Iran: Death row young woman leaves 'J'accuse' style will to mother from prison.

Iran: Death row young woman leaves 'J'accuse' style will to mother from prison.HT: NCRI.

An Iranian prisoner facing imminent execution has released her will in a voice message from prison. 

In a heart-rending message to her family - beginning with her mother Sholeh - 26-year-old Rayhaneh Jabbari tells how she trusted the law, but is now facing death for the crime of defending herself against an agent of Iranian regime’s intelligence who tried to assault her.

The clerical regime has ignored international calls and human rights activists calls in Iran to spare her life.

The will reads:

Dear Sholeh, today I learned that it is now my turn to face Qisas (the Iranian regime's  law of retribution). I am hurt as to why you did not let me know yourself that I have reached the last page of the book of my life. Don’t you think that I should know? You know how ashamed I am that you are sad. Why did you not take the chance for me to kiss your hand and that of dad?

The world allowed me to live for 19 years. That ominous night it was I that should have been killed. My body would have been thrown in some corner of the city, and after a few days, the police would have taken you to the coroner’s office to identify my body and there you would also learn that I had been raped as well. The murderer would have never been found since we don’t have their wealth and their power. Then you would have continued your life suffering and ashamed, and a few years later you would have died of this suffering and that would have been that.

However, with that cursed blow the story changed. My body was not thrown aside, but into the grave of Evin Prison and its solitary wards, and now the grave-like prison of Shahr-e Ray. But give in to the fate and don’t complain. You know better that death is not the end of life.

You taught me that one comes to this world to gain an experience and learn a lesson and with each birth a responsibility is put on one’s shoulder. I learned that sometimes one has to fight. I do remember when you told me that the carriage man protested the man who was flogging me, but the flogger hit the lash on his head and face that ultimately led to his death. You told me that for creating a value one should persevere even if one dies.

You taught us that as we go to school one should be a lady in face of the quarrels and complaints. Do you remember how much you underlined the way we behave? Your experience was incorrect. When this incident happened, my teachings did not help me. Being presented in court made me appear as a cold-blooded murderer and a ruthless criminal. I shed no tears. I did not beg. I did not cry my head off since I trusted the law.

But I was charged with being indifferent in face of a crime. You see, I didn’t even kill the mosquitoes and I threw away the cockroaches by taking them by their antennas. Now I have become a premeditated murderer. My treatment of the animals was interpreted as being inclined to be a boy and the judge didn’t even trouble himself to look at the fact that at the time of the incident I had long and polished nails.

How optimistic was he who expected justice from the judges! He never questioned the fact that my hands are not coarse like those of a sportswoman, especially a boxer. And this country that you planted its love in me never wanted me and no one supported me when under the blows of the interrogator I was crying out and I was hearing the most vulgar terms. When I shed the last sign of beauty from myself by shaving my hair I was rewarded: 11 days in solitary.

Dear Sholeh, don’t cry for what you are hearing. On the first day that in the police office an old unmarried agent hurt me for my nails I understood that beauty is not looked for in this era. The beauty of looks, beauty of thoughts and wishes, a beautiful handwriting, beauty of the eyes and vision, and even beauty of a nice voice.

My dear mother, my ideology has changed and you are not responsible for it. My words are unending and I gave it all to someone so that when I am executed without your presence and knowledge, it would be given to you. I left you much handwritten material as my heritage.

However, before my death I want something from you, that you have to provide for me with all your might and in any way that you can. In fact this is the only thing I want from this world, this country and you. I know you need time for this. Therefore, I am telling you part of my will sooner. Please don’t cry and listen. I want you to go to the court and tell them my request. I cannot write such a letter from inside the prison that would be approved by the head of prison; so once again you have to suffer because of me. It is the only thing that if even you beg for it I would not become upset although I have told you many times not to beg to save me from being executed.

My kind mother, dear Sholeh, the one more dear to me than my life, I don’t want to rot under the soil. I don’t want my eye or my young heart to turn into dust. Beg so that it is arranged that as soon as I am hanged my heart, kidney, eye, bones and anything that can be transplanted be taken away from my body and given to someone who needs them as a gift.

I don’t want the recipient know my name, buy me a bouquet, or even pray for me. I am telling you from the bottom of my heart that I don’t want to have a grave for you to come and mourn there and suffer. I don’t want you to wear black clothing for me. Do your best to forget my difficult days. Give me to the wind to take away.

The world did not love us. It did not want my fate. And now I am giving in to it and embrace the death. 

Because in the court of God I will charge the inspectors, I will charge inspector Shamlou, I will charge judge, and the judges of country’s Supreme Court that beat me up when I was awake and did not refrain from harassing me.

In the court of the creator I will charge Dr. Farvandi, I will charge Qassem Shabani and all those that out of ignorance or with their lies wronged me and trampled on my rights and didn’t pay heed to the fact that sometimes what appears as reality is different from it.

Dear soft-hearted Sholeh, in the other world it is you and me who are the accusers and others who are the accused. Let’s see what God wants. I wanted to embrace you until I die. I love you.
Rayhaneh,
April 1, 2014

'Moderate' IRAN: Female political prisoners in Evin prison stage hunger strike.

Largest 'faculty' in Iran.

'Moderate' IRAN: Female political prisoners in Evin prison stage hunger strike.(INU).

Nine female political prisoners in ward 350 of Evin prison staged a hunger strike to protest at a savage assault by the prison’s security unit. The assaulting force composed of around 20 female torturers physically searched and battered the political prisoners and psychologically tortured them.

Twenty-six political prisoners of Gohardasht prison in Karaj have issued a statement in protest at the brutal assault against political prisoners in Evin. Part of this statement reads: “We, the political prisoners, declare our protest at this inhumane and illegal treatment and express our concern for the safety of prisoners in the female section of ward 350 of Evin prison who are on a hunger strike.”

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• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity situation Turkey 5.5 !More info here.

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

• #OccupyWallStreet Is Obama’s America.(BigGovernment).By AWR Hawkins.When Barack Obama was seeking the Democrat nomination in early 2008, warnings of his inexperience coupled with the fact that he was an ideologue were ubiquitous. Again and again, the facts were placed before us that Obama’s only claim to significant leadership was as a community organizer in Chicago. Mark Levin, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and others repeatedly said that Obama would be a reckless President who lacked governing knowledge and who was ruled only by his desire to put America in its place.And here we are. It’s late 2011, and the Organizer-in-Chief has proven that his only strength lies in his ability to organize those who hate America—hating both the economic system embedded in her and the ideals on which she stands.To put it bluntly, “Occupy Wall Street” is Obama’s America. He has organized it, perhaps indirectly, but has done so nonetheless via his relentless venom for “the rich” coupled with his ongoing calls for more people to sacrifice and to “pay their fair share.” Of course, he doesn’t mean the hippies and freaks in the protests should pay their share. Rather, he is fostering a feeling of betrayal in them so they will continue to “rage against the machine.”Look at it, folks–Obama’s America. Ain’t it great? It’s a place where law is disparaged (you can defecate on police cars), capitalism is hated (“eat the rich”), and people are entitled to take money from others even if the takers played no role in earning the money they crave (especially if they played no role in earning it).Hippies, freaks and union goons, all together in Obama’s community, have organized to oppose everything great about America. All the little ideologues are trying their best to imitate the masters: Obama, Marx, and that Jimmy Hoffa dude who loves to tell Obama “this is your army”, “we are ready to march” and a bunch of other nonsense.Since this is Obama’s army–the community he has organized–I suppose he gets the credit for their great accomplishments. You know, the vandalism in Oakland, the sexual assault at Occupy Dallas, the policemen attacked at Occupy Denver, the drug overdose at Occupy Vancouver, the kidnapping at Occupy Cleveland, and sexual predator/Seattle Occupier who was busted for exposing himself to kids at Seattle’s classy occupation. This is what “hope and change” looks like when you flesh it out, when you take it out of the leftist playbook and apply it to the real world.Our Organizer-in-Chief has really outdone himself this time. Welcome to Obama’s America.Read the full story here.

• How the Grinch Obama Couldn’t Wait: Christmas Tree tax.(The Foundry) — President Obama’s Agriculture Department today announced that it will impose a new 15-cent charge on all fresh Christmas trees — the Christmas Tree Tax — to support a new Federal program to improve the image and marketing of Christmas trees.In the Federal Register of November 8, 2011, Acting Administrator of Agricultural Marketing David R. Shipman announced that the Secretary of Agriculture will appoint a Christmas Tree Promotion Board. The purpose of the Board is to run a “program of promotion, research, evaluation, and information designed to strengthen the Christmas tree industry’s position in the marketplace; maintain and expend existing markets for Christmas trees; and to carry out programs, plans, and projects designed to provide maximum benefits to the Christmas tree industry” (7 CFR 1214.46(n)). And the program of “information” is to include efforts to “enhance the image of Christmas trees and the Christmas tree industry in the United States” (7 CFR 1214.10).To pay for the new Federal Christmas tree image improvement and marketing program, the Department of Agriculture imposed a 15-cent fee on all sales of fresh Christmas trees by sellers of more than 500 trees per year (7 CFR 1214.52). And, of course, the Christmas tree sellers are free to pass along the 15-cent Federal fee to consumers who buy their Christmas trees.Acting Administrator Shipman had the temerity to say the 15-cent mandatory Christmas tree fee “is not a tax nor does it yield revenue for the Federal government” (76 CFR 69102). The Federal government mandates that the Christmas tree sellers pay the 15-cents per tree, whether they want to or not. The Federal government directs that the revenue generated by the 15-cent fee goes to the Board appointed by the Secretary of Agriculture to carry out the Christmas tree program established by the Secretary of Agriculture. Mr. President, that’s a new 15-cent tax to pay for a Federal program to improve the image and marketing of Christmas trees.Nobody is saying President Obama doesn’t have authority to impose his new Christmas Tree Tax — his Administration cites the Commodity Promotion, Research and Information Act of 1996. Just because the Obama Administration has the legal power to impose its Christmas Tree Tax doesn’t mean it should do so.The economy is barely growing and nine percent of the American people have no jobs. Is a new tax on Christmas trees the best President Obama can do?And, by the way, the American Christmas tree has a great image that doesn’t need any help from the government.Hmmmm......." Can the ACLU please intervene in this? This is a tax on Christians. You certainly won’t see Muslims, Hindus or Buddhists having to pay this tax. Is this not a law respecting the establishment of religion?"Read the full story here.

• No 'gutsy call' for this President?Obama faces choice on Keystone pipeline: Big Labor or Big Green.(WE).President Obama lamented recently that Americans have "lost our ambition, our -- our imagination, and -- and -- our willingness to do the things that built the Golden Gate Bridge." There are at least two facts that must be pointed out here. First, the Golden Gate Bridge was built by private enterprise, not government. If anything, government was the biggest obstacle to the bridge, thanks to opposition from the Department of Defense and the mistaken opinion of a San Francisco city engineer that the ground under the bay to be spanned would never support such a structure. It's also worth noting here that Bank of America founder and president A.P. Giannini, a member of the much-maligned one percent, stepped forward at a critical moment after the Stock Market Crash of 1929 to provide critically needed private financing to complete the project. The bridge was finished in 1937, 16 years after architect Joseph Strauss first began the project. He completed the project $1.7 million under its total budget of $35 million. Second, Obama is almost certainly correct in doubting that grand projects like the Golden Gate Bridge could be done today, but not for the reasons he would want to acknowledge. For proof, we need look no further than the proposed Keystone XL pipeline that TransCanada first proposed in 2008. The company wants to spend $7 billion in private capital to build the pipeline. It would transport crude oil produced in Canada's Alberta tar sands region to refineries in Texas. Not only would U.S. dependence on OPEC nations for oil be significantly reduced, building the pipeline would also, according to the Canadian Energy Research Institute, create as many as 435,000 jobs in the U.S. by 2035.But incessant delays since 2008 caused by the cumbersome permitting process and environmental impact assessments have put the project in jeopardy.Further complicating this picture is Obama's decision to delay making a final decision until after the 2012 election. The pipeline creates opposition between two of Obama's most important groups of political supporters: environmentalists who want to force Americans to stop using fossil fuels, and Big Labor, which wants the construction jobs. These groups provide millions of dollars in campaign donors and thousands of campaign workers, and Obama needs both if he is to have any hope of winning a second term. The only way to keep both in his corner is to delay the Keystone decision till after the election. But by then, TransCanada says it may be too late.Hmmmm......Give us another Reagan instead of this 'President'. Read the full story here.

