MFS - The Other News

                       Morning  Posting.

• Syria Live Blog - May 23. Here .(Al-Jazeera).

• Libya Live Blog - May 23. Here (Al-Jazeera).

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity in Japan  today 5.8  ! More info here.

• Japan - Latest official Situation Update No. 117.On 24.05.2011 at 04:00 GMT+2
  
  Tokyo Electric Power Co , the operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disabled by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, confirmed on Tuesday that there were meltdowns of fuel rods at three of the plant's reactors early in the crisis. It had said earlier this month that fuel rods in the No.1 reactor had melted, but officials of the utility, known as Tepco, confirmed at a news conference that there were also meltdowns of fuel rods at the plant's No.2 and No.3 reactors early in the crisis. Engineers are battling to plug radiation leaks and bring the plant northeast of Tokyo under control more than two months after the 9.0 magnitude earthquake and deadly tsunami that devastated a swathe of Japan's coastline and tipped the economy into recession. The disaster has triggered a drop of more than 80 percent in Tokyo Electric's share price and forced the company to seek government aid as it faces compensation liabilities that some analysts say could top $100 billion. The Tepco officials said damage to the No.2 reactor fuel rods began three days after the quake, with much of the fuel rods eventually melting and collecting at the bottom of the pressure vessel containing them. Fuel rods in the No.3 reactor were damaged by the afternoon of March 13, they said. They repeated that the tsunami that followed soon after the quake disabled power to the reactors, knocking out their cooling capabilities.

Situation Update No. 116- On 24.05.2011 at 03:35 GMT+2

Nuclear waste disposal tanks that hold radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant are almost full, officials at Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), the operator of the plant, said on Monday. TEPCO said that the storage tanks will be filled in four days, yet a system to treat the water—already reaching levels of more than 80,000 tons—for reuse in the reactors will not be completed until mid-June, Kyodo News reported. TEPCO said they could also use a temporary storage tank, but that will not be ready until early July. Compounded by the expected rise in leaks and the coming rainy season, the radioactive water could pose another challenge for the beleaguered facility. The contaminated water could overflow into the sea again. In April, the No. 2 reactor leaked contaminated water into the ocean, triggering a sharp rebuke inside and outside of Japan. Contaminated water has pooled inside reactor and turbine buildings via cracks and fissures since the March 11 earthquake damaged the plant’s cooling systems as well as several key containers. TEPCO workers can only pump more water into the reactors to cool them down, which ends up producing more radioactive water. TEPCO spokesman Junichi Matsumoto said that officials believe the basements in the buildings can hold the water for two more weeks.Source : Here .

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

• There's a new "Player" in the Air,meet the Grimsvotn Volcano.By John Seach.(VolcanoLive)

64.42 N, 17.33 W - summit elevation 1725 m  - caldera

Read the full story here.Live webcam here and here.Google map location here.More info here.

• RSOE Emergency and Disaster Information Service Grimsvotn Volcano Info Situation Update No. 6  - On 24.05.2011 at 03:30 GMT+2
  
  Several airlines have decided to cancel more than 130 flights to and from Scotland on Tuesday morning as volcanic ash is expected to cover the country. The ash plume is coming from Grímsvötn, Iceland's most active volcano, which erupted on late Saturday afternoon at around 5.30 p.m. local time. It is believed to be the volcano's largest eruption in about 100 years, sending a plume of smoke more than 20 kilometers (12 miles) into the air. A disruption similar to that of last year when Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano erupted is not expected, in part because aviation rules have since been changed to allow more flexibility. The ash plume has also, so far, not reached mainland Europe. But forecasters expect that a volcanic ash plume of high density will cover most if not all of Scotland by early Tuesday morning, forcing airlines to cancel their flights. Effects outside Scotland are expected to be minimal on Tuesday, although the plume could affect other countries later this week. As of early Tuesday morning, five airlines said they had canceled a total of at least 134 commercial flights to and from Scotland on Tuesday. That number is expected to rise as some airlines had not yet decided on the status of their flights.
  
  "Following forecasts of significant volcanic ash in Scottish airspace, British Airways has decided as a precaution that it will not operate any flights between London and Scotland on Tuesday May 24 that arrive in Scotland before 2 p.m. or depart from Scotland before 2 p.m.," British Airways said. "At present all other flights are unaffected." The airline's website showed that 16 flights are canceled between London and Glasgow, 10 are canceled between London and Aberdeen, and 24 are canceled between London and Edinburgh on Tuesday morning. Meanwhile, CityJet said it canceled five flights between London City Airport and the cities of Edinburgh and Dundee in Scotland. Aer Lingus said it canceled 11 flights to and from locations in Scotland. But Eastern Airways, which operates commuter planes, reported the most cancellations. A notice on its website said the airline has been forced to cancel 52 scheduled service flights to and from Scotland on Tuesday. Additionally, Dutch airline KLM said it has canceled 16 flights between Amsterdam and Aberdeen, Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Newcastle. "KLM expects to operate all other flights as scheduled," it said.
  
  Since the massive flight disruptions last year, airlines in the United Kingdom are now allowed to operate in areas of medium and high density ash if they have a safety case which has been approved by the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). While most airlines will fly with medium density ash, no airline has requested to fly in high density ash clouds which is the case in Scotland on Tuesday. "Our number one priority is to ensure the safety of people both onboard aircraft and on the ground. We can't rule out disruption, but the new arrangements that have been put in place since last year's ash cloud mean the aviation sector is better prepared and will help to reduce any disruption in the event that volcanic ash affects UK airspace," said CAA Chief Executive Andrew Haines. The UK Met Office said it expects low to medium ash density to cover Ireland on early Tuesday morning, but all airlines are expected to operate nonetheless under the new rules. "The Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) does not expect that there will be any disruption to services in Irish airspace or at Irish airports for the next 24 hours," the agency said on late Monday evening.
  
  Meanwhile, Keflavik International Airport - Iceland's main airport - was reopened on early Monday evening after it was closed on Sunday morning as a precaution. Flights are expected to travel on time to Iceland on Tuesday. Earlier on Monday, Eurocontrol said it has for the first time activated the European Aviation Crisis Coordination Cell (EACCC) in order to coordinate a response that can mitigate any potential impact while maintaining established safety levels. EACCC was established by European Union (EU) Transport Ministers in May 2010 to respond to crisis situations. The EACCC brings together representatives from Eurocontrol, the European Commission, the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), the EU Member States and air transport stakeholders. Its main role is to facilitate the management of crisis situations affecting aviation in the European Civil Aviation Conference (ECAC) region. The EACCC is further responsible for alerting the aviation community to an impending crisis and for proposing, coordinating and implementing the measures required to deal with it. A key function of the EACCC is therefore to keep all aviation stakeholders informed about the crisis, including the decisions that have been taken and the progress of the measures to deal with it. The Grímsvötn Volcano is situated about 220 kilometers (136 miles) east-northeast of the country's capital Reykjavik and is located underneath Vatnajökull, Europe's largest glacier. Eruptions at Grímsvötn are frequent and usually occur with an interval of a few years. Most of these eruptions last a few days and are small in volume. Source :Here .

• Nethanyahu adressing Congress live Here.

• Pakistan to Obama regime "Thanks for all the Billions of Dollars but we'll team up with China".China Warns US, “Any Future Attacks on Pakistan Will Be Construed as an Attack on China”.(PTI) — In the wake of the US raid in Abbottabad that killed Osama bin Laden, China has “warned in unequivocal terms that any attack on Pakistan would be construed as an attack on China”, a media report claimed today.The warning was formally conveyed by the Chinese foreign minister at last week’s China-US strategic dialogue and economic talks in Washington, The News daily quoted diplomatic sources as saying. China also advised the USa to “respect Pakistan’s sovereignty and solidarity”, the report said.Chinese Premier Mr Wen Jiabao informed his Pakistani counterpart Mr Yousuf Raza Gilani about the matters taken up with the US during their formal talks at the Great Hall of the People yesterday. The report said China “warned in unequivocal terms that any attack on Pakistan would be construed as an attack on China”. The two premiers held a 45-minute one-on-one meeting before beginning talks with their delegations.The Chinese leadership was “extremely forthcoming in assuring its unprecedented support to Pakistan for its national cause and security” and discussed all subjects of mutual interest with Mr Gilani, the report said. Mr Gilani described Pakistan-China relations and friendship as “unique.Hmmmm....Another Obamination accomplished!Read the full story here.

