MFS - The Other News: Intifada

Showing posts with label Intifada. Show all posts

Sunday, April 24, 2011

MFS - The Other News

Happy Easter.

Live broadcast info from Japan directly ! Here.

Libya Live Blog - April 24. Here .(Al-Jazeera).

Syria Live Blog - April 24. Here (Al-Jazeera).

Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world low seismic activity in Japan today between 4.5 and 4.7! More info here.

Japan - Latest official Situation Update No. 97.On 24.04.2011 at 13:07 GMT+2

Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) expects to complete work to clean up radioactive debris at Japan's quake-hit Fukushima nuclear plant by July, the Japanese TV channel NHK reported on Sunday, referring to TEPCO. TEPCO has created a map of radiation levels as part of its removal of radioactive debris at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the TV channel said. According to TEPCO, highly radioactive debris is lying in some areas of the compound. Radioactivity of 900 millisieverts per hour was detected on a concrete fragment near the third reactor on Wednesday, the TV channel said. The company has said, however, that it hasn't decided yet on places and methods of disposing of removed debris. The 9.0-magnitude earthquake and subsequent 15-meter tsunami on March 11 triggered a crisis at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which is being rated at the same level as the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. Fukushima's operator has since been struggling to stop radioactive leaks from the plant's crippled reactors. Almost 80,000 people living within the evacuation zone were forced to flee their homes.Source : Here .

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

One Jewish worshipper killed, 5 wounded from Palestinian 'policemen' gunfire At Joseph's Tomb in Nablus.Group of 15 hit with gunfire from Palestinian security forces as they leave Joseph's Tomb prayer; Nablus governor says attack was a "security incident, not terror" since group entered city without prior coordination.One Israeli worshiper was killed and five were wounded in Nablus early Sunday morning after their vehicle was shot at by Palestinian security forces as they were exiting the city from prayer services held at Joseph's Tomb.According to Nablus Governor Jabril al Bahri, the shooting attack was a "security incident" and not a terror attack. Bahri said the group of Breslev hassidim raised suspicions since they entered the city without prior coordination with the proper authorities. At first shots were fired in the air as a warning and then at the vehicle, he said. Bahri said the incident was being investigated and refused to say if the shooters were Palestinian Authority police.According to initial investigations, the Israelis were traveling in the area without coordinating their visit to Joseph's Tomb and were reportedly shot at by Palestinian police.Three vehicles with 15 Breslev hasidim entered the city in the early morning hours for prayer services. On the way back, around 6 a.m. they encountered a surprise checkpoint and were met with a hail of gunfire from a Palestinian jeep. The fire continued even after the vehicles turned back in an attempt to escape. Two of the three vehicles were hit.The worshipers were able to evacuate themselves to the IDF Samaria district brigade base and the Har Bracha settlement which were near by and received initial emergency medical care.The death of a 30-year-old male was pronounced at the scene. A 20-year-old man was injured in serious condition, suffering of an abdominal wound. He was airlifted to Bellinson Hospital in Petah Tikva where he underwent surgery. A 17-year-old youth was evacuated by a Magen David Adom Yarkon crew in moderate condition, suffering a wound to his shoulder. Another youth was injured and evacuated for medical treatment after he was questioned by authorities. Another two were in light condition and were treated on scene.When asked about the possibility that Palestinian Police shot at the car, Gershon Mesika, head of the Samaria regional council, told Army Radio that Breslov hassids attempt to illegally enter Joseph's Tomb almost every month. He added that Palestinian Police are familiar with the regular occurrence, and would have no reason to shoot at visitors.In February, Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs Minister Yuli Edelstein (Likud) called on Defense Minister Ehud Barak to increase access to Joseph’s Tomb, located on the southern edge of Nablus, which has a waiting list of thousands of Jews wanting to make the pilgrimage.At present, access to the tomb is limited to one nightly trip a month.Hmmmm....."Apartheid" techniques?Read the full story here.

HT:IsraelMatzav.An even more disturbing account of the Joseph's tomb murder.One of the Breslovers who was in the second car in the convoy and was lightly wounded told Ynet: "We arrived at the tomb like on many occasions in the past. Near the tomb we saw a spikes chain. One of the guys jumped out of the car and moved it aside."At this point a uniformed Palestinian police officer with a Kalashnikov in a jeep woke his colleagues up and they started firing into the air…I was in the front seat. We started driving fast in the direction of the tomb; we got out of the vehicles and kissed the tomb."When we got back to the vehicles the police shot at the vehicles, they were screaming 'Allahu Akbar'. It was crazy, they were shooting to kill. I screamed at the driver to drive out of there quickly. When we got to Har Bracha we attended to the wounded.".Read the full story here.

HT:JosuahPundit.Jewish Holy Site Joseph's tomb again Desecrated By Palestinian ' Übermenschen'. This year, hundreds of Jewish worshipers who arrived at Joseph's Tomb were shocked to find the Holy Site severely vandalized – again.When the group of 500 worshipers entered the tomb, they found it had been defaced – the headstone smashed and swastikas sprayed on the walls, graffiti of a blood-dripping sword over a Star of David, and visible boot prints all over the tomb itself.As you may know, anything to do with the bottom of one's shoe - like a boot print - is a deadly insult in Arab culture. The prints are identical with the 'Palestinian' police standard issue boots.Read and SEE the full story here.

Rightists threaten vengeance over Nablus shooting.(Ynet)Shortly prior to funeral of Ben-Yosef Livnat, killed in Joseph's Tomb shooting presumably by Palestinian policemen, settlers embark on price tag retaliation following Palestinian agitation.Shortly prior to the funeral of Nablus shooting victim Ben-Yosef Livnat, who was killed Sunday morning in a shooting at Joseph's Tomb, presumably by Palestinian policemen, settlers embarked on a price tag retaliation, stoning a Palestinian car. A Palestinian child was reportedly hurt. In retaliation to that, Palestinians stoned Israeli cars, injuring an Israeli youth. Two homes and two cars were reportedly set on fire in the village of Hawara, on the funeral procession route.Meanwhile, the Hawara-Yitzhar Junction in the West Bank was blocked after violent clashes broke out between mourners and Palestinian residents. Large numbers of IDF and police forces used tear gas in their attempts to disperse the rioters.Right wing elements have declared that the latest price tag activities were "only the beginning" and that the settlers intend to continue taking vengeance over the Sunday morning killing. Palestinian sources told Ynet that a group of masked men started throwing rocks at two locations: The first, dozens of meters from the Hawara junction and the other at the entrance to the village of Burin south of Hebron.Read the full story here.

Syrian protesters 'cut down like weeds'.Every other journalist is trying to get into Syria, but on Saturday I was trying to get out. The government had made it perfectly clear: My visa was expiring and unless I left on April 23, I would "face the full force of the law".I had agreed the night before with my cameraman, Ben Mitchell, over a drink that neither of us wanted to discover what "full force of the law" meant. So the debate was really whether I should fly out from Damascus or drive to Amman, Jordan, and fly from there.The decision was made that he would fly out from Damascus, the Syrian capital, with the gear and I would drive to Amman. I had left my second passport there with a friend. One for Arab countries and the other for Israel. Welcome to 21st century diplomatic relations.I decided to wait until after noon prayers before setting out south to the border. If the roads were going to be blocked with various pieces of burning detritus, as they had the day before, I wanted to know first. It's about 125km from Damascus to the Jordanian border - a drive that should only take an hour or so, especially with the way Syrian drivers tend to step on the gas.I was in a really bad mood on this particular morning as I was by default being expelled from the country. I said very little to the driver as we set out, which is unusual for me. I've been grilled in the old school style of journalism: I can still hear the voice of one of my mentors saying "eyes and ears Mr Perry ... eyes and ears".The only two questions I asked my driver as we left Damascus were his name, and where he was from. "Abdel … from Daraa," he told me."Beautiful city," I responded.Read the full story here.

Children being sexually Molested in Lybia?A disturbing report released by a British aid organization puts the spotlight on children being subjected to sexual assault during the conflict between pro and anti Muammar Qaddafi forces. Save the Children reported that it interviewed nearly 300 children, some as young as eight, in six relief camps in Benghazi and heard stories of rape and murder “committed within the last four weeks in Ras Lanuf, Ajdabyia and Misrata,” the organization said.Michael Mahrt, who conducted the survey, said children spoke of “soldiers” committing the crimes but could not ascertain which side they represented. Mr. Mahrt quoted one instance in which mothers who had fled the fighting reported on four or five teenage girls in Ajdabyia who were kidnapped and raped for four days. An eight-year-old girl was reportedly assaulted in front of her siblings, also in Ajdabyia. While the reports were unconfirmed, Mr. Mahrt said they “were consistent.”“The stories are similar that we get across these camps. I am completely confident that this happened,” he told Reuters.Children also reported watching their fathers being murdered and mothers being raped before being beaten themselves. Mr. Mahrt also said, “Some children were displaying signs of physical and emotional distress: being withdrawn, refusing to play and waking up crying in the night.”The charity has called on “the international community to ensure that all parties respect children's right to be protected from violence and abuse.”Save the Children has said it is increasing “its child protection work in Benghazi, training social workers to provide youngsters with psycho-social support.”Hmmmm......."children being subjected to sexual assault during the conflict between pro and anti Muammar Qaddafi forces."Read the full story here.

Al-taqiyya a.k.a. The art of lying !Keith Ellison:'Turkey best example of how Islam, democracy can coexist’.Keith Ellison, the first Muslim member of the US Congress, has said Turkey is the most important country in the region and the best example of how Islam and democracy can coexist. Ellison, visiting Turkey upon the invitation of the Turkish Confederation of Businessmen and Industrialists (TUSKON), had talks with Turkish officials, including Finance Minister Ali Babacan, in Ankara. The congressman told Today’s Zaman in an interview that it is very important for Turkey to undertake humanitarian aid mission in this region, while praising Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s initiatives with respect to the unrest and chaos in the Mideast and North Africa. Ellison pointed to the historical link between the US and Turkey and said the ties will continue to grow closer in the future, too.Historical link?....... Is he talking WWI Galipolli when the Turks were Shooting at the Allies?Turkey is also the Number One violator of theHuman Rights and the country with more then 50 journalists in Jail or and awaiting a trial.Indeed "Democracy and human rights don't thrive in a Sharia environment"Just ask Terry jones. Read the full ~~fairytale~~ story here.

I Told you over and over again "You will obey"!Obama: Gas Price Solution Lies in Renewable Energy Sources.President Barack Obama says one answer to high gasoline prices is to spend money developing renewable energy sources.“That’s the key to helping families at the pump and reducing our dependence on foreign oil” in the long term, he said Saturday in his weekly radio and Internet address.Obama raises the issue of rising fuel prices during almost every public appearance and says that he understands the strain higher fuel costs are putting on some family budgets.He announced Thursday during an event in Reno, Nev., that the Justice Department will begin looking for cases of fraud or manipulation in the oil markets, even though Attorney General Eric Holder suggested a variety of legal reasons may be behind the surging gas prices.As he has before, Obama said Saturday there is no “silver bullet” that will slash gas prices immediately. But he said there are things government can do to help make a difference in the long term. They also include boosting U.S. oil production, rooting out any illegal activity by traders and speculators and ending $4 billion in annual taxpayer subsidies to oil and gas companies.“Instead of subsidizing yesterday’s energy sources, we need to invest in tomorrow’s,” Obama said.Hmmmm....."Ending $4 billion in annual taxpayer subsidies to oil and gas companies.“That will lower prices for sure!I thought i saw a new energy source?Read the full story here.

Obama Fundraising May Have Violated RICO.(IsraPundit).AFL-CIO Attorney: “It is legally impossible to conduct a nationwide raffle”by Bill Levinson.

We recently sent a complaint to the Federal Election Commission with regard to the “Dinner with Barack” fundraising promotions of 2007 and 2008. The Center for Competitive Politics quoted AFSCME (part of AFL-CIO) associate general counsel Jessica Robinson on the use of raffles to raise money for political campaigns.

