Major Discovery in Obama’s LFBC forgery.........and It’s in the INK!

Zooming in on the top part of the D in Dunham. You can see the variation in color pixels–variations of grays to black tones. This is how pixels of a signature should appear when a signature is applied with ink and then scanned. But what’s really interesting is that the rest of the signature, ‘unham Obama’, is not in ink.3 The letters are a solid greenish-black color with no gradation in color at all. This lack of gradation reveals that this part of the signature was created on a computer and is not even penmanship.


Major Discovery in Obama’s LFBC forgery.......and It’s in the INK!(PakAlert).By Linda Jordan.Chiyome Fukino (former Director of Hawaii Public Health Department) had this to say about how “birthers” would respond to the release of Obama’s “long-form” birth certificate:
“They’re going to question the ink on which it was written or say it was fabricated,” said Fukino. “The whole thing is silly.”

Let’s start with the ink, shall we?

From Hawaii Public Health Regulations. Title: Vital Statistics, Registration & Records. Chapter 8, Certificates of Vital Statistics Events, Section 1:

Preparation. Certificates of vital statistics events are to be filled in by typewriter or in ink. If ink is used only permanent ink will be acceptable. All signatures are to be made with permanent ink. In all other respects, the certificates shall comply with provisions of Section 57-14, R.L.H. 1955.
On April 27, 2011, Barack Obama revealed what his representatives said was a photocopy of his original long-form Certificate of Live Birth from Hawaii (as posted on the White House blog website). The signatures on this Certificate of Live Birth are required to be made in permanent ink.

The truth is in the pixels

Download the Certificate of Live Birth document off the White House blog website2 and open it in Adobe Illustrator. Now zoom in on the signature of Obama’s mother.
The pixels reveal that only a portion of the signature is in ink as required by Hawaii Public Health Regulations. The Ann and the D in Dunham are in ink. The pixels are a variety of gradations in grays and blacks, like ink signature pixels are.But what’s really interesting is that the rest of the signature, ‘unham Obama’, is not in ink.3 The letters are a solid greenish-black color with no gradation in color at all. This lack of gradation reveals that this part of the signature was created on a computer and is not even penmanship. Read and SEE the full story here.

Will Sitting President Obama Finally Be Held Accountable For High Crimes and Misdemeanors?

Will Sitting President Obama Finally Be Held Accountable For High Crimes and Misdemeanors?ActivistPost.By Eric Blair.Since 2005, Veterans for Peace and others have been calling for the impeachment of the sitting president for war crimes. After their demands to lawmakers to uphold the rule of law against Bush were largely ignored (except by Dennis Kucinich who introduced impeachment articles too late in 2008), they renewed their effort to impeach Obama once he continued to bomb sovereign nations without congressional approval. Now, some lawmakers seem to have finally decided to take the rule of law and Separation of Powers seriously.

Obama will face impeachment over his failure to seek congressional authorization before launching offensive military action in Libya last year. Official impeachment proceedings have now been filed in both the House and Senate.

Last week, North Carolina Representative Walter Jones filed an Impeachment Resolution in the House H.CON.RES.107.IH stating; "Expressing the sense of Congress that the use of offensive military force by a President without prior and clear authorization of an Act of Congress constitutes an impeachable high crime and misdemeanor under article II, section 4 of the Constitution.

"Whereas the cornerstone of the Republic is honoring Congress’s exclusive power to declare war under article I, section 8, clause 11 of the Constitution:

Now, therefore, be it Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That it is the sense of Congress that, except in response to an actual or imminent attack against the territory of the United States, the use of offensive military force by a President without prior and clear authorization of an Act of Congress violates Congress’s exclusive power to declare war under article I, section 8, clause 11 of the Constitution and therefore constitutes an impeachable high crime and misdemeanor under article II, section 4 of the Constitution."

President Barack Obama becomes only the third sitting president to face impeachment following Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton. Johnson was impeached for illegally dismissing an office holder without the Senate's approval, and Clinton for perjury and obstruction of justice. Both were acquitted by the Senate.

Significantly, President Obama faces much more serious charges than his impeached predecessors and it's still unclear what legal defense he will use to diffuse the charges as the legal basis for his unilateral action has been inconsistent and vague from the beginning of the Libya assault.

Prior to military operations in Libya, the Justice Department advised the Administration on the legality of using unauthorized force in Libya in a 14-page memo titled Authority to Use Military Force in Libya, which states vaguely:

We conclude...that the use of military force in Libya was supported by sufficiently important national interests to fall within the President's constitutional power. At the same time, turning to the second element of the analysis, we do not believe that anticipated United States operations in Libya amounted to "war" in the constitutional sense necessitating congressional approval under the Declaration of War clause.

The memo goes on explain why the alleged situation on the ground in Libya was in U.S.'s national interest, cites previous times when the U.S. military was deployed without congressional approval and claims the mission was an international support mission with no deployed ground troops to justify their conclusion.

However, in no way were national interests under an "imminent" threat by hostilities in Libya as required by the War Powers Act, and supporting an international mission is irrelevant to the Act. Furthermore, Obama has maintained the legal defense that American involvement fell short of full-blown hostilities even after hostilities exceeded the 90-day limit of unauthorized use of force afforded under the War Powers Act.

The New York Times quotes directly from the 38-page report Obama sent to concerned lawmakers after the 90-day deadline passed “U.S. operations do not involve sustained fighting or active exchanges of fire with hostile forces, nor do they involve U.S. ground troops.”

Therefore, the Administration claims it wasn't a real military conflict that Congress should concern itself with. However, at the same time, the White House acknowledged that the cost to U.S. taxpayers was well over $1 billion for these non-hostile military activities.

Coincidentally, on the same day the impeachment resolution was filed, Obama's Defense Secretary Leon Panetta acknowledged that the Libya War did indeed constitute military combat, but claimed the legal basis for spending U.S. tax dollars on war rested in "international permission":
This impeachment comes on the heals of other Administration officials giving equally flimsy legal justifications for assassinating U.S. citizens without due process. Where, also last week, Attorney General Holder sought to clarify this tyrannical authority in a speech at Northwestern University by claiming "judicial process" was not the same as "due process" under the Constitution.

Yet, the Fifth Amendment clearly states "No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury."

And as Wikipedia defines due process:

Due process is the legal requirement that the state must respect all of the legal rights that are owed to a person. Due process balances the power of law of the land and protects individual persons from it. When a government harms a person without following the exact course of the law, this constitutes a due-process violation, which offends against the rule of law.

The Obama Administration has clearly "offended against the rule of law," and it appears his only defense lies in somehow changing the definition of words. It's not a strong legal position to be in and it seems that, for the first time in history, a sitting president may be held accountable for high crimes and misdemeanors.Read the full story here.

Afghanistan's High Peace Council:" Taliban's Move to Open 'Islamic Emirate Embassy' in Qatar Unacceptable".

Afghanistan's High Peace Council:" Taliban's Move to Open 'Islamic Emirate Embassy' in Qatar Unacceptable".(Fars).Tehran - A prominent member of Afghanistan's High Peace Council said that his country will not accept the opening of a political office for the Taliban in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar under the title of "Islamic Emirate Embassy"."The opening of Taliban's office in Qatar under the name of the embassy of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is against Afghanistan's national interests and is never acceptable," Advisor to the International Relations Commission of Afghanistan's High Peace Council Mohammad Ismail Qassemyar told FNA in Kabul on Monday.
As regards the upcoming visit to Qatar by an Afghan delegation, Qassemyar said that the Kabul government expects the delegation to prepare the grounds for peace talks among Afghans and assure that the Taliban office would not run counter to Afghanistan's national interests politically and legally.
Afghanistan's foreign minister will head a delegation to Qatar in the near future and the delegation will also include members of the peace council.
Earlier in January, Taliban announced that they had struck a deal to open a political office in Qatar that could allow for direct negotiations. Some analysts are skeptical of the prospects for meaningful peace negotiations with the Taliban.
A senior Afghan political figure stressed the failure of the so-called peace talks with the Taliban in Qatar as well as Saudi Arabia's efforts in pushing the Taliban leadership ahead, and underlined that the Taliban has maintained its belligerent nature and aspirations and is the same group as it was before 2001.
"The growing number of suicide attacks shows that the Taliban has the same 'Islamic Emirate' in mind and is seeking to overthrow the existing system," Afghan opposition leader Abdullah Abdullah said in an interview with FNA last month. "That is what it had sought before 2001 (when it was ousted from power)," the former Afghan foreign minister stated, adding that the group enjoys the same supporters as it had before. He rejected the necessity for the establishment of a Taliban office in Doha or any other place outside Afghanistan.
Abdullah further stressed the necessity for negotiations with Taliban for the establishment of peace, and added, "We want negotiations with Taliban under the supervision of the United Nations and on Afghan soil."Meanwhile "Commander - in - Chief" Obama is about to release the Taliban prisoners from Guantanamo..........makes you wonder what you need to do to get impeached in America?Read the full story here.

Newt Gingrich: Defeating Obama 'Most Dangerous President in US History' a 'Duty Of National Security'

HT: IsraelMatzav.

The Obama administration has made a strategic decision to join forces with the Islamists rather than fight them, at the peril of Israel.

 

The Obama administration has made a strategic decision to join forces with the Islamists rather than fight them, at the peril of Israel.(TIP).By Essam Abdallah.
"What this means is that the Obama administration has made a strategic decision to join forces with the Islamists rather than fight them. This policy has serious implications for America at home and abroad. It also has serious implications for Israel. It means that America will restrain Israel from besting the Islamists and will favour the Islamists over Israel. It is no accident that the Islamists are now in power in Libya, Tunisia and Egypt or that the The US has fully embraced Islamist Erdogan of Turkey and is supporting the advent of the MB in Syria. Nothing could be more ominous." Ted Belman.
A note from Investigative Project on Terrorism Executive Director Steven Emerson:

