Video - Ahmadinejad Attends State Funeral of Chavez.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad attended the funeral of the late President Hugo Chavez in Caracas today.Another crowd favorite was Lukashenko and son the 'Last dictator of the Sovjet Era'.
I'm sure Luka and Mahmoud had lots to discuss about enriched Uranium trade. Golbalpost reports from Caracas that Ahmadinejad was the crowd favorite.

Other Chavez 'Groupies' :

Hugo Chávez’s Last Days.

Hugo Chávez’s Last Days.(Cato).By Juan Carlos Hidalgo.Venezuela’s Vice President Nicolás Maduro announced last night from Havana that Hugo Chávez suffered new complications from his fourth cancer surgery. Rumors abound on the true condition of the president, but it now looks certain that Chávez won’t be able to return to Venezuela by January 10th to be sworn in for a new six-year term.
Unfortunately, Hugo Chávez has been the defining figure of Latin American politics in the last decade. His authoritarian populism doesn’t differ much from other Latin American leaders, but his influence on regional politics, buoyed by almost one trillion dollars in oil revenue, has been unparalleled. His permanent absence will have immediate ramifications not only for Venezuela, but for all Latin America.
Let’s start with Venezuela: the Constitution stipulates that if the president-elect is permanently incapacitated before being sworn in, the speaker of the National Assembly will assume power and a new election must be held within 30 days.
This is currently the most likely scenario, under which the temporary president will be Diosdado Cabello, a powerful figure within Chávez’s PSUV party with a strong military background. However, Nicolás Maduro, the current Vice President and Minister of Foreign Affairs, has been anointed by Chávez as his successor and the candidate of his PSUV party in the case of a new election. Maduro is considered to be Cuba’s pick for the top job.
Thirty days is an incredibly short time to organize a new election. It’s very likely that Henrique Capriles will once again be the candidate of the opposition. Prior to the October 7th election when Chávez defeated Capriles, polls showed that the opposition candidate would defeat any other figure of the PSUV, including Maduro, in an election without Chávez. However, chavismo proved that it can win without its leader when it trounced the opposition in state elections on December 16th. An election just 30 days after Chávez death will probably be all about him and his legacy. I’d expect the PSUV candidate to benefit tremendously from a sympathy vote for the recently-deceased Chávez. Capriles would have a tough fight ahead under these circumstances.
Regionally speaking, Chávez’s death will have an important effect on Venezuela’s satellite countries. Cuba is certainly the most vulnerable. The Cuban economy would probably implode without the massive oil subsidy it receives from Venezuela. This would jeopardize the continuity of the Castro regime. This is why Havana is playing such an active role in deciding who will replace Chávez and how the succession should play out. Other regional allies such as Nicaragua, Ecuador and Bolivia would also face cutbacks in economic assistance but not big enough to threaten their leaders’ hold on power.
It has long become clear that Chávez-style populism doesn’t work. Venezuela is in ruins. There are shortages of basic goods. Its infrastructure is literally falling apart. It’s the most corrupt country in the region. It has one of the world’s highest crime rates. Meanwhile, countries that have chosen democratic capitalism such as Chile and Peru are faring much better and represent a far more attractive model. Chávez’s death will only accelerate the demise of his so called “Socialism of the 21st Century.”Hmmm....."And I will bless them that bless you, and curse him that curses you: and in you shall all families of the earth be blessed." ~ Genesis 12:3.Read the full story here.

MFS - The Other News

                        Morning Posting.

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity in Peru : 6.8 -Epicenter located  67 km (41.63 miles) SE of Contamana, Departmento de Loreto; The US  5.8 and 5.9 Virginia and Europe Sweden 5.1! More info here.

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

• Maps of East Coast Earthquake.(DougRoss).A major earthquake centered near Washington, D.C. occurred around 2pm ET today. The U.S. Geological Survey stated that it received over "10,000 reports of felt shaking ... from more than 3400 zip codes all over the eastern United States." A magnitude 5.8 earthquake struck the National Capital Area on Tuesday, August 23, at 1:51p.m. (EDT), causing moderate shaking and potentially significant damage, and was felt throughout Northern Virginia and neighboring areas. No casualties are expected.Meanwhile, a 5.3 magnitude quake also struck Colorado Monday night, about 180 miles south of Denver...
  Read and see the full story here.

• Outrage As Bloomberg Bans Clergy From 9/11 Ceremony.(AnneColetta)Religious leaders are calling on Mayor Michael Bloomberg to reverse course and offer clergy a role in the ceremony commemorating the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.Rudy Washington, a deputy mayor in former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s administration, said he’s outraged. Mr. Washington organized an interfaith ceremony at Yankee Stadium shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.“This is America, and to have a memorial service where there’s no prayer, this appears to be insanity to me,” said Mr. Washington, who has suffered severe medical problems connected to the time he spent at Ground Zero. ..

Did Bloomberg forget this?

Mychal F. Judge, OFM (born Robert Emmet Judge on May 11, 1933; died September 11, 2001) was a Roman Catholic priest of the Franciscan Order of Friars Minor, Chaplain of the Fire Department of New York, and the first recorded victim of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

And this?

Upon hearing the news that the World Trade Center had been hit, Father Judge rushed to the site. He was met by the Mayor of New York, Rudolph Giuliani, who asked him to pray for the city and its victims. Judge administered the Last Rites to some lying on the streets, then entered the lobby of the World Trade Center North Tower, where an emergency command post was organized. There he continued offering aid and prayers for the rescuers, the injured and dead.When the South Tower collapsed at 9:59 AM, debris went flying through the North Tower lobby, killing many inside, including Judge. At the moment he was struck in the head and killed, Judge was repeatedly praying aloud, “Jesus, please end this right now! God, please end this!”, according to Judge’s biographer and New York Daily News columnist Michael Daly.

Shortly after his death, an NYPD lieutenant, who had also been buried in the collapse, found Judge’s body and assisted by two firemen and two civilian bystanders carried it out of the North Tower lobby to nearby St Peter’s Church. This event was captured in the documentary film 9/11, shot by Jules and Gedeon Naudet. Shannon Stapleton, photographer from Reuters, photographed Judge’s body being carried out of the rubble by five men. It became one of the most famous images related to 9/11. The Philadelphia Weekly reports the photograph is considered an American Pietà.Judge’s body was formally identified by NYPDDetectiveSteven McDonald, a long-time friend of the priest. The coroner found that Judge died of “blunt force trauma to the head.”Mychal Judge’s body bag was labeled “Victim 0001,” recognized as the first official victim of the September 11, 2001 attacks. Former President Bill Clinton was among the 3,000 people who attended his funeral, held on September 15 at St Francis of Assisi Church in Manhattan. It was presided over by Cardinal Edward Egan. President Clinton said that Judge’s death was “a special loss. We should live his life as an example of what has to prevail.”And has Bloomberg forgotten all the other clergy that ministered to the dying and the survivors?Hmmmm......."The War on Christianity".Read the full story here.

• Qaddafi’s old ally Russia cautious on Libya rebel recognition.(AlArabiya).President Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday said Russia would recognize the Libyan rebels if they “unite the country” while warning that the Kremlin’s old ally Muammar Qaddafi still retained influence.In his first public comments on Libya since the rebels swiftly stormed its capital, Medvedev tread a cautious line between recognizing the change of power in Tripoli and breaking Moscow’s historic ties to the old regime.“Despite the successes of the rebels, Qaddafi and his supporters still have a certain influence and military potential. We want them to sit down at the negotiating table and reach agreements on future peace,” Medvedev said.He added that Moscow will only establish full diplomatic relations with the rebels “if they have the energy and possibilities to unite the country for a new democratic beginning.”Russia was one of the strongest international critics of the NATO-led campaign against its military trading partner and now stands to lose a $4-billion weapons market it first developed in the 1980s.The two sides’ energy ties were also at risk with the fall of Qaddafi--all factors in Russia’s decision to keep an embassy open in Tripoli and only recognize the rebels as a negotiating partner at formal peace talks.Russia did not join the global chorus for Qaddafi’s ouster until after the start of the NATO offensive and now insists it is up to the people surrounding the veteran leader and the opposition to come up with a new government.Medvedev warned starkly on Wednesday that it may well be premature for the rebels to be proclaiming victory or for other nations to be establishing formal ties with the opposition's National Transitional Council (NTC).The situation in Libya remained “what it was before... in essence, there are two powers in the country,” said Medvedev during a rare summit meeting in Siberia with North Korea’s reclusive leader Kim Jong-Il.“Russia has a careful position and we are watching how events develop,” the Kremlin chief added.Medvedev’s comments appear to take a step back from a foreign ministry statement issued on Monday in which Russia predicted an imminent fall of Qaddafi.“The dramatic turn of events in the Libyan conflict appears to testify to an imminent shift of power in this country to the rebel forces,” the ministry said in its Monday statement.Russia also issued a separate statement at the time calling on the rebels to respect the personal safety of both Qaddafi’s old supporters and the Russian embassy in Tripoli.The Kremlin’s African envoy Mikhail Margelov, who failed to convince Qaddafi to leave during a June visit to Tripoli, has also predicted a spell of unrest and mentioned the possibility of the country following the experience of Iraq.Medvedev said that Moscow wanted Libya to remain an integral and sovereign state that “retains friendly relations with other countries.”Hmmmmm......He doesn't play Golf.....he plays ball!Read the full story here.

• IAEA official warns of Libya “dirty bomb” material.(AlArabiya).A research center near Tripoli stocks uranium and other material that could be used to make a nuclear “dirty bomb” and Libya’s rebels will need to secure it, a former senior U.N. inspector said on Wednesday. Seeking to mend ties with the West, Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi agreed in 2003 to abandon efforts to acquire nuclear, chemical and biological weapons – a move that brought him in from the cold and helped end decades of isolation.Olli Heinonen, head of nuclear safeguards inspections worldwide for the UN atomic watchdog until mid-2010 and now at Harvard University, said Libya’s uranium enrichment program was subsequently taken apart.Sensitive material and documentation ranging from nuclear weapons design information to centrifuge components were also confiscated, Heinonen said in an online commentary.Libya’s highly-enriched uranium, which was used to fuel the Tajoura research reactor on Tripoli’s outskirts, took longer to remove but the last consignment of spent fuel was flown out of Libya in late 2009.But “nuclear security concerns still linger,” said Heinonen, a former deputy director general of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).Tajoura continues to stock large quantities of radioisotopes, radioactive waste and low-enriched uranium fuel after three decades of nuclear research and radioisotope production, he said.While we can be thankful that the highly enriched uranium stocks are no longer in Libya, the remaining material in Tajoura could, if it ended up in the wrong hands, be used as ingredients for dirty bombs. The situation at Tajoura today is unclear.”A so-called dirty bomb can combine conventional explosives such as dynamite with radioactive material.Experts describe the threat of a crude fissile nuclear bomb, which is technically difficult to manufacture and requires hard-to-obtain bomb-grade uranium or plutonium, as a “low probability, high consequence act” – unlikely but with the potential to cause large-scale harm to life and property.On the other hand, a “dirty bomb,” where conventional explosives are used to disperse radiation from a radioactive source, is a “high probability, low consequence act” with more potential to terrorize than cause large loss of life.Hmmmm......Al-qaida ........Nuclear waste......"Dirty Bomb".Read the full story here.