• New Al-Qaeda chief pledges major attack on London to avenge Bin Laden's death.(DailyMail).Osama Bin Laden's replacement as leader of Al-Qaeda is planning a major terrorist attack on London, ordering his followers to 'crush' the city.Soon after being officially appointed caretaker chief of the terrorist group, Saif al-Adel vowed to avenge the death of his former boss.'Our new leader has asked for a big plan for London,' Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan said. 'He believes the UK is the backbone of Europe and must be crushed.In response to the heightened threat on London, British Transport Police (BTP) are to be given the power to carry weapons on the capital's trains, stations and the underground for the first time.Transport Secretary Philip Hammond will next week announce the plan, which is aimed at deterring the threat of another terrorist attack.The BTP, which protects the rail, tube and urban metro system, has 2,900 officers and the proposals involve giving around 100 of them firearms training.Security officials are particularly concerned about the possibility of an attack like that in November 2008 in Mumbai when gunmen attacked hotels and the city's main railway stations, killing nearly 200 people.The news comes as the Manchester 'Easter shopping' bomb plot has been linked directly to Bin Laden for the first time.Hmmmm.....What would be the odds for him to attack while Obama is in brittain, to show his determination?Read the full story here.

• Obama's "Fly me to the moon"version ?(Reuters) – President Ronald Reagan once famously said that a stack of $1,000 bills equivalent to the U.S. government’s debt would be about 67 miles high.That was 1981. Since then, the national debt has climbed to $14.3 trillion. In $1,000 bills, it would now be more than 900 miles tall.In $1 bills, the pile would reach to the moon and back twice.The United States hit its legal borrowing limit on Monday, and the Treasury Department has said the U.S. Congress must raise the debt ceiling by August 2 to avoid a default.The White House is trying to hammer out a deal with lawmakers to cut federal spending in exchange for a debt-limit increase.Most people have trouble conceptualizing $14.3 trillion.Stan Collender, a budget expert at Qorvis Communications, said the biggest sum most Americans have ever handled — in real or play money — is the $15,140 in the original, standard Monopoly board game.The United States borrows about 185 times that amount each minute.Hmmmm.....Great politics ,even for someone with an 'Irish accent".Read the full story here.

• Obama regime Adds New Position to Deal with Unfavorable Online Media.(MediaBistro).The White House has named Jesse Lee to a new position within its communications department titled Director of Progressive Media and Online Response. According to The Huffington Post, Lee will essentially be responsible for building up Obama’s online presence as he prepares for his reelection bid, and squashing any negative stories: The post is a new one for this White House. Rapid response has usually been outsourced to the Democratic National Committee (DNC), if not done on an ad-hoc basis by administration officials. And it signals that the White House will be adopting a more aggressive defense of the president and his policies as his re-election campaign gears up.If you’re going to post something online about Obama that isn’t true, Lee is going to be the one to handle you.Considering that Lee’s first tweet about his new position included a picture of The Terminator, we suggest you watch what you say OR BE DESTROYED.Hmmmmm.....Freedom of speech ,program not downloaded in this regime's terminator.Read the full story here. More here.

• Obama regime keeps ignoring Congress.(ChicagoTribune).Under the War Powers Act, President Barack Obama had until Friday to get congressional authorization to continue U.S. military operations in Libya. But the day passed without his even asking for it, which means he has to disengage within 30 days. Obama may not heed that requirement either.Some members of Congress, from both parties, are unhappy about the administration's disregard of the law. Six Senate Republicans wrote him a letter asking if he plans to meet its terms, while Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, says he'll introduce a bill to invoke the law in an attempt to force withdrawal.Obama is on the horns of a dilemma. As a candidate, he said the president does not have the power to go to war on his own except in cases of actual or likely attack. But if he were to ask Congress to authorize the Libyan intervention, he would probably be rebuffed. So he's chosen to simply ignore the law.But ignoring laws is not what presidents promise to do when they are sworn in. Unless Obama wants to make the case that it's unconstitutional, as some experts think, he should act (belatedly) to follow it or explain why the Libya operations don't qualify. The latter would be a stretch, but maybe Defense Secretary Robert Gates wants to elaborate on his theory that Libya is merely a "limited kinetic action," not a war.The war in Libya has been hard to justify from the start because there is no important U.S. security interest at stake and because the president's goal of evicting Moammar Gadhafi appears more than a limited air campaign is likely to achieve. And now that we're in, there seems to be no clear strategy to get out.But a mere law, untested in the courts, is not much of a check on presidential decision-making if Congress lacks the backbone to use the powers it has. By not acting, members are inviting Obama to defy them.Hmmmm....Dictatorship or Democracy.Read the full story here.

• 'Rich Jews threaten Obama,' Norwegian headline reads.(JPost).Norway's largest paper, "Aftenposten," runs controversial headline in its Saturday edition; edits title online after reader complaints.BERLIN – The Oslo-based edition of Norway’s largest newspaper, Aftenposten, ran a headline in its Saturday edition stating “Rich Jews threaten Obama.”Only after reader complaints about the anti-Jewish tone of the headline did the newspaper edit the title on its website, writing “Jews threaten to withdraw Obama support.”According to the news portal and pro-Israel blog called Norway, Israel and the Jews, which posted screen shots of the original headline and the subsequently changed headline, the article reported on “how segments of American Jewry, 78 percent of whom voted for Obama in 2008, find Obama to be too critical of Israel and therefore are considering pulling economic support. So there is the threat: Some ‘rich Jews’ may be considering to stop giving Obama money.”The website noted that “on the one hand it is good to see that Aftenposten was able to recognize that the original title was unfortunate. On the other hand, Aftenposten ought to be sufficiently familiar with the history of anti-Semitism to avoid such mistakes in the first place."Read and see the full story here.

• Chrysler to Repay Government Loans Tuesday.....By taking other loans.(CNSnews).MACOMB TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne said Monday that his company will save $300 million in interest a year when it repays $7.5 billion in U.S. and Canadian government loans on Tuesday.Chrysler plans to announce the repayment at a Detroit-area auto assembly plant on Tuesday afternoon. Ron Bloom, the Obama administration official who oversaw the restructuring of the auto industry, is among those scheduled to attend.Marchionne has said that Chrysler is eager to pay back its loans in part because of the governments' high interest rates of around 12 percent, which cost the company $1.2 billion last year.Under a new loan package announced last week, the company's interest rates will fall to around 6 percent. That will boost the bottom line at Chrysler. The company reported a $116 million profit — its first quarterly profit since its 2009 bankruptcy — in the first quarter.To pay back the loans, Chrysler is issuing $3.2 billion in bonds and taking out $4.3 billion in bank loans. It also will use a $1.3 billion investment from Italian automaker Fiat SpA. In exchange, Fiat will increase its ownership stake in Chrysler to 46 percent.The company still owes the U.S. government $2 billion. The government could get some of that back by selling its 8.6 percent stake in Chrysler.Marchionne, speaking at a grand opening celebration for a Fiat dealership in Macomb Township north of Detroit, said he hasn't discussed with the U.S. government how soon it will sell its stake in Chrysler. Fiat, which was given management control of Chrysler by the government after the bankruptcy, has an option to buy the government's shares. The government also could sell them in an initial public stock offering.Marchionne said he expects the government to get out of Chrysler as quickly as possible.Marchionne said Fiat's stake in Chrysler will rise to 51 percent when Chrysler produces a 40 mpg car in the U.S. starting next year. He said Fiat can raise its stake as high as 76 percent if it exercises all options, including buying part of the 59-percent stake now owned by a health care trust fund for union retirees.Hmmmm......Sounds to good to be true?well you know how the saying go's!Read the full story here.