Please take the time to read this very important story written by a courageous Egyptian liberal intellectual about the Islamist and Muslim Brotherhood lobbies in Washington and the Obama Administration's secret collaboration with these pro-terrorist, anti-Western, anti-women, anti-American and anti-Semitic organizations. This is one of the most important articles I have read in years.
It was just revealed two days ago that FBI Director Mueller secretly met on February 8 at FBI headquarters with a coalition of groups including various Islamist and militant Arabic groups who in the past have defended Hamas and Hizballah and have also issued blatantly anti-Semitic statements. At this meeting, the FBI revealed that it had removed more than 1000 presentations and curricula on Islam from FBI offices around the country that was deemed "offensive." The FBI did not reveal what criteria was used to determine why material was considered "offensive" but knowledgeable law enforcement sources have told the IPT that it was these radical groups who made that determination. Moreover, numerous FBI agents have confirmed that from now on, FBI headquarters has banned all FBI offices from inviting any counter-terrorist specialists who are considered "anti-Islam" by Muslim Brotherhood front groups.
The February 8 FBI meeting was the culmination of a series of unpublicized directives issued in the last three months by top FBI officials to all its field offices to immediately recall and withdraw any presentation or curricula on Islam throughout the entire FBI. In fact, according to informed sources and undisclosed documents, the FBI directive was instigated by radical Muslim groups in the US who had repeatedly met with top officials of the Obama Administration to complain, among other things, that the mere usage of the term of "radical Islam" in FBI curricula was "offensive" and 'racist."
And thus, directives went out by Attorney General Eric Holder and FBI Director Mueller to censor all such material. Included in the material destroyed or removed by the FBI and the DOJ were powerpoints and articles that defined jihad as "holy war" or presentations that portrayed the Muslim Brotherhood as an organization bent on taking over the world—a major tenant that the Muslim Brotherhood has publicly stated for decades.
During the next several months, the IPT will be releasing a series of major investigative reports revealing the secret infiltration by and collaboration with radical Islamic organizations by the Obama administration that has spread to the National Security Council, the Dept of Justice, the FBI, the Dept of Homeland Security, the CIA and the State Department as well as local law enforcement.
The most dramatic oppression of the region's civil societies and the Arab Spring is not by means of weapons, or in the Middle East. It is not led by Gaddafi, Mubarak, Bin Ali, Saleh, or Assad. It is led by the powerful Islamist lobbies in Washington DC. People may find my words curious if not provocative. But my arguments are sharp and well understood by many Arab and middle eastern liberals and freedom fighters. Indeed, we in the region, who are struggling for real democracy, not for the one time election type of democracy have been asking ourselves since January 2011 as the winds of Arab spring started blowing, why isn't the West in general and the United States Administration in particular clearly and forcefully supporting our civil societies and particularly the secular democrats of the region? Why were the bureaucracies in Washington and in Brussels partnering with Islamists in the region and not with their natural allies the democracy promoting political forces?
Months into the Arab Spring, we realized that the Western powers, and the Obama Administration have put their support behind the new authoritarians, those who are claiming they will be brought to power via the votes of the people. Well, it is not quite so.
The Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic Nahda of Tunisia, the Justice Party of Morocco and the Islamist militias in Libya's Transitional National Council have been systematically supported by Washington at the expense of real liberal and secular forces.
We saw day by day how the White House guided carefully the statements and the actions of the US and the State Department followed through to give all the chances to the Islamists and almost no chances to the secular and revolutionary youth. We will come back to detail these diplomatic and financial maneuvers which are giving victory to the fundamentalists while the seculars and progressives are going to be smashed by the forthcoming regimes.
In the US, there are interests that determine foreign policy. And there are lobbies that put pressure to get their objectives met in foreign policy.
One of the most powerful lobbies in America under the Obama Administration is the Muslim Brotherhood greater lobby, which has been in action for many years. This lobby has secured many operatives inside the Administration and has been successful in directing US policy towards the Arab world.
Among leading advisors sympathetic to the Ikhwan is Daliah Mogahed (Mujahid) and her associate, Georgetown Professor John Esposito. Just as shocking, there is also a pro-Iranian lobby that has been influencing US policy towards Iran and Hezbollah in the region.Dr. Essam Abdallah is an Egyptian liberal intellectual who teaches at Ain Shams University and writes for the leading Arab liberal publication Elaph.Hmmmm......"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances".Read the full story here.More here.

Iran's Nuclear Rights Acknowledged by Obama, blames Congress for sanctions he did not want to impose!

TEHRAN (FNA)- Senior Iranian parliamentary sources revealed on Saturday that
the Swiss envoy to Tehran has quoted US President Barack Obama as acknowledging Iran's nuclear rights.Swiss Ambassador to Tehran Livia Leu Agosti attended a meeting with senior Iranian foreign ministry officials a few days ago to submit a letter from the US president to Tehran leaders.
Vice-Chairman of the Iranian Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Hossein Ebrahimi told FNA that during the meeting, Agosti had told the Iranian officials that President Barack Obama recognizes Iran's right of access and use of the nuclear technology. "There are a couple of points with regard to this (US) message (to Iran),"Ebrahimi said and added, "Firstly, during the session to submit the message, the Swiss ambassador to Tehran quoted the US president as saying that 'we (the US) recognize your nuclear rights'."As regards the second issue, the lawmaker said that the Swiss diplomat had also quoted Obama as saying that "I didn't want to impose sanctions on your central bank but I had no options but to approve it since a Congress majority had approved the decision."Read the full story here.

MFS - The Other News

                    Morning Posting.

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

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

• Canary Islands - El Hierro earthquake and volcano eruption – Update 21.  here , Live webcams here and here.

• Video - Egypt: Tantawi vows to transfer power.(Ynet).Damage control? Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, who heads Egypt's Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), addressed the Egyptian nation on Tuesday, amid growing civil unrest. The address was preceded by persistent rumors that the Military Council was planning to relinquish its powers to Cairo's Supreme Court. Tantawi's address, which was prerecorded and broadcast to hundreds of thousands of protesters who gathered in Tahrir Square, put an end to the rumors.The SCAF, Tantawi said, accepts the Egyptian government's resignation. He pledged to "continue placing the interests of the Egyptian people first," adding that the military would willingly transfer power to a civilian government by July 1, 2012. Throughout the speech, the masses in Tahrir Square called for Tantawi to step down immediately. Earlier, the Military Council announced that Egypt will hold its parliamentary elections on November 28 as scheduled, and set the next presidential elections for June. No exact date was set, but according to Cairo's media, SCAF seeks to have the new president sworn in by July of next year.Egypt's military ruler also floated the idea of a referendum on an immediate power transfer: "The Military Council does not seek to rule. We are more than willing to transfer power if a people's referendum demands it," he said. Egypt's Supreme Council of the Armed Forces has been the country's de facto ruler since President Hosni Mubarak was forced to resign in February. "The Armed Forces will not take the place of the people's government," Tantawi vowed. "We do not intend to cling to power. Our goal has always been to reinstate security to Egypt. "Running the country in this unusual time has not been easy. Talk is easy – but the reality on the ground is different… We have tried to manage things wisely," he said. Striving to maintain political stability amid growing civil unrest, Egypt's SCAF is reportedly considering naming former International Atomic Energy Agency Chief Mohamed ElBaradei as Cairo's new prime minister.ElBaradei has reportedly demanded extensive authorities, as well as a SCAF pledge that it will not interfere in government matters. Meanwhile, the White House on Tuesday called for an end to the "deplorable" violence in Egypt and said elections there must go forward. "We are deeply concerned about the violence. The violence is deplorable. We call on all sides to exercise restraint," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters.Read and see the full story here. 

• Breaking: Egypt - 71 dead in Cairo alone, medical sources.(BikyaMasr).CAIRO: A medical source in the Zeinhom morgue near Cairo’s Tahrir Square has told Bikyamasr.com that 71 Egyptians have been killed since clashes erupted Saturday. Some 14 were killed today alone, as fierce fighting between protesters calling for an end to military rule and the police and the army continues in the vicinity of the Interior Ministry.Some 24 people were killed Monday, while 33 were killed in clashes on Saturday and Sunday. Across the three days of violence some 2000+ have been injured, many collapsing under the use of CR gas by the police.At time of writing, hundreds of thousands are streaming into Tahrir Square, the epicentre of the popular revolution that ousted Hosni Mubarak at the beginning of the year. On current estimates, numbers may soon reach one million or more.Read the full story here.

• Related- Protesters reject military offer to cede power by July 2012.(BikyaMasr).CAIRO: Representatives from various political groups in Cairo met with General Sami Anan, the Army Chief of Staff in a five-hour crisis meeting on Tuesday evening, where the SCAF pledged to transfer power to a civilian government.Egypt’s interim ruling military council, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) has allegedly agreed to cede to several protester demands, and have accepted the collective resignation of Prime Minister Essam Sharaf and the Cabinet of Ministers.According to a statement from Abu el-Ela Mady, Chairman of the al-Wasat Party, the SCAF has agreed to form a new national salvation unity government “within days,” set to replace the cabinet.Tens of thousands of protesters in Tahrir roared upon hearing the news.“We will not leave until he leaves,” they said, referring to the head of Egypt’s ruling military council, Field Marshall Hussein Tantwai.Eyewitnesses tell Bikyamasr.com that violence in the square has raged on despite the announcement, as state security continues to wage its offensive on protesters in the square.“We will not leave until the situation is peaceful and we have a civilian led government,” one protester told Bikyamasr.com on Tuesday evening.The SCAF has also agreed to hold presidential elections before the end of June 2012, and still plans to hold parliamentary elections as scheduled.Previously, the SCAF said that they did not intend on holding presidential elections until 2013.The SCAF has promised to allow protesters to collectively demonstrate, and have vowed to immediately release all those detained or arrested since Saturday.Anti-military demonstrations across Egypt turned violent after military and police personnel waged a brutal offensive on peaceful protesters in Cairo’s Tahrir Square in the early hours of Saturday morning.33 have been reported dead in the clashes, according to official statistics from the Egyptian Ministry of Health. However, activists and eyewitnesses suspect that the number is much higher.Field Marshall Hussein Tantawi, the head of the ruling military council, is expected to speak with protesters in Tahrir Square tonight.Read the full story here.

• Presence of Malice: Against the Conservative Portrait of the President.(AmericanDigest).We can survive many traits in presidents, but malice is not among them. In the unfolding saga of the Libyan adventure I note that, even though it is early innings, a popular strain of conservative criticism centers around the always popular idea of 'stupidity in government;' with a variant on the subset of ‘the president is not as smart as he thinks.’ The popular variant this time is: 'deep down, Obama is shallow.' This notion includes various complimentary subsets such as 'he is lazy,' 'he is incompetent,' 'he's hooked on the perks and doesn't care for the work.' All comfortable notions that imply that the critic is, conversely, smarter, more diligent, and more fit to make governmental decisions than the president. The problem here is that the critic is not the president and hence has no power to do anything remotely presidential.I'm no friend of conspiracy theories. The truthers who imagine that hundreds of people have all kept the federal government's dark roll in 911 hold no attraction to me. Too complex and with a membership that is too substantial to keep such secrets. The birthers who look to finally exposing the odd origins of the president who seems to have sprung from the brow of Zeus? Too irrelevant if true, since it will not alter the election, and, if false, pure fritterware. At the same time, I acknowledge that there are conspiracies in the world. By extension, the most successful conspiracies would involve a very few people with a lot of access to money and power. Taking one more step, one would have to posit that the perfect conspiracy would not involve even a few people, but only one person with access to money and power. That person would be a sociopath but if he was the right sociopath in the right place at the right time his native intelligence, high or low, stupid or smart, wouldn't really matter. What would matter would be the level of his maliciousness. It would not matter what his real IQ was but rather his level of cleverness and his innate shrewdness. Indeed, to the clever and shrewd person a critical conversation involving whether he was being "stupid" or "lazy" only works to his advantage since is draws attention away from malice and gives him more time and space to pursue his goals. As Machiavelli knew, and Stalin proved, when the ends secure pure power, the means are irrelevant and history rewritable.A man with a much more reactionary bent to his thinking, such as myself, would note that 21 months is an extremely long time to have a rogue ego and malicious mind actively guiding and making the day-to-day, life and death, decisions of the nation. Twenty-one months of appointments, foreign policy, executive orders, and the odd military adventure here or there, can add up to a lot of problems unless your goal is the weakening of the United States. In that case, it might just be enough time after all.Even Obama's most rabid supporters outside of his army of apparatchiks must surely sense that there is something “off” in the psychic structure of the current president. Most attribute it to his “yearning” to make the country ‘worthy’ of it’s place at the head of the nations. I suggest that it is something alarmingly dark and destructive. I suggest it comes from a psyche that, for many, many reasons stretching back to infancy, is so structured that it loathes the country down to its marrow, much as the psyche must loathe itself, and that is working, daily, on dismantling the nation with nothing except pure malicious intent. Why? Because it can.Do I know this for a certainty? I cannot say, but “when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design.”Read the full story here.

