United States has faced its gravest Constitutional crisis since the Civil War and the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on the American people.Yet not a single Republican at the national level has honored his or her oath of office to support and defend the Constitution by calling for an investigation of Obama’s ineligibility for the Presidency or his crimes committed both before and after occupying the Oval Office.Obama is an illegal President who violates the Constitution and openly flouts the rule of law by forging his birth documents and Selective Service registration and uses a Social Security number not issued to him.The evidence is overwhelming that Obama released a forged Certificate of Live Birth on April 27, 2011. A digital document expert has now created a forged duplicate of that long-form birth certificate describing the methodology used to deconstruct the White House document for the purpose of reconstructing the forged version and has made deductions about the alleged forger.Starting in 2008 and continuing today, Obama and the main stream media successfully intimidated the cowardly Republicans by threatening to call them names like “racist” or “birther.”Now the Republicans are complicit in a cover-up of Obama’s crimes.Instead of doing the right thing and working to shatter the unholy alliance perpetuating permanent political corruption, the Republican leadership has decided to do what is politically expedient, perform the role of useful idiots and help Barack Obama further damage the United States.Ambrose Bierce accurately described Washington, D.C. politics in “The Devil’s Dictionary” (1911): as a strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles; the conduct of public affairs for private advantage.The Democrats are hopelessly corrupt, anti-American and beyond salvation. The Republicans have chosen lust for power and greed over love of country.Short of revolution against the corrupt politicians, ordinary Americans still have one remaining potent weapon; withhold their votes for Republican candidates who refuse to support and defend the Constitution by not speaking out against Obama’s ineligibility and crimes.Whether with or without Obama in 2012, if the political leadership continues to subvert the Constitution and disregard the rule of law, national chaos will ensue and armed defense by a citizenry being robbed of its life and liberty by an invisible government will be inevitable.Hmmmm......I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes. ~ Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776.Read the full story here.

• Obama on Record: Supports Internet Regulation.(Cato).By Jim Harper.I’m perplexed by the challenge of referring neutrally to legislation moving through Congress dealing with whether or not the government should regulate Internet service. Work with me as I untangle the Standard Federal Obfuscation™ involved here.The White House has issued a “Statement of Administration Policy” that deals with S.J. Res. 6 (House companion H.J. Res. 37 passed in April.) The bill is a “resolution of disapproval” under the Congressional Review Act. The CRA allows Congress to reject federal regulations for a period of time after they have been finalized. Resolutions like this enjoy expedited procedures in the Senate, making it harder for Senate leadership to stop them moving.The Federal Communications Commission voted in December to apply public-utility-style regulation to the provision of Internet service. Congress is moving to reject the FCC’s claim of authority using the CRA, and the president has now said he will veto Congress’ resolution that does that.Well—the obfuscation continues—actually, the Statement of Administration Policy says “[t]he administration” opposes S.J. Res. 6, and, “If the President is presented with S.J. Res. 6, which would not safeguard the free and open Internet, his senior advisers would recommend that he veto the Resolution.” At some point, it may be an important detail that the president hasn’t promised a veto yet. His advisers have promised to advise him to veto. OK. Whatever. They work for him. It’s a veto threat.But, but,… Would these regulations safeguard a “free and open Internet”? The statement says, “Federal policy has consistently promoted an Internet that is open and facilitates innovation and investment, protects consumer choice, and enables free speech.” In a sense, that’s true: When the engineers at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency created the Internet protocol and when federal policy opened the Internet to commercial use, this made for the open Internet we enjoy today. But it’s not federal policy driving these values today. It’s the Internet itself—all of us. Tim Lee ably pointed this out some years ago in his paper, “The Durable Internet: Preserving Network Neutrality without Regulation.” The marketplace demands an open Internet. If there are deviations from the “end-to-end principle” that serve the public better, the market will permit them. The Internet is not the government’s to regulate.Now, some news reporting has things a little backward. Wired‘s Threat Level blog, for example, carries the headline, “Obama Pledges to Veto Anti-Net Neutrality Legislation.” Headlines need to be short, but it could just as easily and accurately read “Obama Pledges to Veto Anti-Regulation Legislation” because the question is not whether the Internet should be open and neutral, but who should ensure that openness and neutrality. Should neutrality be ensured by market forces—ISPs responding to their customers—or by lawyers and bureaucrats in Washington, D.C.?S.J. Res. 6 would reject the FCC’s claim to regulate the Internet in the name of neutrality. It says nothing about whether or not the Internet should neutral, open, and free. Again, that’s not the government’s call.Did you follow all that? If you didn’t, you don’t need to. Here’s the summary: President Obama has gone on the record: He supports Internet regulation.Hmmm..........Regulation by you...NO, By me ....YES!Read the full story here.

