MFS - The Other News

                    Morning Posting.

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity situation Indonesia 5.5 - 5.4 ; Peru 5.1 !More info here.

• Obama Aides Say He Will Bypass Congress And Focus On Executive Orders During Reelection Campaign, “At Least Two Or Three Per Week".(AP).Leaving behind a year of bruising legislative battles, President Barack Obama enters his fourth year in office having calculated that he no longer needs Congress to promote his agenda and may even benefit in his re-election campaign if lawmakers accomplish little in 2012.Absent any major policy pushes, much of the year will focus on winning a second term. The president will keep up a robust domestic travel schedule and aggressive campaign fundraising and use executive action to try to boost the economy.Aides say the president will not turn his back on Congress completely in the new year. He is expected to once again push lawmakers to pass elements of his jobs bill that were blocked by Republicans last fall.If those efforts fail, the White House says, Obama’s re-election year will focus almost exclusively on executive action.Earnest said Obama will come out with at least two or three directives per week, continuing the “We Can’t Wait” campaign the administration began this fall, and try to define Republicans in Congress as gridlocked and dysfunctional.Hmmm......sic infit.""Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty". ~ Plato.Read the full story here.

• George Washington writes a letter to President Obama.(PE).Dear Mr. President: Although it is two hundred years, and more, since I laid down the cares of an eventful temporal existence and took up residence in my long home, Our Gracious Lord has seen fit to bestow upon my spirit the gift of perpetual cognition, and He has granted the further boon of permitting me, for a few moments, to assume sufficient corporeality to pen this letter, which I place before Your Excellency as the cri de coeur of a patriot whose efforts on behalf of his country have been deemed by its citizens to possess no little significance.Read the full story here.

• President Obama makes Judicial Watch’s “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians”” list for a fifth consecutive year.(JW). President Obama makes Judicial Watch’s “Ten Most Wanted” list for a fifth consecutive year. (The former Illinois Senator was also a “Dishonorable Mention” in 2006.) And when it comes to Obama corruption, it may not get any bigger than Solyndra. Solyndra was once known as the poster child for the Obama administration’s massive “green energy” initiative, but it has become the poster child for the corruption that ensues when the government meddles in the private sector. Solyndra filed for bankruptcy in September 2011, leaving 1,100 workers without jobs and the American taxpayers on the hook for $535 million thanks to an Obama administration stimulus loan guarantee.Despite the Obama administration’s reticence to release details regarding this scandal, much is known about this shady deal. White House officials warned the president that the Department of Energy’s loan guarantee program was “dangerously short on due diligence,” nonetheless the Obama administration rushed the Solyndra loan through the approval process so it could make a splash at a press event. The company’s main financial backer was a major Obama campaign donor named George Kaiser. While the White House said Kaiser never discussed the loan with White House officials, the evidence suggests this is a lie. And, further demonstrating the political nature of the Obama administration’s activities, the Energy Department pressured Solyndra to delay an announcement on layoffs until after the 2010 elections. Despite the public outrage at this scandalous waste of precious tax dollars, President Obama continues to defend the indefensible and has refused to sack anyone over the Solyndra mess.President Obama continues to countenance actions by his appointees that undermine the rule of law and constitutional government:

1. Despite a ban on funding that Obama signed into law, his administration continues to fund the corrupt and allegedly defunct “community” organization ACORN. In July 2011 Judicial Watch uncovered a $79,819 grant to AHCOA (Affordable Housing Centers of America), the renamed ACORN Housing which has a long history of corrupt activity. In absolute violation of the funding ban, Judicial Watch has since confirmed that the Obama administration has funneled $730,000 to the ACORN network, a group that has a long personal history with President Obama.In 2011, JW released a special report entitled “The Rebranding of ACORN,” which details how the ACORN network is alive and well and well-placed to undermine the integrity of the 2012 elections – evidently with the assistance of the Obama administration.
2. Barack Obama apparently believes it is his “prerogative” to ignore the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law when it comes to appointing czars. According to Politico: “President Barack Obama is planning to ignore language in the 2011 spending package that would ban several top White House advisory posts. Obama said this ban on “czars” would undermine “the President’s ability to exercise his constitutional responsibilities and take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” In other words, Barack Obama believes he must ignore the U.S. Constitution to protect the U.S. Constitution. Many Obama administration czars have not been subject to confirmation by the U.S. Senate as required by the U.S. Constitution. In 2011, JW released a first-of-its-kind comprehensive report on the Obama czar scandal, entitled “President Obama’s Czars.”
3. In an historic victory for Judicial Watch and an embarrassing defeat for the Obama White House, a federal court ruled on August 17, 2011 that Secret Service White House visitor logs are agency records that are subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell issued the decision in Judicial Watch v. Secret Service. The Obama administration now will have to release all records of all visitors to the White House – or explain why White House visits should be kept secret under the law. The Obama White House continues to fight full disclosure and has stalled the release of records by appealing the lower court decision.(Judicial Watch gave Obama a “failing grade” on transparency in testimony before Congress in 2011. (Read the testimony in full as well as additional congressional testimony during a hearing entitled “White House Transparency, Visitor Logs and Lobbyists.”)
4. In 2011, the Obama National Labor Relations Board sought to prevent the Seattle-based Boeing Company from opening a $750 million non-union assembly line in North Charleston, South Carolina, to manufacture its Dreamliner plane. Judicial Watch obtained documents from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) showing this lawsuit was politically motivated. Judicial Watch uncovered documents showing NLRB staff cheerleading for Big Labor, mouthing Marxist, anti-American slurs and showing contempt for Congress related to the agency’s lawsuit against Boeing, including email correspondence attacking members of Congress. And it starts at the top. Obama bypassed Congress and recess-appointed Craig Becker, who is connected to the AFL-CIO, the SEIU and ACORN, to the NRLB.
5. Obama’s corrupt Chicago dealings continued to haunt him in 2011.Obama’s real estate partner, campaign fundraiser and Obama pork recipient Antoin “Tony” Rezko was finally sentenced to jail this year as was former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, who is now set to serve 14 years for attempting to sell Obama’s former Senate seat to the highest bidder. The FBI continues to withhold from Judicial Watch documents of its historic interview of then-Senator Obama about the Illinois corruption scandal. The FBI interview was conducted in December, 2008, about one month before Obama was sworn into the presidency.Read the full story here.

• Obama Fundraiser Found Guilty of $21 Million Bank Fraud.(Amerpundit).As Jammie notes, it’s odd how many of Barack Obama’s buddies end up in prison on felony charges. It’s almost like he’s part of a culture of corruption or something.A Democratic fundraiser was found guilty Friday of engineering a $21 million bank fraud scheme.Courtney Dupree was convicted of vastly overstating the billings of his Long Island City-based lighting company GDC Acquisitions in order to fraudulently obtain a loan from Amalgamated Bank.Dupree sat stone-faced as the verdict was read in Brooklyn Federal Court. He faces up to 30 years in prison.The guy has big connections to Democratic politics: Dupree, who attended the elite Wharton School of Business, was a rainmaker in Democratic circles.In 2008, Dupree hosted a $1,000-a-ticket fund-raiser for Barack Obama at his Broad St. apartment that was attended by top aide Valerie Jarrett.His company counted NBC Universal and Goldman Sachs among its clients.In turn, NBC Universal and Goldman Sachs have been big sources of fundraising money for the Obama campaign and other Democratic causes.Hmmm....."A man is known by the company he keeps"?Read the full story here.