• An Historic Failure of Presidential Leadership.(WhitehouseDossier).By KeithKoffler.I can hardly find the words to describe what happened at the White House today. But there are always words, and so I must find them.In an immense and nearly unparalleled – there’s always James Buchanan – abnegation of presidential responsibility, the White House today blithely acknowledged that President Obama did nothing to broker a deal in Congress to reduce the deficit and save the American economy, and it suggested it wasn’t Obama’s responsibility to do so in the future.The deficit reduction committee represented the best chance to achieve a deficit deal, because the next opportunity will not come before February or so, when we’re in full election mode, and because any agreement reached by the panel would have had special rules attached that would have eased its passage in Congress.But Obama, it must be clear as the Caribbean to all, is now solely interested in gaining a cudgel with which to whack Republicans next year instead of saving the union. He would rather the panel fail so that he can blame Republicans for something about the dismal economy over which he unhappily presides.Asked today what Obama had done to spur the committee on, White House press Secretary Jay Carney said he had done a lot. LAST SUMMER.Carney continued:This committee was established by an act of Congress. It was comprised of members of Congress. Instead of pointing fingers and playing the blame game, Congress should act, fulfill its responsibility.The nation’s future is solely Congress’s responsibility? The president’s responsibility is . . . golf and campaigning? Carney:  Now, let me just say that Congress still has it within its capacity to be responsible and act. As you noted, the sequester doesn’t take effect for a year. Congress could still act and has plenty of time to act. And we call on Congress to fulfill its responsibility.We call on Congress to fulfill its responsibility? Like a mother saying, “I call on my baby to learn to walk.”Congress will not act, because it will be 2012, and it knows full well the president isn’t serious.In his remarks this evening, Obama said tepidly that he would be “ready and willing to work with anybody that’s ready to engage in that effort to create a balanced plan for deficit reduction.”What he’s saying, really, is that Republicans must first cave, and then he’ll work with them. Because otherwise, he would have done so already.Which means the fragile economy will have to wait a year for Washington to work out an agreement on the deficit, during which time an economic collapse could come at any time.The president of the United States has decided not fulfill his oath to “preserve, protect and defend” the nation.Well, he promised change.Hmmmm......I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes. ~ Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776.Read the full story here.

• Obama Vows To Veto Any GOP Attempt At Sparing Pentagon Deeper Spending Cuts After Supercommittee Failure.((National Journal) — President Obama Monday evening blamed Republicans for the failure of the super committee to meet its deadline for a debt plan and warned that he will veto any attempt to eliminate the automatic spending cuts that go into effect with that failure.In an appearance in the White House briefing room a little more than an hour after the committee officially conceded failure, the president said his answer to those who want to eliminate those cuts “is simple: No. I will veto any effort to get rid of those automatic spending cuts to domestic and defense spending. There will be no easy off-ramps on this one.”He added, “We need to keep the pressure up to compromise, not the turn off the pressure.”Hmmmm.....If he really wanted to destroy America as a Superpower.....would he do anything different?Read the full story here.

• Obama signs New Law Cuts Ties Between FBI and Terror-Tied Groups.(PJM).When Barack Obama signed the continuing resolution this past weekend averting another potential government shutdown, it’s doubtful that he was aware that tucked into the bill, which funds several federal agencies through the fiscal year and extends the continuing resolution for the rest of the government until December 16, is a provision that may dramatically impact what Islamic groups and leaders the FBI and other law enforcement agencies can continue to work with.Under Division B, Title II of the bill, under the Federal Bureau of Investigation-Salaries and Expenses section, is the following provision:

Liaison partnerships- The conferees support the FBI’s policy prohibiting any formal non-investigative cooperation with unindicted co-conspirators in terrorism cases. The conferees expect the FBI to insist on full compliance with this policy by FBI field offices and to report to the Committees on Appropriations regarding any violation of the policy.

The most obvious group that this will impact is the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which was named unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation case — the largest terrorism-finance trial in American history. During the trial, FBI Dallas Agent Lara Burns testified that CAIR was a front for the terrorist group Hamas.Following the trial, which resulted in guilty verdicts on all counts and lengthy prison terms for all five Holy Land executives, the FBI was forced to cut ties with CAIR – a decision that CAIR claimed would hurt local communities and that prompted other Muslim groups, like the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), to threaten to stop cooperation with the FBI unless CAIR was reinstated. In a February 2010 letter to members of Congress, Assistant Attorney General Robert Weich forwarded evidence submitted by federal prosecutors in the trial and court testimony concerning CAIR’s ties to the Hamas-controlled Palestine Committee and that committee’s role in supporting Hamas.What impact this new legislation will have remains to be seen, but it is clearly intended to roll back the Obama administration’s penchant for relying on groups identified by government prosecutors as fronts for designated terrorist organizations as partners for “outreach.”As I reported here exclusively at PJ Media last April, the Department of Justice intervened and scuttled the planned prosecution of CAIR co-founder Omar Ahmad as a follow-up to the Holy Land trial, which prompted several congressional inquiries. And as a follow-up to that article, I reported an interview with a high-ranking DOJ official who told me that FBI General Counsel Valerie Caproni continued to meet with CAIR officials despite the FBI’s official ban on contacts with the Hamas front.This new law will also curtail relations with the administration’s favorite “outreach” partner, ISNA, which, despite being named unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land trial, was last month included in a top-level meeting with the Department of Justice where Muslim groups demanded a formal declaration by the DOJ that any criticism of Islam constituted religious and racial discrimination. ISNA’s president, Mohamed Magid, is also a regular at White House functions and has been appointed to several government positions, including advising the Department of Homeland Security.Congressional sources I spoke with on Monday said that this common-sense legislation was necessitated by the continued practice — in open defiance of the stated FBI policy — of dealing with and legitimizing individuals and groups that federal prosecutors had gone into federal court and identified as assisting terrorist groups.Perhaps the most notorious case was an instance I reported on last year: Kifah Mustapha, who was personally named in the Holy Land case and who prosecutors had on court evidence videotape singing “I am a member of Hamas,” was included last year in the FBI-Chicago Field Office’s six-week Citizens’ Academy training program and given an escorted tour through the FBI Academy at Quantico and the top-secret National Counterterrorism Center. When I contacted the FBI-Chicago Field Office about the discrepancy, they defended Mustapha’s inclusion in the program despite their warnings to other agencies about the terror cleric’s longtime support for Hamas.Congressional officials expressed skepticism that the new legislation would permanently stop the schizophrenic government policy of engaging groups and individuals that the government itself has said are tied to terrorist groups, but it puts the Obama administration on notice that the days of the “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” outreach policies are drawing to a close.Read the full story here.

• Commander Charles Kerchner(Ret) to NH House Majority Leader Bettencourt: Your Loyalty Must Be to the Constitution.(BirtherReport).Dear NH Rep. Bettencourt: Please stand with the U.S. Constitution and your oath to support and defend it. Your loyalty must be to the Constitution and the Citizens of NH and not to the establishment Republican Party bosses in DC who wish to use the Constitution when it suits them and ignore it when it suits them. The Constitution is the fundamental law of our land. It needs to be enforced and protected equally for everyone. Does your bottom line loyalty to the party trump your loyalty to the Constitution? Search your conscience after reading the rest of my email and the attachments. Never before in the history of our country have the major political parties allowed a person whose father was a foreign national and not a Citizen of the United States into the office of the Presidency and to gain command of our military.Obama's father was a foreign national and never was a U.S. Citizen or even wanted to be one. In fact Obama's father was not even an immigrant to the this country nor was he even a permanent resident. Obama is not a "natural born Citizen of the United States" to constitutional standards. He is NOT constitutionally eligible to be President of the United States per Article II Section 1. He should not be allowed on the ballot in NH since your election law since 2010 requires the candidate to be a "natural born Citizen". That was added to your laws since the 2008 election due to the Obama fiasco in the 2008 election. Obama is not a natural born Citizen of the United States. He may be native-born, but he is not a natural born Citizen to Article II constitutional standards. Enforce your new 2010 NH election law change.To be a natural born Citizen of the United States the person must be born in the USA to two (2) U.S. Citizen parents. That is the law of nature and said laws were referred to in our founding documents. That definition comes from natural law, the legal treatise the Law of Nations or Principles of Natural Law Vol.1 Chapter 19 Section 212, U.S. law via the Supreme Court decision of Minor v Happersett (1875) which was never over turned and other SCOTUS decisions as recent as 1939, and international law. Wong Kim Ark (1898) only decided who is a born "Citizen of the U.S." under the 14th Amendment, not who is a "natural born Citizen of the U.S." under Article II. The words natural born do not appear in the 14th Amendment and only appear in the Constitution in Article II as to who can be the President, and then later per the last sentence of the 12th amendment who can be the VP. Obama's father was a foreign national and never a U.S. Citizen so Obama is born with dual Citizenship and dual allegiances and is NOT a natural born Citizen of the USA. Why both major political parties allowed this to happen in 2008 is beyond comprehension. But for the Republican Party to allow it to happen again in 2012 is completely unfathomable given how much more we have learned about the lack of a true legal identity for Barack Obama given that it has been revealed he is using a forged digitally created birth certificate and a Connecticut SSN not legally issued to him.Images on the internet are proof of nothing, especially when digital image and typography experts say the images are forgeries and digitally created images and not scans of real paper documents. Read the attached essays and reports for more information on this subject. It is time for you to stand up for your sworn solemn oath of office to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. It is time for you to stand up for your duty to protect the Citizens of New Hampshire from a person, Barack Obama, who is committing election fraud and identity fraud in your state. His signing the application to be put on the ballot in your state has created a legal NEXUS between him and the Citizens of your state and your state now has jurisdiction to investigate his election fraud and identity theft and fraud. He is perpetrating a false identity and documents on the Citizens of NH. Your state now has jurisdiction to investigate this man ... Barack Hussein Obama II, or whoever he really is and whatever is real legal name is.Please do the right thing by your oath and lead the effort in your state to call for a full and thorough investigation of Obama's true legal identity, to conclusively determine it, under oath with sworn testimony, subpoenaed witness testimony including if necessary Obama himself, and certified true and correct paper documents with raised seals DIRECTLY from the original issuing authority (not Obama's campaign or team) and subjected to forensic analysis by document experts. The Obama fraud and charade and deception of the electorate must be stopped. The ongoing constitutional crisis created by Obama must be ended. Please stand for the U.S. Constitution the New Hampshire Citizens who are looked to vet candidates for President as an early primary state and demand an investigation immediately into the charges of election fraud and identity fraud perpetrated by Obama on the Citizens of New Hampshire. Do NOT allow the election fraud of 2008 to be repeated in 2012.CDR Charles Kerchner (Ret).Lehigh Valley PA USA.Read the full story here.