• Supreme Court Considers Constitutionality Of Having People Tracked By GPS All The Time.(Techdirt)By Mike Masnick.Last year, we wrote about a (somewhat surprising, given similar rulings elsewhere) ruling by the appeals court for DC, saying that, while law enforcement could use a GPS device to track where you go on a trip, doing long-term, always-on monitoring went beyond the "reasonable expectation" of privacy, and was a 4th Amendment violation. This week, the Supreme Court heard the appeal on that case, and wondered whether or not such 24/7 monitoring was reasonable. The government's argument is simply that when you're traveling in public, it's public, and so there's no expectation of privacy. But, it sounds like the Justices recognize a rather problematic slippery slope developing around this argument:

This argument seemed to alarm several of the justices. "If you win this case then there is nothing to prevent the police or the government from monitoring 24 hours a day the public movement of every citizen of the United States," Justice Breyer said. "And no one, at least very rarely, sends human beings to follow people 24 hours a day. That occasionally happens. But with the machines, you can. So if you win, you suddenly produce what sounds like 1984.""This case does not involve 24-hour surveillance of every citizen of the United States," Dreeben countered. "It involves following one suspected drug dealer as to whom there was very strong suspicion." But he wasn't able to explain how pervasive surveillance would have to get before it became constitutionally problematic.Chief Justice Roberts asked if the government's theory would allow the police to install tracking devices on the cars of the members of the Supreme Court. Dreeben said it would. He suggested that legislatures might want to place limits on such surveillance, but argued that it didn't raise any constitutional concerns.Justice Kennedy asked whether the government's theory would allow the installation of a GPS tracking device on a suspect's overcoat. Again, Dreeben argued that it would, provided that it only report information about the suspect's movements in public places. I also have to agree with Tim Lee, who wrote the Ars Technica post linked and quoted above, in noting that the lawyer for the guy who was surveilled, Antoine Jones, seemed to focus on a rather weak point in his argument. Rather than focusing on the problem that the appeals court noted -- this "mosaic theory" that the sum total of this 24/7 surveillance violated the 4th Amendment -- Jones' lawyer focused on the question of trespassing in installing the GPS device, something that seems kind of meaningless when you consider that most such tracking can now be done remotely via mobile phones/satellites, without a direct device attached to a car. Read the full story here.

