China Earthquake has claimed 156 lives, with more than 5,500 injured (VIDEO, PHOTOS): LIVE UPDATES.

China Earthquake has claimed 156 lives, with more than 5,500 injured (VIDEO, PHOTOS): LIVE UPDATES.HT: RussiaToday.The disaster has struck the country's south-western Sichuan province at 00:02 AM GMT (8:02 AM local time) on Saturday, at a depth of around 13 kilometers (7,6 miles), according to China's Xinhua news agency.

China's seismological bureau initially measured the earthquake’s magnitude at 7.0 on the Richter scale, while the US Geological Service estimated the magnitude at 6.6.

Preliminary reports indicate at least 156 confirmed deaths, Reuters reported, and around 3,000 people injured, many of them seriously, in the quake in the city of Ya'an, Sichuan. It is quite close to where a huge quake hit in 2008, claiming the lives of almost 70,000 people.

China’s Earthquake Administration has reported that over 1.5 million people have been affected by the earthquake and aftershocks. Since the rescue operation began 54 people, two children and a pregnant woman among them, are reported to have been dug out alive from under the collapsed buildings. According to unofficial estimates, up to 90 per cent of all buildings in the Ya’an area have been somehow damaged by the earthquake.

Nearly 8,000 troops are already assisting in the rescue operation and 10,000 more remain on standby ready to be dispatched into the disaster zone.

China's state-owned CCTV channel said that currently only emergency vehicles are allowed access into Yan'an, athough Chengdu airport is once again functional.

It has been reported that a bus transporting 17 soldiers to the earthquake area crashed into a river from a cliff. One of the soldiers died in hospital, while five more were seriously injured.

Thousands of prisoners have been evacuated from the local prisons in Sichuan. No deaths have been reported among the prisoners.Read and see the full story here, live updates here.

Devastating 7.6 Quake Jolts Southeastern Iran, tremors felt in Delhi.

Devastating 7.6 Quake Jolts Southeastern Iran, tremors felt in Delhi.(Fars).An earthquake measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale jolted the town of Saravan in Iran's Southeastern Sistan and Balouchestan province on Tuesday.The Seismological center of Bushehr province affiliated to the Geophysics Institute of Tehran University registered the quake at 15:14 hours local time (1044 GMT).

The epicenter of the quake was located in an area 62.03 degrees in longitude and 28.04 degrees in latitude.

Many houses in rural parts of the province are made of mud brick, which can easily crumble in a quake.

Iran sits astride several major faults in the earth's crust, and is prone to frequent earthquakes, many of which have been devastating.

A 6.1 magnitude quake struck Bushehr province South of Iran last Tuesday killing at least 39 people and injuring 850 more as it devastated small villages. The epicenter of earthquake was located in the town of Kaki, 60 miles (96km) Southeast of Bushehr.

The nearby Bushehr nuclear plant remained undamaged.

The worst in recent times hit Bam in southeastern Kerman province in December 2003, killing 31,000 people - about a quarter of its population - and destroying the city's ancient mud-built citadel.

The deadliest quake in the country was in June 1990 and measured 7.7 on the Richter scale. About 37,000 people were killed and more than 100,000 injured in the northwestern provinces of Gilan and Zanjan. It devastated 27 towns and about 1,870 villages.Read the full story here.More on the Earthquake here.

7.7 Earthquake off west coast of Canada, Tsunami warnings issued.

7.7 Earthquake off west coast of Canada, Tsunami warnings issued.HT: WUWT.An earthquake with magnitude 7.7 occurred near Prince Rupert, BC, Canada at 03:04:10.56 UTC on Oct 28, 2012. (This event has been reviewed by a seismologist.)

BULLETIN
PUBLIC TSUNAMI MESSAGE NUMBER 6
NWS WEST COAST/ALASKA TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER PALMER AK
1044 PM PDT SAT OCT 27 2012

THE ADVISORY HAS BEEN EXPANDED TO INCLUDE NORTHERN CALIFORNIA AND
SOUTHERN OREGON.

...THE TSUNAMI WARNING CONTINUES IN EFFECT FOR THE COASTAL
   AREAS OF BRITISH COLUMBIA AND ALASKA FROM THE NORTH TIP OF
   VANCOUVER ISLAND BRITISH COLUMBIA TO CAPE DECISION
   ALASKA/LOCATED 85 MILES SE OF SITKA/...

...THE TSUNAMI ADVISORY IS MODIFIED TO INCLUDE THE COASTAL
   AREAS OF CALIFORNIA AND OREGON FROM GUALALA POINT
   CALIFORNIA/LOCATED 80 MILES NW OF SAN FRANCISCO/ TO
   DOUGLAS-LANE COUNTY LINE OREGON/10 MILES SW OF FLORENCE/...

...THE TSUNAMI ADVISORY CONTINUES IN EFFECT FOR THE COASTAL
   AREAS OF BRITISH COLUMBIA FROM THE WASHINGTON-BRITISH
   COLUMBIA BORDER TO THE NORTH TIP OF VANCOUVER ISLAND
   BRITISH COLUMBIA...

...THIS MESSAGE IS INFORMATION ONLY FOR COASTAL AREAS OF
   CALIFORNIA FROM THE CALIFORNIA-MEXICO BORDER TO GUALALA
   POINT CALIFORNIA/LOCATED 80 MILES NW OF SAN FRANCISCO/...

...THIS MESSAGE IS INFORMATION ONLY FOR COASTAL AREAS OF
   OREGON AND WASHINGTON FROM DOUGLAS-LANE COUNTY LINE
   OREGON/10 MILES SW OF FLORENCE/ TO THE WASHINGTON-BRITISH
   COLUMBIA BORDER...

...THIS MESSAGE IS INFORMATION ONLY FOR COASTAL AREAS OF
   ALASKA FROM CAPE DECISION ALASKA/LOCATED 85 MILES SE OF
   SITKA/ TO ATTU ALASKA...

THE ESTIMATED ARRIVAL TIME IN HAWAII OF THE FIRST TSUNAMI WAVE IS 1028 PM HST SAT 27 OCT. Read the full story here.

Breaking News 7.6 earthquake hits Mexico (Guerrero) 5.1 aftershock few early damage reports

Breaking News 7.6 earthquake hits Mexico (Guerrero) 5.1 aftershock few early damage reports.(Yahoo).MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A major earthquake struck southwestern Mexico on Tuesday, frightening residents and shaking buildings as far as the capital, though authorities said there were no initial reports of serious damage.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake was 7.6 on the Richter scale and located the epicenter of the quake at 15 miles east of Ometepec in Guerrero state, near the Pacific Coast resort of Acapulco.
Mexican reports put the strength lower, and residents of Acapulco told Reuters the quake did not appear too violent.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon said on his twitter account there were no reports of serious damage from the quake.The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said the inland earthquake would not generate a destructive widespread tsunami, but there was the possibility of some local tsunami effects.
The quake was felt strongly in Mexico City where buildings shook and office employees fled into the street, according to a Reuters witnesses. Cell phone lines were down and traffic snarled in the capital moments after the quake."I swear I never felt one so strong, I thought the building was going to collapse," said Sebastian Herrera, 42, a businessman from a neighborhood hit hard in Mexico's devastating 1985 earthquake, which killed thousands.The quake was felt as far away as Guatemala City. No damage was reported in the southern state of Oaxaca, near where the quake hit, according to local television.Read the full story here, more 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

Fukushima Daiichi plant

                          Morning Posting.