Ms. Robinson says unequivocally that it is impossible to legally conduct a nationwide raffle and furthermore that doing so violates the Federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) statute. Racketeering includes systematic violations of any state’s gambling laws.. This means there is excellent cause to remove Barack Obama from office without an extensive foray into the Twilight Zone to find his birth certificate. If Obama for America broke the law by running an illegal Internet gambling operation, and Minnesota law enforcement is on record as saying that it did, that is cause for impeachment. Here is what Ms. Robinson has to say in her own words:

California (which does not permit the use of raffles for political fundraising) prohibits the use of the internet for raffle advertisements. Hawaii (and perhaps one other jurisdiction – Kansas, maybe?) strictly prohibits the use of lotteries for any purpose.

It is legally impossible to conduct a nationwide raffle, whether the funds are being used for political purposes or not. This, of course, is of great importance, because running an interstate gambling operation that does not comply with the laws in each state in which it is being conducted subjects you to both criminal and civil penalties under the Federal RICO statute.The trick that keeps you out jail is to offer an ‘alternative method of entry’ that does not require payment of consideration. The alternative method of entry was indeed implemented in mid-2008, but only after Minnesota law enforcement called the Obama campaign on the carpet.Doug Forsman, a special agent with Minnesota’s Department of Public Safety, had confirmed the illegality of the promotion.He gave the campaign two options, the newspaper said, to void the contest where such bans exist or to change the rules to allow people to participate without gambling any of their money.

Forsman confirmed Kendall Burman, staff counsel at Obama’s Chicago headquarters, informed him the “donation,” which had been a requirement earlier, would be made optional.Prior to this less than voluntary modification of “Dinner with Barack” and “Backstage with Barack,” the Obama campaign sent out numerous E-mails (i.e. used the Internet to promote a raffle) and posted Web pages and YouTube videos that contain explicitly the three elements of a lottery:

(1) Required payment of consideration, a donation of $5 or more.

(2) Element of chance

(3) A prize (expenses-paid trip to have dinner with Obama)

While writing on unrelated matters, the Associate General Counsel of AFSCME stated very explicitly that it is impossible to run an interstate raffle while remaining within the law, and that “running an interstate gambling operation that does not comply with the laws in each state in which it is being conducted subjects you to both criminal and civil penalties under the Federal RICO statute.” “Dinner with Barack” violated the laws of at least one state (Minnesota) as stated explicitly by that state’s law enforcement agency and almost certainly violated the laws of others as shown above. The word IMPEACH therefore comes immediately to mind; we cannot have one U.S. Code for small-time Internet gambling operators like Patrick Patte of Wilkes-Barre and another U.S. Code for the President of the United States.Hmmmm......Democracy or Dictatorship?Read the full story here.

Obama regime expecting and preparing for a very large number of new 'inmates'?Government Orders Expedited Printing of 350,000 Detainee Handbooks.The US Government Printing Office – Chicago Procurement has posted a contract open for bidding for some 350,000 copies of the National Detainee Handbook.Per Jacket Number 735-412/413, the GPO requests 221,367 copies of the handbook in Spanish and 129,567 in English. The GPO requests expedited delivery of the prints, requesting a delivery date of April 29, 2011, less than two weeks from today.The original Jacket Number 735-412/413 is no longer available at the GPO web site, but a cached version can be accessed here.US Immigration and Customs Enforcement currently shows a ‘404 page not found error‘ for the page on ICE’s web site where the handbook was originally stored. You can view the National Detainee Handbook (Dated 2007) via Scribd.According to a 2008 detention standard guide from ICE, the handbook is to be provided to all individuals detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It is not clear whether the guidelines in the handbook apply just for immigration related detentions.According to ICE the purpose of the handbook is to provide detainees with an overview of the general rules, regulations, policies, and procedures that ICE is required while detaining someone:This Detention Standard requires that, upon admission, every detainee be provided comprehensive written orientation materials that describe such matters as the facility’s rules and sanctions, disciplinary system, mail and visiting procedures, grievance system, services, programs, and medical care, in English, Spanish, and other languages and that detainees acknowledge receipt of those materials.It applies to the following types of facilities housing DRO detainees:

Service Processing Centers (SPCs);

Contract Detention Facilities (CDFs); and

State or local government facilities used by DRO through Intergovernmental Service Agreements (IGSAs) to hold detainees for more than 72 hours.No information on why the Printing Office has requested expedient printing and delivery of the books has been made available.Hmmmm....My guess is as good as yours.Read the full story here.

West Bank conference: possibility for a third Intifada in Sept.(YNet).Young Palestinians encouraged by events in Egypt, West Bank leader says.In the absence of a diplomatic breakthrough, a Palestinian uprising may break out in September, a popular leader in the West Bank predicted Saturday. Speaking at the 6th Annual Bil'in Conference on the Palestinian Popular Struggle, Mohammad Khatib said that while the Palestinian Authority does not wish to see an Intifada, some Palestinians are interested in an uprising against Israel. "I think the next months are the most critical," said Khatib, who is among the leaders of the anti-security fence campaign in the village of Bil'in. "If we see no significant developments, an Intifada will break out"."Our objective is to enlist international support for our struggle in Bil'in, and for the Palestinian struggle in general," Khatib said. "This is our way to engage in PR efforts and spread our story through the world." Despite a Facebook campaign calling for a new Intifada to be launched in May, Khatib estimated that if an uprising indeed breaks out it will likely get underway in September. Young Palestinians are the ones pulling in that direction, he said. "They see what happened in Egypt and this gives them a backwind, yet the Palestinian Authority is attempting to prevent it in all sorts of ways," he said. One approach is the PA's decisive, open objection to an Intifada, with Palestinian officials focusing on a diplomatic campaign. Last week, PA leader Mahmoud Abbas declared that the second Intifada was "disastrous" for the Palestinians and added that he will not tolerate a "third armed uprising." Speaking at the conference, Palestinian politician Mustafa Barghouti received great applause after declaring that "our situation will not change without a popular uprising." When asked to translate his words to English, Barghouti made clear he was referring to a non-violent uprising; however, the young Palestinians at the event apparently did not notice this nuance.Meanwhile, a Fatah source told Ynet that the group maintains full control of the West Bank, stressing that the situation there is different than in Egypt."A decision about an Intifada must be taken from above," he said, adding that such uprising will not happen should officials not order it. "Even if we assume that riots will start following the Facebook group's call, they will end in a day or two."However, some Palestinians believe that a third Intifada is the only option. Senior Islamic Jihad member in Gaza Khaled Batash responded to Abbas' comments by saying that only the Palestinian people will determine whether an uprising takes place. "He made a grave mistake and offered a promise he won't be able to deliver on," Batash said. "Only the Palestinian people will make the decision."Hmmm......"Que sera,sera?"Read the full story here.

Iran's "Trojan" war.Islamic republic's Culture Ministry wants end to 'immoral, sexual and crude' advertisements. (Ynet).Iran's Ministry of Culture ordered pharmacies in the Islamic republic to remove "immoral, sexual and crude" advertisements for products such as condoms and erectile dysfunction medicine.Iran's Ministry of Culture ordered pharmacies in the Islamic republic to remove "immoral, sexual and crude" advertisements for products such as condoms and erectile dysfunction medicine. A letter sent earlier this week by a senior ministry official to the Health Ministry warned that pharmacies that will continue to display such ads will be shut down. Ali Raza Karimi, the advertising department director at Iran's Ministry of Culture, said that pharmacies often feature ads with sexual connotations. Karimi also charged that the way hair and beauty products are being advertized is immoral and illegal. The Culture Ministry official also slammed what he referred to as the "vulgar" packaging of some of the products in question. In an interview with Iranian news agency Fars, Karimi warned that the Health Ministry must address the phenomenon or else the matter will be handed over to the police and justice system. Iran's Culture Ministry is in charge of censoring books, films, music and advertisements, among other things. A letter sent earlier this week by a senior ministry official to the Health Ministry warned that pharmacies that will continue to display such ads will be shut down.Ali Raza Karimi, the advertising department director at Iran's Ministry of Culture, said that pharmacies often feature ads with sexual connotations. Karimi also charged that the way hair and beauty products are being advertized is immoral and illegal. A pharmacy manager in Tehran, who chose to remain anonymous, told the Radio Farda website that pharmacies do not display immoral advertisements, but rather, sell products that pertain to sex and intimate hygiene as part of the services they provide."We offer products such as contraceptives and medicine to boost the libido," he said. "The ads were produced in order to educate the customers, rather than to be hurtful." The Culture Ministry official also slammed what he referred to as the "vulgar" packaging of some of the products in question.In an interview with Iranian news agency Fars, Karimi warned that the Health Ministry must address the phenomenon or else the matter will be handed over to the police and justice system.Iran's Culture Ministry is in charge of censoring books, films, music and advertisements, among other things.Hmmmm......Are condoms ads Halal?Read the full story here.

Saudi Arabia - Imam held for Blackmailing girl in to sex.(Emirates247).Saudi Arabia’s feared Islamic police arrested an Arab mosque Imam (chief) for trying to blackmail a school girl to force her to sleep with him, a newspaper in the Gulf kingdom reported on Saturday.Members of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice seized the Imam, who also works as a driver of a school bus in the northern Saudi town of Qurayat, the Arabic language daily 'Al Riyadh' said.“They found obscene pictures in his mobile and text messages addressed to that girl threatening to publicise her photographs online unless she sleeps with him.The paper said the unnamed girl had informed the Commission about the Imam, who also threatened to send the pictures to her family.Source .

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

MFS - The Other News

Afternoon Posting.

Live broadcast info from Japan directly ! Here.

Libya Live Blog - April 12. Here .(Al-Jazeera).

Middle East Live Blog April 10 here .(Al-Jazeera)

Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world increased seismic activity in Japan today between 4.9 and 6.2! More info here.

Japan - Latest official Situation Update No. 84.On 12.04.2011 at 02:59 GMT+2. Here .

HT:NuclearHistory.Fukushima Farmers hit hard and face heart break.The Mainichi Daily News Japan.IITATE, Fukushima — For one farmer here, the newly expanded evacuation zone around the crippled nuclear power plant nearby may mean doing the unthinkable: abandoning his cows.“You can’t just leave living things behind,” says village cattle farmer Nagakiyo Yamada, 60. “Compensation hasn’t been decided, either. If I have to move to a shelter, I want to stay as close to my farm as I can and keep taking care of my cows.”While part of the village of Iitate has been in the band 20-30 kilometers from the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant, the entire village will now be subject to new government evacuation orders announced on April 11. Residents within the 10-kilometer-wide ring are currently advised to remain indoors.Yamada has dutifully followed the indoor standby advisory, but not in his house. Since hydrogen explosions shook the nuclear plant soon after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, he has been living in his barn with 13 calves he intends to enter in livestock competitions, intent on saving them from exposure to radiation. The young cows haven’t been put out to pasture since the nuclear crisis began, and Yamada replies to their soft “moos” with some of his own, trying to give them company.Farmers in Miyazaki Prefecture — which sold Yamada the mother cow — have been sending water and instant noodles, apparently worried about the effect of the March 11 disaster and nuclear crisis on their Fukushima counterparts.“I think of the help as a message encouraging me to raise these calves properly,” Yamada says.Calves from the Iitate region are highly regarded, and ordinarily command an equivalently high price at market. However, the bottom has fallen out of the animals’ value with the current crisis.“Market confidence in these calves was built up over decades,” Yamada says. “This problem can’t be solved just with money,” he continues, stroking the head of one of his cows.However, even if Yamada can stay close enough to care for his livestock, the resources to do so are running low. He only has two months of feed hay left, and if radioactive contamination prevents him from harvesting more, his prized calves will starve to death.Yamada’s farm also produces 15 metric tons of rice and 750 kilograms of tobacco a year, but both will very probably be subject to planting restrictions this year. Meanwhile, his household’s emergency stockpile of rice will likely run out during the coming summer.“Even if we evacuate, how are we supposed to live?” Yamada laments.Adding to Yamada’s worries, with no resolution to the nuclear crisis in sight and the future of the area uncertain, many of the village’s young people could leave.“Even if the evacuation order is lifted, the village could end up a wasteland,” he says.The situation may be even more heartbreaking for elder members of the Yamada clan.“Even during World War II, at least we could go outside,” says Yamada’s 80-year-old mother Toshiko. “I plan to die here. I’ve just given up cause I’ve been exposed to so much radiation,” she mutters.end quote.According to Ziggy, former head of ANSTO, Japanese nuclear industry is one of the best in the world. How do you turn off a nuke plant Ziggy? there’s no off switch for decay heat. And that has been known to be the case since 1942.Hmmm....And to top off things "Radioactive Tuna Fish Migrating From Japan To U.S. Waters".Read the full story here.

