"Radiant Seaweed" - US West Coast Seaweed Showing Radioactive Cesium From Fukushima.

"Radiant Seaweed" - US West Coast Seaweed Showing Radioactive Cesium From Fukushima.(Simply Info)

New testing done by Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering found Fukushima cesium in US Pacific sea weed. The samples were standardized against a known amount of cesium 137 and cobalt 60. The finding of cesium 134 would indicate this is at least partially from the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

“Washington State Pacific coast eel weed sample contained 0.22 pCi/g of Cs134 and 0.24 pCi/g of Cs137.  It also contained 0.1 pCi/g of Co60”

These values converted to the more common bq/kg are:
Cesium 134: 8.14 Bq/Kg
Cesium 137: 8.88 Bq/Kg
Cobalt 60: 3.7 Bq/Kg

They also tested nori sheets from a market in Chiba prefecture Japan. 

“One of two Japanese nori samples from a Chiba Prefecture market contained 1.1 pCi/g of Cs134 and 1.7 pCi/g of Cs137.  (That’s 41 and 63 Bq/kg, respectively.)  The other was nondetect for these isotopes.” 

Cesium 134: 41 bq/kg
Cesium 137: 63 bq/kg
Cobalt 60: none detected

Belgian nuclear chief 'sceptical' reactor can be restarted, TEN American reactors may have used the component in question.

Belgian nuclear chief 'sceptical' reactor can be restarted, TEN American reactors may have used the component in question.(HD)(WSJ).The head of Belgium's federal agency for nuclear safety AFCN said on Friday he was "sceptical" that an ageing reactor closed over fears of cracks could be restarted. "I'm fairly sceptical for the moment," Willy de Roovere told RTBF public radio, even if "the possibility remains that I am wrong." According to French-language daily Le Soir, a crack of between 15 and 20 millimetres (0.6 and 0.8 inches) was discovered during a test in June. There has been no denial of this report. According to the agency, repairs are "practically impossible" and are "not an option" for fear of creating new tensions "which we must avoid at all costs." Installing a replacement meanwhile has never been attempted anywhere because of the problem of high radiation levels. The AFCN revealed on Wednesday that the Doel 3 reactor, located 25 kilometres (20 miles) north of Antwerp, would remain closed at least until August 31 after the discovery of possible cracks in the protective vessel surrounding the core during routine June testing. The agency is also mulling the permanent closure "in the worst case" of a second reactor in the country's south near Liege. The tests showed "faults in the steel base material" on which the reactor vessel is mounted, the AFCN said.The Dutch firm, Rotterdam Drydocks, that made the vessels is out of business, which has amplified concerns about others it delivered in Europe and in the Americas. Spain has indicated it has two reactors in the same bracket, Switzerland and Sweden one each. The firm supplied one to the Netherlands, but had not manufactured it. The government in The Hague said it has still to decide whether to test its nuclear facilities. The German government said reactors supplied by the defunct company were no longer in service. Representatives of nuclear safety bodies from all the countries involved will meet in Brussels on August 16 to "exchange information," the AFCN said.
Checks with a new technology at the Doel power plant near Belgium's biggest port, Antwerp, identified the possible cracks, the Belgian regulator FANC said. The vessel is a 20-centimeter-thick steel tank, which is roughly three meters tall and four meters in diameter.
At least one reactor in Switzerland, another in Belgium and two in Spain have components produced by the same Dutch firm, Rotterdam Drydock Company, which has gone bankrupt since producing the equipment.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Friday it has been informed that 10 American reactors may have used the component in question, but it hasn't yet verified that information with U.S. nuclear operators. 

The U.S. regulator said it will send an engineering expert to next week's meeting. "We want to know more about what tests were done, the methodologies and techniques and equipment used to test it," spokesman David McIntyre said. "It's a little early to be jumping to conclusions at this point. There will be more testing to verify that there's a problem and the extent of it." The Swiss reactor was already shut for routine checks and the second Belgian reactor will be shut next week for tests, the countries' regulators said. Spain didn't find any problem in its vessels, after testing them with the same advanced technology used in Belgium.Read the full story here and here.

Fukushima - Coalition Sends Urgent Request for UN Intervention to Stabilize the Fukushima Unit 4 Spent Nuclear Fuel.

Fukushima - Coalition Sends Urgent Request for UN Intervention to Stabilize the Fukushima Unit 4 Spent Nuclear Fuel.(FukushimaUpdate).
For immediate release: 2 May 2012.

Kyoto, Japan—On 30 April, seventy-two Japanese NGO organizations lead by Shut Tomari and Green Action send an urgent request to the UN and Japanese government urging immediate action to stabilize the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Unit 4 spent nuclear fuel. The letter was endorsed by experts from Japan and abroad.
The letter warned that the seriously damaged Unit 4 spent nuclear fuel pool contains Cesium-137 (Cs-137) that is equivalent to 10 times the amount released at the time of the Chernobyl nuclear accident. If an earthquake or other event were to cause this pool to drain, this could result in a catastrophic radiological fire.
The letter urged the United Nations to organize a Nuclear Security Summit to take up the crucial problem of the Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 spent nuclear fuel pool. The letter stated that the United Nations should establish an independent assessment team on Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 and coordinate international assistance in order to stabilize the unit’s spent nuclear fuel and prevent radiological consequences with potentially catastrophic consequences.
Letters were sent to both UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, the latter asking that Japan ask immediately for the UN’s help.
Nearly all of the 10,893 spent fuel assemblies at the Fukushima Daiichi plant sit in pools vulnerable to future earthquakes, with roughly 85 times more long-lived radioactivity than released at Chernobyl.
Kaori Izumi of Shut Tomari stated, “Fukushima Daiichi is no longer a Japanese issue but is an international issue. It is imperative for the Japanese government and the international community to work together on this crisis before it becomes too late.”
Nuclear experts from the US and Japan such as Arnie Gundersen, Robert Alvarez, Hiroaki Koide, Masashi Goto, and Mitsuhei Murata, a former Japanese ambassador to Switzerland, and, Akio Matsumura, a former UN diplomat have continually warned against the high risk of the Fukushima Unit 4 spent nuclear fuel pool.
Shut Tomari and Green Action are seeking endorsements from civil organizations abroad (deadline 20 May). More Japanese civil organizations are expected to sign on in addition to the seventy-two organizations. (Deadline for signatures: 20 May.)
For full text of letter/endorsements/signatories, see: http://wp.me/p1FMPy-B6.
Press release issued by:
Shut Tomari (Japan),
1-2, 6-4 Higashisapporo, Shiroishi-ku, Sapporo 003-0006 Japan
TEL: +81-90-2695-1937 FAX:+81-11-826-3796 email: kaori-izumi@ta3.so-net.ne.jp
Green Action (Japan),
Suite 103, 22-75 Tanaka Sekiden-cho, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8203 Japan
Tel: +81-75-701-7223 Fax: +81-75-702-1952 email: info@greenaction-japan.org

Download: PressRelease (PDF). Source: FukushimaUpdate.

In light of further nuclear risks at the spent nuclear fuel pool of the No. 4 reactor, economic growth should not be the priority.