• Huge blast at Japan nuclear power plant.A massive explosion has rocked a Japanese nuclear power plant after Friday's devastating earthquake.A huge pall of smoke was seen coming from the plant at Fukushima and several workers were injured.Japanese officials fear a meltdown at one of the plant's reactors but say the container housing it was not damaged.A huge relief operation is under way after the 8.9-magnitude earthquake and the tsunami it triggered, which is thought to have killed at least 1,000.The offshore earthquake triggered a tsunami which wreaked havoc on Japan's north-east coast, sweeping far inland and devastating a number of towns and villages.Japan's Prime Minister Naoto Kan declared a state of emergency at the Fukushima Daiichi and Daini (also known as Fukushima 1 and 2) power plants as engineers try to confirm whether a reactor at one of the stations has gone into meltdown.The emergency declaration is an automatic procedure after nuclear reactors shut down in the event of an earthquake, allowing officials to take rapid action.Japan's NHK TV showed before and after pictures of the plant. They appeared to show that the outer structure of one of four buildings at the plant had collapsed after the explosion.The Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco), the plant's operator, said four workers had been injured.Japan's nuclear agency said on Saturday that radioactive caesium and iodine had been detected near the number one reactor of the power station.The agency said this may indicate that containers of uranium fuel inside the reactor may have begun melting.Analysts say a meltdown would not necessarily lead to a major disaster because light-water reactors would not explode even if they overheated.But Walt Patterson, of the London research institute Chatham House, said "this is starting to look a lot like Chernobyl".He said it was too early to tell if the explosion's aftermath would result in the same extreme level of radioactive contamination that occurred at Chernobyl.The explosion was most likely caused by melting fuel coming into contact with water, he told the BBC.Hmmmm.....And we all remember how "fast and honest" the info was on that accident.Read and see the full story here.

• CNN LIVE NEWS STREAM HERE.

• Japanese tsunami creates whirlpool.A huge whirlpool has been created by the earthquake in Japan.It was created after the sheer force of the tsunami hit another strong current in the water.The vortex-like motion is dragging anything nearby into its core.Four trains still missing also.See the full story here.
• WATCH LIVE:Japan earthquake coverage from Reuters News . Here. Live updating news here.

• Updated !Aftershocks between 5,1 and 5,9 epicenters of four of them near nuclear plants more info here.

• Greece : In the last 8 Hours 12 light quakes Between 2,4 and 3.4 something is moving there also it seems.

• Update - AP : Government official says shaking, smoke at Japanese nuclear plant facing possible meltdown.Japanese government officials say there was shaking and a trail of white smoke at the nuclear plant in the area devastated by a massive earthquake.Fukushima Prefecture official Masato Abe says the cause is still under investigation, and it was unclear whether there was an explosion.Another official said the utility that runs the Fukushima Daiichi plant is reporting Saturday that several workers may have been injured.Full story here.

• UPDATED ! Japan faces nuclear meltdown after explosion at vast power plant caused by earthquake which killed 1,300.A building at a nuclear power station in Japan has exploded after the massive earthquake damaged its cooling system.Several workers have been injured and white smoke was seen pouring from the Fukushima Daiichi plant after the blast.There were fears the reactor at the site could melt down and radiation levels around the plant had already reached 20 times the normal.Fukushima Prefecture official Masato Abe said the cause of the building collapse was unclear.Footage on Japanese TV showed that the walls of one of the buildings had completely collapsed, leaving only a skeletal metal frame standing.More than 125 aftershocks have occurred, many of them above 6 on the Richter scale.President Barack Obama has pledged U.S. assistance and said one aircraft carrier was already in Japan and a second was on its way.Read and see the full story here.

• Updated - Japanese chief cabinet secretary confirms radiation leakage occured from explosion at Fukushima nuclear power plant - Reuters .

• LIVE : Quake-hit nuclear plant blast sparks meltdown fears.Japan woke to scenes of havoc Saturday, a day after a massive earthquake and tsunami swept away homes, cars and factories, leaving thousands missing. Authorities scrambled to prevent a nuclear leak after a damaged plant exploded.Read and see the full story here.

• BBC : 10.000 people missing after the Tsunami swept through the town of Minamisanriku that's half of the population! Source.

• The Future is written in the stars or is it in the Moon?Supermoon 19 March 2011, moon closest to earth on 19th March 2011.I mean no disrespect for those who enjoy the study of astrology. Some of the greatest astronomers of the past were also astrologers. To practice either line requires a deep understanding of our solar system, its movements and the relationship to the celestial sphere. The only thing I have difficulty swallowing is how a perfectly normal function could wreak havoc on planet Earth. Does an astrological prediction of an upcoming “Extreme SuperMoon” spell impending disaster – or is it just one more attempt to excite our natural tendencies to love a good gloom and doom story? That’s what I set about to find out…“SuperMoons are noteworthy for their close association with extreme tidal forces working in what astrologers of old used to call the sublunary world: the atmosphere, crust and oceans of our home planet – including ourselves, of course. From extreme coastal tides to severe storms to powerful earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, the entire natural world surges and spasms under the sway of the SuperMoon alignment – within three days either way of the exact syzygy, as a general rule.” says Nolle. “Obviously it won’t be the case that all hell will break loose all over the world within a few days either side of the SuperMoons. For most of us, the geocosmic risk raised by SuperMoon alignments will pass with little notice in our immediate vicinity. This is a rather roomy planet, after all. But the fact remains that a SuperMoon is planetary in scale, being a special alignment of Earth, Sun and Moon. It’s likewise planetary in scope, in the sense that there’s no place on Earth not subject to the tidal force of the perigee-syzygy.”Hmmmm........Read the full story here.

• Nuclear plant fears force mass evacuations as Japan earthquake death toll rises. The US Air Force, which has many bases in Japan, delivered coolant to a Japanese nuclear plant, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, without specifying which plant.The two nuclear plants affected are the Fukushima No. 1 and No. 2 plants, both located about 250km northeast of greater Tokyo, an urban area of 30 million people.Tokyo Electric Power vented radioactive vapour at five reactors between both plants to release building pressure."We are not in a situation in which residents face health damage," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said.However, the evacuation area was expanded. A total of 45,000 people living within a 10km radius of the No. 1 plant were told to evacuate.Officials today ordered the evacuation of people living within a 3km radius of the second plant, with those up to 10km away told to stay indoors.When the massive quake hit, the plants immediately shut down, along with others in quake-hit parts of Japan, as they are designed to do - but the cooling systems failed, the government said.The major fear is that fuel rods, which create heat through a nuclear reaction, could become exposed and release radioactivity.When reactors shut down, cooling systems must kick in to bring down the very high temperatures. These systems are powered by either the external electricity grid, backup generators or batteries.This is key to prevent a "nuclear meltdown" and major radioactive release.Japan's Prime Minister Naoto Kan left on a helicopter this morning to Fukushima to assess the situation at the plants operated by Tokyo Electric Power, and other areas in the disaster zone.Military personnel have been dispatched to Fukushima, including a chemical corps and an aircraft on a "fact-finding mission".The UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Japanese officials had kept it informed of their efforts to restore power to the cooling systems while monitoring a pressure build-up.Kan had at first said no radiation leaks were detected among the country's reactors after the quake.Read the full story here.