• Expired due date canisters of Tear gas used in Egypt banned, causes liver, heart damage, miscarriages.(BikyaMasr).Cairo: The tear gas being employed by the Egyptian military and police in the past 48 hours, beyond being expired for at least five years, according to canisters obtained by Bikyamasr.com, cause severe pulmonary damage, as well as causing damage to the heart and liver. It is also reported to increase the risk of miscarriages, according to international studies of the substance, known as CR gas.A lethal does can be inhaled within minutes if in a poorly ventilated area.According to the United States Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine, CR emits “very toxic fumes” when heated to decomposition, and at specified concentrations CR gas is an immediate danger to life and health. The report also stated that those exposed to CR gas should “seek medical attention immediately.”In large doses, human tissues have also revealed that cyanide levels in the body are discovered. It can also “melt” one’s skin if sweat on the body comes into contact with the substance.Egyptian demonstrators have been exposed at high levels over the past two days, with many calling the use of the gas a “crime against humanity” as it has resulted in severe injuries due to its indiscriminate usage by both police and military forces.Under the Paris Convention on Chemical Warfare of 1993, CR Gas was officially listed as a restricted substance and eventually was banned, but it has not stopped governments across the world from deploying the gas on civilians. The United States, Sri Lanka, Israel and others including Egypt, have continued to use the gas on its people.At a field hospital along Mohamed Mahmoud street on Sunday evening, the military slammed the area with the substance, causing scores of Egyptians to run in panic as clouds of tear gas billowed forth. A few individuals succumbed to the extraordinary amount of gas, coughing and vomiting.“I can’t believe this is happening,” said one doctor to Bikyamasr.com. “This is causing people to pass out, vomit and cough blood. It isn’t safe.”The company producing the gas being used in Egypt, Combined Tactical Systems of Jamestown, Pennsylvania in the United States, refused to respond to Bikyamasr.com requests for information pertaining to expired canisters and its effects on people.But on the ground in Tahrir and the surrounding streets, it is clear that the tear gas is having massive effects on demonstrators.“It is wrong, horrific and scary to think the military has purchased so many they just shoot them like they have an endless supply from the US,” said one demonstrator, using a tissue to wipe his blood-shot eyes.Read the full story here.

• Egypt Military General: “There is an invisible hand in the square”.(BikyaMasr).CAIRO: A member of Egypt’s interim ruling Military Council visited Tahrir Square Monday afternoon for a brief media interview, claiming that those in the square are “thugs,” not peaceful demonstrators.“There is an invisible hand in the square causing a rift between the army and the people,” the general claimed, calling upon to crowd to return to their homes and consider the economic impact their demonstration will have on the country.He claimed that the council supports demonstrators’ prerogative to peacefully demonstrate, insisting that security forces had not initiated the violence that has wrought the capital city since early Saturday morning.The general’s ascertains come despite innumerable eyewitness accounts, videos and pictures of both Egyptian police and soldiers in full uniform waging a brutal offensive on protesters, attacking hoards of people indiscriminately with live ammunition, tear gas, rubber bullets and clubs.Egyptian state security continues its violent offensive on anti-government demonstrators in the city’s iconic Tahrir Square, which has already left at least 20 confirmed dead, and 1,500 injured since Saturday, according to statistics from the Egyptian Ministry of Health.Hmmm....Are 'fresh'protesters being bused in?Read the full story here.

• Cynthia Farahat: End US Military Aid to Egypt.(BigPeace).Egyptian Coptic writer and activist, Cynthia Farahat, recently escaped violent religious persecution of the Egyptian domestic security forces. Today she joined Fred Grandy in the Secure Freedom Radio studio and is reporting in English on that persecution, the nature of the forces taking power, and up to the day events on the ground. The U.S. government policy makers and media are not getting the whole story and are especially missing the most important intelligence requirements of the political and human rights state of play. The U.S. government is, in fact, currently arming and funding the violent persecution of religious minorities in Egypt, including Sufi Muslims.Listen to the whole story here.

• UAE to bypass Hormuz with new pipeline project.(HurriyetDaily).The United Arab Emirates (UAE) could soon start pumping oil via a key pipeline that will allow it to bypass the Straits of Hormuz and protect exports if Western powers resort to military action in a row over Iran’s nuclear program.The Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline (ADCOP) project, a 480-km pipeline with a capacity of up to 2.5 million barrels per day (bpd) will allow the UAE to boost exports from its Fujairah terminal outside the Straits and on the Gulf of Oman, four industry sources told Reuters.“There’s a hurry to get this operational as the noises about an attack on Iran gets louder,” an industry source said. “Oil could flow through the pipeline from end-December initially at 1 million bpd and gradually increase to 2 million bpd.”Tension over Iran’s nuclear program has increased since the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported on Nov. 8 that Tehran appears to have worked on designing a nuclear bomb.The Strait of Hormuz is the most important oil transit channel in the world, with some 15.5 million barrels or about a third of all sea-borne oil passing through in 2009.Even though some analysts believe an imminent military action against Iran rather unlikely, they think the pipeline is crucial for the sustainability of oil exports with political tensions in the region on the rise.“It is opening up an export channel that is invulnerable to any disruption in Hormuz,” oil and gas analyst Saket Vemprala at Business Monitor International said.“I don’t think the military action scenario is likely anytime soon but such routes are useful for the Gulf states. If you remember, the Iraqi crude pipeline through Saudi Arabia was very important during the Iran-Iraq war.”Read the full story here.

• Egypt’s military rulers eye ElBaradei for a national salvation government: report.(AlArabiya).Egypt’s military rulers consider assigning presidential hopeful Dr Mohammed ElBaradei to form a national salvation government following the resignation of the government of Prime Minister Dr Essam Sharaf, an Egyptian daily reported on Tuesday citing political sources.The sources told Egypt’s al-Youm al-Sabe daily that the members of the new proposed government have not been decided yet.ElBaradei, the former chief of the U.N. atomic watchdog, on Monday denounced violence against protesters and called for a national salvation government. He called on the SCAF to meet the demands of protesters that include the cancelling of military trials of civilians.Egypt’s cabinet said on Monday it had resigned, as clashes raged for a third day in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. “The government of Prime Minister Essam Sharaf has handed its resignation to the (ruling) Supreme Council of the Armed Forces,” cabinet spokesman Mohammed Hegazy said in a statement carried by the official MENA news agency.State television quoted a military source as saying the ruling military council had rejected the resignation, but Information Minister Osama Heikal told MENA the matter had not yet been decided.Sharaf's resignation, if accepted, threatens to derail parliamentary elections scheduled for Nov. 28 -- the first polls since Mubarak was toppled in February.But the military council is seeking agreement on a new prime minister before it accepts Sharaf’s resignation, a military source told Reuters.The source said no formal announcement would be made until the ruling military council had agreed on the candidate. He did not provide further details.Meanwhile, presidential hopeful Amr Moussa warned that those who call for the toppling of the military council aim mainly at spreading more chaos and unrest in Egypt.Moussa said that what is currently happening in Egypt is definitely not a new revolution, adding there is a kind of misunderstanding due to weakness of the government and the slowness in implementing its decisions. Moussa called on the military council to specify a timeline for handing over the powers to a civilian authority.Read the full story here.

• U.N. passes resolution condemning Iran human rights abuses with record amount of votes.(AlArabiya).The U.N. General Assembly on Monday passed an annual resolution condemning human rights abuses in Iran with a record number of votes in support.The assembly also passed resolutions condemning human rights in North Korea and Myanmar. All received record high backing.The resolution, which was introduced by Canada, “expresses deep concern at serious ongoing and recurring human rights violations in the Islamic Republic of Iran.”The Iran vote came only three days after the General Assembly condemned an alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to Washington – a plot which the United States accuses Iran of masterminding.The 193-member assembly passed the resolution condemning “torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment” by Iranian authorities with 86 votes in favor, six more than last year, 32 against, down eight from 2010, and 59 abstentions.The resolution condemned “flogging and amputations” carried out in Iran and deplored a “dramatic increase” in the use of the death penalty, particularly against minors. Many human rights groups say events have deteriorated in Iran over the past year.Iranian government representative, Mohammad Javad Larijani, an advisor to the country’s supreme leader, called the resolution “substantially unfounded and intentionally malicious” in a speech to the General Assembly’s human rights committee.“The document is an onslaught on the good conscience of the international community and an unforgivable insult to the whole institution of the U.N.,” Larijani said.Among the abuses listed in the resolution were torture, excessive use of the death penalty, discrimination against women, persecution of journalists and religious minorities, including members of the Baha’i faith, as well as the detention of key opposition leaders from the 2009 presidential election.Larijani also attacked Canada, Europe and the United States for what he said were their “serious human rights violations.”Among the examples he gave was “increasing discrimination against immigrants, Muslims and other people of foreign origin in Europe, United States and Canada.”British Foreign Secretary William Hague welcomed the committee’s adoption of the nonbinding resolution on Iran, which will be confirmed with a second vote in a General Assembly plenary session next month.“Iran has shown scant evidence of cooperation with the U.N. to improve its human rights record,” Hague said in a statement. “The fact that this resolution passed by a record majority shows the international community is strongly united in its condemnation of human rights abuses in Iran.”Russia and China, which have vetoes in the U.N. Security Council, were among those that voted against the resolution, highlighting the divide between Moscow and Beijing, which have close commercial ties to Iran, and the West, which would like Tehran to face new U.N. sanctions over its atomic program.Diplomats from several nonaligned developing countries criticized the annual ritual of adopting resolutions condemning a handful of individual countries.Syria, which faces a special human rights vote on Tuesday over its deadly crackdown on opposition protests, spoke out strongly for its Iranian ally.The North Korea vote was passed with 112 votes in favor, 16 against and 55 abstentions. On Myanmar the vote was 98 in favor, 25 against with 63 abstentions.The assembly raised “very serious concern” over the “torture” and “inhuman conditions of detention, public executions, extra judicial and arbitrary detention” in North Korea.It also condemned the “existence of a large number of prison camps and the extensive use of forced labor.”The Myanmar resolution welcomed recent talks between democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the military-dominated government, the release of some political prisoners and other changes over the past year.But the General Assembly said there were still “systematic violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms.”It highlighted “arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, rape and other forms of sexual violence, torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.” It also raised concerns about the treatment of ethnic minorities such as the Karen people.Western nations, which have sanctions against Myanmar, have sought to encourage the tentative reforms started by the government. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is to hold talks in Myanmar next month.Hmmm......'Record Majority'...86 votes in favor ...even not HALF?Don't let me laugh!Read the full story here.