• Two killed and 12 injured in blast at Iran oil refinery during Ahmadinejad visit.(Al-Arabia).An explosion at an oil refinery in Iran during a visit by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Tuesday killed two people and injured 12, the Mehr news agency said.Mr. Ahmadinejad was not hurt and appeared on state television shortly after the blast giving a speech marking the inauguration of a new part of the refinery. The semi-official Mehr said the cause of the blast and fire was a gas leak, giving no source for its information.“A technical fault led to an explosion in one of the units of this refinery,” the Fars news agency earlier said, referring to the oil facility in the southwestern city.“The fire was immediately controlled. The blast did not interrupt the president’s program,” Fars added.Thick smoke was seen rising from the refinery in Abadan, but firefighters had the blaze under control, according to Agence-France Presse. Any damage to the plant would have no impact on oil exports from the world’s fifth-biggest exporter as it is involved in producing gasoline, mostly for domestic consumption, according to Reuters.Mr. Ahmadinejad’s presence at the inauguration shows the importance Tehran places on increasing its oil refining capacity at a time when international sanctions have squeezed its ability to import the automotive fuel.Read the full story here.

• Great !‘Free’ Countries Once Again a Minority on U.N. Human Rights Council.(CNSNews) – This year’s election for the U.N. Human Rights Council has, once again, produced a body that has fewer “free” countries – 21 of a total of 47 – and has more than one-third of the seats held by members of the Islamic bloc.Among the 15 countries to win seats on the Geneva-based HRC on Friday was Congo, which joins 11 other countries ranked “not free” by the democracy advocacy group, Freedom House, based on an annual assessment of political freedoms and civil liberties.Nonetheless, rights advocates did find some cause for cheer: In the only two regional groups to see any contest, Latin America and Eastern Europe, countries ranked “free” by Freedom House defeated candidates scoring a “partly free” grade.In Latin America, Nicaragua’s leftist regime was edged out in a four-way race for three seats, won by Peru, Chile and Costa Rica; the Czech Republic and Romania beat Georgia in a three-way contest for two seats for the Eastern Europe group.As expected, Kuwait secured the seat that Syria had been in line to win until President Bashar Assad withdrew his bid last week, after initially supportive Arab and Asian states bowed to pressure from Western governments and non-governmental activists. (Even though Syria was not standing, five countries still voted for it on Friday.)Every May for the past six years the U.N. General Assembly has held an “election” to fill a proportion of seats on the 47-member HRC, the world body’s foremost human rights watchdog.The presence on the HRC of such countries, and their tendency to vote as a bloc against initiatives promoted by Western and other democracies, has been among the issues raised most frequently by critics, including Republican lawmakers who want the Obama administration to withdraw from the HRC and to “explore credible, alternative forums to advance human rights.”Another target of criticism has been the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the bloc of mostly Muslim-majority states that has used the HRC to target Israel and to promote its provocative “defamation of religion” campaign.In 2010, the OIC held a record 18 seats in the council. On Friday that remained unchanged, with three OIC members (Bahrain, Pakistan and Gabon) leaving, and three joining (Kuwait, Indonesia and Benin).UN Watch, a Geneva-based organization that monitors the HRC, led a campaign both to deny Syria a seat, and to urge governments to vote for candidates with strong rights records. It argued that neither Congo, Nicaragua nor Kuwait deserved seats on the council.UN Watch Hillel Neuer deplored the election of Congo and Kuwait, while calling the defeat of Nicaragua a significant achievement.The HRC for the next year comprises:“Free” countries (21):

Austria, Benin, Belgium, Botswana, Chile, Costa Rica, Czech, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Italy, Mauritius, Mexico, Norway, Peru, Poland, Romania, Spain, Switzerland, United States and Uruguay.Hmmmmm........I could name a couple not that 'free' in this list.Read the full story here.

• Berlusconi: Opposition will Islamisize Milan.(IslamInEurope).Days ahead of a key run-off vote for mayor of Milan, Italy's prime minister Silvio Berlusconi warned the opposition centre-left would turn his hometown into an "Islamic" city overrun by Roma Gypsies and other immigrants."Milan can't become, on the eve of the Expo 2015, an Islamic city, a city of Gypsies, full of Roma camps and swamped by foreigners, a city that gives voting rights to immigrants in municipal elections," Berlusconi said on Monday."I don't think that we Milanese consider it a priority to build a beautiful mosque," Berlusconi said in a message posted to the website of his ruling conservative People of Freedom (PdL) party.The leader of Italy's largest centre-left opposition Democratic Party Pierluigi Bersani met Berlusconi's inflammatory remarks with an ironic putdown."Your words are laughable..you're going to need to wear a burqa to avoid people recognising you in the street," he jibed.Hmmmm......At least now you know who approves of the Burqa?Read the full story here.

• Father of Turkish-American flotilla victim to sue Israel in US court.(HurriyetDaily).The father of a Turkish-American man killed last year in an Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla will file a compensation case against the Israeli government Tuesday in the United States, his lawyer has said.“We will open a compensation case against Israel and we’ll declare this at a press conference tomorrow [Tuesday] in front of the U.S. Capitol,” Ramazan Arıtürk, a lawyer for the Humanitarian Relief Foundation, or İHH, which organized the ill-fated flotilla, told the Hürriyet Daily News on Monday.The declaration will come after the lawyers meet with officials from the U.S. Department of Justice as well as U.S. senators and congressmen on the issue, the lawyer said.The Israeli raid May 31, 2010, killed nine people aboard the Mavi Marmara, including Furkan Doğan, an American of Turkish descent, and eight Turkish citizens.“Furkan is an American citizen. He was martyred in international waters. The United States has not taken any action against Israel over the past year. The legal procedures launched by U.S. authorities have not reached any result,” Hüseyin Oruç, an İHH board member and the spokesman for a new flotilla set to sail to Gaza next month, told the Daily News.He declined to comment on the amount of compensation that is being sought, saying this would be set by Doğan’s father, Ahmet, who is currently in the United States along with a group of lawyers.Eight other compensation cases for the other victims will be opened in Turkey “very soon,” Arıtürk said.Last year, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan criticized the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama for remaining silent on the death of an American citizen. “We are protecting the rights of our eight martyrs. The United States is not taking care of Furkan, its own citizen. Is it because of his Turkish origin?” Erdoğan said.Hmmmm.....No it's because Israel has the right to protect it's borders.Read the full story here.

• In Belgium, WWII suddenly an issue again.(Ynet).As Belgium struggles with its yearlong government crisis, a 65-year-old issue is suddenly adding to the animosity between the feuding Dutch-speaking Flemish and Francophone politicians.Almost by stealth, the extremist Flemish Interest party pushed a bill on amnesty for World War II collaboration with Nazis to the senate floor last week. All at once, old wounds on both sides of the linguistic divide that cuts through Belgium opened again."Linguistic war over amnesty," headlined the De Standaard newspaper Thursday. "Amnesty heightens linguistic tensions," echoed the French-speaking Le Soir. Many in Francophone Wallonia, the southern region of the country, see collaboration with the Nazi occupier as having been primarily a flaw of the Flemish, cultural cousins to the Germans. But in Flanders, fingers are pointed in the direction of Leon Degrelle, a Walloon agitator and Belgium's best-known collaborator. Belgium was occupied by Nazi Germany from 1940 to 1944, and there was active collaboration with the Nazis in persecuting Jews. Some 50,000 Jews lived in Belgium in the 1930s and about half were killed during the Holocaust. In 2002, Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt apologized to the Jewish community for Belgium's role in the Holocaust. But more recently, collaboration, repression and amnesty had been largely confined to history books and library shelves. The topics almost never came up in bars or newspapers. Until this week. "The issue was not alive anymore. What is this about? About nothing," said Flemish legislator and historian Luckas Vander Taelen, who has worked extensively on World War II. Beyond the proposal of the right-wing Flemish Interest party, the issues were hotly debated again in the House of Representatives after Justice Minister Stefaan De Clerck said last week that it might be time to "forget" about collaboration. A few days later he argued he had never meant to say it and argued anything linked to World War II should always hold lessons for the present. But the damage had been done.International Jewish organizations were shocked by De Clerck's advice to "forget" something so closely linked to the Holocaust. "There is a strong undercurrent amongst certain European officials that the Holocaust should just recede into history and De Clerck is giving a voice to that," Moshe Kantor, the president of the European Jewish Congress, said Thursday. The Simon Wiesenthal Center, an organization that works for former Nazis to be brought to justice, called for De Clerck to be fired. De Clerck said he would have a meeting with Belgian Jewish organizations this week. "I understand that the word 'forget,' a word I used, gave rise to much emotion," De Clerck told the legislature late Wednesday. "I had no intention to use these words." A Dutch-speaker, he said he had been struggling to speak in French on such a delicate issue. "In no way can it be the intention to forget," he said. The increased divisiveness comes at a bad time, as the major parties on both sides of the linguistic border are trying to end an 11-month stalemate on forming a government. Deliberations on who collaborated more with the Nazis seem unlikely to improve the already tense atmosphere.Hmmmmm....And then there's the Role of the King at that period of time,something everyone 'forgets' to mention?Read the full story here.