• Radiation Levels Surge Outside Two Nuclear Plants in Japan.Japan declared states of emergency for five nuclear reactors at two power plants after the units lost cooling ability in the aftermath of Friday's powerful earthquake. Thousands of residents were evacuated as workers struggled to get the reactors under control to prevent meltdowns.Operators at the Fukushima Daiichi plant's Unit 1 scrambled ferociously to tamp down heat and pressure inside the reactor after the 8.9 magnitude quake and the tsunami that followed cut off electricity to the site and disabled emergency generators, knocking out the main cooling system.Some 3,000 people within two miles of the plant were urged to leave their homes, but the evacuation zone was more than tripled to 6.2 miles after authorities detected eight times the normal radiation levels outside the facility and 1,000 times normal inside Unit 1's control room.The government declared a state of emergency at the Daiichi unit -- the first at a nuclear plant in Japan's history. But hours later, the Tokyo Electric Power Co., which operates the six-reactor Daiichi site, announced that it had lost cooling ability at a second reactor there and three units at its nearby Fukushima Daini site.The government quickly declared states of emergency for those units, too, and thousands of residents near Fukushima Daini also were told to leave.Officials at the Daiichi facility began venting radioactive vapors from the unit to relieve pressure inside the reactor case. The loss of electricity had delayed that effort for several hours.Plant workers there labored to cool down the reactor core, but there was no prospect for immediate success. They were temporarily cooling the reactor with a secondary system, but it wasn't working as well as the primary one, according to Yuji Kakizaki, an official at the Japanese nuclear safety agency.Even once a reactor is shut down, radioactive byproducts give off heat that can ultimately produce volatile hydrogen gas, melt radioactive fuel, or even breach the containment building in a full meltdown belching radioactivity into the surroundings, according to technical and government authorities.Despite plans for the intentional release of radioactivity, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said the 40-year-old plant was not leaking radiation."With evacuation in place and the ocean-bound wind, we can ensure the safety," Edano said at a televised news conference early Saturday.It was unclear if the elevation of radioactivity around the reactor was known at the time he spoke.Dr. Irwin Redlener, a pediatrician who runs a disaster preparedness institute at Columbia University, said the reported level of radiation outside the plant would not pose an immediate danger, though it could lift the rate of thyroid cancer in a population over time.However, he called the reported level inside the plant extraordinarily high, raising a concern about acute health effects. "I would personally absolutely not want to be inside," he said.While the condition of the reactor cores was of utmost concern, Tokyo Electric Power Co. also warned of power shortages and an "extremely challenging situation in power supply for a while."Defense Ministry official Ippo Maeyama said dozens of troops trained for chemical disasters had been dispatched to the plant in case of a radiation leak, along with four vehicles designed for use in atomic, biological and chemical warfare.Technical experts said the plant would presumably have hours, but probably not days, to try to stabilize things.Leonard S. Spector, director of the Washington office of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, said loss of coolant is the most serious type of accident at a nuclear power plant."They are busy trying to get coolant to the core area," said Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. "The big thing is trying to get power to the cooling systems."No radioactive releases were reported in any of the other affected plants.As Japan is one of the most seismically active nations in the world, it has strict sets of regulations designed to limit the impact of quakes on nuclear power plants. These standards call for constructing plants on solid bedrock to reduce shaking.As one of the most seismically active countries in the world, Japan has strict sets of regulations designed to limit the impact of quakes on nuclear power plants. These standards call for building plants on solid bedrock to reduce shaking.Hmmmmm.......As they say another Chernobyl would not be possible but in the event it would have been possible the California Coast would be the first to receive the fallout with the Jetstream,and the Philippines with the current landwinds.Read the full story here.More here.

• Japan on 'Path of Core-Melt' Nuclear Accident, Expert Tells Newsmax.Japan is “on the path of a core-melt accident,” a nuclear expert tells Newsmax in an exclusive interview.The news Friday that the only nation that ever has endured a nuclear-weapons attack is venting contaminated vapor from a nuclear power plant’s containment core could indicate that the coolant loss is quite serious, says Mark Hibbs, a Berlin-based senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a nonprofit think tank. Hibbs, who works in Carnegie's Nuclear Policy Program, has spent 20 years reporting for nuclear-energy journals and has spoken with Japanese officials in the aftermath of the nuclear plant mishap resulting from the earthquake there.“The Japanese public is generally very alarmed about things like radioactive emissions,” says Hibbs, who served for two decades as an editor and correspondent for the nuclear energy publications “Nucleonics Week” and “Nuclear Fuel.” “They have an extreme high standard of safety protection, and they don’t like to see risks like this taken even if the risk is small. “It’s a very, very risk-averse culture in this regard. So if the authorities are willing to do this, that might be a sign of how serious they perceive the threat to the reactor.”Although coolant interruptions to nuclear power plants are not all that unusual, says Hibbs, who adds that the surprising aspect of this incident is that Japan’s redundant systems apparently have been unable to counteract reactor core heating. “What happened in Japan is very alarming because it would appear . . . that about 2:30 this afternoon Japan time, when the earthquake struck . . . three of the reactors that were operating were disenabled because of a loss of offsite power that was caused by the earthquake.”The Japanese situation appears to be roughly analogous to the Three Mile Island incident in the United States, where authorities struggled for days to contain an improperly cooled reactor core but were able to avert a widespread release of nuclear material.At least one of the reactors in Japan, and perhaps more, “ are on the path of a core-melt accident. It’s called a loss of coolant accident. . . . And it’s up to the Japanese authorities, together with the industries in that country, to find a way to stem this problem,” he said.Hibbs spoke with Japanese government officials who told him the force of the tsunami was so severe that the water may have flooded the reactors, power generators, and cooling mechanisms, disabling the equipment. "Which means they have to resort to basically a military-type exercise, to rush in to the devastated site equipment that they can quickly hook up to the reactor to get power in there and start this emergency equipment, to get cooling water into that core and prevent that fuel from overheating. “And if they can’t do that,” he told Newsmax, “then you’re going to have this meltdown.”They have 24 hours or so to avoid a core meltdown, he says. But if one occurs, two scenarios could follow: The good outcome would mirror what happened at Three Mile Island, while the bad one could involve what he called a “Chernobyl scenario, where the damage to the reactor was such that the integrity of the structures were damaged.“So that is the ultimate worst-case scenario. Nobody is saying that’s going to happen. Nobody is even saying we’re going to have a core meltdown. But we have a window of time now. We don’t know how much is left — but the Japanese authorities and the government and all the agencies that they can muster are working overtime to get cooling systems on that site powered and working.”Hibbs said the Japanese right now are fighting the clock to contain the heating.“I have no reason to believe that the amount of radioactivity that would be released in an event like that would be very much. It probably would not be. In the absence of any fuel damage, which they haven’t reported . . . it wouldn’t be a lot of radioactivity at all.”Hmmm.....I do remember Chernobyl very well it was only once that other countries picked up the Radioactivity in their country that the truth emerged.Read the full story here.