• Soviet Era SSN-26 Yakhont anti-ship missiles Slipped Into Syria.(StrategyPage).November 22, 2011: Despite the growing civil war in Syria, Russia is honoring an order, earlier this year, for an unspecified number of SSN-26 Yakhont anti-ship missiles. The order was finally confirmed eight months ago, after four years of haggling and efforts by Israel and the United States to block the sale. Apparently the missiles have already been paid for, and Syrian has assured Russia that the missiles can safely be delivered by ship. Russia is happy for any sale, but seems particularly anxious for this missile to get some combat experience.The Yakhont was under development throughout the 1990s, but was delayed by lack of funds. Now it's in production, and the Russians have been energetically seeking export sales. The Yakhont uses a liquid-fuel ramjet and travels 300 kilometers at speeds of over 2,000 kilometers an hour (using a high altitude cruise and a low-altitude approach; if it travels entirely at low altitude the range is cut to 120km). When the missile arrives in the area where the target is supposed to be, it turns on its radar and goes for the kill. Israel is the only one in the region the Yakhonts would be used against. However, because Iran is supplying (unofficially) the cash for the missiles, there is also the risk that some of the Yakhonts would end up in Iran for use against numerous targets in the Persian Gulf.The ground based Yakhont can use truck mounted or fixed launchers, with up to 36 missiles supported by a land based search radar and helicopter mounted radars (to locate targets over the horizon). Once a target has been identified and located, one or two missiles are programmed with that location and launched. The Yakhont is a 8.9 meter (27.6 foot) long, three ton missile with a 300 kg (660 pound) warhead.An improved version of the Yakhont, the PJ-10 BrahMos missile, was developed for India. The 9.4 meter (29 foot) long, 670mm diameter missile is an upgraded version of the Yakhont. Lacking money to finish development and begin production, the Russian manufacturer eventually made a deal with India to finish the job. India put up most of the $240 million needed to finally complete two decades of development, an effort which produced the long delayed Yakhont, and more capable BrahMos. The PJ-10 is being built in Russia and India, with the Russians assisting India in setting up manufacturing facilities for cruise missile components. Efforts are being made to export up to 2,000, but no one has placed an order yet. Russia and India are encouraged enough to invest in BrahMos 2, which will use a scramjet, instead of a ramjet, in the second stage. This would double speed, and make the missile much more difficult to defend against.The 3.2 ton BrahMos has a range of 300 kilometers and a 300 kg warhead. Perhaps the most striking characteristic is its high speed, literally faster (at up to a kilometer per second) than a rifle bullet. The high price of each missile, about $2.3 million, restricts the number of countries that can afford it. The weapon entered service with the Indian navy in 2005. The maximum speed of 3,000 kilometers an hour makes it harder to intercept, and means it takes five minutes or less to reach its target. The air launched version weighs 2.5 tons, the others, three tons or more.Read the full story here.

• Russia says U.S. sanctions on Iran ‘unacceptable’ amid Tehran’s condemnation.(AlArabiya).Russia’s Foreign Ministry denounced new U.S. sanctions against Iran on Tuesday as “unacceptable and contradictory to international law,” as Iranian lawmakers were expected to review cooperation with the U.N. atomic energy watchdog following the sanctions. “Russia sees such measures as unacceptable and against international law,” Interfax news agency reported citing a statement by the foreign ministry. “This practice seriously complicates moves for constructive dialogue with Tehran.”“Strengthening sanctions pressure -- which for some of our partners is also almost becoming an end in itself -- will not assist in increasing the readiness of Iran to sit down at the negotiating table,” the foreign ministry said.“We believe that the constant strengthening of sanctions has long ago gone beyond the bounds of decisions on non-proliferation tasks surrounding the Iranian nuclear program."Iran dismissed on Tuesday new sanctions announced by western countries as more a propaganda exercise than something that will hit the economy.“Such measures are condemned by our people and will have no impact and be in vain,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast told a news conference, according to Reuters.The United States, worried by Tehran’s nuclear program, named Iran late on Monday as an area of “primary money laundering concern” in a step designed to dissuade non-U.S. banks from dealing with it, according to Reuters.It also blacklisted 11 entities suspected of aiding its nuclear programs and expanded sanctions to target companies that aid its oil and petrochemical industries. “As long as Iran continues down this dangerous path, the United States will continue to find ways, both in concert with our partners and through our own actions, to isolate and increase the pressure upon the Iranian regime,” President Barack Obama said in a written statement, according to AFP.Iran can “fulfill its international obligations... or it can continue to defy its responsibilities and face even more pressure and isolation,” he said.U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, unveiling what she called a “significant ratcheting up of pressure on Iran,” said the United States was targeting Iran’s energy sector directly for the first time.Detailing sanctions against goods, services and technologies for the petrochemical sector, Clinton said “there have to be consequences of such behavior.”In tandem, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner issued a warning that any firms doing business with Iran’s banking sector could run the risk of funding illicit activities.But, Geithner warned, “financial institutions around the world should think hard about the risks of doing business with Iran.”Hmmmm.....Does this also include Obama's 'buddy' Turkey?Read the full story here.

• German Establishment Forced to Admit Mainstream German Society Hostile to Turks and Muslims.(IVE).Here is a translated extract from an interview Hans-Ulrich Jörges [on the right in the photograph] - one of the editors of the Stern news magazine - gave on the German news channel NTV.

How many murdered fellow citizens does it take, murdered by Neo-Nazis, till the mass of the people go on to the streets?

Jörges: …We note with some shock that there is no sympathy for the victims. At least not in the majority German society. In a minority milieu there is. Now and then we see a small group of people in a place where there were victims, stand in front of the door in the evening and light candles or hold up signs. Those groups are no larger than 100 people. The majority German society, we learn from this, apparently lives in a mixture of indifference, fear and even contempt towards the Turkish immigrant society that lives alongside it. They have very little to do with one another. They do not feel, do not consider them as fellow citizens. And if you look at where that comes from, I believe you need to look back at the last year. Last year Thilo Sarrazin rose up to be a folk hero. This man has transported the language of the NPD [German “far right” party they are now talking about banning in the wake of these murders, even though it had nothing to do with them] into the mainstream of society. He started the debate at the end of 2009 with phrases like “The Turks conquered Germany with their higher birth-rate”, they had “no productive function other than selling fruit and vegetables”, they “unceasingly produced little headscarf girls”. When you look back on it now, those are unbelievable phrases. And I say very deliberately that is the language of the NPD. And that book he wrote with over 1.3 million copies sold is the most successful political book since the war – incredible actually.

And what does that say about the mainstream of the society he was able to transport these theses to?

Jörges: The mainstream of society is receptive to such theses…

Why?

Jörges: Mainstream society rejects Turkish-Muslim culture. It is afraid of it. It doesn’t like it. Also it rejects integration. We’re always looking at the Turkish immigrants and their willingness to integrate. The German majority society also has no willingness to integrate, the majority society. And when we look at the mainstream again, on the internet there’s now a relatively well-known platform for inciting hatred against Turks and Muslims. It’s now had over 50 million visitors and more than 125 million page views. That is not a marginal milieu any more. That is the mainstream of society. So we shouldn’t just be looking at the right, although that’s correct; we need to look at the mainstream society too and see what’s happening out there.The internet hate platform he's referring to is, of course, PI (Politically Incorrect).Read the full story here.

• Brussels: Jewish girl attacked by Moroccan girls, told to 'go home'.(IslaminEurope).This story was originally reported by the Belgian antisemitisme site and translated by the Philosemetism blog. See both for more details.Via La Libre and Le Soir (French):  Océane, a 13-year old Jewish girl, was beat up Friday by five girls of Moroccan origin after a gym class at Neder-Over-Heembeek (Brussels).At the end of a football class at the sports center in Neder-Over-Heembeek, five Moroccan girls from the neighborhood insulted Océane for being Belgian and of a higher social level. Océane asked for a little respect, at which their leader told her to 'shut up'. One of the girls told their leader 'besides, she's just a dirty Jew'. The leader then slapped Océane twice. The young girl tried to escape, with no success. The leader then repeated 'shut you dirty Jew, and go back to your country', and the five girls caught her and started beating her.The incident was reported to the police. Océane did not at first want to go to the hospital, but after suffering from pains all weekend her father took her to the hospital on Monday, where the doctors diagnosed a concussion and inflammation of the cervical vertebrae. Océane fears retaliation and does not want to go back to school, where she's a first year student. The girls are second year students at the same school.Océane's father, Dan, says this is not the first time. "There's latent antisemitism at this school. My daughter was insulted with 'dirty Jew' at least a dozen time last year, and already a few times since the beginning of the year."Brussels MP Viviane Teitelbaum (MR), who has written in the past about antisemitism in local schools, denounced the attack and said she was shocked that this story did not get to the press and news sites. Read the full story here.

• King Abdullah: 'Israel Has an Expiration date'.(DocsTalk).King Abdullah of Jordan claims Israel has an 'expiration date' - unless it pursues a two-state solution. Israel Radio reported Monday morning that King Abdullah of Jordan said "Israel has an expiration date."Abdullah's comments were reportedly made to the BBC last week. During the interview Abdullah said Israel's survival was dependent on a two-state solution. Israel does not realize it needs such a solution, he added Abdullah added his government would increase pressure on Israel to reach a final status agreement with the Palestinian Authority.He did not, however, provide any concrete facts to buttress his oft repeated assertion of Israel's imminent doom.Israel remains a regional leader in the realms of economics, military, science, and technology. Meanwhile, former defense minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer said Israel cannot afford to cut the defense budget because Israel is likely to find itself in renewed conflict with Egypt in the long-run.Comment: Some would say that Jordan is certainly not our friend and I would concur. However he is signaling to us a particular message regarding the future of talks. Perhaps it would be useful to engage the King in public discourse-he needs us to succeed to save his entire monarchy.Read the full story here.

• Iran Threatens To ‘Bung Israel Into The Trash Bin Of History’ If Attacked.(Matzav).In case of an attack on the Iranian nuclear sites, “Iran would bung Israel into the trash bin of history,” a general of the Iranian revolutionary guards (IRGC) said today.“It is actually one of our biggest wishes that the Zionists regime [Israel] would make such a move,” Amir Ali-Hajizadeh, commander of the IRGC aerospace department, told Fars news agency.“In that case we would do what we wanted to do for quite a while; bunging the enemy of Islam and Muslims [Israel] into the trash bin of history,” he said.There has been mounting speculation that Israel would strike Iran’s nuclear facilities if Iran continues to defy international demands that it allay western concerns over it nuclear activities.Iranian military officials have several times warned Israel would regret such preemptive strikes and that Iran would in retaliation make use of its Shahab-3 missiles which could strike any part of the country.The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) published a report earlier this month that claimed that there was a high probability that Iran’s nuclear program has military aspects, prompting Israel and the U.S. to urge the international community to toughen economic sanctions on the Islamic Republic.Hmmm.......'Bunging"?Read the full story here.

MFS - The Other News

                    Morning Posting.