• Staten Island jihadi snitches on co-religionists, says pro-jihad Muslim in U.S. military.(DocsTalk).Just one? via S.I. jihadi Abdel Hameed Shehadeh rats out a big roster of plotters – NY Daily News.A TERRORIST wanna-be from Staten Island ratted out dozens of people he called pro-jihadists in New York and Hawaii after he was arrested by the FBI-NYPD Joint Terrorist Task Force, it was revealed Tuesday.Abdel Hameed Shehadeh was a fount of information when lawmen interrogating him last year in Honolulu showed him more than 40 photos of possible evildoers, according to court papers filed in Brooklyn Federal Court.Shehadeh’s lawyer is seeking to suppress the 22-page FBI report in which Shehadeh spills his guts. The alleged rogues’ gallery he describes includes Brooklyn teachers of the Islamic orthodoxy Salafism, a livery cab driver, an Ethiopian Muslim in the U.S. Army and a College of Staten Island student who attended a fund-raiser at Brooklyn College for a terrorist.Others he ID’d had delivered pro-jihadist speeches at mosques or ranted in online chat rooms, he said, and included a reputed member of the terror group Hamas who lives in Syracuse.Most bizarre is the homeless husband-and-wife — she comes from a wealthy family and he drives a luxury BMW sedan — who watched a beheading video with Shehadeh, according to an FBI report.Shehadeh recalled attending a lecture at the Brooklyn Islamic Center in 2008 with someone named “Omar” and a second man who peddled pro-jihad T-shirts. “Almost everything [Omar] and his friend . . . talked about was jihad,” the report states.The names of the persons of interest are being withheld by the Daily News because Shehadeh’s claims could not be independently confirmed.Did the Daily News try?Shehadeh’s lawyer publicly filed the FBI report as part of a motion to suppress his client’s post-arrest snitching and statements about his own radicalization.Shehadeh signed an affidavit claiming he was tricked into waiving his constitutional right against self-incrimination.The Brooklyn-born Shehadeh, 22, is charged with lying to the feds about a failed attempt to travel to Pakistan and join the Taliban.He also tried to join the U.S. Army himself, but was rejected because he failed to disclose his overseas trips.“At some point after stopping the interview, Shehadeh was asked what he was thinking about. (He) answered, ‘How much I incriminated myself,’ ” Special Agent John Tinning and Detective Angel Maysonet wrote.Comment: I have not corroborated this story-I post it to simply demonstrate that the infiltration continues. It has been going on for years. The documentation abounds yet has been suppressed by the msm-ask yourself why? Hmmmm.........Jihadis Cair Care free in America?Read the full story here.

• E-Z to follow instructions: how to escape any traffic stop without a ticket!(DougRoss).Stopped for a traffic violation and don't want to get hit with an expensive ticket? Just follow these simple instructions:

1. When the police officer asks for your driver's license and registration, state: "No habla ingles."
2. As the police officer figures out how to react, recite the following sentence (preferably using a exaggerated accent): "I am an illegal alien to the United States."
3. Before the police officer can react to your second statement, close the deal with: "You are not allowed to ask for my papers. Eric Holder said so."
4. After the police officer shrugs, closes his traffic investigation pad and sends you on your way, put the car in D (not R, heh) and slowly drive away from the scene. Try not to unleash an evil cackle.Note: If you are hassled at all, contact La Raza or some other separatist front group for the government of Mexico and figure out how to sue the city, town or county in question.After all, according to the Obama administration and the Holder DOJ, no one has a right to ask you for your papers. And anyone who does so must be profiling.Read the full story here.

• Electric Car Company that Received $529 Million Federal Loan Recalls Vehicles.(TheHill).An electric vehicle manufacturer that received a $529 million loan from the Energy Department is recalling 239 vehicles.The Transportation Department’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said Thursday that the company, Fisker Automotive, will recall its Karma vehicles made between July 1, 2011, and Nov. 3, 2011, because of a faulty electric battery component that could cause a fire.“Within the high-voltage battery, certain hose clamps may have been positioned incorrectly during assembly. If positioned incorrectly, the batter compartment cover could interfere with the hose clamps, potentially causing a coolant leak from the cooling hose,” NHTSA said in its recall notice Thursday.“If coolant enters the battery compartment, an electrical short could occur possibly resulting in a fire.”The Energy Department issued a $529 million loan to Fisker in April 2010 for the development of its plug-in electric vehicles.The administration has come under fire for issuing the loan after ABC News reported in October that Fisker is making its vehicles in Finland because it could not find a contractor in America to manufacture them.The Energy Department said in October that the loan was used to develop manufacturing processes for the Karma, at the company’s U.S. facilities.The department also said the larger portion of the loan — $359 million — was supporting production of Fisker’s Nina vehicles, and that Fisker used this funding to bring a shuttered General Motors plant in Delaware back to life. That plant employs 2,500 people, according to the Energy Department.The news comes after Republicans have pummeled the Obama administration for issuing a $535 million loan guarantee in 2009 to the now-bankrupt California solar panel manufacturer Solyndra. Hmmmm.....How much floated back to the reelect Obama fund?Read the full story here.