• It’s Official: Obama Administration Promotes Islamist Regimes; Insists They are Moderate.(BarryRubin).Note:let me be clear: I am in a state of shock at this speech. It isn't just what they are doing--we knew about that--but how they are doing it--no reservations, no balance, no subtlety, leaving themselves (and the rest of us) with no escape route. They are endorsing the Muslim Brotherhood! Remember to quote some of the viciously antisemitic rhetoric of that group which can now say it is U.S.-sponsored. BR.Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s speech justifying Obama Administration Middle East policy changes everything. True, it isn’t surprising. I’ve been writing for almost three years about how the current U.S. government thinks these things.Do not underestimate this speech's importance. It isn't a reluctant acceptance that Islamists might win elections and take over coutries. It is an enthusiastic endorsement of that idea.But now there can be no doubt that Obama’s Middle East policy is engaged in what might be the biggest blunder in the history of U.S. foreign policy. Millions of people will bemoan it as delivering their countries into the grip of repressive dictatorships. The speech can be summarized as follows: Islamist regimes—at least those whose “behavior” is proper--are good. If Islamists exercise political power they will be moderate. Thus, the United States will not merely tolerate but will actually support Islamists taking power.The Obama Administration is now on the side of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hizballah, and the Taliban (“moderate” wing). It is the equivalent of an American government telling you that Communism and fascism are no threat because they can be tamed by participating in elections and being in power.Thus, the Obama Administration has openly sided with Israel’s enemies. I don’t mean the Palestinian Authority (PA) or Saudi Arabia. That would be tolerable. We’re talking here about openly genocidal, antisemitic groups.It has also sided with the enemies of the PA, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan. It has sided with the enemies of democratic forces in Iran, Syria, Turkey, and Lebanon. Indeed, the U.S. government is working to empower the most dangerous enemies of democracy in the Middle East. What’s especially remarkable is that this strategy is based on no evidence. All Clinton can cite is a single case—Turkey—that proves the exact opposite of what the Obama Administration claims.Here are five examples on the other side:

1. The Oslo peace process was based on the belief that the radical nationalist PLO would be moderated by being given power, guns, and money. Has the result been peace and moderation?
2. The U.S. government favored the participation of Hamas in the Palestinian election. It won and then staged a coup. Today Gaza is ruled by a radical regime that foments war on Israel and openly proclaims its intention to commit genocide on Jews.
3. Hizballah participated in the Lebanese elections, won, and while it cannot institute a Shia Islamist regime in a country where 70 percent aren’t Shia Muslims and its opponents are armed, it is doing all it can to make that country a dictatorship that will attack Israel when it thinks the timing is right.
4. In Egypt, we have seen the descent into anarchy and violence; the persecution of Christians, the unleashing of fanaticism. Where is the debate in the Muslim Brotherhood to indicate moderation? Where is the renunciation of past extremism? Where is the reinterpretation of Islamic texts to justify a totally different worldview? These things don’t exist.
5. Turkey, the great role model, is seeing democracy wane as the Islamists arrest their enemies, take over the media, and adopt an anti-Western foreign policy that backs radical Islamists elsewhere.

March of folly indeed. This is a sprint. Clinton claims:

“Not all Islamists are alike. Turkey and Iran are both governed by parties with religious roots, but their models and behavior are radically different. There are plenty of political parties with religious affiliations—Hindu, Christian, Jewish, Muslim—that respect the rules of democratic politics. The suggestion that faithful Muslims cannot thrive in a democracy is insulting, dangerous, and wrong. They do it in this country every day.Let’s review

1. True, Not all Muslims are alike but all Islamists are alike.
2. By the same token, not all Russians are alike but all Communists under Lenin and Stalin were alike.
3. And, not all Germans were alike but all Nazis were alike.
4. Not all organizations composed of Caucasians are alike but all members of the Klu Klux Klan are alike.
5. The fact that European Christian Democratic and Israeli religious parties respect the rules of democratic politics has no connection with whether the Muslim Brotherhood will do so.

Is that clear?What’s striking about the administration’s position is the lack of the most basic logic. True, a political party with religious affiliations might “respect the rules of democratic politics.” But that doesn’t mean parties favoring a Sharia state in which, say, Muslims who convert to another religion are sentenced to death, fall into that category. There is no proof that Islamist parties “respect the rules of democratic politics” except their willingness to run in elections. The Nazis and Communists also ran in elections. So what?And what is a moderate Muslim? He might be a conservative traditionalist; liberal reformer; Kurdish or Berber nationalist; tribal loyalist; etc. But that doesn’t apply to an Islamist, someone who wants to fundamentally transform the existing society into one governed by Sharia law under a hardline interpretation, wiping of Israel off the map, subordinating Christians and women; and driving Western influence out of the region.Winning an election and forming a government is only the first step. What does that government do? It passes laws that enforce an Islamist conception of society; puts its people into the bureaucracy, rewards imams who are radical and fires those who are moderate; rewrites textbooks and what appears on the media, chooses judges and the commanders of the armed forces; and sponsors terrorism against other states. It would be something else completely for the U.S. government to say: We will accept the Muslim Brotherhood in government if it takes power in an election, but we will do everything possible to stop that from happening. That would be a proper U.S. interests’ policy.Clinton did set some conditions but in no way hinted that any Islamist party might violate them:“Parties committed to democracy must reject violence; they must abide by the rule of law and respect the freedoms of speech, religion, association, and assembly; they must respect the rights of women and minorities; they must let go of power if defeated at the polls; and in a region with deep divisions within and between religions, they cannot be the spark that starts a conflagration. In other words, what parties call themselves is less important to us than what they actually do.”

Where to begin?

1. The Islamists do not reject violence. The Muslim Brotherhood supports terrorism against Israel, Americans, and Iraqi Shia. It will soon be backing violence, at least covertly, against Christians, secularists, and others. That is their doctrine.
2. Abide by the rule of law. Well, they will democratically change the law into a repressive dictatorship. The Communists and fascist regimes also had laws that they enforced.
3. Freedom of speech. No speech that criticizes Islam, their interpretation of Islam, or themselves, as we already see in Turkey where a former general was just sentenced to prison on the charge of having criticized the judgment in conversation with a villager.
4. Freedom of religion. No building or repair of churches, no equality of treatment for Christians. In Turkey a great historic church is now being converted into a mosque.
5. Association and assembly. Even now, look what happens if Christians try to demonstrate in Cairo.
6. Respect the rights of women and minorities. Laws will be changed to take away women’s rights because Sharia will govern.
7. And what will the U.S. government do if these democratic practices don’t happen? Might it ot be too late?
8. “The suggestion that faithful Muslims cannot thrive in a democracy is insulting, dangerous, and wrong. They do it in this country every day.” Can you really be that dangerously stupid? There is a difference between non-Islamists and Islamists; a difference between a group that is a tiny minority in the United States and that is—in Egypt—90 percent of the population. Clinton is suggesting that to say Islamists are not moderate democrats is to be an Islamophobe and a racist.That paragraph is thus full of careless and ignorant rhetoric. The U.S. government seems to be defining a “faithful Muslim” as someone who supports the Muslim Brotherhood. Who do you think is going to be filling the prisons of Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Gaza, and Lebanon? Faithful Muslims, that’s who.She continues, “In Tunisia, an Islamist party has just won a plurality of the votes in an open, competitive election. Its leaders have promised to embrace freedom of religion and full rights for women. To write a constitution and govern, they will have to persuade secular parties to work with them. And as they do, America will work with them, too, because we share the desire to see a Tunisian democracy emerge that delivers for its citizens and because America respects the right of the Tunisian people to choose their own leaders.”Notice that she says “as they do” and not “if they do.” She assumes moderation. A proper approach would be to say: If they do we will work with them and if they don’t we will work against them. Moreover, she assumes that the Islamists “share” America’s desire for Tunisian democracy. They don’t have to prove anything or pass any tests.Who is writing these speeches? The premise Clinton employs toward the Islamists is the exact equivalent of Obama getting the Nobel Peace Prize before making any peace. They are certified as moderate democrats without doing anything democratic except for participating in elections. There are so many problems with this speech that I will continue this discussion in a second article discussing Clinton’s answer to her question, “Why does America promote democracy one way in some countries and another way in others?”Hmmmm......Is it Imam Rauf or Huma who's writing her 'speeches'?Read the full story here.

• You have to see this.. DOJ Government Web site Funding the enemy!(DocsTalk).Using the stage of the federal government to advance the personal agendas. Many Government sites as well as twitter updates from Government sites are basically taking sides on issues. This is really, really wrong and has come to a head with the latest on the DOJ site. This is a clear example of the root problem that using any and all resources to promote a personal agenda is OK because "we know better". This has gone on for a long time but it seems to be so blatant and in our face as if they have no fear because they know there will be no consequences. Why does this matter? This matters because all of our tax dollars go to funding these sites so citizens have access. As you will see in the mission statement below this is to be an unbiased fair to all system, but then they put an oped advertisement up defending something that we all in this country do not agree on. They are effectively taking a side and making it obvious that they are doing so. In a free country you should not have to pay to fund your enemy, be it Ford funding GMC or you funding the opinion of the President through use of government funded sites. The government basically has unlimited resources, avenues and coercive powers because of it's nature and under no circumstances should it be allowed to pick sides and uses tax payer money to promote on side or the other.Mission Statement taken from the Department of Justice web site. http://www.justice.gov/02organizations/about.html .-  OUR MISSION STATEMENT -- To enforce the law and defend the interests of the United States according to the law; to ensure public safety against threats foreign and domestic; to provide federal leadership in preventing and controlling crime; to seek just punishment for those guilty of unlawful behavior; and to ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans.Also on the DOJ web site is a link in nice big text stating DEFENDING THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT. When you hit the link http://www.justice.gov/healthcare/ it takes you to a page that has this info.This is their main heading introduction and it is completely fact less and opinion based. "The Affordable Care Act was enacted on March 23, 2010. This comprehensive health care reform law makes health insurance affordable for millions of Americans and protects them against potentially catastrophic medical expenses. This law has become the subject of several lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the provision requiring Americans who can afford it to maintain basic health insurance coverage. The Department is vigorously defending the law in these cases."WE must defend the core base principals that the government does not use your money and it's power to push, promote or denounce individual businesses, movements and personal agendas or opinions. Read the full story here.