• When An ill Wind Blows From Afar! (Like from Iran, Japan or North Korea!)Surviving Radioactive Fallout & Radiation Contamination from Iran, Japan or North Korea.From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_iodide we see reported that : Chernobyl also demonstrated that the need to protect the thyroid from radiation was greater than expected. Within ten years of the accident, it became clear that thyroid damage caused by released radioactive iodine was virtually the only adverse health effect that could be measured. As reported by the NRC, studies after the accident showed, that "As of 1996, except for thyroid cancer, there has been no confirmed increase in the rates of other cancers, including leukemia, among the...public, that have been attributed to releases from the accident." Researchers at the World Health Organization accurately located and counted the cancer victims from Chernobyl and were startled to find that "the increase in incidence [of thyroid cancer] has been documented up to 500 km from the accident site...significant doses from radioactive iodine can occur hundreds of kilometers from the site, beyond emergency planning zones." Consequently, far more people than anticipated were affected by the radiation, which caused the United Nations to report in 2002 that "The number of people with thyroid cancer...has exceeded expectations. Over 11,000 cases have already been reported." The good news is that taking either Potassium Iodide (KI) or Potassium Iodate (KIO3) before exposure will saturate (fill up) a persons thyroid gland with safe stable iodine to where there is no room for later uptake of radioactive iodine. Once the thyroid is saturated, then any additional iodine (radioactive or stable) that is later inhaled or ingested is quickly eliminated via the kidneys.From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_iodide we see reported about KI use during Chernobyl event that : Poland, 300 miles from Chernobyl, also gave out KI to protect its population. Approximately 18 million doses were distributed, with follow-up studies showing no known thyroid cancer among KI recipients. But time has shown that people living in irradiated areas where KI was not available have developed thyroid cancer at epidemic levels, which is why the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reported "The data clearly demonstrate the risks of thyroid radiation...KI can be used [to] provide safe and effective protection against thyroid cancer caused by irradiation."The bad news is that after Three Mile Island and Chernobyl all available KI and KIO3 supplies disappeared for months, almost overnight! The KI and KIO3 market is very thin and current limited inventory will be quickly depleted in any nuclear emergency occuring anywhere in the world. (At www.ki4u.com we expect to be largely 'out of business' within days of any nuclear emergency simply because we'll be totally sold-out with no illusions of getting re-supplied again any time soon!) Potassium Iodide (KI) and/or Potassium Iodate (KIO3) has already been stockpiled by most developed countries for future nuclear emergencies, they figured it out after Chernobyl, but here in the USA they've only just begun. (We sold 300,000 doses to HHS Office of Emergency Prepardness after 9/11, which represented half of our nations stockpile then.) However, very limited quantities will be available for individual purchase in the USA by the public after an 'event'. (Potassium Iodide (KI) has long been recognized and approved by the FDA for sale for this purpose without a prescription. Unfortunately, it is an over-the-counter (OTC) drug that's to be found on too few counters here in the USA!)Hmmm......Keep informed in the next days!Read the full story here and here.

• Dr. Manny: Potential Danger as Radiation Levels Surge in Japan.As I watch the tragedy unfolding in Japan since an 8.9-magnitude earthquake rocked the nation this morning, triggering a deadly tsunami, I am realizing just how much devastation this small country is potentially facing – and it’s scary. Hundreds of people have already died, and I’m sure the number will continue to rise as the clean-up efforts kick into high gear.But new concerns are growing. The massive earthquake caused a power outage that disabled a nuclear power plant’s cooling system in the Onahoma city, about 170 miles north of Tokyo.Surging radiation levels of 1,000 times more than normal have caused an evacuation of 3,000 people near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant—making it the first-ever state of emergency declared at a nuclear plant in Japan.Government officials said the amount of radioactive elements leaking from the plant would be "very small" and would not affect the environment or human health—if the leak is kept under control.However, if they cannot continue to restore cooling of the plant, it could become a very dangerous situation to those living in close range of the plant, and the fallout would only spread.If the reactor does indeed melt down, the results could be similar – if not worse – than that of Chernobyl.When a reactor at a nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine went out of control in April of 1986 during a low-power test that led to an explosion and subsequent meltdown, it contaminated 58,000 square miles of land between Belarus, Russia and the Ukraine, and prompted the evacuation of thousands of residents.The reactor meltdown released a hundred radioactive elements into the atmosphere including dangerous iodine, strontium and caesium, which are the most dangerous, and can still be found in the affected areas today.In the years since this devastating accident, studies on groups of emergency workers and individuals with the highest exposure rates have linked the radioactive fallout to several health consequences like certain cancers, cardiovascular disease and death.Radiation is predicated on three factors: total exposure, how close you were to the accident and how much time you were exposed to it.Right now, it seems the Japanese government is controlling the situation. And we can only pray that it stays that way.Hmmm.....different sources ,different information,better stay informed.Read the full story here.

• "The China Syndrome".The 'China Syndrome' refers to the most drastically severe meltdown a nuclear reactor could possibly achieve. In this case, the reactor would reach the highest level of supercriticality for a sustained period of time, resulting in the melting of its support infrastructure. The uranium in the core would behave in a similar manner to a delta-class fire, self-sustaining temperatures in excess of 2000°C. Since these temperatures would melt all materials around it, the reactor would sink due to gravity, effectively boring a hole through the reactor compartment's floor.The China syndrome becomes fictional in the hypothesis of it boring a hole from the United States to China, or any other part of the world (the opposite side of the earth from the USA is the Indian Ocean, except for a section of northern Montana, Hawaii and sections of Northern Alaska, central Colorado, whose antipodes are Ile Saint-Paul, Ile Amsterdam, French Southern and Antarctic Lands, northern Namibia and Antarctica, respectively). Most obviously it is impossible because the Earth's gravity would only pull it towards the core of the planet and no further. Furthermore, were the molten reactor fuel to reach the planetary mantle, the actual environmental effect would likely be low; the radioactive material would disperse by convection throughout the mantle, which is in any case kept liquid by natural nuclear decay. However, it is likely that the uranium core would not exceed more than 10 meters of 'boring' due to natural passive safety. The surrounding ground beneath the reactor would absorb the heat and transfer it conductivity to the surrounding area, thus preventing the ground directly beneath the core from 'melting'.This manner of spreading heat convectively through the ground is proposed for use in General Atomics' Gas Turbine Modular Helium Reactor for regular operation and passive safety, which aims to eliminate the possibility of a meltdown. Source.

• WTF ? Obama administration approved $40billion in private arms sales to countries including Libya and Egypt.The U.S. government approved $40billion in private arms sales to countries including Libya and Egypt in 2009 - before they both dissolved into unrest this year - the State Department reported.From 2008 to 2009, the U.S. authorised an increase in sales of military shipments to the now-toppled Egyptian government of Hosni Mubarak and the embattled kingdom of Bahrain. But they did reduce the sales approvals to Muammar Gaddafi's Libyan government to $15million that year from $46million in 2008.The State figures detailed sales of U.S. defence items for Egypt ($101million) and Bahrain ($88million). The figures show $458,000 in tear gas sales licensed to Egypt, where there were numerous reports that U.S.-supplied crowd-control gas suppressed democracy protesters in Cairo. The U.S. authorised $18,000 in tear gas for Bahrain in 2008, but did not license it in 2009, the figures show. Both countries were also authorised shipments of firearms, shotguns and close assault weapons.All sales to Libya were restricted to non-lethal equipment. Almost all of the equipment approved in 2009 were aircraft parts, compared to more than $1million that had been approved in 2008 for explosives and incendiary agents. State Department spokesman Mark C Toner said earlier this week that the explosives were limited for use in oil exploration, but other officials raised concerns that the material could be converted into crude battlefield munitions.In total $7.3billion of the $40billion in U.S.-approved defence sales went to Middle East and North African countries indicating the willingness to pay top dollar for American defence equipment.Iraq, where U.S. forces are still drawing down and the fledgling government is struggling against militants, was the biggest buyer with $1.51billion, closely followed by Turkey with $1.5billion.William D Hartung, director of the Arms and Security Initiative at the New America Foundation, a non-partisan Washington think tank questioned whether the U.S. was lax in providing such weaponry and crowd-control devices to authoritarian regimes.'Some of these countries have very serious records of human rights abuses that are being overlooked in deference to other aspects of their relationship with the U.S.,' he said.Hmmmm......Someone really,really doesn't like Israel?Read the full story here.