In light of further nuclear risks at the spent nuclear fuel pool of the No. 4 reactor, economic growth should not be the priority.(PLNB).By Paul Langley. The following is taken from Source: Mainichi Daily News, Japan.Author: By Takao Yamada, Expert Senior Writer.Date: April 2, 2012.[...] One of the biggest issues that we face is the possibility that the spent nuclear fuel pool of the No. 4 reactor at the stricken Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant will collapse.
This is something that experts from both within and outside Japan have pointed out since the massive quake struck. [...] not only independent experts, but also sources within the government say that it’s a grave concern. The storage pool in the No. 4 reactor building has a total of 1,535 fuel rods, or 460 tons of nuclear fuel, in it. The 7-story building itself has suffered great damage, with the storage pool barely intact on the building’s third and fourth floors. The roof has been blown away.
If the storage pool breaks and runs dry, the nuclear fuel inside will overheat and explode, causing a massive amount of radioactive substances to spread over a wide area. Both the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and French nuclear energy company Areva have warned about this risk.
A report released in February by the Independent Investigation Commission on the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident stated that the storage pool of the plant’s No. 4 reactor has clearly been shown to be “the weakest link” in the parallel, chain-reaction crises of the nuclear disaster. The worse-case scenario drawn up by the government includes not only the collapse of the No. 4 reactor pool, but the disintegration of spent fuel rods from all the plant’s other reactors. If this were to happen, residents in the Tokyo metropolitan area would be forced to evacuate. 
Former Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Sumio Mabuchi, who was appointed to the post of then Prime Minister Naoto Kan’s advisor on the nuclear disaster immediately after its outbreak, proposed the injection of concrete from below the No. 4 reactor to the bottom of the storage pool, Chernobyl-style. [...] “Because sea water was being pumped into the reactor, the soundness of the structure (concrete corrosion and deterioration) was questionable. There also were doubts about the calculations made on earthquake resistance as well,” said one government source familiar with what took place at the time. “[...] fuel rod removal will take three years. Will the structure remain standing for that long? 
Burying the reactor in a concrete grave is like building a dam, and therefore expensive. I think that it was because TEPCO’s general shareholders’ meeting was coming up (in June 2011) that the company tried to keep expenses low.” [...] Earthquakes in the neighborhood of level-5 on the seismic intensity scale continue to occur even now in the Tohoku and Kanto regions. We cannot accept the absurd condescension of those who fear the worse-case scenario, labeling them as “overreacting.” We have no time to humor the senseless thinking that instead, those who downplay the risks for the sake of economic growth are “realistic.” Observation: Japan is very seismically active with over 1500 earthquakes per year.Average Number of Earthquakes per Year, Magnitude 5 and Greater All Depths. Read the full story here.

Japanese 'Mary Celeste' tied to earthquake and tsunami spotted off Canada's B.C. coast.

Japanese 'Mary Celeste' tied to earthquake and tsunami spotted off Canada's B.C. coast.(Yahoo).VANCOUVER - A 54-meter-long fishing vessel linked to last year's devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan has been spotted adrift off the British Columbia coast.
Jeff Olsson of Victoria's Joint rescue Co-ordination Centre says an airline contracted by the federal government spotted the vessel on Tuesday about 140 nautical miles west of the southern tip of Haida Gwaii.
The vessel has been identified as coming from Hokkaido, Japan and officials say it's drifting very slowly towards shore.Olsson says no one is believed to be on board and there's no risk of environmental damage.However, a warning has gone out to mariners because the vessel poses a potential navigational hazard.As much as five million tonnes of debris were swept into the ocean last March when a massive magnitude-9 earthquake and resulting tsunami struck Japan.Read the full story here.

Michio Kaku, PhD - Three Raging Nuclear Meltdowns In Progress!

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
Highly toxic plutonium is seeping from the damaged nuclear power plant in Japan's tsunami disaster zone into the soil outside, officials said Tuesday, heightening concerns about the expanding spread of radiation. Plutonium was detected at several spots outside the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant — the first confirmed presence of the dangerously radioactive substance, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said. There are strong indications some of the radioactivity is coming from damaged nuclear fuel rods, a worrying development in the race to bring the power plant under control, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said Tuesday. "The situation is very grave," Edano told reporters. "We are doing our utmost efforts to contain the damage." Officials said the traces of plutonium posed no immediate threat to public health. But the latest finding appeared to feed government frustration with TEPCO, which has failed to stem the crisis more than two weeks after a March 11 earthquake and tsunami damaged the plant. The failure to keep radioactive substances from seeping out of the facility was "deplorable," said Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman for the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency. The government is considering temporarily nationalizing the troubled nuclear plant operator, Japan's top-selling daily Yomiuri said Tuesday, quoting unnamed government sources. The huge tsunami spawned by the earthquake destroyed the power systems needed to cool the nuclear fuel rods in the complex, 140 miles (220 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo. Since then, three of the complex's six reactors are believed to have partially melted down, and emergency crews have struggled with everything from malfunctioning pumps to dangerous spikes in radiation that have forced temporary evacuations of workers. Residents within a 12-mile (20-kilometer) radius of the plant have been urged to leave or stay indoors. Confusion at the plant has intensified fears that the nuclear crisis will continue for months or even years amid alarms over radiation making its way into produce, raw milk and even tap water as far away as Tokyo. The troubles have eclipsed Pennsylvania's 1979 crisis at Three Mile Island, when a partial meltdown raised fears of widespread radiation release. But it is still well short of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, which killed at least 31 people with radiation sickness, raised long-term cancer rates and spewed radiation across much of the northern hemisphere. While parts of the Japanese plant have been reconnected to the power grid, contaminated water found in numerous places around the complex, including the basements of several buildings, must be pumped out before electricity can be restored to the cooling system. The contaminated water has been emitting radiation exposure more than four times the amount the government considers safe for workers. That has left officials struggling with two sometimes-contradictory efforts: pumping in water to keep the fuel rods cool and pumping out — and then safely storing — contaminated water. Nishiyama called it "very delicate work." He said workers were still looking for safe ways to store the radioactive water. Experts are also trying to pinpoint the exact source of the radioactive water. Many now suspect it is cooling water that has leaked from one of the disabled reactors. Meanwhile, new readings showed ocean contamination had spread about a mile (1.6 kilometers) farther north of the nuclear site than before, but was still within the evacuation zone. Radioactive iodine-131 was discovered offshore at a level 1,150 times higher than normal, NISA said. Closer to the plant, radioactivity in seawater tested about 1,250 times higher than normal last week and climbed to 1,850 times normal over the weekend. Of the five soil samples showing plutonium, two appeared to be coming from leaking reactors while the rest were likely the result of years of nuclear tests that left trace amounts of plutonium in many places around the world, TEPCO said. Plutonium is a heavy element that doesn't readily combine with other elements, so it is less likely to spread than some of the lighter, more volatile radioactive materials detected around the site, such as the radioactive forms of cesium and iodine. "The relative toxicity of plutonium is much higher than that of iodine or cesium but the chance of people getting a dose of it is much lower," says Robert Henkin, professor emeritus of radiology at Loyola University's Stritch School of Medicine. "Plutonium just sits there and is a nasty actor." When plutonium decays, it emits what is known as an alpha particle, a relatively big particle that carries a lot of energy. When an alpha particle hits body tissue, it can damage the DNA of a cell and lead to a cancer-causing mutation. Plutonium also breaks down very slowly, so it remains dangerously radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years. "If you inhale it, it's there and it stays there forever," said Alan Lockwood, a professor of Neurology and Nuclear Medicine at the University at Buffalo and a member of the board of directors of Physicians for Social Responsibility, an advocacy group. The nuclear crisis has complicated the government's ability to address the humanitarian situation facing hundreds of thousands left homeless by the magnitude-9.0 quake and tsunami. The final death toll is expected to top 18,000. Gregory Jaczko, head of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, arrived in Tokyo on Monday to meet with Japanese officials and discuss the situation. "The unprecedented challenge before us remains serious, and our best experts remain fully engaged to help Japan," Jaczko was quoted as saying in a U.S. Embassy statement. 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:

1. Islam is a complete code of life and offers solutions to all problems.
2. Every edict of Islam is eternal and applicable to all times.
3. Islam is the only truth and any other competing truth must mould itself according to Islam or be ready to be suppressed.
4. Muslims are under obligation to make Islam the supreme religion of the world as other religions are jahiliyya.
5. Muslims are the foremost nation in the world and the only one that will be allowed into Heaven.
6. Action taken to subjugate other civilisations is jihad and not terrorism.There are other ‘collective’ illusions contained in the edicts that follow:
7. Violence is interpreted as jihad, but then jihad is supposed to be the personal obligation of Muslims and not the state.
8. Any deviation from the prevailing dogma is non-belief or kufr; in more mitigating conditions, it is at least heresy.
9. 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.
10. 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.