• Obama Joins the Chorus.(ElliotAbrams).If Prime Minister Netanyahu were to ask a fair-minded, balanced, sensible adviser what he could realistically do to win the confidence and approbation of President Obama, the answer would have to be “nothing.”Two examples prove the point.In May, Netanyahu moved the Likud Party considerably to the center in his speech to the opening of the summer session of the Knesset. In that speech he discussed relations with the Palestinians and called for a “long term IDF presence along the Jordan River,” and said “we agree that we must maintain the settlement blocs.” In other words, he was saying that the Israeli presence along the Jordan would be that of soldiers only, not settlers, and that it would in any event not be permanent; and he was saying that only the settlement blocs, not all settlements no matter how small and isolated, would remain with Israel.The Obama administration’s reaction to these important statements was, well, nothing. Zero. They did not commend them, or even acknowledge that they were important. They were so certain in their view of Netanyahu as a recalcitrant right-winger that they did not even pay attention to what he was saying.This week, Netanyahu has started to move on the issue of “outposts,” small and unauthorized encampments in the West Bank. Prime minister Sharon repeatedly promised president Bush that he would act to remove them—and repeatedly failed (as did prime minister Olmert). At some political cost (see this and this), Netanyahu plans now to act.

The Wall Street Journal explained it this way:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signaled he plans to dismantle some unauthorized Jewish dwellings in the West Bank, setting up potential clashes with extremist settlers and the hard-liners in his government who back them. Such a move could mark the largest evacuation of settlers since the 2005 Gaza withdrawal, and could boost Mr. Netanyahu’s credibility among mainstream Israelis as well as abroad.Well, apparently not “abroad.” No sooner does Netanyahu take this courageous step than he is denounced by French President Sarkozy and President Obama, in a private conversation that has now been revealed. According to press reports,

Sarkozy told Obama, “Netanyahu, I can’t stand him. He’s a liar.” Obama did not object to the characterization, and responded: “You are sick of him, but I have to work with him every day.”So we return to what our wise adviser might tell Netanyahu. In the very week that he moves on outposts—something Sharon and Olmert completely failed to do—he is called names by the French and the insults are apparently accepted and approved by the Americans. The advice to Bibi would have to be “forget it. Forget the possibility that Obama will ever treat you fairly. Forget the idea that he will give you a fair shake or pay attention to what you are actually doing.”If this were only a matter of personal relations between Obama and Netanyahu, it could be left at that. But it is far more consequential, for by that comment—and especially as it was made in private and can be interpreted as his actual view—President Obama has joined the chorus of assaults on the Jewish State. We only have one president at a time and they only have one prime minister. To treat the prime minister of Israel in this way is disgraceful.Read the full story here.

• GOP Senators Demand Investigation Into Obama Admin’s $730 Million Loan To Russian Steel Company.(TheHill) — Two GOP senators want the Energy Department’s (DOE) internal watchdog to investigate a planned $730 million loan for a company to manufacture high-strength automotive steel in Michigan.Sens. Dan Coats (R-Ind.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) are asking DOE Inspector General Gregory Friedman to probe whether Severstal North America — a subsidiary of Russian steel giant OAO Severstal — should receive public financing to retool and expand facilities in Dearborn, Mich.“Given the tremendous fiscal crisis that we find ourselves in today, it does not seem appropriate for the program to subsidize technologies that have already achieved commercial success through private-sector means,” their Nov. 7 letter to Friedman states.The letter follows House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa’s (R-Calif.) letter to Energy Secretary Steven Chu last month attacking the potential financing.Hmmmm.......Creating jobs for overseas 'sponsors'?Read the full story here.

• Republican Congressman Demands Obama Apologize To Netanyahu.(TheHill).A Republican congressman from New York is calling on President Obama to apologize to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for comments Obama made that were caught on a live mic.French President Nicolas Sarkozy said to Obama that he “cannot bear Netanyahu, he’s a liar.”“You’re fed up with him, but I have to deal with him even more often than you,” Obama responded according to a French interpreter.Sarkozy and Obama were unaware that they were speaking in the range of an open mic.In response, Rep. Michael Grimm (R-N.Y.) is calling on Obama to formally apologize for his remarks.“I find President Obama’s criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu highly offensive and call on him to issue a formal apology on behalf of the American people,” Grimm said in a statement Tuesday. “Whether the microphones are on or off, the message to our allies in Israel should always remain the same: ‘We stand with you.’Read the full story here.

• Sarkozy gaffe rekindles talk of US-J'lem tensions.(Jpost).An open microphone has stirred the waters of an Israeli diplomatic nightmare: a crisis with its staunchest ally, the US.During what French President Nicolas Sarkozy thought was a private conversation with US President Barack Obama, the French leader called Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu “a liar” at last week’s G-20 summit in Cannes, France. But his comments were only publicized on Tuesday.One Israeli official with a sense of humor quipped in response, “You should hear what [German Chancellor Angela] Merkel says of Sarkozy.”The Prime Minister’s Office and the Foreign Ministry refused to comment, and officials who spoke with The Jerusalem Post tried unsuccessfully to focus the conversation on French-Israel relations.But while Sarkozy’s comments made for a good headline, it was Obama’s response, of being “fed up” with Netanyahu, that caught everyone’s attention in Israel.From his election campaign and until today, foes of Obama have portrayed him as bad for the Jews and bad for Israel.In an interview with the Post this summer, John Bolton, a Republican and former US ambassador to the UN, said of Obama that he was “the most anti-Israel president in the history of the state, without any question.”In contrast, just last week in Jerusalem, US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro spoke of Obama’s support for the Jewish state and of the strong ties between the two countries.Israelis hope Shapiro is correct, but fear Bolton’s assessment is more accurate.“Obama’s true face was revealed, as are his cold and disrespectful policies toward Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu,” MK Danny Danon (Likud) told the Post. “Anyone who had doubts about the way Obama treats Israel doesn’t have them anymore. Obama is bad for Israel.”The possibility of bad blood between Netanyahu and Obama, as well as the specter of a crisis in US and Israel relations, comes at a critical moment between the two long-standing allies.The two countries are joined together in their battle against a nuclear Iran. It’s a fight whose significance was highlighted by the publication, on the same day, of a report by the International Atomic Energy Association which confirmed that Iran had not stopped its atomic program.The US has stood firmly with Israel in its insistence that negotiations are the only way to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.The threat of a US veto and American lobbying efforts have been instrumental in helping to thwart the Palestinian bid at the UN Security Council to attain UN membership.The attack on Netanyahu’s diplomatic abilities also comes just one day after the prime minister faced a crisis in his party and his coalition. Those in the opposition could not help but note that there was an internal political message here for Israel as well.Labor MK Daniel Ben-Simon told the Post on Tuesday that he is “embarrassed as a citizen and as a MK” by Sarkozy’s words.“I was embarrassed to read what Sarkozy thinks about our prime minister, and I was even more embarrassed to hear that the US President agrees with him,” Ben-Simon said.“I am filled with shame that this is the way two of our greatest allies treat our prime minister,” he added. “I think this is the first time such comments have been publicized.”“If [Netanyahu] lies so easily to important officials, just imagine how much he lies to us,” Ben-Simon said.Kadima, whose last Knesset campaign slogan was “Bibi, I don’t believe him,” chose not to comment on the matter.“What Sarkozy said is more than enough,” a party spokesman quipped.One Israeli official, however, said that the ties between allies were not necessarily frayed by such side-line conversations.Relations exist between countries and not leaders.While one influences the other, ultimately nations are tied together more by their joint interest than the warm feelings between their leaders, the official said.Hmmmm......“I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.”Read the full story here.

• U.S. Government Confirms Link Between Earthquakes and Hydraulic Fracturing.(BlacklistedNews).By. John C.K. Daly.On 5 November an earthquake measuring 5.6 rattled Oklahoma and was felt as far away as Illinois.Until two years ago Oklahoma typically had about 50 earthquakes a year, but in 2010, 1,047 quakes shook the state.Why?In Lincoln County, where most of this past weekend's seismic incidents were centered, there are 181 injection wells, according to Matt Skinner, an official from the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, the agency which oversees oil and gas production in the state.Cause and effect?The practice of injecting water into deep rock formations causes earthquakes, both the U.S. Army and the U.S. Geological Survey have concluded.The U.S. natural gas industry pumps a mixture of water and assorted chemicals deep underground to shatter sediment layers containing natural gas, a process called hydraulic fracturing, known more informally as “fracking.” While environmental groups have primarily focused on fracking’s capacity to pollute underground water, a more ominous byproduct emerges from U.S. government studies – that forcing fluids under high pressure deep underground produces increased regional seismic activity.As the U.S. natural gas industry mounts an unprecedented and expensive advertising campaign to convince the public that such practices are environmentally benign, U.S. government agencies have determined otherwise.According to the U.S. Army’s Rocky Mountain Arsenal website, the RMA drilled a deep well for disposing of the site’s liquid waste after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency “concluded that this procedure is effective and protective of the environment.” According to the RMA, “The Rocky Mountain Arsenal deep injection well was constructed in 1961, and was drilled to a depth of 12,045 feet” and 165 million gallons of Basin F liquid waste, consisting of “very salty water that includes some metals, chlorides, wastewater and toxic organics” was injected into the well during 1962-1966.Why was the process halted? “The Army discontinued use of the well in February 1966 because of the possibility that the fluid injection was “triggering earthquakes in the area,” according to the RMA. In 1990, the “Earthquake Hazard Associated with Deep Well Injection--A Report to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency” study of RMA events by Craig Nicholson, and R.I. Wesson stated simply, “Injection had been discontinued at the site in the previous year once the link between the fluid injection and the earlier series of earthquakes was established.”Twenty-five years later, “possibility” and ‘established” changed in the Environmental Protection Agency’s July 2001 87 page study, “Technical Program Overview: Underground Injection Control Regulations EPA 816-r-02-025,” which reported, “In 1967, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) determined that a deep, hazardous waste disposal well at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal was causing significant seismic events in the vicinity of Denver, Colorado.”There is a significant divergence between “possibility,” “established” and “was causing,” and the most recent report was a decade ago. Much hydraulic fracturing to liberate shale oil gas in the Marcellus shale has occurred since.According to the USGS website, under the undated heading, “Can we cause earthquakes? Is there any way to prevent earthquakes?” the agency notes, “Earthquakes induced by human activity have been documented in a few locations in the United States, Japan, and Canada.The cause was injection of fluids into deep wells for waste disposal and secondary recovery of oil, and the use of reservoirs for water supplies. Most of these earthquakes were minor. The largest and most widely known resulted from fluid injection at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal near Denver, Colorado. In 1967, an earthquake of magnitude 5.5 followed a series of smaller earthquakes. Injection had been discontinued at the site in the previous year once the link between the fluid injection and the earlier series of earthquakes was established.”Note the phrase, “Once the link between the fluid injection and the earlier series of earthquakes was established.”So both the U.S Army and the U.S. Geological Survey over fifty years of research confirm on a federal level that that “fluid injection” introduces subterranean instability and is a contributory factor in inducing increased seismic activity.” How about “causing significant seismic events?”Fast forward to the present.Overseas, last month Britain’s Cuadrilla Resources announced that it has discovered huge underground deposits of natural gas in Lancashire, up to 200 trillion cubic feet of gas in all.On 2 November a report commissioned by Cuadrilla Resources acknowledged that hydraulic fracturing was responsible for two tremors which hit Lancashire and possibly as many as fifty separate earth tremors overall. The British Geological Survey also linked smaller quakes in the Blackpool area to fracking. BGS Dr. Brian Baptie said, “It seems quite likely that they are related,” noting, “We had a couple of instruments close to the site and they show that both events occurred near the site and at a shallow depth.”But, back to Oklahoma. Austin Holland’s August 2011 report, “Examination of Possibly Induced Seismicity from Hydraulic Fracturing in the Eola Field, Garvin County, Oklahoma” Oklahoma Geological Survey OF1-2011, studied 43 earthquakes that occurred on 18 January, ranging in intensity from 1.0 to 2.8 Md (milliDarcies.) While the report’s conclusions are understandably cautious, it does state, “Our analysis showed that shortly after hydraulic fracturing began small earthquakes started occurring, and more than 50 were identified, of which 43 were large enough to be located.”Sensitized to the issue, the oil and natural gas industry has been quick to dismiss the charges and deluge the public with a plethora of televisions advertisements about how natural gas from shale deposits is not only America’s future, but provides jobs and energy companies are responsible custodians of the environment.It seems likely that Washington will eventually be forced to address the issue, as the U.S. Army and the USGS have noted a causal link between the forced injection of liquids underground and increased seismic activity. While the Oklahoma quake caused a deal of property damage, had lives been lost, the policy would most certainly have come under increased scrutiny from the legal community.While polluting a local community’s water supply is a local tragedy barely heard inside the Beltway, an earthquake ranging from Oklahoma to Illinois, Kansas, Arkansas, Tennessee and Texas is an issue that might yet shake voters out of their torpor, and national elections are slightly less than a year away.Read the full story here.

