MFS - The Other News

                        Morning Posting.

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity in Mongolia: 5.4 and Fiji 5.1! More info here.

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

• Hurricane Irene : Latest Updates here , more here.Update : Two forecast models give a more land inwards track.

Hurricane Irene : danger to North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and the rest of the New England coast. Irene is capable of inundating portions of the coast under 10 - 15 feet of water, to the highest storm surge depths ever recorded.I strongly recommend that all residents of the mid-Atlantic and New England coast familiarize themselves with their storm surge risk‏.Read the full warning here.

• Algeria suicide bomb attack hits military academy.(BBC).A suicide bomb attack on a military academy in Algeria has killed 18 people, officials say.The attack took place in the town of Cherchell, about 100km (60 miles) west of the capital Algiers.One or two bombers set off their explosives just after the breaking of the Ramadan fast, reports said.No group has said it carried out the attack. It comes 12 days after a suicide car bombing of a police station in Tizi Ouzu wounded 29 people.That attack was claimed by the Islamist group Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which is active in the region.It was not clear how many of those killed in the latest attack were military. A hospital source told Reuters news agency 16 soldiers had been killed and two civilians.Political violence has subsided since the 1990s when more than 150,000 were killed after the 1992 election, won by an Islamist party, was annulled.Read the full story here.

• Was Qaddafi spotted fleeing?Six Armored Mercedes cars enter Algeria from Libya.(AlArabiya).A convoy of six Mercedes cars have crossed from Libya into Algeria, Egypt’s state MENA news agency reported on Saturday, quoting a rebel source.It was impossible to verify the report and it was not immediately clear who might have been in any convoy, but MENA quoted the source as speculating that senior Libyan officials or Muammar Qaddafi himself and his sons may have fled the country.“It is believed that these vehicles were carrying senior Libyan officials, and possibly Qaddafi and his sons,” MENA quoted the source as saying.Algerian officials were not immediately reachable for comment.The agency quoted the source from the rebel Military Council in the city of Ghadamis, on the Algerian border, as saying that the convoy of armored cars crossed the frontier on Friday morning protected by the commander of a desert nomadic military unit that had apparently operated under Colonel Qaddafi.The source was quoted as saying the rebels were unable to chase and stop the convoy.Libyan rebels said on Friday they were close to capturing Col. Qaddafi, who has disappeared after his Bab al-Aziziya bastion fell to the rebels on Tuesday.Algeria’s Foreign Ministry denied on Friday that it was linking any recognition of Libya’s rebel National Transitional Council (NTC) to a commitment from the council to crack down on Islamist militants.A government source in Algeria had told Reuters on Thursday that it would not yet grant recognition to the NTC, and that it wanted to be certain that Libya’s rulers were engaged in fighting al-Qaeda’s north African wing.Read the full story here.

• Updated - Algeria denies Mercedes convoy carrying Qaddafi entered from Libya.(AlArabiya).Algeria’s Foreign Ministry denied on Saturday a report that a convoy of six Mercedes cars, suspected of carrying top figures of the ousted Libyan regime, had crossed its border from Libya.Egypt’s state MENA news agency had quoted a source from the rebel Military Council in the border city of Ghadames as saying the convoy of armored cars crossed the frontier on Friday morning protected by the commander of a desert nomadic military unit that had operated under Muammar Qaddafi.The agency quoted the source as saying that the convoy may have been transporting senior Libyan officials or even Qaddafi himself.“This information (about the convoy entering Algeria) has no basis and we categorically deny it,” Algeria’s state APS news agency quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying.Libya’s rebel leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil said on Saturday the National Transitional Council (NTC) has no concrete information on the location of Qaddafi Rebel fighters who took control of the Libyan capital this week say Qaddafi and his sons are in hiding and have offered a $1.3 million reward and amnesty from prosecution for anyone who kills or captures him.A spokesman for the rebel council dampened speculation that Qaddafi might be holed up in Sirte.“He probably won’t be in Sirte because Sirte is landlocked from three sides and (there is) the sea from the other. There is no way for him to get away,” said the spokesman, Shamsiddin Abdulmolah.“There is a possibility he is still in the Tripoli area. But if not he’s more likely to be near the Algerian border because Algeria has still not recognized the NTC.”The rebel council is under pressure to establish its authority in Tripoli quickly and deal with a breakdown of public services that followed the collapse of Qaddafi’s rule.Corpses are rotting outside hospitals, garbage is piled up in the streets, and many people have no water.Asked when the NTC would move to the capital from its base in Benghazi, eastern Libya, Abdulmolah said: “Most of the executive committee is already over there now in Tripoli.But he said the question of when Abdel Jalil, a former justice minister under Qaddafi, would transfer to Tripoli, would depend on security considerations.Read the full story here.

• Abbas: We won't recognize Israel as Jewish state.(Ynet).Palestinian leader defiant ahead of UN statehood bid, urges international community to back off.The Palestinian Authority will not be recognizing Israel as a Jewish state, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said Saturday, adopting a belligerent tone ahead of his planned statehood bid in September. The Palestinian leader also criticized demands made by the International Quartet of his Authority, urging the international community to back off. "Don't order us to recognize a Jewish state," Abbas said. "We won't accept it."Speaking earlier Saturday, Abbas adopted a more moderate tone, saying that the PA's bid for UN recognition, planned for September, is not meant to isolate Israel or prompt a conflict with the United States.Responding to the Palestinian leader's defiant message, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said the statement "reveals the true nature of the September motion: A Palestinian state to come in place of a Jewish state.""Countries around the world must make it clear to Abbas that the only way the Palestinians will be able to have a state is by stopping their attempt to destroy the only Jewish state in the world," Lieberman said.The foreign minister has adopted a tough attitude against the PA as of late, most recently blasting Ramallah for what he called its leaders' empty rhetoric vis-à-vis terror.Following the recent terror offensive in southern Israel that left eight people dead, Lieberman said: "The events of recent days prove that the Palestinian rhetoric professing that they have abandoned terror in favor on diplomacy in as removed from reality as Ramallah is from the UN building in New York City."Meanwhile, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said a real solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians can only be achieved through negotiations.Ashton was speaking Saturday ahead of talks with Palestinian officials and, later, with Israeli leaders.Hmmmmm.......The Grand Mufti Muhammed Amin al-Husseini and Hitler would be proud.Read the full story here.

• Anti-psychotic drugs found in over-the-counter UK painkiller packs.(RawStory).Drugs regulators have launched an investigation after packs of the painkiller Nurofen Plus were found to contain antipsychotic drugs.The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) issued a safety alert following reports that some batches of Nurofen Plus contained individual blister packs of another drug, Seroquel XL 50mg.Packs from the three batches -- numbered 13JJ, 57JJ and 49JJ -- have been distributed across the UK and thousands could be affected.It is unclear how the mix-up could have happened, especially as Seroquel XL is manufactured by AstraZeneca, while Nurofen is made by Reckitt Benckiser. Neither company is ruling out the possibility of sabotage, media reports said.The MHRA warned anyone buying the painkillers to be extra vigilant, while pharmacists have been advised to check before selling packs of the over-the-counter drug.The large Seroquel XL 50 mg capsules can be identified by their gold and black packaging while the smaller Nurofen Plus tablets have silver and black packaging.Ian Holloway, from the MHRA's defective medicines report centre (DMRC), said: "People should check to see if they have any affected packets of Nurofen Plus. If you do, return them to the pharmacy where you bought them from. You can also report this to the MHRA?s DMRC on 020 3080 6574.If you have taken a tablet and you have any questions, speak to your GP.Reckitt Benckiser said there had been three cases identified so far, all within the south London area. Thousands more packets could potentially be affected."Serious investigations" are under way to establish how the mix-up occurred, a statement issued by the company said."After careful review of the manufacturing system, manufacturing errors by the makers of Nurofen Plus or Seroquel XL are not thought to be part of the cause at this stage."We are taking this matter very seriously and are working closely with the regulatory authority, the MHRA, and pharmacies."The MHRA are investigating the issue, and have considerable law enforcement powers."Seroquel XL is a prescription-only antipsychotic drug used to treat several disorders including schizophrenia, mania and bipolar depression, while Nurofen Plus is a pain relief drug containing codeine and ibufrofen.The three batches of the painkiller affected each contain between 4,000 and 7,500 packs, however not all the 32-tablet packs were affected.Read the full story here.

• An Amazing Indictment of Obamanomics: Banks That Don’t Want Deposits.(Cato).By Daniel J. Mitchell.Here’s a Bloomberg story that provides what may be the most damning evidence that the President’s big government agenda is a failure:U.S. regulators have asked some banks to take more deposits from large investors even if it’s unprofitable, and lenders in return are seeking relief on insurance premiums and leverage ratios, according to six people with knowledge of the talks.Deposits are flooding into the biggest U.S. banks as customers seek shelter from Europe’s debt crisis and falling stock prices. That forces lenders to raise capital for a growing balance sheet and saddles them with the higher deposit insurance payments. With short-term interest rates so low, it’s hard for financial firms to reinvest the new money profitably.…At least one firm, Bank of New York Mellon Corp., tried to recoup some of the costs by charging depositors 13 basis points, or 0.13 percent, for holding unusually high balances.Let’s think about what this article is really saying. Banks normally make money by attracting deposits and then lending that money to people and businesses that have productive uses for the funds.Yet the economy is so weak that banks are leery of taking more money. The story is complicated by other factors, including capital flight from Europe, taxes (or premiums) imposed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and various regulatory issues. But even with these caveats, it’s still remarkable that banks want to turn down money — or charge people for making deposits. That’s sort of like McDonald’s turning away customers because the firm loses money by selling Big Macs and french fries. Or, better yet, like McDonald’s turning away free goods from suppliers because not enough people want to buy the final product.Hmmmm.......Help!... Save me People are depositing money?Read the full story here.