• 'Caliph' Obama to Aid Uzbek Islamic Dictatorship.(StratRisks).Source: FPiF.The U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee, in a move initiated by the Obama administration, has voted to waive Bush-era human rights restrictions on military aid to the Islam Karimov dictatorship in Uzbekistan, one of the most brutal and repressive regimes on the planet. The lifting of the restrictions, now part of the Foreign Operations bill, is before the full Senate and appears to have bipartisan support. The Obama administration has indicated that it intends to provide taxpayer-funded military assistance to Uzbekistan once the legislation passes both houses of Congress.Torture is endemic in Karimov’s Uzbekistan, where his regime has banned all opposition political parties, severely restricted freedom of expression, forced international human rights and NGOs out of the country, suppressed religious freedom, and annually taken as many as two million children out of school to engage in forced labor for the cotton harvest. Thousands of dissidents have been jailed and many hundreds have been killed, some of them literally boiled alive.In reaction to the Obama administration’s efforts, 20human rights, labor, consumer, and other groups signed a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, saying “We strongly urge you to oppose passage of the law and not to invoke this waiver.” The signers encouraged the administration “to stand behind your strong past statements regarding human rights abuses in Uzbekistan” and not move toward “business as usual” with that regime.Signatories included the AFL-CIO, Amnesty International USA, and Human Rights Watch, as well as organizations with close ties to the foreign policy establishment like Freedom House and the International Crisis Group.Despite evidence to the contrary, Secretary of State Clinton, who visited Uzbekistan on October 23, has claimed that the regime was “showing signs of improving its human rights record and expanding political freedoms.” Similarly, when asked about the dictator’s claim that he was committed to leave a legacy of freedom and democracy for his grandchildren, a senior State Department official responded, “Yeah. I do believe him. I mean, he’s said several times that he’s committed to this. He’s made a speech last November where he talked about this.” In response to some skeptical follow-up questions by journalists, the official replied that “we still have some quite serious concerns about the situations on the human rights.” However, “we think that there is really quite an important opening now to work on that stuff, also work on developing civil society, which again President Karimov has expressed support for. So, yeah, I do take him at his word.”A White House official told me that Obama had spoken directly to Karimov in recent weeks about human rights concerns, noting “he said more on democracy in that call than eight years of Bush administration dealings with Karimov.” The official also insisted that the Obama administration would condition future policy on the regime’s performance and that was made clear to the Uzbek leadership.The Obama administration is making this controversial move in order to open the Central Asian nation to transit military equipment and other supplies in and out of Afghanistan, particularly after neighboring Kyrgyzstan looks likely to close its U.S. military base in Manas when the lease runs out in 2014. Potentially of greater consequence, Pakistan has threatened to cut off supply routes to U.S. forces in that land-locked country, so there is a scramble to look for alternatives. Unfortunately, as defenders of administration policy have put it, Afghanistan is surrounded by dictatorships, leaving them little choice but to provide assistance in return for transit rights.The Uzbek government has insisted that these human rights restrictions be dropped in return for providing U.S. forces with a northern route into the country. As Justin Elliotof Human Rights Watch put it, “Operation Enduring Freedom — otherwise known as the war in Afghanistan — could soon result in less freedom for the people of Uzbekistan, if the Obama administration gets its way.”To those who question whether the United States should still be fighting in Afghanistan in the first place, defenders of administration policy stress that travel through Uzbekistan may be necessary not just to supply the troops, but to get them and their equipment out of there.However, the administration has not made a convincing case as to why U.S. forces could not be supplied or evacuated by air. The U.S. military has thousands of C-130s and other huge planes designed for that very purpose. Although countries have to provide clearance for foreign aircraft to cross their airspace, it’s hard to imagine that the Pakistanis would risk war by shooting down U.S. transport planes.Karimov became leader of the Uzbek Communist Party in 1989 in the waning days of the Soviet era. He backed the unsuccessful coup by Communist Party hard liners against reformist Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991 and personally opposed Uzbek independence. But finding himself president of a sovereign state when the Soviet Union suddenly dissolved, he quickly modified his position, changing his first name to “Islam” and morphing into an Uzbek nationalist. – President Obama called him in September to congratulate him on the twentieth anniversary of independence.As president of the newly independent Uzbekistan, Karimov quickly banned leading opposition parties and has since held onto power through the suppression of the opposition and a series of rigged elections and plebiscites, labeling virtually all opponents as Islamist radicals.When asked about the 2005 massacres during Clinton’s October visit, a senior State Department official responded, “We’ve definitely – we’ve moved on from that.”If Congress approves the waiver, it will send a message to other dictators facing pro-democracy uprisings that they can murder people by the hundreds and still receive U.S. assistance. This is nothing short of a license to kill. Other despots will likely interpret such assistance to indicate that warnings – such as those given by the Obama administration to the Egyptian military back in February that ties would be severed if pro-democracy protesters were massacred—are not to be taken seriously.Along with administration efforts to provide additional military supplies to Bahrainfollowing that regime’s brutal crackdown against pro-democracy demonstrations earlier this year, it is yet another indication of the Obama administration’s continued willingness to prop up some of the world’s most brutal dictatorships.Hmmmm........"I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction."Read the full story here.