• Israel believes it could carry out strikes on Iran with under 500 civilian fatalities.(TheTelegraph).Ehud Barak raised the prospect of military action with Iran once again as he hinted that splits in the international community over imposing sanctions regarded as crippling enough by Israel could leave the Jewish state with no option but to take matters into its own hands.The warning came as a report by UN weapons inspectors into Iran's nuclear activities was made public, concluding that the Islamist regime is closer to building an atom bomb than ever before.Mr Barak conceded that the price of air strikes against Iran would be high, with Iran retaliating by firing long-range missiles at Israeli cities and encouraging its allies Hizbollah and Hamas to unleash their vast rocket arsenals at the country.But he insisted that claims of huge destruction in Israel were overblown and that the country could survive the retaliation."There is no way to prevent some damage," he said. "It will not be pleasant. There is no scenario for 50,000 dead, or 5,000 killed – and if everyone stays in their homes, maybe not even 500 dead."Mr Barak said the International Atomic Energy Agency's report represents "the final opportunity" for the United Nations Security Council to punish Iran with sanctions of sufficient severity to force Iran into abandoning its nuclear ambitions. Demanding that the international community finally take action to target Tehran's vital energy sector, he called for a naval blockade to prevent Iran exploiting oil.Although such a measure would undoubtedly do serious harm to Iran's energy-dependent economy, even the United States is said to be concerned about the impact it would have on oil prices at a time of heightened vulnerability for the world economy.Mr Barak predicted that opposition by Russia and China would make it impossible to achieve consensus in the Security Council for such sanctions, leaving military action increasingly as the only option."I don't think it will be possible to form such a coalition," he told Israeli radio."As long as no such sanctions have been imposed and proven effective, we continue to recommend to our friends in the world and to ourselves not to take any action off the table."US officials said they hoped the IAEA report would increase leverage for tougher sanctions, rather than short term pressure for air strikes.The "war camp" in the Israeli cabinet is believed to be in a minority that is championed primarily by Mr Barak and Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister.But many Israeli politicians will agree with the defence minister's assertion that the IAEA report represents "the last opportunity for coordinated, lethal sanctions that will force Iran to stop".Israel believes that Iran is intent on moving the bulk of its nuclear production underground within months, after which it will be harder than ever to launch effective military action.Read the full story here.

• UNSC split over Palestinian statehood bid.(Ynet).A draft report by a key UN Security Council committee, obtained by Reuters on Tuesday, declared that members could not reach consensus on whether Palestine should be accepted as a UN member state. "The committee was unable to make a unanimous recommendation to the Security Council," said the draft report of the council's committee on admitting new member states.It was circulated to all 15 Security Council members on Tuesday.The four-page draft appears to confirm that the Palestinian move to join the world body as a full member, which Western envoys said was doomed from the outset due to a US vow to veto it if it ever came to a vote in the council, is set to fail due to the council's unresolvable deadlock.Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas applied for full UN membership for the state of Palestine on Sept. 23.The Palestinians can still call for a vote in the Security Council, but diplomats say it is not clear whether they will do so given that Washington will likely not need to use its veto to block it.The Palestinians would score a moral victory and force Washington to cast its veto if they are able to muster nine votes to support them in the council. A council resolution needs nine votes in favor and no vetoes to pass.But UN diplomats say the Palestinians have so far secured only eight backers.The draft report details how the council is divided into three groups – those planning to support the Palestinian bid, those opposing it and those planning to abstain from any vote on it. It does not identify the countries.The draft may be revised before it is formally presented to the Security Council on Friday, diplomats said on condition of anonymity.Read the full story here.

• German expert indicates possible use of chemical weapons by Turkish army.(Firat).German military and secret service expert Erich Schmidt-Eenboom says chemical weapons could have been used. Following the examination of photographs of the body of HPG guerrilla Ebru Muhikancı, who was among 36 guerrillas who lost her life following the Turkish army operation in Çukurca district of Hakkari on 22-24 October, well-known German military and secret service expert Erich Schmidt-Eenboom remarked that the Turkish army could have used new chemical weapons in Kazan Valley. The white stains seen on the photographs of Muhikancı’s body are the most remarkable proof of chemical weapons, said Eenboom who spoke to ANF. Defining the photographs as “utterly terrifying”, Eenboom expressed doubts concerning chemical weapon use saying that “The plenty of white stains and marks on the photographs are absolute evidence to the use of chemical weapons since these can’t be made by standard bombs.”Mentioning the statements of HPG guerrillas who survived the bombardment in Kazan Valley, Eenboom commented the expressions of “a smell resembling the smell of fruit and milk” and “great nausea, sore throat and suffocation feeling after the bombs”. Eenboom said that “These descriptions are beyond the effects of napalm or other bombs which do not spread that kind of smell. If survivors really felt this smell, a new kind of chemical weapon was used there with a high degree of probability.”Pointing out that the Turkish army violated international conventions by using this kind of weapons, German expert commented that; “It seems that Turkey wants to display a show of force and give message to the states in the region by means of the fight against PKK.”Hmmmm......"Beware of The smell of fruit and milk in the morning"?Read the full story here.

• Turkey doubles efforts of distorting the historic facts ahead of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.(ArmRadio).Turkey has doubled its efforts of distorting the historic facts ahead of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. Young Turkish historian Mehmed Perincek has published his recurrent masterpiece, where he presents his views on the Armenian Genocide. In” The Armenian Cause in 120 documents of Russian state archives” book published in Moscow the author tries to persuade that massacres were perpetrated by both sides, and blames the imperialistic powers and Russia for this. The Turkish historian tries to prove the authenticity of his doctrine, saying it is based on 120 Russian archive documents. “When you look through the book, it becomes clear that the author has used only 63 documents, the rest are different Soviet-era publications against the Armenian Revolutionary Federation,” Director of the Armenian National Archive Amatuni Virabyan told a press conference today. According to him, the Genocide-related materials kept in Russia archives are rather modest. There are more documents in the archives of the countries, which had diplomatic representatives in Turkey at the turn of the century. In particular, the German, American, Austrian, and even Spanish diplomats were reporting to their respective governments about the brutalities against Armenians of Turkey. Director of the National Archive has prepared an article to be translated into Russian in the near future. This is a response to Mehmer Perencek’s book, where Amatuni Virabyan has enlisted all of the above-mentioned documents. Ahead of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide the National Archive is preparing to publish “Vshtapatum” (The Story of Sorrow) - a 1 500-page work, which presents the Armenian Genocide by the eyes of eyewitnesses, in Armenian, English and Russian, and possibly French. In the near future the National Archive will publish about 1 200 documents on the massacre of the Armenian population of Kars in 1918-1920. The documents were collected by the commission set up by Hovhannes Tumanyan in 1919 and were to be presented at the Paris Peace Conference.Hmmm.....Erdogan:" A Muslim could not commit genocide".Read the full story here.

• Kaplan: Erdoğan trying to build an empire of fear.(Firat).Holding a speech at the meeting with civil society organizations, Kaplan pointed out the painful bairam process and said the followings; “Clashes and deaths continue on one side, while the great pain and wounds of Van earthquake have still not been healed on the other side. However, we are not going through usual times since all the elected except from me in Şırnak region have been arrested and put in prison. Despite all these, we continue to do politics as usual. BDP and DTK Co-chairs are currently in Erbil and our party is also contributing to the formation of the new Constitution in the Parliament.”Responding to PM Erdoğan who unfairly insulted the BDP and asked ‘where municipalities and mayors of the BDP were for help’ in the after quake process, Kaplan said that; “The mayors of the BDP were put in prison because of the KCK operation you yourself launched. You know but you still ask where they are. Our deputy mayors and city council members gave every effort and reached the aids to Van in a timely manner. We have most recently surveyed the earthquake area for two days and the single complaint victims made was “where the government and the state was”. Kaplan also mentioned the meeting of Erdoğan and Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani and underlined that Barzani gave a definite reply to Erdoğan by refusing three options of war presented by Turkey to Iraq with the intention of hitting Qandil and finishing with the PKK. Kaplan continued as follows; “The options proposed by Erdoğan all intended a war, not negotiations. However, brothers will not kill each other anymore since Barzani replied that ‘he wouldn’t be involved in this war’. Commenting Erdoğan’s most recent statement where he said that “The supporters of KCK support terror as well”, Kaplan said the followings; “In PM’s opinion, everyone thinking unlike him is a terrorist. He wants to build an empire of fear in Turkey by making an effort to suppress those who criticize him. Erdoğan’s warning to not to expect KCK investigations and operations to stop indicates that these arrests are leaded by him, not by the judiciary.”Kaplan ended his speech saying that; “There will be no peace and everybody will be considered as guilty in a place where there is no justice. However, everyone should know well that this people will spoil this game.”Hmmm......."Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty". ~ Plato.Read the full story here.

• Syrian Mufti threatens Europe with suicide bombers if Nato acts against Assad.(Spiegel).For some he is a holy man, for others he is little more than a rabble-rouser. But no one can dispute that Grand Mufti Ahmad Badreddine Hassoun, 62, is one of the most important men in Syria, a man who, as the country’s most senior religious scholar and a close political advisor to President Bashar Assad, plays a role in shaping war and peace in his country and in the entire Middle Eastern region.Sheik Hassoun, a Sunni religious scholar at Al-Azhar University in Cairo and a member of parliament for eight years, has always found conciliatory words in the West. He sharply criticized the term “Holy War” in front of the European Parliament, saying: “Only peace is holy.” At the Ecumenical Church Congress in Munich, he impressed fellow participants with his plea for interfaith dialogue and stunned German bishops with the proposal that the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) should remove the letter C from its name, for reasons of secularism.Now, in October, Hassoun has adopted a decidedly different tone in his homeland. The following passage was leaked from the eulogy he gave for his son Saria, who had been killed by militant regime opponents: “The moment the first (NATO) missile hits Syria, all the sons and daughters of Lebanon and Syria will set out to become martyrdom-seekers in Europe and on Palestinian soil. I say to all of Europe and to the US: We will prepare martyrdom-seekers who are already among you, if you bomb Syria or Lebanon. From now on, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”Hmmmm.......Riyadh under the chairmanship of Grand Mufti, Shiekh Abdul Aziz Al Sheikh, to discuss issues related to financing of terrorism. Subsequently, the Board issued a Fatwa on April 12, 2010 on the issue. The Fatwa declared ‘any act of terrorism, including financial support to terrorists’, a crime, regardless of the place of its occurrence. It further classified the person providing financial aid to terrorists as a “partner” in the act. The Fatwa described terrorism as an act that involved ‘ targeting of public resources, hijacking of planes and blowing of buildings’. Read the full story here.