• Report: U.S. warns Palestinians it will halt aid - Obama regime replies "No need to worry".(Politico).American officials are dismissing a top Palestinian leader’s claims on Friday that the U.S. warned it will take “punitive measures” and cutoff aid if the Palestinians move forward on their statehood bid. Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat released a statement Friday quoting U.S. Consul General in Jerusalem Daniel Rubinstein as saying the U.S. would veto the statehood recognition resolution at the United Nations Security Council in September and would stop aid if Palestine continued to seek statehood at the full General Assembly meeting. “The American Congress will take punitive measures against the Palestinian Authority including halting American assistance,” Erekat quoted Rubinstein as saying, according to the Associated Press. The U.S. currently grants Palestinians $470 million in an annual aid package. “The U.S. sees no benefits from the Palestinian efforts to get membership at the U.N. and it’s better to reach peace agreements through negotiations,” Erekat quoted Rubinstein as saying. “If the Palestinian Authority insists on going to the Security Council, then the U.S. will use the veto.” The U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem released a statement in response on Friday, saying that the quotes attributed to Rubinstein were not accurate. “While we cannot get into private diplomatic discussions, this report is not an accurate portrayal of the U.S position, nor did Consul-General Rubinstein make the comments reported in the media,” the statement said. The consulate did not offer any additional details on Erekat’s claims. “As President Obama has made clear, initiatives through the U.N. will not bring about the two-state solution and enduring peace which both parties and the U.S seek, therefore we continue to oppose initiatives by the Palestinians in the U.N. There is no substitute for serious and substantive negotiations between the parties, and that remains our focus,” the statement added.Hmmmm......Congress doesn't exist anymore for the "emperor" and he won't veto the bill?Read the full story here.

• Video - Horror scenes at Tripoli hospital.(BBC).More than 200 decomposing bodies have been found abandoned at a hospital in a district of the Libyan capital, Tripoli, that has seen fierce fighting.A BBC correspondent found corpses of men, women and children on beds and in the corridors of Abu Salim's hospital.Doctors and nurses fled after clashes erupted nearby between rebel forces and those loyal to Col Muammar Gaddafi.Some residents accused the regime of murdering those at the hospital, but it is not yet clear how exactly they died.Meanwhile, rebel forces faced stiff resistance as they advanced on Sirte, Col Gaddafi's birthplace and the town regarded as his last stronghold.Rebel commanders said they were consolidating their frontline at the oil port town of Ras Lanuf, after withdrawing from positions nearer Sirte to put themselves out of range of rockets fired by pro-Gaddafi forces.The UK said its planes carried out an overnight missile attack on a large command-and-control bunker in Sirte.There was also intense fighting near Tripoli's international airport.In the west, the rebels took control of the Ras Jidir border crossing with Tunisia after regime loyalists fled, and then raised the pre-Gaddafi, green, red and black Libyan flag, witnesses said.The BBC's Wyre Davies in Tripoli says the scene at the hospital in Abu Salim was one of the most appalling and distressing he had ever seen.Around the hospital, on trolleys and in corridors, there were hundreds of dead people - men, women and children, our correspondent says. It is not known exactly who they were, but some were civilians, some fighters, some apparently African mercenaries, he adds. Residents said some had been alive when they were brought to the hospital, albeit with very bad injuries. Others had already died.However, the hospital was closed because nearly all medical staff had fled the fighting, and the people were left there to die, they added.The AFP news agency reported that the hospital was occupied by pro-Gaddafi snipers on Saturday, and that it was only on Thursday after days of intense fighting that it was secured by the rebels.The father of a 10-year-old boy who was shot in the back near Col Gaddafi's compound said he had to lie in the heat for almost a week with no help, while the stench of decomposing bodies grew around him."My son was wounded outside Bab al-Aziziya, but we didn't know where he had been taken," he told AFP. "It's the first time I've seen him in five days. But today we have got him back.The boy was one of 17 survivors taken away for treatment by the Red Cross, one of whose workers described the conditions as "dreadful".Osama Bilil, one of the doctors, told the BBC: "These bodies have been here in the hospital for five days. Nobody has taken care of them - to bring them to the mortuary, to identify them, to bury them.""We need help. It is very urgent. There is no government here. We need professional help, from the International Red Cross, because there has been a massacre in Abu Salim," he added.Our correspondent says the stench was appalling. People were trying to clean up some of the mess and return the hospital to normality, but that was an impossible task because of the sheer number of bodies, he adds.Human rights group Amnesty International earlier said it had evidence that both pro-Gaddafi forces and the rebels had abused detainees.Guards loyal to Col Gaddafi raped child detainees at Abu Salim prison, Amnesty said. It also accused rebels of beating prisoners, including a boy conscripted by Gaddafi forces who surrendered to the rebels at Bir Tirfas.The UN is to investigate reports of summary killings and torture through its existing commission of inquiry on Libya. It has previously said some reports could amount to war crimes or crimes against humanity.Read and see the full story here.

• Iran, Syria, Interests and Liabilities.(Nervana).How far is Iran willing to go in order to save the Assad regime from crumbling?No one can truly answer this question; in fact, I think even Assad may not know the answer for sure. it is certainly true that Syria is Iran’s strategic gateway to the Arab world and it’s link with other proxy groups in Lebanon and Gaza. However,The recent events in Syria pose a serious challenge to the complicated relationship between the two countries and will probably expose its strengths and weakness.Looking back at the past few years may give us some clues about the mindset of both regimes and how united they are at crisis time. While the world was watching closely for a possible Israeli air strike on Iran nuclear facilities, an interesting debate (particularly in Israel) surfaced about the nature of the relationship between Assad ‘s regime and Iran.Read the full story here.

• Ahmadinejad: No place for Israel in region.(Ynet).The creation of a universally-recognized Palestinian state would be just a first step towards wiping out Israel, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Friday. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's comments reflect his typical anti-Israeli rhetoric; He drew international condemnation when he said in 2005 that Israel should be "wiped off the map."He spoke at a ceremony Friday following nationwide pro-Palestine rallies marking Quds Day. The annual demonstration is an occasion for Iranian officials to show their support for Palestinians and condemn Israel. Ahmadinejad says establishment of a Palestinian state should be the first step in the liberation of entire Palestine. Iran's Islamic leadership is hostile to Israel and backs anti-Israel groups like Palestinian Hamas.Ahmadinejad, restating a position expressed soon after taking office in 2005 that Israel was a "tumor" to be wiped off the map, urged Palestinians not to settle for a two-state solution that is backed by Abbas but to strive for a complete return of what they consider their land."Recognizing the Palestinian state is not the last goal. It is only one step forward towards liberating the whole of Palestine," Ahmadinejad told worshippers at Friday prayers."The Zionist regime is a center of microbes, a cancer cell and if it exists in one iota of Palestine it will mobilize again and hurt everyone." Any move for Palestinian statehood at the United Nations is likely to be vetoed by the United States, but even if it were to pass and Israelis and Palestinians found a way to co-exist, that would still be entirely insufficient, Ahmadinejad said. "It is not enough for them to have a weak, powerless state in a very small piece of Palestine. They should unite to establish a state but the ultimate goal is the liberation of the whole of Palestine," he said."I urge the Palestinians never to forget this ideal. Forgetting this ideal is equal to committing suicide. It would be giving an opportunity to an enemy which is on the verge of collapse and disappearance."Hmmmm.......How long before Erdogan repeats the same thing? Read the full story here.

• Antisemitic Articles in the Egyptian Government Press: Jews are Descendants of Apes and Pigs. Protocols of the Elders of Zion are Being Realized in Today's Middle East.(Memri).Addressing recent developments in the region, the Egyptian government press recently published articles employing antisemitic motifs. One of the articles attributed the recent uprisings in the Arab states to a Jewish plot for world domination, as described in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Another article, written in the wake of the August 18, 2011 attacks on the Egyptian-Israeli border, called not to sign any agreements with the Jews, characterizing them as "the descendants of apes and pigs" who cannot be trusted.Hmmm.....Egypt....The 'people' the Obama administration is supporting financially and military.Read the full story here.

