Official's tweet triggers Iran-Bahrain confrontation.

Iranians lining up for foodbasket

Official's tweet triggers Iran-Bahrain confrontation.(Taz).

Iranian Foreign Ministry has summoned Bahrain's charge d'affaires to protest "unfounded anti-Iran allegations" by the foreign minister of Bahrain, Iran's press TV reported on Feb. 13.

Iran Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Marziyeh Afkham said the Bahraini diplomat was summoned on Feb. 13.

Bahrain's Foreign Minister Shaikh Khalid Bin Ahmed Al Khalifa claimed in a tweet that the Iranian people are facing "injustice, deprivation of rights and starvation" in their country.

Afkham said, "Such remarks indicate the frustration of the Bahraini officials in dealing with the legitimate demands of the oppressed people of Bahrain."

She added that the Bahraini government had better meet the demands of the people of Bahrain instead of relying on foreign forces and resorting to security and tribal approaches.

The Iranian official's statements responded by the Bahrain in the same day.

Bahrain's foreign ministry summoned Iran's charge d'affaires to protest what it called "aggressive remarks" by the Iran's foreign ministry spokeswoman.

"The Ministry of Foreign Affairs considers the statements unacceptable and regards them as a blatant interference in the internal affairs of the Kingdom of Bahrain," Bahrain news agency reported on Feb. 14.

This came when the Undersecretary of Regional and GCC Affairs, Ambassador Hamad Ahmed Alamer, summoned the Chargé d'Affaires of the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the Bahrain, Mohammad Reza Babaei to ask him to convey Bahrain's protests on the "Iranian leadership hostile statements."

"What's your Jihad" - Outrage as Britain’s Sandhurst military academy renames hall after Bahraini king.

"What's your Jihad" - Outrage as Britain’s Sandhurst military academy renames hall after Bahraini king.(RT).Britain’s Sandhurst military academy is renaming a hall commemorating those who died in a major World War I battle. The building will be renamed for the king of Bahrain, after the ruler donated £3 million to refurbish it.
­The hall will soon bear the name of King Hamad, instead of Mons, a battle that took place in Belgium in which 1,600 UK soldiers died; the 100th anniversary of the battle will take place soon.
The Bahraini ruler gave millions to , the Telegraph reported.
The military academy, located in Surrey also received a £15-million donation from the United Arab Emirates to build an accommodation block, which will be named after the UAE’s founding father, the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan.
Mons Hall is set to reopen next month, and King Hamad has been invited to attend the ceremony. A plaque will be unveiled with the inscription: ‘King Hamad Hall. This building, the former Mons Hall, was refurbished in 2013 with a generous gift from the Kingdom of Bahrain.’

Critics claimed the Gulf states, which have been accused of severe human rights abuses, are essentially ‘buying silence.’ Those against the move also point out that the British Army is ‘betraying its dead.’

“There’s something deeply ironic in renaming a hall that was in memory of soldiers who died in a tragic battle in the First World War in honor of a king who is routinely committing human rights abuses,” Labor MP Jeremy Corbyn told British media.
“To change the name of something which commemorates a very tragic episode in British military history, simply because they’re getting a sum of money from a rather dubious source, is appalling,”
said Andy Slaughter, a Labor MP who is chair of the Commons all-party ‘Democracy In Bahrain’ group.
“It reflects the appalling double standards the British Government and institutions have in relation to the Bahraini regime, which is guilty of all sorts of human rights abuses and fundamentally undemocratic."
The online community reacted angrily to the move as well. “I doubt UK will condemn human rights abuses committed by allies whose leaders indirectly fund UK armed forces,” and "Sandhurst endorses mass torturing, child-murdering, iron-fisted dictator" are among the messages posted on Twitter in response to the name change.
Bahrain, home to the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet, has come under fire from human rights organizations such as Amnesty International, which criticized the regime for its violent crackdown on protesters. Tear gas, stun grenades, rubber bullets and even live ammunition have been fired on demonstrators, the Amnesty International said in its latest reports on Bahrain.
Amnesty International has criticized the US and UK for refusing to condemn human rights violations committed by their ally Bahrain.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 Greece 5.3 - 5.2 ; Indonesia 5.2 !More info here.

• President Obama: I Want Second Term 'Badly'.(Abc).By Devin Dwyer.President Barack Obama today signaled an aggressive tact for his early re-election campaign, critiquing his Republican opponents by name and insisting he's ready to "fight with every fiber of my being" for a second term."How much do you want it?" ABC News' Diane Sawyer asked Obama during an exclusive interview in Las Vegas."Badly," the president said, "because I think the country needs it." "Whoever wins the Republican primary is going to be a standard bearer for a vision of the country that I don't think reflects who we are," Obama said."I'm going to fight as hard as I can with every fiber of my being to make sure that we continue on a path that I think will restore the American dream," he said.Obama pushed back against what he called Republicans' "rhetorical flourishes," including Newt Gingrich's oft-repeated contention that Obama is the "food stamp president."Hmmm......."Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty". ~ Plato.Read the full story here.

• Ayatollah orders terrorist Attacks; Colleague of man given the order Visited recently the White House.(BN).The recent assassination of one of Iran's nuclear scientists has apparently prompted the Ayatollah to dispatch Hezbollah to commit terror attacks through the head of the Al Quds Brigade. That man's name is Gen. Qasem Soleimani. That name is made more relevant by the fact that a close associate of Soleimani was recently given the red carpet treatment by the White House.Al Ameri holds the Iranian nationality under the name of Hassan Ameri and his wife is Iranian. He usually visits Iran and meets with Qassem Sulaimani, the head of Al Quds Brigade, under the Iranian guard forces, on a regular basis.While being in Iran, Al Ameri played a role in torturing the Iraqi prisoners, who were captured by Iran during the Iraqi-Iranian war. Prisoners who returned from there accuse him of being the cruelest against them. This role helped him to reach the status that he occupies in the eyes of the Iranians.Hmmmmm.....Obama's 'guest'?Read the full story here.

• Obama Can’t Handle the Truth (Just Ask Gov. Brewer).(BigGovernment).By AWR Hawkins.President Barack Obama has a problem, a problem much bigger than his plummeting poll numbers among black voters, the ever-worsening housing market, or the chronically high national unemployment numbers. Although these are all bad and must be weighing down on him—whether he admits it or not—they are minor compared to his deeper problem, which is his inability to handle criticism, his inability to handle the truth.We first saw this when Obama was starting to run for president and he put reporters “on notice” regarding comments about the size of his ears. Since then we’ve seen it in the way he locks out reporters who ask hard questions and, most recently, in the way he appears to have lodged a complaint with Gov. Jan Brewer regarding her criticism of the way he has gone to war with Arizona to keep that state from defending its southern border.If you’ll recall, in December 2006, after New York Times’ reporter Maureen Dowd had written about how Obama’s “ears stick out,” Obama tracked her down at a speaking engagement and said: “I just want to put you on notice. I’m very sensitive,” adding, “I was teased relentlessly when I was a kid about my big ears.” (Rush Limbaugh was then criticized for seizing on that comment and warning people that it demonstrated Obama’s skin was too thin for the rigors of the presidency. And in retrospect, Limbaugh was right.)Perhaps you remember the April 2011 exchange that took place between Obama and Dallas news reporter Brad Watson, during an interview wherein Watson asked the president pointed, probing questions instead of the kind of light and fluffy stuff a CNN reporter asks when he or she gets the chance. For example, as the two sat face to face, Watson looked right at Obama and asked: “Why do you think you’re so unpopular in Texas?” And when Obama tried to make it look like he wasn’t that unpopular in Texas, saying he’d only lost in 2008 by a “few percentage points,” Watson countered: “Well, you lost by about 10%. 55 to 44.” And because Obama can’t handle criticism, he became noticeably bothered as the questions continued. When the short interview was over, an angry Obama whispered to Watson: “Let me finish my answers next time we do an interview.”Of course Watson won’t get another interview, because Obama locks reporters out if they dare take him to task. As Keith Koffler wrote of Obama’s reaction to Watson back in April, “Look how thin-skinned he can be.”Speaking of thin-skinned, that’s the exact phrase Gov. Brewer used to describe Obama after he walked across the tarmac in Phoenix on Wednesday and greeted Brewer not with “hello” or “good to see you,” but with a complaint about how she’d described his efforts to deep-end Arizona’s S.B. 1070. He said he’d read the complaint in a passage from her book, “Scorpions for Breakfast.”There Brewer wrote:  [Obama] has repeatedly made fun of those of us who want to see the law enforced, saying we want a ‘moat’ with ‘alligators’ in it around our country. The reason he has resorted to these failed attempts at humor, I think, is that he supports a policy that is fundamentally undemocratic, and he knows it.Said Brewer of the exchange: “He brought up my book and he was a little tense. He said he read the excerpt and didn’t think I was very cordial. I said we’d have to agree to disagree. He was a little thin-skinned and tense, to say the least.”The bottom line: Obama can’t handle criticism. Obama can’t handle the truth. Dowd proved it in 2006, Watson proved in 2011, and Gov. Brewer proved it again two days ago.Read the full story here.