• REPORT - Over 50% Of U.S. Homeowners Are Underwater.(dailyBail)By CNBC's Diana Olick.A new report on still falling home prices today highlights the fact that the lower those prices go, the more American borrowers fall into an negative equity position; that is, they owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth.Many of those borrowers are already behind on their mortgage payments, and some are likely already in the foreclosure process. The rest of them are in danger of defaulting, not because they can't pay their mortgages, but because they either won't want to (seeing as they will never see any real appreciation in their investment) or because any change in their economic or personal situation might force them into default (change of job, divorce).While 14.6 million might seem like a lot, it's not the real number when you consider negative equity in housing's recovery. That's because it doesn't factor in "effective" negative equity, which is borrowers who have so little equity in their homes that they cannot afford to move.Read the full story here.

• Pentagon Regrowing Soldiers’ Muscles From Pig Cells.(Wired).A few pig cells, a single surgery and a rigorous daily workout: They’re the three ingredients that patients will need to re-grow fresh, functional slabs of their own muscle, courtesy of Pentagon-backed science that’s already being used to rebuild parts of people.The research team behind the project, based out of the University of Pittsburgh, has made remarkably swift progress: Mere months after starting their first-ever clinical trial, they’ve already operated on four soldiers and are now training groups of surgeons from across the country in perfecting the approach. If progress continues at this pace, the trial will wrap in 24 months and the technique will become “a standard of care for orthopedists and trauma surgeons,” according to Dr. Stephen Badylak, head of the initiative.It isn’t quite salamander territory, but it’s astonishingly close. The Pittsburgh team’s research means that, within this decade, the thousands of soldiers who’ve suffered major muscle loss during this decade’s wars can overcome devastating impairment — a life sentence of chronic pain, disability and no viable treatment short of amputation — and experience at least a 25 percent improvement in physical function. For civilians, the impact would incalculable. The kinds of trauma and health problems that now cause amputation, from car accidents and fires to cancer or diabetic peripheral vascular disease, would no longer cause irreparable damage.Read the full story here.

• On the other hand...: Air Force morgue lost body parts from war dead.(FedNewsRad).By Robert Burns.WASHINGTON (AP) - The Air Force mortuary that receives America's war dead and prepares them for burial lost portions of human remains twice in 2009, prompting the Air Force to discipline three senior officials for "gross mismanagement."A year-long Air Force investigation reviewed 14 sets of allegations of improper handling of war remains as reported by three whistleblower workers at Dover Air Force Base, Del. That is where all war dead are received from foreign battlefields to be identified, autopsied and prepared for transfer to their families.The Air Force inspector general concluded that no laws or regulations had been violated, as alleged, but an independent agency that reviewed the probe said the Air Force failed to accept accountability for its mistakes.Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has asked for a separate investigation.The Air Force determined that the mortuary's top leadership failed over time to respond to clear signs of weakness in accounting for human remains _ a task the Air Force says it considers one of its most solemn duties.Two of the three officials who were punished are still work at Dover but not in supervisory jobs. None was fired.Read the full story here.