• Belarus dictator Lukashenko devalues rouble by a third.(BBC).Belarus has cut the official value of its currency against the dollar by 36%.The rouble is not freely convertible, with currency transactions controlled by the country's central bank.The dollar now buys 4,930 roubles at the official rate, up from 3,155 - but still well below the freely-traded interbank rate of about 7,000 roubles.The country faces a severe financial crisis, thanks to a large trade deficit and rapidly falling hard currency reserves.'Positive step'Many shops have been emptied of goods, as importers lack hard currency to purchase foreign goods.Exporters are required to repatriate 30% of their foreign currency earnings at the official exchange rate."What they've done today is a positive step," says economist Alex Pivovarsky of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.He explains that Belarus has lost international competitiveness over recent years, not least because its government raised wages significantly last year in the run-up to elections.International monitors say those elections were rigged, and the US and Europe have imposed sanctions on the Belarus leadership.While the devaluation means that wages are not worth as much in dollar terms, it does mean the country will become more competitive, analysts said.The Belarus government directed banks to lend heavily to boost the economy in recent years.And Russia has raised the price that Belarus must pay for oil and gas imports, from their previously heavily subsidised levels closer towards the international market price.With hard currency rapidly draining from the country's reserves, the president, Alexander Lukashenko, secured a $3bn bail-out loan from Russia last week.However, the rescue loan, which will only be available in instalments over three years, only covers a fraction of the country's enormous trade deficit.It also came with conditions from Moscow, including a three-year privatisation programme which is due to start next month.The country had already laid out positive steps towards liberalising its economy as part of its latest five-year plan, according to Mr Pivovarsky.This included the planned transfer of about a fifth of the workforce into the private sector, by means of privatisation, as well as encouraging start-ups and foreign direct investment.Hmmmm.....There still remains a corrupt dictatorship at the head of the country.Read the full story here.

• Related - EU slaps sanctions on 13 more Belarus officials .(TodaysZaman).The European Union has imposed sanctions on 13 more Belarus officials as part of the bloc's efforts to punish the crackdown on the opposition by the authoritarian Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko.The 27 EU foreign affairs ministers agreed Monday to impose an asset freeze and visa ban on the officials. The EU had already placed 156 top Belarus officials on a sanctions list in the wake of flawed Dec. 19 elections.Read the full story here.

MFS - The Other News

                          Morning Posting.

• HT:Frontline. Flying Cheap is it safe? A decade ago aircraft repairs were mostly done by the airlines flying the planes. Today, carriers are outsourcing the bulk of heavy maintenance. Should we worry? A co-production with the Investigative Reporting Workshop.In a follow-up to the hard-hitting investigation of the regional airline industry, FRONTLINE sets its sights on another growing trend -- the outsourcing of major airline repair work to foreign-based maintenance operations, from China to El Salvador, and to U.S.-based contractors who keep costs low by using unlicensed mechanics. FRONTLINE correspondent Miles O'Brien investigates reports of undertrained mechanics, foreign workers who can't read the English language repair manuals, inadequate FAA oversight and the use of unauthorized airline parts.Read the full story here.

• HT:Memri.Uproar in Germany over Anti-Israeli, Anti-Semitic Turkish Film Due for Release on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.An uproar has erupted in Germany over the upcoming launching of the Turkish film "Valley of the Wolves: Palestine," about Turkish commando team which goes to Israel to track down the Israeli military commander responsible for the Gaza flotilla raid. The film's intended release date in Germany, January 27, coincides with International Holocaust Remembrance Day.German politicians have condemned both the film and the date chosen for its release. PM Kerstin Griese, of the Social Democratic Party, criticized the film for inciting to violence and fomenting anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic sentiment. MPs Philip Missfelder of the Christian Democratic Party and Jerzy Montag of the Green Party said its release on January 28 disrespected victims of the Holocaust. The latter added, however, that the film could not be banned unless it breached the law, because, unless illegal, "sickening things [could] be shown in Germany.A spokesman for the film's distributors, the Cologne-based Pera Film, said the company had been unaware of the sensitivity of the date.Hmmmmm.....The hatred of Israel by theTurks is even bigger than that of the Palestinians.Get Turkey out of NATO!Read the full story here.

• Developping!Egypt protesters clash with police. Police fire tear gas at anti-government demonstrators in Cairo as thousands call for ouster of president Hosni Mubarak.Unconfirmed sources(twitter) say police opend fire with live bullets,one person killed.Inspired by Tunisian demonstrators, thousands of Egyptian protesters on Tuesday gathered in Cairo and other major cities, calling for reforms and demanding the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak, Al Jazeera's correspondents have reported.The anti-government protesters, some hurling rocks and climbing atop an armoured police truck, were chanting slogans against Mubarak, who ruled the country for three decades.Downtown Cairo came to a standstill with protesters chanting slogans against the police, the interior minister and the government, in scenes that the capital has not seen since the 1970s.Demonstrators marched toward what Al Jazeera's Rawya Rageh called the "symbols of their complaints and their agony," the headquarters of the ruling National Democratic Party, the foreign ministry and the state television.But police responded with blasts from a water cannon and set upon crowds with batons and acrid clouds of tear gas to clear demonstrators crying out "Down with Mubarak'' and demanding an end to the country's grinding poverty.Earlier on Tuesday, Rageh reported from the protests, calling them "unprecedented" in the leniency showed by security forces who allowed demonstrators to march through the capital.The Egyptian government had earlier warned activists hoping to emulate Tunisian pro-democracy protesters that they faced arrest if they went ahead with Tuesday's mass demonstrations, which some labelled the "Day of wrath".Black-clad riot police, backed by armoured vehicles and fire engines, have been deployed in a massive security operation in Cairo, with the biggest concentrations and likely flashpoints, including: the Cairo University campus, the central Tahrir Square and the courthouse where protesters are said to be gathering. Coinciding with a national holiday in honour of the police, a key force in keeping president Mubarak in power for 30 years, the outcome in Egypt on Tuesday is seen as a test on whether vibrant Web activism can translate into street action.Organisers have called for a "day of revolution against torture, poverty, corruption and unemployment"."Activists said they wanted to use this particular day to highlight the irony of celebrating Egypt's police at a time when police brutality is making headlines," reported Rawya Rageh, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Cairo."In fact, the call originated from a Facebook page initially set up to honour a 28-year-old man from Alexandria who activists say was tortured to death by police."Witnesses are telling us that there are hundreds on the streets. This is an indication that the protests seem so far to be larger than the usual protests that have taken place here in Egypt over the past few years."Read the full story here.Video here.