• Obama in SOTU: Cut the Taxes that Pay for Social Security, but Don’t Threaten Social Security.(BigGovernment).By Charles C. Johnson.Last night President Obama renewed his calls for a so-called “middle class tax” cut that would all but kill Social Security:“Right now, our most immediate priority is stopping a tax hike on 160 million working Americans while the recovery is still fragile. People cannot afford losing $40 out of each paycheck this year. There are plenty of ways to get this done. So let’s agree right here, right now: No side issues. No drama. Pass the payroll tax cut without delay.”And yet only two paragraphs later, he said this: Alas, in calling for a renewed payroll tax holiday, President Obama continues to raid Social Security and imperil the retirement account that many Americans have paid into and continue to depend upon.On the one hand, he raids the Social Security trust fund, while on the other he attacks Republicans for threatening Social Security. Republicans ought not let him get away with such transparent chutzpah.As I wrote for Engage America, this is a big mistake and potentially a catastrophic one for America’s largest entitlement program. Indeed, put yourself in the position of those “innocent Americans” and law abiding Americans–Generation X, who will grow old just as Social Security goes belly up.Read the full story here.

• Jon Stewart Forces Secretary Sebelius to Sweat Obamacare’s Details.(Heritage).Monday on The Daily Show, comedian Jon Stewart interviewed Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. The Secretary didn’t escape the hot seat in what turned out to be an interesting discussion regarding the implementation of Obamacare.One notable topic covered during the interview was the surprise proposal by HHS to let states determine their own definitions of “essential health benefits.” Obamacare explicitly instructs HHS to fill in the details of the legislation’s mandatory minimum benefit package, but as the Galen Institute’s John Hoff previously noted in a Heritage writing, “Although HHS can, of course, produce a piece of paper (or, more likely, hundreds of pages of regulation) purporting to define the term, in reality this will not provide the real-world uniformity of coverage contemplated by [Obamacare]. HHS has an impossible task.”It seems HHS agrees that it has an impossible task and is now looking for a way to stick somebody else with the problem. Sebelius claims that letting states define benefits will give them flexibility. But in reality, all that would do is intensify the existing special-interest lobbying in state capitols for more mandated health insurance coverage—driving the cost of coverage under Obamacare even higher.In a second installment, Stewart questioned Sebelius about whether or not employers would be inclined to “dump” their employees in the new health care exchanges and pay the new penalty instead. “Is the penalty more than the [cost of] insurance?” Stewart asked. Sebelius responded, “The penalty will help pay for the tax credit that the employee will get in the insurance.” Extensive research does a better job of answering the question. The cost of the new Obamacare subsidies will not be covered by the fines collected from employer penalties. The facts show that some employers will be able to come out ahead even after paying the penalty and increasing workers’ cash compensation to make up for the lost health benefits.Stewart then posed this question:Do you think ultimately this is, a bunch of people dump to the exchange, and it becomes sort of a back door, of government, not a takeover necessarily, but of a government responsibility for the health care, employees, and it decouples it—I’m not saying that’s a bad thing—but decouples it from employment, and people will get it through the government—through tax credits, rather than through their employers—and then suddenly, obviously then, we’re Sweden. Do you think that’s the case?Well, Jon, America may not be Sweden yet, but it’s getting a lot closer under Obamacare.Read the full story here.

• Capitol Hill Chevy Volt Hearing: What About All the Other Fires?(BigGovernment).I attended Wednesday’s 8:00am (8am?!?) House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing entitled: Volt Vehicle Fire: What Did NHTSA Know And When Did They Know It?The witnesses were killer: National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA), Barack Obama-appointee Administrator David Strickland.And General Motors (GM), Barack Obama-appointee CEO Dan Akerson.The scope of the hearing was a bit too narrow – leaving out some fairly important attending facts. Like, say, the (at least) five other Chevy Volt fires that have occurred besides the one being discussed.This hearing was all about a single June Volt blaze. The battery burst into flames about three weeks after a test crash at and by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA).A fire about which Obama’s NHTSA did tell the Obama White House.But a fire about which neither Obama’s NHTSA, the Obama Administration nor Obama’s GM told the American people for nearly six months – and then did so only when forced by a looming Bloomberg news story.But: The White House had no role in the decision to delay disclosure of a fire that broke out in a crash-tested Chevrolet Volt, the Obama administration told Congress on Friday.Of COURSE not.Hmmmm.....My guess dealers their fire insurance went up quite a bit.Read the full story here.

• "Another one bites the dust" - Another Stimulus-Backed Energy Company Files for Bankruptcy.(Heritage).After months of financial turmoil, an Energy Department-backed lithium ion battery company has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The company, Ener1, received a $118 million grant from DOE in 2010 as part of the president’s stimulus package. The money, which went to Ener1 subsidiary EnerDel, aimed to promote renewable energy storage battery technology for electrical grid use.But despite generous federal support for the company, Ener1 was racked by problems last year. In October, NASDAQ delisted the company due to non-compliance with Securities and Exchange Commission filing requirements. A month later, the company’s president, chief executive, and top financial officer were fired.On Thursday, Ener1 announced it will initiate a pre-packaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy plan as part of an agreement to restructure the company’s debt obligations.Hmmmm........Obama: "All the Choices We've Made Have Been the Right Ones".Read the full story here.

• Israeli Defense minister Barak: Iran 'drifting' toward nuke goal line.(YNet).Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Friday the world must quickly stop Iran from reaching the point where even a "surgical" military strike could not block it from obtaining nuclear weapons.Amid fears that Israel is nearing a decision to attack Iran's nuclear program, Barak said tougher international sanctions are needed against Tehran's oil and banks so that "we all will know early enough whether the Iranians are ready to give up their nuclear weapons program." Iran insists its atomic program is only aimed at producing energy and research, but has repeatedly refused to consider giving up its ability to enrich uranium. "We are determined to prevent Iran from turning nuclear. And even the American president and opinion leaders have said that no option should be removed from the table and Iran should be blocked from turning nuclear," Barak told reporters during the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum. "It seems to us to be urgent, because the Iranians are deliberately drifting into what we call an immunity zone where practically no surgical operation could block them," he said. Barak called it "a challenge for the whole world" to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran but stopped short of confirming any action that could further stoke Washington's concern about a possible Israeli military strike.IAEA chief Yukiya Amano said at a Davos session that "we do not have that much confidence if Iran has declared everything" and its best information "indicates that Iran has engaged in activities relevant to nuclear explosive devices." "For now they do not have the capacity to manufacture the fuel," he said. "But in the future, we don't know." Read the full story here.

• Pentagon taps students to build robots, and death dealing drones.(StratRisks).With an eye toward revolutionizing how defense systems and vehicles are made, the Pentagon has tapped a team of Bay Area-based scientists, engineers and hackers to create a program that will enlist California high school students to build robots, drones and other low- and medium-tech gadgets.The Defense Department’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, has awarded $2 million of a $10 million program to two outfits that have joined forces to develop a pilot project in 10 schools.Part of the agency’s lauded Adaptive Vehicle Make program, which has employed university-based teams to build new navigation systems, the latest effort wants to cut down on manufacturing time. Dubbed Manufacturing Experimentation and Outreach, the program hopes to develop and motivate the next generation of chic geeks to collaborate through social networks to design and develop new vehicles.The overall goal is to expand to 1,000 high schools, both in and out of the country, said Dale Dougherty, founder of MAKE magazine and one of the directors of the pilot program, along with Saul Griffith of San Francisco-based design team Otherlab.The team has two years to reach the initial goal of 10 schools, then two more years to expand first to 100 schools then 1,000. The Defense Department wants unlimited rights to everything the students build, including all algorithms, source code, equipment and test use cases.Hmmmm.....Am i the only one who has 'moral objections' to this?Why not use the creativity of the youth for something constructive?Read the full story here.

• Twitter to restrict user content in some countries.(Reuters).Twitter announced Thursday that it would begin restricting Tweets in certain countries, marking a policy shift for the social media platform that helped propel the popular uprisings recently sweeping across the Middle East."As we continue to grow internationally, we will enter countries that have different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression," Twitter wrote in a blog post published Thursday.It said even with the possibility of such restrictions, Twitter would not be able to coexist with some countries. "Some differ so much from our ideas that we will not be able to exist there," it said.Twitter gave as examples of restrictions it might cooperate with "certain types of content, such as France or Germany, which ban pro-Nazi content."A Twitter spokeswoman declined to elaborate on the blog."Starting today, we give ourselves the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country while keeping it available in the rest of the world," the Twitter blog said."Starting today, we give ourselves the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country while keeping it available in the rest of the world," the Twitter blog said.Twitter's decision to begin censoring content represents a significant departure from its policy just one year ago, when anti-government protesters in Tunisia, Egypt and other Arab countries coordinated mass demonstrations through on the social network and, in the process, thrust Twitter's disruptive potential into the global spotlight.Hmmmm.....The fact that Prince Alwaleed unveiled a $300 million stake purchase in fast-growing microblogging site Twitter has nothing to do with 'oppressing free speech?Read the full story here.