• Afghan Editor Condemns the Custom of Dancing Boys, Says: '[Boys] of Ages 15 to 20 are Normally Dressed in Women's Clothes, Dancing All the Night, Then Abused by Several Men'.(Memri).In a recent report, senior Afghan journalist Musa Khan Jalalzai drew attention to the custom of Afghan dancing boys and their sexual exploitation by powerful and wealthy warlords in the country. The report notes that the custom has become a status symbol in Afghanistan."A shameless business of teenage rape or Bacha-bazi has brought disgrace and shame to Afghan society. The tradition of teenage rape is an old tradition in northern and southern provinces. The tradition has roots in Afghan history. President Hamid Karzai, in his recent statement, warned that rapists should face 'the country's most severe punishment. "The interior ministry has failed to arrest powerful rapist warlords in northern Afghanistan, as the police administration has long been involved in many illegal businesses like drug trafficking, prostitution, and playboys. Corruption in the Afghan justice system is another problem. Courts are helpless before war criminals. Judges are the most corrupt people, who bail out or release criminals and receive millions in Afghan currency."Local residents now have demanded for a crackdown against these elements, but are skeptical because criminals are powerful and well-armed. War criminals have representation in Afghan parliament and in government institutions. Why did this illegal business take deep roots after the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001? Afghan men of letters understand that both unemployment and poverty are the main motivators for the revival of the business of Bacha-bazi in Afghanistan. Recruitment of young and beardless beautiful boys is in progress."Powerful and wealthy warlords in northern Afghanistan, according to press reports, recruit young boys for sex and dance, while local authorities remain powerless in stopping the practice. Bacha-bereesh [boys] of ages 15-20 are normally dressed in women's clothes, dancing all the night, then abused by several men.""This is an established fact that a boy without beard and [is] smart normally becomes a status symbol for his master. Mohammad Zaher Zafari, head of the Northern Branch of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, hopelessly said: 'Sexual abuse and even the sale of boys has been going on for years; the boys involved are usually poor, underage or orphans, and they are forced into it by their economic circumstances."Another senior official, Hafizullah Khaliqyar, head of the prosecutor's office for Baghlan province, complains that teenage boys are forced to dance. 'They are sexually abused, and they are even bought and sold. Fights take place over these Bacha-bereesh. It's increasing day by day, and it's catastrophic,' he said.""A local Afghan reporter, Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi, recently interviewed some warlords saying that they play with dogs, boys, and love teenage girls. 'Some men enjoy playing with dogs, some with women. I enjoy playing with boys,' warlord Allah Daad told Ibrahimi. After the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, Bacha-bazi increased tremendously and is still on the rise."In the past, Afghans were ashamed of it and trying to hide it, but nowadays, nobody feels shame and they openly enjoy this shameless business. Religious scholars condemn the custom, which they count as one of the most sinful acts possible. Afghan ulema [Islamic scholars] are of the opinion that making boys dance and sexually abusing them is not allowed in Islam. Maulana Ghulam Rabbani of Takhar province understands that those involved in it need to be punished."Local officials in northern provinces of Afghanistan admit the practice is prevalent but show no specific interest to intercept it. The authorities are in much dismay about the police officers' involvement in this business. Members of Afghan police in various provinces are deeply involved in male prostitution. The interior ministry in Kabul has received thousands of complaints from locals regarding the police sexual attacks on young boys.""Keeping in view their sexual needs, in December 2010, WikiLeaks cables reported [that] U.S. company DynCorp had spent money on pimps who purchased young boys for Afghan policemen. The boys were used in Bacha-bazi. This shameless practice has also prompted the Defense Department of the United States to hire a social scientist, Anna Maria, to investigate the problem, as several U.S. soldiers on patrol often passed older men walking hand-in-hand with pretty young boys."Reuters, in its November 19, 2007 report and Revolutionary Association of Women in Afghanistan [RAWA], quoted a 42-year-old landowner, Inayatullah, of Baghlan province as saying, 'Having a boy has become a custom for us. Whoever wants to show off should have a boy.' In his short interview with Reuter's reporter, Mr. Inayatullah vowed: 'I was married to a woman 20 years ago; she left me because of my boy,' he said. 'I was playing with my boy every night and was away from home. Eventually my wife decided to leave me. I am happy with my decision, because I am used to sleeping and entertaining with my young boy,' He told Reuters."A recent U.S. State Department report assessed the situation bluntly, saying that it amounts to a 'widespread, culturally sanctioned form of male rape.' The majority of Afghans have no knowledge of their country's law about male prostitution. All kinds of prostitution are illegal under the Afghan law. In Afghan society, the victims of rape and assault – both male and female – are sometimes persecuted rather than the criminals who abuse them."There are thousands of young boys who have undergone ordeals. But the actual numbers of these vulnerable boys are not known. In Kabul, Kandahar, Mazar-e-Sharif, Kunduz, Takhar, Baghlan, Samangan, Panjshir, and Herat bazaars, Bacha-bazi CDs and DVDs are widely circulated serving an audience who can't afford the real thing."Read the full story here.

• Turkey - Man allegedly kills wife in İzmir for filing for divorce.(TodaysZaman).A man reportedly killed his wife in İzmir after learning that she had filed for a divorce while staying in a women’s shelter citing his alleged domestic abuse as the reason, according to a Cihan news agency report.When Y.B. (34) went to Ürkmez to visit her 3-year-old-daughter, her husband, H.B. (40), blocking the doorway, allegedly refused to let her leave unless she agreed to drop the divorce case. An argument broke out between the two, after which H.B. reportedly stabbed his wife in front of their daughter. Y.B. was taken to Seferihisar State Hospital, where she subsequently died. Close friends of the wife said the husband had constantly assaulted her. One time H.B. took a razor and carved his first and last name into his wife’s back, the friends claimed. While Yeşim B. stayed in a woman’s shelter in İstanbul, her five children -- between the ages of 3 and 15 -- were cared for in orphanages.Hmmmm.......'Dishonor' killings another reason to Keep Turkey out of the European union.Read the full story here.

MFS - The Other News

                         Afternoon Posting.

• The volatile Lybian situation live streams here.

Live blog Libya Al Yazeera here. Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, one of the Libyan leader's sons, has reportedly told CNN-Turk that his family plans to live and die in Libya."Plan A is to live and die in Libya, Plan B is to live and die in Libya, Plan C is to live and die in Libya."

Hmmm....by the way it seems Al Yazeera is now available on cable in Canada?"If you live in Canada, contact the following cable and satellite providers to subscribe to Al Jazeera English" Bell TV: 516 - Cogeco: 182 - Rogers: 176 - Shaw: 513 - Videotron: 173

• HT:AmnonandJonathan.Gaddafi's "Massada Syndrome".Libya….14 Tons of Mustard Gas…U.S. military and intelligence officials are closely watching Libya‘s stockpiles of mustard gas and their precursor chemicals as the North African country descends further into civil war.Proliferation analysts generally assess that Libya has close to 14 tons of mustard gas that it has not destroyed despite the announcement in 2003 that it would dismantle its weapons of mass destruction program.‘Obviously, the security of the Libyan stockpile of chemical weapons is a concern,’ a U.S. intelligence official told The Washington Times.Hmmmm....."Iraq Saddam has Mass destruction weapons".Read the full story here.

• China dispatches warship to protect Libya evacuation mission: Marks the PRC’s first use of frontline military assets to protect an evacuation mission.The PLA Navy has just dispatched Xuzhou, a Type 054 Jiangkai-II class missile frigate, from the ongoing seventh PLAN anti-piracy task force deployment off Somalia to steam to Libyan coast to provide support and protection for the ongoing evacuation mission there. The escort mission has been approved by the Central Military Commission, according to Xinhua, and at least 6,300 of the roughly 30,000 PRC citizens in Libya have been evacuated. The news agency adds that the Chinese evacuation is also utilizing chartered aircraft, overland routes to Egypt and Tunisia, ships from China’s major state shipping firms, and Greek merchant vessels in the region, which are said to be closely coordinating their operations with the Chinese government and plan to evacuate up to 15,000 Chinese from Libya.Beijing’s speedy response shows nimbleness in handling a situation where descent into chaos has directly impacted Chinese citizens’ security. As of 23 February 2011, the Ministry of Commerce said at least 27 Chinese-run construction sites had been attacked by armed individuals and that there were numerous injuries. Commissioned in 2008, Xuzhou is a 4,000-ton frigate with a Vertical Launch System capable of launching HHQ-16 surface-to-air missiles to protect against air threats and a hangar with one Z-9 helicopter. It is a solid medium-sized warship, but cannot carry many people and thus would not be useful as a rescue vessel. Xuzhou’s escort mission is likely designed to serve several related immediate objectives, including avoiding a USS Cole-style terrorism or irregular attack scenario that could harm evacuees, and sending a clear message to various elements in Libya not to harm Chinese civilians or disrupt their evacuation. Hmmm....This is the kind of leadership an American President should display,sadly America has a "Community organiser"!Read the full story here.

• HT:ElliotAbrams.Who’s the Superpower?US gets Lessons from China.China is sending a warship, among other planes and ships, to evacuate its citizens from Libya. According to the report, “The PLA Navy has just dispatched Xuzhou, a Type 054 Jiangkai-II class missile frigate, from the ongoing seventh PLAN anti-piracy task force deployment off Somalia to steam to Libyan coast to provide support and protection for the ongoing evacuation mission there.”In recent days, the White House has been saying that the United States had to watch its words and actions because American citizens were at risk in Libya. So instead of acting, we are building a diplomatic coalition. China has taken a different tack: to use power. Instead of biting their tongue, the Chinese appear to be making it clear to the Qadhafi regime that no danger to Chinese workers will be tolerated.That’s the path the United States should follow as well. As I’ve said elsewhere, we should be making it clear to Qadhafi and his remaining henchmen that the safety of Americans in Libya is their safety; if Americans are attacked or held hostage, they will end up the way Saddam Hussein did. But the use of power will do more than ensure the safety of Americans; it will also help bring Libya’s civil war to a better end. Today there are no doubt many Libyan officials and military officers who are on the fence. They know that a victorious Qadhafi will take vengeance against those who opposed him, so they won’t jump until they are confident he will lose. American power can help them make that decision. We too should be moving ships and planes, and visibly taking the steps that show our own power. The message should be that we want Qadhafi to lose and will help ensure that he does. The sooner we do this, the fewer Libyans will lose their lives to Qadhafi’s murderous machine and the sooner the violence in Libya will end.Hmmmm....Tough guy against old people and allies,quick to organise revolution but a  mollusc when it comes to real action!Read the full story here.HT:IsraelMatzav.