• The Mineral, VA earthquake of August 23, 2011 – Best in depth explanation yet!(AGUBlog).This afternoon, I finished with classes, and packed up my bag, and headed out into the bright afternoon sunlight to head home and work from there. Just in front of my building, I ran into one of my star pupils, Victoria, and had a conversation with her. I’m really glad that I ran into her, because if I hadn’t I might have been in my car at the moment the earthquake hit. Instead, Victoria and I wrapped up our conversation and then I felt a weird vibration come up my legs (through the soles of my sneakers) from the concrete walkway (P waves). I asked her, “Do you feel that?” and crouched down. She answered “Yes,” right as we wobbled side to side a bit (S waves) and then suddenly the whole campus started shaking (surface waves). Trees were swaying, and leaves rustling, and plate glass windows on the English building were undulating like water. No glass broke, but the outpouring of students and faculty from the buildings was immediate. There was only one student freaked out and crying that I saw. Everyone else was wide-eyed with wonder. As you can imagine, they had a lot of questions for the geology professors on the scene. It didn’t take long until the geology “fan club” students and geology professors Shelley Jaye and Chris Khourey joined me in front of the science building. We all engaged with the discombobulated populace and answered their questions, augmented by my iPad’s access to Twitter and the USGS website on the event.

The earthquake turned out to be nothing like the last quake I felt on campus: it was much larger (magnitude 5.8, upgraded to 5.9, downgraded to 5.8 again, as opposed to 2.1 last time) and it was much further away (72 miles, as opposed to 1 km last time). Its epicenter (the spot on the Earth’s surface directly above the spot where the rock moved), was located near Mineral, Virginia (appropriately enough). It was apparently the state’s most powerful quake since 1897.I took a copy of the simplified geologic map of Virginia produced by Chuck Bailey of William and Mary, and overlay it onto Google Earth, and you can see that the epicenter (which is practically the hypocenter, given how very shallow this quake occurred!) is squarely in the middle of the Piedmont province, a zone of mashed-up and recrystallized oceanic rocks that got scraped off a subducted slab of oceanic lithosphere and added to North America in a “Pacific Northwest” style event hundreds of millions of years ago.It Looks as if the Spotsylvania and Lakeside Faults are the suspects.Read the full story here.

• With CIA help, NYPD moves covertly in Muslim areas.(Boston).NEW YORK—In New Brunswick, N.J., a building superintendent opened the door to apartment No. 1076 one balmy Tuesday and discovered an alarming scene: terrorist literature strewn about the table and computer and surveillance equipment set up in the next room.The panicked superintendent dialed 911, sending police and the FBI rushing to the building near Rutgers University on the afternoon of June 2, 2009. What they found in that first-floor apartment, however, was not a terrorist hideout but a command center set up by a secret team of New York Police Department intelligence officers.From that apartment, about an hour outside the department's jurisdiction, the NYPD had been staging undercover operations and conducting surveillance throughout New Jersey. Neither the FBI nor the local police had any idea.Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the NYPD has become one of the country's most aggressive domestic intelligence agencies. A months-long investigation by The Associated Press has revealed that the NYPD operates far outside its borders and targets ethnic communities in ways that would run afoul of civil liberties rules if practiced by the federal government. And it does so with unprecedented help from the CIA in a partnership that has blurred the bright line between foreign and domestic spying.Neither the city council, which finances the department, nor the federal government, which contributes hundreds of millions of dollars each year, is told exactly what's going on.The department has dispatched teams of undercover officers, known as "rakers," into minority neighborhoods as part of a human mapping program, according to officials directly involved in the program. They've monitored daily life in bookstores, bars, cafes and nightclubs. Police have also used informants, known as "mosque crawlers," to monitor sermons, even when there's no evidence of wrongdoing. NYPD officials have scrutinized imams and gathered intelligence on cab drivers and food cart vendors, jobs often done by Muslims.Many of these operations were built with help from the CIA, which is prohibited from spying on Americans but was instrumental in transforming the NYPD's intelligence unit.Hmmmm....."To serve and Protect".Read the full story here.

• Analysis Of Twitter Traffic Finds Obama’s Bus Tour With An Unfavorable/Favorable Ratio Of 72%–6%.(TheHill).Obama’s Midwest tour last week prompted more criticism and ridicule than support on Twitter, according to this week’s Hill Hexagon.Regardless of what President Obama and his political advisers had hoped for, the three-state Midwest bus tour last week prompted far more criticism and ridicule than support in Twitter comments, according to this week’s Hill Hexagon.An analysis of Twitter traffic by Crimson Hexagon over the days of the tour showed that 72 percent of the opinions expressed were negative, while 22 percent were neutral and only 6 percent were favorable.Among the negative comments, 21 percent were generally negative toward Obama, 17 percent called it a campaign stunt, 15 percent complained about taxpayers picking up the tab, 12 percent offered derisive names for the tour — similar to GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s “Magical Misery Tour” — and 6 percent complained that he was not in Washington working.Read the full story here.

• America would ‘give to bigotry no sanction,’ George Washington wrote in 1790.(RuthFullyyours).The annual reading of George Washington’s letter to the Jews—which took place this weekend at the Touro Synagogue in Newport, R.I.—will echo with extra significance this year, as a campaign is now under way to make the original letter available for public viewing.The campaign was launched earlier this year by the Jewish Daily Forward after the newspaper discovered that Washington’s letter—in which he vowed that the new American government would “give to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance”—is locked away in storage by an owner who is loath to share access with the rest of his countrymen.Neither the Forward nor anyone else is suggesting that the owner, who bought the letter in 1949, is not within his rights. The letter is, after all, private property. But it is also a national treasure, containing one of the greatest statements on religious liberty of all time. And the campaign to give it a public home—so it can be leaned over and read as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are—comes at a time when the free exercise of religion is increasingly constrained around the world.The Pew Research Center found this month that between mid-2006 and mid-2009, restrictions on religious beliefs and practices rose in 23 of the world’s 198 countries, affecting roughly a third of the world’s population. It’s a trend that spans the globe, from Asia through Europe and into the Middle East.That America stands apart can be attributed, at least in part, to the signal Washington sent to the Jews of Newport in the summer of 1790. It was more than a year before ratification of the First Amendment, and the letter stands as a masterpiece of Washington’s craftsmanship in the formulation of freedom.Washington was replying to a greeting sent to him by Moses Seixas, warden of Newport’s Congregation Kahal Kadosh Yeshuat Israel, on the eve of the new president’s visit to the city. Newport’s 300 Jews had generally been well-treated in the pre-revolutionary era, but only up to a point. In a famous case, two of the community’s members, Aaron Lopez and Isaac Elizer, were barred from becoming naturalized citizens of Rhode Island because of their religion. So the community looked with great hope to the new government and to President Washington.Seixas, who referred to his co-religionists as the “children of the Stock of Abraham,” wrote of his community’s gratitude to be able to behold “a Government, which to bigotry gives no sanction, to persecution no assistance.” Washington’s response didn’t disappoint. In 337 words it echoed Seixas’s language and then some, expressing the hope that the Jews “who dwell in this land” would “continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.”Washington closed with an invocation: “May the father of all mercies scatter light and not darkness in our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in his own due time and way everlastingly happy.” It is a hope that has been resoundingly redeemed in America.Hmmmmm........George Washington’s 1790 Letter To Touro Synagogue.Read the full story here.

• What Really Happened to the National Cathedral in the Quake.(AtlanticWire).Not all of the buildings in D.C. got away unscathed following the 5.8 magnitude earthquake that rocked the east coast Tuesday afternoon. Conflicting reports emerged over whether the Washington Monument was leaning, or not, or if it was leaning to the left, or to the right. In our original earthquake post, we linked to a photo that showed a missing spire from the National Cathedral in Washington. The original reports of the damage were fairly dismissive. Talking Points Memo did a slide show of damage to buildings in the D.C. area, and led with three pictures of tiny pieces of rubble on the front steps. The sarcastic captions read, "See it?" and "Look closely; it's there," and have large red arrows, just in case you miss it. Admittedly, the pictures they have don't show very much. The National Cathedral, which provided these images, has started soliciting donations to help repair the structure of the building. TPM's pictures don't tell the whole story, the real damage is inside.Read and see the full story here.

• Individuals Who Pose A Threat Cleared To Work In Airports.(JudicialWatch).A decade after the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history the Homeland Security agency created to protect the nation’s transportation system clears “individuals who pose a threat” to work in “secure” areas of American airports.It may seem like a bad joke but it’s reality at the perpetually inept Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the 55,000-employee monster created after 9/11 to avoid another terrorist attack. Instead the agency that embarrasses innocent citizens with invasive, genital-groping personal searches has been marred by a series of gaffes that have left the country vulnerable amid increasing threats of terrorism.Since its creation the TSA has made headlines for regularly missing guns and bombs during random tests at major U.S. airports, approving background checks for illegal immigrants to work in sensitive areas of busy airports and clearing dozens of illegal aliens to train as pilots just as several of the 9/11 hijackers did. The agency has also seen several agents arrested for official misconduct, including stealing from passengers’ bags at some of the nation’s busiest airports.This month a federal audit reveals that, after nearly a decade, the TSA still can’t guarantee that agents working in “secure” areas of airports don’t pose a risk. That’s because the agency doesn’t always verify the identity of job applicants or even their legal status against a government immigration database. This means that the TSA can’t account for agency employees with access to secure areas of airports, according to a Homeland Security Inspector General report made public a few days ago.Portions of the report have been redacted for security reasons, but the big picture is clear: “The safety of airport workers, passengers, and aircraft is at risk due to the vulnerabilities in the airport operator badging process,” according to the inspector general. Investigators found that only 193 of 280 airports could provide reports of the locations where high-security workers were stationed.The recommendations to fix the problem are almost comical because they simply require common sense. For example, the IG suggests verifying the identity of TSA job applicants, accurately vetting their personal information and requiring airports to conduct criminal record checks for badge holders to assure individuals who commit “disqualifying crimes” are stripped of their access to secure airport areas.While the higher ups at the TSA work to implement these simple procedures, the agency keeps getting enormous amounts of taxpayer dollars to fulfill its mission despite its many failures. President Obama has given the agency more than $3 billion in recovery funds and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano wants Congress to increase its 2012 budget by $459 million to a whopping $8.1 billion.Hmmmmm.....Another 'Obamination'?Read the full story here

• Obama wants to increase aid to Egypt.(IsraelMatzav).I've pointed out a couple of times the Congress' threats to cut aid to Egypt in the event that it abrogates its treaty with Israel, and possibly even for several lesser offenses. I've also pointed out threats by the Obama administration to veto a budget that conditions aid to Egypt, the 'Palestinian Authority' and others. But what's most amazing is that at a time of economic crisis in the US, President Obama wants to increase aid to Egypt. Read the full story here.