Hosni Mubarak in hospital.Egyptian security, health officials say former Egyptian president admitted to Sharm el-Sheikh hospital. Hospital director says Mubarak 'more or less' stable as court hearing looms.Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was taken to hospital on Tuesday after suffering a "heart crisis" when he was being questioned during an investigation, Egyptian television reported. Hospital director Mohammed Fathallah discussed Mubarak's health status on Egyptian television saying the former president was "more or less" stable. Mubarak had been hospitalized under the pretext of being sick in order not to appear before investigators, the website of the state-owned publisher of Al-Ahram newspaper said.Television correspondent in Sharm el-Sheikh said that Mubarak was hospitalized in the VIP wing and the hospital was placed under close police surveillance. Dozens of demonstrators picketed the hospital in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, denouncing the president and carrying a sign reading "Here is the butcher." They scuffled with supporters of Mubarak amid a massive security presence."The former president Hosni Mubarak entered ... Sharm el-Sheikh hospital," according to Al-Ahram.It said the president may not have to travel to Cairo to attend the investigation because of his admittance to hospital.A hospital official told AFP they cannot comment on the former president's condition but added that "the health minister will issue a statement" shortly.
He has kept a low profile since, living in Sharm el-Sheikh. According to reports in al-Ahram, Mubarak had been expected to be questioned by investigators for the first time on Tuesday in connection with corruption allegations and violence against protesters during the uprising under heavy security. It remains unclear when the testimony will take place and what exactly he is accused of. Mubarak's two sons, Alaa and Gamal have also been ordered to appear in court.Read the full story here.

Some 250,000 children sexually abused in Turkey in past decade.At least 250,000 minors have been sexually abused in Turkey over the past decade, with 7,000 raped in 2010 alone, according to a survey conducted by a prominent Turkish researcher.The research by Tuncer Günay also revealed that some 350,000 to 400,000 children are thought to have been sexually abused over the past 20 years by first-degree relatives or other close kin. Of these incidents, just 600 were referred to the country’s courts.Mistreatment of minors seems to have been harshest on Turkey’s streets, with 30,000 of 50,000 homeless children reportedly having been either raped or sexually abused.Last year, some 4,000 street children were sentenced and sent to correctional facilities, where 250 juveniles over the past five years have reported being raped by their peers or older inmates, Günay said in his research. Seventy-five percent of all street children have some kind of police record for committing crimes such as theft, extortion, causing personal injury or rape.About 200 cases were referred to the judiciary in 2009 in which children had been sexually abused by their teachers, local shopkeepers, deputy principals or other personnel at boarding schools and kindergartens, according to Günay’s findings.Günay’s research also showed that 51 percent of murder victims killed by a member of their family were women, with men and children respectively making up 39 percent and 10 percent of the total. Moreover, 70 percent of all victims of intra-family sexual assault were also women, while children were targeted in 25 percent of such cases.Figures extracted from a report prepared by the Police Department Headquarters revealed that women were the victims in the majority – 71 percent – of all cases of sexual assault in 2010. Of the rest, 17 percent were children and 12 percent were men.In cases of sexual harassment, 66 percent of all victims were women and 22 percent were children, while 89 percent of all suspects were men. Women also constituted 58 percent of all victims of sexual harassment within family circles, while children were the victims in 38 percent of all cases.The police report, which was also sent to the Turkish Parliament, further stated that Istanbul ranked first among provinces in Turkey regarding the volume of cases involving sexual assault, sexual harassment and intentional murder, while the Marmara region ranked first among Turkey’s regions in the same categories. The survey by Günay also showed that access to 23,000 porn sites, of which 15,000 dealt in child pornography, was barred in 2010 by units responsible for information technologies and telecommunications monitoring.Hmmmm.....Please Lord keep Turkey out of the European Union!Read the full story here.

Why Ankara should not be helping Iran go nuclear.Will a nuclear Iran be good or bad for Turkey? If Iran goes nuclear, it will become the regional hegemon, extinguishing Ankara’s hopes of becoming a key player in the Middle East. Recently, however, Turkey has helped Iran circumvent international sanctions that target its nuclearization. Turkish companies and banks regularly abuse the financial system to facilitate payments to the Islamic republic, perhaps unwittingly assisting its effort of becoming a nuclear power. Turkey’s failure to prevent this type of abuse not only pokes a finger in the eye of the West, but also allows a rogue regime to fill its coffers with hard currency and materiel as it attempts to become the dominant power in the region – at Turkey’s expense.The Turkish-Iranian relationship has revolved around bilateral trade. In 2008, the two countries conducted $10 billion of business, and officials from both countries have called for an increase to $20 billion by 2012. Iran exports mostly oil and gas to the Turkish market. Naturally, Turkey wants to fuel its economy, and Turkish officials have made it clear that they will look to all available sources of energy, including Iran.The international community has assured Ankara of its commitment to Turkish energy needs, and has pointed out that in the past, Iran has proven to be an unreliable partner in this regard. Since other sources of energy are available to Turkey, Ankara’s insistence on buying oil from a rogue regime seems to demonstrate a strong desire to do business with Iran.What is really behind Ankara’s insistence on developing and strengthening its relationship with Tehran? There appear to be two primary motivating factors: an aversion to regional instability and a desire to get closer to the Tehran regime.Ankara seems to fear new American or coalition military action in the region, including an attack on Iran, more than it fears a nuclear-armed Iran. Turkey’s present reality is shaped by the instability in Iraq caused by the second Gulf War, and the low-intensity conflict that continues to the present. According to a recent poll, 43 percent of Turks consider the biggest threat to Turkey to come from the United States, while only 3 percent believe it comes from Iran.There are those who people believe that the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, has an ideological agenda that favors Tehran’s regime. One way of determining whether this is true is the party’s stance on Tehran; Iran should serve as a litmus test for the leanings of the AKP.If seen in this light, the Turkish government’s stance on Iran is telling. Ankara has consistently expanded its financial ties to Iran. For instance, Iranian Bank Mellat, blacklisted by both the United States and the United Nations, has been operating openly in Turkey. Mellat branches conduct business in Istanbul, Ankara, and İzmir, despite the U.N. restrictions on the bank for facilitating payments tied to Iran’s nuclear program. Mellat was also designated by the U.S. Treasury Department for allowing weapons of mass destruction to spread. Subsidiaries of the bank around the globe have reportedly been involved in the Iranian missile industry, spreading terrorism and assisting Iran’s nuclear regime. In addition, Mellat has agreed to facilitate trade between Turkey and Iran using Turkish Liras and/or Iranian rials, which helps them avoid the use of euros and dollars. International financial regulators and sanction-watchers cannot easily detect payments that bypass the European or American financial systems.Wittingly or unwittingly, Turkey seems to be helping Iran go nuclear. This is bad news for Ankara, for once an authoritarian country becomes a nuclear power, its neighbors are subject to abuse. The example of North Korea is telling in this regard. Since becoming a nuclear power, Pyongyang has fired rockets over Japan and sunk South Korean ships. Does Ankara want a nuclear Iran next door that can flout international law at Turkey’s expense?Hmmmmm.....Why?Because the Turkish 'regime' hates the Jews and the US as much as Iran.Get Turkey out of NATO!Read the full story here.

HT:Memri.Following Closure of 'Third Palestinian Intifada' Facebook Pages, New Ones Are Launched.Despite the closure of several Facebook pages promoting the campaign for the Third Palestinian Intifada, set for May 15, 2011, hundreds of Facebook pages promoting the same aim still exist. Many of these pages feature statements in praise of martyrdom, jihad, and the killing of Jews. There are also statements against Jews on the page, such as the slogan "Khaybar, Khaybar, o Jews, the army of Muhammad shall return," as well as calls condemning Jews translated into broken Hebrew: "Dear Jews, don't be afraid, death will be swift. Expect an Arab deluge, we are coming. We will help the religion of Allah and Palestine to triumph"; "Death to the Jews, murderers of the prophets"; and "The offspring of the sons of Zion are going to Hell."The page shows photos of burning Israeli flags. One is headed "This is the photo that the Facebook administration doesn't like" and a second is headed "Another gift to the Facebook administration." In another post, the page's administrators noted: "O Israel, burn, the Arab rebels are coming." One of the page's wall photos shows a map of Palestine (disregarding the existence of Israel) in the colors of the Palestinian flag.Hmmmm......Why does Facebook allow these pages to excist?And is the Obama administration (Robert Gibbs) working with facebook?Read the full story here.

HT:BigPeace.Huh? Obama Administration Does NOT Want To Interrogate Key Terrorist Suspect.How is this policy even defensible? We helped the Pakistanis capture this guy, but we don’t want to talk to him? This terror mastermind probably doesn’t have anything of value to tell us. Yeah, right. The Los Angeles Times reports:Reporting from Washington— He’s considered one of world’s most dangerous terrorism suspects, and the U.S. offered a $1-million reward for his capture in 2005. Intelligence experts say he’s a master bomb maker and extremist leader who possesses a wealth of information about Al Qaeda-linked groups in Southeast Asia.Yet the U.S. has made no move to interrogate or seek custody of Indonesian militant Umar Patek since he was apprehended this year by officials in Pakistan with the help of a CIA tip, U.S. and Pakistani officials say.”Hmmmm......"What's going on in Pakistan with the Obama regime?"Read the full story here.

Israel worried by 'weakening' US.ISRAEL is troubled by the perception the US is an "empire of the past" and wants a resurgent America to lead a decisive confrontation with Iran, a top official has said."America is tested" at a pivotal moment in the history of the Middle East, said Israel's Deputy Prime Minister, Dan Meridor, who is also the Minister for Intelligence and Nuclear Energy.The Arab world was watching the US closely: "They look to America. If America does not seem to be able to contain the Iranian threat, will they go with Iran?"Advertisement: Story continues below "This is of world-order magnitude," he told the Herald in an interview. Israel, which depends on the US as its security guarantor, itself appears to have new doubts about US judgment.Mr Meridor said he was "surprised" at the Obama administration's treatment of a longstanding US ally, Egypt's former president: "Was it necessary to immediately empower the demonstrators against him and let [Hosni] Mubarak go? It's seen by all the allies of America in the Arab world. I don't know where the tide of history will go and I'm not sure they know.""The perception, that I hope is wrong, that America is weakening is not good, but I hope that America will find a way, and I believe they can, to restore itself as the leading country and not allow those impressions spread by the Iraq war that America is an empire of the past. All this is here on the table."America has started wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Is it a success story or not? What happens in Pakistan? … It may be the use of power showed the limits of power."Mr Meridor, a senior member of the Likud party of the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said the confrontation with Iran was "a decisive conflict"."The end of it is very important.If the end of it is that Iran has nuclear power, it will have grave effects on world order, on balance of power, and on the Middle East."It may spell the end of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty regime, not only because Iran will be nuclear, but because other countries say they will need to be nuclear, Egypt and Saudi Arabia and others may do it. "No more the responsible adults tell the kids what to do. When everybody has the bomb you can't contain or control or interfere as America could do."The US President, Barack Obama, last week called on Israel to take the initiative to break the stalemate over peace talks.Mr Meridor said the Netanyahu government was still debating its position internally.His personal position, he said, was "we should be very active in trying to bring them to the table."Time is not neutral here. Neither the Palestinians nor we gain from the passage of time. I don't think their situation gets better."This would mean "the strengthening of the religious paradigm and the weakening of the national paradigm," Mr Meridor said. And Israel did not benefit from delay either: "We can't stay like this with undefined borders. We need to put an end to it if we can."Hmmmmm.......We need another President in the US one who act as a Christian instead of one pretending to be a Christian, 2012 can't come soon enough.Read the full story here.