MFS - The Other News

                          Morning Posting.

• Live broadcast info from Japan directly ! Here.
• Updated !Aftershocks between 4.8 and 5.9 epicenters of four of them near nuclear plants more info here.

• Updated : The wind direction will change this might blow radiactive contamination towards the Philippines on friday. Here.

• Latest Situation Update No. 36. On 16.03.2011 at 09:34 GMT+2
  
  Bushido the way of the warrior.Since the disaster struck in Japan, about 800 workers have been evacuated from the damaged nuclear complex in Fukushima. The radiation danger is that great. However, CBS News correspondent Jim Axelrod reports that a handful have stayed on the job, risking their lives, to try to save the lives of countless people they don't even know. Although communication with the workers inside the nuclear plant is nearly impossible, a CBS News consultant spoke to a Japanese official who made contact with one of the 50 inside the control center. The official said that his friend, one of the Fukushima 50, told him that he was not afraid to die, that that was his job. Cham Dallas, who led teams responding to the Chernobyl disaster, said that kind of response is not out of the normal for some workers in the nuclear energy sector. "(In) my experience of people in the action area of nuclear power is much like that," Dallas said. The 50 are working amid decreasing but still dangerously high levels of radiation. "The longer they stay the more dangerous it becomes for them," said expert Margaret Harding. "I think it is a testament to their guts for them to say, 'We'll stay and if that means we go, we go.'" If the contamination threat isn't contained in a few weeks, finding enough workers willing to face the risks could become a crucial challenge. Dallas said he expects that in that scenario, the Japanese energy authorities may have to find volunteers willing to undergo similar dangers, which will be hard to do, but not impossible. Keep in mind they'd be volunteering to head into a place so potentially dangerous, that anyone within 20 miles of it was just asked to evacuate.
  
  
  
  
  Situation Update No. 35 On 16.03.2011 at 03:51 GMT+2
  
  Fires broke out at the Fukushima Daiichi plant's No. 4 reactor in Japan on Tuesday, according to the Tokyo Electric Power Company. The first fire caused a leak of concentrated radioactive material, according to the Japanese prime minister, Naoto Kan. The first fire broke out at 9:40 a.m. local time on Tuesday, and was thought to have been put out, but another fire was discovered early on Wednesday, believed to have started because the earlier one had not been fully extinguished. In a televised statement, the prime minister told residents near the plant that "I sincerely ask all citizens within the 20 km distance from the reactor to leave this zone." He went on to say that "[t]he radiation level has risen substantially. The risk that radiation will leak from now on has risen." Kan warned residents to remain indoors and to shut windows and doors to avoid radiation poisoning. The French Embassy in Japan reports that the radiation will reach Tokyo in 10 hours, with current wind speeds.
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  Situation Update No. 34
  On 16.03.2011 at 03:29 GMT+2
  
  The operator of Japan's stricken Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant says a fire has broken out again at its No. 4 reactor unit. Tokyo Electric Power Co. spokesman Hajimi Motujuku says the blaze erupted early Wednesday in the outer housing of the reactor's containment vessel. Fire fighters are trying to put out the flames. Japan's nuclear safety agency also confirmed the fire, whose cause was not immediately known. On Tuesday, a fire broke out in the reactor's fuel storage pond – an area where used nuclear fuel is kept cool – causing radioactivity to be released into the atmosphere. Reuters reported that two workers are missing inside the plant, and a Japanese official said that there was a crack in the roof of the No. 4 reactor. Officials are struggling to address the failure of safety systems at several of the plant's reactors after Friday's massive earthquake and tsunami.
  
  
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  Situation Update No. 33
  On 15.03.2011 at 15:25 GMT+2
  
  France's ASN nuclear safety authority said on Tuesday the nuclear accident at Tokyo Electric Power Co's Fukushima Daiichi plant could now be classed as level six out of an international scale of one to seven. On Monday, the ASN had rated the ongoing accident at the plant, located 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo, as a five or six. Level seven was used only once, for Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986. The 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in the United States was rated a level five. "We are now in a situation that is different from yesterday's. It is very clear that we are at a level six, which is an intermediate level between what happened at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl," ASN President Andre-Claude Lacoste told a news conference in Paris on Tuesday. "We are clearly in a catastrophe," Lacoste added, citing the deterioration of the containment structure at Daiichi 2 as one of the key elements supporting the ASN's more pessimistic assessment. Two reactors exploded on Tuesday at the Fukushima Daiichi plant after days of frantic efforts to cool them. Japan, which rated the accident a four on Saturday, is under global scrutiny over its handling of a nuclear crisis triggered by a huge earthquake and tsunami that crippled three reactors and raised fears of an uncontrolled radiation leak.
  
  Situation Update No. 32
  On 15.03.2011 at 15:24 GMT+2
  
  Japan's nuclear crisis is equivalent to number six on the INES scale of nuclear accidents from one to seven, Kyodo news agency quoted the French Nuclear Agency as saying. The 1986 Chernobyl disaster was a seven and Three Mile Island a five.

• Cooling Efforts to Resume at Japan Nuke Plant Following Radiation Spike.Radiation levels decreased at Japan’s stricken Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear facility Wednesday evening, allowing workers to resume efforts to prevent reactors from melting down.The workers at the forefront of the fight had been regularly rotated in and out of the danger zone to minimize their radiation exposure from the nuclear power plant crippled by Friday’s 9.0-magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami.But a surge in radiation Wednesday afternoon forced workers to suspend their efforts and remain inside until the danger had passed.Later Wednesday, national broadcaster NHK showed military helicopters lifting off to survey radiation levels above the complex, preparing to dump water onto the most troubled reactors in a desperate effort to cool them down.But the broadcaster later reported that the helicopters were called back after a drop onto Fukushima’s Unit 2 reactor was deemed too dangerous.Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano had already warned that dropping water via helicopter might not work."It's not so simple that everything will be resolved by pouring in water. We are trying to avoid creating other problems," he said."We are actually supplying water from the ground, but supplying water from above involves pumping lots of water and that involves risk. We also have to consider the safety of the helicopters above," he said.Meanwhile, officials in Ibaraki prefecture, just south of Fukushima, said radiation levels were about 300 times normal levels by late morning. While those levels are unhealthy for prolonged periods, they are far from fatal.Days after Friday's twin disasters, millions of people were struggling along the coast with little food, water or heat, and already chilly temperatures dropped further as a cold front moved in. Up to 450,000 people are staying in temporary shelters, often sleeping on the floor of school gymnasiums.More than 11,000 people are officially listed as dead or missing, but most officials believe the final death toll will be well over 10,000 people.In the city of Fukushima, about 40 miles inland from the nuclear complex, hundreds of harried government workers, police officers and others struggled to stay on top of the situation in a makeshift command center.An entire floor of one of the prefecture's office buildings had been taken over by people tracking evacuations, power needs, death tolls and food supplies.In one room, uniformed soldiers evaluated radiation readings on maps posted across a wall. In another, senior officials were in meetings throughout the day, while nuclear power industry representatives held impromptu briefings before rows of media cameras.Wednesday's radiation spike was apparently the result of a release of pressure that had built up in the complex's Unit 2 reactor, officials said. Steam and pressure build up in the reactors as workers try to cool the fuel rods, leading to controlled pressure releases through vents -- as well as uncontrolled explosions.A U.S. nuclear expert said he feared the worst."It's more of a surrender," said David Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer who now heads the nuclear safety program for the Union of Concerned Scientists, an activist group. "It's not like you wait 10 days and the radiation goes away. In that 10 days things are going to get worse.""It's basically a sign that there's nothing left to do but throw in the towel," Lochbaum said.Edano said the government expects to ask the U.S. military for help, though he did not elaborate. He said the government is still considering whether to accept offers of help from other countries."We have received so [much] support from across the globe," Noriyuki Shikata, the Japanese prime minister’s spokesman, told Fox News' Bret Baier on Special Report. "U.S. forces in Japan have been actively been helping the Japanese people."Hmmmmm.......Which elements exactly are in the radioactive clouds?Where the detailed info for the public?Is it Iodine, strontium and caesium or a coctail of all of them?They have half-lives of 8 days, 29 years, and 30 years respectively.Last but not least "there were over 100 radioactive elements released into the atmosphere when Chernobyl’s fourth reactor exploded "Read the full story here.