• Libyan: Qaddafi forces shoot hospital patients.A resident of the increasingly violent Libyan capital of Tripoli told CBS Radio News Thursday that armed supporters of Muammar Qaddafi, the country's longtime leader, have stormed into hospitals to shoot wounded demonstrators and take dead bodies to an unknown location."They go in with guns into hospitals," said the resident, identified only as Adel to protect his safety. "They take the bodies that are dead. In some hospitals, they have shot the wounded. This is true. I know it's very strange for the States, but this is happening today in Tripoli."In one example of the violence in Libya, Adel said he saw 62 protesters killed and about 100 more wounded in Tripoli's Green Square Tuesday."They're putting the bodies on half pickup trucks, and they're taking them somewhere we don't know yet because they don't want these bodies to go into hospitals," Adel said.That's not the only action being taken to cover up what is happening in the capital, Adel said. Armed pro-government supporters Thursday were forcing people to help clean up parts of downtown Tripoli and paint buildings."There are some streets where he's using the people in the houses; if they don't go out, he will shoot them with gunpoint to do that," Adel said.What the protesters want most from the international community is the establishment of a no-fly zone over Libya, Adel said."The guys are using helicopter gun ships to shoot people, shooting not bombing," Adel said. "It is terrifying. It takes a lot of pushing your guts to go out, but you have to."The situation in Tripoli continues to deteriorate, Adel said. Because shops are running low on basic supplies, lines more than 1,000 yards long form outside bakeries that do have food to sell.Hmmmm......This is the leader who gave Erdogan the Al-Gaddafi International Prize for Human Rights.Read the full story here.

• Obama recruits an army of community organizers to carry his 'movement forward for years to come'.The community organizer who became president has launched a massive pre-reelection year campaign to assemble and train an army of new community organizers to carry Obama's "movement forward for years to come."Strengthening "our democracy" presumably has something to do with reelecting the revered leader in 2012.However, the Organizing for America recruiting message says nothing about politics or election campaigns and strangely talks in military terms of "a grassroots program that aims to put boots on the ground and help foster a new generation of leaders -- not just to help win elections but to strengthen our democracy in communities across the country."The same Obama campaign group was reported involved in fomenting and facilitating the ongoing Wisconsin protests against Gov. Scott Walker's budget plans.The message about what it calls the "Summer Organizing Fellowship" adds: "Effective organizing doesn't happen in a vacuum. It takes commitment, time, and hard work to build a movement around a cause." It does not specify what the "cause" is, other than promoting Obama and his agenda.News of the community organizer drive went out in an e-mail to millions of supporters and past donors Tuesday night by the ongoing arm of the Obama campaign, Organizing for America.It appealed for workers of all ages to volunteer to undergo professional organizational training this summer for stationing in communities all over the nation to drive President Obama's social and political agenda.The cadres "will be assigned to a specific community," the message informs, "where they'll work to organize supporters street by street, neighborhood by neighbourhood."Their job will involve recruiting additional Obama workers, running Obama-related events, knocking on doors to talk of Obama "and lay new groundwork to carry this movement forward for years to come."Another community organizer, Paras Patel, tells of one unforgettable moment actually meeting the leader for whom they all labor, President Obama. "He shook my hand," Patel recounts, "and told me that he was proud of me."No mention of an Obama organizer flag, uniform -- or salute.Hmmmm......How long before he writes "Mein Community"?Or what will be used for starting the next "KristalNacht"?Read the full story here.
I'll just leave the readers with this one comment on this story:

"I met some of his army and in some cases they are almost cult-like in adoration. One in his mid-twenties recieved full mental disability $850 per mo (and a $10K check for time out of work) a year ago. He is young, healthy and a College Graduate. The Social Security Administration approved his first application for benefits. (This in itself is rare I understand) If you find that perplexing perhaps this will explain it. He is apparently able to "volunteer" 20 hours a week at the local Dem Headquarters. (coincidentally located at a local union office) He calls folks as part of Obama's "grassroots" efforts locally. When the marching orders come he will be rested and ready. And he won't be encumbered by little things like working for a living. This isn't your mom's Democratic Party. If you're willing to say, "I'm a Certified Mental Case," your honor, " please give me money every month," you too - provided your politics are left wing, might receive a monthly stipend. I guess it boils down to pride and work ethic. Obama's supporters have little so the Dem's developed a nationwide "Acorn" funded by the taxpayers. If it wasn't so pathetic it would be frightening." source.

• HT"AmericanThinker.The "Obama Connection".O what a web !Remember as a kid drawing connect-the-dots pictures? Simply follow the dots and a clear picture emerges. As an adult, connecting the dots of Obama's actions leads to an oxymoronic picture. A clear picture of a murky web. Obama's actions continually link him to people and causes that the majority of Americans do not support. The recent event of another aid ship sailing to Gaza is an example of to whom and what the strands of Obama's web link him, and unfortunately America.Last year, right around the time Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi called Obama "our son," Obama earmarked $400,000 for two Libyan charities. The money was divided between two foundations run by Gaddafi's children; Gaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation, run by his son Saif, and Wa Attassimou, run by his daughter Aicha. What noble causes did our tax dollars potentially help support thanks to Obama's generosity? Funding of the ship Amalthea: The Amalthea sailed to Israel with the intent of breaking the Israeli blockade on Hamas. It carried aid for a pseudo humanitarian crisis and supporters who were said to be "keen on expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people in the plight amidst the siege imposed on Gaza." The ship was funded by Saif Gaddafi's charity, Gaddafi International Charity and Development Association. Obama's friend, Bill Ayers, joined attempt #1 against Israel's blockade on Hamas. Saif joined attempt #2. One has to wonder which of Obama's friends will step up to the plate at attempt #3.As long as we are connecting the dots between Obama and Libya, now seems a good time to remember that the state department issued an official apology to Libya after spokesman P.J. Crowley made disparaging comments about Gaddafi's call for jihad against Switzerland. Apparently Crowley spoke on instinct instead of running his reaction by Libya's "son" first. As an Obamian spinmeister, Crowley learned that one doesn't speak ill of "family." What a web Obama continues to spin. One can only hope he falls into it soon, before all of American is smothered by it.Hmmmm....."They don't trust me because of my middle Name" and a million other things!Right about now would be a good time to start the impeachment procedure.Read the full story here.

• HT:IsraelMatzav.Obama buddy calls on 'Palestinians' to 'fire' the 'Palestinian Authority'.Some of you may recall that Barack Hussein Obama has a close friend named Ali Abunimah. Abunimah, like Obama's pastor Jeremiah Wright, became a liability to him during the course of the Presidential campaign. So Obama doesn't talk to them much anymore. Abunimah became a liability because he runs a little website called Electronic Intifada, which is supported by European governments, which is virulently anti-Semitic and which seeks to destroy the Jewish state.Hmmmm....."They don't trust mebecause of my middle name"?Read the full story here.

• Good Grief! Obama Ambassador Rice Skips UN Meeting on Libya.It’s not the first time Obama Ambassador Susan Rice skipped an important UN meeting.She also was absent when the UN held an emergency Security Council meeting on Israel’s raid of a ship headed to Gaza, when Iran was elected to the UN Women’s Commission and failed to speak out when Libya was elected to the UN Human Rights Council in May 2010.We’re in the best of hands.The United States was represented by Foreign Service officer and Ambassador Rosemary DiCarlo. The Obama administration’s appointed ambassador, Susan Rice, skipped the Libya meeting and instead flew to South Africa to attend a UN panel discussion on global sustainability.Missing the only Security Council meeting on the Middle East revolution was not Rice’s first absence from high profile UN business. Rice was absent when the UN held an emergency Security Council meeting on Israel’s raid of a ship headed to Gaza and when Iran was elected to the UN Women’s Commission. Rice also failed to speak out when Libya was elected to the UN Human Rights Council in May 2010. As the Middle East continues to implode the Obama Administration attends a Sustainability Meeting.Go figure.Hmmmm......."There more important things to be done"...Like organising my new world order?Read the full story here.

• HT:YIDWithLID.Even Using Obama's Bogus Standards Porkulus Spent Between $230 & $590,000 Per Job Created/Saved.When the unemployment rate hit 10% the administration became desperate to make the president look good since that number blew through the presidential promise that if his stimulus bill was passed, unemployment would not rise higher than 8%.The spike in unemployment was a black-eye to the president and additional proof that the President's plan... the government spending like a drunken sailor on shore leave, did very little to help the economy. The administration became so embarrassed about the bad numbers, they changed the playing field. Job Creation was no longer the bell weather statistic, it became something bogus, Jobs Created or Saved.Here's the sad part, even using the bogus "Jobs Created or Saved" the latest CBO numbers show that the the stimulus plan was a horrible waste of money. In CBO report released yesterday (embedded below), called “Estimated Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act on Employment and Economic Output from October Through December 2010" the bi-partisan CBO reported that the porkuous plan now is projected to dump up to $821 billion into the progressives Keynesian black hole, up from the original projection of $787 billion.Even at the lower level of $228 thousand per job it show that the Porkulus plan was a waste. Think about it, they could have paid every unemployed person $100,000 and still have saved $461 billion. Not that I would recommend that particular approach, but imagine where our economy would be today if those funds were put into tax reductions--more jobs for less costs.Hmmmmm......It's high time that Congress stops this "Obamamination".Read the full story here.

• HT:YIDWithLID.What About Transparency? White House Staff Meets With Lobbyists Off Site To Avoid Disclosure.Transparency like you’ve never seen before October 30, 2009 at 04:31 PM EDT ..Today marks a major milestone in government transparency -- and an important lesson in the unintended consequences of such vigorous disclosure. We previously announced that the White House in December of this year would -- for the first time in history -- begin posting all White House visitor records under the terms of our new voluntary disclosure policy. As part of that initiative, we also offered to look back at the records created before the announcement of the policy and answer specific requests for visitor records created earlier in the year. Like much of what we were told about the Obama White House the statement above turns out to be not entirely true. First of all their disclosure policy was not exactly voluntary, it followed freedom of information requests from a host of organizations such as Judicial Watch.The other thing that is not quite truthful is that we will now be able to have transparency regarding who is having influence over the White House Staff. According a new report by Politico, White House Staffers are getting around having their visitors recorded by having their meetings outside the White House. It gets better, WH Staff who have met with lobbyists off premises have asked them to sign confidentiality agreements barring them from disclosing what was discussed at meetings with administration officials. According to the administration, this is done to “maintain the integrity of our decision-making process.” But to others it smells.Wooh, are they accusing the Obama administration of talking out of both sides of their mouths? Who'd have thought it?During last year’s push to move comprehensive immigration reform (CIR) legislation on Capitol Hill, the White House invited business lobbyists and executives from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, the National Association of Home Builders, the National Restaurant Association and others to a Jackson Place meeting with senior policy staffers.“We would like to convene a small meeting with White House staff on Friday at 12 noon (736 Jackson Place — see attached map), to discuss the current progress of CIR legislation,” a White House invitation obtained by POLITICO said.The email was sent on a Wednesday, two days before the meeting, which left time for background checks had staffers wanted to hold the meeting at the White House. Some lobbyists suspected they were being kept outside the gates for political, rather than logistical, reasons.Hmmmm......Tsars ..Shadow government...Muslim Brotherhood...etc..etc... IMPEACH him!Read the full story here.