• 'Iran could ban EU oil exports next week'.(JPost).TEHRAN - A law to be debated in Iran's parliament on Sunday could halt exports of oil to the European Union as early as next week, the semi-official Fars news agency quoted a lawmaker as saying on Friday."On Sunday, parliament will have to approve a 'double emergency' bill calling for a halt in the export of Iranian oil to Europe starting next week," Hossein Ibrahimi, vice-chairman of the Iranian parliament's national security and foreign policy committee, was quoted as saying.The Iranian parliament is pushing for the export ban to deny the EU a 6-month phase-in of the embargo on Iranian oil that the bloc agreed on Monday as part of a raft of tough new Western sanctions aimed at forcing Iran to curb its nuclear program."If the deputies arrive at the conclusion that the Iranian oil exports to Europe must be halted, the parliament will not delay a moment (in passing the bill)," Fars quoted Moayed Hosseini-Sadr, a member of parliament's energy committee, as saying.Read the full story here.

• Turkey to become first Muslim nation to show Holocaust film.(HurriyetDaily).Turkish public television (TRT) was set to show an epic French documentary about the Holocaust last night in the first broadcast of its kind by national media in a Muslim state. A spokesman for TRT said the 1985 film “Shoah” would be shown on one of the network’s 14 channels.The director of the nine-hour-plus documentary, Claude Lanzmann, called the Turkish move historic.“We should acknowledge the courage and determination of the Turks,” said Lanzmann, who spent 11 years working on the documentary. “Turkey is a country people don’t know and understand very badly.”Turkey’s broadcast of the film is the culmination of work by the Aladdin Project, a Paris-based group which tries to improve Jewish-Muslim relations. The group said in a statement that it had never before been shown in its entirely in a Muslim country.Consisting largely of Holocaust-survivor interviews, the film examines the killing of European Jews in Nazi death camps during World War II.The broadcast comes at a sensitive time in Turkey’s international relations.Hmmmm.......How many will actually watch?Read the full story here.

• Muslim Brotherhood Guide: Parliament has right to hold military accountable.(BM).CAIRO: The head of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Mohammed Badie, said in statements on Thursday, that the newly elected parliament has the right to hold all state institutions, particularly the military, accountable and that any organization “cannot be above the rule of the people and the parliament can determine the budget of the military by creating a special committee.”Badie said the Muslim Brotherhood, which now holds 45 percent of the parliament`s seats, “will not nominate one of its members in the presidential elections,” and would not get behind Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, or any candidate with an Islamic reference in the elections, but that it would participate with “all national forces in the selection of a candidate that enjoys consensus on the basis of the rules does not favor anyone and define the specifications of the next Egyptian president according to what`s best for Egypt interests.”Badie stressed in statements to reporters on Thursday that the demands of the Egyptian people “is a top priority for the group to restore all fundamental rights of people, and the preservation of freedom and dignity, and social justice, and provide a decent living for every citizen,” stressing that democratic transition is the “only way for the return of the rights of the Egyptian people and dignity.”The Brotherhood chief said that the position of the Muslim Brotherhood towards the military council is one of “a partner in the protection of the revolution, where if it made mistakes … it should be held accountable and if it does well, it has to be praised without undermining the prestige of the Egyptian People’s Army.”Speaking about the defection of a number of young Muslim Brotherhood members recently, he said that what the group witnessed recently were differences and the rejection of youth and leaders to commit to the decisions of the Shura Council of the Brotherhood, “is evidence of the vitality and democracy,” pointing out that the Muslim Brotherhood, “is an institutional group and whoever violates the regulations, has to be subjected to a decision by the institution.”Hmmmmm........"You don't leave the mob"?Read the full story here.

• Hamas quietly quits Syria as violence continues.(AlArabiya).The leader of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, Khaled Meshaal, has effectively abandoned his headquarters in the Syrian capital, Damascus, diplomatic and intelligence sources said on Friday.“Meshaal is not staying in Syria as he used to do. He is almost out all the time,” said a diplomat in the region who spoke on condition on anonymity.A regional intelligence source, who also did not wish to be identified, said: “He’s not going back to Syria. That’s the decision he’s made. There’s still a Hamas presence there, but it’s insignificant.”Damascus is isolated following a bloody, 10-month uprising against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad and is not secure, the diplomat said, adding that Meshaal was no longer able to receive international visitors there.Analysts say Meshaal was also embarrassed by Assad’s violent crackdown, with more than 5,000 people reported killed. Many victims of the security forces have been Sunni Muslims allied to the Muslim Brotherhood, whose support Meshaal relies on.Assad is backed mainly by his minority Alawite sect and other minorities.The sources said Meshaal would not publicly shut down the political headquarters of Hamas in Syria, where it has long been hosted by Assad and by his father before him.“In the past month he may have only stayed five days in Syria and the rest he spent in Qatar, Turkey and Egypt,” said the diplomat. “But he did not close the headquarters in Syria in full and there are some Hamas officials still there.”The sources said Meshaal was currently in Egypt. But “there was no agreement to open an office in Cairo. Not yet,” said the diplomat. “The expected residence for Meshaal is Qatar where he may stay most of the time until the Syria smoke has cleared.”Qatar is the Arab world’s most outspoken critic of Assad. Qatari mediation was helpful in arranging Meshaal’s upcoming visit to Jordan next week, restoring ties with the monarchy more than a decade after Hamas was ejected from the kingdom.Hamas Gaza Strip leader Ismail Haniyeh was thought to have “received promises from Turkey to provide the movement and his administration with $300 million a year to help Gaza”.Turkey is also a strong critic of the crackdown by Assad in its southern neighbor, Syria. Haniyeh is scheduled to travel to Iran in the coming days.Hmmmm.........Muslim Brotherhood Egypt.....Turkey....Quatar.....Shaikh Yousef al-Qaradawi.Read the full story here.

• Car bomb attack outside Baghdad hospital kills 28: medics.(AlArabiya).At least 28 people were killed and 50 others wounded when a bomb exploded near a Baghdad marketplace on Friday in the latest attack on a mainly Shi’ite neighborhood since a political crisis erupted in December, police and hospital sources said.An interior ministry official confirmed the explosion in Zafraniyah, which struck at 11:00 am (08:00 GMT), but said it was caused by a suicide attacker driving an explosives-packed car.The blast hit the funeral procession of Mohammed al-Maliki, a real estate agent who was killed along with his wife and son a day earlier in the west Baghdad neighborhood of Yarmuk, the doctor and interior ministry official said. Both spoke on condition of anonymity.The procession had collected Maliki’s body and was transporting it for the funeral when the explosion struck.A medical official said at least four women were among the fatalities, but no further details were immediately available.Maliki and his family were killed by gunmen in Yarmuk, although there have been differing accounts of the attack itself.A medic at Yarmuk hospital said the attackers burst into a real estate agency and killed three, while an interior ministry official said four people, including two real estate agents, died when gunmen opened fire on their car.Friday’s attack came a day after violence in Iraq killed 17 people, and is the deadliest to hit the country in nearly two weeks, amid a political crisis pitting the Shiite-led government against the main Sunni-backed bloc that has stoked sectarian tensions.The row erupted when authorities charged Sunni Arab Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi with running a death squad and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shiite, called for his Sunni deputy Saleh al-Mutlak to be sacked after the latter said the premier was “worse than Saddam Hussein”.Hmmmm.......Obama: If We Work Hard, Afghanistan Could Be a Success...Like Iraq!Read the full story here.

• Indonesia's Islamic vigilantes 'turning to terrorism'.(HD).Tolerance of Islamic vigilantism is helping to breed a new generation of terrorists in Indonesia, the International Crisis Group warned in a report Thursday.The report criticised the government and police for lax law enforcement against hardliners, who often claim responsibility for violent anti-vice and sectarian attacks but regularly evade punishment."Indonesia: From Vigilantism to Terrorism in Cirebon" described how a group of poor uneducated men in the western Javanese town went from using sticks and stones in morality raids to using bombs and guns."What we saw in Cirebon was a a group of about 10 people who started out on a path to terrorism by participating in anti-vice campaigns," ICG analyst Sidney Jones told AFP."By using violence in these campaigns, they clearly violated the law but weren't punished." The group went from carrying out anti-vice attacks on TV stations and convenience stores selling alcohol to orchestrating suicide attacks on a police mosque and a church on Java island.The radicalisation of the Cirebon group was fuelled by weekly sermons where spiritual leaders encouraged the bloodshed of Islam's enemies, which have come to include the Indonesian government and police, the report said.Read the full story here.

• Egyptian writer: "Who offends the Prophet is not the West, but we Muslims, for making Islam terrorist".(TJ).Translated from elbashayer.com, 22 December 2011: Who Offends the Prophet?By Ahmad al-Aswani. I don’t believe that cartoons, books, or movies can offend any religion, or affect the faith of those who adhere to that religion with truth and conviction. The ones who offend the Prophet are those who slaughter and blow up innocent people throughout all the world—from New York to Madrid, in London, Bali, Riyadh, Cairo, Kabul, and Baghdad—even now, after mentioning Allah and the Prophet under the banner of Islamic jihad. Protests come out in support of all this, and internet forums sing praises to the knight Usama bin Laden, the hero of the raids of New York and Washington. Who offends the Prophet is a man like al-Qaradawi, who incites people to kill Jewish children in their mothers’ wombs (from an interview with Egyptian journalists in 1996), and incites people to carry out suicide operations. In the name of the religion and the Prophet, he declares jihad in Iraq, and innocent victims are killed.Who offends the Prophet are those who demand that the world issue a decision preventing the disrespect of religions while they practice it themselves in every prayer in their mosques, schools (madrasas), and on their television stations. They especially disrespect Christians and Jews, and curse them in every prayer (after the Islamic bloc offered a decision on this issue in the Human Rights Council in the United Nations, the Saudi Shura Council objected to this decision because insulting other religions is one of the rites of Islam, according to what was published on the Saudi site al-Arabiya).Who offends is ..Continued.....  Read the full story here.