• How to get $12 billion of gold to Venezuela.(Reuters)By FelixSalmon.Ever since the news broke last week that Hugo Chávez wanted to transport 211 tons of physical gold from Europe to Caracas, I’ve been wondering how on earth he possibly intends to do such a thing.There are 99 tons already being held at the Bank of England; according to the FT, the plan is to transfer other gold to the Bank of England from custodians such as Barclays, HSBC, and Standard Chartered; then, once it’s all in one place, um, well, nobody has a clue what might happen. Here’s the best guess from the FT:

Venezuela would need to transport the gold in several trips, traders said, since the high value of gold means it would be impossible to insure a single aircraft carrying 211 tonnes. It could take about 40 shipments to move the gold back to Caracas, traders estimated.“It’s going to be quite a task. Logistically, I’m not sure if the central bank realises the magnitude of the task ahead of them,” said one senior gold banker.I put the ever-resourceful Nick Rizzo on the task, but he came up with little more: the market in physical gold is tiny, and largely comprised of nutcases. The last (and only) known case of this kind of quantity of gold being transported across state lines took place almost exactly 75 years ago, in 1936, when the government of Spain removed 560 tons of gold from Madrid to Moscow as the armies of Francisco Franco approached. Most of the gold was exchanged for Russian weaponry, with the Soviet Union keeping 2.1% of the funds in the form of commissions and brokerage, and an additional 1.2% in the form of transport, deposit, melting, and refining expenses.It’s not much of a precedent, but it’s the only precedent we’ve got; my gut feeling is that Venezuela would be do well to get away with paying 3.3% of the total value of the gold in total expenses. Given that the gold is worth some $12.3 billion, the cost of Chávez’s gesture politics might reasonably be put at $400 million or so.It seems to me that Chávez has four main choices here. He can go the FT’s route, and just fly the gold to Caracas while insuring each shipment for its market value. He can go the Spanish route, and try to transport the gold himself, perhaps making use of the Venezuelan navy. He could attempt the mother of all repo transactions. Or he could get clever.Read the full story here.

• Israeli-Arab Crisis Approaching.(Stratfor).Israel has two strategies in the face of the potential storm. One is a devastating attack on Gaza followed by rotating forces to the north to deal with Hezbollah and intense suppression of an intifada. Dealing with Gaza fast and hard is the key if the intention is to abort the evolution I laid out. But the problem here is that the three-front scenario I laid out is simply a possibility; there is no certainty here. If Israel initiates conflict in Gaza and fails, it risks making a possibility into a certainty — and Israel has not had many stunning victories for several decades. It could also create a crisis for Egypt’s military rulers, not something the Israelis want.Israel also simply could absorb the attacks from Hamas to make Israel appear the victim. But seeking sympathy is not likely to work given how Palestinians have managed to shape global opinion. Moreover, we would expect Hamas to repeat its attacks to the point that Israel no longer could decline combat.War thus benefits Hamas (even if Hamas maintains plausible deniability by having others commit the attacks), a war Hezbollah has good reason to enter at such a stage and that Fatah does not want but could be forced into. Such a war could shift the Egyptian dynamic significantly to Hamas’ advantage, while Iran would certainly want al-Assad to be able to say to Syrians that a war with Israel is no time for a civil war in Syria. Israel would thus find itself fighting three battles simultaneously. The only way to do that is to be intensely aggressive, making moderation strategically difficult.Israel responded modestly compared to the past after the Eilat incident, mounting only limited attacks on Gaza against mostly members of the Palestinian Resistance Committees, an umbrella group known to have links with Hamas. Nevertheless, Hamas has made clear that its de facto truce with Israel was no longer assured. The issue now is what Hamas is prepared to do and whether Hamas supporters, Saudi Arabia in particular, can force them to control anti-Israeli activities in the region. The Saudis want al Assad to fall, and they do not want a radical regime in Egypt. Above all, they do not want Iran’s hand strengthened. But it is never clear how much influence the Saudis or Egyptians have over Hamas. For Hamas, this is emerging as the perfect moment, and it is hard to believe that even the Saudis can restrain them. As for the Israelis, what will happen depends on what others decide — which is the fundamental strategic problem that Israel has.Hmmmm.....I would go for the devastating attack on Gaza,no matter what a very hot Autumn is approaching very quickly.Read the full story here.

• Report: NKorea supplied nuclear software to Iran.(Ynet).North Korea has intensified its cooperation with Iran this year and supplied it with a computer program that could help the Islamic Republic build nuclear weapons, a German newspaper reported on Wednesday, citing western intelligence sources. The Sueddeutsche Zeitung said North Korea had in the spring delivered software, originally developed in the United States, that could simulate neutron flows.Such calculations, linked to identifying a chain reaction, are vital in the construction of reactors and also in the development of nuclear explosives.With the help of the program, Iran could gain important knowledge of how to construct nuclear weapons, reported the newspaper which quoted no individual source. If confirmed, it could add to Western suspicions about Iran's disputed nuclear activities and its links with North Korea, a secretive Asian state whose pursuit of nuclear weapons worries the world. A confidential United Nations report earlier this year said North Korea and Iran appeared to have been regularly exchanging ballistic missile technology in violation of UN sanctions. Iran rejects Western accusations it is seeking to develop atomic arms but its refusal to halt sensitive work has drawn gradually tightening UN and Western sanctions since 2006. The Sueddeutsche said the program, called Monte Carlo N-Particle Extended, or MCNPX 2.6.0., was used widely for civilian purposes but is subject to strict export controls because it can also be used to develop atomic weapons. It is unclear how North Korea got hold of the software.The deal could be part of a comprehensive cooperation between the two states for which Iran has paid more than $100 million, said the Sueddeutsche. The paper also said a delegation from North Korea travelled to Iran in February to train 20 Defense Ministry employees of the defense ministry in the software. The UN nuclear watchdog has voiced growing concern in the last year about possible military links to Tehran's nuclear program, saying it has received new information adding to those concerns. "More information is coming and we are assessing it," Yukiya Amano, director general of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency told Reuters last week, without giving detail. For several years, the IAEA has been investigating Western intelligence reports indicating Iran has coordinated efforts to process uranium, test explosives at high altitude and revamp a ballistic missile cone so it could take a atom warhead. Iran rejects the allegations as forged and baseless.Read the full story here.

• IDF investigation shows at least three of the terrorists that perpetrated attack near Eilat were Egyptians.(Ynet).The IDF did everything in its power to prevent Egyptian troops from getting hurt in last Thursday's multiple terror attacks near Eilat, inquiries conducted by both the IDF and the Egyptian army showed. The IDF also found that at least three of the terrorists were Egyptian citizens.Head of the General Staff's Planning Branch Amir Eshel, who traveled to Cairo early this week to present to Egyptian officials the findings of the IDF's initial investigation, even brought photographic evidence to the fact.The evidence shows that contrary to Egyptian media reports, the IDF's attack helicopters avoided hitting Egyptian military vehicles and troops stationed at the border.Videos shot from the aircraft show that the troops intentionally diverted fire from the Egyptian all-terrain vehicles and soldiers towards open areas near the border base, from which the terrorist sniper fire originated. The terrorists, who positioned themselves a few dozen meters from the Egyptian military post, launched an RPG rocket at one of the helicopters, and directed machine gun fire at it.In addition, an examination of the bodies of the terrorists killed by the IDF clearly showed that at least three of them were Egyptian citizens. One was a member of a radical Egyptian group who was tried in the country.He escaped form prison during the first days of the Egyptian revolution, when several Cairo prisons were broken into as hundreds of imprisoned Jihadist terrorists escaped to Sinai. Many had also reached the Gaza Strip and Egypt is demanding that Hamas extradite them. The Egyptian terrorists joined Palestinian operatives from the Popular Resistance Committees and together they perpetrated the coordinated attacks. Israel also has further proof that joint Palestinian-Egyptian terror cells were in Sinai for weeks and were assisted by Bedouins in the region. Also according to the IDF investigation, the Egyptian troops noticed the presence of the terrorists even before the attack was launched, but did nothing about it. Only later that evening did an officer and a few soldiers leave the post, evidently to stop the ongoing sniper fire. The terrorists, who were wearing uniforms similar to those of the Egyptian army, resisted. Possibly at this moment, when the troops and the operatives merged together, the Egyptian soldiers were shot. It remain unclear who fired the deadly shots, as the soldiers' bodies have yet to be autopsied by the Egyptian authorities.In total, five Egyptian soldiers and an officer died in last week's attacks. Three of the five were killed in a suicide bombing in Sinai on Friday night. Israel has photographic evidence that GOC Southern Command Major-General Tal Russo personally ordered the forces fighting on the ground and in the air to be careful not to hit the Egyptian military post and its soldiers. Israel was aware of these facts last week, but decided against releasing them in order to avoid embarrassing the Egyptian army and to dodge a media dispute over the versions of the events.However, the information was submitted to Egypt's Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which in turn invited an IDF representative, Major-General Eshel, to present the findings in Cairo. Some of the findings were published in an Egyptian newspaper on Wednesday.The Israeli authorities are aware that the Egyptian interim government is under great pressure to sever the diplomatic ties with Israel. One of the primary reasons that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and the eight-minister forum decided against ordering an intensive military retaliation against the terrorist movements firing rockets from Gaza on Saturday night was their desire to avoid further damage to the relations with Egypt.It was clear that such an operation can ignite the rage of the Egyptian public and result in further pressure from the Muslim Brotherhood to annul the peace accords with Israel.Netanyahu and Barak, backed by most of the top ministers, decided instead to wait for a window of opportunity that would allow them to eradicate the rocket fire and terror acts from Gaza – after the spirits have calmed down.Moreover, official sources in Egypt told the daily newspaper Al-Shorouk that the Egyptian army has mapped out the tunnel network connecting the Gaza Strip and Sinai ahead of shutting them down. According to the report, bolstered Egyptian forces secured their side of the border in and around Rafah, and vigorously searched individuals crossing the border. Read the full story here.

• "Let him who is no Taliban cast the first stone"?Afghan Villagers Stone a Taliban Commander to Death.(NYTimes).KABUL, Afghanistan — Angry villagers stoned to death a local Taliban commander and his bodyguard in southern Afghanistan Sunday after the militants killed a 60-year-old man accused of aiding the government, Afghan officials said.It was a rare reversal of brutality aimed at the Taliban and, some Afghan officials believe, suggests a growing sense of security in an area where the insurgency has lost ground to NATO forces in the last two years. The stoning happened in the Nawa District of Helmand Province, a verdant agricultural area along the Helmand River Valley, now considered one of the safest places in the volatile south as a result of a heavy influx of American troops and aid dollars. “People won’t tolerate the Taliban’s barbaric actions anymore,” said Dawoud Ahmadi, a spokesman for the governor of Helmand Province. “They will stand against them whenever they are harmed.” The stoning occurred a day after insurgents in the northeastern province of Kunar stoned, hanged and shot two Afghan National Army soldiers returning from leave, Afghan officials said. The attacks were unrelated and happened far away from each other, but they underscored the grisly nature of the insurgency even as NATO officials say overall violence in the country is beginning to show a sustained downward trend for the first time in five years. Read the full story here.