• Video - Iranian ex-Muslim tells her story of rape and torture.(Tundratabloids).Warning contains graphic images,not suitable for children.Read and see the full story here.

• Suffering Christians Crying Out for Prayers.(ODN).The U.S. State Department reported in October that Afghanistan now has no church buildings and no Christian schools.Can you imagine the fear and isolation that must grip the hearts of Christian men and women in places like this?More than 100 million Christians are persecuted globally, and it's getting worse every year. A recent report by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found more than 2.2 billion people live in countries where social hostilities or government restrictions rose substantially from 2006 to 2009. The most powerful way Christians in the West can show their support for the small number of believers in Afghanistan and millions of other suffering Christians around the world is through prayer. Millions will be gathering in churches, small groups and homes this Sunday for the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church (IDOP). IDOP began in 1996 and today is one of the largest prayer events in the world.“IDOP presents a tremendous opportunity for millions of people to make a difference in the lives of those faithful Christians who are literally under the gun in countries such as North Korea, Iran, Nigeria and Afghanistan,” said Open Doors USA President/CEO Dr. Carl Moeller. “Compass Direct News reported suspected Islamic extremists threw a grenade into the home of the guard of an East Africa Pentecostal Church congregation on Saturday, killing an 8-year-old girl and a member of the church. Three others were seriously injured. Please pray for their families. They and many more are crying out for our prayers.”The top 10 persecutors on the Open Doors 2011 World Watch List include North Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Somalia, Maldives, Yemen, Iraq, Uzbekistan and Laos.An estimated 100 million Christians worldwide suffer interrogation, arrest and even death for their faith in Christ, with millions more facing discrimination and alienation.Hmmm......The American president's reaction?......"Tax the Christmas Trees!".Read the full story here.

• "The Perfect Solar Storm ?" - NOAA Warns of Monster Solar Storm Region Facing Earth for Next Two Weeks; Fully Capable of Producing X-Class Flares.(SHTF).Last Thursday the sun produced an X1.9 rated solar flare that narrowly missed Earth. Although it wasn’t aimed directly at us, about 45 minutes after leaving the sun it was still powerful enough to disrupt radio communications.Now, that same area responsible for producing the X-class flare may pose a direct threat to Earth.National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center says that the region on the sun known as AR11339 and affectionately called the “Benevolent Monster” will set its sights on Earth. It will move into a position that poses the largest risk to our planet around November 9th, 2011 and remain on a direct line of sight with earth for the following two (2) weeks as it rotates: Scientists at the federal Space Weather Prediction Center say that area is the most active part of the sun since 2005. It has dozens of sunspots, including one that is the size of 17 Earths..........“It’s still growing. The size is what blows me away.”Thursday’s flare wasn’t aimed at Earth. However, this active region is now slowly turning toward Earth, and scientists say it will be directly facing Earth in about five days.That storm region will only affect Earth if it shoots off flares and they hit our planet, which doesn’t always happen with stormy areas, said prediction center space scientist Joe Kunches.The region will be facing Earth for about two weeks as it rotates, he said.Solar flares send out bursts of electromagnetic energy that can occasionally disrupt communications and electrical systems.Sourced Via The Intel Hub.   We’ll be facing the monster starting sometime this evening into tomorrow. Considering that it has just recently ejected an X-class flare towards Earth and another towards Venus, we should consider the region to be active and fully capable of affecting our planet.While NOAA’s warnings fall short of any imminent ‘end of the world as we know it’ event, the risk over the next two weeks of a Carrington-like event are higher now than at anytime in the last decade. The 1859 Carrington Event, caused by a solar flare, reportedly knocked out telegraph operations around the world. It is believed that such an event, were it to occur today, could potentially take down the U.S. power grid for months or years and paralyze the entire globe: Physicist Michio Kaku:

It could paralyze the economy of the planet earth. In 1859 we had a gigantic solar storm which knocked out telegraph wires back then, 150 years ago. If that had happened today it would knock out almost all our satellites, knock out power stations, there would be food riots around the country because refrigeration would stop, airplanes would probably crash without radar.…And again, this is a once in a century, once in two centuries storm…We do have them and we have to worry about them.…We’d be thrown back 100 years. Source: Top Physicist Says Solar Flare Would Set Us Back 100 Years. Patrick Geryl of How to Survive 2012 contacted us recently and contributed a short video describing the potential fall out of such an event. The consequences would be devastating and would include everything from power grid failure and food shortages, to savage riots and, eventually, a meltdown of nuclear reactors across the globe.There would be very little warning, if any, with estimates suggesting that once a solar event is detected it could take anywhere from a few minutes to a couple of days to impact earth.Read the full story here.

• North Pacific 'super storm' makes its way toward Western Alaska coastline.(AlaskaDispatch).On the edge of the vast emptiness between North America and Russia, the remote Pribilof Islands -- the Galapagos of the North -- were among the possible targets for a brewing Arctic hurricane. National Weather Service officials in Alaska spent the day monitoring weather sensors as a pair of polar lows converged and began to gather strength south of St. Paul and St. George, the two biggest islands in the five-island chain some 200 miles offshore, about 750 miles west of Anchorage, Alaska's largest city.Monday evening, the weather service posted a "hurricane force wind warning (for) Tuesday." Winds built overnight from less than 20 mph to 50 mph by Tuesday morning. Storm trackers forecast winds really intensifying, up to 65 knots -- 75 mph -- by Tuesday afternoon. That's into the Force 12 hurricane range on the Beaufort Wind Scale, which warns of structural damage with winds as low as Force 9 and notes Force 10 winds are of such force they are "seldom experienced on land. (Expect) trees broken or uprooted, considerable structural damage.If the winds weren't enough, the weather service warned that seas that batter the islands were likely to build to 32 feet -- higher than many three-story buildings. Imagine walking through an average American suburb where the waves rise higher than all the houses around you. The people of the Pribilofs were getting ready as best they could. Few live there.Less than 450 people live in St. Paul, the largest community in the islands. Nearby St. George is home to but 102. Most are Alaska Natives who struggle to eke out a living from commercial fishing or tourism.Tanadgusix Corp., a village business formed after the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, opened a new hotel just six years ago on St. Paul to try to house tourists who come to the island from all over the world to view its unique collection of summer bird life. The windswept island is also home to a relatively new fish processing plant, but a lot of the 175 structures in St. Paul date back to shortly after World War II, when Aleuts who had been evacuated from the islands were returned from internment in Southeast Alaska to help the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries manage fur seals. St. Paul Island is also home to a Russian Orthodox church more than a century old. Sts. Peter and Paul Church was built in 1907 and added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 1980.Though the Pribilofs were shaping up as ground central for an Alaska version of The Perfect Storm, there were concerns about high winds and coastal flooding developing all over Western Alaska.Hmmmm......After the storm....A new 'Nome gold rush' on the beaches?Read the full story here.

• Canary Islands Eruption: Undersea Volcano Now Just 70 Meters from Surface, 22 pictures.(Spiegel).In the Atlantic Ocean, off the Canary Island of El Hierro, 20-meter high jets of water are being spat into the air as the sea boils amid the stench of sulfur. The undersea volcano, which is set to create new land, is growing ever-nearer to the surface -- but is the existing island at risk from the explosive eruptions?"The monster rises out of the water", screamed the Spanish newspaper La Provincia. Scientists, meanwhile, are being a bit more level-headed about the undersea volcano south of El Hierro in the Canary Islands; they now believe it is in the third phase of its eruption -- fountains of water have been shooting out of the Atlantic up to 20 meters in the air over the last few days. On Tuesday, some local residents even saw stones being catapulted out of the sea.A seething maelstrom, dozens of meters across, is bubbling away in the ocean. Measurements show that the vortices are significantly warmer than the surrounding water.So far, the volcano has only shown its explosive power beneath the water. But now the outbursts to the south of El Hierro are frothing up the surface, as if the ocean had hiccups. The lava is piling up on an underwater mountain. That the eruption is capable of firing jets of water into the air shows that this mountain is growing -- the center of the eruption is approaching the surface. Geologists believe that new land could soon emerge from the sea, and islanders are already looking for a name for the new territory. There are only 70 meters to go until the mountain reaches the surface, experts from Spain's National Geographic Institute (IGN) have reported.But how big is the risk to nearby residents? Last weekend, hundreds of people had to leave their homes in the southern part of El Hierro as streets were closed. And locals can quite literally smell the danger -- stinking sulfur fumes are drifting across the ocean. The Volcanology Institute of the Canaries, Involcan, has reported a three-fold increase in carbon dioxide levels -- a warning signal that further volcanic activity can be expected.Seismic disturbances on the seabed have also been spreading. Since July, more than 10,000 minor earthquakes have shaken El Hierro, but since Oct. 22, the tremors have become increasingly stronger with some even surpassing four on the Richter scale. The quakes are showing a pattern typical of flowing magma, the so-called harmonic volcanic tremor -- a clear sign of impending eruptions.And scientists have been warning since September that if and when those eruptions do occur, they could well happen on land. In recent days, the tremors have shifted from the south to the north of El Hierro. Because most of the quakes there had occurred at a depth of ten kilometers or greater, there was probably no immediate risk of an eruption in the area, the local authorities had said. The magma had been confined to the deep.But it has now started moving upwards -- the most recent earthquakes have been shallower.There could soon be eruptions in or near the El Golfo valley on the northern coast, the IGN has warned. And an outpouring of lava could prove dangerous not only if it happens on land, but also in shallow water, where it could result in large steam explosions, says Ramon Ortiz, scientific adviser to the local government.Most so-called hot spot volcanoes, like those in the Canaries, produce basaltic magma with a relatively small proportion of silicon dioxide (SiO2). SiO2 acts like a glue, producing very viscous magma, leading to a buildup of gases which results in an explosive mixture. The Geochemist Torrent said the El Hierro volcano, however, is feeding off two supplies of lava; a less volatile basalt magma and a much more explosive, SiO2-rich magma.The risk of large, explosive eruptions in the Canary Islands "should not be neglected," warned geoscientist Rosa Sobradelo from the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) in Barcelona in a report in the "Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences" journal. How often such events happen is unknown. But even the most momentous explosions of the past few centuries remained localized.And there are no fears of large eruptions on land, according to the IGN. The only risk is in the immediate vicinity of the eruption site, where there may be lava flows and rocks flung into the air.Read the full story here.

MFS - The Other News

                          Morning Posting.

• The volatile Lybian situation live streams here.

Live Blog Libya - Al Jazeera. here.