• US Civilians Are Now Helping Decide Who To Kill With Military Drones.(BLN).Source: Business Insider. President Obama’s enormous expansion of the U.S. drone program may be pushing too fast for military staffing to keep up.David S. Cloud of The Los Angeles Times reports the military is now forced to rely on a string of civilian contractors placed at all levels along the “kill chain.” These are the people who analyze incoming drone video and decide when to fire Hellfire missiles.The practice is not new.According to Cloud, an American civilian played a “central” role in the Predator attack that accidentally killed 15 Afghans in 2010, information that “surprised” the investigating Army officer.Manning the drone fleet is a mounting issue in the Air Force.It takes more staff to fly a drone than an F-15, and with more drones than ever in the air, non-government employees are increasingly employed to analyze video, and keep the UAVs in the air.The Air Force says it takes 168 people to fly a Predator for 24 hours, and 300 people to keep a Global Hawk aloft for the same time.The Air Force owns 230 Reapers, Predators, and Global Hawks — flying 50 of them at any given time.But it’s the 730 more drones being added to the fleet over the next 10 years that may explain why military personnel are now being asked to fly four drones at once.Announced last week and received with a wealth of concerns, the four drone per pilot program raises further concerns about an already legally muddled program.Despite public resistance, legal questions, and additional pilot stress, military officials in the U.S. and Britain are already claiming to see “great promise” with the four drone program.Unless the military drastically increases its recruiting efforts, with the defense cuts a huge improbability, there is likely to be an increasing number of civilians, working for profitable corporations, helping make decisions on when to fire U.S. weapons.While the Air Force tries to maintain certain standards within its ranks, attempting to root out those with questionable legal backgrounds, and poor “moral standing,” every corporation within the kill chain is guided by its own hiring practices.Read the full story here.

• Report: Son of Islamic Jihad founder jailed in Syria.(YNet).The son of Islamic Jihad founder Fathi Shaqaqi was arrested by security forces in Syria, an Egyptian newspaper reported Saturday.According to the report, the 20-year-old Ibrahim Fathi Shaqaqi was taken into custody from his home in the Al-Yarmouk refugee camp. A relative told the newspaper that the security forces detained the youth without allowing the family to see him or giving them any information of his whereabouts. Senior Islamic Jihad officials were prohibited from visiting him as well. Fathi Shaqaqi, the father, was assassinated in Malta in 1995. The relative said that Ibrahim is not the only Islamic Jihad operative to be imprisoned in Syria. Despite the close ties between the Damascus and the militant group, the Syrian authorities refused the Jihad's request to release its militants when the uprising against President Bashar Assad began.Ibrahim's family claimed that Assad's regime forces are intentionally refusing to reveal the location where he and the other operatives are held.Despite the presence of Arab League monitors in the country, and calls from the US and the EU to allow the observers full access, the violent crackdown on protesters continued over the weekend. According to reports by al-Arabiya, as many as 43 people died in Friday's violence, including five members of Syria's security forces.Read the full story here.

• Gaza Strip’s Hamas prime minister Haniya is always welcome in Turkey, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu.(HurriyetDaily). Ismail Haniya is expected to travel to Turkey soon.“As a country that helps and defends Gaza and considers this issue a matter of human rights, we welcome any visit from Gaza in principle. We have no hesitation on this,” Davutoğlu told reporters yesterday in Edirne at the end of the Fourth Ambassadors Conference.Palestinians held transparent elections long before the Arab Spring and Haniya received significant support from the Palestinian people, Davutoğlu said. Turkey is ready to help in any process that would contribute to peace and unite the Palestinians, he added.The minister recalled Turkey’s contributions to meetings between Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal earlier in the year. “Every Palestinian is a precious guest for us,” he said.In a separate development, Abu Khalil, one of the Palestinian prisoners Turkey received after they were released by Israel as part of a swap deal with Hamas, tied the knot late Dec. 29 at a wedding party in an Ankara hotel. The Palestinian ex-inmates have so far been kept strictly out of the public eye.In further comments yesterday, Davutoğlu rejected criticism from the main opposition, which argued the Ambassadors Conference was starting to resemble a camp of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). The minister recalled he had also invited opposition members to a dinner at his residence as part of the conference. Hmmmm......Every Palestinian terrorist is a precious guest for usWho needs ennemies with 'friends' like this?Read the full story here.