• Bahrain detainee dies in custody, opposition sees torture.(Reuters).Bahrain's police said on Thursday that a man detained over "acts of violence and sabotage" died of a chronic disease in hospital while in custody, but the opposition said he was tortured to death.A police official said the man suffered from sickle-cell disease and died of natural causes, state news agency BNA reported.The main Shi'ite Muslim opposition group, Wefaq, said on its website that the 19-year-old had been injured after being squeezed between two police vehicles as he tried to flee during a protest and that he had been detained and tortured instead of receiving treatment.Amnesty International urged Bahrain on Thursday to investigate its use of tear gas against frequent protests in the Gulf state, citing a Bahraini rights group as saying 13 people had died from its indiscriminate use."The rise in fatalities and eyewitness accounts suggest that tear gas is being used inappropriately by Bahraini security forces, including in people's homes and other confined spaces," said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, an Amnesty regional deputy director.Washington, which bases its Fifth Fleet on the Gulf island, has linked a $53 million arms sale to the kingdom's response to the inquiry. Bahrain has said it is implementing the inquiry's recommendations, but the top U.N. human rights official argues that Bahrain is not punishing those who have committed abuses."Given the government of Bahrain's malicious misuse of tear gas, the U.S. government should continue its current policy to not issue new licenses for riot control equipment that have the potential for harmful misuse," Hans Hogrefe, chief policy officer of Physicians for Human Rights, said in a statement.Read the full story here.

• Can there be a second Holocaust?(JPost).By Robert S. Wistrich.In recent years, the Holocaust has been subject to an increasingly sickening blend of ruthless politicization, deliberate distortion, crass commercialization and an often abject sentimentalism.More ominously, it has also become a weapon of choice for many of Israel’s worst enemies and for a resurgent anti-Semitism which brands the entire enterprise of Holocaust memory as nothing but a “Zionist plot.”In contemporary Europe, Holocaust guilt is used more often than not to promote the Palestinian cause rather than to recognize the necessity of having a Jewish state. Arab and Islamist propaganda, aided and abetted by many liberals and leftists (including some vocal Jewish anti- Zionists), hammers away at the grotesque libel that Israeli policies towards the Palestinians are worse than those of the Nazis. Many Europeans believe these fables.In Israel itself, there are even academics who trumpet such absurdities which have become all-too- commonplace on certain campuses abroad, especially in Britain, North America and Scandinavia.Read the full story here.

• Israeli Ships Switch Flags When Sailing thru Suez Canal.(INN).A sharp decline was reported in the number of ships sailing through the Suez Canal under the Israeli flag in 2011, with only seven making the trip, compared to 15 in 2010, according to the Port and Port Website. Total freight tonnage was down 91 percent, from 166,000 tons to 15,000 tons.A senior source in Egyptian shipping said the level of Israeli shipping did not go down but that Israeli ships switch from Israeli flags to international flags for security reasons when making the trip. It was also reported that Wednesday's anniversary of the revolution that ousted former president Hosni Mubarak was marked by record ship traffic and cargo volume on the canal.Hmmmm......Read the full story here.

• Turkey Moves to Deport Armenian Workers after French Vote.(A).BY Nanore Barsoumian.ISTANBUL–Turkey is set to amend a law that aims to rid the country of illegal workers. Many view this move as retaliation against Armenians, in light of the new bill criminalizing Armenian Genocide denial in France.Different estimates in Turkey put the number of Armenian citizens in the country at as low as 10,000 and as high as 100,000. Many of them are women, and they are employed in low-skill jobs.“This country, which Mark Levene called ‘the Genocide zone,’ throughout its history has made it a habit to deport, expel, and relocate innocent people as retaliation and punishment for things they did not do, or have no connection to at all,” human rights advocate Ayse Gunaysu told the Armenian Weekly Editor Khatchig Mouradian.Back in March 2010, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayip Erdogan hinted at retaliation against Armenian migrant workers if Genocide resolutions were passed in foreign parliaments. In a discussion about Genocide resolutions in the U.S. and Sweden, he told the BBC’s Turkish Service that of the 170,000 Armenians living in Turkey, only 70,000 are Turkish citizens. “We are turning a blind eye to the remaining 100,000… Tomorrow, I may tell these 100,000 to go back to their country, if it becomes necessary.”It appears the French bill was the last straw for Erdogan’s government. On Jan. 25, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told reporters that “Turkey’s response to the adoption of the bill had long been decided.”President of the Migrants’ Association for Social Cooperation and Culture Sefika Gurbuz called the law a “threat to Armenians,” reported Bianet.Meanwhile, Gunaysu characterized Turkey’s response a “black comedy.” “The ongoing blackmail and threats against France is itself proof of guilt as well as a manifestation of lack of dignity and self-respect, despite—of course—pathetic demonstrations of national pride,” said Gunaysu.Gunaysu, who is a member of the Committee Against Racism and Discrimination of the Human Rights Association of Turkey, pointed out the country’s history of deporting innocents peoples. In 1915 the Young Turk regime began its systemic deportations of Armenians as a main tool to rid the Eastern provinces of a native population. “They still tell lies that it was because treacherous Armenians, whereas hundreds of thousands of Armenians were not engaged in any political activity whatsoever,” said Gunaysu. Then it was the turn of Turkey’s Kurdish and Greek populations. “The republican period is full of Kurdish deportations, especially in 1938 during and after the Dersim massacres,” she said. “In 1964, the Turkish government expelled 40,000 Anatolian Greeks, forbidding them to bring along any personal belongings over 20 kg and $20, as a retaliation against Greece in connection with the Cyprus issue—a deportation which is still terribly painful in the memories of these people.”Gunaysu added, “The mindset from which this policy of retaliation originates is racist, inhuman, and brutal. The rulers of Turkey have once more proven that [the government] still follows the same path as that of their predecessors back in 1915 and all along the history of the Republic.”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 Greece 5.3 - 5.2 ; Northern Mariana Islands 5.3 !More info here.

• Obama’s Former Faith Adviser: ‘I, Frankly, Am Glad American Civil Religion is Dying’.(CNSnews).Shaun Casey, the religious affairs adviser to presidential candidate Barack Obama in 2008, said at a discussion on Tuesday about “God and Politics” that the demise of religious society in the United States is a good thing.“I, frankly, am glad American civil religion is dying,” said Casey, who is an associate professor of Christian Ethics at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C.Casey made the remarks at an event focusing on religion and the 2012 presidential election at the liberal Center for American Progress where he was a panelist along with Gabriel Salguero, president of the National Hispanic Evangelical Coalition.Casey was responding to Salguero’s claim that civil religion is employed by politicians as an “iconic use of faith".“There is also a negative underside to that history with respect to slavery, manifest destiny, to war, you know, to empires, so I, frankly, am glad American civil religion is dying,” Casey said. “But it does raise the practical question, what does bind us together in some way as a country?“We need some substitute for that and I don’t think we’ve found it yet,” Casey said.Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a Swiss-French philosopher, is credited with coining the term “civil religion” in his 1762 book in his series “The Social Contract.” He described civil religion as the moral and spiritual foundation of modern society. In June 2008, Casey was hired by the Obama campaign to “focus on outreach to evangelical voters,” according to a June 27, 2008 Washington Post article. The article also said that Casey, who was named senior adviser of religious affairs, had been informally advising the campaign for a year before his official appointment.During Obama’s presidential campaign, Casey defended Obama’s affiliation with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the controversial and left-wing pastor of the United Church of Christ in Chicago and one-time “spiritual adviser” to Obama.Obama attended Rev. Wright’s church for 20 years.Obama distanced himself from Wright after his many controversial remarks and sermons were made public during the 2008 campaign.On Mar. 18, 2008, Casey told The Washington Post, "The senator [Obama] is not naive, and what he's doing is very hard. He's trying to remain loyal to his pastor but also differentiate himself politically."Hmmmmm.......How long before they say"Religion is the opium of the people"?Read the full story here.

• Strait of Hormuz blockade threat - 'No one can sell oil if Iran cannot'.(PTV).A senior Iranian official has dismissed as futile the latest EU sanctions on the country's oil exports, adding that Tehran will not allow a condition to arise wherein others are allowed to sell oil and Iran is not."In the absence of Iranian supply, oil prices will go up and they (the Western states) know it; However, Iran will never allow itself to be in a situation in which it cannot sell oil but other regional states can," Ali Akbar Velayati, senior adviser to the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, told Press TV on Thursday.Europe's decision to embargo Iranian oil exports is in no one's interest, Velayati said, adding, "Western policy makers know just too well that their sanctions regime is a political maneuver.""Iran doesn't need any favor from any country to sell its oil, because global demand is always there."Read the full story here.