• UK - Film on dangers of Asian sex gangs commissioned by Government agency... then withheld for three years!A specially commissioned film warning young girls of the dangers posed by Asian sex gangs is yet to be seen in schools after almost three years, it was revealed today.My Dangerous Loverboy, a 20-minute drama ordered by UK Human Trafficking Centre in 2008, was intended to be seen by 13 and 14-year-old girls across Britain.It tells the story of an under-age girl whose older Asian boyfriend lures her into parties where drug and alcohol abuse are rife before selling her for sex with older men.Officials feared teenage girls were increasingly at risk of become victims of such crimes, concerns that have recently been backed by a string of convictions.However, after a series of delays blamed variously blamed on technical difficulties and budget problems, the film has only been seen by a small number of youngsters in test screenings.The screenings brought great acclaim for the drama which was hoped would make a real difference to the then almost unpublicised issue of Asian sex gangs.Sheila Taylor, chief executive of Safe & Sound Derby, told The Times newspaper that 'the bureaucracy and technical problems associated with this project have been deeply frustrating for all involved.'The UKHTC has denied the delay was due to fears about racial sensitivities.In the film, set in an unnamed northern town, 14-year-old Jade regularly bunks off school and is charmed by Raz, 27.He separates her from friends, giving her a mobile phone as she enjoys the parties and fast cars that he is involved with.At one such party he urges her to 'be nice' to a man he says is a record producer, and keen to oblige she does. The teenager then descends into being trafficked from town to town where she is sold to older men for sex.David Dillnutt, head of UKHTC said the film was being developed for use in schools soon.He added: 'Since 2009, My Dangerous Loverboy has been well used by frontline professional, including police officers and child support workers, who are in a position to spot warning signs and help prevent child exploitation taking place.'The UK Human Trafficking Centre and its partners, who commissioned the film, hope that in addition to encouraging early intervention, it will give victims confidence to come forward and help bring their abusers to justice.'The film has been shown at numerous national, regional and local conferences and seminars, film festivals and other events throughout the UK by a range of different organisations.'Further enhancements have now been made to develop it into an educational package for use in schools.' Read the full story here.video here.

• HT:What'sUpWithThat.Browner out at the White House – Hansen bites back.The plot thickens: White House aides Monday were mum about what would happen to the Office of Energy and Climate Change except to declare that Browner, a former Senate staffer to Al Gore, believed energy issues would remain front and center for the president.One wonders now if Obama will even mention climate during the State of the Union Address Tuesday night. With jobs and economy taking front and center and Browner’s announcement right before SOTUA, government climate initiatives may be relegated to the back-burner. We’ll have to wait and see.New York Times. Dot Earth. NASA’s Hansen Pushes Obama for a Carbon Cost and a Nuclear Push.Hansen also slammed President Obama for buckling to advocacy groups who impede progress on nuclear power, rather than being a “responsible leader” and authorizing a major new programme of building new nuclear power stations.Despite frequently proclaiming global warming to be an existential threat to humanity, Romm has hindered the move to low emissions energy by waging a campaign against nuclear power, which – as Hansen notes – has “the best safety record of any major industry”. Why is Romm ignoring the advice of the scientists he himself champions? Is it science, or is it politics?Read the full story here.

• HT:SultanKnish.In the Crosshairs of the Speech Police.In the weeks since the Arizona massacre, the media has revealed a preoccupation with language almost as intense as the one that motivated her shooter. Loughner's obsession with Congresswoman Giffords seems to have begun in 2007 when she mockingly replied to his question, "How do you know words mean anything?" And Loughner's killing spree has touched off the media's obsession with that same question, leading a CNN anchor to apologize for using the term "crosshairs".It was almost as if the media had come down with a lighter version of Loughner's fixation on grammar as a tool of mind control. If only they could properly censor the language, no one would have to die or go on shooting sprees. Somehow if we refuse to use the word 'crosshairs', no one will ever wind up in anyone else's crosshairs. It's as if the use of the word creates the idea, rather than the word being only another means of describing an idea.But controlling language is not the same thing as controlling minds. Orwell's 1984 depicted a totalitarian regime which controlled language in order to prevent forbidden ideas from finding expression. Since then (1948 not 1984) the left has obsessively tried to politicize language. There are entire seminars on the political uses of language. Newscasts are dotted with politically correct terminology, homeless, differently abled, custodial worker-- yet has changing language actually changed attitudes?Loughner and the media both agree that words can control men's minds. The media's descent into the madness of the speech police reflects a multichannel schizophrenia of their own. The belief that their words create reality. And in the crosshairs of the speech police, criminals become the victims of language, and language becomes the target.Read the full story here.

• Renewed Push to Give Obama an Internet "Kill Switch".A controversial bill handing President Obama power over privately owned computer systems during a "national cyberemergency," and prohibiting any review by the court system, will return this year. Internet companies should not be alarmed by the legislation, first introduced last summer by Sens. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), a Senate aide said last week. Lieberman, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, is chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. "We're not trying to mandate any requirements for the entire Internet, the entire Internet backbone," said Brandon Milhorn, Republican staff director and counsel for the committee. Instead, Milhorn said at a conference in Washington, D.C., the point of the proposal is to assert governmental control only over those "crucial components that form our nation's critical infrastructure." Portions of the Lieberman-Collins bill, which was not uniformly well-received when it became public in June 2010, became even more restrictive when a Senate committee approved a modified version on December 15. The full Senate did not act on the measure."Declaration of National Cyber Emergency"The revised Lieberman-Collins bill, dubbed the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act, works this way: Homeland Security will "establish and maintain a list of systems or assets that constitute covered critical infrastructure" and that will be subject to emergency decrees. (The term "kill switch" does not appear in the legislation.) Under the revised legislation, the definition of critical infrastructure has been tightened. DHS is only supposed to place a computer system (including a server, Web site, router, and so on) on the list if it meets three requirements. First, the disruption of the system could cause "severe economic consequences" or worse. Second, that the system "is a component of the national information infrastructure." Third, that the "national information infrastructure is essential to the reliable operation of the system." At last week's event, Milhorn, the Senate aide, used the example of computers at a nuclear power plant or the Hoover Dam but acknowledged that "the legislation does not foreclose additional requirements, or additional additions to the list." A company that objects to being subject to the emergency regulations is permitted to appeal to DHS secretary Janet Napolitano. But her decision is final and courts are explicitly prohibited from reviewing it. President Obama would then have the power to "issue a declaration of a national cyberemergency." What that entails is a little unclear, including whether DHS could pry user information out of Internet companies that it would not normally be entitled to obtain without a court order. One section says they can disclose certain types of noncommunications data if "specifically authorized by law," but a presidential decree may suffice.For their part, Lieberman and Collins say the president already has "nearly unchecked authority" to control Internet companies. A 1934 law (PDF) creating the Federal Communications Commission says that in wartime, or if a "state of public peril or disaster or other national emergency" exists, the president may "authorize the use or control of any...station or device." In congressional testimony (PDF) last year, DHS Deputy Undersecretary Philip Reitinger stopped short of endorsing the Lieberman-Collins bill. The 1934 law already addresses "presidential emergency authorities, and Congress and the administration should work together to identify any needed adjustments to the act," he said, "as opposed to developing overlapping legislation." Hmmmm......Democracy or dictatorship?Read the full story here.

• HT:TheAmericanDream.No Jobs, No Hope, No Future: 27 Signs That America’s Poverty Class Is Rapidly Becoming Larger Than America’s Middle Class.In the America that most of us grew up in, most Americans considered themselves to be part of the "upper middle class", the "middle class" or "the lower middle class". Yes, there have always been poor people and homeless people, but they were thought to be a very small sliver of the population. Well, today all of that is dramatically changing. America's emerging "poverty class" is exploding in size at the same time that America's middle class is rapidly disappearing. You won't hear it on the mainstream news, but the truth is that the United States has lost ten percent of its middle class jobs over the past decade. Only the top 5 percent of income earners in the U.S. has had their incomes increase enough to keep up with the rising cost of living over the past 40 years. The truth is that today there are a whole lot of people aggressively jostling for the small number of good jobs that are actually available and each year millions more Americans are being squeezed out of the middle class. The number of Americans that are financially dependent on the U.S. government continues to set new records month after month. The number of Americans that are participating in the labor force continues to go down. The sad reality is that the "American Dream" that so many Americans used to take for granted is being ripped away from us. If you still believe that the United States is guaranteed to always have a very large, very prosperous middle class then you really need to read the statistics listed below.If you told most Americans ten years ago that in 2011 over 43 million Americans would be on food stamps hardly anyone would have believed you.But yet here we are.Read the full "Change" story here.