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity situation New Zealand 6.1 -5.8 - 5.7 - 5.2 ; Portugal 5.3 ; papua New Guinea 5.1!More info here.

• Europe - Nuclear Event in MultiCountries situation update  on Wednesday, 16 November..Here.

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

• Canary Islands - El Hierro earthquake and volcano eruption – Update 21.  here , Live webcams here and here.

• Hundreds of thousands of Egyptians back in Cairo’s Tahrir square with Islamists in the forefront.(AlArabiya).Hundreds of thousands of Egyptians rallied Friday in Cairo’s Tahrir square with Islamists in the forefront to protest against what they say are attempts by the country’s military rulers to designate themselves as the guardians of a new Egypt. It was one of the largest rallied in Egypt in recent months.Most rallies in Tahrir have been led by liberal- or left-leaning groups. But Friday’s rally was dominated by the country’s most organized political group, the Muslim Brotherhood, which has rarely come out in full force since the protests that forced President Hosni Mubarak to step down in February.The Brotherhood had until recently avoided confrontation with the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, but now warns of escalating its protest campaign if plans to give permanent political powers to the military are not scrapped.“The army has no role in ruling people. Its only job is to protect the country. We want civilian rule chosen through democracy,” said Hani Hegazi, a 28-year old Brotherhood member who traveled by bus to Tahrir from the Delta province of el-Beheira, according to The Associated Press.Banners read: “Down with military rule. Egypt our country is not a military camp.” Some demonstrators flew the Egyptian flag, while others including ultraconservative Salafis waved a banner declaring Islam's holy book, the Quran, to be “our constitution.”The rally was called to protest a document floated by the government which declares the military the guardian of “constitutional legitimacy,” suggesting the armed forces could have the final word on major policies even after a new president is elected. The document, which includes guiding principles for Egypt's new constitution, also introduces clauses that would shield it from civilian oversight.Most of Egypt’s pro-democracy groups object to the document, calling it an attempt to perpetuate military rule past the post-Mubarak transitional period which is supposed to end with the election of a new parliament and a new president.Delivering the Muslim prayer sermon, imam Mazhar Shahin urged protesters to keep defending the goals of the revolution.“Perhaps those who rule us think we will forget our cause with the passage of time. They are deluded and mistaken,” he warned the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), which took power when Mubarak was ousted.“We reject the imposition of dictates on the people, we reject Silmi’s document. No voice can drown out the voice of the people,” Shahin told the crowd.“Those who fear Islamist movements in Egypt, I tell them don’t be scared of Islam in Egypt,” Shahin said, AFP reported.“Egypt is Islamic, like it or not... We want a civic democratic state with an Islamic vision that allows people to practice their rights and democracy,” he said.In addition to the Brotherhood, Salafis, left- and liberal-leaning groups such as the April 6 movement and other youth revolutionary alliances have joined the rally, demanding a timetable for the end of military rule which began in February.They have called for marches from mosques around Egypt to major squares, dubbing it the “Friday of the Single Demand” - that demand being a clear date for the transfer of power to civilian rule. Many groups have planned to hold an open ended sit-in until a date has been set.The Brotherhood says the document reinforces “dictatorship.”Walid Farouk, 32, who wore the heavy beard and traditional robe of the ultraconservative Salafi trend, said that Egypt had seen nothing good from military rule since the army took power in 1952.“All of us are scared that the army could try to hold on to power,” he told AP. “It is time for a civilian government.”The writing of Egypt’s constitution has been a divisive issue, and details of who will write it and what it contains are at the heart of the recent rally.Some liberals have supported the idea of writing guiding principles for the constitution, fearing that a parliament controlled by Islamists would insert religious principles into the document.Hmmm....The gloves come off and the hardline Islamists rise?So much for 'moderate' Muslim Brotherhood.Read the full story here.

• Russia warships to enter Syria waters in bid to stem foreign intervention.(Haaretz).Russian warships are due to arrive at Syrian territorial waters, a Syrian news agency said on Thursday, indicating that the move represented a clear message to the West that Moscow would resist any foreign intervention in the country's civil unrest. Also on Friday, a Syrian official said Damascus has agreed "in principle" to allow an Arab League observer mission into the country.But the official said Friday that Syria was still studying the details. The official asked not to be named because the issue is so sensitive. The Arab League suspended Syria earlier this week over its deadly crackdown on an eight-month-old uprising. The 22-member body has proposed sending hundreds of observers to the country to try to help end the bloodshed. The report came a day after a draft resolution backed by Arab and European countries and the United States was submitted to the United Nations General Assembly, seeking to condemn human rights violations in the on-going violence in Syria. Jordan, Morocco, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia were among Arab states that joined Germany, Britain, and France to sponsor the draft submitted to the assembly's human rights committee. In Washington, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the U.S. would sign on as a co-sponsor of the resolution. The draft demanded an end to violence, respect of human rights and implementation by Damascus of a plan of action of the Arab League. The move comes as clashes escalated in Syria and after Russia and China used their veto in October to block a Security Council resolution that would have condemned the Syrian government of President Bashir for the violence. Such a veto is not applicable in the 193-nation assembly, which will consider the issue after the human rights committee reports back to it.Read the full story here.

• Report: Arab Nations Pressing for Iran Strike by Year's end.(INN).Newly acquired intelligence reports indicate several Arab countries in the Middle East are lobbying the US to strike Iran this year, Israel's Channel 10 reported.According to the report, which is said to be making its rounds in Britain's political circles, Saudi Arabia wants the Obama administration to attack Iran's nuclear facilities before the final withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.US president has vowed to close the door on American military involvement in Iraq by year’s end, but Riyadh is reportedly afraid Iran will use the American exit to take over the country.Since 2008, officials in the Iraqi interim government have complained to Washington that both Iran and Saudi Arabia were, respectively, funding the Shiite and Sunni insurgencies that have plagued the country since the US-led invasion that toppled late dictator Sadam Hussein.Security experts say Baghdad's security forces are unprepared to confront the rival insurgencies that hold Iraq in their grip - and that Obama's dogged drive to fulfill his campaign promise may have disastrous consequences both for the region and US interests.Saudi Arabia and its Gulf Arab allies have been locked in a strategic battle with Iran for hegemony over the Persian Gulf - and have accused Tehran of seeking to destabilize the region through its ‘Shiite Diaspora.Gulf Arab leaders have sought to exert pressure on Iran and its regional allies - most notably Syrian president Bashar al-Assad - by allying themselves with Western powers opposed to Tehran's aggressive posture.They have also joined western powers in targeting Iran's nuclear program, which they see as targeting them first and foremost - rather than Israel, who Iran has threatened repeatedly with destruction.Suadia Arabia has also said, should Iran obtain nuclear weapons, Riyahd will seek them as well - raising the specter of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. Analysts say this may be a lever to spur Obama to alter course from his current passive, sanctions-driven posture towards Iran.Despite this, Arab powers have been reticent to publicly call for an Iran strike - which has been a high profile part of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's diplomatic agenda.Instead, observers say, they have sought to work behind the scenes to avoid being seen as working in concert with Israel.Read the full story here.

• Van Jones on Occupy Wall Street: ‘You Haven’t Seen Anything Yet’.(TheBlaze). Van Jones offered a prediction Wednesday for those who have been watching the Occupy Wall Street movement: "You haven’t seen anything yet." The former Obama administration "green jobs czar" — an ardent supporter of the Occupy movement since its inception — said in an interview with CNN that the movement is ready to evolve into the areas of politics and policy-making, much like the Tea Party did in 2010. (Related: What connections does Beck make between Van Jones’ revolution group & Occupy Wall Street?) "You’re going to see an [R]evolution now as you go from protests, keep the protests, but now expand into politics," Jones said. "And if you thought there was an earthquake in 2010 when the Tea Party moved into politics, wait until this 99 percent movement moves over into politics. You haven’t seen anything yet." Jones said the movement is "going to be recruiting 2,000 candidates to run for office now under this 99 percent banner" as Occupy Wall Street enters "phase two." "Phase two, you move from anger to answers. You move from pointing out the problem to pointing out the solutions," Jones said. "What you’re going to see now is you have the Occupy movement at the center, that’s the beating heart." Jones said despite New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s eviction of protesters from Zuccotti Park, "you can‘t put toothpaste back in the tube and you can’t evict an idea." Hmmm........Obama's 'army' going for civil war?Read the full story here.

• Excellent News: Self-Described 'Militant Marxist-Leninist Skinhead' Heads Obama's Political Action Wing. (DougRoss).Barack Obama's personal political action wing -- don't call them modern day brown-shirts! -- is "Organizing For America", or OFA. Among OFA's leaders is a self-described "Marxist-Leninist Skinhead" who is also behind the Young Communist League.Yesterday we released a video of John Bachtell, a national board member from the Communist Party U.S.A., addressing the bongo-banging, spoiled, suburban run-aways at the #OccupyChicago tent city and an interview with a few of his “fellow travelers” in the march....Farrar, seen in the white C.P. USA shirt, is not only a Young Communist League leader, but he is also a member of Barack Obama’s Organizing for America and he organized a rally in 2009 for OFA to support President Obama’s health care bill. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) was featured guest at Farrar’s event as well....Jordan is a self-described “militant anti-racist anti-fascist Marxist-Leninist skinhead... fight[ing] along with my comrades for a better world through peace, equality, democracy and by creating a socialist America to put an end to the imperialist and capitalist aggression that has been carried out in the name of the American people.”“Another world is possible, another United States is necessary!”In other words, a prominent Obama supporter is also an advocate for the overthrow of the United States government.As an aside, can anyone tell me when it become acceptable for a member of the Democrat Party to be an avowed, militant Communist? I'm just looking for this year happened so I can figure out when this political party became infected with such a virulent strain of anti-Americanism.Hmmmm.......I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes. ~ Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776.Read the full story here.