• Report: Union heads make six figures.As the standoff between unions and Wisconsin Republicans wages on, an analysis of the nation’s 10 largest labor unions shows some top leaders – the people being derided as “union bosses” – make six-figure salaries funded by members’ dues.Leaders earned between $173,000 and $618,000 at major unions, the Center for Public Integrity found in examining 2009 tax records, with some groups paying dozens of employees in the six figures. At the three major unions , which together represent more than 5.6 million public workers, presidents’ salaries ranged between $400,000 and $500,000 in 2009.Republicans have worked to separate union members from the leaders of their organizations, arguing that the “union bosses” who represent public workers aren’t looking after the best interests of their members. Salaries that are far larger for union leaders than for their members don’t convey the image that their leaders are on the side of workers, GOP lawmakers say.“When they say it’s about worker rights, it’s really about big union bosses running their own political dynasties,” Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker said last week. Union political action committees and employees spent $400 million in support of President Barack Obama’s campaign in 2008 and another $280 million supporting Democratic candidates in 2010.Last month, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said that while his state’s unions “think I’m attacking them,” he’s not. “I’m attacking the leadership of the unions because they’re greedy, they’re selfish.”Hmmmm....Now who would have thought this?Read the full story here.

• 'This is my favourite killer outfit': Face of Kosovan Muslim alleged to have shot dead two U.S. airmen at Frankfurt airport.This is the face of the man suspected of killing two U.S. soldiers in Germany in an Islamist rage.The photo is from Arid Uka's Facebook page - once listed under his real name but changed recently to that of Abu Reyann, his chosen 'warrior' name.The site is littered with references to Holy War, hatred of 'non believers' and has his favourite saying - 'may the eyes of the cowards never sleep' - by Khalid Bin Walid, an ancient Islamic fighter who united Arabia for the first time.'This is my favourite killer outfit when rolling the dice on black ops,ha ha,' he boasts to his friends on the social networking site - probably more a reference to the computer game of the same name that he played avidly than any attack like that he carried out in Frankfurt which left two Americans dead and two severely wounded.'Way to go, you old killer!' posts friend Kastrijot Ferizi on the photo that was added to his page in December last year. Another writes that Abu Reyyan was his nickname that he knew him by.There are hate-filled rants against Jews and a cry to Jihad which said: 'If someone would call you to Holy War... yeah, and?'That is part of this beautiful religion. One is allowed to fight the unbelievers when attacked.'In August last year the 21-year-old answered an online question about what his favourite weapon was - it turns out to be a Barrett M82 sniper rifle.'The miserable non-believer' is an anti-western song on the website that he also makes reference to.'Germans are afraid of Islam and its spread and would rather we believe in Santa Claus,' he rambles.He calls Chancellor Angela Merkel an 'unbeliever' too, claiming she has sided with Israel which he described as 'a declaration of war'.German federal prosecutors said the attack appears to have been motivated by Islamic extremism.Prosecutors said in a statement today that 'because of the circumstances there is a suspicion that it was an Islamist motivated act'.Hmmmm.....Notice how Obama suddenly fell silent once the religious conviction of the shooter was Established ?Read the full story here.

• HT:Aina.Thousands of Ethiopian Muslims Burn Down Five Churches, More Attacks Feared.Washington -- International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that in the past two days, thousands of Muslims have razed five churches and the homes of two evangelists in Asendabo, Ethiopia. Christian leaders are asking for protection after the Muslim attackers continued burning churches even after the federal police were sent to the town.The Muslims started the attacks yesterday after falsely accusing the Christians of desecrating the Qur'an. More than ten thousand Muslims shouted "Allah Akbar" (Allah is great) as they burned down five evangelical churches. The government sent the federal police force to protect the Christians after the Muslims burned down the first three churches. The Muslims overwhelmed the police force and burned down two more churches today.Speaking with ICC, Christian leaders expressed their fear that Muslims will start killing the Christians unless the government sends more security forces to contain the Muslim attackers.At the time of the writing of this report, none of the Muslim attackers have been arrested. The government officials detained some Christians and took them to the nearby Jimma town stating that they need to do that for their own security.Ethiopia is a Christian majority country and was one of the first nations to accept Christianity. However, in the areas of the country where Muslims are the majority, Christians face attacks."We urge Ethiopian government forces to send reinforcement to protect the Christians in the city of Asendabo from the Muslim attacks. We ask Christians around the world to prevent any further attacks by calling the Ethiopian officials in their countries and asking them to protect the Christians and their property," said ICC's Regional Manager for Africa, Jonathan Racho.Hmmmm.....No word from the selfconfessed 'Christian' champion of the oppressed?Read the full story here.

• Islamist Rally at White House ‘Postponed’. Radical Accuses West of Interfering With Mideast Embrace of Shari’a.An Islamic radical called off a pro-shari’a (Islamic law) demonstration at the White House on Thursday, saying he did not want it to divert attention from the “urgent” situation in Libya and elsewhere in the Middle East.Talking to CNSNews.com, the activist, Anjem Choudary, charged that Western powers were planning military intervention to ensure that popular uprisings do not give rise to shari’a-ruled states.“Their worst nightmare is for Muslims to rise up in the Middle East” and set up shari’a-ruled societies in countries stretching from North Africa to the Gulf, said Choudary.If that happened, it would be “the beginning of the end of capitalism” and lead inevitably to a huge, “boundary-less” Islamic region in which “the State of Israel will disappear” and the U.S. will be unable to maintain interests.Choudary said this warning about “a new form of colonialism” in the Middle East was the gist of a fatwa, or religious ruling, soon to be announced by Omar Bakri Mohammed, a radical Syrian-born cleric and longtime Choudary associate.Hmmmm......Read the full story here.

• Agent: I was ordered to let U.S. guns into Mexico.ATF agent says "Fast and Furious" program let guns "walk" into hands of Mexican drug cartels with aim of tracking and breaking a big case.WASHINGTON - Federal agent John Dodson says what he was asked to do was beyond belief.He was intentionally letting guns go to Mexico?"Yes ma'am," Dodson told CBS News. "The agency was."An Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms senior agent assigned to the Phoenix office in 2010, Dodson's job is to stop gun trafficking across the border. Instead, he says he was ordered to sit by and watch it happen. Investigators call the tactic letting guns "walk." In this case, walking into the hands of criminals who would use them in Mexico and the United States. "I'm boots on the ground in Phoenix, telling you we've been doing it every day since I've been here," he said. "Here I am. Tell me I didn't do the things that I did. Tell me you didn't order me to do the things I did. Tell me it didn't happen. Now you have a name on it. You have a face to put with it. Here I am. Someone now, tell me it didn't happen."Agent Dodson and other sources say the gun walking strategy was approved all the way up to the Justice Department. The idea was to see where the guns ended up, build a big case and take down a cartel. And it was all kept secret from Mexico. ATF named the case "Fast and Furious." Surveillance video obtained by CBS News shows suspected drug cartel suppliers carrying boxes of weapons to their cars at a Phoenix gun shop. The long boxes shown in the video being loaded in were AK-47-type assault rifles. So it turns out ATF not only allowed it - they videotaped it.Hmmmm.....No wonder they don't want re-inforcements for border protection?Next time call the operation " U - Haul"?Read the full story here.

• Wisconsin Governor Says He Will Begin Issuing Layoff Warnings to Unions.CHICAGO — Scott Walker, the Republican governor of Wisconsin, said Thursday that he would begin issuing layoff warnings to unions representing 1,500 state employees on Friday if his bill to sharply reduce collective bargaining rights and benefits for public sector employees remained at an impasse in the Legislature. Republican leaders in the Senate, where the bill has been stalled since Senate Democrats left the capital two weeks ago to block a vote, passed a provision that they said allowed law enforcement officers to detain the missing Democratic senators if they were seen anywhere in Wisconsin and take them to Madison. In Indiana, where Republican leaders find themselves in a similar standoff over legislation, they approved on Thursday a still higher fine, $250-a-day, against Democrats, also missing to block votes from occurring. All along, Governor Walker has said that the cuts to the bargaining rights and benefits of public workers are desperately needed to close the state’s budget gaps. Without the savings he had assumed would be made immediately with the bill’s passage through increases in pension and health care costs for workers, Mr. Walker said Thursday that he had no choice but to begin issuing layoff warnings to unions, to be followed in 15 days by layoff notices to the 1,500 state workers. Officials from Mr. Walker’s administration have said limits were needed for safety and security after protesters began filling the building, and chanting, drumming and staying over. On Thursday, local police and government officials reported that live ammunition — so far unexplained — had been found outside on the grounds of the Capitol and inside a nearby city and county government building. Officials said damage inside the Capitol, in part from hundreds of anti-Walker signs now taped all over the marble, was expected to be in the millions of dollars. But others have vehemently objected to the limits. As cameras rolled, several Assembly Democrats moved their desks to the Capitol lawn for “office hours.”Hmmmmm.......Obama's "Kristal Nacht" Lite?Read the full story here.

• HT:BigPeace.Congressman King: Subpoena the Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America (AMJA).Despite opposition from the usual alphabet soup of Muslim Brotherhood offshoot “advocacy” groups in the US, Congressman Peter King is forging ahead with planned mid-March hearings on what he terms domestic “Muslim radicalization.” In a December 19, 2010 Newsday opinion editorial Congressman King cited these eminently reasonable concerns as justification for the hearings : "As I became more immersed in attempting to unravel the radical Islamic threat to our nation and our civilization, it became more and more obvious to me that the moral myopia of Long Island’s Muslim leaders and their apologists in the media was the rule – and that there were few exceptions. Federal and local law enforcement officials throughout the country told me they received little or – in most cases – no cooperation from Muslim leaders and imams…I also know of imams instructing members of their mosques not to cooperate with law enforcement officials investigating the recruiting of young men in their mosques as suicide bombers. We need to find the reasons for this alienation."We believe direct cross-examination of clerics from the Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America (AMJA), including a frank discussion of their public “fatwas” (Islamic religious rulings), is essential to the Congressman’s critically important goal of understanding Muslim radicalization in America.Hmmmm.....Lets hope congressman King has what it takes to go to the bottom of this.Read the full story here.

• HT:TheAmericanDream.A National ID Card For American Citizens? Get Ready – The Real ID Act Goes Into Effect On May 11.For a moment, imagine a future where you are not able to drive a car, get on a plane, get on a train, vote, enter a federal building, open a bank account or get a job without a national ID card. You don't think that could ever happen in America? Well, you might want to brush up on the Real ID Act because it is going to go into effect on May 11, 2011 unless something is done to stop it. When I first learned this, I was absolutely stunned. After all, wasn't the Real ID Act supposed to be "dead"? A few years ago state legislatures across the nation were in an uproar over this law. The Department of Homeland Security was forced to delay implementation of it several times. But now it is back. You see, this is what the federal government often does. They will try to push something very unpopular through, and if they meet resistance they will "play dead" until the uproar has died down and then they will come right back and implement it anyway. This is what is happening with the Real ID Act.Back in 2008, former U.S. Representative Bob Barr wrote the following about how not having one of these new national ID cards will automatically strip us of some of our most fundamental rights...."A person not possessing a Real ID Act-compliant identification card could not enter any federal building, or an office of his or her congressman or senator or the U.S. Capitol. This effectively denies that person their fundamental rights to assembly and to petition the government as guaranteed in the First Amendment."Of course the Department of Homeland Security insists that the Real ID Act is just here to "help" us and to make life "better" and "more secure". According to their website, some of the goals of the Real ID Act are "to help prevent terrorism, reduce fraud, and improve the reliability and accuracy of personal identification documents."But is this really what we want America to become?If we put up with a national ID card, then the Obama administration will be emboldened to try to implement the "universal Internet ID" that they have been talking about.The sad truth is that America is no longer "the land of the free". The government has decided that in order to keep us "safe", everything that we do must be watched, tracked, traced, recorded and controlled.Hmmmm.....Welcome to the 'police state'.Read the full story here.