• And the Debt Bomb Ticks On.With his approval rating moving up to 50 percent and higher in some polls, the pundits are all agreed. President Obama has turned the corner. He is now the winter-book favorite in 2012.How, two months after his "shellacking," did he do it?First, by taking the wheel from Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, cutting a deal to extend the Bush tax cuts, bringing aboard Bill Daley, and separating himself from the demonizers of Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck as moral accomplices in the Tucson massacre.Second, Obama has been the beneficiary of bullish news.Undeniably. Yet, consider. The federal deficit for the fiscal year 2011, which ends Sept. 30, is projected at between $1,200 billion and $1,500 billion.Thus, the $100 billion in cuts the firebrands are pushing, and few think they will get, add up at best to 8 percent of the deficit and 2.5 percent of the $3.87 trillion budget Obama proposed.Thus, at best, this Congress will only slightly reduce the rate of speed at which we are heading toward a debt default.The last few days have brought other news bearing on the debt bomb hanging over the Western world.Now, facing trillion-dollar deficits as far as the eye can see, House Republicans are balking at agreeing to raise the debit limit of $14.3 trillion, though the national debt just crossed the $14 trillion mark.Are the happy days really here again?Hmmm......"Together we thrive" over the cliff?Read the full story here.

• HT:StrategyPage.Iraq Prepares For War With Iran.January 25, 2011: The Iraqi Army is hustling to get ready to deal with Iran, by the time the last 50,000 U.S. troops leave at the end of the year. Increased oil production, and oil prices, has made it possible to recruit more troops, and equip more combat divisions. Particularly noteworthy is the creation of Chemical Defense Regiments, with the goal of one of these units being assigned to each combat division over the next few years. The only neighbor known to have chemical weapons is Iran. Iraqi diplomats spend a lot of time trying to improve relationships with Iran, but just in case things go south, the Iraqi military is preparing for the worst. While Iraq has sought to obtain a lot of American weapons, particularly tanks, artillery and combat aircraft, it's been easier, and faster, to get Russian type gear from Russia or East European nations. A lot of this stuff is newly made, but most of it is Cold War surplus. These vehicles and artillery are cheap, a lot of older Iraqis are familiar with them, and they are as good as anything the Iranians have.By the end of the year, the army will have about 230,000 troops. They will not be as well as equipped as during Saddam Hussein's tenure (1960s-2003), but they are better trained. This is important, because Iraqi troops have long been the least effective in the Arab world, largely because of poor leadership. The war with Iran in the 1980s changed that, but Saddam purged most of the competent new leaders, soon after, as he feared they would lead a coup against his disastrous rule (he was probably right.)Read the full story here.

• HT:ElderOfZion.Hamas imam: "Please, Allah, kill all the Jews".Richard Millett watched a new two-hour anti-Israel documentary claiming that Israel targeted children in Gaza. The film is now being shown on college campuses. It included this lovely clip.Read and see the full story here.

• Obama won't endorse raising retirement age or reducing Social Security benefits.President Obama has decided not to endorse his deficit commission's recommendation to raise the retirement age, and otherwise reduce Social Security benefits, in Tuesday's State of the Union address, cheering liberals and drawing a stark line between the White House and key Republicans in Congress.Over the weekend, the White House informed Democratic lawmakers and advocates for seniors that Obama will emphasize the need to reduce record deficits in the speech, but that he will not call for reducing spending on Social Security - the single largest federal program - as part of that effort. Liberals, who have been alarmed by Obama's recent to shift to the center and his effort to court the nation's business community, applauded the decision, arguing that Social Security cuts are neither necessary to reduce current deficits nor a wise move politically. Polls show that large majorities of Americans in both parties - even in households that identify themselves as part of the tea party movement - oppose cuts to Social Security."The commission said nothing surprising about Social Security. The options they recommended are perfectly reasonable and balanced. If the president wasn't willing to embrace these sort of changes, he shouldn't have appointed a commission to find solutions. What did he expect?" Robert L. Bixby, executive director of the nonprofit Concord Coalition, which advocates for balanced budgets, said in an e-mail."I'm increasingly concerned that both parties are content to have a knock-down-drag-out fight over waste, fraud and abuse," Bixby said. "It's a fiscal sideshow, but very safe territory before a presidential election. Very depressing."Hmmmm....It seems there are politicians who would even kiss an Skunk's bottom if it would yield votes? Read the full story here.

• HT:SeeingRed.“Honor killing” trial begins in Phoenix.Faleh Hassan Almaleki, 49, an Iraqi immigrant intentionally drove his vehicle into his 20-year-old daughter, Noor Almaleki and Amal Khalaf her boyfriend’s mother, as the two walked through a parking lot. After running them over, he backed up and ran over them again. Noor was in a coma for two weeks before she died.This horrific, premeditated 2009 crime in which the Muslim father intentionally killed his own daughter and seriously injured another woman, was filed as a first degree murder case, but apparently not one worthy of the death penalty. Although Almaleki admitted his role in the murder, he pled not guilty. The Arizona Republic reported that a plea deal was considered earlier this month. Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugged writes: Honor killing should be a capital crime. Islamic honor killing is on the rise in the West. These barbaric crimes should be stamped out, not sanctioned. They should be dealt with in the harshest terms. Instead unemployed trucker Faleh Hassan Almaleki faces life in prison if a jury finds him guilty of this vicious “honor killing“and hit and run of two. No death penalty was sought.Why?Incredibly, Almaleki’s public defender, Billy Little, asked the judge to take special precautions to ensure the prosecution wouldn’t wrongly seek the death penalty because Almaleki is a Muslim. Little requested that the court “provide some level of assurance that there is no appearance that a Christian is seeking to execute a Muslim for racial, political, religious or cultural beliefs.”No American court should tolerate brutal and premeditated murder out of political, religious and cultural considerations. The message to Muslim girls who are threatened by honor killing is that American courts will offer them no refuge.Hmmmm....America must say NO TO SHARIA LAW and dishonor killings!Read the full story here.

• "Life Or Death in Iran's Prisons".Amnesty : Iran hangs two activists detained during the 2009 unrest.Amnesty International has condemned the executions of two political activists who were arrested in September 2009 during mass protests following Iran’s disputed presidential election..Ja’far Kazemi and Mohammad Ali Haj Aghaei are reported to have been hanged this morning at Tehran’s Evin Prison. Both men had been convicted of moharebeh (enmity against God), “propaganda against the system” and having contacts with a banned opposition group, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI).Their hangings are the latest in a wave of executions which has seen the Iranian authorities execute at least 71 prisoners since the beginning of this year – an average of more than 20 each week. Thousands more prisoners are on death row.“We are appalled by the executions of Ja’far Kazemi and Mohammad Ali Haj Aghaei, as we are appalled by the continuing use in Iran of this most cruel and extreme penalty,” said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International’s director for the Middle East and North Africa.“Like so many other victims, neither of these men received a fair trial.According to some reports, Ja’far Kazemi was tortured for months by his interrogators at Evin Prison to force him to make a televised “confession” but he refused to do so.He and Mohammad Ali Haj Aghaei were tried together. They are believed to have been sentenced to death in April 2010 and to have had their appeals rejected in July and September.Before they were arrested both men had visited members of their families who live in Camp Ashraf in Iraq, where some 3,400 members and supporters of the PMOI live in exile. Ja’far Kazemi’s son lives at the Camp, which is located some 60km north of Baghdad.Read the full story here.