• Lone Gunman caught at Bush Jr Mansion in Dallas TX, attempting to deliver a "spiritual message" to the former President.(Wfaa).DALLAS - The Secret Service took a man into custody Tuesday afternoon who had a gun in his vehicle next to the home of former President George W. Bush. Dallas police sources told News 8 that police were called to the 10000 block of Daria Place by the request of the Secret Service. They detained a man who was believed to be armed with a gun.The Bushes are currently out of town.The man made it through a gate at the end of the block on Meaders Lane by closely following another vehicle. The Secret Service monitors the gate 24 hours a day with cameras and microphones.The man told the Secret Service he got a "spiritual message" to come there to deliver that message to the former president. They searched the man's car and found a weapon in the glove compartment of the vehicle.Read and see (Video) the full story here.

• Duped by the Duplicitous: the Left’s Big Tax Trick.(BigGovernment).ByKayleigh McEnany.When the Democrats aren’t cheating on their taxes like Charlie Rangel or forgetting to pay them like Timothy Geithner, they’re busy lambasting Republicans for actually paying theirs—albeit at a rate unsatisfactory to them.In yet another fantastic display of hypocrisy, the liberal mainstream media spent the week attacking Governor Mitt Romney for having a 15% tax rate. Since the media is loath to engage in any actual investigative journalism when it comes to the Democrats, I decided to do a little of my own. Here’s what I found.Start with Senator John Kerry who is among the 400 richest Americans thanks to his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry’s, inheritance. Their last publicly released tax returns in 2003 revealed that they paid a rate of 13.4% on a declared income of $5.5 million. This from the man who, just last year, tried to avoid half a million dollars in taxes by anchoring his yacht in Rhode Island rather than Massachusetts. Estimates pin Kerry’s net worth somewhere between $700 million and $3.2 billion compared to Romney’s lower net worth of $202 million.Take a look at former Vice Presidential Candidate John Edwards’s 2003 tax returns, and you’ll find that he paid an astonishingly low rate of 5.1%. Seems a bit low for a man with a net worth hovering around $54.7 million.But, of course, Kerry and Edwards’ income tax rates were protected under lock and key by the mainstream media during the 2004 presidential race against President George W. Bush. Speaking of Bush, you’ll also never hear anyone mention the fact that he paid a rate of 27.7% in the same year.Tax rates aside, in yet another attempt to make something out of nothing, the media has been reporting relentlessly on Romney donating millions in cash and stocks to the Mormon Church, as if tithing to one’s church is somehow a negative. Thanks to donations like Romney’s, the Mormon Church is able to sustain a large philanthropic network and send young men on two year missions that provide extensive humanitarian aid to a countless number of people in need. If you call that bad, I’d hate to see what you call good.This much I can assure you—Romney’s millions donated to the Mormon Church did far more good than the $353 Al Gore gave to charity in 1997 or the $0, $820, $175, $2,039, and $0 Senator Kerry gave between 1991 and 1995. Contrast that to the $28,236, $31,914, and $31,292 George Bush gave between 1991-1993 when he was a mere private citizen. That is the real story that you will never hear.Instead, you will hear report after report on Romney’s tax rate and his donations to the Mormon Church. You’ll hear about how the Democratic Party is the party of the little man, and the Republican Party is the party of the selfish, rich fat cat. That’s what the Democratic Party and the mainstream media want you to believe.So before you buy into the Left’s big tax fable like the Occupy Wall Streeters did, take a good hard look at what you’ll never see reported—the facts.Read the full story here.

• Thoughts On The SOTU from Clark Judge.(HughHewitt).SOTU: Did I hear that right?By Clark S. Judge: managing director, White House Writers Group, Inc.; chairman, Pacific Research Institute.I believe that’s what I heard the president advocate last night. But one term I didn’t hear, maybe I missed it: “The Constitution.” Then again, wasn’t he suggesting that, in brave times like these, we need to put aside those old rules. Do I have this straight?Read the full story here.

• John Bolton Discusses Why Iran Continues to Defy America.(BigPeace).John Bolton, former UN ambassador sits with Fred Grandy to analyze and discuss whether the U.S. is safer and more respected around the world. Is the United States stronger than it was under the last administration? If the U.S. is indeed a stronger and respected nation, why has Iran continuously disregarded the United States’ “no nuclear weapons” warning? Ambassador Bolton analyzes the consequences of Iran’s threat to shut down the Strait of Hormuz. How will it affect the U.S.? Can the United States avert this threat?You can hear Ambassador Bolton’s interview with Fred, as well as the rest of today’s show, at Secure Freedom Radio.Read and hear the full interview here.

• FACT CHECK: 10 Dubious Claims from Obama’s State of the Union.(Heritage).President Obama made a number of questionable statements in his State of the Union address on Tuesday night. Heritage experts took on some of the policy issues he raised, but we at Scribe thought we would address the simple factual accuracy of 10 of the more outlandish statements from the president.Quotes are drawn from the president’s prepared remarks.

Claim: “On the day I took office, our auto industry was on the verge of collapse. Some even said we should let it die. With a million jobs at stake, I refused to let that happen … And together, the entire industry added nearly 160,000 jobs.”

Fact: Using the relevant dates, that number is actually between 33,000 and 63,000.

Claim: “It’s not fair when foreign manufacturers have a leg up on ours only because they’re heavily subsidized.

Fact: Obama has targeted manufacturers with punitive tax hikes.

Claim: “[M]y administration has put more boots on the border than ever before.”

Fact: The vast majority of that increase was proposed and implemented before Obama took office.

Claim: “We’re also making it easier for American businesses to sell products all over the world.Two years ago, I set a goal of doubling U.S. exports over five years. With the bipartisan trade agreements we signed into law, we’re on track to meet that goal ahead of schedule.”

Fact: Obama chose to delay seeking congressional approval of those agreements for more than two years.

Claim: “American oil production is the highest that it’s been in eight years.”

Fact: No thanks to Obama.

Claim: “[W]ith only 2 percent of the world’s oil reserves, oil isn’t enough.”

 

Fact: The United States has more recoverable oil than the rest of the non-North American world combined.

Claim: “[I]t was public research dollars, over the course of 30 years, that helped develop the technologies to extract all this natural gas out of shale rock – reminding us that government support is critical in helping businesses get new energy ideas off the ground.”

 

Fact: Government funding only marginally contributed to the development of hydraulic fracturing.

Claim: “[W]e don’t have to choose between our environment and our economy.”

Fact: Obama just rejected both.

Claim: “I ask the Senate to pass a simple rule that all judicial and public service nominations receive a simple up or down vote within 90 days.”

Fact: The president has already demonstrated his complete lack of respect for the separation of powers.

Claim: “Do we want to keep these tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans? Or do we want to keep our investments in everything else – like education and medical research; a strong military and care for our veterans? Because if we’re serious about paying down our debt, we can’t do both.”

Fact: Entitlements drive our national debt, not discretionary spending or tax rates.Read the full story here.

• Obama's Attorney Refusing To Show Up At Obama's Georgia Ballot Challenge Hearings.(BR).Obama's Private Attorney Refusing To Show Up At Obama's Georgia Ballot Access Challenge Hearings.Dear Secretary Kemp: This is to advise you of serious problems that have developed in the conduct of the hearings pending before the Office of State Administrative Hearings. At issue in these hearings are challenges that allege that President Obama is not eligible to hold or run for re-election to his office, on the now wholly discredited theory that he does not meet the citizenship requirements. As you know, such allegations have been the subject of numerous judicial proceedings around the country, all of which have concluded that they were baseless and, in some instances – including in the State of Georgia - that those bringing the challenges have engaged in sanctionable abuse of our legal process.Nonetheless, the Administrative Law Judge has exercised no control whatsoever over this proceeding, and it threatens to degenerate into a pure forum for political posturing to the detriment of the reputation of the State and your Office. Rather than bring this matter to a rapid conclusion, the ALJ has insisted on agreeing to a day of hearings, and on the full participation of the President in his capacity as a candidate. Only last week, he denied a Motion to Quash a subpoena he approved on the request of plaintiff’s counsel for the personal appearance of the President at the hearing, now scheduled for January 26.For these reasons, and as discussed briefly below, you should bring an end to this baseless, costly and unproductive hearing by withdrawing the original hearing request as improvidently issued.Hmmmmm......I am above the law?Read the full story here.Updated: Obama's Attorney Jaberwoki Slapped Down By Georgia SOS here.