• "The War on Christinanity".Chicago Conference to Address Muslim Persecution of Middle East Christians.A conference will be held in Chicago this Saturday to address the persecution of Christians in the Middle East. The conference is sponsored by a coalition of Christian groups and Middle Eastern Christians, including Assyrians, Maronites and Copts.According to the organizers of the conference. Recent attacks against churches in Iraq and Egypt demonstrate that Christianity faces an uncertain future in the Middle East. The one day conference will bring together representatives from the Christian communities in Lebanon, Iraq and Egypt to speak about the day-to-day threats faced by Christians in the M.E.. Activists serving the persecuted church in Muslim-majority countries will describe their efforts to promote human rights in the Middle East.Hmmmm......"We will NOT remain silent"!Read the full story here.

• Pope Benedict: Violence Can Never Be Carried Out in God’s Name.Pope Benedict XVI rejects the idea of Jesus as a political revolutionary and insists that violent revolution must never be carried out in God’s name in a new book being released Thursday amid great fanfare at the start of Lent.“Jesus of Nazareth — Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection,” is the second installment of Benedict’s planned trilogy on Jesus. Part I, which covered Jesus’ early ministry, shot to the top of the best-seller lists in Italy when it was published in 2007.Already, 1.2 million copies of Part II have been printed in seven languages, and reprints of 100,000 more are planned for the Italian editions and 50,000 in German.In the book, Benedict exonerates the Jews as a people for Christ’s death. He also insists that Jesus never advocated violent revolution, as some liberation theologians have suggested, saying violence was not His way no matter how valid the motivation.Benedict has spoken out frequently to denounce religiously motivated violence against Christians in the Middle East, Pakistan and elsewhere. “The cruel consequences of religiously motivated violence are only too evident to us all,” he noted in the book.“Violence does not build up the kingdom of God, the kingdom of humanity. On the contrary, it is a favorite instrument of the Antichrist, however idealistic its religious motivation may be,” Benedict wrote. “It serves, not humanity, but inhumanity.”Hmmmmm......"The Truth Shall Set You Free"John 8:32.Read the full story here.

• Bill Clinton Slams Obama Regime’s “Ridiculous Delays” in Issuing Offshore Drilling Permits.Former President Bill Clinton said Friday that delays in offshore oil and gas drilling permits are “ridiculous” at a time when the economy is still rebuilding, according to attendees at the IHS CERAWeek conference.Clinton spoke on a panel with former President George W. Bush that was closed to the media. Video of their moderated talk with IHS CERA Chairman Daniel Yergin was also prohibited.But according to multiple people in the room, Clinton, surprisingly, agreed with Bush on many oil and gas issues, including criticism of delays in permitting offshore since last year’s Gulf of Mexico spill.“Bush said all the things you’d expect him to say” on oil and gas issues, said Jim Noe, senior vice president at Hercules Offshore and executive director of the pro-drilling Shallow Water Energy Security Coalition. But Clinton added, “You’d be surprised to know that I agree with all that,” according to Noe and others in the room.Clinton said there are “ridiculous delays in permitting when our economy doesn’t need it,” according to Noe and others.“That was the most surprising thing they said,” Noe said.The two former presidents both generally agreed on the need to get offshore drilling workers back on the job.Hmmmm....."Blasphemy"?Read the full story here.

• HT:Investors. 'Genius' Obama Blames Oil Companies For Lack of Domestic Drilling. In his Friday press conference to discuss gas prices, President Obama was rather defensive, straining to counter the notion that his administration has been unfriendly to oil drilling, something most people would like to see a lot more of these days.Where do people get that notion? Perhaps his Interior Department appealing a judge’s ruling that it act on several pending deepwater permits had something to with it.Obama claimed repeatedly that he is not against drilling, then made the following comments:There is more we can do, however. For example, right now, the (oil) industry holds leases on tens of millions of acres — both offshore and on land — where they aren’t producing a thing. So I’ve directed the Interior Department to determine just how many of these leases are going undeveloped and report back to me within two weeks so that we can encourage companies to develop the leases they hold and produce American energy. People deserve to know that the energy they depend on is being developed in a timely manner.In other words, Obama is arguing that the oil companies themselves may be to blame for the fact that there isn’t more drilling. For some reason they’re ignoring making a profit. It’s a bizarro-world inversion of the usual complaint against oil companies — that they are reckless and all-too eager to despoil pristine lands in search of black gold.Hmmmm......How much 'deceit' can America take from this 'administration'?Read the full story here.

• HT:TheZeroHedge.Will The Japanese Earthquake Be The Straw That Breaks Europe's Back?Two months ago many were scratching their heads when Japan announced it was buying Eurozone bonds. After all - why would Europe want to have a marginal buyer (or as the case may be seller) of its debt be the country that is known by all to be the most indebted entity in the world? Of course, it became promptly clear that it was not the Japanese government doing the buying, but mostly its financial companies, with an emphasis on its insurance and reinsurance companies. Fast forward to today when Japanese insurance companies are getting pummeled in local trading on concerns the payoffs to the decimated Japanese infrastructure will be unprecedented. So what will happen? Why a scramble for liquidity of course, just like we saw back in September 2008, when cash stricken companies sold all their liquid assets first, resulting in a toxic loop of self-fulfilling prophecy selling which almost tobbled the $25 trillion shadow banking system. And what will said Japanese insurance companies sell first? Why the very same Eurozone bonds they acquired with so much pomp and circumstance, by the minions of the insolvent Eurozone, back in January of course. Furthermore, now that Japan will have no choice but to launch a mini round of Quantitative Easing and flood the market with JGBs, there will be a dramatic spike in supply for sovereign paper, which of course means yields across the board will rise.Hmmmm.......Read the full story here.

• Utah allows gold, silver coin to be used as legal tender.UTAH (Commodity Online) : Utah in Western United States has passed a legislation that would allow gold and silver coins to be used as a legal tender in the State; a move to hedge them from the value erosion that the US Dollar is undergoing,. Analysts and think tanks have supported the move. But there is opposition too. As one of the law makers joked, Utah should make salt a legal tender owing to its surplus in the State. The Utah legislation is touted as a rejection of fiat money and an opposition against tax code that encourages consumption. The new wave is not restricted to Utah, as a dozen states have proposed such a bill. In Virginia, the legislature there has passed a bill (which is yet to be signed by the governor) that would allow the state to mint gold, silver and platinum coins. This is expected to protect the state from the scourge of high inflation. In fact, a Virginia delegate tried to initiate a resolution that would allow the state to have its own currency, but fell through. Recently, there were unconfirmed reports that China is on a move to opt gold Standard.The US had been on gold standard for a major part of the 20th century, but Richard Nixon decoupled gold from currency in 1971.In November last year, World Bank President, Robert Zoellick called for considering by nations a return to gold standard to better accommodate currency fluctuations. The Utah bill is yet to be signed by the State Governor. Once this is through, there are arguments that the legislation may spur the US Congress to consider adopting gold standard.Hmmmm.....The Saudis consider once the price of Gold reaches 1550 $ an ounce that the real value has been reached.Read the full story here. Flashback : MFS -The Other News -13 Januari : Virginia introducing Bill to return to Gold and Silver standard in case of Federal Reserve System breakdown. here.