• US awards $300,000 to four Turkish projects to empower women.Four Turkish projects aimed at increasing women’s and girls’ access to education and healthcare and combating all forms of violence against women and girls were awarded a total of $300,000 from the US Secretary of State’s Office of Global Women’s Issues in the implementation of its first small grants initiative program. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues Melanne Verveer, appointed by US President Barrack Obama, spoke at a press conference yesterday in İstanbul. During the announcement of recipients of the grants, she said they had received many valuable project proposals.“I wish we could have funded even more projects because we had so many project proposals,” Verveer said, adding that 38 countries had been awarded funding for 57 projects.One of the four Turkish organizations is the Mother and Child Education Foundation (AÇEV), which received approximately $95,000 to implement its “Raising Young Girls” project to benefit 2,550 young girls in İstanbul and Diyarbakır over the next 16 months.Representing AÇEV, Çiğdem Kağıtçıbaşı said their programs in early education, family education and adult literacy have been exemplary since the organization was founded in 1993.The Foundation for the Support of Women’s Work (KEDV), established in 1986, was granted $100,000 for its “solar cooker” project. Şengül Akçar from KEDV said they will work with local women’s cooperatives to implement the solar cooker project, which is aimed at reducing dependency on fossil fuels, providing economic advantages to women and providing benefits for those implementing the solar cooking project.Two more projects received funding from donations to the US State Department by the Avon Foundation. One was the Hüseyin Özyeğin Foundation, which was awarded approximately $50,000 to implement its program “Empowering young women against violence.” Aslı Bekmen from the foundation said the funds will be utilized in the provinces of Diyarbakır, Şanlıurfa, Bitlis and Muş for seminars at six dormitories for girls housing 1,148 students.The fourth grant was $50,000 for Anadolu University’s (AÜ) education projects for journalism students on the issue of gender. İncilal Cangöz from AÜ said their purpose will be to raise awareness of the language journalists use in their reporting of gender-related topics. She said they plan to educate 40 students from five universities and produce educational DVDs and books on the issue to be distributed at journalism schools.Verveer’s visit to İstanbul will also include the inauguration of the US State Department sponsored “Invest for the Future: Women Driving Economic Growth Conference” -- a three-year program geared towards improving the economic situation for women across Southern and Eastern Europe and Eurasia. The conference on Jan. 24-26 will bring together 125 women business owners from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece and Turkey in İstanbul to learn about innovative ways women entrepreneurs can grow their businesses. The program is being implemented in partnership with the Women Entrepreneurs Association of Turkey.Hmmmmmm......KEDV  A "Solar cooker?AÇEV who works together with Harvard?Coincidence Mr president?Read the full story here.

• Russia - Two terrorists involved in Domodedovo blast, both killed.Two terrorists were involved in a suicide bomb attack at Moscow's Domodedovo International Airport that killed 35 and injured up to 180 on Monday, a law enforcement source said.Both died in the explosion that ripped through the international arrivals zone at 4:32 p.m. (13:32 GMT), as friends and taxi drivers were meeting arriving passengers.The blast was equivalent to 5 kilograms of TNT and the bomb was packed with metal objects to cause maximum damage. Earlier reports said that the bomb was equivalent to 7 kg of TNT."The blast occurred when a suspected female terrorist opened a bag. She was accompanied by a man whose head was ripped off by the explosion," the source told RIA Novosti."It cannot be ruled out that the terrorists wanted to leave the explosive device in the hall but the bomb was detonated inadvertently or by a remote control device," he said."The terror attack was done according to a scheme that is used by terrorists from the North Caucasus region," he said. "The [2004] blasts at the Rizhskaya subway station and other explosions in the Moscow metro [2010] were carried out similarly, when the terrorists were accompanied by militants."Reports suggest the terrorists were driven to the airport, Moscow's busiest, by an accomplice.The bombing was the worst terror attack since two female suicide bombers from the volatile North Caucasus republic of Dagestan blew themselves up at two of the capital's subway stations last March, killing 40.Police have hinted the latest outrage may be linked to the Islamist radicals in the North Caucasus.Three suspects are being sought over the bombing.Hmmmm....Makes me wonder...If female terrorists blow themselves up ,do they also get 72 virgins?Read the full story here.

• Sen. Sessions on Obama Initiatives: ‘Can’t See How We Could Possibly Spend More Money’.ABC News’ Rick Klein reports: President Obama is leavening his calls for fiscal restraint for targeted “investments” aimed at helping the economy – including new spending on areas such as education, infrastructure, and job creation.But the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, Sen. Jeff Sessions, told us on ABC’s “Top Line” today that he doesn’t foresee supporting even limited expansions in government spending.“I can't see how we could possibly spend more money at this point,” said Sessions, R-Ala. “Start new programs perhaps -- if some were reduced or eliminated, you might reorder money, and I'd be open to that. But we'd really have to have at least, I think, this year, a 10 percent reduction in spending.”“Ryan has done a fabulous thing. He's developed a plan that goes 60 years, and he deals with Social Security and Medicare, a lot of those changes don't take place until in the distant years in the future,” Sessions said. “But his whole plan and approach is fabulous, we need to be listening to it. The president needs to be engaging it, just those kinds of serious discussions, and from what I'm hearing he's still talking about ‘investments’ which is a code word for spending. We've got to get off that road -- we can't go 30 miles an hour down the road just because we [were doing] 60. It’s the wrong road, so we get on the right road to a solvent America. This will be the best thing for our economic growth.”We also checked in with Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee. Van Hollen said the president is pursuing “two paths” – one of fiscal discipline, and another with targeted investments “to get jobs moving again in this country.”Read the full story here.

• Pro-Palestinian groups plan largest Gaza flotilla ever.Convoy of ships is expected to arrive in Gaza on the anniversary of the Israeli raid on the "Mavi Marmara," in May.International pro-Palestinian groups are preparing a massive flotilla of ships to the Gaza Strip in the spring, to coincide with the first anniversary of the Israeli raid on the Mavi Marmara in late May, organizers said on Monday.The convoy will be named “Freedom Flotilla 2” and is expected to include delegations from close to a dozen countries including, for the first time, vessels from the US and Canada.According to the organizers, the various groups are in the process of raising money, buying vessels and recruiting volunteers.Dror Feiler, an Israeli- Swedish musician and artist who lives in Stockholm – and one of the organizers behind the new flotilla – said that the flotilla would try to reach Gaza on May 31, the same day that the Israel Navy stopped the Turkish flotilla last year.The coalition behind the new blockade-busting effort includes the Turkish IHH and the Free Gaza Movement, both of which were involved in the May flotilla. It is demanding “an immediate and complete lifting of the closure, including a lifting of the travel ban as well as the ban on exports from Gaza.”According to Feiler, the new flotilla will include activists from Norway, Spain, the US, Canada, Italy, the Netherlands, Indonesia and Malaysia.Read the full story here.

• New trends in Halal retailing in North America.The halal retail market in North America is brimming with opportunities and creative retailers are experimenting in numerous ways of capitalizing it. An often overlooked but growing trend is the emergence of large super-market style stores which are open until late night or for twenty four hours. Despite facing a slew of hurdles these businesses have grown and expanded.In Toronto Iqbal Foods has become a landmark and a hit not only with Muslims but also non-Muslim consumers. Open until midnight it attracts customers from throughout the Greater Toronto Area and beyond. Unlike the Queens case, Nayab and Iqbal Foods have faced little opposition because the areas in which they opened were already dominated by the immigrant population. Devon Avenue is a well known South Asian hub. Thorncliffe Park, where Iqbal is located, is a dense neighborhood with highrises populated mainly by Muslims.Hmmm......Merriam-Webster Dictionary "Dominate" Synonyms: conquer, overpower, pacify, subdue, subject, subjugate, subordinate, vanquish.Read the full story here.

• Top Senate Budget Republican not ruling out government shutdown.Washington (CNN) – Most Republicans demanding to slash federal spending won't entertain the idea of taking a possible standoff with President Obama so far that the government shuts down.But the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee told CNN Monday he's not ruling out that possibility "if the President just stonewalls – refuses to pass anything that will be responsible."In 1995, when Republicans controlled all of Congress and a spending stalemate resulted in a government shutdown, President Clinton went on to win re-election.Most Republicans remember that as a politically disastrous move they don't want to repeat. Sessions says there was an upside – the country's fiscal condition did get better."It worked out good for the country. We had three years of balanced budgets that would never have happened had they not fought that hard in Congress so I think that Congress does have to fight," said Sessions.Sessions said he is worried that the "gulf" between what Republicans want in spending cuts and what President Obama will tolerate may be too hard to bridge."It does appear that the president is a man of the left. He believes in government - he's still talking about it now – investments, which are spending programs," said Sessions.Hmmmmm.....If he really wanted to destroy America would he do anything different?Read the full story here.