HT:Memri.Pakistani Daily Report: 'Are The Drone Attacks Over?'Ever since the condemnation of drone attacks by Pakistan Army Chief General Ashfaq Kayani last month, there has been no drone attack in Pakistan during the past three weeks, according to a Pakistani daily.The CIA has been launching drone attacks on almost a daily basis but a substantial decrease was witnessed after the arrest of CIA contractor Raymond Davis, who was later released following a deal.A drone attack carried out within hours of Davis's release in the Datta Khel area of North Waziristan had elicited strong criticism from General Kayani. The Conflict Monitoring Centre (CMC), a watchdog that closely monitors the drones and other anti-state militancy, says that ever since General Kayani condemned the drone attacks, the CIA has stopped its drone operations in Pakistan.Hmmmm.....Was this part of the deal "stop the drone attacks and we'll release Davis"?Read the full story here.

Armenia agrees long-term Russian army presence.Armenia's parliament on Tuesday ratified a deal to allow Russian troops to remain in the country for more than 30 years, boosting Moscow's military influence in the strategic South Caucasus region.The deal sees Russian forces extending their lease on a military base in Armenia until 2044 and upgrading the mission of the estimated 3,000 troops stationed there. Deputy Defense Minister Ara Nazarian said that the agreement would ensure Armenia's security and protect Russian interests in the former Soviet region where the Kremlin wants to play a leading role. "In addition, according to the amendments, the Russian side will assist Armenia in the provision of armaments and modern military equipment," Nazarian told lawmakers.The deal has caused unease in Azerbaijan, which is locked in a long-running conflict with Armenia over the disputed territory of Nagorny Karabakh, and in neighboring Georgia, which fought a brief war with Russia in 2008."After the Russian-Georgian conflict, Russia understandably wants to strengthen its positions in the Caucasus," said independent lawmaker Tigran Torosian, expressing concern that Yerevan was making too deep a commitment to Moscow.Russia however has not openly committed itself to intervening militarily in any conflict involving Armenia. As well as infantry and artillery units, the Russian base in the Armenian city of Gyumri, near the border with Turkey, hosts S-300 missile defense systems and MiG-29 fighter jets.Hmmmm......"The die has been cast"?Read the full story here.

Dubai - Maid chops off 70-year-old employer's genitals.An Ethiopian housemaid who allegedly cut off her 70-year-old employer's genitals has confessed to committing the act as she was 'tired of being harrassed by him', reported 'Emarat Al Youm'.The elderly man, a GCC national, called the police early Monday morning to report the incident. The cops rushed to his Deira residence and shifted him to hospital where he had undergo an operation.The maid revealed during investigations that the old man had been regularly harrassing her. On Monday morning he asked her to give him a massage. She lost her cool, took a knife and chopped his organ off.The maid was arrested from the place of crime.Meanwhile, according to Dubai Police statistics about 665 crimes were committed by housemaids in Dubai last year. Of which, there were 305 absconders, 113 rape cases, 85 cases of illegal residence; 68 breach-of-trust cases and 63 thefts.Hmmmm.......Take note "don't hire Ethiopian maid"?Read the full story here.

Saturday, April 2, 2011

MFS - The Other News

Morning Posting.

Live broadcast info from Japan directly ! Here.

Libya Live Blog - April 02. Here .(Al-Jazeera)And here (BBC).

Sirya live blog - March 30 here.(Al -Jazeera).

Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity in Japan between 4.4 and 5.2 today. More info here.

Latest official Situation Update No. 70. On 02.04.2011 at 12:02 GMT+2 .

Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) said Saturday it had found radioactive water leaking into the sea from a cracked concrete pit at its No.2 reactor in Fukushima. Russian nuclear energy expert Natalia Mironova says that Fukushima disaster is “much bigger than Chernobyl.” The radiation in the pit was measured 1,000 millisieverts per hour

Meanwhile the Russian nuclear energy expert has assessed that Japan's unfolding nuclear disaster is "much bigger than Chernobyl" and could rewrite the international scale used to measure the severity of atomic accidents. "Chernobyl was a dirty bomb explosion. The next dirty bomb is Fukushima and it will cost much more" in economic and human terms,

We have now three weeks (at Fukushima) and we have four reactors which we know are in very dangerous situations," she warned

Source

First clear pictures show the true devastation at the Fukushima nuclear plant as Japan flies unmanned drone over stricken reactor. Here .

HT:WhyIAmACatholic.Because the Disciples Were Just Like You (Friday Funnies). Is Don Miller a Catholic? I don't think so, but as I've explained here before I don't hold that against anybody, especially when they are as funny as what I will be sharing with you here. See, he put together a wee list of traits of true disciplines of Christ. Guess what? You'll make the cut. Take a look,

Here are some actual characteristics of the disciples I think we can safely trust. If you resonate with any of these, you’re in a good spot and likely following Jesus:

You think Jesus wants to take over the government so you cut off a soldiers ear in order to get the fighting started. (The neo cons are definitely disciples!)
You keep pestering Jesus about who he will give more power to in heaven.
You have no theological training but own a small fishing business which somehow makes you qualified because you “get it.”
The Holy Spirit crashes into one of your mini sermons so everybody can speak different languages and outsiders think you’re drunk.
People ask you if you know Jesus and you freak out and say no and run away.
You hear they killed Jesus on a cross and you figure the whole thing was a wash and you got duped.
You choose other disciples by playing rock, paper scissors.
You teach bad theology and have to have somebody else come over and correct you.Hmmmm......9.You got a bunch of female followers who cook and do the laundry for you?Read the full story here.

'Like a gun-shot': Passengers tell of their terror as three-foot hole explodes above their heads in plane's cabin at 36,000ft.Southwest Airlines passengers have said they are lucky to be alive and spoken of their terror the moment a three-foot hole 'exploded' in their plane's fuselage, forcing them into a terrifying descent and emergency landing.The Southwest Flight 812 from Phoenix to Sacramento, with 118 passengers on board, descended into chaos at 36,000 feet when a bang that sounded like a 'gun-shot' tore through the cabin, sending terrified passengers reaching for oxygen masks that dropped in front of them.As cabin pressure dropped dramatically, a passenger and flight attendant passed out, banging their heads in the process, while others watched in fear.The plane then made what passengers called a ' terrifying but controlled descent' before landing safely at the Yuma Marine Corps Air Station around 4pm local time.Passenger Brenda Reese said she woke up to the 'gun-shot like sound' to see a gaping hole torn through the cabin roof, 'at the top of the plane, right where you store your luggage'.She said: 'The panel's not completely off. It's like ripped down, but you can see completely outside, you can see the sky.'Another passengers called the scene 'pandemonium' as two people fainted and others were crying from fear.The plane reportedly took 'four terrifying minutes' to dip from 36,000 to 11,000 feet.The cause of the hole was not immediately known. The FBI called it a 'mechanical failure', not an act of terror or other foul play.A passenger who gave her name as Cindy told CNN: 'They had just taken drink orders when I heard a huge sound and oxygen masks came down and we started making a rapid descent. They said we'd be making an emergency landing.'There was a hole in the fuselage about three feet long. You could see the insulation and the wiring. You could see a tear the length of one of the ceiling panels.'Other passengers told CNN it sounded as though an explosion had torn through the cabin.Julie O'Donnell, an aviation safety spokeswoman for Seattle-based Boeing Commercial Airplanes, confirmed 'a hole in the fuselage and a de-pressurization event' in the latest incident but declined to speculate on what caused it.Hmmmm......Aviation safety : 'Don't want to speculate'....FBI :'It's mechanical'...A hole blown where you store your hand luggage...why do i get the coverup feeling?Read the full story here.

Facebook, Zuckerberg Sued for $1 Billion!Judicial and Freedom Watch Founder Alleges Misuse of “Social Network” In Threatening Jews with Death For Profit.Larry Klayman, the founder of Judicial Watch and Freedom Watch, and a U.S. Senate candidate in 2004, today filed suit against the "founder" of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook itself for their role in furthering a radical Palestinian page called "Third Intifada," which threatened Jews in particular with death. Mr. Klayman, who is of Jewish origin, is a prominent public interest advocate and as Chairman of Judicial Watch and now Freedom Watch has pursued court cases and other activities that involve radical Palestinians. He is also known to be a strong supporter of Israel, and has been called a "Zionist" publicly by radical Palestinians and other such Arabic interests. Mr. Klayman is thus a target of this call to kill Jews.

Over the course of the last week, Defendants were asked to take this Third Intifada and related sites down, but refused. Only in the last few days did they do so, after increased pressure was exerted by the Israeli government.

However, the damage had already been done and it is believed that this and other pages will soon reappear on Facebook.

As alleged in the complaint, one can explain the initial refusal to take down the page as an effort by the Zuckerberg and Facebook to increase the social network's net worth based on viewership and use. It is not in dispute that Facebook has profited handsomely by the turmoil in the Middle East.The complaint alleges assault and negligence, including willful and wanton conduct, gross negligence and recklessness on the part of the Defendants, as it has put Mr. Klayman's life at risk, as well as other similarly situated Jews who are prominent public figures and otherwise. The complaint reserves the right to be amended into a class action suit and prays for compensatory and punitive damages in excess of $1 Billion Dollars.

"While Facebook has accomplished a lot of good, it can, as in this instance, be used for nefarious and evil purposes. Defendants Zuckerberg's and Facebook's callous and greedy actions in not taking down the page, but willfully allowing it to stay up for many days, has caused huge damage, for which they must be held accountable, so as to prevent this from ever happening again. They must be not only enjoined but also hit in their purse, which is where they understand matters best. Apparently, the ethically compromised Zuckerberg has no conscience or sense of right or wrong, as depicted recently in the award winning film "Social Network."Hmmmm......Go get them tiger?read the full story here.

Deadly protests against Quran burning reach Kandahar.Violent protests over the burning of a Koran in Florida flared for a second straight day, with young men rampaging through the streets of this southern capital, flying Taliban flags and wielding sticks. Eight people were killed and 61 injured in the disturbances, according to Zalmai Ayoubi, spokesman for the provincial governor. Kandahar has long been the heartland of the Taliban insurgency but has been relatively quiet in recent months since a surge of additional American troops arrived here. The protests here came a day after a mob overran the headquarters of the United Nations in Mazar-i-Sharif Friday, killing 12 persons, seven of them international staff. The mob gathered after three mullahs at Friday Prayer urged action in response to the Koran burning by a pastor, Terry Jones, in Florida on March 20. In Kandahar, several thousand young men, shouting slogans calling for death to Americans and to the Karzai government, were still rampaging after several hours on Saturday, setting tires aflame throughout the city, burning cars and attacking journalists trying to cover the disorder. Shops and businesses were closed and most people stayed off the street. Many of the protesters were waving the white flag of the Taliban.Mr. Ayoubi said the crowd attacked the Zarghona Ana High School for Girls, burning some classrooms and a school bus. The school is supported by the United States Agency for International Development. The Taliban have opposed girls' education. A spokesman for the American military in Kandahar, Lt. Col. Web Wright, said relatively small crowds were involved in the disturbances, with the biggest group of about 100 demonstrators gathered outside the governor's offices. So far, no coalition military had been targeted. "If we need to get involved we will, but now we're content to let the Afghan national security forces handle it," he said. Although Mazar-i-Sharif has little or no Taliban presence, Kandahar has significant numbers of residents who sympathize with the insurgents.Both Afghan and international news media had initially played down or ignored the action of Mr. Jones, the Florida pastor. This Thursday, however, President Hamid Karzai made a speech and issued statements condemning the Koran burning and calling for the arrest of Mr. Jones for his actions. On Friday that theme was picked up in mosques throughout Afghanistan. There is no provision in American law for arresting anyone for burning a Koran, or for that matter a Bible, which the courts would consider protected free speech. "Karzai brought this issue back to life, and he has to take some responsibility for starting this up," said a prominent Afghan businessman, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of concern over retribution if he was publicly critical of the president.Also on Saturday, a team of suicide bombers made an attempt to breach the front gate at an American military base in Kabul, Camp Phoenix, according to Mohammed Zahir, chief of the Criminal Investigation Division of the Kabul Police. Two of them were disguised as women, wearing full-length burqas, and two others were carrying small arms, he said. One of the burqa-clad bombers blew up at the gate of the camp, and the other managed to get about five yards inside the gate before also detonating. The other two attackers were shot and killed by guards before they could enter, he said. None of the defenders were injured or killed, authorities said.Hmmmm.....So it's Karzai stirring up the hatred?Read the full story here.