• Us vs. them unions.Wisconsin standoff brings attention to the Democrats’ dirty bargain.Republicans in the Wisconsin statehouse had enough of Democratic Party antics designed to insulate its union supporter base from the pains of the economic malaise affecting the rest of us. The state Senate voted Wednesday to ban public-sector employees from entering into collective bargaining arrangements. Union thugs encircling the capitol building made a spectacle of themselves as the Assembly turned to consider the bill yesterday. Meanwhile in Washington, congressional Democrats continue to hold out against the most milquetoast of spending-reduction proposals, despite the dire circumstances of the nation’s finances.The longer the squabbles in the state and national capitals drag on, the more time the public has to notice the extent to which the party of Johnson, Carter and Obama loots the public treasure to maintain a political empire. The foundation of that empire at the federal level is $671,512,415 in campaign checks Big Labor has written for Democrats since 1990, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. That does not account for the massive, expensive logistical support provided to “get out the vote” at each election.At the state level, unions have given Democrats $760,395,170 in campaign support since 2000, according to data from the National Institute on Money in State Politics. In 2010, public-employee unions gave $77,722,313 in donations to state Democrats. In short, most Democrats owe their election to the support of union bosses, and the unions know it.It’s only appropriate that this Land of Lincoln refuge finds itself among the worst off. The latest budget devotes $1 out of every $8 collected from taxpayers to pay off retired bureaucrats. The percentage will only grow over time as politicians have promised $139 billion in benefits to the public-sector unions, but the pension system only has $53 billion in assets. Most states face unfunded liabilities of similar magnitude, saddling taxpayers with massive bills that will come due long after the Democrats who approved the benefits have left office. They expect productive taxpayers to pick up the burden, but it might not last.Americans are starting to catch on to the “us vs. them” attitude of the unions. The unruly mob camped out in Madison has made few friends with the hateful signs and nasty rhetoric. A Quinnipiac poll found more national voters support limiting collective bargaining for public employees in order to reduce state deficits. That feeling will grow as those spoiled with lifetime employment and automatic raises betray the selfishness of their cause.Hmmm.....The 'Ants' can no longer feed the useless 'dinosaur'.Read the full story here.Read the full story here.

• Google in the White House? Obama considers $7bn CEO of search engine for secretary post.He's worth $7billion, has led the world's number one internet search engine for a decade and oversaw an 18 per cent annual rise in its stock value last year.So it’s no surprise U.S. President Barack Obama is looking at outgoing Google CEO Eric Schmidt, 55, as a candidate to become his next secretary of commerce.Mr Obama could dip into the business world for his next secretary, with Jeffrey Kindler, 55, former CEO of drug maker Pfizer also being considered, sources told Bloomberg.Mr Schmidt said in January that he will step down as Google CEO to become executive chairman next month after leading the California company for ten years.He gave $25,000 to Mr Obama’s inaugural committee and has regularly consulted with him on economic subjects.Mr Obama has been considering candidates from outside politics and academia as top jobs have opened up in the second half of his term.His new chief of staff Bill Daley, who was a JPMorgan Chase executive before joining the administration in January, earned $20 million last year.But his recruitment on a salary of $172,200 a year as a top aide comes as Mr Obama tries to establish closer relations between government and business.The next commerce secretary will play a key role in Mr Obama’s plans to double U.S. exports to $3.1trillion within five years. Symantec chairman John Thompson and Federal Communications Commission chairman Julius Genachowski are also reportedly being considered by Mr Obama.Hmmmm......Big brother takes over US politics,With Googles supercomputers on my side there's no way i can loose the 2012 election?What's next 'Hummingbird drones' to spy on people?Read the full story here.

• HT:AmericanThinker.Who Wrote Obama's Books?Three Cheers for Jack Cashill!Would you believe me if I told you that while in Milan last weekend, I'd been to La Scala for the world premiere of a new opera by George W. Bush? And would you ever again take me seriously if I published a review of Bush's new opera in which I wrote that "...through this work, so infused with the passion of Carmen, the musicality of La Boheme and the drama of Tosca, our forty-third president takes his place as the most gifted composer in the history of American politics"?Of course not. No one, not even that former-Bush-White-House-press-secretary blonde who keeps showing up on Fox News, would believe this because it's utterly preposterous. A man who has displayed not the slightest musical talent simply cannot sit down one day and produce an operatic masterpiece.And as Jack Cashill proves in Deconstructing Obama, it is just as preposterous to believe that President Obama actually wrote his lyrical, extravagantly praised autobiography, Dreams from My Father. On page after page, chapter after chapter, Cashill shows why it simply isn't possible for Obama to have produced such a high-quality autobiography. For instance, Obama wrote nearly nothing before Dreams from My Father, despite being president of the Harvard Law Review, and what little he wrote in the years after Harvard is clunky and sophomoric. And yet Dreams from My Father contains some of the most elegant, evocative sentences ever penned by a politician :

I heard all our voices begin to run together, the sound of three generations tumbling over each other like the currents of a slow-moving stream, my questions like rocks roiling the water, the breaks in memory separating the currents....

Huh? Obama has been our president for more than two years, and hardly a day goes by without him blathering on about some issue. Jokes about his dependence on the teleprompter are a staple of the late-night television comics. The president's inaugural address -- which he surely didn't dash off casually, because he must have understood that this is the speech that one day will be carved into the marble wall of his monument -- contains not one memorable phrase or sentence. So how did he write the kinds of poetic, elegiac passages that make Dreams from My Father a literary near-masterpiece?As Cashill shows, he didn't. And he demonstrates, with as much precision as you can get short of a DNA sample, that Dreams was actually written by Obama's Hyde Park colleague, friend and neighbor, the terrorist Bill Ayers. (There's even more evidence of Ayers' authorship in Cashill's book than in the articles about this he's written for American Thinker.) Oh, and Cashill reports two specific instances in which Ayers acknowledges his authorship of Dreams. That's interesting, to say the least.By Deconstructing Obama page by page -- and piece by piece -- Cashill brings the reader to understand that in 2008 "Barak Obama" wasn't a candidate but a carefully created myth. The leftist mainstream media bought that myth, which is why they blew off Cashill and his overwhelming amount of evidence that so much about Obama was fraudulent. That's why Obama's close relationships with Ayers and with the vicious America-hater Jeremiah Wright were ignored by the mainstream media during the campaign, and also that telling comment by Michelle about her husband's candidacy being the first time she'd ever been proud of our country. After all, if any part of the myth turned out to be false, Obama's candidacy would have collapsed. That didn't happen, of course, and it's depressing to realize that when given the choice between a myth and a genuine war hero -- American voters chose the myth.In the long run, reality always wins. Tomorrow, or next year, or sometime later this century the truth about Barack Obama will trickle out. And when that happens, "Barak Obama" will be exposed as a myth. And Jack Cashill will get the recognition he deserves as the best investigative journalist of our time.Hmmmm......Can't wait for the day this 'Obamination' is exposed for what it really is,and that Congress go's all the way to the full extent of the law.Read the full story here.