• US envoy in Turkey faces Armenian pressure over false church remarks.(TodaysZaman). Armenian clerics and US Armenian groups have been stepping up pressure on the US ambassador to Turkey after the diplomat said most of the Christian churches functioning prior to 1915 are still operating as churches in Turkey.In a written response to questions submitted to him by US Senator Robert Menendez earlier this month, Francis Ricciardone said a majority of Christian churches operating in the territory of present-day Turkey prior to 1915 are still functioning today, drawing strong reactions from Armenian groups in the US.Last week, in a strongly worded letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Ken Hachikian, the chairman of influential US-based Armenian diaspora organization the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA), demanded a retraction, correction and apology for Ambassador Ricciardone's statement covering-up Ottoman and Republican Turkey's systematic destruction of thousands of Christian churches.“We have been troubled by his eagerness to embrace the government of Turkey's false and hateful genocide denial narrative, at lengths beyond even the Administration's longstanding and shameful complicity in Turkey's denials of the Armenian Genocide,” stated Hachikian in his August 15th letter. “His verbal and written responses to questions during his Senate confirmation process, regarding the Armenian Genocide and other issues, ranged from evasive to deeply offensive.”The ANCA also encouraged “concerned citizens to contact Secretary Clinton via the State Department Comment Line to offer their views regarding Ambassador Ricciardone's misstatements.”Faced with pressure, the US envoy on Monday partially backtracked on his earlier remarks. “With your permission, I would appreciate the opportunity to clarify the record. The corrected text should read as follows. Most of the Christian churches functioning prior to 1915 are no longer operating as churches. Christian community contacts in Turkey report that a total of 200-250 churches that date to 1915 and before offer Christian worship services at least once a year. Many churches do not offer services every week due to insufficient clergy or local Christian populations. Some churches of significance operate as museums, others have been converted into mosques or put to other uses. Still others have fallen into disrepair or may have been totally destroyed,” ANCA quoted him as saying in a correction, apparently addressing Senator Menendez.But the Armenian groups in the US say this is not enough and accuse him of artificially inflating the number of currently operating Christian houses of worship in Turkey.“It took Ambassador Ricciardone, with the help of his many State Department colleagues, over a week to submit in writing a patently false misrepresentation about the destruction of Christian churches in Turkey, and another 10 days and a full wave of Senate and citizen pressure for him to finally take half a step back from the most offensive and obviously incorrect aspects of his response,” said ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian.“He just keeps digging himself into a deeper hole as an apologist for Ankara. His use of false figures and euphemisms to try to twist his way out of his misrepresentation – while somehow still trying to stick to Turkey's genocide denial narrative – clearly confirms that Ambassador Ricciardone is not the right representative of U.S. values and interests in Turkey.”Archbishop Oshagan Choloyan, Archbishop Moushegh Mardirossian and Archbishop Khajag Barsamian each also issued powerfully worded spiritual messages in response to the ambassador's statement. In an Aug. 15th statement, Archbishop Choloyan stressed that the ambassador's assertion was “so blatantly false that it cannot remain unchallenged.” Hmmmm.....Another example of the Obama administration 'changing' history and scrubbing facts.Read the full story here.

• 50 NGOs demand Massoud Barzani stop Kurdistan’s bombardment by Turkey, Iran.(EKurds).ERBIL-Hewlêr, Kurdistan region 'Iraq', — About 50 Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) have demanded the President of Iraq’s Kurdistan Region, Massoud Barzani, to exert efforts to stop the Turkish and Iranian bombardment of the border villages in Iraqi Kurdistan, according to a Presidential statement issued in Erbil Province.“The Kurdistan Region’s President, Massoud Barzani, had received a delegation representing the Civil Society Organizations, including 50 NGOs, that demanded he immediately request a cease and desist of the Iranian and Turkish bombardment of Kurdistan’s border areas,” the statement, as was received by Aswat al-Iraq news agency, reported. It stressed that the delegation “had presented a coverage of the goals and activities of the campaign, acting in a civilized manner, to launch pressure on Iran and Turkey, to stop their military offensives on the border areas of Kurdistan, calling on its President to exert efforts to stop those offensives.”On his part, Barzani had “condemned the Iranian and Turkish bombardment of the border areas of Kurdistan Region,” confirming that “his Presidency had continued to exert efforts, through political, diplomatic channels and through Regional and International Organizations, to stop the bombardment of the border areas.”The Iranian bombardment of Iraqi Kurdistan’s border areas had continued since more than 2 months, whilst the Turkish bombardment entered its 2nd week, killing and injuring many civilians and causing damage for dozens of houses and agricultural fields.Turkish airstrikes forced a large numbers of Iraqi Kurdish citizens of those areas to desert their home villages,including an air raid that killed 7 Kurdish civilians in a village north of Kurdistan’s Sulaimaniyah city on Sunday. Read the full story here.

• Tripartite committee to find solution to end Turkish airstrikes.(Firat).Iraq, Turkey and the United States have agreed to create a tripartite committee to find a solution that will see the end of the Turkish air strikes and satisfy Turkey that the PKK will not find a heaven in Iraq, a member of the Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee said today. Sami al-Askari told AKnews that the committee was agreed upon after initial meetings between the tree sides. "Iraq wants a diplomatic solution to the Turkish shelling because it is the only way forward. Iraq's role in the Committee will focus on helping the United States and Turkey to provide support to reveal the hideouts of PKK in Iraqi territory,” he said."The parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee hopes that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will have wider role in addressing external problems and speed up resolving them with regional countries."The Government and the President of the Kurdistan region condemned the Turkish shelling and called for it to stop "immediately" as it was "inconsistent with international norms" but the Iraqi government has not taken a position in this regard.Turkish planes and artillery have hit 352 sites within Iraqi Kurdistan since Wednesday. The Turkish government says the attacks are aimed at destroying the PKK bases in the mountains, but civilians have also paid the price, with seven deaths and many displaced.Read the full story here.

• Iraq condemns Turkey for air raids on PKK targets.(TodaysZaman).Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said on Tuesday that his government condemns both the Turkish and Iranian attacks along the border, The Associated Press reported on Tuesday.Turkey's military said on Tuesday that air strikes on suspected Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) targets in northern Iraq this week have killed an estimated 90 to 100 terrorists and warned that it would press ahead with offensives against the terrorist group both inside Turkey and across the border.The Iranian government also has been shelling the PKK and PJAK targets along its section of the border."The government condemns and denounces all attacks and violations of the sovereignty of Iraq by neighboring countries," Zebari, who is also an ethnic Kurd, said. "We do not believe that this is the best way of solving this issue."Despite speaking about the sovereignty of Iraq, Zebari is also a staunch supporter of US invasion of Iraq. He repeatedly stressed last year that the US must stay in Iraq.In the past, the Kurdish and central Iraqi governments have been reluctant to criticize Turkey for such airstrikes. Turkey is one of Iraq's main trading partners, and even some people in the Kurdish region do not support the PKK’s violent struggle.But some Kurds have been angry that their government hasn't taken a strong stance against the Turkish incursion, which they consider an infringement on Iraqi sovereignty."Both the stances of the Kurdish regional administration and Baghdad governments is weak and far from firm. (Prime Minister Nouri) al-Maliki's government is too weak to stand against Turkey," said Saman Ahmed who participated in recent protest in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah against the airstrikes.Turkey's military on Tuesday insisted that all targets were carefully pinpointed through repeated reconnaissance flights before being hit."Targets hits were determined following detailed analyses that were verified several times and were included on the list of targets only after it was established with certainty that they were not areas inhabited by civilians," it said.The military also said in a statement posted on its website that than 80 separatists were injured in six days of cross-border air raids that began Aug. 17, hours after eight soldiers and a government-paid village guard were killed in an ambush by the PKK near the border with Iraq."According to initial information obtained, between 90 and 100 terrorists were rendered ineffective, more than 80 wounded terrorists were moved to hospitals or villages, and contact with a high number of terrorists was cut," the military said. "Rendered ineffective" is a term used by the military to refer to PKK members killed.The PKK has denied any losses, insisting that areas hit by the Turkish warplanes were long-abandoned bases. The PKK said Tuesday that the military's claim of the number of deaths was a "baseless fabrication.""By giving these false numbers, the Turkish army commanders are trying to raise the spirits of their soldiers and to create more pretexts to continue their war against civilians," PKK spokesman Ahmet Deniz said.Iraqi Kurdish authorities have reported that seven civilians, including children, were killed while trying to escape the raids.The PKK, considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union, is fighting for autonomy in southeastern Turkey. Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the conflict since 1984.Read the full story here.

• Kurdistan - Fifth day of action by peace mothers in Şırnak.(Firat).On Tuesday the human shield protests against Turkey's ongoing air bombing of the Federal Kurdistan Region of Iraq have entered their fourth day in the area between Deri Davetiya and Deri Berkur in Uludere, a region of Şırnak.During the protest on Monday night, three people fell ill, however soldiers did not allow ambulances to reach the ill demonstrators. Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) deputy Nursel Aydogan went to a village to obtain medical assistance, but Turkish soldiers blocked the road.Despite the all interference and hardships, the Peace Mothers Initiative continues to protest the operations.BDP deputies Nursel Aydogan and Emine Ayna came to the demonstration area to support the Peace Mothers. Soldiers established a check point in Ortasu Village where they are preventing food and medical equipment from coming in or out of the area.The Peace Mothers Initiative are trying to block the Army from performing operations. Kurdish youth also took control of Turkish Army transition points along the roads to the mountains. Soldiers are now implementing identity control in the area.Despite all the hardships and operations in the Kurdistan Federal Region, demonstrators have not given up. They have been making their Ramadan iftar meals in the protest area with food distributed at sunset. Protest activities continue into the night with tea and panel discussions about upcoming events and the air-strikes in the Kandil Mountains.Read the full story here.

• Why ‘free Kurdistan’ might not be free.(TodaysZaman)By Mustafa Akyol.Some of the foreign observers who follow Turkey’s endless conflict with the PKK, the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, wonder why there is such a big deal at all. “Why don’t you give these guys their Kurdistan,” one of them asked me recently. “So that they might be happy, and leave you alone.”Well, if only things were that simple. If only Turkey could give several provinces in its pre-dominantly Kurdish southeast to the would-be founders of a “free Kurdistan,” and find peace of mind. As someone who values human lives more than national borders, I would happily support such a peaceful partition.Hmmm.........But things are not that simple!Read the full story here.

• Kurdistan's Turkey Problem.(EKurds).By Behar.The Turkish government has been employing the use of airstrikes against suspected PKK rebels in Iraqi Kurdistan, a move that has been referred to as “… contrary to all international norms and humanitarian concepts,” by Fouad Masoum, head of the Kurdistan bloc in parliament, in an article first posted by Reuters. He goes on to state that,“Turkey is not able to target armed groups that attack their troops but takes out its anger on innocent people.”In fact, the article goes on to state that a Turkish rocket had targeted a civilian vehicle carrying 3 men, 2 women and 2 children but that initially the bodies had been charred so badly that not even their sexes could be determined.No reports yet from Turkey as to how successful these raids have been.This comes along the heels of a prolonged period of somewhat sustained diplomatic and economic ties between the Kurdistan region and Turkey, and it goes without saying that the Kurdish people are far more reliant on Turkish businesses and goods than Turkey is on the Kurdistan region to simply cut off ties—even temporarily—in response to the attacks. It also goes without saying that in the supposedly unified country of Iraq, the Iraqi central government has done next to nothing both in response to the Turkish airstrikes or the Iranian ones, as the Iranians too have supposedly been targeting PJAK rebels as their excuse for violating Iraqi sovereignty. (PJAK is an offshoot of the PKK in Iran) Recent reports over the past two months indicate that the Iranians have also been building inside Iraqi Kurdistan, and that the Kurdistan Regional Government has been left to fend for itself.