HT:Aina.Argentine Judge: Turkey Caused 'Armenian Genocide'.Buenos Aires (AP) -- An Argentine judge says "the Turkish state committed the crime of genocide against the Armenian people" between 1915 and 1923.The ruling Friday also says Turkey should help an Armenian descendant living in Argentina learn the fate of more than 50 of his relatives who disappeared nearly a century ago.Many international experts say the killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I was genocide. Turkey maintains that far fewer died and due to civil war and unrest, rather than genocide.The Turkish Embassy in Buenos Aires has not immediately responded to a request for comment.Judge Norberto Oyarbide says his ruling is "declarative" only, with no value other than the truth.Hmmmm......Erdogan "Muslims don't commit genocide"?Read the full story here.More on the Armenian Genocide here.

HT:Aina.400 Organizations From 22 European Countries Urge Obama to Recognize Genocide.Nearly 400 organizations from 22 European countries signed on to a letter launched by the European Armenian Federation urging the president of the United States to recognize the Armenian Genocide. The petition was submitted to the White House on April 3, the day before President Barack Obama's trip to Turkey; by then, 340 organizations had already co-signed the letter.

In it, the Federation reminds the president that "European Armenians as well as the large democratic mainstream of Europe's civil society will continue to strongly oppose Turkey's membership in the EU as long as the Turkish state denies the Armenian Genocide, promotes racism, and pursues a policy of discrimination towards its minorities." The Federation further notes that "the commitment that President Obama made to recognize the genocide will unleash the momentum of true change and democratization inside Turkey" and "will also provide an unprecedented momentum to the process of dialogue between Turkey and Armenia" by clearly stating "that denial of this crime against humanity will no longer be supported and that the way forward will definitely require of Turkey a fundamental commitment to just peace."

The European Armenian Federation concludes the letter by reminding that "any retreat by the United States at this defining moment would be interpreted by genocide-perpetrating governments as full license to continue their bloody acts and criminal complicity, as witnessed in Turkey's recent support for the Sudanese president who is under an arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court."

"President Obama has the opportunity to demonstrate a real political sea-change compared to his predecessors, by promoting a policy of ethical responsibility, respect, justice, and truth on this issue as well as others. The anticipation of this change has elicited tremendous enthusiasm in Europe and in the world. If the U.S. president does not affirm his commitment to recognize the Armenian Genocide, Europeans would view it as a disappointing affirmation of the same old tactical schemes and maneuvers which so harmed the United States these last years," said Hilda Tchoboian, the chairperson of the European Armenian Federation.

Recent rumors of "understandings" between Turkey and a hostage Armenia (Turkey has blockaded Armenia for more than 15 years), are intended to cast doubts on what Obama will say on April 24, she added.

"The Armenian Genocide is an established fact that is independent of any 'understanding' between Armenia and Turkey. Likewise, the condemnation and repression of this crime is essential in all countries independent of political circumstances because it is about a crime that is indefeasible and that struck the whole of Humanity," she said, adding that the recognition by the United States and other countries of an unpunished genocide with the purpose of its reparation by the criminal state constitutes an obligation under international law.The list of signatory associations is available by visiting the website of the European Armenian Federation, at http://www.eafjd.eu/.Hmmmm......There's in my opinion no way on Earth that Obama will upset his buddy Erdogan,especially after Erdogan declared that "Muslims don't commit genocide"."I will stand with my muslim brothers".Read the full story here.

Saudi Arabia Dismisses Iran Shura Statement as ‘Irresponsible’.Saudi Arabia dismissed as “irresponsible” a statement released by the Iranian Shura Council describing the kingdom’s policy in the Gulf region as “playing with fire,” the Saudi Press Agency reported late yesterday, citing an unidentified official. The Iranian Shura Council’s national security and foreign policy committee called on Saudi Arabia to withdraw its troops from neighboring Bahrain, the news service said, citing the individual. The troops are part of the Peninsula Shield Force, a Gulf Cooperation Council military coalition established to protect the six member states from outside attack.The Iranian committee ignored Bahrain’s right to use the joint GCC force to preserve the island’s security and peace, SPA cited the official as saying. The Iranian statement failed to mention Iran’s “blatant” interference in the affairs of Kuwait, SPA said, citing the individual. Troops from the GCC, including Saudi Arabia, moved into Bahrain on March 14, the first cross-border intervention since a popular uprising broke out on the island in February.Hmmmmm......The scorpion against the snake?Read the full story here. More here.

Act like a tourist: this is Syria.It was one week ago Friday when clashes broke out near the main mosque in the old city of Damascus. And while we have permission from the president’s office to film around the city, the security apparatus in this country is so extensive, it often operates independently without the knowledge of those at the topYou may have permission, but still end up being detained. With all the recent detentions, and warnings from the US state department and governments of other countries, we did not want to take our large camera out in the city on such a day.Looking around the square outside our hotel this morning, it was clear. The secret police were not being so secret, standing on every corner in groups of eight to ten.The first sign of trouble was spotted on the edge of the old city. Men, grouped in dozens, stood on the side of the street holding wooden batons. They were dressed in plain clothes but had the look of Syrian secret police. Even in a crowd it’s usually easy to spot secret police. Sometimes the radio is a dead give away, although this group seemed to make some attempt to blend in - aside from the wooden implements of destruction, of course.We made our way to a coffee shop near to the mosque and waited for the call to prayer. We sat and sipped coffee talking about what a nice day it was. Everyone around you is always listening here, and it’s clear that the secret police were already onto us.Once the call to prayer was over, we started walking the old streets of the souq. At one point I noticed we were being followed, so we ducked into a souvenir shop. They didn’t buy it, waiting for us around the next corner. So we doubled back on the mosque using one of the many narrow alleyways.As we approached the main square that lies in front of the mosque, we could hear the faint sound of chanting. As we came around the corner we saw a few hundred people gathered tightly together chanting pro-Assad slogans. It was clear that this demonstration was pre-planned and was happening right in front of the throngs of secret police.I managed to snap off a couple of quick pictures. Occasionally, Afaf would step in front of me to give the appearance I was taking a picture of her. I managed to get a few snaps of some of the uniformed security guards - without them noticing and shutting our mini-trip down.Hmmmm.....Assad is a reformer,well so say Erdogan and Hillary.Read the full story here.

HT:RedState.Iraq vs. Libya: A Graphic Interpretation.Read and SEE the full story here.

BERMAN: Obama’s selective outrage.President backs freedom for some but not for others.By most objective standards, President Obama’s Libya speech can be considered a success. After weeks of comparative silence, the president’s address - delivered on March 28 before the National Defense University - was as spirited a defense of America’s decision to intervene forcefully in Libya as any we have seen to date. So much so, in fact, that it raised eyebrows in many quarters. “Serious question,” one foreign policy observer asked wryly on Twitter in the wake of the president’s remarks. “Who did the neocons have to trade to get Barack Obama on their team?”

Indeed, with his newfound emphasis on humanitarian intervention, pro-democracy activism and the use of force, Mr. Obama these days sounds a great deal like his predecessor. Upon closer inspection, however, the similarities break down. The George W. Bush administration, in its 2003 national security strategy, boldly proclaimed a “forward strategy that favors freedom” - an idea that subsequently served as the cornerstone of its ambitious effort to remake the Middle East. The approach of the current White House, by contrast, can be described more accurately as supporting freedom for some, but not for all.Take Mr. Obama’s contention, articulated in his Libya speech, that “when our interests and values are at stake, we have a responsibility to act.” A nice sentiment, to be sure, but a deeply problematic one, especially given that the Libyan scenario isn’t unique - quite the contrary, in fact. The brutality of Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s regime is commonplace in a region riddled with authoritarian governments and repressive juntas. Yet Washington, under Mr. Obama, has shied away from taking up the issues of these iniquities in other corners of the Middle East. Nor has it weighed in decisively in favor of the anti-regime stirrings in many of those same places.

Iran is a case in point. Recent weeks have seen a resurgence of the widespread grass-roots protests that erupted within the Islamic republic following President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s fraudulent re-election in June 2009. Unlike in the past, Mr. Obama has responded positively to these developments and taken a stand in support of Iran’s opposition forces. In his latest message, commemorating the Persian New Year, the president told the Iranian people in no uncertain terms that he supported their “freedom of peaceful assembly and association; the ability to speak your mind and choose your leaders.”But that appears to be where the administration’s endorsement ends. At least so far, there is little indication that Mr. Obama’s support is anything other than notional - or that his government is prepared to commit any real political, economic or military resources in support of the cause of freedom within Iran.On Syria, Team Obama has done even less.Hmmmm......Read the full story here.

HT:TundraTabloids.UK police issues warning of possible threat to EDL leaders on eve of demo in Blackburn.Ring of steel around Blackburn. Aeneas has just called in from Blackburn where the EDL demo takes place today. The police have erected 8ft high steel barricades around the town to keep everyone in place. Tommy and Kev have been issued with “Osman” orders, i.e. the police cannot guarantee their safety which is left to their own responsibility”Hmmm....."The police can not guarantee their safety"?Makes you wonder what they will manage for the Royal wedding considering the number of deadly threats?Read the full story here.

India - FIR against Poonam Pandey who vowed to strip if India wins World Cup.Balrampur (Uttar Pradesh): Complying with a court order, an FIR was lodged against model Poonam Pandey, who had reportedly said she would bare all if India win the World Cup cricket final on Saturday, on the charge of obscenity.The FIR was registered against the model at Balrampur Dehat police station after Chief Judicial Magistrate Subhash Chandra issued an order to this effect, taking suo motu cognizance of media reports about her announcement, police sources said.The Kingfisher model said this would be her way of expressing support to Team India.Hmmm..........You might loose for other reasons then this?Read the full story here

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

MFS - The Other News

Morning Posting.

Live broadcast info from Japan directly ! Here.

Libya Live Blog - March 29. Here .(Al-Jazeera)And here (BBC).

Sirya live blog - March 29 here.(Al -Jazeera).

Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity in Japan between 4.6 and 5.4 today. More info here.

Latest official Situation Update No. 65.On 29.03.2011 at 03:30 GMT+2

Source

HT:PaulLangley'sNuclearHistoryBlog.Robert Gale and Armand Hammer. Forget about eating Cake, let them drink I131.I’ll drink radioactive water, says nuclear safety adviser.AN international medical specialist on radiation has played down the risks to human health of the crisis at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan.Robert Gale, who led the medical response to the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, backed the current 20km evacuation zone as “arbitrary but reasonable” and said he was happy to drink iodine-contaminated water even beyond the 300 becquerel per kilogram limit set by the Japanese.“We live with radioactive water all the time,” Professor Gale said in Tokyo yesterday.“Would I stop drinking water in Tokyo or take any special precautions? Absolutely not. These limits are arbitrary. They’re meant to protect the most sensitive members of the population. They accept very low levels of risk.”News that tapwater in parts of Tokyo and other affected prefectures last week rose above the 100 becquerel per litre limit of iodine 131, caused by fallout from the nuclear plant, sparked panic buying of bottled water supplies Professor Gale, who is advising the Japanese government on the Fukushima crisis, said that to prevent alarm, it needed to give better context to the information it was releasing on radiation levels.“I don’t think proper attention has been given by any government – not only by the Japanese government – to the transmission of information to the public as to what these radiation hazards mean,” he said.The professor criticised foreign governments for imposing different exclusion zones to those ordered by Japan. The US imposed an 80km evacuation zone for its nationals, a move that was soon followed by Britain, Australia and other countries.They wheel out this guy to “normalise” fission products in water in Japan. Occidental Petroleum to the rescue. The guy is having a peak experience from his glory days at Chernoby. Meanwhle, I’m waiting for Bobby Scott to bob up. Dr Gale is at least a doctor. Unlike most the dudes making pronouncements. We do live with background radiation all the time. We do not live with radionuclides from the fission process though.How much dioxin is a safe limit? Are you happy its there, one might ask that area in Italy that was subjected to a bulk dioxin leak. And there’s more a connection between radionuclides in the biosphere and dioxin than one might first think.Yep, Japan is in the “normalisation” phase. (I do not mean to imply that Dr Gale does not believe what he is saying, Question is, should we parrot him without thinking? ) However, one doesn’t have to try very hard to encounter the thought that this is “Occidental Petroleum to the Rescue” of the political status quo in Japan. Cake? Who eats cake? Let them drink iodine. Gale’s about to drop dead from old age anyway. What about the young ones?Ok, I’ll just take a minute or two to toggle out of conspiracy mode and will resume normal transmissions shortly…….