• UAE - Man accused of raping maid.A Pakistani driving instructor allegedly raped a Filipina housemaid who stayed in his house upon the request of her recruitment agency for one day.According to the prosecution sheet, MK, 34, raped RZ, 31, who was asked by an Ajman-based company to serve in the house of the accused’s family for one day until her passport was renewed.The accused sneaked into the living room and threatened the maid with deportation if she refused to have sex with him. She submitted to him and he went back to his bedroom.The report said that the maid got pregnant."The recruitment company informed my Emirati sponsor that my passport needed to be renewed at the Philippines Consulate in Dubai. My sponsor took me to the company in Ajman. They asked me to spend one day at the accused’s house. I went along with him and his wife."At about 3:30am, while I was sleeping in the living room I felt MK coming into the room. He molested me and said he wanted to have sex with me otherwise he would deport me. He undressed and raped me. I remained silent as I was scared and could not push him away from me. He took a shower and went to his bedroom,” RZ testified before the Prosecution.“The accused’s wife took me to the Consulate and dropped me at the recruitment agency's office. My Emirati sponsor picked me from Ajman and after five days I told him about the incident,” she testified."Later my sponsor admitted me to a hospital for checkup and doctors told that I was pregnant and the pregnancy happened while I was in Dubai and not in my home country,” she told the prosecutors.The Emirati sponsor testified that the recruitment company was responsible for the housemaid on that day and hence he reported the rape incident to the police.Although MK admitted having sex with RZ in his house before the Police and the Prosecution, he denied the accusation before the Court.Read the full story here.

• Turkish TV crew snubbed by PM's Office.Polish channels hire Turkish TV team, but crew not allowed to enter Prime Minister's Office.No entrance to Turks? A Turkish television crew hired by the Polish media in order to cover Poland's prime minister's visit to Israel was not allowed to enter the Prime Minister's Office compound. Ynet learned that two Polish television stations, including the popular TVP news channel, hired the TV crew from a well-known Turkish firm that provides such services worldwide. The team, which was hired in order to air images from the joint Israeli-Polish government session, arrived at the PM's Office on time. The Polish channels protested to their country's embassy in Israel and to the Prime Minister's Office, but to no avail. The TV crew did not receive a permit and the Poles were forced to arrange the broadcast using an alternate solution. The PM's Office said that "there is no connection whatsoever between the TV crew's Turkish nationality and its delay." Officials blamed the Turkish company for the incident, claiming that it did not submit the required permits."There is a clear procedure for permitting the entry of TV crews into the Prime Minister's office…the TV crew arrived without any coordination and without the required permits," the Prime Minister's Office said. "Moreover, the team arrived without journalists IDs as required of any journalist arriving at the Office…the PM's Office has worked with Turkish media and will continue working with them in the future." Hmmmm......Heh.Read the full story here.

• Report: Iran hunts for uranium.Tehran expanding global search for nuke materials, says new intelligence report. Iranian engineers to map out uranium deposits in Africa, focuses on Zimbabwe, document says.Iran is expanding its covert global search for the uranium it needs for its nuclear activities and a key focus is Zimbabwe, says a new intelligence report acquired Tuesday by The Associated Press. The report is in line with international assessments that Iran's domestic supplies cannot sustain its nuclear program that could be turned toward making weapons.An intelligence report from a member country of the International Atomic Energy Agency - shared with the AP by an official from that nation - says Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi met secretly last month with senior Zimbabwean mining officials "to resume negotiations ... for the benefit of Iran's uranium procurement plan." "This follows work carried out by Iranian engineers to map out uranium deposits in Africa and assess the amount of uranium they contain," said the two-page intelligence summary. The report - confirmed independently by an official from another IAEA country - was shared as an Iranian delegation led by the head of the Cooperative Ministry Abbas Johari was meeting Thursday with "agriculture and mining interests" in the Zimbabwean capital Harare."Iran's known uranium ore reserves are limited and mostly of poor quality making them commercially unprofitable to mine," says former United States Deputy Assistant Secretary for Nonproliferation Mark Fitzpatrick. With the completion date of any Iranian nuclear reactor network decades away, Tehran may have other pressing reasons to look for replenishable ore supplies, said Fitzpatrick, now head of nonproliferation for the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies. Iran, he said, now has enough uranium gas to make 20 or 30 nuclear weapons, should it choose to turn what it says is a peaceful program into making such arms. If that supply were destroyed by a military attack or sabotage, "that could put a serious crimp into Iran's ability to reconstitute the program." "That's why for strategic reasons it's not surprising that Iran is continuing to try to acquire additional sources," he added.Hmmmm.....Anyone taking a bet for an Iranian nuclear weapon by the end of the year?Read the full story here.

• And now for something completely different.The bodyguard: A Turkish-Israeli love story.Turkish bodyguard, Israeli consulate employee in Istanbul meet at airport, fall in love. Now his mission doubles: Protect diplomat and wife.They met at the Istanbul airport, exchanging glances when she was an Israeli diplomat working at the Israeli Consulate, and he worked as a local security guard for El-Al. When flights to Turkey were suspended, the Turkish guard became her personal bodyguard, and a love story began to unfold. Just recently they got married and decided to move to Israel.R. is a longtime employee of the Foreign Ministry who previously worked for such former foreign ministers as Ariel Sharon, Benjamin Netanyahu and Silvan Shalom. In the past few years she has been serving as an Israeli diplomat at the Israeli Consulate in Turkey. Along with her colleagues she faced harsh protests following Operation Cast Lead, which damaged the relations between the two countries. Not once did the diplomats receive death threats causing them to work from home or return to Israel. R. met V., a Turkish Jew, while flying to Israel. He was an El-Al security guard stationed in Istanbul and was hired by the Israeli consul. A few years ago, when El-Al stopped all flights to Turkey, V. became a guard for the colsulate, working closely with R. Just like the famous Hollywood film "The Bodyguard", which tells the tale of a romantic love story between bodyguard Kevin Costner and star Whitney Houston, R. and V. became romantically involved and the affair turned into a blossoming relationship.Initially they kept their love a secret, but when they decided to get married they faced a problem – according to Foreign Ministry policy couples cannot work together in the same delegation. R. filed a special request to allow V. to continue to work alongside her at the consulate in Turkey. A special Foreign Ministry committee looked into the matter and granted her unique request, seeing as the two had only a few more months to serve together. Recently the two arrived in Israel for a visit and exchanged vows in Jerusalem. They have been living together since then, and now V. plans to make aliyah and build their new home in Israel.Hmmmm.......Love is not blind - it sees more, not less. But because it sees more, it is willing to see less. Rabbi Julius Gordon. Read the full story here.

MFS - The Other News

                          Morning Posting.

• The volatile Lybian situation live streams here.

Hmmm....by the way it seems Al Yazeera is now available on cable in Canada?"If you live in Canada, contact the following cable and satellite providers to subscribe to Al Jazeera English" Bell TV: 516 - Cogeco: 182 - Rogers: 176 - Shaw: 513 - Videotron: 173

• Breaking !HT:IsraelMatzav.Pigs fly: US threatens Gadhafi.Israel Radio has just reported (9:00 am Thursday) that the United States has sent a message to Libyan dictator Muammar Gadhafi that if he does not stop using planes to attack his own people, he will be the subject of a NATO attack that will target him and not the civilian population. The source for the report is an article in the London-based Arabic daily al-Quds al-Arabi whose source is an unnamed European diplomat.Source.

• Al-Qaeda sets up "Islamic Emirate", Libya deputy FM says.Meanwhile Libya’s deputy foreign minister told E.U. ambassadors in Tripoli al-Qaeda has set up an Islamic emirate in Derna, in eastern Libya, headed by a former U.S. prisoner at Guantanamo Bay, However, residents in the city have told reporters there is no substance to these rumors, which they claim the Libyan government is sowing to "scare Europe.""Al-Qaeda has established an emirate in Derna led by Abdelkarim al-Hasadi, a former Guantanamo detainee," Khaled Khaim said."They have an FM radio station and have begun to impose the burqa" (head-to-toe covering for women) and have "executed people who refuse to cooperate with them."Khaim said Hasadi has a lieutenant, "also a member of al-Qaeda and named Kheirallah Baraassi" in al-Baida.Derna is the capital of a province by the same name in the region of Cyrenaica, some 1,250 kilometers (775 miles) east of Libya's capital Tripoli. Al-Baida lies about 100 kilometers west of Derna.Earlier, Italian Foreign Minister Francesco Franco Frattini said embattled Libyan leader Gaddafi had lost control of Cyrenaica and shared reports that an Islamic emirate had been declared there.Speaking at a meeting in Rome organized by the Community of Sant'Egidio, a Christian organisation, Frattini said here had been recent proclamations in Cyrenaica that it was now an Islamic emirate and calls to break with the West."It is a worrying development if radical Islam is only a few hundred kilometers away from the European Union's front door, but nothing can justify the violent death of hundreds of innocent civilians," he added.Hmmmmm......Thank you for releasing us President Barrack HUSSEIN Obama?Read the full story here.