• 9/11/11 - Europe pushes Italy into the abyss.(TheTelegraph).By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard.It has taken three trading days since the failure of the G20 summit to detonate the explosive charge on Italy's €1.9 trillion (£1.6 trillion) bond market, the world's third-largest stock of public debt.Europe's purported "firewall" to safeguard Italy does not, in fact, exist. The EU's vague plans to leverage its EFSF rescue fund to €1 trillion have come to nothing. Investors could see at once that plans to use the fund as a "first loss" bond insurer concentrates risk, dooming France's AAA rating and accelerating contagion to the core.The European Central Bank (ECB) has been buying Italian bonds, but too slowly to stop the debt spiral. The ECB's new chief, Mario Draghi, kicked off his term with a blunt warning that it would be "pointless" for the bank to try to cap the yields of struggling debtors for long. It was an invitation for frightened investors to dump their bonds.With almost nothing in place to halt contagion, the market verdict has been swift and brutal. Capital Economics said "the Rubicon may have been crossed" after yields on 10-year Italian bonds smashed through 7pc on Wednesday. Clearing house LCH.Clearnet has raised margin requirements once and will almost certainly do so again. Italy is effectively shut out of global capital markets.Rome will not be able to roll over some €300bn in debt next year and will spiral into "disorderly default" unless EU authorities immediately face up to the enormity of the crisis."It is a panic. Rome is burning. Governments need to stop the fire spreading," said Jennifer McKeown, the group's Europe economist.Wider contagion was alarmingly clear as yield spreads on French debt rose to a post-EMU record of 146 basis points over Bunds. French lenders have $416bn (£261bn) of exposure to Italian debt of various kinds. The two Latin nations are joined at the hip."It is obvious what needs to be done," said Tim Congdon at International Monetary Research. "The ECB must engineer a 'boomlet' by purchasing €1 trillion of bonds – boosting the M3 money supply by 10pc – to end all the agony. This means that Germany must put up with 4pc to 5pc inflation for while, but is that such a disaster? If they want to save the euro, they have to give some hope to the peripheral countries."Read the full story here.

• Forced Marriages in Germany More Prevalent than Thought, vast majority of victims come from Muslim families.(Spiegel).A new study has revealed that thousands of young women and girls in forced marriages seek help every year in Germany. The vast majority of victims come from Muslim families, and many have been threatened with violence or even death. The numbers involved are much higher than previously suspected.More women and girls living in Germany are being forced into marriage under the threat of violence than previously thought, according to a new study released by the German government on Wednesday. In 2008, the most recent year for which statistics are available, 3,443 people sought help at counseling and information centers because they had already been, or were being, forced into marriage. The vast majority of those victims were women or girls, but 6 percent were young men, who, like many of the women, sought help because they were threatened with violence if they did not go through with the marriage.The new study was presented Wednesday in Berlin by Family Minister Kristina Schröder and the federal integration commissioner, Maria Böhmer, both members of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union. "Those who force their children against their will to marry someone they don't love, or who is a complete stranger, are committing brutal violence against them," Schröder said in a statement. The German human rights organization Terre des Femmes had previously estimated that in Germany more than a thousand women and girls from immigrant families seek help from counseling centers each year. Schröder has called for the issue of forced marriage to be discussed more in German schools.For the current study, 1,445 different counseling centers and other institutions were asked to participate in the survey. A total of 830 responded, including schools, immigrant aid organizations and so-called integration centers, which provide language and orientation courses for immigrants. The results also provide information on the heritage, age and prior history of the victims. The report revealed that one-third of victims were threatened with death if they did not go through with the forced marriage. The vast majority -- 83.4 percent -- of the victims of forced marriage come from households with Muslim parents. According to the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, almost two-thirds of the cases come from devout religious families.Many of the victims experienced extreme violence, and 27 percent were threatened with weapons or with death. Almost a third of those forced into marriage in Germany were 17 years old or younger, and another 40 percent were between the ages of 18 and 21.Almost all of the victims came from immigrant families, but a third of the women and girls were born in Germany. Twenty-three percent of the victims were born in Turkey, the country from which the largest share of victims came, followed by Serbia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Iraq and Afghanistan. There are around 3 million people of Turkish descent in Germany, comprising the country's largest non-German ethnic group. On July 1, 2011, a new law went into effect in Germany in which those who force women and girls into marriage can be punished by up to five years in prison. Böhmer, the federal integration minister, said in a statement: "The study clearly shows that our new laws in the fight against forced marriage were right and necessary." Böhmer noted that in many of the cases the women were forced to leave the country after marrying. They would now have the legal right to return to Germany within 10 years, she explained. "The message is that we are not leaving girls and young women who have grown up in Germany and gone to school here on their own," she said.Read the full story here.