If there is a conspiracy it in part consists of this: The government seeks to govern, and it cannot do that if it hasno credibility or if the people cease to agree to being governed. Dr Gale is engaged by the Japanese government.His role in this instance is not to treat people affected by radiation. His role is self evidently to “normalise” the presence of emitted fission radio nuclides (nuclear pollution) in the Japanese biosphere. In this instance, Radio Iodine in drinking water. Its now reduced in comparion to “background” radiation. This is down from the comparison of Fukushima pollution = 1 chest x ray. Yay, the government is still governing and its telling the people “No worries, Old Coot Gale would drink it. And he’s famous.So should you.” They might be right, they might be wrong. Depends. Anyway, in my opinion, “normalisation” is the key word.Hmmmm.....The good old Chernobyl strategy, where radioactive clouds went out of their way to avoid densely populated areas?Read the full story here.

Egypt's Mubarak 'under house arrest'.Military council denies ousted leader has fled to Saudi Arabia and says emergency laws will be lifted ahead of vote.Hosni Mubarak, Egypt's ousted president, has been put under house arrest along with his family, according to an Egyptian military statement.Egypt's Supreme Council of the Armed Forces on Monday said that the former leader and his family would not be allowed to leave the country and denied reports that Mubarak had fled to Saudi Arabia."There is no truth to reports that former president Hosni Mubarak has left Egypt for Tabuk in Saudi Arabia," the council said in a statement on the social networking site Facebook."He is under house arrest, with his family, in Egypt."The military council took power on February 11 after Mubarak was pushed from office following 18 days of massive street protests against his 30-year rule.Egypt's prosecutor general on March 3 denied media reports that Mubarak was in Saudi Arabia, insisting that he was at his family home in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.Media reports suggested that Mubarak had gone to Tabuk to receive medical treatment, with the state-owned daily Al-Akhbar claiming Mubarak was receiving medical treatment for cancer.Hmmmm......Thank you for the 'Change' president Obama?Read the full story here.

HT:Althouse."Did you notice Obama kept using the words 'hope' and 'change' in the address on military action in Libya?"That's an IM from my son Chris. Here's the text of the speech. 4 "hope"s. 9 "change"s.What Meade noticed was the failure to talk about Congress. Searching the text, I see he said Congress once:[N]ine days ago, after consulting the bipartisan leadership of Congress, I authorized military action to stop the killing and enforce UN Security Council Resolution 1973.So... the leadership. Who, exactly? Boehner and Reid?What I noticed was the implicit disrespect for George Bush:In this effort, the United States has not acted alone....When did we act alone? Is he trying to make us misremember what Bush did? To brush aside America's responsibility as a leader and — more profoundly — our responsibilities to our fellow human beings under such circumstances would have been a betrayal of who we are. Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different. And as President, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action.Hmmmm......Forgive me if i'm wrong but was he blind during the butchering of Iranian students?Aiding Al-qaida in Libya...YES, stopping Iran Israels deadliest enemy ....NO, how much more hypocrite can you be?Read the full 'story' here.

The Senate is the Next Battlefield in the Campaign to Undo the FCC’s Net Neutrality Power Grab.There has been a bit of a lull in the push to undo the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)’s obnoxious December 21st Internet takeover – executed so that they could then impose Network Neutrality.This stillness is understandable, given the avenues that need to be traveled to reverse this autocratic absurdity. Going through Congress and the courts takes some time, and will result in some pauses along the way.But the efforts to reverse the FCC’s terrible move do continue unabated, if intermittently.The biggest impediment to reversing the FCC remains – the FCC. And that’s intentional.As we have previously noted, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has now waited more than three months – and counting – to file his Net Neutrality order with the federal registry.So as to better hinder the lawsuits and legislation seeking to undo it.The longer the Chairman drags his feet on this Oh-So-Vitally-and-Imminently-Important Net Neutrality order, the less likely it becomes that the D.C. Circuit will be able to hear the case(s).So by stalling, the Chairman is callously venue shopping – and ducking a court in which he knows he will most likely lose.Thus far, there are two litigants (Verizon and Metro PCS) languishing – awaiting the long overdue action of Chairman Genachowski. More would perhaps have already filed – but they are probably also waiting on the Chairman.While these multiple litigations sit in Chairman-consigned limbo, the Congressional moves to undo press forward.After an historic 2010 election in which the American people demonstrably and overwhelmingly voted for smaller, more accountable government – of which the FCC Internet power grab is in direct violation – pressure must be put on these Democrat Senators regarding the Net Neutrality CR.Will they vote with their Party – or their constituents? They must be forced to choose – so that We the People may properly choose our Senators in 2012.And so we might protect ourselves and our Internet from an autocratic, overreaching FCC.Read the full story here.

U.S. Military Deploys Attack Planes to Strike Ground Forces in Libya.The U.S. military dramatically stepped up its assault on Libyan government ground forces this weekend, launching its first attacks with AC-130 flying gunships and A-10 attack aircraft, which are designed to strike enemy ground troops and supply convoys, according to senior U.S. military officials.Their use, during several days of heavy fighting in which the momentum seemed to swing in favor of the rebels, demonstrated how allied military forces have been drawn deeper into the chaotic fight in Libya.A mission that initially seemed to revolve around establishing a no-fly zone has become focused on halting advances by ground forces in and around Libya’s key coastal cities.The AC-130s, which fly low and slow over the battlefield and are typically more vulnerable to enemy fire than fast-moving fighter jets, were deployed only after a week of sustained coalition attacks on Libyan government air defenses and radar.Armed with heavy machine guns and cannons that rake the ground, they allow strikes on dug-in Libyan ground forces and convoys in closer proximity to civilians.Their use in Libya could be “a significant game changer,” said a senior military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military operations.Hmmmm......Al-qaida cheering all over Afghanistan and Yemen?Read the full story here.

HT:Aina.Obama's U.N. Debacle.President Obama's decision to place the United Nations at the center of his foreign policy took another hit Friday as the U.N. Human Rights Council ended its latest session in Geneva. One of the president's primary justifications for joining the notorious council shortly after he assumed office was its mandatory five-year review process; if the U.S. was a member, the administration claimed, it could influence this process. The process, which quietly unfolded in back rooms in Geneva over the past six months, has been exposed to be a total fraud, taking the administration's cover down with it.Starting last fall, the Obama team was a very active participant in a working group of the council that had been set up to tackle reform. At the end of February, the working group produced a document summarizing its decisions, and on Friday the council passed a resolution adopting that document by consensus -- that is, without a vote. Regardless of the fact that every serious recommendation of the United States was rejected, Obama's diplomats refused to call for a vote on the resolution so that they could vote against it.They did play a little game intended to fool uninformed listeners by claiming to "dissociate" the administration from the resolution. However, since the resolution has been adopted by consensus, it will proceed unimpeded to the General Assembly, where it will be rubber-stamped. The U.S. could not have stopped the resolution, but an American vote against the measure would have been a major blow to the credibility of the Human Rights Council. It also would have set up the U.S. to leave the council as a logical consequence of the failure to reform it.The slap in the face to President Obama is painfully clear from a short list of American demands for reform and the council's responses.The council has an official, permanent agenda that governs all its meetings and consists of only ten items. One of those items is reserved for condemning Israel, and another is assigned to human rights in the other 191 U.N. member states. This session, for instance, produced six resolutions condemning Israel, one resolution each on four other states, and nothing at all on the remaining 187 countries. The American delegation huffed and puffed that this obvious discrimination -- which characterizes every meeting of the council -- must come to an end, and proposed that the two agenda items be rolled into one. The proposal was rejected.The American delegation proposed creating easier trigger mechanisms for convening special sessions on specific countries when serious human-rights concerns arise. The proposal was rejected.The result leaves the administration with two choices. Choice number one: Admit the fiasco. Refuse to lend legitimacy to a highly discriminatory agency designed to help members such as Saudi Arabia, China, and Cuba concealrigger mechanisms for convening special sessions on specific countries when serious human-rights concerns arise. The proposal was rejected.The result leaves the administration with two choices. Choice number one: Admit the fiasco. Refuse to lend legitimacy to a highly discriminatory agency designed to help members such as Saudi Arabia, China, and Cuba conceal their own abuses. And get out. Choice number two: Allow a bogus "reform" to be adopted by consensus, and stay put.President Obama has evidently decided to take the second course, sending one more signal about how little he values Israel and how few are the number of human-rights victims around the world that stand any chance of capturing his attention.Hmmm........As i said before"His 'hate' for Israel determines his politics"!Read the full story here.

HT:AhmadiyyaTimes.Pakistan: Lawyers demand trial of blasphemer priest.KARACHI: Legal fraternity here on Saturday strongly condemned the desecration of the holy Quran in Florida, USA, demanding blasphemer Christian priest Terry Jones be punished by international court of justice.Lawyers, on call of the Karachi Bar Association, staged protest demonstration at Raja Riaz Shaheed Road, Opposite City Courts on MA Jinnah Road.They carried placards and chanted slogans, seeking trial of blasphemer priest.Demonstrators said act of desecration would harm global interfaith harmony, as no religion supports such acts of blasphemy towards other religions and hurting sentiments of their followers.They called Florida act as extremist move, adding international court should take notice of this incident, try and punish the blasphemer.Later, protestors dispersed peacefully.Hmmmm.....For the moment America has no Blasphemy laws ,but i'm sure ~~Caliph~~ President Obama will do all he can to impose them in a very near future. Read the full story here.

HT:AhmadiyyaTimes.Muslim world: A civilisation of narcissists.Muslims seem to be blind to non-Muslim emotions; they are civilisationally inward-looking, but only go into denial when taxed with blame from the outside. If Muslims kill non-Muslims, they seem strangely unconcerned; when Muslims kill Muslims, as in Sudan, they turn their eyes away. It is only when non-Muslims kill Muslims, that they wake up and start complaining and pointing to their general state of victimhood. In his book Tehzeebi Nargisiyat (Sanjh Publications Lahore, 2009), Mobarak Haider goes into the minutiae of collective Muslim narcissism and examines all their overt and hidden postures, and comes up with a key to the understanding of the Muslim mind.

Haider says if you think Muslim isolationism and pride are of recent date, you are mistaken; Muslims have always been like that. It is their understanding of Islam that permits extreme posturing, while at the same time giving them the rhetoric of peace that no one takes seriously. If a Muslim terrorist kills another Muslim, the unthinking verdict is that the killer couldn’t be a Muslim or he wouldn’t have done it. Yet the bitter truth is that despite all their aggressive strutting, Muslims are busy killing Muslims all over the world. When they travel abroad and are treated with fear and loathing at international airports, they pocket their narcissism and suffer in silence. Strangely, pride doesn’t recommend refusal to migrate.

Author Haider bases this narcissism on the way Muslims absorb the following tenets of their faith:

Islam is a complete code of life and offers solutions to all problems.
Every edict of Islam is eternal and applicable to all times.
Islam is the only truth and any other competing truth must mould itself according to Islam or be ready to be suppressed.
Muslims are under obligation to make Islam the supreme religion of the world as other religions are jahiliyya.
Muslims are the foremost nation in the world and the only one that will be allowed into Heaven.
Action taken to subjugate other civilisations is jihad and not terrorism.There are other ‘collective’ illusions contained in the edicts that follow:
Violence is interpreted as jihad, but then jihad is supposed to be the personal obligation of Muslims and not the state.
Any deviation from the prevailing dogma is non-belief or kufr; in more mitigating conditions, it is at least heresy.
The best knowledge is knowledge of religion and the ulema are the best among men, which means that no one can think about religion on his own.
No one can become a scholar of Islam except by accepting the dogma and obeying the edicts of tradition.