• FAA: No more emergency oxygen in airplane lavatories. Citing a security vulnerability, agency orders equipment disabled in 6,000 U.S. planes. Citing security concerns, the federal government in secrecy last month ordered every airline in the United States to remove emergency oxygen in every lavatory on all 6,000 domestic commercial aircraft. Under Air Worthiness Directive 2011-04-09, made public this week, the Federal Aviation Administration directed all airlines to disable the lavatory oxygen generators to "eliminate a potential safety and security vulnerability.”That means that if there’s a sudden loss of cabin pressure, now only those passengers at their seats will have oxygen flowing to the masks that drop down from the ceiling. “I’m in shock,” said Kate Hanni, executive director of Flyersrights.org, a nonprofit airline passengers' rights organization. “We get reports of mid-air decompression events all the time. So now going to the bathroom on a commercial flight can kill you? I’m panicking just thinking about this.” In the past 10 years, according to an FAA spokeswoman, there have been only 12 incidents of loss of pressure at cruise altitudes and none in which the cabin altitude reached an unsafe level for breathing.The agency noted that it is working with aircraft manufacturers “to design, certify, and install a new lavatory oxygen system” on all aircraft, adding that “if there is a sudden loss of cabin pressure, pilots are already trained to guide the aircraft to a safe, breathable altitude as quickly as possible. Flight attendants are also already trained to assist passengers to quickly access oxygen — including those in the lavatories.” Sara Keagle, a flight attendant who blogs at TheFlyingPinto.com, said flight attendants had not yet received training on the new directive but added that they already have access to portable oxygen bottles that could be used to assist any passengers in a lavatory.“If a decompression should occur, flight attendants are trained to get on oxygen immediately,” she said. “Once it is safe, we would don a portable oxygen bottle and check the cabin, including the lavs, to make sure everyone was OK.”Airlines were expected to begin informing passengers about the lack of lavatory oxygen generators on seatback briefing cards, during the verbal passenger safety briefing presentation and on signs posted in airplane bathrooms.Hmmmmm........."Warning using the toilet during flight might kill you"?Read the full story here.

• Suggestion on Visas From Putin Catches Biden by Surprise.MOSCOW — When Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. sat down for his meeting with Vladimir V. Putin this week, the Russian prime minister opened with a curveball.Rather than reiterating the joint projects on the table — cooperation on missile defense and Russia’s accession to the World Trade Organization, among others — Mr. Putin cheerily suggested a brand-new idea: dropping visa requirements between Russia and the United States. The early part of the meeting was featured on Russian television and reported by journalists in the press pool. Mr. Biden responded quietly, almost reflexively, “Good idea,” and Mr. Putin seized on the response, saying that tossing out visa requirements would “break all the stereotypes concerning Russia and the U.S.” He referred admiringly to Mr. Biden’s “clout” within the Obama administration and said he hoped Mr. Biden would make the case for the change in Washington. As Mr. Biden’s advisers looked on, the vice president hastily backpedaled, suggesting that he does not decide such matters.“Mr. Prime Minister, in case you haven’t noticed, there’s a real difference between being president and vice president,” he said, perhaps referring to the structure of Russia’s leadership, in which Mr. Putin occupies the country’s second-highest post but is widely viewed as its paramount leader. Then the vice president changed the subject.Hmmmm......Ooooops i did it again?Come to think of it ....No visas between Turkey and Russia and no visas between Russia and the USA would mean free entry to every terrorist in the Middle East. Read the full story here.

• Erdoğan says EP report on Turkey ‘unbalanced’.Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has slammed a European Parliament report that noted a deterioration in press freedoms and women’s rights in Turkey, saying it was unbalanced and written by people who did not know the country. “There is no balance in this report. Excuse me, but I believe that people who have prepared this document lack balance as well,” Erdoğan said during a joint news conference in Ankara with the visiting Serbian prime minister late on Thursday.In a resolution passed on Wednesday on Turkey’s accession bid, the EP said the recent arrests of journalists could undermine confidence in Turkey’s judiciary and adherence to democratic principles. The report followed the arrests in recent weeks of more than two dozen journalists accused of being part of an ultranationalist group plotting against Erdoğan’s government.“I sincerely say that Turkey is much more developed than many EU countries in terms of freedom of the press. If there is nothing to discuss about press freedoms in Europe, or the Western world, then how should we understand the situation of Julian Assange? Why is Assange being tried in court?” he went on saying, referring to the WikiLeaks founder, who is currently free under strict bail conditions in London.The EP’s rapporteur on Turkey, Ria Oomen-Ruijten, who drafted the report, meanwhile, stated that there has been a deterioration in freedom of expression in Turkey. “Freedom of the press is very important for the proper functioning of the checks and balances system,” Oomen-Ruijten was quoted as saying on Thursday.Hmmmm.......Ahmadinejad nodding in approval "It's a Zionist plot"against my friend?Read the full story here.

• Merkel ally assails Erdoğan over Turkey’s poor human rights record.The leader of the governing Christian Social Union (CSU), an ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Horst Seehofer criticized Turkey over its poor human rights record and its intrusive remarks with respect to the integration of some 4 million Turks into German society. Seehofer called on immigrants, the majority of them being ethnic Turks, to “sign up to German values,” and urged Ankara not to interfere in the integration debate in Germany, The New York Times reported on Wednesday.Amid an intense immigration debate in Germany, the senior German official’s remark will undoubtedly add fuel to the squabble between Turkish and German officials over the integration of Turks in Germany.Seehofer said Erdoğan had no right to criticize Germany’s dominant way of life given what is happening in Turkey.“A country that disregards the human rights of women as much as Turkey does, that on its own territory renders life difficult for Christians, from such a prime minister we do not need lessons about how to deal with religious minorities in our countries,” Seehofer reportedly said.Hmmmmm........Ahmadinejad  : "He's not heavy he's my brother"?Read the full story here. 

• Prime Minister Erdoğan criticizes Israel over its satellite reservations.Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan criticized Israel on Friday because the Jewish state is waging a diplomatic war with several countries, including the US, to prevent Turkey from snapping pictures of its territory through a new Turkish satellite. The GökTürk satellite is due to be in orbit by 2013, Erdoğan noted while speaking at a meeting arranged in Ankara by a youth branch of his ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party).This fact annoys some, Erdoğan said, without mentioning the name of any particular country. Yet, he apparently addressed Israel since Turkey's leap into the aerospace market treads on Israeli security sensitivities given the former allies' recently strained ties. Unlike with other nations that have fielded commercial satellites, Israel has little leverage over Ankara. “You have been observing us for decades,” Erdoğan said at the meeting held with the theme of “Vision 2023.”“But now our GökTürk satellite will be in orbit by 2013,” Erdoğan said. “You are the ones who will firmly stick to the 2023 goals and exert efforts to make them real with all of your strength,” he added, while addressing young members of his party.Hmmmm.....'Nice' to see that Erdogan hasn't changed his priorities,you can always count on him to bash Israel.Read the full story here.

• ‘Code crisis’ overshadows Turkey’s planned purchase of F-35 jets.A “code crisis” has erupted in Ankara that could threaten Turkey’s participation in a US-led project to produce F-35 fighter jets, further complicated by the presentation of a bill to Turkey for an additional $4 billion to offset the growing costs of the project. The Turkish side in this $16 billion project has repeatedly knocked on America’s door to ask for the flight codes for the fighter jets into which so much money has been invested. However, the Pentagon has rejected these demands on the part of Turkey. America’s refusal to turn over the codes belonging to the jets and to share the software technology used in their production is making Turkey nervous.Though Ankara plans at this point to purchase around 100 of these fighter jets, there is the awareness in the Turkish capital that without the codes in question, possession of the jet planes will only be partial. There are assertions at hand that the F-35s will be controllable from outside sources, that they may be defenseless against electronic warfare and that no changes will be able to be made to their software. At this point, diplomatic circles claim the UK will be withdrawing from the consortium was formed to realize the project for these same reasons.Turkey is one of a group of countries designated as production nations for the F-35, which has been designed to be the “hunter of the future.” Along with Turkey, Italy, Denmark, Norway, Australia, the US, and Canada are all a part of this project. A budget of $10 billion has been earmarked in the Turkish Treasury for this project, whose first fighter jet is slated to be presented to Turkey some time in 2015.Although there has been no F-35 turned over to Turkey yet, an bill for an extra $4 billion, based on higher than predicted costs for the building of the planes, was presented to Ankara. In fact, taking into consideration logistics as well as other costs, the total cost to Turkey is now said to be likely to reach $16 billion. The SSM has already gone to the Treasury to ask for the extra cost to be covered, following requests from the General Staff.Hmmmmm......Erdogan in Germany :"Now Turkey will at last start building its own war planes"?Read the full story here.