• Mid-East Expert De Borchgrave: $400 a Barrel for Oil Imminent a.k.a. $15 a Gallon !Award-winning journalist Arnaud de Borchgrave tells Newsmax that the increasingly volatile situation in the Middle East could push the price of oil quickly to $300 or even $400 a barrel.De Borchgrave, who has interviewed Moammar Gadhafi six times, also says the Libyan leader is manic-depressive who is going through a manic phrase where he is “taking on the world.”A 30-year veteran of Newsweek magazine, de Borchgrave now is director of the Transnational Threats Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, editor-at-large at United Press International and The Washington Times, and a Newsmax correspondent.In an exclusive interview with Newsmax.TV, de Borchgrave discussed the impact that the uprisings in Libya, Iran, and other Middle Eastern nations could have on the price of oil. Some economists also have speculated that, if oil surged to $400, the pump price for gasoline could hit $15 a gallon.Oil was selling at more than $95 a barrel on Wednesday, and there’s no telling where prices at the pump — currently around $3.17 a gallon — could rise to if per-barrel oil prices soared to those levels, according to de Borchgrave.“This could get pretty bad because of what’s going on in Libya,” he says. “Libya pumps about 1.8 million barrels a day,” some of which is pumped out of the eastern region around Benghazi “which has now in effect seceded.“Libya supplies around 74 percent of Europe’s oil and if that is cut, which it could very well be in the next few days, oil will be spiking again.Reports out of Libya say hundreds of people have been killed in the Libyan government’s crackdown on protesters, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has called on Moammar Gadhafi to stop the bloodshed. Asked whether Gadhafi cares what the rest of the world says about him, de Borchgrave responds: “Not really. The man is not normal mentally.“I’ve interviewed him six times and have no hesitation in calling him a manic-depressive. I’ve seen him through his manic phases and his depressive phases. What he’s going through today would seem to be a manic phase, where he’s taking on the world. He’s talking about thousands of casualties, and his son is on television talking about fighting until the last drop of blood. It’s to be taken seriously.“The man is now in a manic phase and he thinks he’s going to take on the giant, the United States.”De Borchgrave warns about the danger the Muslim Brotherhood poses in the Middle East.“A lot of people are going around saying the Muslim Brotherhood has changed its colors, they’re a totally different political animal, they’re willing to work through the democratic process and fight fairly in elections. I would say, don’t believe that for a second.“We’ve just seen in the past few days some very extreme Muslim Brotherhood leaders showing up in Cairo for the first time in 50 years, in the case of one of them, and speaking about how much they hate the Jews and their American protectors.”Hmmm.....Obama is supporting these "Moderate" Muslimbrotherhood members.Read the full story here.

• HT:IsraelMatzav.Planes carrying Gadhafi's daughter, daughter-in-law denied landing rights.Two Libyan planes carrying members of dictator Muammar Ghadafi's family have been denied landing rights in the region.On Tuesday, a private plane carrying ten passengers was denied landing rights at Beirut International Airport. One of the passengers on the plane was Ghadafi's Lebanese daughter-in-law.Al-Jazeera TV correspondent Cal Perry reports that Gadhafi's only daughter, Ayesha, was aboard the plane that sought to land at Malta. Perry, quoting Maltese government sources, reports from Valletta, the capital, that at one point the Libyan ambassador to Malta was brought in to take part in negotiations with the pilot of the plane, who claimed he was running low on fuel. When Maltese authorities declared it an unscheduled flight that would not be allowed to land, the pilot said it was actually the scheduled flight from the previous day that was delayed. Perry says the plane circled for about 45 minutes before turning back.Hmmmm........I agree with Carl that unless the international community sends in troops a much bigger bloodbath is in laying ahead in the future.Read the full story here.

• Video : Navigating Libya's tribal maze.Intricate tribal structure plays a crucial role in both Libyan politics and the current pro-democracy opposition.Libya's complex tribal structure plays a crucial role in its politics and now in the pro-democracy opposition movement.Muammar Gaddafi has, for four decades, been at the helm of a country that is described as one of the most intricate tribal nations in the Middle East.Analysts say most of the major tribes are represented in the military, but Gaddafi has long relied on his own tribe, the Qathafa, to staff elite security brigades.Read and see the full story here.

• HT:WND.Obama's mystery links to Gadhafi uncovered.Gadhafi has been tied to Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama's spiritual adviser for more than 23 years. Prez fails to call for dictator's removal despite reports of attacks on citizens.JERUSALEM – As pressure mounts on the White House to intervene to stop Moammar Gadhafi's bloody crackdown in Libya, many commentators have been wondering why Barack Obama has been cautious in his criticism of the dictator after the U.S. president so fervently supported the removal from office of U.S. ally Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. But Gadhafi has been tied to Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama's spiritual adviser for more than 23 years. The Libyan dictator also has financed and strongly supported the Nation of Islam and its leader, Louis Farrakhan. Obama has ties to Farrakhan and his controversial group.Jeremiah Wright, former pastor of Obama's longtime Chicago church, went with Farrakhan to visit Gadhafi in 1984.During the 2008 presidential campaign, Wright himself noted the trip could cause problems for Obama. "When [Obama's] enemies find out that in 1984 I went to Tripoli to visit [Gadhafi] with Farrakhan, a lot of his Jewish support will dry up quicker than a snowball in hell." Farrakhan, a close friend and associate of Wright, has been financed by Gadhafi, including with a $5 million interest-free loan in 1985. Later that year, Gadhafi spoke by satellite to Farrakhan's Saviour's Day Convention in Chicago, and reportedly told Farrakhan supporters he was prepared to provide weapons to a black army in the U.S. to destroy "white America." In October 1995, Gadhafi reportedly called Farrakhan with congratulations on the success of the Million Man March. Gadhafi was said to have assured Farrakhan that together "we will unite our capabilities and efforts to achieve this." According to reports in 1996 from Libya's news agency, JANA, Farrakhan and Gadhafi agreed to work together to mobilize "oppressed blacks, Arabs, Muslims and Red Indians" to help reshape U.S. foreign policy. Gadhafi said that until his alliance with the Nation of Islam, "our confrontation with America was like a fight against a fortress from outside." He asserted his alliance with Farrakhan provides him with "a breach to enter into this fortress and confront it." Farrakhan went to Libya for multiple other events. He was the recipient in 1996 of the Gadhafi Human Rights Award, which came with a $250,000 prize. Farrakhan accepted the prize despite U.S. sanctions on Libya.Wright and Obama reportedly attended the Million Man March on Washington, which was led by Farrakhan and other prominent black leaders such as Al Sharpton. Rev. Willie Barrow, a member of the Obama campaign's official Faith Outreach Team and an Obama superdelegate, is a close friend of Farrakhan's and a staunch Nation of Islam supporter. Farrakhan stated in a 2002 interview he met with Barrow to devise his Nation of Islam platforms. Marxist activist Cornel West, an adviser to Farrakhan, also had been an adviser to Obama’s 2008 campaign and is a close Obama associate and personal friend. During the period of Obama's attendance at Wright's Trinity United Church, which practices controversial Black Liberation Theology ideology, the Chicago church was openly allied with Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam.Obama has appeared at least three times on the cover of Trumpet magazine, founded by Wright. The magazine, to which Obama last year granted a lengthy, exclusive interview, regularly hails Farrakhan. Obama's face was featured on the cover of a 2006 issue of Trumpet alongside Farrakhan's image. Another Obama connection to supporters of Farrakhan comes from David Axelrod, Obama's chief political strategist. Although he is Jewish, Axelrod sits on the finance committee of St. Sabina, the Chicago Catholic parish that was led by controversial pastor Michael Pfleger, an outspoken Farrakhan supporter who hosted the Nation of Islam chief at his parish several times. The Archdiocese of Chicago temporarily removed Pfleger from his duties at St. Sabina in 2008 following a well-publicized guest sermon at Trinity church in which Pfleger claimed Hillary Clinton cried in public because she thought being white entitled her to the Democratic presidential nomination.Hmmmm.....Impeachment is the only possible action to take with this Presidents conduct.Read the full treason story here.

• HT:MichelleMalkin.Video: CWA union thug strikes young female FreedomWorks activist.This is Tabitha Hale, a young conservative activist/original Tea Party organizer/blogger who works for Washington, D.C.-based FreedomWorks. I know her from her great grass-roots work with Smart Girl Politics when the Tea Party movement was just emerging.Today, Big Labor groups took their Grievance March to the offices of FreedomWorks.Among the groups protesting: the Communications Workers of America. They’re one of the heavyweight labor biggies that have received a coveted Obamacare Waiver for Favors. CWA facts here.This is one of the CWA t-shirt-wearing goons who showed up at the protest at FreedomWorks today:Thankfully, Hale tells me she wasn’t hurt. But there is no doubt from this video that the CWA t-shirt-wearing goon should be prosecuted for assault.They said it: “Get a little bloody.” It’s the union way.Civility police, where are you now?Hmmmm.....Obama"Get in their faces"Sounds familiar?Reminds me of 1934 brownshirts "Sieg Heil" und der Führer.Read the full story here.

• HT:Newstime.(Extremely Graphic photo) Journalist Michael Mannheimer “The hidden reality: Global Persecution of Christians by Islam!Google translate The left photo shows the incredible suffering faced by the victims subjected by the hatred of Islam against all non-Islamic, before they are redeemed from their suffering by death are.“The picture expresses exactly the brutality and the perverse and cynical and inhuman hate on Christians.This hatred reigns today in the minds of many Muslims to be whispers and suggests legitimacy of so-called Islamic scholars and imams. In view of such violence against Christians should slowly begin to wake up the Christian flock, which ill virus ideology. That should give food for thought.Hmmm......This could come straight out of a horror movie ,only this is reality !Is this what awaits Christians all over the world thanks to "Outreach to Muslims"?Read and Witness the full story here.