The Taliban are the climax of the journey of blind dismissal of the world outside the Muslim self. The idea is to rule the world not through acquisition of knowledge but through the use of the sword. The Taliban are the symbol of Pakistan’s recession into the self in the face of modern challenges. The biggest self-destructive vice that springs from this is uniformity of thinking or yaksaniyat (p.62).

Pakistan in its official and unofficial mythology claims that superpower Russia was defeated by the Taliban; and superpower America, too, will now be defeated by the Taliban, a glory in which Muslims of the world will indirectly participate. Corrupt politicians returning from the fleshpots of Europe, where they have just spent a part of the wealth gouged from Pakistan, complain that the West has lost its spiritual values and is now looking beseechingly at the Muslims as an agency of the revival of the western soul.The writer is a director at the South Asia Free Media Association, Lahore khaled.ahmed@tribune.com.pk. Hmmmm.....These are the people that the Obama regime gives tens of Billions of Dollars!Read the full story here.

Obama Featured On Chicago Anti-Abortion Billboards Targeting Black South Siders.An anti-abortion group behind a controversial New York billboard targeting African Americans is now taking its message to the South Side of Chicago, in a billboard targeting supporters of President Obama. Life Always is expected to unveil billboards featuring Obama's face and the words "Every 21 minutes, our next possible leader is aborted" on Tuesday at 11 a.m. The first billboard will be near an empty lot at 5812 S. State Street, according to a press release from Life Always."Our future leaders are being aborted at an alarming rate," Life Always Board Member Reverend Derek McCoy said in a statement. "These are babies who could grow to be the future Presidents of the United States, or the next Oprah Winfrey, Denzel Washington or Maya Angelou."

The group's New York billboard, which read "The most dangerous place for an African-American is in the womb," was taken down after Soho residents and members of the black community voiced their outrage.Civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton said the New York billboard "depicted black women in an unfair way," according to the Chicago Sun-Times. He praised Lamar Advertising's decision to remove it.

The billboard is part of a growing trend in the anti-abortion community that accuses abortion providers of "black genocide" via abortions.According to Life Always, 30 billboards featuring President Obama and the anti-choice message will be placed on the South Side of Chicago in coming weeks. Some local black leaders will be on hand Tuesday for the first billboard's unveiling, including former 2nd Congressional district GOP candidate Rev. Isaac Hayes, Rev. Ceasar LeFlore, Rev. Derek A. McCoy and Pastor Stephen Broden, an anti-abortion activist who ran for office as a Republican in Texas last year.Read and see the full story here.

HT:Spiegel.The Dance of the Snakes.Brewing Civil War in Yemen Has All Sides Nervous.Tribal leaders, dubious generals and clerics have all cut their ties with embattled Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Student protesters are worried that their uprising is being hijacked by disgruntled regime insiders. As an array of groups jockey for power in a post-Saleh era, the real shots might be called by Riyadh.It's rarely a good idea to put the address of an old friend on a list of bombing targets. Especially not when the friend is the country's most powerful military figure and the list is a "target list" of the Saudi air force against rebel positions.

It all happened a little over a year ago. Ali Abdullah Saleh, who is still holding on to his position as Yemen's president, tried to shrug off the incident as just a stupid misunderstanding. But, since then, he has no longer been able to depend much on the loyalty of General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, who commands the country's northwestern military district.

In fact, al-Ahmar has become the president's most important adversary -- and the man who might unseat him from office. The general has already made it known that, from now on, his forces will protect the protesters.

On Wednesday, March 23, Yemen's rump parliament rubber-stamped the president's declaration of a state of emergency and granted him emergency powers. Two days later, Saleh told a gathering of supporters that, to avoid further bloodshed, he was willing "to hand power over into safe hands (but) not to sick, resentful or corrupt hands." Few had any doubt about who he was referring to.

When he made these comments, tens of thousands of his opponents were gathering once again outside the university located right near the barracks housing units under General al-Ahmar's control.Unlike in Egypt, the Yemeni military is divided. Every so often, you will have tanks belonging to the army standing across from those of the Republican Guards in the streets of the capital San'a. In the coastal city of Al Mukalla, the two have already exchanged fire. The Republican Guards and the country's intelligence service take their orders from the president's son and nephews.

On March 18, snipers posted on rooftops in San'a, who were presumably members of the intelligence service, fired on protesters. Fifty-two people died from shots to the head and chest. In the wake of the massacre, dozens of government ministers, businesspeople, military officers and diplomats cut their ties with the regime.Saleh has described his 33-year rule and his power plays with the leaders of the country's many tribes, as a "dance on snake heads." Now those snakes are starting to bite him.Until recently, President Saleh appeared convinced that the Saudis viewed him as the sole guarantor of stability in Yemen. But General al-Ahmar also has good friends in Riyadh, and he has already teamed up with his Saudi Arabian colleagues in putting down the uprising of the Houthi rebels in the region along their shared border. Indeed, some believe he is the only power in Yemen that the Saudi regime would find acceptable. This will be the spring of snakes.Hmmmm.....Lets hope that Iran doesn't show up as the 'snake charmer'?Read the full story here.

HT:IsraelMatzav.Facebook won't remove intifada promotion page.Facebook will not remove a page that promotes a third terror war against Israel beginning on May 15, although it says that it will 'monitor' the page and remove hateful comments from it. "Third Palestinian Intifada," established on Facebook less than a month ago, calls for a third Palestinian uprising to begin May 15. The page, which as of March 27 had more than 330,000 friends, includes quotes and film clips calling for killing Jews and Israelis, and for "liberating" Jerusalem and Palestine using violence. It also directs users to related content on Twitter, YouTube and elsewhere.In a statement released to several media outlets, Facebook commented on the Third Palestinian Intifada page controversy.“While some kinds of comments and content may be upsetting for someone -- criticism of a certain culture, country, religion, lifestyle, or political ideology, for example -- that alone is not a reason to remove the discussion," the statement said. "We strongly believe that Facebook users have the ability to express their opinions, and we don’t typically take down content, groups or Pages that speak out against countries, religions, political entities, or ideas.”I wonder how long a similar page with content against Muslims would last. Hmmmm.....Not to worry soon the ex-spokesman ofthe defender of the free world Robert Gibbs might join Facebook.Lots of phony identities to be set up to push a certain point of view or candidate?Read the full story here.

HT:Memri.Calls on Facebook for Palestinian Millions to Return to Their Homes in Israel on May 15, 2011.The Plan of Action.

The page administrators have suggested detailed plans of action to be implemented before and during the May 15 march, stressing that all activity is to be non-violent. The info page of the "Palestinian Refugees' Revolution (The Advance of the Millions)" said: "We can recruit millions to march in eight fronts, in order to confuse the enemy and [force it to] divide its forces. The [fronts will be:] the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, the Inside Palestinians [i.e., Israeli Arabs], the refugees in Lebanon from the Lebanese border, the refugees in Syria from the Syrian border, the refugees in Jordan from the Jordanian border, the refugees of Europe via the sea in hundreds of ships, and international activists, [who] can demonstrate their solidarity from the Sinai front. Our Egyptian brothers... can support us by [organizing] a march of five million Egyptians, which will advance toward the Palestinian border from Sinai, under the slogan of peaceful solidarity with the rights of the Palestinian people... It would be best for the marches to be lead by old men and women who witnessed the Nakba. They do not lack enthusiasm to participate in and realize the dream of their lives – to be buried in the soil of their homeland. We must [also] recruit as many foreigners [i.e., non-Arabs] as possible from across the world to lead the marches, in order to create difficulty for the Zionists..."

Regarding the manner in which the march was to be conducted, the page said: "We must keep this activity free of all ideological and factional [conflict]. We must hold up the Palestinian flag only, so that the presence of [various] factions will not be used [against us] by the Zionists and the West. We must make sure that the [march] proceeds peacefully, without arms, with slogans in all the languages [emphasizing the] human [aspect of the struggle], such as 'I Want to Return to My Home,' and while holding aloft the keys of the homes from which our families were exiled... We must completely avoid slogans like 'Destroying the Zionist Entity' or 'Throw [the Zionists] into the Sea,' so as not to turn the world against us, and in order to rally [everyone around] the goal, namely to return to the homes from which we were expelled, nothing more. That is a human and moral slogan that can rally all the people of the world to our assistance."The "Third Palestinian Intifada" page posted a detailed plan of action for May 13-15, 2011, as follows. After the March 13 Friday prayers, the Palestinians and their supporters will gather in mosques and squares throughout Israel, in the Palestinian territories, and across the world, waving the Palestinian flag and burning the Israeli flag. On the following day, the Palestinians and their supporters will gather at the starting points of the march: In the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, they will gather in the mosques and squares of the cities; in "the 1948 territories," they will meet at the main mosques; in the countries bordering Israel, the starting points will be in various locations near the border; and in other Arab lands, protesters will gather at the Palestinian consulates. In Turkey, activists will gather in hundreds of ships, ready to set sail toward Israel; and in the rest of the world, including Europe and the US, demonstrators will rally in front of the Israeli embassies.On Sunday, May 15, after the noon prayers, "the holy advance will start and the Intifada will be ignited... On this day, all the returning [refugees] will set forth, and the Third Palestinian Intifada will commence, with the support of all the free people in the world." The page lists the destinations of the march: In the West Bank, participants will march on the checkpoints and settlements; in Gaza, on the checkpoints and border crossings; within "the 1948 territories," toward cities and villages destroyed in the 1948 war; in Lebanon, toward Palestine by land and by sea; in Jordan, toward three areas on the border; in Syria, towards the Golan border; in Egypt, toward the Rafah border and toward the coast of Palestine by ship. Ships will also set sail for Palestine from Turkey and Europe, and demonstrations will be held in front of Israeli embassies worldwide.Hmmmm......This is war ,with facebook in charge of the communication lines,time for 'Stuxnet' to come to the rescue?Read the full 'story' here.

Turkey will run Benghazi airport.Turkey will take over the running of the airport in Benghazi to facilitate the transport of humanitarian aid to Libya in an agreement with NATO, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced on Monday. Erdoğan said Turkey agreed to undertaking three assignments concerning Libya within NATO. Participation in the enforcement of the no-fly zone and the help of Turkish naval forces in the corridor between Crete and Benghazi are the two other assignments in addition to the running of the airport in Benghazi, Erdoğan said.He didn’t say when Turkey would assume control, yet reiterated that it would not take part in ground attacks. “We have not been the country who is dropping bombs or firing bullets, and nor will we be,” Erdoğan told reporters.Meanwhile a ferry with ambulances and medical equipment on board sailed early Monday morning from İzmir to the port of Misurata to bring about 450 wounded people to Turkey. A Turkish relief organization, the Humanitarian Relief Foundation (İHH), brought 13 wounded Libyans from Benghazi to İstanbul early on Monday.Hmmmm......NATO ally Turkey aiding Al-Qaida fighters to recuperate in Turkey?GET TURKEY OUT OF NATO!Read the full story here.

Turkey's photo of the year: Bleeding IDF soldier.Picture of bleeding Navy commando assaulted aboard Marmara wins Turkish photojournalism award; news website uses difficult image to create puzzle for readers.Photojournalism award, Turkish-style: The picture of a bleeding IDF soldier aboard the Marmara won Turkey's 2010 Photo of the Year Award in the News category; the contest was held by the Turkish photojournalism association. Nine people were killed onboard the Gaza-bound Turkish ship after IDF troops who raided it encountered violent resistance by "peace activists" armed with an assortment of weapons.

One of Turkey's largest websites, Milliyet, used the difficult image to create a puzzle for its readers.The photograph shows a beaten up IDF soldier with his face and head bloodied while three Marmara passengers grab him and twisting his arm. The picture was shot by a Turkish photographer who hid copies in a hidden pocket and managed to smuggle them out of Israel.Turkish media outlets did not blur the blood stains or the Israeli soldier's face. The winning pictures were chosen out of 1,632 photos in six different categories. Prizes were handed out in the beginning of the month with Turkey's parliament speaker, deputy prime minister and various parliamentarians among those in attendance.Hmmmm.....Perhaps for photo of the Century they might choose from the hundreds of pictures of innocent Armenians butchered by Turks,confirming they haven't evolved yet?Read the full story here.