In an effort to promote Iraqi unity and this notion that southern Kurdistan is truly part of a greater Iraq, shouldn’t the central government in Baghdad take a more active stance against BOTH of its neighbors for blatantly crossing its borders over and over again for days at a time? If anything, their inability—or perhaps unwillingness—to do anything sends a clear message to the Kurds that when it comes to their land, they are in fact utterly alone in its defense.And what does one make of these airstrikes by a NATO member that so blatantly violates international norms and shows a complete disregard for both territorial sovereignty and the loss of civilian life? Turkey would say it is simply in response to a terrorist attack by the PKK against one of its military bases which resulted in the deaths of 7 Turkish servicemen, and thus it has a right to pursue these terrorists regardless of where their safe havens may be—even in Iraqi Kurdistan. The PKK would respond that it made its declaration to end its ceasefire well known when the recent Turkish parliamentary elections resulted in somewhat of a debacle when it came to the handling of the Kurdish result. Initially the Kurdish political party, the BDP, was able to secure a significantly larger portion of seats than it had before, but those seats were ultimately taken back when Kurdish parliamentarians who were elected were either not released when they were imprisoned prior to the elections or imprisoned afterwards. (Most of them had been imprisoned on political grounds, citing that they were sympathizers with the PKK, which is a common charge often used by the Turkish government against Kurdish activists, not unlike the charge by Iran against peaceful Kurdish activists as being a “muhareb”, or enemy of the state.) Rather than replace those parliamentarians with additional BDP members, the Turkish parliament chose instead to replace them with members of the AK Party, the Turkish President and Prime Minister’s political party. These events only added fuel to the PKK argument that the peaceful and democratic method clearly had not worked and that violence was necessary.One can’t help but wonder how much more of a benefit it would have been to the Turkish government if it had simply embraced the initial outcome of the elections so that both the members of the BDP and Kurds living in Turkey could finally feel as though the years of Turkish oppression and violence, and the subsequent violence that emerged with the creation of the PKK, were over and that a new democratic wave of both transparency and inclusiveness that has been overtaking much of the middle east pertained to them as well. Instead, the Turkish government has foolishly given credence to the PKK cause and has risked its alliance with the KRG. The tragedy here is that there would be no room for the violence of the PKK in that region had democratic values and practices truly been embraced. Whatever sympathy a Kurd in Turkey made have had for the PKK would diminish in the long term as the very soap box that the PKK stands on proclaims that it simply wants equality and the basic human rights and freedoms that all people have the right to demand from their governments.I’m certainly not advocating that they’re justified in their methods—I condemn acts of terror in all of its forms-but there would be no room for their violent rhetoric had Kurds truly been welcomed into the democratic process without fear of being labeled as “PKK sympathizers” from the moment they spoke up for their desire for equal rights. These airstrikes serve no one’s interests—not the Turkish government’s interests,whose actions show the millions of Kurds that exist within its borders that there is no place for them in Turkey as Kurds, or the Kurdistan Region whose territorial sovereignty it violated, or even the billions of dollars at risk in both country’s economies. Other than a bit of muscle flexing, this latest round of airstrikes against Kurdish civilians will do little to solve the underlying reason for the Kurdish-Turkish conflict in the first place: the TRUE implementation of democratic values that imposes on its government the embracing of equality and human rights for every single one of its citizens, regardless of religion, gender, or ethnic background. If Turkey wants to solve its so-called Kurdish problem, perhaps it should take a page from the books of the countries that currently surround the Kurdistan region: Bombing the Kurds out of existence isn’t going to work. Neither is gassing them. Neither is torturing them. You’ll make more money and solve a lot of your problems if you learn to play nice. I won’t hold my breath on that one though…“In Turkey on Sunday, police used tear gas and pepper spray to disperse Kurdish protesters who tried to march to a main square in Istanbul to denounce the Turkish raids. In the capital, Ankara, demonstrators marched to protest the PKK.” – Al Jazeera.
If you can’t even allow your people to peacefully assemble…or participate in elections…or freely speak and write about what’s on their mind…and whilst systematically oppressing and torturing them and their innocent brethren in neighboring countries you decide that it’s alright to violate another country’s sovereignty because YOU claim you’ve been the target of a terrorist attack…exactly who gets to hold you accountable?Read the full story here.

• Remember the Taliban and the Buddha of Bamiyan statues?Egyptian Islamists: Cover Pharaoh Statues! Ban Bathing Suits On Beaches!(Memri). In a tourism conference in Egypt on August 22, Islamists called to set religious principles for tourism in the country.A Salafi official called to cover the faces of the pharaoh statues with wax since they are considered idols; the Muslim Brotherhood suggested banning bathing suits on public beaches for modesty reasons.Tourism organizations rejected the demands and filed a complaint against extremist Islamists, claiming that they are harming the future of Egyptian tourism and creating a religious regime.Hmmmm.....My guess the 3.57 Billion $ Obama pledged to Egypt will 'cover' a lot?Read the full story here

• Iran Plans To Close Or Divert All Rivers Heading Downstream To Iraq Due To Severe Drought.(Memri).Iran has informed Iraqi of its decision to close or divert all rivers and effluents heading downstream toward Iraq because of a severe shortage of water caused by draught. A spokesman for Al-Iraqiya said that Iran is waging an economic and security war against Iraq by denying water to Iraq and by shelling its border in the north. Iraq has been reluctant to use a key economic card against Iran. That is the trade between the two countries is approaching $10 billion annually but it is primarily a one-way trade from Iran to Iraq. Water conflicts between the two countries go back many decades. The conflict over Shat-al-Arab River which separates the two countries may have been one of the reasons that triggered the Iraq-Iran war in 1990-1998. Moreover, in recent years, farmers in the southern province of Basra have complained about increased water salinity because of Iran's refusal to stop the flow of drainage water in the provincial waterways. A secret report submitted to the Iraqi government with satellite photographs showed that the drainage water is getting close to the giant Majnoon oil field. Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi has urged President Talabani to intervene with Iran to stop directing the drainage water toward Shat-al-Arab. Iran has resorted to a new tactic to discourage Iraq from invoking the economic card. It simply threatens to seek huge reparations. Iran claims it will be eligible for reparations just as Kuwait was granted that right by the UN Security Council. [Realistically, Iran stands no chance of a similar Council resolution in its favor. But Iran appears determined to systematically destroy Iraqi agriculture to keep the country dependent on Iranian food products.] Read the full story here.

• Iraq: Hizbullah Brigades Warn Of Decisive Battle With U.S. Forces, Government Ignores.(Memri).Hizbullah Brigades, an armed Shi'ite group that operates at border areas close to Iran announced that they "have completed preparations for a decisive and conclusive encounter with the U.S. forces," warning of "deceit and stalling of withdrawal." The threat was extended to Iraqi politicians who will agree to keep U.S. forces in Iraq after the official withdrawal date at the end of this year. Despite the fact that the same Brigades have issued a warning recently to use ground-to-ground missiles against a proposed new port in Kuwait (the Mubarak Port), the Iraqi government has so far turned a blind eye on the threats by Hizbullah because the commander-in-chief of the Iraqi armed forces, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, is said to be reluctant to clash with the group that is trained, armed and financed by Iran's Revolutionary Guards to avoid Iran's anger.Hmmmm......Keep 'Hiding leading from behind'?Read the full story here.

MFS - The Other News

                          Morning Posting.

• Rep. Pence to reintroduce Broadcaster Freedom Act.Former House Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence (Ind.) said today that he would soon reintroduce the Broadcaster Freedom Act, and that Congress should reject the idea of regulating political speech in the wake of the Arizona shooting over the weekend. Pence, who spoke on C-SPAN this morning, said his bill would prevent the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from regulating content on the airwaves.In the last Congress, Pence introduced the Broadcaster Freedom Act of 2009, which would have prevented the FCC from requiring broadcasters to present opposing points of view, a concept known as the Fairness Doctrine.Pence said he does not want free political discourse to be "another casualty" of the Arizona shootings.Read the full story here.

• HT:AtlasShrugs.OMG !WTF !George Washington Statue Covered by "NAACP," at "MLK Rally."The annual MLK observance at the state house in Columbia SC had an interesting twist this year. The event is held on the north side steps of the statehouse. Prominent at that location is a large bronze statue of George Washington. This year, the NAACP constructed a “box” to conceal the Father of His Country from view so that participants would not be offended by his presence.I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw this picture of the MLK Day rally in Columbia, South Carolina yesterday. This rally was sponsored by the NAACP and they said that they covered the statue because they “didn’t want to offend anyone”. Really? George Washington is the father of this nation. How is he offensive to anyone?Hmmmm......"I Have a Nightmare"?Read and see the full story here.

• Dick Cheney brands Obama 'a one-term president'.Former U.S. vice president Dick Cheney says he still sees Barack Obama as a one term president in an interview due to be aired in the States today.In his first interview since heart surgery last July, Mr Cheney addresses a wide range of topics, including the Arizona shooting and the resulting political fallout, his latest views on Barack Obama's presidency, his offer to George W. Bush to step down as vice president, and his health.The former VP says after five heart attacks over the last 30 years he made a decision to have a heart pump fitted, which he explains is a Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD) which pumps the blood around his body.'It's battery powered from the outside. But it's a wondrous device. It's really a miracle of modern technology, and I'm here today because we have that kind of technology,' he tells interviewer Jamie Gangel.He tells Gangel why he still believes Obama is a one term president:'I think he embarked upon a course of action when he became President that did not have as much support as he thought it did...once he got into the business, for example, of the healthcare reform.'I think he's enacted a program that a great many people are very worried about...I think his overall approach to expanding the size of government, expanding the deficit, and giving more and more authority and power to the government over the private sector is a lack of a "feel" for the role of the private sector in creating jobs, in creating wealth and getting our economy back on track. Those are all weaknesses, as I look at Barack Obama.''I think the President I worked for [George W Bush] had an absolute commitment that that's never going to happen again on our watch. And that we'll do whatever we have to do in order to prevent it. 'And I hope President Obama is at that point now where he has that same basic attitude. But we might never find out until there's actually another attack.'When asked about taming the language used by politicians and whether things like targets on websites should be banned, Cheney says:'Well, perhaps. But as I say, I'm reluctant to judge our politicians based upon the act of what appears to be a lone, crazed gunman.'Read the full story here.

• Medvedev to recognize Palestinian state? PA president's top advisor says Russian president to make announcement during visit to Jericho. Foreign Ministry 'unfamiliar with such information'. Palestinian officials say Russian President Dmitry Medvedev plans to announce his recognition of an independent Palestinian state within the 1967 borders during his visit to Jericho on Tuesday. The Foreign Ministry has rejected the claim, saying that Israel was "unfamiliar with such information." In 1988, the Soviet Union announced its recognition of a Palestinian state following Yasser Arafat's independence declaration.Nabil Shaath, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' senior advisor, told the London-based Arabic-language al-Hayat newspaper that the Russian president would ratify Moscow's recognition of a Palestinian state, stressing that it was a historic event. The Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem, whose workers have been on strike for three weeks now, tried to confirm the report but was forced to issue a statement that it was unfamiliar with the information. "If such a move has taken place on the part of the Palestinians and the Russians, it must have been in the past few weeks, and such information has not been received by the Foreign Ministry. In this process, like others, we are simply blind and have no idea what's going on," a knowledgeable source told Ynet.Hmmmmm.....Looking back on how "Mother" Russia has treated it's Jewish population in the course of history,nothing could be a surprise to Israel.Read the full story here.