• HT:CompassDirect.Christian Woman Freed from Muslim Kidnappers in Pakistan.Captors tried to force mother of seven to convert to Islam.LAHORE, Pakistan, March 11 (CDN) — A Christian mother of seven here who last August was kidnapped, raped, sold into marriage and threatened with death if she did not convert to Islam was freed this week. After she refused to convert and accept the marriage, human traffickers had threatened to kill Shaheen Bibi, 40, and throw her body into the Sindh River if her father, Manna Masih, did not pay a ransom of 100,000 rupees (US$1,170) by Saturday (March 5), the released woman told Compass. Drugged into unconsciousness, Shaheen Bibi said that when she awoke in Sadiqabad, her captors told her she had been sold and given in marriage.“I asked them who they were,” she said. “They said that they were Muslims, to which I told them that I was a married Christian woman with seven children, so it was impossible for me to marry someone, especially a Muslim.” Giving her a prayer rug (musalla), her captors – Ahmed Baksh, Muhammad Amin and Jaam Ijaz – tried to force her to convert to Islam and told her to recite a Muslim prayer, she said.“I took the musalla but prayed to Jesus Christ for help,” she said. “They realized that I should be returned to my family.”When she awoke in Sadiqabad, Baksh, Amin and Ijaz informed her that she had been sold into marriage with Baksh. They showed her legal documents in which she was given a Muslim name, Sughran Bibi daughter of Siddiq Ali. After Baksh had twice raped her, she said, his mother interjected that she was a “persistent Christian” and that therefore he should stay away from her. Shaheen Bibi, separated from an abusive husband who had left her for another woman, said that after Baksh’s mother intervened, her captors stopped hurting her but kept her in chains.At midnight on Sunday (March 6), after some encounters and raids in a jungle area where houses are miles apart, the rescue team managed to get hold of Shaheen Bibi, the CDI source said. The captors handed over Shaheen Bibi on the condition that they would not be the targets of further legal action, the CDI source said.Fatigued and fragile when she arrived in Lahore on Monday (March 7), Shaheen Bibi told CDN through her attorneys that she would pursue legal action against those who sold her fraudulently into slavery and humiliation. She said that she had been chained to a tree outside a house, where she prayed continually that God would help her out of the seemingly impossible situation. After the kidnappers gave her father the March 5 deadline last week, Shaheen Bibi said, at one point she lifted her eyes in prayer, saw a cross in the sky and was comforted that God’s mighty hand would release her even though her father had no money to pay ransom. On four previous occasions, she said, her captors had decided to kill her and had changed their mind. Shaheen Bibi said there were about 10 other women in captivity with her, some whose hands or legs were broken because they had refused to be forcibly given in marriage. Among the women was one from Bangladesh who had abandoned hope of ever returning home as she had reached her 60s in captivity. Masih told CDN that he had prayed that God would send help, as he had no money to pay the ransom. The day before the deadline for paying the ransom, he said, he had 100 rupees (less than US$2) in his pocket.Hmmmm.....This is the country the Obama administration gives tens of billions of Dollars,while defending the right to build a Mosque on Ground Zero.Read the full story here.

• Five family members killed in suspected terrorist attack at their home in Itamar settlement. According to police the suspect broke into a home in Itamar armed with a knife and killed the family of five people including parents and three children.Five members of an Israeli family were killed Friday night when a suspected terrorist broke into their home in the West Bank settlement of Itamar and stabbed them all to death. According to police, the suspect broke into the house armed with a knife and stabbed the mother, father and three children, aged 11, three and a three-month-old baby.Magen David Adom rescue services arrived at the scene and found them all dead. Extensive police forces and Israel Defense Forces are scanning the area for the suspect. Initial investigation found that the family's 12-year-old daughter managed to escape the house with her two younger brothers and ran to the neighbors' house to get help. The military blocked the entrance to the northern West Bank settlement of Itamar, as soldiers poured inside and a pair of ambulances departed. The overnight attack is the first attack against settlers in months and the first of its kind and scope in years. It marks a rare outburst of violence during a relatively calm period. Itamar is home to some of the West Bank's most fervent settlers.Hmmmm....Chances are that the UN human rights watch will blame Israel for being there in the way of the poor terrorist.Read the full story here.More here. 

• Massive Show of Force Quashes Saudi Arabia Protests.RIYADH, Saudi Arabia -- A massive show of force by Saudi Arabia's government snuffed out a Facebook-based effort to stage unprecedented pro-democracy protests in the capital on Friday, but political unrest and sectarian tensions roiled neighboring Yemen and Bahrain.Yemen's largest demonstrations in a month were met by police gunfire that left at least six protesters injured and seemed certain to fuel more anger against the deeply unpopular U.S.-allied president.In Bahrain, a conflict deepened between the island kingdom's Shiite majority and its Sunni Muslim royal family, whose security forces and pro-government mobs attacked demonstrators with tear gas, rocks and swords. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates visited the tiny country, the home of the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, to reassure its rulers of unwavering U.S. support, officials said.In the city of Qatif, not far from Bahrain, armored personnel carriers and dozens of officers in riot gear surrounded several hundred demonstrators shouting calls for reforms and equality between the sects. Police opened fire in the city to disperse a protest late Thursday in an incident that left three protesters and one officer wounded, but there was no repeat of that violence.Hundreds of thousands of protesters gathered in Yemen's four largest provinces, ripping down and burning President Ali Abdullah Saleh's portraits in Sheikh Othman, the most populated district in the southern port city of Aden, witnesses said.Security forces hurled tear gas into crowds close to a stadium and then opened fire, using machine guns mounted on vehicles, said eyewitness Sind Abdullah, 25.In the conservative capital, Sanaa, thousands of women participated in demonstrations -- a startling move in a deeply tribal society where women are expected to stay out of sight.Demonstrators demanded jobs and greater political freedom and decried Saleh's proposal Thursday that the government create a new constitution guaranteeing the independence of parliament and the judiciary, calling it too little and too late.The autocratic leader is also an ally in the Obama adminstration's push to eliminate the local branch of al-Qaida, which has attempted to attack the United States. He has also worked closely with the Saudis to quash his own Shiite uprising in the north.Government minders escorted journalists around the city, where they were shown a man, who gave his name as Khaled al-Juhni, standing outside a government building, shouting calls for more freedoms.Police and journalists watched as the man criticized the regime as a "police state" and "a big prison" before he got in his car and left.A government official said security measures around state-run oil giant Saudi Aramco and its oil facilities in the east were beefed up protectively in case of any violence. The company is based in the Dhahran district on the kingdom's eastern coast.Investors are sensitive to any sign of upheaval in Saudi Arabia because the OPEC leader has been using its spare capacity to make up for output lost amid the violent uprising against Libya's government. When news broke that Saudi Arabian police fired shots to break up the protest Thursday, prices soared $3 in just 12 minutes.Shiites make up 10 percent of the kingdom's 23 million citizens and have long complained of discrimination, saying they are barred from key positions in the military and government and are not given an equal share of the country's wealth.Hmmmmm....."One minute it's a Sunni day ,the next minute you're up to your neck in Shiite"?Read the full story here.