Tech firms hiring White House staffers.The Obama administration brought Facebook and Twitter to politics. And now it’s giving back, as staffers leave the White House and take key jobs at Silicon Valley firms.In the past year, Facebook hired Marne Levine, a former White House economic official, and is reportedly courting former West Wing spokesman Robert Gibbs. Google’s philanthropy arm snagged Jared Cohen, the State Department’s social media guru. Twitter hired former White House and State Department staffer Katie Stanton.The revolving door between the federal government and U.S. tech companies isn’t new. But the hires come as popular Internet applications from Google, Facebook and Apple attract special attention from lawmakers and regulators concerned about issues of privacy, competition, pricing and other aspects of the rapidly changing online economy.Facebook has been probed by the Federal Trade Commission for changing its privacy policies and catching users by surprise. Lawmakers have criticized the company for its muted response to authoritarian governments who want to clamp down on Internet communications.Google is being investigated by the Federal Communications Commission for snarfing up consumer Wi-Fi Internet data.Apple is also being probed for the way it uses its control over the iTunes store to take cuts of revenue from applications sold there.“These companies are at the crosshairs of privacy and policy issues and they see people in the White House and federal government as protectors of their plans to expand into new markets,” said Jeffrey Chester, an online privacy advocate and executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy. “These are uber influence-makers they are hiring.”Facebook declined to comment on a report by the New York Times that it is trying to hire Gibbs for a senior communications position. Gibbs, who left the White House in February, did not respond to an e-mail request for an interview. (Washington Post Co. Chairman Donald Graham sits on the board of Facebook).Experts said that if Gibbs joined a private firm such as Facebook and registered as a lobbyist, he would not be allowed to contact staffers at the White House about business issues during Obama’s tenure.The new relationships between Internet companies and the federal government follow those of phone and computer giants and government officials. Ahead of the regulatory review of its merger with T-Mobile, AT&T has as its lobbying leader James Cicconi, a former staffer for George W. Bush. Cicconi has a long track record of regulatory success at the FCC and approval of several mergers for AT&T. Bill Clinton spokesman Mike McCurry heads Arts & Labs, a group that has lobbied against Internet access rules known as net neutrality, on behalf of AT&T, Verizon and cable companies.Now, Internet companies find that they need the government more.Hmmmm.....Or the government controls the internet more?Read the full story here.

US denies help to Turkish prosecutor trying to gag cartoonist.A Turkish prosecutor seeking the help of US officials in ascertaining the identity of a person who distributed cartoons showing Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as a pig around the Karadeniz Technical University (KTÜ) campus last year has been denied assistance on the groundsThe Trabzon Prosecutor’s Office has been conducting an investigation into cartoons that were distributed at KTÜ’s Kanuni campus last year, showing Erdoğan as a pig. A declaration that went with the cartoons bore a Gmail address. The Trabzon Prosecutor’s Office requested technical assistance from the US Department of Justice Office of International Affairs (OIA) to establish the IP numbers that the Gmail address owner used at the time. The prosecutor’s office was relying on a bilateral agreement between the US and Turkey on the extradition of suspected criminals and mutual judicial assistance. However, the OIA refused to help, saying freedom of expression in the US was a fundamental right and that helping the Trabzon prosecutors would mean infringing upon this right, protected by the US Constitution.Hmmmm......I'm sure dear leader will come to the rescue of his buddy.Read the full story here.

UK: Festival rejects grant amid threats from anti-Israel groups.Organizers of 'Arts Music of Israel' at SOAS say won’t accept $2,400 grant from BI-ARTS after pro-Palestinian groups calling to boycott Jewish state threaten to protest against event. Israeli embassy: Art is made to build bridges.The Jewish Music Institute (JMI) at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), a college of the University of London, turned down a grant from the British Israeli Arts Training Scheme following intense pressure by pro-Palestinian groups calling to boycott Israel. According to the London-based Jewish Chronicle, Campaigners from British Committee for the Universities of Palestine (BRICUP), Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods (J-BIG) and the Boycott Israel Network (BIN) declared "victory" after the organizers of an Israeli music conference at SOAS assured them that the event, which is scheduled for next week, would have no Israeli government funding.The pro-Palestinian groups threatened to picket “Arts Music of Israel” if it accepted any support from Israel. After rejecting the £1,500 ($2,400) grant from BI-ARTS, the organizers said they did not want political connections with the conference, the Chronicle reported."Art is made to build bridges and to help sustain an essential dialogue. "It is disturbing to see that the certain bodies have succumbed to pressures from external organizations whose sole purpose is to prevent that dialogue. Not only that, but to cooperate with them and to brusquely attach a much needed financial support for artists to political agenda is unhelpful," he said.Hmmmmm........First they burn books,after this they burn people.Read the full story here.

"Life or death in Iran's prisons".Iran Secretly Executes More People.The HRANA group has reported that early morning on March 14th, an Armenian-Jewish couple along with a women and two men were secretly hanged in Evin prison.The shift office in branch 28 of the Revolutionary Court confirmed the five executions, but refused to offer any explanation on the details about the bodies of the couple and the location of their burial.The people executed are: Adiva Soleyman, an Iranian Jew, her husband Varjan Petrosian, an Iranian-Armenian, one women and two men unidentified. There is no information on the charges of the defendants.The relatives of the executed couple who were planning to hold the funeral and burial ceremonies based on their [religious] customs, were threatened with arrest by security and intelligence forces.Read the full story here.

Gaza cops use ‘beatings, stun guns’ on women reporters.Hamas security personnel raid offices of media organizations, including Reuters and CNN, confiscate equipment and documents. A number of Palestinian women journalists complained on Sunday that they had been beaten and tortured by Hamas security forces in the Gaza Strip.They said the assaults occurred in recent days when they and their colleagues tried to cover pro-unity rallies in different parts of the Gaza Strip.Hamas policemen used force to disperse the protesters, who were calling for an end to the dispute between the Islamist movement and Fatah. The rallies were part of a Facebook campaign organized by Palestinian youth on March 15.At least eight journalists were beaten by the Hamas police officers during the rallies.Some had their cameras and laptops confiscated, while others were taken into custody and made to sign a document pledging to refrain from covering such events in the future.Later, Hamas security personnel raided the offices of a number of media organizations and confiscated equipment and documents. Among the offices targeted were Reuters, CNN and a Japanese TV network.One of the female journalists, Samah Ahmed, complained that a Hamas policeman in military uniform stabbed her in the back as she tried to leave the al-Katiba Square, where pro-unity protesters were staging a sit-in strike.She said that she and another female journalist, Asma al- Ghoul, were later also beaten with clubs before they were taken to detention.“At the police station, they continued to beat us and curse us,” Ahmed told the Palestinian news agency Aswar Press. “When they realized that I was bleeding from the area where I was stabbed, the police interrogators sent me to hospital.”She added that the Hamas police officers who accompanied her to the hospital forced the medical team to admit her under a different name and to list her as a victim of a traffic accident.Jihan al-Sirsawi, another woman who works as a journalist in the Gaza Strip, said that the police officers who attacked the demonstrators beat her severely.“They used electrical shocks against us,” she said. “They beat me so strongly that I lost consciousness and fell to the ground. I woke up only 15 minutes later.”Two more female journalists, Manal Khamis and Dima al-Lababidi, also complained that Hamas policemen had beaten them up during the demonstration. Khamis said that the policemen confiscated her mobile phone and attacked her physically. Al- Lababidi accused the Hamas policemen of hitting her on the back with an iron chair.Hmmmmm.......After being all these years such good Dhimmis,it's 'blasphemy.Read the full story here.

Obama on Illegal Aliens to Illegal Alien: We Don’t Want to Deport Them; 'We Want Them To Succeed’. When questioned by an illegal alien student today who showed him a deportation letter, President Barack Obama said he did not want to deport illegal alien students like the one who questioned him, he wanted them to succeed. The exchange came during a town hall event sponsored by the Spanish-language television network Univision at a Washington, D.C., school. An illegal alien student, who appeared via Skype, asked: “My question for the president is, why [is the government] saying that deportations have stopped or the detention of many students like me, why is it that we are still receiving deportation letters like this one?”Obama answered, “We have redesigned our enforcement practices under the law to make sure that we’re focusing primarily on criminals, and so our deportation of criminals are up about 70 percent. Our deportation of non-criminals are down, and that’s because we want to focus our resources on those folks who are destructive to the community.“And for a young person like that young woman that we just spoke to who’s going to school, doing all the right things, we want them to succeed," Obama said.Hmmmm.......You never know he may end up one day as President of the United States of America.Read and see the full story here.

Kuwait sentences 3 to death in Iran spy case.A Kuwaiti criminal court has sentenced three people to death for being part of an alleged Iranian spy ring in the Gulf Arab state, Dubai-based Al Arabiya television said on Tuesday.The station did not give further details on a case that has strained relations between Kuwait and Tehran.Kuwait, which banned media coverage of the case, has said only that several people were detained in an unspecified security probe.Kuwaiti media said in May 2010 authorities had detained a number of people - Kuwaitis and foreigners - suspected of spying for Iran. The independent al-Qabas daily said they were accused of gathering information on Kuwaiti and US military sites for Iran's Revolutionary Guard.Read the full story here.

"Ten Commandments Judge" Roy Moore to run for president.Roy Moore, the former Alabama Supreme Court chief justice who lost his job after erecting a monument of the Ten Commandments outside the state's courthouse, plans to announce in mid-April that he is setting up a presidential exploratory committee, an aide told CBS News.The aide, Zachery Michael, said Moore's platform will be focused on repealing the health care overhaul law, replacing the progressive income tax with a flat tax and bringing "commonsense solutions" on immigration and border control.Michael said Moore is entering the fray because "we're just seeing the same type of politicians run for president." He said Moore is someone "who can connect with over 300 million Americans across the country, which is something we've been lacking with today's leaders across society."Michael said Moore should not be thought of simply as a culture warrior, arguing that he has been a strong advocate for limited government. "He not only stood up for his faith, he stood up against the tyranny of government," he said.Moore will enter a field already crowded with socially-conservative potential candidates, including former Sen. Rick Santorum, former Gov. Mike Huckabee, former Gov. Sarah Palin, Rep. Michele Bachmann and former Godfather's Pizza CEO Herman Cain. Huckabee was the surprise winner of the Iowa caucuses in 2008, a result that reflects the outsized role of social conservatives in the Iowa GOP electorate. A West Point graduate and Vietnam veteran, Moore was removed as chief justice by Alabama's judicial ethics panel in 2003 for refusing to remove the Ten Commandments monument after a federal court order. He is the author of "So Help Me God: The Ten Commandments, Judicial Tyranny, and the Battle for Religious Freedom."Hmmm........"In God we trust".Read the full story here.

Indian navy nabs 16 Somali Pirates in Arabian Sea.India’s navy and coast guard have captured 16 Somali pirates after a three-hour-long battle in the Arabian Sea, a navy spokesman said on Monday. Also, 16 crew members who had been taken hostage by the pirates were rescued from the hijacked Iranian trawler off India’s western Lakshadweep islands on Sunday, Captain Manohar Nambiar said. The pirates were using the trawler as a roving pirate base to launch attacks on passing vessels in the Indian Ocean, he said. The pirates were trying to seize a merchant ship, MV Maersk Kensington, when a coast guard vessel and an Indian naval ship picked up its distress signals and went to its aid. The pirates opened fire at the coast guard ship as it drew near, triggering a battle during which the pirate trawler caught fire. The pirates and the hostages, picked up from the sea by the navy ship, were headed for Mumbai. Of the 16 hostages, 12 are Iranians and four are Pakistanis, the navy spokesman said. “The pirates will be handed over to the Mumbai police for prosecution."Hmmm.....Ah the good old days ,when Brittania ruled the waves, pirates swinging from the mainmast....Sigh.Read the full story here.

Herman Cain Refuses to Back Down: “There Are Many Muslims Who Are Not Totally Dedicated to This Country”.“The reporter didn’t tell you this, I would have to have people totally committed to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of this United States. And many of the Muslims – they are not totally dedicated to this country, they are not dedicated to our Constitution. Many of them are trying to force Sharia law on the people of this country.”Read the full story here.

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