• Facts on Iodine-131 (131I), also called radioiodine (though many other radioactive isotopes of this element are known), is an important radioisotope of iodine. Its uses are mostly medical and pharmaceutical. It also plays a role as a major radioactive hazard present in nuclear fission products, and was a significant contributor to the health effects from open-air atomic bomb testing in the 1950s, and from the Chernobyl disaster. This is because I-131 is a major uranium fission product, comprising nearly 3% of the total products of fission.131I decays with a half-life of 8.02 days with beta and gamma emissions. (Meaning that after 8 days it is only half as powerfull)This nuclide of iodine atom has 78 neutrons in nucleus, the stable nuclide 127I has 74 neutrons. On decaying, 131I transforms into 131Xe.Iodine in food is absorbed by the body and preferentially concentrated in the thyroid where it is needed for the functioning of that gland. When 131I is present in high levels in the environment from radioactive fallout, it can be absorbed through contaminated food, and will also accumulate in the thyroid. As it decays, it may cause damage to the thyroid. The primary risk from exposure to high levels of 131I is the chance occurrence of radiogenic thyroid cancer in later life. Other risks include the possibility of non-cancerous growths and thyroiditis.The risk of thyroid cancer in later life appears to diminish with increasing age at time of exposure. Most risk estimates are based on studies in which radiation exposures occurred in children or teenagers. When adults are exposed, it has been difficult for epidemiologists to detect a statistically significant difference in the rates of thyroid disease above that of a similar but otherwise unexposed group.The risk can be mitigated by taking iodine supplements, raising the total amount of iodine in the body and therefore reducing uptake and retention in tissues and lowering the relative proportion of radioactive iodine. Unfortunately, such supplements were not distributed to the population living nearest to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant after the disaster, though they were widely distributed to children in Poland.Within the USA, the highest 131I fallout doses occurred during the 1950s and early 1960s to children who consumed fresh sources of milk contaminated as the result of above ground testing of nuclear weapons. The National Cancer Institute provides additional information on the health effects from exposure to 131I in fallout, as well as individualized estimates, for those born before 1971, for each of the 3070 counties in the USA. The calculations are taken from data collected regarding fallout from the nuclear weapons tests conducted at the Nevada Test Site.A common treatment method for preventing iodine-131 exposure is by saturating the thyroid with regular, non-radioactive iodine-127. This prevents the thyroid from absorbing the radioactive iodine-131, thereby avoiding the damage caused by radiation to the body. This treatment method is most commonly accomplished by administering potassium iodide to those at risk.Source .

• Q&A - Radiation exposure and the effects on human health.A look at what could happen to people who are exposed to radiation in the Japanese nuclear crisis.As engineers have fought to avert a meltdown at the earthquake- and tsunami-crippled Fukushima No. 1 (Daiichi) power plant, nuclear authorities have reported that spikes of radiation have escaped from the facility at levels that can be dangerous to human health. Authorities have evacuated more than 170,000 people within 12 miles of the plant and have warned those within 20 miles to stay indoors and close off ventilation systems. They have also issued iodine tablets to those who have remained in the area and those at evacuation centers. At least 200 people have been exposed to radiation. Here's a look at the potential radiation exposures and effects on human health.Read the full story here.

• Workers briefly abandon Japan nuclear plant as crisis worsens.TOKYO (Reuters) – Workers were ordered to withdraw briefly from a stricken Japanese nuclear power plant on Wednesday after radiation levels surged, Kyodo news reported, a development that suggested the crisis was spiraling out of control.Just hours earlier another fire broke out at the earthquake-crippled plant, which has sent low levels of radiation wafting into Tokyo in the past 24 hours, triggering both fear in the capital and international alarm.France urged its nationals either to leave Japan or head to the south and asked Air France to provide planes for evacuation. In a statement, the French embassy in Tokyo said two planes were already on their way to the capital.Academics and nuclear experts said the solutions being proposed to quell radiation leaks at the Daiichi nuclear plant in Fukushima were last-ditch efforts to stem what could well be remembered as one of the world's worst industrial disasters."This is a slow-moving nightmare," said Dr Thomas Neff, a research affiliate at the Center for International Studies, which is part of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Workers were trying to build a road so fire trucks could reach the stricken reactor No. 4 which was on fire on Wednesday.Japanese officials said they were talking to the U.S. military about possible help at the plant, 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo.Concern had earlier been mounting that the skeleton crews dealing with the crisis might not be big enough, or were possibly exhausted after working for days since last Friday's massive earthquake damaged the facility. Authorities withdrew 750 workers on Tuesday, leaving only 50.All those remaining were pulled out for almost an hour because radiation levels were too high, but later allowed to return, officials said.The plight of hundreds of thousands left homeless by the quake and devastating tsunami that followed worsened overnight following a cold snap that brought snow to some of the worst-affected areas.While the official death toll stands at around 4,000, more than 7,000 are listed as missing and the figure is expected to rise.In the first hint of international frustration at the pace of updates from Japan, Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said he wanted more timely and detailed information."We do not have all the details of the information so what we can do is limited," Amano told a news conference in Vienna. "I am trying to further improve the communication."Several experts said the Japanese authorities were underplaying the severity of the incident, particularly on a scale called INES used to rank nuclear incidents. The Japanese have so far rated the accident a four on a one-to-seven scale, but that rating was issued on Saturday and since then the situation has worsened dramatically.France's nuclear safety authority ASN said on Tuesday it should be classed as a level-six incident.Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan on Tuesday urged people within 30 km (18 miles) of the facility.Officials in Tokyo said radiation in the capital was 10 times normal at one point but not a threat to human health in the sprawling high-tech city of 13 million people. Levels dropped to minimal on Wednesday, but nerves were shaken by a 6.0 earthquake which shook buildings. But residents have nevertheless reacted to the crisis by staying indoors. Public transport and the streets are as deserted as they would be on a public holiday, and many shops and offices are closed. Winds over the plant will blow from the north along the Pacific coast early on Wednesday and then from the northwest toward the ocean during the day, the Japan Meteorological Agency said. Fears of transpacific nuclear fallout sent consumers scrambling for radiation antidotes in the U.S. Pacific Northwest and Canada. Authorities warned that people would expose themselves to other medical problems by needlessly taking potassium iodide in the hope of protection from cancer. The nuclear crisis and concerns about the economic impact from the quake and tsunami have hammered Japan's stock market. The Nikkei index was up nearly 4 percent after closing down 10.6 percent on Tuesday and 6.2 percent the day before. The fall wiped some $620 billion off the market.Authorities have spent days desperately trying to prevent the water which is designed to cool the radioactive cores of the reactors from evaporating, which would lead to overheating and the release of dangerous radioactive material into the atmosphere. Levels of 400 millisieverts per hour had been recorded near the No. 4 reactor, the government said. Exposure to over 100 millisieverts a year is a level which can lead to cancer, according to the World Nuclear Association. A Sony spokeswoman said only 120 out of the usual 6,000 staff were working at the main Tokyo building. There were "no petrol" signs dotting roads from Tokyo to Chiba as well as chained off gas stations, while the sole open petrol had a queue 100 meters long.The full extent of the destruction from Friday's earthquake and tsunami was becoming clear as rescuers combed through the region north of Tokyo where officials say at least 10,000 people were killed. Whole villages and towns have been wiped off the map by the wall of water, triggering an international humanitarian effort of epic proportions. There have been hundreds of aftershocks and more than two dozen were greater than magnitude 6, the size of the earthquake that severely damaged Christchurch, New Zealand, last month. About 850,000 households in the north were still without electricity in near-freezing weather, Tohuku Electric Power Co. said, and the government said at least 1.5 million households lack running water. Tens of thousands of people were missing. Hmmmm.....Japan is dealing with it's worst crisis in it's history and the American President go's to party in Rio ,isn't there a single American politician with true grit left in America to speak up?Read the full story here.