• Iran To Israel: "We'll Show You Hell".(ZH).While we are looking for the full IAEA report blasting Iran and specifically its nuclear program, claiming that Iran carried out work relevant for developing nuclear arms according to a UN report citing 'credible' info, as well as having information of activities in Iran specific to nuclear weapons, we already know what Iran's response is to any potential 'provocations' from Israel. To wit: "We'll show you 'hell'" UPI explains: "Israel will learn the true meaning of "hell" if it decides a military strike against Iran is worth the risk, an Iranian national security official said. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is said to have been reviewing strike plans against Iran's nuclear infrastructure as the International Atomic Energy Agency expressed concerns about Tehran's nuclear ambitions. Iranian officials have said any attack on its nuclear infrastructure would be suicidal." And the soundbites keep getting better: "If a military challenge is started against Iran in the region, the Zionist regime will definitely be faced with a hell," Javad Jahangirzadeh, a lawmaker on Iran's national security commission, told the semiofficial Fars News Agency." Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, in a Tuesday interview with Israel Radio, said Israel doesn't want war. If dragged into conflict, he said, the casualties would be low. "Israel is the strongest country in the region and it will stay that way," he added." And while a few weeks or even days ago, the outcome of this event would have been easily predictable, following the just announced "microphone" gaffe involving Sarkozy, Obama and Netanyahu, suddenly the odds are far more interesting. Regardless, at this point, aside from concluding that Keynesians everywhere must be rejoicing at the imminent GDP boost driven by the military-industrial complex, we can also venture to gamble: short glass manufacturers. In a few months there may be a natural glut.Hmmmm.......Glass covered parkings?Read the full story here.

• U.S. Government Releases Report Showing Pakistan Teaches Its Students Non-Muslims Are “Enemies of Islam”.(CBS)Islamabad - Text books in Pakistani schools foster prejudice and intolerance of Hindus and other religious minorities, while most teachers view non-Muslims as “enemies of Islam,” according to a study by a U.S. government commission released Wednesday.The findings indicate how deeply ingrained hardline Islam is in Pakistan and help explain why militancy is often supported, tolerated or excused in the country.“Teaching discrimination increases the likelihood that violent religious extremism in Pakistan will continue to grow, weakening religious freedom, national and regional stability, and global security,” said Leonard Leo, the chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Pakistan was created in 1947 as a homeland for the Muslims of South Asia and was initially envisaged as a moderate state where minorities would have full rights. But three wars with mostly Hindu India; state support for militants fighting Soviet-rule in Afghanistan in the 1980s; and the appeasement of hardline clerics by weak governments seeking legitimacy have led to a steady radicalization of society. Religious minorities and those brave enough to speak out against intolerance have often been killed, seemingly with impunity, by militant sympathizers. The commission warned that any significant efforts to combat religious discrimination, especially in education, would “likely face strong opposition” from hardliners.The study reviewed more than 100 textbooks from grades 1-10 from Pakistan’s four provinces. Researchers in February this year visited 37 public schools, interviewing 277 students and teachers, and 19 madrases, where they interviewed 226 students and teachers.Read the full story here.

• Egypt sheikh calls on Muslims to support Iran against Israel, US.(BikyaMasr).CAIRO: A top Egyptian shiekh said that he would call on Egyptians to support Iran and defend it against any American or Israeli aggression if Israel attacks the country. He added that he would issue a fatwa in support for the Iranian government if attacked.“If Israel attacks Iran, I will issue a Fatwa to confront Israel and the US,” Head of Islamist ‘al-Azmiya’ stream Sheikh Ala Mazi Abulezam said on Wednesday, according to Iran’s Fars news agency.“In case of any attack against Iran the Azmiya Tariqat and its followers will have complete preparedness to fight hand in hand with Iran,” he added.The cleric added that Tehran is an Islamic city and thus must be defended by all Muslims from all Islamic countries.It came after Israeli President Shimon Peres on October 4 said that an attack against Iran was becoming “increasingly more likely,” which sparked worries in the region that a war was brewing.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed parliament on October 31 in an effort to garner support for a military attack on Iran over its nuclear program.Supported by Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Netanyahu argued that Israel should proceed with efforts to encourage the West to exert more economic and political pressure on Iran.Read the full story here.