• Russian Bear protects BP against a takeover.Almost three years ago, Bob Dudley fled Russia. Now he's going back in a big way. Dudley was the chief executive of TNK-BP, a joint venture between the British oil giant and a Russian company to produce oil from Siberia. Today, of course, Dudley runs BP itself.The company recently announced a stock swap in which BP will get a 9.5 percent stake in Russia's state-owned oil company, Rosneft, and Rosneft will get 5 percent of BP's common stock.The deal, which Russia's deputy prime minister valued at about $8 billion, gives BP access to the Russian Arctic, perhaps the world's greatest potential untapped oil reserves, and it gives Rosneft access to Western capital. For BP, though, the deal has an added benefit. For the past six months, the company has been working to shore up its finances in the wake of its disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.Back in the summer, BP faced the threat of a hostile takeover, because, as I wrote at the time, the value of its assets was greater than its market value.Now, nine months after the Deepwater Horizon accident, BP's U.S. shares are within striking distance of their pre-disaster level. Last week they traded more than 75 percent above their low of $27.02 in late June. Even so, takeover rumors have persisted. BP's weakened stock price, combined with rising oil prices, made it a cheap way for another major to bolster its reserves at a bargain price, the theory went.The Russian deal pretty much quashes any chance that another oil major would make a hostile offer for BP, because any buyer would have to deal with the Russian government.Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell have struggled with Russian investments because of that country's hostile business climate.For BP, though, the Rosneft stock swap is a devil-you-know sort of deal. In 2003, the company became the biggest foreign investor in Russia by setting up the 50-50 joint venture with TNK.The equal ownership stakes, though, meant neither side was really in charge, and the Russian oligarchs who control TNK accused Dudley of managing the venture to benefit BP at their expense. The oligarchs, for example, wanted to expand internationally, but BP's directors shot down the idea, presumably because the venture might compete with BP's own interests abroad.The Rosneft deal could indeed prove lucrative just on its merits. In the meantime, it's better than any poison pill takeover defense BP's board could cook up.Hmmmm.....Hiding behind the Russian bear?Read the full story here.

• HT:NewZeal.When Obama Talks like Reagan, Remember Mark Rudd's Warning Words.It is clear that President Barack Obama is going to move his rhetoric to the center, even to the right, as he positions himself for 2012. After all he can hardly talk further left can he?But as the beguiling one talks like Ronald Reagan, we should all keep an eye on his actions.We should also remember this analysis from former Weather Underground terrorist Mark Rudd, written just after the 2008 elections;Obama is a very strategic thinker. He knew precisely what it would take to get elected and didn't blow it. He used community organizing methods to mobilize a base consisting of many people who had never voted before or who regularly don't vote....But he also knew that what he said had to basically play to the center to not be run over by the press, the Republicans, scare centrist and cross-over voters away. He made it.So he has a narrow mandate for change, without any direction specified. What he's doing now is moving on the most popular issues -- the environment, health care, and the economy. He'll be progressive on the environment because that has broad popular support; health care will be extended to children, then made universal, but the medical, pharmaceutical, and insurance corporations will stay in place, perhaps yielding some power; the economic agenda will stress stimulation from the bottom sometimes and handouts to the top at other times. It will be pragmatic... Read Obama's first book, "Dreams from My Father." The second section is the story of his three years doing community organizing in Chicago. It's some of the best writing on organizing I've ever seen. That's all it's about, the core of the book. Obama learned many lessons of strategy and patience... This is no stupid guy... Had any of the stupid Republicans read his books, they never could have said, "We don't know who this guy is." You know every thought he's ever had.Hmmmmm......"They don't trust me because of my middle name"And a million other things?Read the full story here.

• Black Pro-Life Leaders: Santorum ‘Absolutely Right’ to Wonder How Obama Could Support Abortion. Black pro-life leaders say they agree with former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), who in an interview with CNSNews.com last week, referred to President Obama's African-American heritage and said he found it “almost remarkable” that the president could be pro-abortion.The former senator touched off a media storm when he said that he agreed with the argument Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., made in his 1963 “Letter from Birmingham Jail” that a just law is a manmade law that comports with the natural law or the law of God, and that he finds it “almost remarkable” that a black man like President Barack Obama would want to deny legal recognition for the human rights of an unborn child.“I have to agree with him and say that I find it remarkable, also,” Day Gardner, president of the National Black Pro-Life Union in Washington, D.C., told CNSNews.com. “In light of the fact that coming out of slavery, we were not considered full human beings. We were treated as no better than pack mules, working in fields, without any rights at all.”During the one-hour-and-40 minute interview, Santorum said that, when asked during the 2008 campaign by Pastor Rick Warren "at what point" a baby "gets human rights," President Obama was wrong to answer “(T)hat is above my pay grade.”Santorum then said: "(T)he question is--and this is what Barack Obama didn't want to answer -- is that human life a person under the Constitution? And Barack Obama says no. Well, if that person, human life, is not a person, then I find it almost remarkable for a black man to say, no, we are going to decide who are people and who are not people."“It’s very interesting that the ‘Letter from a Birmingham Jail’ was referenced,” Childress said. “In that same letter, Martin Luther King references infanticide or child-killing as evil. So what Martin Luther King calls evil, Barack Obama and this administration calls good -- because all of their policies have more or less facilitated the growth or the intrusion of abortion in our community and our legislation a hundred fold.” "Unfortunately Barack Obama, undoubtedly, is a facilitator for black genocide. What’s the irony of that? Well, Barack Obama himself is black.”“We look at the conditions in which Barack Obama was born himself, his mother endured, and took on the challenges that were given her and did not choose to kill the child that was in her womb," said Childress. "She was abandoned by her father. She did not have any certain dwelling place. She was unquestionably unsure about her financial stability, and yet she chose to have Barack – and as, we can see, this has turned out to be something that became a historic decision to have him -- because this man is the first black president of the United States."“Just because I’m born in Bedford-Stuy or born in the projects and my mother is single and 16 and doesn’t have an education, you don’t have the right to cut off my pursuit of happiness," said the pastor. "You don’t have that right. The Declaration says you don’t have that right. The Constitution says that these rights are for ‘us and for our posterity’ – our future children."Hmmm.....Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal. Martin Luther King, Jr.Read the full story here.

• Charles Aznavour called on Israel to officially recognize Armenian 'genocide'.Turkey pursues “cave anti-Semitism”, Aznavour says.World renowned French chansionnier Charles Aznavour called on Israel to officially recognize Armenian 'genocide', perpetrated under Ottoman Empire in 1915, Kol Israel radio reports.Speaking at the ceremony of International Award of Jerusalem University on January 23, Aznavour said “cave anti-Semitism” has been observed in Turkey in recent years, which took obvious anti-Israeli positions on all Middle East problems, Nashe.orbita.co.il reports.Source.

• Turkey urges Canada not to adopt new 'genocide' resolution.Turkish Parliament Speaker meets Canadian counterpart.Turkish Parliament Speaker Mehmet Ali Shahin has urged Canada to change its policies recognizing Armenian genocide claims, requesting that the country’s Parliament not adopt more resolutions on the same issue in April.“Our wish is not [to see] new problems this April,” Shahin said during a joint press conference with his visiting Canadian counterpart, Noel Kinsella.The Canadian Parliament recognized the 1915 killings of Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Empire as genocide in 2004. The parliamentary recognition was later approved by the government as well, prompting severe reaction from Turkey. However, because the Canadian government later softened its comments on the issue, relations have improved between the two in recent years.Noting that nearly 50,000 Turkish citizens are living in Canada, Shahin said: “They are civilized humans who contribute to the stability and the development of Canada. I want to believe that the Canadian government and its officials will not make a move that could hurt Turkish citizens.”Hmmmmm......Keep silent .....or else what?Read the full story here.

• HT:Memri.'Abbas: If We Fail in the U.N., We Will Take an "Inconceivable" Decision.PA President Mahmoud 'Abbas said that September 2011 was the deadline by which the U.N. must respond to Palestinian appeals regarding the peace process. If these appeals were rejected, he said, the Palestinian leadership would take a decision of which nobody could conceive.Hmmmm......They might leave and go and live in Iran?Read the full story here.