• HT:BigPeace.Will Japan’s Catastrophe Cause A US Financial Earthquake?Japan is still trying to figure out the extent of the massive human toll of the tragedy that has befallen that country. The toll will reach biblical proportions. But in a few weeks they will need to begin charting plans to rebuild. Japan’s financial house in not in great shape, so they will need to borrow capital, plenty of it. But how much will be available? There is also speculation in Japan that to finance the rebuilding, Tokyo will sell off a portion of its huge holdings of U.S. Treasuries to cover the cost.Guess what? There is almost $1.8 trillion in US Treasury debt maturing this year. Fully 50% of American debt comes due in the next three years. Governments such as China have already indicated that they are will interested in buying U.S. debt than in the past. And if Japan sells off a portion of its US debt? We need to be concerned about the human toll right now. But pretty soon we will need to confront the reality that the Japanese catastrophe and the American debt crisis may collide on international financial markets. It’s just another reason we ought to be ashamed of ourselves and get our fiscal house in order. Japan is going to need to borrow heavily because they just got hit by an earthquake and tsunami. What’s our excuse?Hmmmm.......Try Obama's 'Change' as an excuse?Read the full story here.

• A Major Earthquake in North America Imminent?NEIL CAVUTO, HOST: Boy oh, boy, just what Japan does not need. An imminent earthquake warning just issued for several regions of the country. On edge there, on edge here, because it really didn't start with Japan. Take a look at what experts are increasingly calling the so-called ring of fire that is encircling the entire Pacific Ocean. You remember Chile's massive earthquake about a year ago. Then we had that big one in New Zealand just last month. Then of course Japan.If this clockwise trend continues, my next guest says North America looks to be on tap next. Don't laugh. Geologist Jim Berkland is worried. When he worries, you should worry too. Jim accurately predicted, get this, the 1989 so-called World Series earthquake four days before it shook the San Francisco Bay Area. And Jim says this month is of particular concern. Why, Jim?Jim Berkland , geologist : The month of October, March, and April are the three most devastating earthquakes in terms of damage in the San Francisco Bay Area in history. And we are having on the 19th of this month not only the full moon, but within an hour the closest approach of the moon to the earth until the year 2016. The next day is the equinoctial tides. So you're bringing together three of the maximum tide raising forces. We know about the ocean tides. But there is also an Earth tide. And there is a tide in the ground water. All of these help to release sudden, built up strain, and cause earthquakes.

CAVUTO: But that would seem to imply that we could be looking at a very imminent event in the United States within the next week or two? Is that right?

BERKLAND: Yes. My -- what I call a seismic window, this top seismic window in years is developing between the 19th and 26th of this month. And this was 7.0 monster and it says geologist had warned about it. And a week earlier, the they were talking about the tides, not to worry about the really tides coming up. I think there is worry here too.

CAVUTO: So let me just understand. You're a genius. I'm not. I want to follow your fine brain on this.

BERKLAND: Not a genius.

CAVUTO: What you're saying is that there is certain order to this, even though it doesn't appear like order? For a lot of folks, it just seems like random events. But you're saying there is a process unfolding here? For California --

BERKLAND: Absolutely.

CAVUTO: California, Oregon or whatever, would that mean? What type of quake or disturbance or disruption would that be?

BERKLAND: Well, if it was, one in the northwest, in the Cascadia Trench, like we had in 1700, that would be a nine magnitude quake. I'm not predicting that. But I'm saying we just had a massive fish kill. Maybe a million fish died in Redondo Beach. They had a massive fish sweep in Mexico. We just had a bunch of whales come in close to San Diego.CAVUTO: What does that presage? When you have events like that, what does that generally mean? What's going on in the waters?

BERKLAND: Changes -- changes in the magnetic field that off then precede larger earthquakes. Most animals have the mineral magnetite in their bodies, including people. But it causes homing pigeons to enable them to get home. Just before big quakes, they often can't get home. There is the delay factor. So we look for those kinds of things.Just before the World Series quake there was very unusual beaching of rare whales in the Ocean Beach, in San Francisco. Just after that, a equally rare pigmy sperm whale washed up at Santa Cruz, within about five miles of the epicenter of the World Series quake. That kind of beaching had never occurred before nor since. So we're looking for strange fish coming into from deepwater to the shallow water, wild animals coming into cities.I used to just scoff at these kinds of things, because I was a mainstream geologist until I found out that earthquakes are fitting a pattern. The big earthquake in the Indian Ocean followed massive beachings of whales in Taiwan -- not Taiwan, but New Zealand and Australia and Tasmania. And then within couple of days, they had a 8.3 in south of New Zealand, and then came the 9.1 in the Indian Ocean, with the big tsunami, on the very day of the fool moon.

CAVUTO: Wow.

BERKLAND: The previous big quake and tsunami was in Alaska, which is a 9.2 magnitude event, on the day off the full moon, on the 27th of March.

CAVUTO: Jim, bottom line, we have a lot to watch. Believe me, you're track record compels us to watch it. Jim, thank you very much. I hope you're wrong, buddy. I really hope your wrong but your record --

BERKLAND: Especially at this time, world history, not good.Hmmmm.....Let's hope he's wrong but i'm inclined to say yes the 'supermoon' and the equinoctial tides will have an serious influence.Read the full story here.

• The tsunami that struck Japan was the third in a series of events that now put California at risk.There was a horrifically destructive Pacific earthquake in New Zealand on Feb. 22, and an even more violent magnitude-8.8 event in Chile almost exactly a year before. All three phenomena involved more or less the same family of circum-Pacific fault lines and plate boundaries—and though there is still no hard scientific evidence to explain why, there is little doubt now that earthquakes do tend to occur in clusters: a significant event on one side of a major tectonic plate is often—not invariably, but often enough to be noticeable—followed some weeks or months later by another on the plate’s far side. It is as though the earth becomes like a great brass bell, which when struck by an enormous hammer blow on one side sets to vibrating and ringing from all over. Now there have been catastrophic events at three corners of the Pacific Plate—one in the northwest, on Friday; one in the southwest, last month; one in the southeast, last year.That leaves just one corner unaffected—the northeast. And the fault line in the northeast of the Pacific Plate is the San Andreas Fault, underpinning the city of San Francisco.All of which makes the geological community very apprehensive. All know that the San Andreas Fault is due to rupture one day—it last did so in 1906, and strains have built beneath it to a barely tolerable level. To rupture again, with unimaginable consequences for the millions who live above it, some triggering event has to occur. Now three events have occurred that might all be regarded as triggering events. There are in consequence a lot of thoughtful people in the American West who are very nervous indeed—wondering, as they often must do, whether the consent that permits them to inhabit so pleasant a place might be about to be withdrawn, sooner than they have supposed.Hmmmm.....Read the full story here.

• Japan quake shifts Antarctic glacier.The major earthquake that hit Japan on Friday caused a massive ice stream in Antarctica to momentarily speed up.As the surface seismic waves generated by the quake travelled around the world, they appear to have given the Whillans ice stream in West Antarctica a nudge, causing it to slide by about half a metre.The movement was picked up by Jake Walter of the University of California, Santa Cruz, and his colleagues, who monitor the glacier remotely from California. They say the event is an "interesting insight", but are not suggesting it will destabilise the ice stream in any way.The Whillans ice stream drains ice from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet into the Ross Ice Shelf. Since 2007, Walter and colleagues have been using GPS field stations on the ice sheet to monitor its movements. They have shown that the ice stream speeds up twice a day in slip events which last about 30 minutes.The glacier normally creeps along at an average speed of about 1 metre per day. But during a slip event, it slides almost half a metre in one go. The sudden slips are related to the tides, and are strong enough to generate seismic waves that are recorded by stations at the South Pole and the Antarctic Dry Valleys.Now it looks like the magnitude 9.0 earthquake that shook Japan last Friday caused the glacier to slip in a similar way.When Walter and his colleagues were analysing GPS data from the ice stream on Monday, they noticed that one slip event had happened earlier than expected. Further analysis revealed that it happened exactly when surface seismic waves generated by the Japanese earthquake would have hit Antarctica.Read the full story here.