• Pentagon to slash spending by $260 billion through 2017.(HD).The Pentagon will unveil a five-year budget proposal this week that aims to implement $487 billion in spending cuts over the next decade by trimming the size of the military and canceling or scaling back some weapons programs. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta will outline a budget request for the 2013 fiscal year today that will cut $260 billion in spending through 2017, taking the Pentagon more than halfway to its target for the decade.Details about the 2013 spending plans have begun to emerge from sources familiar with the budget proposal despite the Pentagon’s efforts to keep its funding discussions secret until they are formally announced. The budget proposal is expected to eliminate thousands of military and civilian jobs over the next five years at a time when President Barack Obama is running for re-election against a field of Republicans who accuse him of being weak on national security.The proposed budget will terminate or scale back spending on dozens of weapons programs, including the Air Force’s high-altitude Global Hawk unmanned surveillance plane built by Northrop Grumman Corp and the Pentagon’s biggest weapons program, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, built by Lockheed Martin Corp.  But it will not tackle some $600 billion in additional spending cuts due to take effect in January 2013 after lawmakers failed to agree on $1.2 trillion in deficit-cutting measures.Officials said they would revisit the issue and address those cuts later if Congress did not take action this year. Panetta is expected to seek a Pentagon base budget of about $523 billion. The number of combat brigades stationed in Europe will be cut in half, from four to two, Panetta said recently.The overall size of the Army, which was already scheduled to fall to 520,000 by 2016, could be further reduced to 490,000, a drop of another 30,000 soldiers, analysts say.Hmmmm.......Read the full story here.

• 'Iran won't move toward nuclear weapon in 2012'.(JPost).WASHINGTON - Iran is unlikely to move toward building a nuclear weapon this year because it does not yet have the capability to produce enough weapon-grade uranium, a draft report by the Institute for Science and International Security said on Wednesday.The report by the institute founded by nuclear expert David Albright offered a more temperate view of Iran's nuclear program than some of the heated rhetoric that has surfaced since the United States and its allies stepped up sanctions on Tehran."Iran is unlikely to decide to dash toward making nuclear weapons as long as its uranium enrichment capability remains as limited as it is today," the report said.The United States and Iran are engaged in a war of words over sanctions, with Iran threatening to retaliate by blocking oil shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. The United States said it would not allow that to happen.The escalating rhetoric and tensions have led to concerns about the potential for missteps between the adversaries that might spiral into a military confrontation that neither wants.But the report, financed by a grant from the United States Institute of Peace, said Iran had not made a decision to build a nuclear bomb. The USIP is an independent, non-partisan center created by the US Congress in 1984 that receives federal government funding."Iran is unlikely to break out in 2012, in great part because it is deterred from doing so," said the ISIS report, which has not yet been publicly released.The report turns down the temperature, saying that sanctions and the fear of a military strike by Israel on Iran's nuclear facilities have worked as a deterrent.The institute has advised US and foreign governments about Iran's nuclear capabilities and Albright is considered a respected expert on the issue. The report tracks closely with what is known of official US government assessments.US officials say Iran has not made the decision to build a nuclear weapon and that Iranian leaders haven't made the decision because they have to weigh the cost and benefits of building a nuclear weapon.Much of what the Iranians are doing with their nuclear program has civilian uses, but they are keeping their options open, which significantly adds to the air of ambiguity, US officials told Reuters on condition of anonymity.Hmmmm..........Read the full story here.

• Convicted Terrorist Hysen Sherifi Accused of Plotting to Behead Witnesses.(Fox).RALEIGH, N.C. – A North Carolina man sentenced to prison recently as part of a homegrown terrorist ring has been accused in a federal court document of plotting to kill witnesses who testified against him at trial.An affidavit unsealed in federal court Monday accuses Hysen Sherifi of plotting against the witnesses from his jail cell. Authorities say an FBI informant posing as a hit man met with Sherifi's brother and a female friend and accepted $5,000 and a photo of an intended victim.The informant soon befriended Sherifi, who requested help in hiring someone to kill three people who had testified against him at his trial, according to the affidavit. Sherifi specified that he wanted the witnesses beheaded and that he would be provided photos of the severed heads as confirmation of the deaths, according to the document.FBI agents have arrested the brother, Shkumbin Sherifi, and Nevine Aly Elshiekh, a school teacher. Now in federal custody at the New Hanover County Jail, each is charged with a felony count of use of interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire.Hysen Sherifi, 27, was sentenced to 45 years in prison earlier this month in what prosecutors described as a conspiracy to attack the Marine base at Quantico, Va., and targets abroad. Five others, including construction contractor Daniel Patrick Boyd, have been sentenced to federal prison terms for terrorism charges related to raising money, stockpiling weapons and training in preparation for jihadist attacks. . . .The Sherifi brothers and other family members emigrated from Kosovo following the wars that ravaged the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. A call to the Sherifi family home in Raleigh on Tuesday was not returned.Hysen Sherifi and others arrested in the terrorism conspiracy were members of the Islamic Association of Raleigh, the largest Muslim congregation in the Triangle. Several members of the mosque also routinely made the 4-hour round trip for the trial in New Bern to support the accused, who they described as innocent men being railroaded by overzealous federal authorities. Read the full story here.

• Iran Set to Turn Off Oil Supply to Europe.(Spiegel).It's a move which has tit-for-tat written all over it, but one which could nonetheless have a serious impact: The Iranian government wants to present a bill to parliament this weekend calling for an immediate halt to oil deliveries to Europe. The move, with most reports citing the Iranian news agency Mehr, has come about in response to the EU agreement to impose sanctions against Iran, which were announced earlier this week.The sanctions banned any new contracts for buying oil from Iran, but allowed existing deals to continue until July in order to give countries time to find other sources. But that process is now at risk after the latest move from Tehran, a step the Iranian government had already threatened."If this bill is passed, the government will be forced to stop selling oil to Europe before the actual implementation of their sanctions," said Emad Hosseini, spokesman for the Iranian parliament's energy commission, reportedly said. The bill is set to become law on Sunday.The EU sanctions allow for oil deliveries from Iran until July 1. Any pre-empting of this timescale by Tehran could prove problematic for countries like Italy, Greece and Spain, who would need to urgently find new suppliers.China, meanwhile, a major importer of Iranian oil, has also criticized the EU sanctions. The Xinhua news agency quoted the Chinese Foreign Ministry on Thursday as saying: "To blindly pressure and impose sanctions on Iran are not constructive approaches."Read the full story here.

• Turkey drops heavily in press freedom rankings.(HD).Turkey took a big step backwards in press freedom rankings losing 10 places to be 148th out of 178 countries in the Reporters Without Borders’ (RSF) World Press Freedom Index for 2011 made public yesterday.Eritrea, North Korea and Turkmenistan came right at the bottom of the 10th annual list by the press freedom group, with the same clutch of European states - led by Finland, Norway and Estonia - at the top. Turkey’s fall came as a result of the pressure against journalists and media outlets. “Far from carrying out promised reforms, the judicial system launched a wave of arrests on journalists that was without precedent since the military dictatorship,” the report said on Turkey.“Control of news and information continued to tempt governments and to be a question of survival for totalitarian and repressive regimes,” said the Paris-based group.RSF said it was no surprise that the same trio of countries - Eritrea, North Korea and Turkmenistan - were bottom of the list because they were “absolute dictatorships that permit no civil liberties”.“They are immediately preceded at the bottom by Syria, Iran and China, three countries that seem to have lost contact with reality as they have been sucked into an insane spiral of terror,” it said.Hmmmm.......only a 30 places away from the bottom.......Obama's best buddy.Read the full story here.

• Canada - Shafia murder trial to resume amid tight security after bomb scare.(Yahoo).KINGSTON, Ont. - The Shafia family murder trial is expected resume this afternoon after a bomb threat forced an evacuation at the courthouse in the morning.People have started returning to the courthouse but increased security measures are making for long waits to get inside.Those entering the building are being asked to show photo identification while metal detectors and security wands are also be used. There is only one entry point into the courthouse.While police would only say there was a ''security concern,'' a source told The Canadian Press the reason for the evacuation was a bomb threat."I can neither confirm nor deny in regards to specifically a bomb, but we are just stating at this point in time it is a security concern," Const. Steve Koopman said. "As you can see we're taking it extremely seriously."Koopman couldn't say if the security threat was related to the Shafia trial."I cannot say 100 per cent, I think it's relatively coincidental that today that Superior Court Justice (Robert) Maranger was going to charge the jury and this is the most high profile case in town," he said.Police said they were notified of the security threat at 9:35 a.m., prior to the start of the day's proceedings in the Shafia case. The building was completely evacuated shortly after police received the call and the three accused were taken offsite."I certainly think that we're going to take this as seriously as we need to," said Koopman. "I would certainly say it is medium to high."We would rather treat it high rather than treat it less seriously than it needs to be."Read the full story here.