• HT:EuropeNews.Psychologist: Western Quran schools are "terrorist factories".How to turn normal human beings into murderous and hateful psychopaths who blindly obey their totalitarian systems and its authorities suppressing and killing innocent people? In short: How to create a terrorist?Violent and murderous political, ethnic and religious regimes have used the same effective methods throughout history all over the world. The procedure consists of two simple steps that are repeated again and again:

1. You force a person to repeat the system's doctrine again and again for months and years until he or she knows every word by heart and it pervades his or her whole way of thinking and it is the only truth they believe in.
2. You beat and scare the person (best if this is done randomly and severely), thus forcing him or her to become insensitive and unempathic in order to be able to bare the physical and psychological suffering and in order to increase feelings of anger, frustration and fear - feelings that are then directed against the system's enemies.In this way you will create a person whose whole being is pervaded by the system's doctrine and who has lost the ability to feel both his own and others’ pain. You will have an emotionally cold person that blindly follows his authorities and their political or religious doctrine. If you use this method on a child who is in the process of developing its personality, the learned doctrine will simply become a part of the child's personality. The psychological impact of the physical abuse will also be deeper. As children and youth are dependent on acceptance from adults, they are easier to influence.Being a child psychologist I was shocked to realise that this is exactly what is done to millions of Muslim children in both the Muslim world and the West. Tens of thousand of madrassas and Quranic schools all over the world are making their students repeat the Quran and the Hadiths again and again, until they know them by heart. They are told to believe every word and never to question neither the way nor the goal.It is normal in these schools that the defenceless and innocent children are randomly beaten and humiliated by the teachers and older students - who themselves are emotionally destroyed beings who have been abused the same way as they now use against their pupils. They personify the goal: The abused becomes the abuser.This also includes changing a central pattern of the Muslim culture - child raising - and the Muslim cultures massive failing of integration into non-Islamic cultures has proven that changing basic cultural values and behavior within the Muslim communities are almost impossible. Should we in spite of the emmense challenges be able to remove the wide spread abuse, the children are still learning the Quran by heart and are taught to take every word at face value, which is exactly what Islamic terrorists do. Millions of children attend the madrassas and when they and their subsequent generations grow up, the consequences will be big.Hmmmm...."Telling the truth after proper investigation is the height of courage." - Wafa Sultan.Read the full story here.

• Lawyer: US faces moral test over Furkan’s death in Israeli raid.The lawyer of the youngest Mavi Marmara victim, Furkan Doğan, who was shot dead by Israeli commandos on May 31 last year, said Doğan’s death will be a moral test for the US and show whether the country’s perception of law changes based on the ethnic roots and beliefs of citizens.Lawyer Ramazan Arıtürk, who is in the US with Furkan’s father, Ahmet Doğan, to observe first-hand the ongoing investigations regarding Furkan’s death, told reporters in Washington on Tuesday that he had talks with the advisers of Senator John Kerry and Representative Barbara Lee and that he will also talk to officials at the White House and the justice and state departments. Arıtürk said he would request that US officials appeal to the International Criminal Court for this “crime against humanity.”Hmmmm.....Obama and Erdogan have now something extra to talk about."Your enemy is my enemy"?Read the full story here.

• Emine Erdoğan carries tragedy of women to UN session and blames Israel.Emine Erdoğan, wife of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, addressed a session at the United Nations on Tuesday, largely focusing on the tragedy of women in Bangladesh, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Gaza Strip, Iraq and Pakistan. Mrs. Erdoğan addressed the 55th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women as an honorary guest. She appealed to participants’ consciences, drawing attention to the economic injustices between rich and poor countries. “We can watch the incidents occurring in all parts of the country through our hearts, and not our eyes,” she stated.Mrs. Erdoğan traveled to New York earlier this week with State Minister for Women and Family Affairs Selma Aliye Kavaf to participate in the session, which took place at the UN headquarters.“In Bangladesh I saw mothers looking for pieces of bread in dumpsters in the middle of the night for their disabled children. I witnessed the loneliness of poor women who lost all of their family members after the disastrous floods in Pakistan. I saw women whose honor had been cruelly stained in Sarajevo. And in Iraq, I saw women who had lost their husbands, children and future. In Gaza, Jerusalem and Ramallah, I saw women whose hope, voice, breath and rights were stolen and whose children were killed by phosphorus bombs. I am sure that you all saw those women, too,” she stated.Hmmmm......How about the women and childeren slaughtered by the Turks during the Armenian Genocide?We saw them also !Read the full story here.

• Ahmadinejad outraged by Libyan repression.Mideast unrest will reach US, Europe: Iran president.Iran's president said Wednesday he is certain the wave of unrest in the Middle East will spread to Europe and North America, bringing an end to governments he accused of oppressing and humiliating people."The world is on the verge of big developments. Changes will be forthcoming and will engulf the whole world from Asia to Africa and from Europe to North America," Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told a news conference Wednesday.The tone of the remarks seemed to draw on the belief by Shiite Muslims that a revered ninth century saint known as the Hidden Imam, will reappear before judgment day to end tyranny and promote justice in the world.Ahmadinejad, whose own country resorted to violence to disperse an opposition rally earlier this month where two protesters were killed, also condemned Libya's use of force against demonstrators, calling the repression "unimaginable." "It is unimaginable that someone is killing his citizens, bombarding his citizens," Ahmadinejad said on state television when asked about the situation in Libya."How can officers be ordered to use bullets from machine guns, tanks and guns against their own citizens?"Hmmm.....The pot blaming the kettle"?Read the full story here.

• Guess who is suing Coca Cola? As if it wasn't bad enough for The Coca-Cola Co that the closely-guarded secret recipe for its flagship brand was revealed last week, the company is now being sued over the discovery that the soft drink purportedly contains alcohol.According to Israel Business Arena, an Israeli Muslim has filed a NIS1.2bn (US$332.8m) class action suit against Israeli Coca-Cola franchisee The Central Bottling Co for compensation for "mental anguish and infringing the independent choices of the individual".The recipe, it seems, contains 8oz or "1 qtr" of alcohol, and given that alcohol is forbidden by Islam law, the claimant believes he has been "unwittingly drinking alcohol for years". Subsequently, the class action suit is seeking NIS1,000 for each of the 1.2m Muslims living in Israel.Given that The Coca-Cola Co has denied the recipe is the same as the one for its cola beverage, which is kept in an Atlanta bank vault, the claimant might want to try cracking that one first.Hmmmm...Could coca Cola get compensation for having to put up with jokers like that?Read the full story here.HT:AlwaysOnWatch.

• HT:InfidelBloggers.Spain: Muslims Don't Want Dogs In The Streets.Islamic associations have called on the Lleida City Council to enact local legislation to prohibit the presence of dogs in city buses and in some areas frequented mostly by Muslims, to be considered "unclean" in Islam.Hmmmm......Obama "Islam is a great religion".Read the full story here.

• HT:BarracudaBrigade.Obama/Holder Refuse to Enforce/Defend, "Defense of Marriage Act." Impeach Now !!!WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration says it will no longer defend the constitutionality of a federal law that bans recognition of same-sex marriage. In a statement Wednesday, Attorney General Eric Holder says President Obama has concluded that the administration can no longer defend the federal law that defines marriage as only between a man and a woman. The Justice Department had defended the Defense of Marriage Act in court until now.Megyn Kelly Rips Holder/Obama. Points out, "It's Federal Law."WASHINGTON (AP) — In a major policy reversal, the Obama administration said Wednesday it will no longer defend the constitutionality of a federal law banning recognition of same-sex marriage.Attorney General Eric Holder said President Barack Obama has concluded that the administration cannot defend the federal law that defines marriage as only between a man and a woman. He noted that the congressional debate during passage of the Defense of Marriage Act “contains numerous expressions reflecting moral disapproval of gays and lesbians and their intimate and family relationships – precisely the kind of stereotype-based thinking and animus the (Constitution’s)Equal Protection Clause is designed to guard against.”The Justice Department had defended the act in court until now.The move quickly drew praise from some Democrats in Congress but a sharp response from the spokesman for Republican John Boehner, the House Speaker.“While Americans want Washington to focus on creating jobs and cutting spending, the president will have to explain why he thinks now is the appropriate time to stir up a controversial issue that sharply divides the nation,” said Boehner’s spokesman Michael Steel.Holder’s statement said, “Much of the legal landscape has changed in the 15 years since Congress passed” the Defense of Marriage Act. He noted that the Supreme Court has ruled that laws criminalizing homosexual conduct are unconstitutional and that Congress has repealed the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.At the White House, spokesman Jay Carney said Obama himself is still “grappling” with his personal view of gay marriage but has always personally opposed the Defense of Marriage Act as “unnecessary and unfair.”Hmmm....Anything go's to push America towards civil war so that the great leader can become ruler for life?Read the full story here.