• Obama Admin Broke Law to Push Abortion in Kenya.(LifeNews).An investigation by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), into the Obama Administration’s use of $18 million in taxpayer funds to provide funding for a group pushing legalized abortion in Kenya finds the administration broke the law.The investigation by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, shows at least one Obama grantee openly pushed to expand abortion in Kenya despite a long-standing, annually renewed law that prohibits U.S. tax dollars from being used to lobby for or against abortion in other countries (known as the Siljander Amendment).The GAO report also reveals that a key Obama official stonewalled investigators and refused to cooperate with the GAO in its investigation of the activities initiated by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the State Department during the 2010 constitutional referendum in Kenya.“The Obama Administration basically hired surrogates to do its dirty work of abortion promotion in Kenya,” said Congressman Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican who is the chairman of the House Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health and Human Rights.“U.S. policy on international constitutional reform is, by law, supposed to be abortion-neutral” Smith said. “This new report shows that at a minimum the Obama Administration ignored the prohibition with the end result being a new Kenyan constitution that vastly expands access to abortion in Kenya, courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer.”“That a high-ranking official in the Obama Administration, Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs, Maria Otero, chose not to cooperate with the GAO as they uncovered procedural and funding problems begs for further investigation and review,” Smith said. “What else might they be hiding?”In May 2010, Smith teamed up with Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, and Darrell Issa, Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and requested the GAO investigation. The GAO report, made publicly available on Monday, shows that the International Development Law Organization (IDLO) received $400,000 from USAID to provide analyses of the draft constitution to the Kenyans’ Committee of Experts (COE), the body primarily responsible for drafting and finalizing the constitution. The IDLO seized the opportunity to blatantly advocate for the legalization of abortion in Kenya in its communications with the Kenyans prior to the vote on the new constitution.A prior USAID report indicates the Obama administration spent $61.2 million related to the vote on the Kenya constitution, with $12.6 million going to efforts to directly promote the pro-abortion constitution.The GAO indicates that the IDLO provided advice “on the issues of fetal rights and abortion, though the draft had not mentioned either issue at this point. Specifically, the IDLO report advised that the COE might consider adding language to make clear that the fetus lacks constitutional standing, and that the rights of women under these articles therefore take priority. IDLO also provided examples of countries whose courts have held that fetal rights to life serve as a partial barrier to the ability of national legislatures to protect… the legal right of access to abortion.”In its report, GAO also quoted IDLO as advising the Kenyans that “[I]n the coming years, the Kenyan Parliament may wish to take such measures. One way to handle this would be to modify [the constitution] to make clear that a person is a human being who has been born.“The IDLO communications to the Kenyans introduced the abortion issue into the constitutional debate, ‘advised’ the Kenyans to include language in the constitution that clearly supported the legalization of abortion, and expressed opposition to later proposed language that would have restricted access to abortion,” Smith explained. “If this isn’t lobbying, what is?”With regard to the stonewalling by the Obama Administration official, Smith said “It actually comes as little surprise that Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs, Maria Otero, ignored repeated requests from the GAO to question her regarding her activities in Kenya.”GAO informed Smith’s office that Otero failed to respond to multiple requests for meetings.Otero, whose portfolio includes population issues, traveled to Kenya from November 29 to December 2, 2010 in her official capacity, and met with Prime Minister Odinga, senior government officials and civil society representatives. She previously traveled in Kenya with Ms. Phoebe Asyio, a commissioner on the Constitution of Kenya Review Commission and chair of the Kenyan Caucus for Women’s Leadership (CWL), who advocated for and later lauded the legalization of abortion in Kenya as a result of the new constitution.“In light of the law, Otero’s activities raise serious questions that she apparently did not want to answer,” Smith said.Political reform in Kenya was – and continues to be – an extremely important undertaking in light of the 2007 violence that claimed approximately 1, 300 lives and displaced tens of thousands more in that country.“There are justifiable concerns that the deadly upheaval could be repeated with the elections in 2012 unless dramatic reforms are in place,” Smith noted. “However, this needed reform should not be used by pro-abortion groups funded by the Obama Administration to rewrite the pro-life laws of Kenya.”Smith noted that even after its clear violation of the lobbying prohibition, the IDLO continues to receive U.S. funding to play a central role in the drafting of laws implementing the new constitution.Read the full story here.

• FBI releases 2010 Hate Crime Data.(ReligionClause). The FBI yesterday released its report on 2010 Hate Crime Statistics. (Full text of report.) Of the 6,224 single bias incidents reported in 2010, 20% were motivated by religious bias-- second only to racially motivated hate crimes which accounted for 47.3% of the incidents. Sexual orientation bias was involved in 19.3% of the single bias incidents. Of the 1,409 hate crimes offenses motivated by religious bias, 65.4% were anti-Jewish; 13.2% were anti-Islamic; 4.3% were anti-Catholic; 3.8% were anti-multiple; 3.3% were anti-Protestant; 0.5% were anti-Atheism/Agnosticism/etc.; and 9.5% involved various other religions. The 6,628 total hate crime incidents in 2010 amounted to an insignificant increase over the 6,604 incidents reported for 2009. (See prior posting.) ADL issued a press release commenting on the 2010 data and decrying the fact that numerous law enforcement agencies around the country failed to report their hate crime data to the FBI.Read the full story here.

• GE Filed 57,000-Page Tax Return, Paid No Taxes on $14 Billion in Profits.(WeeklyStandard).General Electric, one of the largest corporations in America, filed a whopping 57,000-page federal tax return earlier this year but didn't pay taxes on $14 billion in profits. The return, which was filed electronically, would have been 19 feet high if printed out and stacked.Ken Kies, a tax lawyer who represents GE, confirmed to THE WEEKLY STANDARD the tax return would have been 57,000 pages had it been filed on paper. The size of GE's tax return has more than doubled in the last five years.Ryan used the data point to underscore the irrationality of the corporate income tax code. He also contrasted GE with UPS to make the point that the corporate income tax code doesn't make sense. "UPS paid a 34 percent effective tax rate," while its biggest foreign competitor, DHL, paid a 24 percent tax rate, Ryan said. Read the full story here.

• Pentagon Successfully Tests Flying Bomb.(INN).The Pentagon held a successful test flight of a flying bomb that travels faster than the speed of sound on Thursday, AFP reported.The bomb will give military planners the ability to strike targets anywhere in the world in less than a hour, the report said.The “Advanced Hypersonic Weapon,” or AHW, was launched by rocket from Hawaii and proceeded to glide through the upper atmosphere over the Pacific “at hypersonic speed” before hitting its target on the Kwajalein atoll in the Marshall Islands, a Pentagon statement said.Kwajalein is located about 2,500 miles (4,000 kilometers) southwest of Hawaii. The Pentagon did not say what top speeds were reached by the vehicle, which is maneuverable.Hypersonic speeds are classified by scientists as those that exceed five times the speed of sound -- 3,728 miles (6,000 kilometers) an hour, AFP said.A Pentagon spokeswoman told the French-based news agency the test aimed to gather data on “aerodynamics, navigation, guidance and control, and thermal protection technologies.”The U.S. Army’s AHW project is part of the “Prompt Global Strike” program which seeks to give the U.S. military the means to deliver conventional weapons anywhere in the world within an hour.The timing of the test may raise some eyebrows, in the wake of the recent controversy regarding Iran’s nuclear program.In its latest report, the IAEA said last week that it was able to build an overall “credible” impression that Iranian were engaged in carrying out “activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device.”Iran has dismissed the report as “baseless.” Nevertheless, there has been wide speculation of a military attack on Iran which might be launched by Israel.Recent reports suggested that the U.S. might also support a strike on Iran’s nuclear program: The Obama administration is reportedly considering arming Qatar with huge bunker buster bombs, raising the possibility of an American-Israel-Arab attack on Iran.Read the full story here.

• Phoenix Europe - How the EU Can Emerge from the Ashes.(Spiegel).The old European Union didn't work, that much has been made clear by the ongoing debt crisis. But many in Europe think there is now a clear path to a new, more integrated -- and smaller -- bloc. What must happen first? Greater democracy and less nation-state sovereignty. Read the full story here.

• Israel to help Kenya fight al Shabaab militia.(DefenceWeb).Israel is willing to help Kenya fight al Shabaab militia in Somalia, the Kenyan Prime Minister’s office has said.The BBC says that during Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s visit to Israel the Kenyan government received backing from Israel to “rid its territory of fundamentalist elements.”In a statement, Odinga's office quoted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as saying that "Kenya's enemies are Israel's enemies"."We have similar forces planning to bring us down. I see it as an opportunity to strengthen ties."Odinga said that Israel could help Kenya’s police detect and destroy al Shabaab’s networks in Kenya. He also said that Israel needed to supply vehicles for border patrols and maritime surveillance equipment to curb piracy off the East African coast."We need to be able to convincingly ensure homeland security," Odinga said.Netanyahu as promising to help build a "coalition against fundamentalism" in East Africa, incorporating Kenya, Ethiopia, South Sudan and Tanzania.Israel's President Shimon Peres had promised to "make everything available" to Kenya to guarantee its security within its borders."Consistently, Kenya has shown a very positive attitude towards Israel and Israel is ready to help," the statement quotes Peres as saying.Kenya mounted an air and ground offensive against al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab in Somalia a month ago after a string of kidnappings and cross-border raids it blamed on the group.Kenya is the latest country to entangle itself in the affairs of its anarchic neighbour which has suffered two decades of civil war. Kenya has long cast a wary eye at its lawless neighbour, awash with weapons and mired in conflict since the overthrow of a dictator in 1991.The region's biggest economy is so worried by the anarchy in Somalia, where first warlords then Islamist insurgents have stepped into a political vacuum, that it has quietly supported the birth of a semi-autonomous Somali province dubbed 'Jubaland', comprising the three Somali regions bordering Kenya.The status of Jubaland, also sometimes called Azania, is not clear. Somalia's government says it does not support the Jubaland initiative.Kenya's military has denied its incursion was carefully planned for years with a view to annexing Somali territory that could act as a buffer zone between the two countries.The military says it wants to eliminate the threat of al Shabaab, which has hit Kenya's crucial tourist industry, and help the Western-backed Mogadishu government which has been fighting the militants since 2007.The African Union said on Monday its peacekeeping force in Somalia, AMISOM, would receive an extra 1,150 troops from Burundi and Djibouti by mid-December, taking the total to around 11,000 -- near the 12,000 authorised by the United Nations.The peacekeepers have prevented al Shabaab from expelling the government from its foothold in the capital. "For the first time, we are now realistically envisioning the (government) extending its political reach and authority beyond Mogadishu," AU Commissioner for Peace and Security Ramtane Lamamra told reporters in Addis Ababa.After a fairly smooth advance, the Kenyan forces fighting al Shabaab have camped near several rebel strongholds, but have had no serious clashes with the insurgents, and have not seized any significant bases.Read the full story here.

• Egyptians back in Tahrir against army’s ‘supra-constitutional’ plans.(AlArabiya).Thousands of Egyptians were massing in Cairo’s Tahrir Square early on Friday for a mass rally against the military rulers’ proposed “supra-constitutional principles” that seek to shield the army from public scrutiny.Liberal and Islamist group, including the powerful Muslim Brotherhood movement, announced they would hold the rally after the government went ahead with its plan to draft overarching constitutional principles.Tents were pitched and sound stages set up as protesters returned to Tahrir square, the epicenter of an uprising that ousted President Hosni Mubarak from office in February, in what they said was an attempt to put “the revolution back on track.”“There will be a big revolution tomorrow,” said a protester demanding rights for Egyptians killed and wounded in the revolution.The government’s draft drew fire from most quarters for including clauses that removed the ruling military’s budget from parliamentary oversight and allowed the military final say on military-related laws.The government revised the draft, but the Islamists, who organized a mass protest in July against such a charter, have rejected the very idea of a document that would limit parliament’s authority to draft the constitution.“The protest on Friday is to reclaim power from the army and oppose Silmi’s document,” said Mohamed Fathi from the youth group the Front to Protect the Revolution.Salafi parties and movements, who follow orthodox Islamic teachings, were the earliest to galvanize support for the Friday protest, with the Muslim Brotherhood and a number of liberal parties following suit.“Our demands are the revolution’s demands ... our sit-in is open until we leave,” said protester Abdulla Ibrahim.Any extended protest by demonstrators camping in Tahrir square could potentially destabilize preparations for a parliamentary vote due on Nov. 28.Political groups have demanded the military council announce a clear timetable for handing power over to an elected civilian government with a deadline for presidential elections no later than April 2012.Read the full story here.