• Obama administration obeys Sharia law and pays Diyya bloodmoney to release Davis!Officials say an American CIA contractor detained on suspicion of murder has been released after families of the two Pakistanis he killed pardoned him in exchange for compensation.Raymond Allen Davis has been in jail since Jan. 27, seriously straining ties between Pakistan and the United States.Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah says Davis was charged with murder on Wednesday but was then pardoned by the families of the victims in exchange for compensation payment.Chaudhry Mushtaq, superintendent at Kot Lakhpat jail, says Davis had left the jail in the company of U.S. consulate officials.U.S. officials were not available for comment.Hmmmm....No word as how much has been payed in this shocking precedent!No doubt many suits will follow now in Pakistan for civilans killed by US weapons!Read the full scandal story here.

• Iran denies sending arms ship.'Jerusalem occupation is regime of lies,' says chief of staff, who hopes Israel 'will sink into sea'.The Iranian army's chief of staff, General Atallah Salhi, denied on Wednesday Israel's claims that his country had sent the arms ship Victoria, intercepted by the IDF en route to Gaza with 50 tons of weaponry on board."The Jerusalem occupation regime is a regime of lies, production of lies, and dissemination of lies. We reject all of these mendacious reports," he told IRNA. The general also took the opportunity to express his hopes for Israel's future. "God willing, this regime will sink into the Mediterranean Sea like the regime of the pharaohs in Egypt," he said. "Israel is the only one harmed by the rise of Islam in the countries of the Middle East and North Africa." Officials believe the Victoria was sent by Tehran because of the sophisticated surface-to-sea missiles found on board together with Farsi-language manuals, which are attired with the emblem of Iran's Revolutionary Guards.In addition, a Nasr-1 cruise missile was found to have a serial number close to that with which Iranian Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi was pictured in January 2010, when Iran began producing the missile originally made by China. Israeli officials believe Iran sent the Victoria in an attempt to take advantage of the upheaval in Egypt, hoping that it would be allowed to pass through to Gaza's terror organizations unchecked. Hmmmm.....If Israel sinks in the sea,would that mean that Gaza was swallowed first?Read the full story here.

• It might be economically impossible to pay for Obama's budget.A lot of people these days are writing or saying that we're not really broke. Underlying this argument is the notion that we can tax rich people some more. Nick Gillespie at Reason lays out some facts about this belief, and how it ties into Obama's budget : Obama is projecting an unsustainable level of revenue that still won't come close to matching outlays. Since 1950, total federal revenues have averaged 17.8 percent of GDP. There has been only one year when it exceeded 20 percent of GDP (and only two years when it reached 20 percent). Yet Obama says that's where we're headed.Obama's budget foresees the government taxing 20 % of GDP and spending 23 percent of GDP. That means if we spend as much as Obama wants, we would be increasing our debt every year, unless Washington could somehow get 23 percent of GDP through tax receipts. This might not be impossible, but history shows that no matter how much you tax the rich, 20 percent is a stretch and 23 percent is impossible without some major change to our tax system -- like adding a value-added tax (VAT).Hmmmm....."I will not raise taxes" and we all know what his promises are worth?Read the full story here.

• NRA Refuses to Meet With Obama: “Why Should We Sit Down With People Who’ve Spent a Lifetime Trying to Destroy the Second Amendment?”More than two months after the Tucson shootings, the administration is calling together both the gun lobby and gun safety groups to find common ground. But President Obama has no plans to take the lead in proposing further gun control legislation, aides say, and the nation’s major gun rights group is snubbing the invitation.On Tuesday, officials at the Justice Department will meet with gun control advocates in the first of what will be a series of meetings over the next two weeks with people on different sides of the issue, including law enforcement, retailers and manufacturers, to seek agreement on possible legislative or administrative actions.The effort follows Mr. Obama’s call, in a column on Sunday in a Tucson newspaper, to put aside “stale policy debates” and begin “a new discussion” on ways to better enforce and strengthen existing laws to keep mentally unstable, violent and criminal people from getting guns.But the National Rifle Association, for decades the most formidable force against proposals to limit gun sales or ownership, is refusing to join the discussion — possibly dooming it from the start, given the lobby’s clout with both parties in Congress. Administration officials had indicated they expected that the group would be represented at a meeting, perhaps on Friday.“Why should I or the N.R.A. go sit down with a group of people that have spent a lifetime trying to destroy the Second Amendment in the United States?” said Wayne LaPierre, the longtime chief executive of the National Rifle Association.He named Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has almost no role in gun-related policies, and Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.“It shouldn’t be a dialogue about guns; it really should be a dialogue about dangerous people,” Mr. LaPierre said, adding that his group has supported proposals to prevent gun sales to the mentally ill, strengthen a national system of background checks and spur states to provide needed data.Hmmmm......All he wants is control 'We The People' ,it's not about the guns.Read the full story here.

• HT:PowerlineBlog.USA Inc. If the United States were a company, what financial shape would it be in? And what would it make sense to do to put the company on a sounder footing? These are the intriguing questions that a group of investment analysts from Kleiner Perkins, headed by Mary Meeker, set out to answer. The resulting report, which includes 460 Power Point slides, is here. It is titled "USA Inc."I asked a friend who is extremely knowledgeable about finance to evaluate the product and point out some highlights. Here is his response.Hmmm.....Behold the Obamination!Read and SEE the full story here.

• 9/11 Firefighter Helps Forge Final Battle to Stop New York City 'Ground Zero Mosque'.In a last-chance effort to stop the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque," opponents were in court Tuesday arguing the building where the mosque is to be built should be a historic landmark -- thus making it ineligible for new construction."Why did they insist on building this mosque on the graveyards of our friends?" asked New York City firefighter Tim Brown, a 9/11 survivor who was among those that brought the lawsuit to New York State Supreme Court, along with the American Center For Law and Justice. "I'd like it to be an historical landmark to teach America about what happened here," Brown told Fox News.The suit maintains the 152-year-old building should have been declared an official landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. It claims the project's developers colluded with the administration of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to push the project through in a move of political correctness, and allow the construction of an Islamic center in the shadow of Ground Zero. Brown's lawyer, Jack Lester, charged there was "active participation" between the Bloomberg administration and project developers.That claim was refuted by city officials. "As our court papers demonstrate, Landmarks Commission's decision not to designate the building a landmark is irrefutably rational," according to a spokesman for the New York City Law Department.Supporters of the project, known as Park51, contend the opposition is the result of "pure bigotry," and said the decision not to grant the structure landmark status was appropriate."Imagine, instead of building a community center with a mosque in it, they were building a grocery store. Do you think Timothy Brown would be in this case?" asked attorney Adam Leitman Bailey. "We only have a case today because they don't want Muslim people building a few blocks away from Ground Zero."As for the building, "there is nothing about it that deserves architectural integrity," maintained Leitman Bailey.Leitman Bailey, meanwhile, argued Brown had no standing in the case. "Because his friends died on that day does not give him standing. He has no case. The building is not historic." He also said the building is "not in the Ground Zero area," but is two blocks away and an "eight-minute walk."But Brown remained unswayed, and called the mosque's supporters un-American. "It's disgusting. It angers me ... I think that their claim that they are sensitive bridge-builders is a lie."A decision in the case is expected in about a month.Hmmm......Anyone taking a bet that Bloomberg will also choose for the Turkish Muslim new yellow cabs?Read the full story here.