• Why Iran will not ‘come to its senses’.(DailyMail).By MelaniePhillips.War with Iran is a truly fearsome prospect.Its likely consequences would include attacks on US air bases from thousands of Iranian missiles, the unleashing of terrorist attacks within the US and Europe, the rocketing of Israeli towns from the tens of thousands of missiles trained on Israel from Lebanon, the closing of the Straits of Hormuz thus paralysing western oil supplies, and doubtless other horrors.But however fearsome this prospect, that of a nuclear-armed Iran is worse. The consequences are simply insupportable.A regime which has seen itself at war with the west ever since it came to power in 1979, and which has been involved in arguably every major terrorist atrocity against it, will be equipped with nuclear weapons to bring the west to its knees. Working as it does through puppet rogue regimes and terror organisations, it could perpetrate acts of nuclear terrorism – or threaten to do so.It could mount its long-threatened attempt to wipe Israel off the map, thus provoking a nuclear response to prevent a second genocide of the Jews. Last but by no means least, it will spark a nuclear arms race throughout the region, thus ensuring that nuclear weapons come under the control of some of the most unstable and belligerent regimes on earth. To all these threats and more, the west will be paralysed by Iran’s nuclear capacity, just as it is currently paralysed over North Korea.But the deeper problem is the west’s assumption that the Iranian regime is capable of ‘coming to its senses’ – its assumption that these are rational actors who ultimately will act in their own interest. Few in the west understand that, on the contrary, the Iranian regime is impervious to reason. Educated, intelligent and cunning they may be – but they are religious fanatics driven by an entirely different set of considerations. That’s what makes this situation so terrifying.As I have written over and over again, from the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamanei downwards the Iranian regime is dominated by people (adherents of a sect called the ‘Twelvers’) who believe that the Shia messiah, the Mahdi, will return to earth either as result of or to bring about the apocalyptic end of days. It is that apocalypse that they are intent upon facilitating. That is why the argument that ‘they wouldn’t dare launch a nuclear attack because they know half of Iran would be obliterated as a result’ is so fatuous. They would be happy if that were to occur.Reza Kahlili (a pseudonym) is reportedly a former CIA spy within the Revolutionary Guards. As he has written:‘Khamenei has been heard to say that the coming of the last Islamic Messiah, the Shiites’ 12th Imam Mahdi, is near and that specific actions need to be taken to protect the Islamic regime for upcoming events. Mahdi, according to Shiite belief, will reappear at the time of Armageddon... Many in the Guards and Basij have been told that the 12th Imam is on earth, facilitated the victory of Hezbollah over Israel in the 2006 war and soon will announce publicly his presence after the needed environment is created.'... Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, an influential cleric and a radical Twelver, previously had stated that Khamenei ascends to the sky every year to take direction from Imam Mahdi, and sources close to the cleric have disclosed that Khamenei has been ordered by Imam Mahdi to continue with the nuclear program despite worldwide objection as it will facilitate his coming.’Last December, Kahlili warned that the previous May Khamenei had ordered the Revolutionary Guards to speed up the nuclear-bomb program and arm Iran’s missiles with nuclear warheads. Now, he wrote, Khamenei had ordered the guards to prepare for war.What really threatens to bring the west to its knees is its own cultural hubris. Refracting everything in the world through the prism of its unshakeable faith in universal reason, it is incapable of recognising or understanding religious fanaticism – and insists instead upon treating the fanatic as a rational actor. Ironically, it is this belief in reason which has led the west to behave so irrationally in refusing to acknowledge the evidence of the mortal threat to itself posed by Iran -- and that there is no alternative to force if it is to be stopped. And now, alas, we’re about to discover the consequences.Read the full story here.

• Al Qaeda Spokesman: ‘America Has Been Defeated in Iraq’.(BigPeace).BAGHDAD (AP) – The U.S. pulled its troops out of Iraq because its economy is collapsing and it needed to save money, an al-Qaida front group said in a message posted on its website Wednesday, its first online comment since the U.S. completed its pullout last month after nine years of war.Al-Qaida was one of the main U.S. enemies in Iraq. It was behind some of the deadliest attacks on U.S. soldiers, Iraqi security forces and American-backed government institutions. Since the U.S. pullout, al-Qaida and other Sunni militants have stepped up attacks on Shiites, killing more than 170 people since the beginning of the year and raising concern that the surge in violence and an escalating political crisis might deteriorate into a civil war.In an audio message, a spokesman for al-Qaida’s Islamic State of Iraq who identified himself as Abu Mohammed al-Adnani said “America has been defeated in Iraq.”“They pulled out because its economic and human losses were unbearable,” al-Adnani said. “America’s bankruptcy and collapse is imminent. This is the real reason behind the withdrawal.” .Al-Adnani also called on former al-Qaida fighters who switched sides and fought the group with Americans not to “abandon jihad” now that the U.S. withdrawal has been completed. He threatened more attacks on the Shiite-led government, saying that “our explosives are at the door” of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.He told his followers not to be deceived by the number of the Iraqi government troops and its Shiite supporters, saying “they are merely beetles and flies.” Sunni extremists consider Shiites as not real Muslims.Al-Adnani called on former Sunni fighters who switched sides and fought al-Qaida to return, promising to forgive “whatever their crime was.”Hmmmmm........Obama: If We Work Hard, Afghanistan Could Be a Success...Like Iraq!Read the full story here.

• U.S. Ambassador to Russia: Obama Says We Should Support ‘Universal Values,’ Not American Values.(BigPeace).U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul neatly summarized everything that is wrong with President Barack Obama’s foreign policy in an interview yesterday with National Public Radio (emphasis added):There is no single path to democracy. And every society and every government and every country will find their own path. And we, as President Obama has said many, many times, we’re not going to get into the business of dictating that path, we’re just going to support what we like to call universal values. Not American values, not Western values, universal values.McFaul’s primary responsibility as an ambassador is to represent the United States and its values.If he believes otherwise; he should resign. If he has been ordered otherwise by the President of the United States, he should resign in protest.That appeasement has been present in President Obama’s approach to foreign affairs from the very start of his administration, when he described his job as representing the Arab world to Americans as much as Americans to the Arab world, and speaking for the world in general, not just the United States:and my job is to communicate to the American people that the Muslim world is filled with extraordinary people who simply want to live their lives and see their children live better lives. My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy….I think that what you’ll see is somebody who is listening, who is respectful, and who is trying to promote the interests not just of the United States, but also ordinary people who right now are suffering from poverty and a lack of opportunity…There can be no clearer explanation of why the United States is failing to pursue its interests with the urgency and emphasis they demand–while at the same time appeasing anti-American regimes instead of promoting the democracy he purports to champion as a “universal” value.Hmmmmm........I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes. ~ Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776.Read the full story here.

• 'Obama set to accelerate pace of US aid to Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.'(Jpost).DAVOS, Switzerland - US President Barack Obama plans to accelerate the pace of American aid to Egypt, a top State Department official said on Wednesday, as the most populous Arab nation reaches a critical stage in its uncertain transition away from autocratic rule.Undersecretary of State Robert Hormats, part of a US delegation that held unprecedented talks last week with Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, said Washington wanted to provide "more immediate benefits" to Egyptians, who earlier this month conducted their first democratic elections in decades."During this period, we want to be as supportive as we can. This is an historic moment. Egypt's a country of enormous importance," Hormats said.Under the plan, some non-urgent US aid slated for other countries - he did not name them - would be redirected to Egypt. And funding in the pipeline for long-term programs in Egypt would be shifted to quick-impact projects, he said.Hmmmm....On top of the $1.57 Billion Dollar he promised them last year?Read the full story here.

• Russia stays firm on Syria; head of Syrian Red Crescent killed.(AlArabiya).Russia said on Wednesday it would consider “constructive proposals” to end bloodshed in Syria but was opposed to force or sanctions, as regime troops reportedly pounded the protest hub of Hama.“We are open to constructive proposals that go in line with the set task of ending violence,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in Moscow after meeting his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu.Lavrov said any U.N. Security Council resolution backed by Russia “must firmly record that it cannot be used or interpreted to justify anyone’s outside military intervention in the Syria crisis.”His comments came after Russian and U.S. officials held talks in Moscow on how to stop the violence in Syria, which the United Nations estimates has killed more than 5,400 people since it erupted in mid-March.Russia and China both blocked a previous Western attempt to have the Security Council formally condemn Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s crackdown on dissent and impose stiff sanctions if he refuses to enter direct talks.According to diplomats at the United Nations, European and Arab nations are in the process of hammering out a Security Council draft resolution condemning the crackdown.Syria’s Foreign Minister Walid Muallem on Tuesday warned against foreign “interference,” which he said Russia, a Cold War ally with a naval base at Tartus on the country’s Mediterranean coast, would never accept.According to diplomats, European and Arab nations want a vote early next week on a resolution condemning the Syrian crackdown and hinting at sanctions against Assad’s regime.A first draft of the new resolution, obtained by AFP, notes Arab League sanctions ordered against Syria and “encourages all states to adopt similar steps and fully to cooperate with the League of Arab States in the implementation of its measures.”Russia’s Lavrov made it clear on Wednesday that any resolution hinting at sanctions would be opposed by Moscow.“We will not be able to back proposals under which unilaterally imposed sanctions against Syria -- sanctions that were declared without any consultations with Russia or China ... are blessed retroactively,” he said.Activists said security forces were pounding the central city of Hama for a second straight day on Wednesday.“The Syrian army is bombarding Hama with heavy weapons, using rocket-propelled grenades,” said a statement from the Local Coordination Committees (LCC), which organizes anti-regime protests on the ground.Syria’s Al-Watan newspaper, which is close to the authorities, said the military had launched an offensive aimed at retaking several districts in Hama that were controlled by insurgents.Also on Wednesday, the secretary-general of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent was shot dead on Wednesday as he travelled outside the capital Damascus in a clearly marked vehicle, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said.Doctor Abd-al-Razzaq Jbeiro, also head of the Red Crescent branch in the northern town of Idlib, was on the highway to Idlib from Damascus after attending meetings at Red Crescent headquarters, the agency said in a statement.“Regardless of the circumstances, the ICRC condemns this very severely,” Beatrice Megevand-Roggo, head of ICRC operations for the Near and Middle East, told Reuters in Geneva.She added that the “lack of respect for medical services” remained a major issue in Syria.Syrian state television blamed “terrorists” for the killing, saying he had been “assassinated” in Khan Sheikhoun district.Read the full story here.