• Egyptian Salafist figure storms student concert, reignites debate over Music in Islam.(AlArabiya).The debate over music in Islam, forbidden or sanctioned, has resurfaced in the Egyptian media after popular Egyptian Islamic Salafist scholar Hazem Shoman stormed the stage of a concert last Tuesday, telling the audience that what they were watching was sinful.Students at Nile Academy campus in the city of Mansoura were surprised when Shoman took the stage of Hisham Abbas’ concert “advising” them that music is “haram,” or forbidden in Islam, and that they should not be watching or listening to it.The students reportedly responded with chants against the scholar, and in order to prevent the escalation of the situation, the academy’s vice president Mohamed Abdel Ghaffar and other officials interfered and persuaded Shoman to vacate the venue.In a TV interview by Nile channel, Shoman later said that he was “shocked” to enter the concert hall and see female dancers mixing with men.He said that he decided to give “advices” to the concert’s youth whom he described as responsive to his concerns. According to him, the concert was later canceled after the withdrawal of a “sizeable group of the attendees.”Khalid Saeed, a spokesman for the Salafi Front, hailed Shoman’s “good behavior” but said Shoman only represented himself as an individual Salafi advocator. But Saeed told the electronic al-Ahram newspaper that the concert is “unacceptable” and that it was “full of sins” with both genders mixing. Prominent Islamic figure Salim al-Awa, likewise, said Shoman’s behavior was his own and did not represent any religious or political bloc in the country and that whether singing is forbidden in Islam was still an unresolved issue among the clerics and scholars. Awa said that there was no evidence in the Quran or in the teaching of the prophet that singing is “haram,” but he said there was “evidence” that anything that leads to committing sins should be banned.Read the full story here.

• Syria - France says too late for Syrian regime; Turkey warns of civil war.(AlArabiya).French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said on Friday that “it is now too late” for the Syrian regime to remain in power because it failed to implement necessary reforms. Meanwhile, Turkey warned that the conflict in Syria risks turning into a civil war.“We believe that the (Syrian) regime was not willing to implement a reform program and now it is too late,” Juppe said after a meeting with the Turkish parliament’s foreign relations committee head, Volkan Bozkir.Hours earlier, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, pointing to the new attacks by army defectors, said, “There is a risk of transforming into civil war. It is now the right time to stop this massacre, and therefore the Arab initiative is important.” The Arab League has given Syrian President Bashar al-Assad a deadline to halt his “bloody repression” of anti-regime protests or risk sanctions.Al Arabiya correspondent in the Moroccan capital Rabat, hosting an Arab League meeting on Syria, reported that the Assad’s regime has accepted the Arab call without giving further details.“If it is not successful of course there is always a risk of civil war or high level tension in Syria,” Davutoglu added.Up until now the Turkish diplomat said it has been “difficult to call it a civil war because in civil war there are two parties attacking each other.“But in this case usually civilians are being attacked by the security forces.”The eight-month revolt in Syria has turned increasingly violent, with the Free Syrian Army, made up of army defectors, mounting a daring attack this week against a military intelligence base near the capital and the opposition becoming more militarized.Davutoglu also said that Turkey was prepared to help the opposition Syrian National Council to develop its relations within Syria and with the international community.“At this stage it is important that the (opposition council) has access to the international community, the Syrian people, and that it has a solid base as an organization of the Syrian people,” he said.Syrian security forces shot dead at least five protesters on Friday and wounded tens when they fired live ammunition to disperse protests against the Syrian president after Friday prayers, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.Among those killed was a 14 year-old protester in the southern city of Deraa. The rest of the deaths occurred in the Damascus suburb of Erbin, the central city of Homs and the countryside of the city of Hama to the north, said the Observatory.Read the full story here.

• Iranian official calls for better cooperation against terrorism.(TodaysZaman).An Iranian lawmaker has called for better cooperation between Turkey and Iran against terrorism, which he said requires “a serious fight, regardless of where it is staged,” as he surprisingly hailed growing relations between the nations with the hope that Iran and Turkey would fulfill their true potential in the future.“Our true potential exceeds what we currently make of it. Relations are good, but they could be better,” the head of the Iranian Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, told the Anatolian news agency on Thursday before he departed for a visit to Turkey, where he will meet with Turkish officials and discuss bilateral and regional relations later in the day.Boroujerdi spoke of great opportunities ahead for Iran and Turkey, suggesting that the countries had more common than diverging interests. Turkey and Iran are neighbors with a remittent relationship in the volatile Middle East, and diplomatic relations between the regional powers have cooled with regard to Turkey's cooperation on a bilateral and regional level with the US, a country Boroujerdi regarded as “the Great Satan.”Touching on the US role in the Middle East, the Iranian official suggested that the nations of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region could secure the region through cooperation with each other, and there would be “no need to lean on the walking cane of the US,” Anatolia reported.Turkey and Iran are both combating terrorism seeking autonomy in their countries, and share intelligence regarding the activities of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and its Iranian offshoot, the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK). Commenting on the common terrorism problem of Turkey and Iran, the official noted that the two countries were cooperating through a mutual security committee for years to find a solution to the problem, and suggested that a serious fight was needed to overcome terrorism wherever it was staged.On Thursday, Boroujerdi met with President Abdullah Gül in Ankara and had a meeting with the chairperson of the parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee, Volkan Bozkır, with whom he discussed bilateral relations between the countries and ways of countering terrorism and illegal drug trafficking. The Iranian official, speaking to reporters after his meeting with Bozkır, also noted that the foreign trade volume between Turkey and Iran stood at $12 billion, and that it would reach $15 billion by the end of the year, as he expressed that the two countries would like to see that figure at $30 billion next year.Hmmmm......"Sanctions that 'bite', good thing the US and Turkey take the lead in the fight against terrorisme?Read the full story here.

• Iranian Revolutionary Guards drug ring funding terror?(YNet).The revenues of an Iranian-run global narcotics network is being transferred to terrorist organizations, London-based The Times newspaper quoted former Revolutionary Guard officials as saying on Friday. According to the sources, members of the elite guard took over the Islamic Republic's drug smuggling industry, and are using the revenues – estimated to reach dozens of billions of dollars – to build a solid support base for global crime networks and terror organizations acting against the West.The report noted that hundreds of people are executed in Iran annually for drug smuggling and drug possession, as part of the administration's hard-line policy against narcotics. However, behind the stage, the Revolutionary Guard is engaged in an extremely profitable business that is fueled by the smuggling of heroin, opium and methamphetamines.The report was published on the heels of a recent controversy surrounding the suspected involvement of the Revolutionary Guard's elite unit – the Quds Force – in the assassination attempt of the Saudi Ambassador to the United States.Sources in Washington, who claimed that the Iranians planned to blow up a New York restaurant while the Saudi ambassador was dining there, said that the narcotics ring leaders were also planning to expand their smuggling routes to North America.The United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) identified at least one Revolutionary Guard commander directly involved in drug trafficking from Afghanistan through Iran, the sources told The Times. The Iranian sources named two other seniors officials who they claimed were involved in the smuggling ring, including the Revolutionary Guard's Tehran District Commander Abdullah Araqi, who is suspected of developing close relations with the eastern European underworld. According to the report, the Iranians are using ships and planes to transport drugs to Albania, Bulgaria and Romania, and from there to western Europe. "We were told that the drugs will destroy the sons and daughters of the West, and that we must kill them. Their lives are worth less because they are not Muslims," a former Revolutionary Guard member told the paper. The revenues funneled from the drug industry, the sources claimed, ars used to fund various Iranian military projects, including the development of missiles and weaponry, but is mostly aimed at "exporting the Islamic revolution" – a code name for sowing imbalance in other countries by supporting radical Islamist factions, including Hezbollah, the Islamic Jihad and Hamas.Hmmmm...... "Their lives are worth less because they are not Muslims'.Compare to a US President that says:"I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction."Read the full story here.

• Jerusalem mosque at Mount of Olives expanding illegally,despite evidence it has expanded to State-owned land.(YNet).The Ras el-Amud mosque, situated on Jerusalem's Mount of Olives, has been illegally expanded by 217 square meters (about 2,335 square feet) over the past year, Ynet reported Thursday.Construction work at the mosque began in October 2010. While the main structure was built on private property, the additions were constructed illegally on State-owned land. The initial preparations for the additional construction began – not coincidentally – during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and the Jewish holiday season, when city inspectors normally don’t enforce the law. Following repeated complaints lodged by the area's residents, in June 2011 the City of Jerusalem ordered that construction at the site be halted. However, construction continued, and during this time the structure was connected to a water supply network and internal walls were erected.Michael Frankburg, legal counsel for Jerusalem District Police, said that the construction at the mosque was limited to internal renovations, but photos presented to him by residents indicated that three new structures were built at the site. Aryeh King, chairman of the East Jerusalem Public Complaints Bureau, said "it is a shame that all the law enforcement agencies are helpless, especially when this is about such an important site as the Mount of Olives."When Jews build in central and west Jerusalem, (the City) is very strict with them. It's a shame that the Prime Minister's Office, which is aware of this severe construction infringement, is in no hurry to enforce a law it is so quick to enforce when it comes to Jews who have built their homes on lands they have purchased in the West Bank," he added. Jerusalem Police said the case was under the municipality's jurisdiction. It said in a statement that as soon as it became evident that construction at the mosque violated a work stoppage order issued by the City, officers were dispatched to the site and made certain construction was halted. The City of Jerusalem said it would start legal proceedings against the mosque. Hmmmm....They destroy illegal Jewish settlers their houses don't they?Read the full story here.

• Egyptian Islamists Attack Christians Mourning Murder of 27 Copts.(INN).Muslim attackers have thrown rocks and broken glass at a Coptic Christian march in Cairo, injuring 10, witnesses told Reuters.Marcher Hossam Victor says about 400 Christians marched through the Cairo neighborhood of Shubra Thursday to mark the end of 40 days of mourning after sectarian clashes that killed 27 people, most of them Christians.During the march, attackers threw stones, bricks and broken glass on the marchers from a six-floor apartment building, Victor said. Clashes broke out and 10 people were injured, two of them seriously.Victor said the attackers were supporters of ultraconservative Islamist candidates in Egypt’s upcoming parliamentary elections.Sectarian clashes have become more common since the uprising that ousted President Hosni Mubarak in February.During the anti-Mubarak riots that marked the opening of the so-called Arab Spring in Egypt, the country’s community of Coptic Christians came under attack by armed gangs of Islamists.At least two Coptic churches were also burnt down during the uprising — one with ten people inside. Additionally, on New Year’s Day a bombing in a Coptic church killed 21.Cairo's caretaker junta has, to date, attempted to maintain the tolerant status quo of the Mubarak era, but Thursday's violence has raised concerns about the security of Egypt's Coptic Christians.Islamists are expected to make significant gains in polls scheduled to begin on November 28.Read the full story here.