• You shall not kill!It was 2010, and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was speaking, as tempered as always, to a crowd as tempered as the prime minister could be.“These [people] even see babies in their cradles as a threat. They have killed babies in their mothers’ arms,” he boomed.“These people,” naturally, were the Israelis.Addressing Israel’s leaders from a public rally in Turkey, Mr. Erdoğan said in both Turkish and English: “You shall not kill.” Then he showed his linguistic capabilities and went on: “You still don’t get it? Then I shall speak to you in your own language: Lo tir’tsach!” He was referring to the sixth of the 10 commandments in the Old Testament.In various other speeches, Mr. Erdoğan claimed that his fits of anger toward the death of children were “indiscriminative” of race and religion. “Wherever, whenever,” he often said, “a child has been killed,” he would fiercely stand against the murderers. All the same, he has been mute since Saturday.In the early hours of Saturday, a Palestinian broke into a house in the settlement of Itamar and stabbed to death a couple and their three children, aged 3 months, 4 years and 10 years old. The slain bodies were discovered by the couple’s 12-year-old daughter who was not at home when the murder was committed.The “Imad Mughniyeh” cell, with alleged links to the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, claimed responsibility for the attack. The terrorist group is named after the “phantom” terrorist Imad Mughniyeh who was killed in a car bomb attack in Damascus which Hezbollah blamed on Israeli agents. Mr. Mughniyeh, or the “Shia bin-Laden,” was one of the world’s most wanted men (wanted in 42 countries) while he was enjoying a safe haven in the Syrian capital prior to his assassination.Most predictably, we have not heard Mr. Erdoğan saying "You shall not kill" in Arabic, and we probably never will. That’s hardly surprising since we have never heard Mr. Erdoğan speaking “indiscriminately” in the past against the killing of children and defenseless people in Itamar, or elsewhere in Israel – for Saturday’s attack in Itamar was not the first of its kind. In May 2002, a Palestinian killed a 14-year-old boy and wounded another teenager in the same settlement. A month later, another Palestinian killed a woman and her three children. In July the same year another Palestinian stabbed and wounded a couple. And in August 2004, a Palestinian killed a resident of Itamar.The hypocrisy over the killing of innocent people is not coincidental in any way. Last month, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hosted, in Tehran, a delegation from the disastrous Turkish flotilla Mavi Marmara, comprising the “Mavi Marmara mujahedeen, ghazis and families of the shahids.”The delegates participated in Iran's Revolution Day ceremonies, and the head of the Turkish delegation noted that: “We are here today with the longing and the determination to build a Middle East without Israel and America, and to refresh our pledge to continue on the path of the Mavi Marmara shahids.”On Feb. 12, the same Mavi Marmara activist reiterated “the promising words of the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran… that 'only a short time is left for the building of a Middle East without Israel or America in it, and we are praying for the quick arrival of that bright day, when all of us will meet in a free al-Quds [Jerusalem].’”With five “Jooos” having disappeared from earth after the Itamar attack, that bright day must be arriving sooner.I am still curious, however, about what rank the 3-month old Israeli “soldier” held. Captain? Lieutenant colonel? Certainly too young to be a general?Hmmmm.......Erdogan "Muslims don't commit genocide" and crows wear stiletto heels?Read the full story here. HT : Amnon and Jonathan.

• Israel Land Fund: Netanyahu is Already Dividing Jerusalem.The Israel Land Fund organization presented on Tuesday, during the Jerusalem Conference, a video which the organization says proves that the Netanyahu government has already begun to divide Jerusalem.“I came here on behalf of the Israel Land Fund in order to wake up the Jewish nation that loves Jerusalem and came to the Jerusalem Conference, and to make it well-known to the public that the Likud government, the present government of Israel, already divided Jerusalem,” said Israel Land Fund Chairman Aryeh King, during a conversation with Israel National News TV.“We have eight neighborhoods in Jerusalem that Jews are not allowed to enter,” he explained. “There are areas where the Palestinian Authority policemen are present every day and nobody kicks them out. It means there are areas that if you as a Jew want to enter, you need to be escorted by the IDF.”King noted that this “is illegal. It’s against the Jerusalem law and we came here to wake up the people who love Jerusalem and have them put some public pressure on the Likud party.”Hmmmm.......The Obama 'effect'?Read the full story here.

• HT:AhmadiyyaTimes.Pakistan: Blasphemy-convicted Christian's death 'not due to natural causes'.A Christian convicted of blasphemy in Pakistan has died in mysterious circumstances in a jail in the southern city of Karachi.Qamar David was serving a life sentence in Karachi's central jail for insulting the Koran and the Prophet Muhammad.Officials say he died of a heart attack but his family say that as a fit and healthy man, this is unlikely be true.Pakistan's penal code prescribes punishments up to death for blasphemy against Islam and the Prophet.The law has elicited strong criticism - although recently liberals are more nervous about speaking out against it.That appears to be especially the case since the murder of Minority Affairs Minister Shahbaz Bhatti - a Christian - earlier this month, an event preceded by the murder of another liberal, Punjab Governor Salman Taseer in January.David was convicted of making blasphemous comments against the Koran and the Prophet in a text message to a business rival.'Threats'"My client was in perfect condition the last time I met him," Qamar David's lawyer Pervez Chaudhry told the BBC."I have spoken to the family and we don't believe he died a natural death."He had been receiving threats against his life."I had submitted an application in this regard in court - my client had also mentioned that prison officials were involved."Mr Chaudhry's arguments have been backed up by the dead man's family."I visited him quite regularly and he had never complained of any illness," Shahid Sagar, David's cousin, told the BBC."He was certainly not in the kind of condition that would make him drop dead all of a sudden. I can't accept this report of him dying of a heart attack."But prison officials are adamant that David died of natural causes.Qamar David worked as a supplier of cosmetics to local shops in Karachi.He was a resident of Lahore - where his family now lives - but was kept in jail in Karachi, which is part of Sindh province.Mr Chaudhry said that David's wife is now on her way to Karachi and is expected to ask for a post mortem examination when she arrives on Wednesday.Hmmmm.....Read the full story here.

• HT:AhmadiyyaTimes.Pakistan assassinations highlight sway of radical clerics.PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Yousaf Qureshi made international headlines in December when he offered $6,000 to anyone who killed a Pakistani Christian woman convicted of blasphemy. This month, the cleric told worshipers packed into his 17th-century mosque here that extremists had done a “marvelous job” days before, by assassinating a cabinet minister who had defended the woman.Those statements might count as incitement to violence under Pakistani law. But no government or law enforcement officials have confronted him, Qureshi said on a recent morning.“I can announce that we are coming to the street with 4,000 armed students,” said Qureshi, a jolly man whose eyes are rimmed with black liner and who, as caretaker of a historic building, is on the provincial government payroll. “What can the government do?”In a recent meeting with foreign journalists, federal information minister Firdous Ashiq Awan blamed extremism on government coalition partners, provincial officials, stingy international donors and CIA drone strikes. But she appeared unable to cite government actions to counter the problem.“Why not tell your electorate that this is a very serious existential fight, and let’s go and fight it?” said Ali Dayan Hasan, the Pakistan representative for Human Rights Watch.Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani said authorities would do their “utmost” to find and punish Bhatti’s killers. But in an ominous sign, police said no witnesses to the attack agreed to provide statements for the initial report.Radical clerics, meanwhile, continue to call publicly for the deaths of liberal politicians. A court declined to issue arrest warrants for two clerics who inspired Taseer’s killer. In interviews, police officials in Lahore and Islamabad said they monitor sermons, but imams are rarely punished.Abdul Qudoos, a spokesman for a group of 13,000 madrassas, said clerics continue to disdain the idea of government oversight of religious schools. “They have failed everywhere,” Qudoos said of the government. “Why should it be different with this?”That air of untouchability is echoed by Qureshi, the Peshawar imam, who also runs a 700-student madrassa that teaches only the Koran. Studying other topics, he said, would instill materialism in students.Qureshi said his reward offer for the killer of Asia Bibi, the Christian woman, still stands, and he boasted he could collect the money from worshipers in 15 minutes. He said he already has $1 million in a briefcase, ready for anyone who kills a Danish cartoonist who drew the prophet Muhammad.Qureshi said his rhetoric has occasionally led local officials to briefly bar him from sermonizing. But they always buckle when his congregation starts rumbling.“I have 10,000 followers. All are holy warriors,” he said. “They will come out to the streets without thinking, just in the name of Islam.”Hmmmmm.....These are the people the Obama administration works with.Read the full story here.