• Turkey’s PM pledges full probe into deadly raid; rights groups urge U.N. probe.(AlArabiya).Turkey’s Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan on Friday promised a full investigation into airstrikes on the Iraqi border that killed 35 villagers whom the military had mistaken for Kurdish militants - an attack that has infuriated minority Kurds in Turkey and Iraq.The strikes sparked clashes on Friday in Turkey’s restive mainly Kurdish southeast and in the autonomous Kurdish northern Iraq region.In the border village of Gulyazi, thousands of mourners attended funerals after digging deep graves along a steep cliff. The bodies, most of them young villagers who were smuggling cigarettes and diesel, were ferried on tractors or wrapped in carpets lashed to donkeys making their way along snowed tracks.Breaking his silence over an attack Turkey’s largest pro-Kurdish party has labeled a crime against humanity, Erdogan said video recordings of the air raid would be examined and forensic experts would be dispatched to the area.“All necessary steps will be taken,” Erdogan told reporters, calling the incident, one of the largest single-day civilian deaths in a decades-long conflict, unfortunate and saddening.But Erdogan also defended the Turkish military, which has been fighting Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) armed militants since the group took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984.The military had said its warplanes launched air strikes after drones spotted what looked like suspected PKK militants.“Unfortunately, it’s not possible to determine who’s who from these images taken by drones. These images showed a group of 40 men near the border,” Erdogan said, adding the PKK has used smugglers and mules to carry out attacks in the past.“Our F16 jets have bombed the area as a result.”The attack undermined efforts by Erdogan to engage Kurds in talks to write a new constitution expected to address long-held Kurdish grievances. Kurds, a minority that inhabits Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran, have become increasingly assertive.Some 500 protesters gathered on Friday in Arbil, the capital of Iraq's Kurdish region, to protest the killings. Some protesters threw stones and clashed briefly with Kurdish security forces, but there were no reports of casualties.“The crime ... is a real genocide, a war crime and a crime against humanity, and breaches international laws,” Kurdish activist Ali Mahmoud said. “We demand that Turkey be judged in the international courts.”The protesters carried PKK flags and pictures of its leader, Abdullah Ocalan, and shouted, “fight, fight for freedom” and “Erdogan is a terrorist.”“The Kurdish people must protest and condemn what happened,” activist Lalo Rangder said. “Erdogan is a terrorist and has two faces in the sense that he asks the international community to protect Syrians and at the same time is killing Kurdish people with forbidden weapons.”Clashes also broke out across cities in Turkey’s Kurdish areas and in its largest city Istanbul.Turkish rights groups called for a U.N.-sponsored probe.“Turkish and international non-governmental organizations should investigate the incident and the U.N. Human Rights Committee should send a committee right away,” human rights groups IHD and Mazlumder said in a preliminary report into Wednesday's airstrike.IHD and Mazlumder said most of those killed near the border village of Uludere were between the ages of 12 and 18. Turkish media have reported that 28 out of the 35 dead belonged to the same extended family and carried the same surname.In their report, IHD and Mazlumder quoted 19-year-old Haci Encu, who survived the attack and was in hospital, as saying the smugglers were a group of about 40-50 people with mules and were attacked as they were crossing the border to Iraq.As the group saw the planes overhead, “we started running towards Iraq, and bombs started to fall on those who were left behind on the rocky area. We were six people in my group, and three of us survived. We had civilian clothes and nobody was armed,” Encu said.“We have been doing this for a long time. Two people from the group were married, the rest were high school and secondary school students. Nobody has contacted me for testimony yet, and I haven't seen a single soldier since the incident.”The deaths threaten to ignite more violence from the PKK, which is regarded as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the European Union and the United States. The group has been fighting for an ethnic Kurdish homeland in a conflict that has claimed the lives of 40,000 people.A PKK commander called on Kurds to rise up to what he called an organized and planned massacre.“We call on all the people of Kurdistan and especially those of Hakkari and Sirnak to show their reaction against this massacre and to hold the perpetrators of this massacre accountable through their uprising,” Bahoz Erdal said in a statement.With most Turks favoring a hardline military response against the PKK, the incident is unlikely to hurt the popularity of Erdogan, who won a third term in office in a June vote.Hmmm....Once again i ask "Was it a US Spydrone or a Turkish Spydrone that gave the go Ahead info?Read the full story here.