• Pakistan court orders US shooter trial to go ahead.A Pakistani court on Thursday said that the murder trial of a CIA contractor would go ahead, despite the insistence of the US government that he has diplomatic immunity.The hearing in the murder case against Raymond Davis took place amid high security in Kot Lakhpat jail in Lahore where he is being held, and was adjourned until March 8.Davis has claimed he acted in self-defence when he shot dead two men in a busy Lahore street in January.The issue of his claim to diplomatic immunity is pending before the Pakistani High Court which is due to rule on March 14."The court passed an order today saying that he (Davis) had failed to produce any legitimate document proving his diplomatic immunity," the lawyer representing the families of the two men shot by him, Asad Manzoor Butt, told AFP after a closed-door hearing."The judge rejected his (Davis's) immunity claim after a lot of debate," Butt said.His lawyer pleaded that he could not be prosecuted by this court because of the diplomatic immunity issue was pending in Lahore High Court, Butt said."The judge replied that the Lahore High Court had not barred him to proceed on the murder trial," Butt said.Zahid Bokhari, Davis's lawyer, told AFP the judge had ordered the trial to continue because for the past one-and-a-half months no document had been produced in the court related to Davis's immunity."We will see the detailed written order by the judge and then will be able to tell whether he had rejected the claim of diplomatic immunity or not," Bokhari said.Hmmmm....A good thing Senator Kerry intervened it might have been worse?Read the full story here.

• Obama’s state of Islamic denial.Note to Barack HUSSEIN Obama : ‘Allahu akbar’ is a Muslim war cry.U.S. troops are gunned down by a shooter who screams “Allahu akbar!” before opening fire. Official statements are rushed out: The perpetrator was a lone wolf; his motive was unclear; there are no links to terrorism. Sound familiar? It should, because when Islam is the cause of American tragedy, President Obama hides his head in the sand. On Wednesday, a young Kosovar named Arif Uka opened fire on a bus load of U.S. Air Force personnel in Frankfurt, Germany, killing two and wounding two more. Witnesses say he repeatedly shouted the jihadist battle cry, “Allahu akbar” as he emptied his weapon and screamed “Jihad! Jihad!” when tackled by German police. Uka’s victims had been heading to the fight in Afghanistan but because the jihadists have a global battlespace, the war came to them instead. The Obama administration’s knee-jerk instinct to deny reality in hopes it will go away is clearly not working. How many Americans have to die before Mr. Obama at long last admits the nature of the Islamist threat that killed them?Hmmmm....."I will stand with my Muslim brethren?Read the full story here.

• HT:TheTrumpet.An Islamic uprising in Pakistan would create a nightmare scenario for the Western world.If you think the violence and political chaos in Tunisia, Egypt and now Libya is ugly, consider what’s brewing in nuclear-armed Pakistan.Yesterday, Islamic terrorists gunned down Pakistan’s sole Christian (Catholic) politician in broad daylight outside his mother’s home in Islamabad. Shahbaz Bhatti was Pakistan’s federal minister for minority affairs, a genuine moderate, pro-Western politician, and a leading voice in the now-shrinking movement to reform Pakistan’s government. Mr. Bhatti was murdered because of his brave and outspoken criticism of Pakistan’s hardcore anti-blasphemy laws, which are routinely used to persecute Pakistan’s non-Islamic minority communities.Lest there be any confusion about their motives, Bhatti’s assailants left pamphlets with the following message beside the dead body (emphasis mine throughout): "This is a warning from the warriors of Islam to all the world’s infidels, crusaders, Jews … and especially the head of Pakistan’s infidel system, [President Asif Ali] Zardari, his ministers, and all the institutions of this evil system. In your fight against Allah, you have become so bold that you act in favor of and support those who insult the prophet. And you put a cursed Christian infidel Shahbaz Bhatti in charge of [the blasphemy laws review] committee. This is the fate of that cursed man. And now, with the grace of Allah, the warriors of Islam will pick you out one by one and send you to hell, God willing." It was a public warning from radical Islam: Oppose us and you will die.The Islamists’ ferocious, take-no-prisoners tactics appear to be working. Earlier this month, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani made it clear in a speech in Pakistan’s National Assembly that his government had no intention of amending Pakistan’s anti-blasphemy laws. Throughout Pakistan, lamented Syed Shamsuddin, coordinator of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, “[a]ll those working for a tolerant society are in retreat because there’s no support from the government.”The extent of the government of Pakistan’s capitulation to radical Islam is also evident in the increasingly heated dispute between America and Pakistan over Raymond Davis, a former U.S. Special Forces officer and current U.S. government contractor. Davis was arrested, charged and imprisoned by Pakistani authorities in January for allegedly shooting two young Pakistani men—both armed and trailing him—at a busy intersection in the city of Lahore.Despite Davis having diplomatic immunity—and in spite of multiple calls from U.S. officials, including President Barack Obama and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, who traveled with a delegation to Pakistan to secure Davis’s release—Pakistani authorities continue to refuse to let him go.This is not because Pakistan’s moderate leaders are morally opposed to releasing Davis. It’s because these men value their own lives. As Joel Brinkley wrote earlier this month, no one inside Pakistan “wants to face the possible fate of Salman Taseer, the Punjab prosecutor, assassinated by his own bodyguard last month for standing up against Islamic militancy.”In reality, more is at stake than the lives of a few politicians.If Davis is released, Pakistan could become the next Egypt or Libya overnight. Liaquat Baluch, the deputy chief of the Islamic political party Jamaat-e-Islami, has promised “forceful protests” throughout Pakistan if Davis is released with a court order. On February 13, the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (ttp), a branch of the Taliban, issued a statement demanding that Davis be executed or turned over to the ttp for punishment. The entire country, and especially Pakistan’s Islamic populace, is gripped by the Raymond Davis case. As Stratfor’s Scott Stewart recently wrote, this “complicates the position of the Pakistani government [and] raises the distinct possibility that there will be civil unrest if Davis is released” (February 16).Radical Islam has Mr. Gilani’s government over a barrel. If Davis is set free, Pakistan could erupt!In many ways, Pakistan is more vulnerable to radical Islam than Tunisia, Egypt or Libya!Prime Minister Gilani and the moderates in Pakistan are walking a tightrope. Radical Islamists have infiltrated nearly all the departments within the nation’s government. If Gilani continues to acquiesce to their demands, the Islamists will likely remain content for the time being—essentially creating a situation in which radical Islam is calling the shots, or at least all the important ones.Unlike the other countries, Pakistan has a significant cache of nuclear weapons!And its stockpile is growing. U.S. intelligence agencies recently reported that Pakistan has somewhere between 95 and 110 deployed nuclear weapons, and enough fuel to build a further 40 to 100. Two years ago Islamabad had roughly 75 nukes. In the past 24 months, Pakistan has managed to add another 20 to 30 nuclear weapons to its already significant stash. Meanwhile, radical Islam has tightened its grip on the country.This is what Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his band of radical Islamic terrorists dream about at night: acquiring a pile of nuclear weapons and setting off a nuclear Armageddon!It’s a terrifying but entirely plausible scenario: Iran and radical Islam could soon dominate Pakistan—and exercise dominion over a stash of nuclear weapons! Hmmmm.....And tens of Billions of Dollars support from the Obama administration.Read the full story here.

• "Life or Death in Iran's prisons.59 political prisoners launch indefinite hunger strike in protest to repressive policies.The Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners – 59 political prisoners in Rajai Shahr ‘Gohardasht’ prison released a statement announcing that they have launched an indefinite hunger strike since Tuesday morning. The hunger strike is in protest to the suppression of the Iranian people’s righteous resistance and against the limitations imposed inside the prison.According to The Student Committee in Defense of Political Prisoners (SCDPP), the message of the political prisoners was delivered to the organization with great difficulty. In the message, the prisoners cited the following reasons for launching the indefinite hunger strike: the widespread crackdowns on political prisoners; the great limitations inside the prison; the severance of all contacts between prisoners and their families; the mistreatment, insults and disrespectful behaviour toward the prisoners; the brutal repression of the Iranian people’s resistance; and the arrest of the [opposition] political leaders.Based on the received information, the political prisoners in ward 4, the newly established special security hall of Rajai Shahr prison, are under strict control of the security organizations. All contacts between prisoners are severely repressed.The deputy security head of the prison Nabiollah Faraji is a former interrogator and torturer at Evin prison. He is supported by Ali Haj-Kazem, the director of Rajai Shahr prison, as well as judicial and security authorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran. He is assigned the responsibility of putting pressure on political prisoners held in the special security section. Additionally, he has several unresolved case files in connection to the torture of prisoners.Hmmmm.....No word from the defender of the oppressed?Read the full story here.

• Belgium - Enhanced pat downs cancelled at Airport!'Intimate' checks Zaventem suspended ,After the Brussels airport last week started testing a stricter way of searches,it started raining complaints to the staff of Brussels Airport. "This was way tooo far," said a security guard. The measure has been temporarily suspended.The stricter controls last week were tested a few days upon request of security firm Group 4. But after a storm of criticism was the measure temporarily suspended. It really rained complaints.Not so much from passengers, but from the airport staff who several times a day pass beyond the control and may be searched four to five times . "We have been asked to verify briefly the genitals," said several staff members who prefer to remain anonymous. "Our hand we had to raise as high as possible between the legs and secure with your other hand the venus mound while going over it.(...). We even had with the full hand search the breasts, including the nipples (...). As if we were forced to perform sexual acts. "Moreover, the international association of security firms at European airports unequivocal: "Between the legs searches like these who occured, do not pass," said spokeswoman Hilde De Clerck.Hmmm....At least we save our 'Dignity'.Read the full story here.(Google translate attempt).

• Why is Amnesty going soft and easy on Iran?Amnesty International, an organization lauded for promoting human rights worldwide, has a strong and consistent track record of calling for UN arms embargoes on governments that violate human rights abuse. As protector of human rights, Amnesty understand the merits of arms embargoes, a type of smart sanctions that avoid causing humanitarian harm often associated with comprehensive actions.But for some reason, for years Amnesty International has been singling Iran out and avoided calling for arms embargo as a response to Iran's extensive human rights violations. Why is Amensty going soft on Iran, one of the worst human rights violators today?The Iranian regime, whose hands are drenched in blood, is characterized by some of the most egregious human rights violations. Iran is one of the states with the “highest rates of executions” and is recognized as a certified serial breaker of not one but six principle human rights treaties, at least three U.N. Arms Embargo’s (Security Council Resolutions 1737, 1747, and 1803) and the U.N. Charter, Article 2.4 prohibiting threats of war. The U.S. declared Iran as being one of the world’s most active state sponsors of terrorism, an “identified part of an axis of evil” and added the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to its list of foreign terrorist organizations.No one should be above the law and the government of Iran needs to be held accountable for its human rights crimes on every aspect. By refraining from speaking out against every violation Iran commits; Amnesty International’s silence is enabling Iran to make a mockery of the organization, what it stands for and for the fight for freedom of human rights worldwide.Hmmmm......Read the full story here.

• HT:Memri.Iranian Journalist: According To IAEA Report – Iran Studying Nuclear Warheads.The editor of the Iranian magazine Hamshahri Diplomatic, Rahman Qahremanpour, said that the February 2011 report by the International Atomic Energy Agency notes explicitly, for the first time, that Iran conducted eight studies on attaching nuclear warheads to ballistic missiles.Read the full story here.