• Mass Dem Rep. Mike Capuano: Hey, Sorry I Called on My Union Goons to Draw “Blood”…[While pointing to Tea Party activists]!U.S. Rep. Michael Capuano expressed regret Wednesday for his choice of words at a Tuesday rally to support Wisconsin workers, after national and local Republicans pounced on him for “over-the-top and inflammatory rhetoric.”“Congressman Mike Capuano must have lost the memo from President Obama and Democratic leaders who were demanding more civility in our political discourse and a toning down of incendiary rhetoric after the massacre in Tucson on January 8,” the Massachusetts Republican Party wrote in a Wednesday statement. “Yesterday, at a rally on Beacon Hill, Capuano couldn’t resist the urge to stir up a crowd of union members with a call for blood in the pursuit and protection of their political agenda.”During the Tuesday rally — a gathering of more than 1,000 union supporters protesting a proposal by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker to diminish the collective bargaining rights of public sector workers in that state — Capuano, speaking in front of the State House, fired up the crowd by saying, “I’m proud to be here with people who understand that it’s more than just sending an email to get you going. Every once and awhile you need to get out on the streets and get a little bloody when necessary.”After Republicans took aim at his rhetoric, Capuano issued a statement expressing regret for his language, although at the time it drew wild applause and cheers from the throngs of union supporters.Capuano also referred to a vastly outnumbered throng of Tea Party counter-protesters as “a couple of nuts in the background who want to take it all away from you,” waving his hand dismissively in their direction. Throughout the three-hour rally, rank-and-file union members traded heated barbs with the Tea Party backers. Some clashes nearly escalated into violence and resulted in police intervention. In one case, a pro-union rallier spit in the face of one of the counter-protesters, who set up camp near the rally.Capuano’s comments quickly drew contrasts with the call for a more civil tone in national political rhetoric by President Barack Obama and politicians across the country after a mass shooting in Tucson that injured Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Capuano was reportedly among those who agreed with Obama’s call, telling the Boston Globe in January, “Everybody knows the last couple of years there’s been an intentional increase in the degree of heat in political discourse . . . If nothing else good comes out of this, I’m hoping it causes people to reconsider how they deal with things.’’Hmmmm.......The new 'civil' way of politics.Read the full story here.

• Saudi king back home, orders $37 bln in handouts. Saudi King Abdullah returned home on Wednesday after a three-month medical absence and unveiled benefits for Saudis worth some $37 billion (23 billion pounds) in an apparent bid to insulate the world's top oil exporter from an Arab protest wave.The king, who had been convalescing in Morocco after back surgery in New York in November, stood as he descended from the plane in a special lift. He then took to a wheelchair.Hundreds of men in white robes performed a traditional Bedouin sword dance on carpets laid out at Riyadh airport for the return of the monarch, thought to be 87.Abdullah left his ailing octogenarian half-brother, Crown Prince Sultan, in charge during his absence.Before Abdullah arrived, state media announced an action plan to help lower- and middle-income people among the 18 million Saudi nationals. It includes pay rises to offset inflation, unemployment benefits and affordable family housing.Saudi Arabia has so far escaped popular protests against poverty, corruption and oppression that have raged across the Arab world, toppling entrenched leaders in Egypt and Tunisia and even spreading to Bahrain, linked to the kingdom by a causeway.Significantly, Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa was among the princes thronging the tarmac when Abdullah flew in.King Hamad freed about 250 political prisoners on Wednesday and has offered dialogue with protesters, mostly from Bahrain's Shi'ite majority, who demand more say in the Sunni-ruled island.Riyadh would be worried if unrest in Bahrain, where seven people were killed and hundreds wounded last week, spread to its own disgruntled Shi'ite minority in the oil-rich east.Hundreds of people have backed a Facebook call for a Saudi "day of rage" on March 11 to demand an elected ruler, greater freedom for women and the release of political prisoners.Saudi analysts said the king might soon reshuffle his cabinet to inject fresh blood and revive stalled reforms.Saudi stability is of global concern. A key U.S. ally, the top OPEC producer holds more than a fifth of world oil reserves.The king announced no political reforms such as municipal council polls demanded by opposition groups. Saudi Arabia has no elected parliament or parties and allows little public dissent.Jeddah-based Saudi analyst Turad al-Amri welcomed what he called "a nice gesture" from the king, saying the measures were not unprecedented or prompted by Arab protests elsewhere.But other Saudis were critical. "We want rights, not gifts," said Fahad Aldhafeeri in one typical message on Twitter."They are under pressure. They have to do something. We know Saudi Arabia is surrounded by revolutions of various types, and not just in poor countries, but in some such as Libya which are rich," said Mai Yamani, at London's Chatham House think tank. "Basically what the king is doing is good, but it's an old message of using oil money to buy the silence, subservience and submission of the people," she said. "The new generation of revolution is surrounding them from everywhere."Read the full story here.

• High oil prices risk for global economic recovery: IEAOil producers, users sign charter as prices spike.Energy producer and consumer states signed a charter in Riyadh on Tuesday aimed at limiting price volatility and stabilizing the market, even as Middle East turmoil propelled prices to two-year highs.The non-binding charter was signed by 87 countries, representing 90 percent of global oil production and consumption, said Saudi Arabia's deputy oil minister, Prince Abdul Aziz bin Salman."We are here today to formally and officially confirm the approval of the IEF (International Energy Forum) charter," Prince Abdul Aziz said at the opening meeting of the IEF extraordinary ministerial meeting.The host country's oil minister, Ali al-Naimi, said the charter aims to create a "global energy market characterized by transparency and stability" and to "strengthen cooperation for the benefit of future generations."On the eve of the forum, Prince Abdul Aziz said the one-day meeting would also tackle the key issues of short-term price volatility and long-term demand and supply of crude oil and gas.IEF's secretary general, Noe van Hulst, has said the group's ministers agreed that sharp fluctuations in the market were harmful.Oil prices soared to near $93 a barrel Tuesday in Asia as Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi struggled to maintain his grip on power in the OPEC nation amid violent protests calling for his resignation.Concern among traders is growing that some of Libya's crude exports of 1.0 million barrels a day could be affected as foreign oil companies evacuate staff from the country. Traders are also eyeing protests in Iran, the second-largest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries."Unlike Egypt, Libya is a significant producer of crude and we may be seeing the largest disruptions since the start of the second Gulf War," energy consultant The Schork Report said.Analysts are also worried the jump in energy costs could hurt consumer spending and stymie a fragile recovery in developed countries. The crisis in the Middle East and North Africa - which has brought down governments in Tunisia and Egypt and sparked protests in Yemen, Bahrain, Iran, and Jordan - has added about $10 to the price of crude, according to Capital Economics."An additional $10 on the price of oil is not insignificant, particularly for weaker economies in Europe facing a major fiscal squeeze," Capital Economics said in a report. "Given the pace at which events are unfolding it would be daft to rule out a spike to $140 or beyond in the coming weeks if the unrest disrupts output from the larger oil producers."Oil companies, including Italy's Eni, Royal Dutch Shell PLC, U.K.-based BP and Germany's Wintershall, a subsidiary of BASF, were evacuating their expat workers or their families or both. BP and Wintershall said they were temporarily suspending operations; Eni said production continued normally.Libya is one of the world's biggest oil producers and has the largest proven oil reserves in the whole of Africa. Eni, Italy's largest natural gas and oil company, has operated there for more than 50 years and is the biggest foreign player in Libya.Hmmmmmm......Dammed that "Outreach to Muslims" policy has yielded great rewards Mr President.Read the full story here.

• Turkey - Syriac  4Th century Christian monastery to be included in Muslim Faith Park.The thousands-of-years-old Syriac Mor Yakup Monastery complex in Mardin’s Nusaybin district is being restored. The historic monastery and a nearby tomb of a 13th-generation grandchild of the Prophet Mohammed will be united and opened to tourism as a Culture and Faith Park Complex. Mardin Gov. Hasan Duruer says the project will emphasize the beauty of living together.The Mor Yakup complex, which dates back to the year 326 and belongs to a Syriac community foundation, will be united with the 12th-century Zeynel Abidin complex and open to tourism as a “Culture and Faith Park” in the coming months.“We hope to contribute to the economy by reviving faith and culture tourism in Nusaybin,” Mardin Gov. Hasan Duruer told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review. He said their aim was to strengthen the dialogue between cultures. “Polarization between cultures and faiths increases in our daily lives. This project to build a culture and faith park aims to emphasize the beauty of brotherhood and living next to one another.”The thousands-of-years-old church has recently come up due to the increasing number of attacks on it.The governor said the monastery complex was abandoned prior to the restoration. “A place for a metropolitan bishop, which was constructed in 1872, was used as a house by a Muslim family. The part of the monastery that was underground was forested; that’s why no obvious trace of the monastery was visible.”Duruer said the works in Nusaybin would not be limited to the Mor Yakup Church and the Zeynel Abidin complex. The restoration of the fourth-century Mor Evgin Monastery, which still lies within the borders of Nusaybin, will also start in the near future. “Nusaybin will have an important tourism potential once these historic renovations are done.”Hmmmm....."You shall have no other Gods before me".Read the full story here.

• Michelle Obama has Personal Shopper.Wearing black and a beaded headband, Goldman, 43, cheerily accepted double-cheek Fashion Week salutations, posed for a few pictures and gabbed with Linda Fargo, fashion director of Bergdorf Goodman. The music began to thump, and the acclaimed stylist went to work, eyeballing each geometric print that sailed down the catwalk.Having Michelle Obama as a mega-client earned Goldman this spotlight, but according to several people with knowledge of her White House arrangement, she is no longer the shopper in chief.That coveted role is now played by Goldman's former protegee and current White House employee, Meredith Koop. The ascent of the 29-year-old personal assistant has caught the imagination of Fashion Week gossips, East Wing obsessives and "All About Eve" fans for weeks. A former Vanderbilt University sorority sister, Koop learned fashion gospel at the altar of Ikram, Goldman's eponymous Chicago boutique. Two years ago, when Michelle Obama left for Washington, Goldman dispatched Koop as an emissary, attending to the first lady's dressing needs inside the family residence. Koop has taken full advantage of proximity to power. Her portfolio has expanded, at the expense of her mentor. This season Koop is in, and Goldman is out.Hmmmm....."We all have to make sacrifices"?Read the full story here.

• And now for something completely different.Video : Cancer and Cell Phones: Study Finds No Link.Hmmm... at the end of the clip he says"As long as we don't know longterm effects"........It can't hurt????Read and see the full story here.