• HT:AmericanThinker.Obama Is America's First Post-Responsibility President.America didn't elect a president; we chose a rapper-in-chief. Obama gets all the fun of truly livin' large: transforming the White House into a party palace straight out of "MTV Cribs" and zooming around on Air Force One like a hotshot celebrity on his private jet. All he has to do is smile at his screaming groupies, recite some catchy twaddle, and jet off to his latest vacation, serene with the knowledge that whatever misery and carnage may unfold below, his hands are clean.Obama is America's first post-responsibility president, and the degrading spectacle of the Tucson aftermath proves it. A quick reminder to Krauthammer, Noonan, et al., who have resumed tossing love notes at their favorite star: Obama is so indifferent to the safety of Arizonans that he actually sued the state for trying to protect them.What if the Tucson killer had been an illegal alien? What if "Javier Lopez" had shot up the crowd, after sneaking past the billion-dollar "virtual fence" that Obama just quietly canceled? What if he had murdered a border patrolman along the way, like Federal Agent Brian Terry, who was shot in the back with an AK-47 in December? Would Obama have borne any responsibility for that?Has Obama taken one single action to make the people of Arizona safer? Was the border more protected? Has the mental health apparatus of Arizona been appraised and improved? Has the sheriff been chastised for "acting stupidly" and possibly compromising the integrity of the investigation? Has anything "presidential" actually been done?No. But what does it matter? As Obama flew away, a grateful punditry wept with joy that they had lived to behold such a day, when the great rapper-in-chief had descended among us and softly blessed us with his font of sacred nonsense.Read the full story here.

• HT:TheWorstPoliticalBlog.Iranian Penetration Posing a Threat in Latin America.I must confess that, after years of closely observing Iran’s strategies abroad, I find its growing presence in Latin America to be the most disturbing geopolitical development the region is facing today. Iran’s presence is Messianic in its goals and relentless in its tactics. It is intimately related to narcoterrorism, both in its own practice and in the groups and activities it sponsors. The key to its expanding reach has been Hugo Chávez. Recently, a journalist from an important news outlet in Venezuela questioned the importance I attribute to Iranian embassies in Latin America. “They are just embassies,” he told me. To which I answered that our concept of what embassies are, or should be, has little to do with how Iran and its peers conceive of them. For these regimes, an embassy is a platform for terrorism. We need only to remember that two of the most brutal terrorist attacks in recent times in the region were ordered by Tehran and were planned and executed by Iranian agents operating directly from Iran’s embassy in Buenos Aires. With this background, and with solid evidence that Islamic terrorist networks operate in sensitive areas of the continent, the Iranian regime’s growing interest and presence in Latin America is deeply troubling. On his part, Hugo Chávez—Venezuela’s autocratic President—is acting as a go-between for Iran’s penetration strategy. He opens the doors to leaders of countries under his influence for the Iranians, like the Bolivian Evo Morales, the Ecuadorian Rafael Correa and the Nicaraguan Daniel Ortega. Recently, Chávez made his ninth visit to Tehran. Lately we have learned that Chávez also acts as a front man, facilitating Iranian arms purchases banned by UN sanctions. I refer to the fact, reported in the international press, that while in Moscow recently Chávez publicly announced that he would buy the batteries for the S-300 surface-to-air missiles whose sale to Iran Russia had to cancel in compliance with the new UN rules. This raises suspicion about the massive arms purchases already made by Chávez, in quantities that go well beyond the conceivable needs of any single country like Venezuela.Hmmmm....All this under the watchfull eye of our golfing President,who by the way never rests! Read the full story here.

• Federal Debt Jumped $463.6 Billion In First Quarter of FY 2011.As Government Borrowed an Additional $1,500 Per Person in U.S.The national debt jumped $463.6 billion in the first quarter of fiscal year 2011 (which ran from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31), the Treasury Department reports.That means the government borrowed approximately an additional $1,500 for every one of the 308,745,538 men, women and children in the United States as counted by the 2010 Census. If government debt continues to accumulate at that pace through the remaining three quarters of the fiscal year, total new debt for the year would amount to approximately $1.85 trillion--or about $6,000 for every person in the country.That would rival the $1.89 trillion in new debt the government piled up in fiscal 2009--the greatest debt-accumulation year in the history of the country--when the federal government bailed out some of the nation's largest banks and President Barack Obama signed his economic stimulus package.Hmmmmm......If you wanted to destroy America,would you do anything different?Read and see the full story here.

• Obama Coal Crackdown Sends Message to Industry.A move by the Environmental Protection Agency to revoke the long-standing permits for a mammoth coal mine in West Virginia sends a strong signal that President Obama plans to implement key parts of his agenda even though newly empowered Republicans can block his plans in Congress.In the aftermath of the November elections, many political pundits predicted that the once-unchecked Obama legislative machine would turn it's energies to federal rulemaking as a way to circumvent Republicans on Capitol Hill. And the EPA’s decision last week suggests that those forecasts were spot-on.Much to the consternation of the West Virginia delegation in Congress, the coal industry, and the working people of the Mountain State, the agency took the unprecedented step of revoking a mining permit that it had issued four years ago to Arch Coal’s Spruce No. 1 Mine in Logan County, West Virginia.The revocation prompted unusually harsh responses from West Virginia's two Democratic Senators.Sen. Jay Rockefeller sent the president a letter which read, in part: "I am writing to express my outrage with the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) decision to veto a rigorously reviewed and lawfully issued permit at the Spruce Number 1 Mine in Logan County, West Virginia. This action not only affects this specific permit, but needlessly throws other permits into a sea of uncertainty at a time of great economic distress."Sen. Joe Manchin issued a statement which appeared to mock the EPA's permitting process."According to the EPA, it doesn't matter if you did everything right, if you followed all of the rules,” Manchin wrote. “Why? They just change the rules.""It's just the arrogance of the EPA,” said Bill Raney of the West Virginia Coal Association. “The people in Logan County want the permit. It's important to the company. It's critically important to Logan County."The environmental concerns over surface mining were well-known when the EPA first issued the permit in 2007. Since that time, Arch Coal has made millions of dollars in infrastructure investments in the mine, perhaps the largest ever in the region --investments which are now threatened by the EPA permit revocation." I don't think it's the American way," says Brad Blakeman, an advisor to former President George W. Bush. "I don’t think we rule retro-actively when businesses invested a lot of money, legally, in a permitting system that was certainly above board and they followed every rule and procedure that EPA had at the time and now to be told after-the-fact that this is now improper or legal, I think is wrong.”Hmmmmm.....If you wanted to destroy America from the inside ,would you do it any different?After the Oil industry now the mining industry?Or will they have to pay"Enviromental taxes"?Who will be handled by the ex Shorebank,is this the ultimate plan?Read the full story here.

• Iran executes national football hero's lover for murdering his wife.Iran today hanged a woman convicted of murdering a love rival.Shahla Jahed, 40, was executed at 5am local time after the verdict was confirmed by the supreme court and the judiciary chief.She had been a 'temporary wife' of Nasser Mohammad Khani, a former striker for the Iranian national football team.Her death, which took place in in front of the family of the woman she was convicted of killing, was confirmed by the national news agency.She had spent more than eight years - 3,063 days - in prison after her conviction, although human rights activists believe her confession was forced out of her.She was convicted of stabbing to death Khani's 'permanent' wife Laleh Saharkhizan in 2002. She repeatedly retracted the confession at her public trial.In the Shiite faith - the majority religion in Iran - men and women can marry for an agreed period of time. Afterwards, the marriage is null and void, although it can be renewed, although there is an obligation for both to look after any offspring.Men can have up to four permanent wives, and any number of temporary wives. Women can only be married to one man at a time.A spokesman said yesterday: 'There are good reasons to suggest that she may have been wrongly convicted.'Amnesty said that in early 2008 the judiciary overturned the verdict and ordered a fresh investigation, citing 'procedural flaws'. However, Jahed was again sentenced to death in February 2009.Read the full story here.

• Now WikiLeaks plans to reveal Swiss bank account details of 'tax evader' celebrities and politicians.WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has threatened to reveal confidential offshore bank accounts of hundreds of the rich and famous.A former Swiss banker handed the whistle-blower two CDs reputedly containing details of up to 2,000 wealthy individuals and corporations, including 40 politicians and various celebrities.The ‘high net worth’ individuals are from Britain, America, Germany, Austria, Asia and ‘all over’, according to Rudolf Elmer, who said he wants to expose mass tax evasion.Mr Assange, currently fighting extradition to Sweden on alleged sex offences, said the names - once verified - could be published on the WikiLeaks website in a fortnight.Mr Elmer handed over the CDs before flying back to Switzerland to stand trial on Wednesday for breaking bank secrecy.The banker, a former executive at Julius Baer Bank, one of Switzerland’s top private banks, said he was releasing the confidential documents to educate society.He said: ‘I do think, as a banker, I have the right to stand up if something is wrong.‘I am against the system. I know how the system works and I know the day-to-day business. From that point of view, I wanted to let society know what I know. It is damaging our society.’Mr Elmer - who runs his own whistle-blower website - was sacked from the Swiss bank in 2002 after working for eight years as Julius Baer’s chief operating officer in the Cayman Islands.Read the full story here.

• Dubai - Four year old girl raped on shoolbus by 3 men -School to blame for not hiring female staff, says Deputy Chief of Dubai police!Maj Gen Mozainah says school management responsible for any incident on a school bus.The Deputy Chief of Dubai Police has stated that the school management is responsible for any incident involving a pupil on a school bus.Speaking to Emirates 24|7, Major General Khamees Mattar Al Mozainah, said specifically in the context of the tragedy where a four-year old student of Modern High School was raped by three men on the school-bus,“The first person to be blamed for what happened to the poor girl is the school management for recruiting a male driver and supervisor for the school bus.Any school, not only for girls but also for boys, must have a female supervisor with good and clean background.Female are more sensitive when relating to children at very young age.”He added that the police investigation shows that this girl was the only victim so far of this school.Major General Mozainah also said that he blames the parents for taking such a long time to report the incident.“The parents did not have to wait for two months to come forward and file complaint. They should have done this long time ago, and not left the suspects free for all that time to get away with what they did.”Hmmm.......Everyone is to blame except the perpetrators?Read the full story here.More here.

• Iran MPs back 'revolution' in Tunisia.Lawmakers from Iran's parliament voiced their support on Tuesday for what they said is a "revolutionary movement" of the Tunisian people, the Fars news agency reported."The parliament of the great Iranian nation strongly supports the revolutionary movement of the brave Tunisian people... and wishes success to them," a statement signed by 228 members of the 290-strong parliament said. "The freedom seeking scream of people of Tunisia ended the tyranny and atrocity and put a smile on the face of the oppressed people of Tunisia," said the statement.The lawmakers said the current situation was created because of the "black report card of colonialist countries in Africa and the long, historical struggles of the people with tyranny on one hand, and the disinterest towards the country's needs on the other."Iran's parliament speaker Ali Larijani blamed the "United States and some Western countries" for the woes of Tunisians and branded their reaction to the unrest as "very funny.Hmmmm.....Well at least we know now Turkey's Iran's point of view.Read the full story here.

• IDF Successfully Tests “Magic Wand” Anti-Missile System.The IDF’s "Magic Wand" (Sharvit Kesamim) system for intercepting intermediate-range rockets was successfully tested last week, the BaMachane military magazine reports in its latest issue.The tests took place in southern Israel last week and were conducted by the Defense Ministry and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems under the attack conditions that Israel expects. At the end of the experiments it was estimated that the system will become operational within several years.Magic Wand is intended to deal with a wide range of threats, and is essentially designed to fill a gap between the Iron Dome system for short-range missiles, such as the Qassam, and the Arrow for long-range missiles such as the Iraqi Scud and the Iranian Shihab.In preparation for the system becoming operational, the Israel Air Force will begin an extensive preparatory project that will be completed soon. “Before the system becomes operational, we must put together the entire support system and infrastructure, and prepare literature and training,” an Air Force officer involved in the subject told BaMachane.Meanwhile, it was also reported that the Air Force is expected to declare Iron Dome operational within several months.Read the full story here.