• In A Message On Eid Al-Adha, Pakistani Taliban Chief Hakimullah Mehsud Warns Of 'Well-Orchestrated' Attacks In Coming Days, Pledges To Fight Until 'There is No More... (Kufr) On The Earth'.(Memri).In a new message on the occasion of Eid Al-Adha (the feast of sacrifice), Hakimullah Mehsud, the Emir of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), pledged to continue "fighting in the way of Allah" until the earth is cleared of infidels. Urging Muslims to unite under the leadership of Taliban leader Mullah Omar, he also said that the Western troops are facing defeat in Afghanistan and are trying to create rifts among the militant groups in various ways as an exit strategy - a reference to the U.S. efforts for peace talks with some Taliban groups.Read the full story here.

• Hackivists Anonymous to take down Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood.(BikyaMasr).CAIRO: The Anonymous organization of hackivists has leveled a new threat against Egypt’s largest political group, the Muslim Brotherhood, saying it would take down the group’s online capacity.The announcement is titled “Operation Brotherhood Takedown.” And they said it was “engaged.”In a Youtube.com video, Anonymous said that the Brotherhood is a “threat to Egyptian soveriegnty” and must not be allowed to work against the revolution that ousted former President Hosni Mubarak in February.The video stated that the Islamic group was not part of the revolution and is attempting to co-opt the Egyptian population.“Ever since its revolution that shook the world, Egypt has had its fate undecided. Predators who seek to control are waiting to strike at the right moment. They are waiting to take over the country and make it so that another revolution is impossible. We cannot allow this,” said the group.Anonymous is known for taking down websites across the globe, including intelligence sites and governmental organizations online status.“The Muslim Brotherhood started as a benevolent group of people with fair and just intentions. However, as decades went by, corruption seized its mission of good and turned it into a power-hungry organization bent on taking over soverign arab states in its quest to seize power from them,” continued the statement.Anonymous said they would not allow the Brotherhood to create an Islamic state in Egypt. They likened the Brotherhood to the Church of Scientology and Freemasons, in its structure and alleged adherence to vows.“Infused with its blatant, corrupt ways, the Brotherhood is now a threat to the people,” the video said. “Therefore, Anonymous has decided to destroy the Muslim Brotherhood. We shall proceed to dismantle any form of its organization from the internet. Nothing will stop us. We will show no mercy.”Read the full story here.

• Tests Show That Most Store Honey Isn’t Honey.(FoodSafetyNews).More than three-fourths of the honey sold in U.S. grocery stores isn't exactly what the bees produce, according to testing done exclusively for Food Safety News.The results show that the pollen frequently has been filtered out of products labeled "honey."The removal of these microscopic particles from deep within a flower would make the nectar flunk the quality standards set by most of the world's food safety agencies.The food safety divisions of the World Health Organization, the European Commission and dozens of others also have ruled that without pollen there is no way to determine whether the honey came from legitimate and safe sources.In the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration says that any product that's been ultra-filtered and no longer contains pollen isn't honey. However, the FDA isn't checking honey sold here to see if it contains pollen.Ultra filtering is a high-tech procedure where honey is heated, sometimes watered down and then forced at high pressure through extremely small filters to remove pollen, which is the only foolproof sign identifying the source of the honey. It is a spin-off of a technique refined by the Chinese, who have illegally dumped tons of their honey - some containing illegal antibiotics - on the U.S. market for years.Hmmm......Seems like Winny the Pooh has been taken over by Kung Fu Panda?Read the full story here.