• On 25 January 2012 there's nothing for the Copts to celebrate.(OCN).The Coptic nationalists, together with the overwhelming majority of the Copts inside and outside Egypt, have no reason to celebrate the first anniversary of the 25th January 2011 revolution. The revolution which some Copts, indeed the Coptic nationalists, wanted has not happened – we cannot see a civilian, secular democracy in Egypt as we enter 2012. What we see, instead, is a military rule, run by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) working in tandem with the Islamists who want to convert Egypt into Islamic country and impose Sharia law on all. This is not it that we had wanted. It is fair to say that Egypt, and the Copts, are going from bad to worse – the new reality that emerged as a result of the 25 January 2011 is simply not bright.Since the coup d’état on 11 February 2011, the Copts have been exposed to increasing number of attacks by Islamists and, more ominously, by the Egyptian State itself, represented in its various security forces. Even official Egyptian media joined in the onslaught as Egypt’s TV channel incited Muslims to attack Copts.Do Egypt’s new rulers recognise that the Copts are still being attacked? Have they brought the Muslim attackers of Copts to justice?Read the full story here.

• Turkey won't let NATO use its territory to attack Iran.(RN)(IsraelMatzav).President Obama's favorite Middle East leader will not allow NATO - of which his country is a member - to use his territory in an attack on Iran. Turkey, a member of NATO, will not give the Alliance territory for a military strike on Iran, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said, RIA Novosti reports.The official added that Turkey has been agitating NATO to avoid attacks on neighbors of Turkey and would continue the efforts. He concluded that the borders between Iran and turkey have been borders of peace and will remain that way.We already knew that Turkey won't allow their territory to be used against Iraq, and I guess this means they won't allow it to be used against Syria either.Hmmmm.....Can the US andNATO be sure that their missile shield will be 'operational'?.......Yes exactly.....Big location mistake.Read the full story here.

• "Invasion" Seeks to Undermine Israel.(TIP).Palestinian activists plan to invade Israel on foot from neighboring Arab states as part of a "Global March to Jerusalem," a report issued Monday by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center said.Leaders of the Global March to Jerusalem (GMJ) say the event will take place March 30 and will involve "the crawling of hundreds of thousands of Arab and international supporters through the neighboring countries and into Israel…"Marchers from around the world will meet in Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon GMJ's website said. Massive marches will also be organized in Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip toward Jerusalem. Organizers say the marches will be "peaceful," the Meir Amit report said, "but past experience … has taught that they have the potential for violence."And organizers acknowledge that they "aim to make this march a turning point in the nature of the confrontation, with the occupation having to face millions of protesters and demonstrators demanding Freedom for Palestine and its capitol Jerusalem."Activists involved in the march have ties to Hamas, including: GMJ spokesman Zaher Birawi is a Hamas activist who lives in the UK and has also served as a spokesperson for various Viva Palestina convoys. Viva Palestina (VP) is a UK-based organization which has delivered millions of dollars to Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Birawi also serves in leadership positions for Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood affiliated organizations in the UK.Mohammed Sawalha is formerly a senior Hamas operational operative in the West Bank who fled to Britain. Sawalha played an active role in organizing the deadly May 2010 flotilla to Gaza. He is involved with the Muslim Brotherhood in the UK and is one of the UK signatories of the pro-Jihad February 2009 "Istanbul declaration."George Galloway, the brainchild of the pro-Hamas organization Viva Palestina, plans on joining GMJ. Galloway discussed GMJ on his show The Real Deal, aired on Iran's Press TV station this month.Iranian-born Paul Larudee is the co-founder of the California-based Free Palestine Movement and participated in the May 2010 flotilla to Gaza. The Free Palestine Movement is an endorser of GMJ's branch in North America (GMJ-NA) and serves as a financial conduit for of GMJ-NA. Larudee is a leader of GMJ-NA, and serves on the International advisory Committee for GMJ.Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh promoted the march in a recent speech.Read the full story here.

• Foreign woman stripped of clothes, assaulted, in Egypt’s Tahrir Square.(BikyaMasr).CAIRO: A foreign woman was stripped and sexually assaulted on Wednesday evening in Egypt’s iconic Tahrir Square, one eyewitness said on Twitter and another confirmed in an email to Bikyamasr.com.The woman, who’s identity has not been revealed, was taken away in an ambulance after being assaulted for 10 minutes. Her husband reportedly was unable to intervene and witnessed the incident.“I saw the woman and then dozens of men surrounded her and started grabbing her, when she screamed for help some people came, but they were hit in the face,” wrote one witness.What happened next was “appalling,” said the trusted witness, who asked for anonymity. “The men just started tearing at her clothes and grabbing her body all over. When she fought back, they pushed her. It was chaos.”There were unconfirmed reports that the men “violated” her with their hands.The nationality of the woman is unknown at the current time.Throughout the day, sexual harassment towards women has been increasing and more and more reports of women being grabbed and groped began being reported.Activists called the attacks on women completely “unacceptable” and must be exposed no matter what. They demanded an end to all violence toward women.“What happened in Tahrir today has no justification and must be fully exposed even if it taints Tahrir!” wrote EgyptSecularist on Twitter.The incident brings memories of reporter Lara Logan, who was sexually assaulted the night former President Hosni Mubarak gave up power.According to studies conducted by the Egyptian Center for Women’s Right (ECWR) in 2008, 98 percent of foreign women and 83 percent of Egyptian women surveyed had experienced sexual harassment in Egypt.Meanwhile, 62 percent of Egyptian men confessed to harassing women and 53 percent of Egyptian men faulted women for “bringing it on.”Hmmmm......This will do wonders for tourism ,'Come Visit Egypt get groped in sight of the Pyramides'.Read the full story here.

• In Bahrain, Worries Grow of Violent Shiite-Sunni Confrontation.(NYT).MANAMA, BAHRAIN — Mohammed Ibrahim, 19, a Shiite student at the University of Bahrain, says he has gotten used to the tear gas the police use to disperse protests, which he and his friends attend every Friday.Suspended for several months after the violent suppression of last year’s pro-democracy movement, he recently was allowed back on campus. “They had suspended me because I participated in demonstrations on the campus and there had been fights with some Sunni students,” Mr. Ibrahim said in an interview last week. Now he is back in school, but the situation between Shiite students like him and Sunni students is very “tense,” he said. “I don’t think any longer that peaceful demonstrations are enough,” he said. “I think we should fight the police back, when they attack us.” Mr. Ibrahim belongs to the 14th of February movement, a group that started with peaceful protests but that in recent weeks has seen some members calling on the Internet for violent protests to overthrow the government — and especially the ruling family.Each Friday, before heading to protests, Mr. Ibrahim, like many other young Shiites, drives to Diraz, a village on the northwest coast, to listen to the kingdom’s most influential Shiite cleric, Ayatollah Issa Qassim. On a Friday this month, the mosque was packed to overflowing with worshipers. Nearby hung a large banner portraying Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Until recently, Ayatollah Qassim preached peaceful protest, but last Friday his language changed. Criticizing police violence against female protesters, he said the police who attacked women could be attacked in return. “This is a really dangerous message to the government,” said Habib al-Marzouk, who was present in the congregation. “He said, ‘It is enough, we cannot sit silent and see how they are attacking our women.”’ Mr. Marzouk said some Shiite youth would take that as broad approval for violence against security forces. A government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that since the speech some police officers had been heavily beaten. Read the full story here.

• Why some Jews hate Obama.(IsraelMatzav).Of course this JTA piece published in the JPost depicts Jews who hate and fear Obama as paranoid. Obama is hardly the first president to be called an anti-Semite or hostile to Israel. In 1991, George H.W. Bush found himself the subject of withering Jewish criticism when he sought to delay $10 billion in loan guarantees for Israel unless Jerusalem agreed to a settlement freeze in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The national director of the Anti-Defamation League, Abraham Foxman, said he remembers holding a news conference to denounce Jewish characterizations of Bush as Satan and evil.But the rhetoric and conspiracy theories against Obama seem to constitute an unprecedented level of vitriol, say many longtime observers of the Jewish political scene.“I’ve never seen as much enmity toward a president by American Jews as I do toward Obama,” said Morton Klein, the national president of the Zionist Organization of America. “I’ve never heard people say, as they say to me, 'I hate him.' ”After examining Obama's record four years ago and concluding that he was anti-Israel and an anti-Semite, I have seen nothing since to dissuade me of that conclusion. With the check of a reelection campaign this year, Obama has exhibited levels of hostility toward Israel that are unprecedented by any President. Imagine what he will do if God forbid he is reelected.For a lengthy list of why so many Jews loathe and fear Obama, go here. read the full story here.