• Canada - Yes, Islam condones wife beatings.Recently, Marvin Levant (Dec. 28), Steve Harris (Dec. 30), Syed Soharwardy (Jan. 2), and Riazuddin Ahmed (Jan. 5) debated Islam through the forum of the Herald's letters to the editor. The issue of wife beating and gender inequality in Islam has become convoluted and highly controversial as many Muslims try to sugar-coat the ugly truths and others try to shed some light on the issue. Soharwardy's statement that "Beating one's wife is not only wrong, it is criminal and completely un-Islamic" is incorrect. The Qur'an says that "men are in charge of women because Allah has made one of them (men) to excel the other (women), thus man's superiority over women . . . good women are the obedient ones . . . admonish the rebellious women and banish them, and scourge them (whip them severely to inflict pain) (4:34) . . . smote them (hit or strike with the hand or with a weapon causing pain, beat them . . . (4:62)". Islam does not recognize gender equality. For example, polygamy is accepted in Islam, but polyandry is not. A woman's testimony is considered half as worthy as a man's in court; a son inherits twice as much as a daughter does. Muslim men may marry Muslim, Jewish or Christian women, but Muslim women can marry only Muslim men. In short, sharia law leads to the inhuman treatment of Muslim women by their husbands and others, especially in South Asia and the Middle East.Higher education is emphasized more for sons than for daughters; in cultural honour killings, almost always women are the target for murder. Under sharia, divorced Muslim women get custody of their sons under eight years of age and daughters until puberty, and then the fathers take the children away. Sharia enabled one of the worst fundamentalists, the vile and ruthless military dictator, Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, to put more than 15,000 rape victims in jail because they could not comply with the absurd Islamic condition requiring them to have numerous male witnesses of their victimization. They were charged with fornication and their rapists were let go free.At birth, all infants are equal, but Islam makes then unequal; sharia is incompatible with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Soharwardy knows all of this to be true. It is in his Qur'an and other Islamic texts. I have no desire to hear useless excuses from mullahs for all these gender inequalities in Islam.Soharwardy and I were on CHQR Radio in Calgary to discuss the issue of a 17-year-old Muslim boy who beat his 16-year-old sister. That boy was incited by an illiterate mullah to discipline his sister because she was suspected of flirting with a white boy in northeast Calgary. Soharwardy and I agreed it was not an Islamic requirement for the boy to do what he did. I mentioned that Muslim husbands do have sharia-sanctioned power to discipline their wives. Soharwardy personifies an addiction to religion. I watched him on his own community TV channel shouting his head off just before the Supreme Court of Canada ruled on Dec. 9, 2004, in favour of same-sex marriage, and Parliament passed the civil marriage legislation, C-38, recognizing same-sex marriage on June 28, 2005. He literally shouted that "Canada will be wiped off the face of the Earth by a tsunami if it accepts same-sex marriage. . . . Who the (heck) does the Parliament of Canada think it is to make laws? The laws are made by God."The Muslim world is ruled by a corrupt elite, including the monarchs, oligarchs, military dictators, corrupt politicians, depraved bureaucrats, and the murderous fundamentalist Muslim clerics. On the whole, Muslims seem to be frustrated, less recognized except in international terrorism, less secularly educated than the West and less developed. Without a democratic system of government, they are hopeless, hapless, desperate, and mad at Jews and Christians.Hmmmm......"We don't want to take over your country"?Read the full story here.

• HT:CreepingSharia.Michigan: ‘Islam in America’ forum on MLK Day.Apparently, Muslims all across America are hijacking MLK Day to promote Islam. This event in Michigan, is the third event we’ve posted on and there are probably events in many other cities – with CAIR not far behind. The Islamists aren’t content just having Muslims holidays, they want every holiday to be a glorification of Islam.Interfaith love from CAIR – where being Muslim takes precedence over being black, or American, or anything else.Read the full story here.

• Saudi approves child protection law.Saudi Arabia’s appointed parliament has endorsed a law on the protection of children and set the child’s age limit at 18 years, a newspaper said on Tuesday.The Shura Council discussed the law presented by the Saudi government at its session on Monday and gave it its approval following several debates and rifts on the child age limit in the Gulf Kingdom.“Shura approved the child protection law at its session yesterday….it also put an end to disagreements about the child’s age limit when it approved a government proposal setting it at 18 years,” Alwatan daily reported on Tuesday.It said the law includes 25 articles dealing with the protection of children and penalties against physical, sexual or psychological harm of children.“The law also defines the responsibility of the parents of other custodians in bringing up their children, protecting them and ensuring they are not harmed or neglected,” the paper said.Conservative Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil basin, has been hit by a surge in child violence in the absence of clear laws on such cases.The country has already established 38 child protection centres and is planning to create hotlines and an online network for reporting such incidents, they said.In 2009, hospitals and authorities received 164 cases involving mistreatment and other acts of violence against children, official data showed."The Ministry is studying a draft law to regulate the marriage of teenage girls," he said, without giving details of the law and the date of its enforcement."The marriage of teenage and underage girls in the country is not a phenomenon yet as some claim... those who say this are wrong. We are considering regulations in line with the Islamic Shariah to govern this kind of marriage."Hmmmmm......What about human rights?Read the full story here.

• HT:StrategyPage.Allah Wants To Get Paid.Some al Shabaab factions are imposing very restrictive lifestyle rules, as well as economic restrictions. Al Shabaab needs money, and is trying to force the cell phone companies to raise their rates and pay a tax to al Shabaab. Al Shabaab uses extortion to tax whatever they can. Exports from ports must pay a fee to al Shabaab to move their goods (goats and charcoal being big items.) There is also an attempt to switch to the discredited and worthless Somali currency. Kenyan, and other foreign currency, has been used for the last two decades. Cell phones are very popular, and efforts by some al Shabaab leaders to get them banned, have failed. But restrictions on women have been increased, at least in some of the larger towns. There, women are now banned from shaking hands with, or walking next to, men they are not related to. Women have also been banned from working outside the home. This is very unpopular, as has been the ban on football (soccer) and videos and TV. Al Shabaab has also banned foreign (especially non-Moslem) aid groups in many areas. Most of the aid is provided by Western nations, and paid for by the United States. This ban means food aid does not get in. Rather than starve, a growing number of people are fleeing. Some will die in transit, or when they reach Mogadishu or Kenya (the two main destinations for starving refugees). In 2010, Somali pirates seized 49 ships (and 1,016 crew). Eight crew were killed during these captures. At the end of the year, 28 ships and 638 crew were still held. Because the anti-piracy patrol rarely kills or prosecutes captured pirates (for legal and public relations reasons), there is no real risk to being a pirate.The much larger number of mother ships out there has overwhelmed the anti-piracy patrol, and gone after ships much farther away (to within a few hundred kilometers of the Indian coast.) If one of these low cost pirates tales part in a successful capture (resulting in a ransom), they often receive only $10,000. But that's a fortune for these guys. The million or more dollars remaining goes to the pirate gang leaders, his associates, and the middle-men in Gulf states like the UAE, who actually negotiate the ransom and arrange the delivery of millions of dollars in cash.Hmmmm.....Time for the insurance compagnies to launch their own Navy,against these modern Barbary Pirates?Read the full story here.

• HT:Imra.[Will not show them yet] Senior Iranian Military Official Confirms Shooting Down of Israeli, US, British Drones.TEHRAN (FNA)- A senior Iranian military official on Monday confirmed reports on the shooting down of several enemy drones over the Persian Gulf, and said Iran has targeted a large number of these pilotless planes during the last 7 years."We have experienced similar incidents many times in the past and there have even been drones belonging to the occupying Zionist regime (Israel), the United States and Britain which have been shot down in the Persian Gulf during the past 7 years," the senior military official told FNA Monday on the condition of anonymity.He also confirmed that the planes had been targeted outside Iranian airspace, and noted, "The move shows that we are careful in a bid to stop violation of Iran's airspace by alien aggressive drones."Yesterday, Deputy Head of the General Staff of Iran's Armed Forces Major General Gholam Ali Rashid confirmed earlier reports claiming that several US drones have been shot down by the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) air defense units, and said that the planes had been targeted outside Iranian airspace.Rashid further added that these pilotless planes are currently kept and controlled by the IRGC.Meantime, Commander of the IRGC Naval Forces Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi told FNA on Saturday that the IRGC will definitely show these crippled drones in an appropriate time."We have, thus far, shot down a large number of their highly advanced spy planes".He declined to mention the exact date and location of the development.After shooting down these planes the IRGC aerospace unit has copied and produced them in large numbers through reverse engineering, the commander added.Hmmmm........copied and produced them in large numbers through reverse engineering.Read the full story here.

• Revealed: How even German civilians took part in killing concentration camp survivors.A new book about the closing days of WW2 chronicles how German civilians murdered many concentration camp survivors as they moved through their towns and villages on infamous 'death marches' back into the shrinking Reich.The violence shows how even with their nation in ruins, the Allies advancing on all fronts and the war hopeless, ordinary people were so indoctrinated with Nazi hate they were prepared to kill defenceless people in cold blood.'The Death Marches: The Final Phase of Nazi Genocide,' by Daniel Blatman, is the first book to research what drove these civilians to acts of savage murder.Some 500,000 prisoners from the concentration camp gulag both within and without Germany were on the move in the first months of 1945. As the Allies advanced, the shocking fate of approximately half of them became all too apparent.'..as was the case in Gardelegen, a town in east-central Germany, where US soldiers found hundreds of charred and mangled bodies in a barn in mid-April 1945.They were the bodies of prisoners from various camps who had been forced inside' writes Blatman, an Israeli, whose book is published this week and goes on sale in Germany.'It was later discovered that people had volunteered to guard the prisoners, including ordinary civilians, some of them armed with hunting rifles, who mutated into prison guards of their own volition.'We're going hunting, to shoot down the zebras!'' cries youths, in reference to the striped uniforms of the inmates.'Men from the Volkssturm militia, police officers, soldiers from a paratrooper division barracked nearby, guards and civilians helped drive the doomed prisoners into the barn. 'Then they locked the doors, lit gasoline-soaked straw on the ground and tossed hand grenades into the building. Anyone who attempted to escape the inferno ran into a hail of bullets. 'Some 25 prisoners survived, while about 1,000 died.' 'Some will say that the Nazis were responsible for this crime,' said Colonel George P. Lynch, of the 102nd US Infantry Division. The same thing happened in Celle, not far from the terrible, disease riddled concentration camp of Belsen.Prisoners were 'killed like animals' in a forest according to a British military report. Some 300 died in April 1945 massacre, a Hitler Youth leader aged just 17 accounting for 20 alone.Blatman, a historian at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem, said; 'The more the war approached its end, and the more obvious the prisoners' presence in the midst of the German population became, the more regularly German civilians participated.'In Palmnicken near the former East Prussian city of Königsberg some 3,000 prisoners from the Stutthof concentration camp were herded by civilians on to beach of the frozen Baltic Sea to be mowed down by S.S. men.Along the country roads of a huge swathe of Germany can be found the little memorials to terrible acts where people were killed in ones and twos and sometimes tens and hundreds.A decade of indoctrination, a genocidal mentality that had systematically dehumanized the Jews and the Slavs, led to the collective hunt,' he said.Hmmmmm.....Just imagine what 1400 years of indoctrination does if this was the result of ten years of indoctrination?Read the full story here.