• EU is open to Iran’s proposal for nuclear talks but without preconditions.(AlArabiya).The European Union is open to meaningful talks with Tehran provided there are no preconditions on the Iranian side, an EU foreign policy spokesman said on Saturday.Earlier, Iran’s semi-official Mehr news agency quoted a senior official as saying that Iran’s nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili will write to the EU’s foreign affairs chief to express Tehran’s readiness for fresh nuclear talks with major powers.Jalili said he has formally called on the six powers - the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany - to return to the negotiating table with Iran.EU foreign policy spokesman, Michael Mann, said in an email to Reuters that Catherine Ashton wrote to Jalili in October and had not yet had a response.“We continue to pursue our twin-track approach and are open for meaningful discussions on confidence-building measures, without preconditions from the Iranian side,” he said.Iran’s invitation comes in the wake of new sanctions recently imposed by the West over Tehran’s uranium enrichment program, which is a potential pathway to making nuclear arms.The last round of negotiations between Iran and the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany in January in Istanbul, Turkey, ended in failure.The U.S. and some of its allies accuse Iran of using its civilian nuclear program as a cover to develop atomic weapons. Iran has denied the charge, saying the program is for peaceful purposes only and is geared toward generating electricity and producing medical radioisotopes to treat cancer patients.“We formally declared to them (the intent) to return to the path of dialogue for cooperation,” Jalili told Iranian diplomats in Tehran, according to the official IRNA news agency. Jalili did not say when or through what channel he issued the invitation.However, Iran’s ambassador to Germany, Ali Reza Sheikh Attar, said earlier Saturday that Jalili was to send a letter soon to Ashton to arrange a new round of talks.Iran’s proposal is the latest signal from Tehran that the country appears to be feeling the toll of international sanctions.The U.N. has imposed four rounds of sanctions on Tehran over the nuclear enrichment, and separately, the U.S. and the European Union have imposed their own tough economic and financial sanctions. Washington’s measures target exports of gasoline and other refined petroleum products to Iran and have banned U.S. banks from doing business with foreign banks that provide services to Iran's Revolutionary Guard.Last month, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad acknowledged that the current penalties were impeding Iran’s financial institutions, saying, “our banks cannot make international transactions anymore.”And earlier in December, Iran reinstated an offer for U.N. nuclear agency officials to visit Tehran, though it did not say whether the International Atomic Energy Agency would be able to focus on suspicions that Iran is secretly working on nuclear arms - a key condition set by the agency.The U.S. and Israel have not ruled out a military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities if Tehran doesn’t stop its nuclear program.But Jalili warned Tehran would make any aggressor regret a decision to attack Iran.“We will give a response that will make the aggressor regret any threat against the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Jalili said.Meanwhile, the EU is considering a ban ─ already in place in the United States ─ on imports of Iranian oil, although diplomats and traders say awareness is growing in the EU that such a ban could damage the bloc's economy without doing much to hurt Iran.Hmmmm.......Playing for time.Read the full story here.