• Mubarak receiving treatment at Saudi hospital: report.A state-owned Egyptian newspaper on Wednesday said former president Hosni Mubarak was being treated in a hospital in Saudi Arabia, the latest media report about the ex-president's health that comes after the army denied earlier speculation.The army could not immediately be reached for comment on the al-Akhbar report. A military source had on Tuesday denied another media report that said Mubarak, 82, and his family tried to flee Egypt and afterwards Mubarak was hospitalized in Cairo.Wednesday's edition of al-Akhbar newspaper quoted "sources informed about the news" and said Mubarak was in Tabuk in Saudi Arabia receiving chemotherapy for one hour every five days for colon and pancreatic cancer. It reported his family was with him in the private wing of the military hospital.Hmmm.....Read the full story here.

• HT:Aina.1,400% Increase in 'Honor Killings' in Turkey.If you Google News “sharia” right now you will find a lot of leftist and mainstream media writing about Tennessee being ignorant for considering anti-sharia laws. However, if you change “sharia” to “honor killing” in your search you will quickly realize that as Sharia spreads, so do honor killings. We’ve seen more cases in America lately, and there is a near genocide of women going on in Turkey involving honor killings in pro-sharia communities.As Turkey tries to gain entry into the European Union, new stats reveal a frightening trend in the treatment of women in the Islamic majority nation. From 2002-2009, which is the most recent data available, cases of women being murdered in Turkey has grown 1,400%. There were 66 known cases in 2002 and 953 in 2009. And the vast majority of these cases are related to Muslim men punishing their wives, daughters, or sisters for shaming their religion. Even worse, other research shows up to 40% of Turkish women have been abused physically or sexually.Every day there are more horror stories, Hatice Firat is just one of the latest examples. The 19 year old girl ran away from home with her boyfriend about a month ago. Her family eventually located her and convinced her to come home. Shortly after, Firat’s brother took her for a walk on the beach, and then he plunged a knife into his sister’s chest 40 times. He was following the will of their family and what they believed was the will of Allah.Firat’s family would not bury their daughter or go to the funeral. Around fifty women paid for it and marched chanting for the end of such violence against women : "We are not going to be anyone's honor," "End honor killings," "Hands that hurt women should be broken."Stories like Firat’s are more than daily occurrences in Turkey,Pakistan, and many other parts of the Muslim world. And recent cases in the United States show it is a growing problem here too. But while women’s groups are becoming more outspoken in Turkey, feminist organizations are silent in America. And to make matters worse, our media continues to argue there is nothing to fear with the spread of Sharia.Europe is looking at Turkey and their own problems and our finally starting to see the dangers. When will America do the same? How many women will be abused or killed before we do?Hmmmm......Keep Turkey out of the European Union.Read the full story here.

• Turkey's first openly gay referee adamant to continue battle.Turkey’s first openly gay referee says he will not stop his legal battle against the national football’s governing body for blocking him from his profession as a match official.Former football referee Halil İbrahim Dinçdağ first became known to the public in 2008, when it emerged that the Turkish Football Federation, or the TFF, stripped him of his rights to officiate matches.Dinçdağ was then forced to leave his job because he had been excused from his compulsory military service on account of his homosexuality, which was documented in a medical report. According to the sport's regulations, anyone who fails to complete his military service for health reasons is unfit to perform as a referee.The 35-year-old filed a criminal complaint against the Turkish Football Federation and sought compensations up to 110,000 Turkish liras for damages.“First, I was forced to quit refereeing, which I love most. I also had to quit my job as a speaker at a radio station, which I was doing for 16 years. I have been unemployed for a long time and it hurt my soul very much. I even have trouble paying for the expenses of this tribunal.”“I will not back down from this legal battle, which I started to get my rights back,” he said. “I believe I am right and we will see it at the end of this case. But if the decision is made against me, I will take the case to the European Court of Human Rights.”“Everybody knows that there are many gay referees in European football. It is sad to see it as a disaster in Turkey while it is normal in the world.”Hmmmm......Keep Turkey out of the European Union.Read the full story here.

• Tunisian Islamist leader embraces Turkey, praises Erbakan.Turkish political experience “inspires the Arab world,” the leader of Tunisia’s newly legalized Islamist movement “Ennahda” (Awakening) said Wednesday during a meeting with journalists in Istanbul.Rached Ghannouchi, who was in exile during the era of ousted Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, came to Turkey to attend the funeral Tuesday of the country’s first Islamist prime minister, Necmettin Erbakan. He told the mostly Turkish and Arab journalists at the meeting that Turkey serves as an example for budding Tunisian democrats.“We are learning from the experience of Turkey, especially the peace that has been reached in the country between Islam and modernity; it is a true example [to the Arab world],” Ghannouchi said.His press conference took place at the Istanbul headquarters of the Humanitarian Relief Foundation, or İHH, a Turkish Islamic charity that led the Gaza-bound aid flotilla raided by Israeli commandos in May, an operation that resulted in the deaths of nine activists.Ghannouchi compared Erbakan to the intellectual forefathers and founders of the Muslim Brotherhood. “In the Arab world in my generation, when [people] talked about the Islamic movement, they talked about Erbakan. When they talked about Erbakan, it is comparable to the way they talked about [Brotherhood founders] Hassan al-Banna and Sayyid Qutb,” he said.Asked his thoughts on the two Brotherhood figures, Ghannouchi did not shed light on whether his ideological beliefs were close to theirs. “Hassan al-Banna and Yusuf al-Qaradawi [another theologian] are not the only believers [in Islam] in the world. There are 1.5 billion believers on Earth,” he said.In his remarks, Ghannouchi also touched on the freedom of the press, mentioning at least once that Turkey’s free press is an inspiration to the Arab world. “Freedom of the press is something we should nurture; protection of the news is a sort of liberation,” he said.Hmmmm....We're talking about the same Erbakan who claimed in an interview that Jews believe they "will destroy – Allah forbid – Al-Aqsa mosque and in its place build Solomon's temple,"and said the Muslims, by contrast, "became the masters. We [the Muslims] ruled for 11 centuries. But unfortunately, in the last three centuries the children of Israel have grabbed this material power. Now they control the world that we live in."Read the full story here.

• Turkish police detain 11 more journalists in coup probe.Turkish police detained an award-winning journalist Thursday in a fresh move against the media as part of a controversial coup probe, fuelling accusations of a campaign to bully government opponents.Armed with detention orders, police raided the homes of 11 people, most of them journalists, following a similar operation last month that sparked an outcry over press freedom in EU-aspirant Turkey and drew U.S. criticism, Anatolia news agency reported.The suspects included Nedim Sener, an investigative reporter for the Milliyet daily and author, who last year received the International Press Institute's "World Press Freedom Hero" award for a book that put blame on the security forces in the 2007 murder of ethnic Armenian journalist Hrant Dink.Television footage showed police leading Sener into a car, as neighbors applauded the journalist in a protest at the operation.Following his colleagues' arrest, he wrote: "I am being told it is now my turn... How horrible! Has prison become the place for those who tell the truth and raise their voice?"Washington at the time expressed "broad concern about trends involving intimidation of journalists in Turkey."Three other newsmen, two of them writers of odatv.com, and a popular academic were detained as of Thursday afternoon after police completed a search at their homes in Istanbul and Ankara, Anatolia said."You touch them, you get burnt," journalist Ahmet Sik, who was working on a book critical of the police, shouted as officers led him out of his home, the agency reported.Hmmmm......Ghannouchi Turkey’s free press is an inspiration to the Arab world ,i wonder did he mean Iran by that?Read the full story here.

• France - Revolution coming soon to a neighbourhood near you?Questions are also emerging about whether the spirit of revolt might also take root among Europe-based Arabs, who often accuse their host countries of racism and blame the colonial past for many of their woes."All of these problems that led to revolutions in the Arab world are also daily life in France and are more and more unbearable," Yacine Djaziri, whose Bondy Blog chronicles life in immigrant-heavy Paris suburbs that exploded in riots in 2005, wrote recently."How do we fix it? Do we need to set ourselves on fire? Be resigned? Get angry? Revolt?"Balanced with fears are calls for hope and solidarity: some European officials on Monday proposed a Marshall Plan for the Middle East, drawing an explicit parallel to the continent's U.S.-funded reconstruction after World War II that testifies to the magnitude of the drama unfolding across the Mediterranean.But Europeans ask: who's going to pay when they're engulfed in a debt crisis that threatens to darken the future of an entire generation? "Germany pumps enough money into foreign countries already," said Marcel Mueller, 27, who works in the service industry.Hmmmm.......Not forgetting the 'Outreach to Muslims' in france by the Obama administration.Read the full story here.

• Police quiz Pakistani stepfather of missing California girl, 13, who fled her home in terror 'to avoid arranged marriage.A 13-year-old schoolgirl who was missing for more than a week ran away because she was terrified by her mother and stepfather's alleged plot to send her to Pakistan for an arranged marriage, police claimed today.Jessie Bender's parents are accused of keeping their plan secret from detectives after reporting that she had disappeared from their California home.Their claim that Jessie was abducted by a Facebook predator was proved false after she was discovered hiding with a relative at a hotel about 30 miles from her home in Hesperia, California.Speaking to MailOnline, Hesperia Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Roxanne Walker said Jessie's stepfather, Mohammad Khan - who is from Pakistan - and her American mother, Melissa, were planning an arranged marriage for the teen.'There was something to that effect in the works and the daughter was scared. 'She was found with the uncle who was protecting her from the parents,' said Ms Walker.One line of inquiry is whether there was any intention to involve Jessie in an arranged marriage in Pakistan while she was under age.Police also slammed the Bender family for 'misleading' them over Jessie's disappearance, wasting time and resources.But as they came up with nothing, their suspicions grew that Jessie's disappearance had nothing to do with a Facebook friend. Then a relative, now known to be an uncle, led police to the Apple Valley hotel where Jessie was hiding, and the real reason for her disappearance was revealed. It is not clear what relatives Jessie has in Pakistan although it is believed her stepfather Mr Kahn may have connections there.Jessie and her three siblings have been taken to child protective custody by county social services, and no arrests have been made.Read the full story here.

• And now for something completely different.Indian press go crazy on mega-bucks wedding.Groom gets copter as wedding gift, his barber gets $5,500.The groom wore a garland made of bank notes and received a helicopter as a gift, there were 18,000 guests - or perhaps it was 30,000 - and 1,000 workers took 40 days to prepare the venue.The exact details have been fiercely disputed, but Wednesday's newspapers in New Delhi were all in agreement that this had been one very big, very fat Indian wedding.Lalit Tanwar married his bride Yogita Jaunapuria at a family farmhouse near the city in a ceremony celebrated with 100 dishes, 12 giant TV screens to broadcast proceedings, and even a gift of $5,500 for the groom's barber.The Times of India calculated the cost of Tuesday night's extravaganza uniting two influential political families at one billion rupees ($22 million), while the Mail Today went for the less conservative figure of $55 million."I don't understand why there is so much hoopla about this marriage," the groom's father, Kanwar Singh Tanwar, told the Times. "All estimates of this marriage in the media are speculation."In the Indian Express, he was quoted as saying: "True, a Bell 429 helicopter was given but it was a simple wedding."The Hindustan Times reported that at a pre-wedding ceremony last week 2,000 guests were each given a silver biscuit, a safari suit and $500 in cash, while at a different ritual the bride's family welcomed the groom with gifts worth $5 million.The newly-weds, both 26, were heralded on Tuesday night by flowers and lights bedecking three kilometres (two miles) of roads leading to the function, where no meat or alcohol were served in line with Hindu tradition.Hmmmm.......One of the few things money can't buy is the gift of kindness,meet the other side of India!Read the full story here.