• HT:TheAmericanDream.High Oil Price = Faster Economic Decline For America.Most Americans have no idea how important oil prices are to the overall health of the U.S. economy. Whenever oil prices have pressed toward record levels in recent decades, it has always resulted in an economic downturn. A high oil price does not just mean that consumers will have to pay a little more at the pump. The truth is that oil is the very lifeblood of our economic system. We have built our entire country around the concept that we can transport lots of stuff very long distances for a very, very cheap price. When that paradigm beings to change, it fundamentally alters the dynamics of the U.S. economy. A high oil price will mean an even faster economic decline for America. The cost of oil factors into everything. A high oil price means that transportation of products and services costs more, travel costs more and energy costs more. It means that consumers will have less disposable income. When the price of oil goes up it benefits the big oil producers and a few others, but for everyone else it is very painful. But perhaps even more importantly, because the U.S. has to import such massive quantities of oil, whenever the price of oil goes up it means that we are becoming poorer as a nation because even more of our money flows out of the country and into the hands of the oil barons.According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the United States consumed a grand total of 6.9 billion barrels of oil during 2009. That represented approximately 27 percent of the total oil consumption of the entire globe.Unfortunately, the U.S. imports over half of the oil it consumes, and this represents a massive transfer of wealth out of the United States.Just think about it.Every month America imports massive quantities of oil which we rapidly consume. At the end of the month we are left with nothing.And guess who says that they now have the biggest crude oil reserves in the entire world?Venezuela.That's right - Venezuela now says that they had certified deposits of 297 billion barrels of oil at the end of 2010.So because of all of this corruption we are all going to pay the price. There are plenty of untapped oil reserves inside the United States. There are plenty of alternative energy sources that we could be developing. But we have been kept completely and totally dependent on foreign oil and now rising oil prices are absolutely going to devastate our dying economy.Things did not have to turn out this way.But guess what?They did.Hmmmmm......If you wanted to estroy America would you do anything different?Read the full story here.

• Grandma on acid! Researcher finds rare footage of 1950s housewife in LSD experiment.Next time you hear someone say 'Back in the olden days, we had to make our own fun', this is probably what they are talking about.An American biographer - doing research for a book on pioneers in the field of hallucinogenic drug experimentation - has stumbled upon footage of a prim and proper housewife struggling with the affects of LSD.The bizarre and slightly creepy footage shows a doctor dosing up the unsuspecting young woman and filming the consequences.Dr Cohen, seen sitting at a table and wearing a lounge suit - his legs crossed in the classic I'm-a-scientist pose - interviews the unidentified housewife, who is dressed in her best black frock.She tells the doctor: 'My husband is an employee here at the VA and he said they were looking for normal people, so I volunteered.'Dr Cohen asks: 'How do you feel about coming here and drinking this strange material?'She replies: 'A little nervous, perhaps.'As the housewife obediently drains the glass and Dr Cohen smiles benevolently, a dramatic voice-over explains: 'This is a glass of water, colourless, tasteless. It contains 100 gamma of LSD 25. One tenth of a milligram, the equivalent of one 600th of a grain.'An ounce of this material will make 150,000 such doses. Let us observe the affect some three hours later.'Unsurprisingly, three hours later the housewife is insanely high.She says: 'Everything is in colour and I can feel the air. I can see it, I can see all the molecules - I'm part of it. Can't you see it?'Dr Cohen asks: 'How do you feel inside.'She replies: 'Inside? I don't have any inside.'Read and see the full experiment here.

• "Life or Death in Iran's Prisons".2011: Iranian Regime Executes Average of One Person Every Eight Hours.The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran called on the Iranian Parliament and the Judiciary to immediately institute a moratorium on executions and to move swiftly to abolish the death penalty, in the face of skyrocketing executions following unfair trials and opaque judicial proceedings.Since the beginning of the New Year, Iran has hanged 47 prisoners, or an average of about one person every eight hours. Iran executes more people per capita than any other country, and in absolute numbers, is second only to China.On Saturday, 15 January 2011, Iran hanged a Kurdish prisoner some Iranian websites have identified as Hossein Khezri, a Kurdish political prisoner on the death row. A local official in the province of Western Azerbaijan told media that “a member of the Pejak (an armed Kurdish guerilla group)” was hanged in Urumiye prison on Saturday morning. He did not name the executed prisoner.Khezri’s brother told the Campaign that the authorities have not provided any information to the family about the execution of his brother. Hossein Khezri had denied charges against him and said he was severely tortured.“The Iranian Judiciary is on an execution binge orchestrated by the intelligence and security agencies,” stated Aaron Rhodes, a spokesperson for the Campaign.“The execution of Kurdish activists, without fair trials and following torture, increasingly appears as a systematic, politically motivated process,” he said.In addition to the execution of Khezri, Iranian media have reported a total of 46 executions in 2011: seven in Kermanshah on 1 January, sixteen in Ahwaz on 5 January, one in Asfaryan on 8 January, eight in Qom on 9 January, seven in Tehran on 12 January, five in Khorramabad on 13 January, two in Boroujerd on 14 January.Khezri, who is around 29 years old, was convicted of being Mohareb, “an enemy of God,” on 11 July 2009, on the basis that he “endangered state security.” He reported in a letter to international organizations that he had been tortured while in prisons run by the Intelligence Ministry and the Revolutionary Guards, but according to Amnesty International, his request for an investigation was denied. He had refused to confess to committing any of the crimes for which he was convicted.Another Kurdish activist, Habibollah Latifi, was about to be hung on 26 December 2010, but the execution was halted. The Campaign considers him still at grave risk.On 9 May 2010, Kurdish activists Farzad Kamangar and Shirin Alam Holi were hung.At least 14 other Kurdish prisoners are in danger of execution: Zeinab Jalilian, Shirkoo Moarefi, Rostam Arkia, Mostafa Salimi, Anvar Rostami, Rashid Akhkandi, Mohammad Amin Aghooshi, Ahmad Pooladkhani, Seyed Sami Husseini, Seyed Jamal Mohammadi, Hasan Talei, Iraj Mohammadi, Mohammad Amin Abdollahi and Ghader Mohammadzadeh.According to information received by and reported by the Campaign, the number of executions in Iran is apparently even higher than previously reported. Multiple and reliable reports indicate that secret, mass executions of more than a hundred have taken place in Mashad’s Vakilabad prison.“When executions become the method of choice to solve political and practical problems, human life is being tragically devalued in Iran,” Rhodes said.Hmmmmm.....These are the People that NATO Ally Turkey protects and cooperates,Get Turkey out of NATO and keep them out of Europe!Read the full story here.

• HT:Imra.Canada - Inconsistent explanations from The Bay regarding removal of Ahava products from shelves.There have been a variety of responses from representatives at The Bay throughout the past week regarding the removal of the Ahava products from their shelves; yet, each of these representatives has provided a different explanation for the removal of the products, which has led to much confusion. The responses given were variations of the following:

1. The Bay has discontinued Ahava products because they have not been selling well.
2. The manufacturer (Ahava) has discontinued the products because globally sales were down.
3. Ahava is rebranding and repackaging their product, and in the interim, The Bay has pulled their products off the shelves, but will stock the new products this coming spring.
4. The products have been removed from the shelves for political reasons.
5. The decision to restock Ahava products in the spring has not necessarily been finalized.These responses, however, remain problematic for several reasons. Firstly, to pull off everything from the shelves just at the time of the protests targeting The Bay leads one to doubt that the swift removal of the Ahava products by The Bay is merely coincidental.Moreover, there has also been evidence from other jurisdictions that sales of Israeli-made products have actually increased during such protests, so taking the Ahava products off the shelves at this point is a decision that does not make sense from a retail perspective – The Bay is seemingly losing business. Moreover, other retail outlets continue to sell Ahava productsaklein@bnaibrith.ca -Project Assistant League for Human Rights B'nai Brith Canada(416) 633-6224 ext. 112.Read the full story here.

• Iran suspends sentence to hang woman in stoning case.Iran has suspended a sentence to hang a woman at the centre of a global outcry about stoning, a member of parliament was quoted as saying on Monday. Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani’s sentence to be stoned for adultery was suspended last year after condemnation from several governments, but she had still faced death by hanging for being an accomplice in her husband’s murder.In a letter to Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, the head of parliament’s human rights committee, Zohre Elahian, said the hanging, too, had been suspended due to pleas from her children. “Although the stoning sentence has not been finalized yet, the hanging sentence has been suspended due to [her children’s] pardon,” the letter said, according to student news agency ISNA.Ashtiani has been sentenced to 10 years’ jail, Elahian said. She was arrested in 2006.Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva offered Ashtiani asylum in July, prompting an embarrassing public rejection by Iran which said he was a “humane and sensitive character” but was not in possession of all the facts. Brazil has warm ties with Iran and attempted to broker a nuclear deal last year which was rejected by the West.Amnesty International says Iran is the world’s second most prolific executioner after China, putting to death at least 346 people in 2008. The Iranian authorities dismiss allegations of rights abuses, saying they are following Islamic law.Hmmmmm......Sharia Law can not coexcist with Human Rights.Read the full story here.

• HT:AmnonAndJonathan.First baby born in IDF field hospital in Haiti, named Israel.Footage from the IDF Field Hospital that has been set up in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, after the earthquake. This video includes footage of the first baby born at the field hospital on 17 January 2010. The mother arrived at the IDF field hospital 8 months pregnant and Maj.Dr. Shir Bar and Maj. Efrat Shayer delivered a healthy baby boy, who was named 'Israel' by his mother.The IDF field hospital is currently the largest operating in Port-au-Prince. It has a staff of over 40 doctors, with different specialists, nurses, paramedics and features a maternity ward, ICU, pediatrics unit, internal medicine department, a pharmacy, and operating rooms. The hospital can treat up to 500 patients a day.Read and see the full story here.

• HT:ShalomLife.Vanessa Paradis and Johnny Depp Cancel Trip to Israel. French singer Vanessa Paradis and long-time boyfriend, Johnny Depp will not be visiting Israel after all. The chanteuse cancelled her scheduled February 10th performance at the Tel Aviv Performing Arts Centre, "due to professional reasons", as reported in a press release by her management. Paradis was also set to meet President Shimon Peres whilst in the country.The February 10th concert was part of a wider tour, but the Israel show was the only cancelled date, leading to speculation that Paradis was influenced by pressure from Palestinian solidarity organizations. After the event had been announced, the international movement advocating boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel because of its treatment of the Palestinians, apparently contacted the singer demanding she cancel the concert. A letter from movement organizers stated that "despite international law, Israel is free of punishment… discriminating against its Arab citizens. Due to this situation, BDS calls upon French singer Vanessa Paradis to cancel her performance in Israel, for as long as this country doesn't work to change its policy."The 37-year-old singer/actress has released 10 albums in her native France, and broke out with an international hit “Joe Le Taxi” in 1987 at the tender age of 14. Paradis has been in a 12 year relationship with superstar Johnny Depp- they have two children together. Other celebrities had intended to accompany the couple on their trip to Israel, including French actress Isabelle Adjani, and fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld.Hmmmm.......Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.Martin Luther King, Jr.Read the full story here.