• Ahmadinejad to Go on Tour of Latin America Next Month.(Fars).Ahmadinejad is due to visit Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Ecuador on the trip, Director of the International Affairs Department of the Presidential Office Mohammad Reza Forghani said. "Mr. Ahmadinejad will first go to Caracas to visit (Venezuelan President) Hugo Chavez," Forghani said, confirming an announcement made Tuesday by Chavez. "He will then go to the swearing-in ceremonies for Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, who has been re-elected," he said. Ahmadinejad will then travel to Cuba and to Ecuador, where he will hold talks with the respective leaders. Iran has been seeking to boost its ties with Latin American countries in recent years, to the concern of the United States. Since taking office in 2005, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has expanded Iran's cooperation with many Latin American states, including Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador and Brazil. But, Iran has grown specially expansive ties with Venezuela, and now the two countries are considered allies in many fields and in all international bodies, specially within the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) which controls the world's oil lifeline. The strong and rapidly growing ties between Iran and Venezuela have raised eyebrows in the US and its western allies since Tehran and Caracas have forged an alliance against the imperialist and colonialist powers and are striving hard to reinvigorate their relations with the other independent countries which pursue a line of policy independent from the US. Hmmmmm......Read the full story here.

• Egypt Muslims, Christians clash over cartoon.(AlArabiya).Sectarian clashes broke out in the southern Egyptian province of Assiut after a Christian student posted a drawing of the Muslim prophet on the Internet, officials said on Saturday.The clashes, which spread to three villages, saw several Christian homes burned and left five police officers injured, a security official told AFP.On Thursday, dozens of Muslims tried to storm the home of the Christian student after the drawing appeared online.Police were called to the scene, arrested the student and formed a cordon around the house to prevent clashes, Assiut governor Abdelrahim Borei said.But on Friday, a group of Muslims set fire to a shop owned by the student’s father in a nearby village and another group burned Christian homes in another neighboring village and clashed with its residents.Borei has called for an emergency meeting with political and church officials as well as with recently elected MPs and members of ultra-conservative Salafi Muslim groups to try to defuse tensions.“The situation is now calm in the three villages. We have deployed police in the areas in order to maintain order,” Borei told state television.On Friday, Egypt’s military ruler Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi said the army would increase security around churches during the New Year and Coptic Christmas period, which falls on January 7.Egypt’s powerful Muslim Brotherhood has also vowed to protect the country’s churches in a bid to prevent deadly attacks on Christian places of worship.Last year, more than 20 people were killed in an apparent suicide bombing as hundreds of worshippers were leaving the Al-Qidissin (The Saints) church in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria after a New Year's Eve mass.In January 2010, six Copts were shot dead as they emerged from a Coptic Christmas Eve mass. A Muslim security guard was also killed in the shooting.Coptic Christians, who make up around 10 percent of Egypt’s 82 million population, have been the target of frequent attacks and complain of systematic discrimination.Read the full story here.

• Iran refusing to fuel some European, Arab airlines.(AlArabiya).Iran is refusing to refuel some European and Arab airlines at its main international airport in a tit-for-tat move over major oil companies denying fuel to Iranian planes abroad, the airport's chief said Saturday.“Government directives” ordered the ban, Morteza Dehqan, head of Tehran’s Imam Khomeini international airport, told the ISNA news agency.“In a reciprocal move, we are not giving fuel to the airlines of countries which do not give fuel to our airlines,” he said.He did not say when the decision was adopted.AFP could not immediately confirm which foreign airlines were affected by the decision.In October, Iran’s foreign ministry warned it would “confront” Western companies for refusing to refuel its planes in Europe, which it called a violation of international law.European authorities and airports have been silent about the reported measures, which are separate to unilateral restrictions the EU imposed soon after the U.N. Security Council adopted a fourth set of sanctions against Tehran in June.Unilateral sanctions imposed by the United States, however, target gasoline and jet fuel supplies to Iran.Some airports in the Gulf and southwestern Asia are also reportedly refusing fuel to Iranian airlines, including its flag carrier Iran Air as well as leading private airline Mahan Air.Iran Air has been under U.S. sanctions since 1995 that have prevented any sale of Boeing or Airbus aircraft or spare parts. As a result, the airline has become one of the most dilapidated airlines in the world.Mahan Air was put on the U.S. sanctions list in October for allegedly transporting members of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, some senior officers of which are on a U.S. travel blacklist.Read the full story here.