• Bahrain opposition: 5 dead in 'war of annihilation'.Soldiers, police drive out hundreds of anti-government protestors in Pearl Square using tear gas, armored vehicles.At least five protesters have been killed and hundreds wounded in a crackdown by Bahraini forces on Wednesday, the head of the Shiite Muslim opposition bloc in parliament said."This is a war of annihilation. This does not happen even in wars and this is not acceptable," Abdel Jalil Khalil, a senior politician in Bahrain's largest Shiite party Wefaq, said. Khalil told Reuters by telephone that, apart from clearing protesters from the Pearl roundabout, troops had fanned out across Bahrain, cutting off streets and arresting or firing at people who tried to cross.Khalil said that private homes and funeral parlors were receiving casualties as troops had surrounded several hospitals and called on qualified doctors to head to their nearest health centre to help treat casualties.Soldiers and riot police used tear gas and armored vehicles to drive out hundreds of anti-government protesters occupying a landmark square in the capital, a day after emergency rule was imposed in the violence-wracked Gulf kingdom. State TV broadcast video showing military vehicles in the square flying Bahrain's red-and-white flag as security officials moved through the wreckage of the encampment, set up at the base of a towering monument to the country's history as a pearl diving center. The video showed the ground littered with debris, including satellite dishes and charred tent poles.Read the full story here.More here.

• White House wants new copyright law crackdown.The White House today proposed sweeping revisions to U.S. copyright law, including making "illegal streaming" of audio or video a federal felony and allowing FBI agents to wiretap suspected infringers. In a 20-page white paper (PDF), the Obama administration called on the U.S. Congress to fix "deficiencies that could hinder enforcement" of intellectual property laws.The report was prepared by Victoria Espinel, the first Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator who received Senate confirmation in December 2009, and represents a broad tightening of many forms of intellectual property law including ones that deal with counterfeit pharmaceuticals and overseas royalties for copyright holders.Some of the highlights:

• The White House is concerned that "illegal streaming of content" may not be covered by criminal law, saying "questions have arisen about whether streaming constitutes the distribution of copyrighted works." To resolve that ambiguity, it wants a new law to "clarify that infringement by streaming, or by means of other similar new technology, is a felony in appropriate circumstances."

• Under federal law, wiretaps may only be conducted in investigations of serious crimes, a list that was expanded by the 2001 Patriot Act to include offenses such as material support of terrorism and use of weapons of mass destruction. The administration is proposing to add copyright and trademark infringement, arguing that move "would assist U.S. law enforcement agencies to effectively investigate those offenses."

• • Under the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, it's generally illegal to distribute hardware or software--such as the DVD-decoding software Handbrake available from a server in France--that can "circumvent" copy protection technology. The administration is proposing that if Homeland Security seizes circumvention devices, it be permitted to "inform rightholders," "provide samples of such devices," and assist "them in bringing civil actions."

The term "fair use" does not appear anywhere in the report. But it does mention Web sites like The Pirate Bay, which is hosted in Sweden, when warning that "foreign-based and foreign-controlled Web sites and Web services raise particular concerns for U.S. enforcement efforts."The usual copyright hawks, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, applauded the paper, which grew out of a so-called joint strategic plan that Vice President Biden and Espinel announced in June 2010. At the same time, Democratic politicians tend to be a bit more enthusiastic about the topic. Biden was a close Senate ally of copyright holders, and President Obama picked top copyright industry lawyers for Justice Department posts. Last year, Biden warned that "piracy is theft." No less than 78 percent of political contributions from Hollywood went to Democrats in 2008, which is broadly consistent with the trend for the last two decades, according to OpenSecrets.org.Hmmmm......It's also a great way to silence any Blogger from the opposition who streams a vid,welcome to the Obama policestate?Read the full story here.

• Mideast Turmoil: China Anxious Over Oil.On Thursday, Libyan authorities sent a Chinese oil tanker back to China without its intended cargo of 2 million barrels of oil, according to Reuters. The ship will go to Algeria instead, to purchase oil there.Events like this, arising out of the turmoil in the Mideast, are of great concern to China because of its enormous dependence on imported oil.China imports about 2.9 million barrels of oil a day from the Mideast, including 1.1 million barrels a day from Saudi Arabia alone, according to the Wall Street Journal (Access). So the turmoil in the Mideast, and especially in Saudi Arabia, represents something of an existential threat to the Chinese. China’s dependence on the Mideast is only going to increase, because China’s oil imports will increase.The increasing anxiety on the part of the Beijing government over its dependence on imported oil is undoubtedly a big part of the reason why China has become extremely aggressive in claiming sovereignty over large regions in the South China Sea and the East China Sea.

Last year, a confrontation was growing with China on one side, and with the US, Vietnam and other Asian countries on the other side. (See “24-Jul-10 News — US confronts China on South China Sea claims.”)China is very aggressively claiming that the entire South China Sea region, including the Paracel and Spratly Islands and some 200 other islands, is China’s sovereign terrority, and that they have the right to prohibit foreign ships from entering that region.

The islands themselves may be of little value, but the region is suspected of being rich in oil and gas. Thus, they’re claimed in whole or in part by China, Taiwan, Brunei, the Philippines, Vietnam and Malaysia.Now that confrontation is growing once again.On Tuesday of last week, the heads of state for Indonesia and the Philippines met in Jakarta to discuss cooperation on combating terrorism, but also to discuss forming a common front to counteract China’s claims to the Spratly and Paracel islands, according to the Asia Sentinel.Just as important as the oil and gas rights to the region is the issue of freedom of navigation across the South China Sea, one of the world’s busiest waterways. If China were allowed to assert sovereignty over the region, then the interests of all Asian nations, as well as those of the United States, would be harmed.China repeated its previously stated hard line on the issue. A Chinese Foreign Ministry official is quoted as saying that they’re willing to talk about it, but the bottom line is: “China holds indisputable sovereignty over the South China Sea islands and their adjacent waters.”China is not stopping with claims to the islands in the South China Sea. China also is in a simmering dispute with Japan over the issue of sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands (called the Diaoyu Islands by the Chinese) in the East China Sea. In 2005, the dispute became so bitter that military action was being threatened on both sides. (See “China and Japan head for military confrontation over disputed islands.”)Then a new confrontation developed last year, when the Japanese arrested a Chinese fishing trawler captain, but was forced by the Chinese to return him to China. (See “26-Sep-10 News — China turns the screws on a humiliated Japan.”)Last week, the conflict flared again, when Japanese jets confronted Chinese planes near the disputed islands. However, the Chinese planes didn’t enter Japanese air space, and so the Japanese decided not to lodge a complaint, according to the BBC.This conflict could end up involving the United States. The disputed islands are currently administered by the Japanese, and last year Secretary of State Hillary Clinton confirmed that America is committed to defending Japan, under a 1960 treaty, if China attacks the disputed islands.So the turmoil in the Mideast doesn’t just threaten the world with having to shiver in winter. It also threatens military confrontations between China and other Asian nations, as well as the United States.Hmmmm.....How do you like the 'Change' now?Read the full story,

• Bahrain Declares State of Emergency; Recalls Ambassador To Iran Because of ‘Interference’.Events continue to heat up in Bahrain. Saudi Arabia has sent forces to the island to help quell violent protests. Iran has now voiced its support for the protesters. Khaleej Times (United Arab Emirates) reports:“His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain on Tuesday enforced the National Safety Act (emergency law) for three months in all parts of the Kingdom as two died in fresh violence and the country recalled its ambassador from Iran in protest against Tehran’s interference.The Act was declared in the wake of the major political unrest and sectarian tensions which Bahrain has been witnessing since February 14.In a Royal Decree, King Hamad assigned the Commander-in-Chief of the Bahrain Defence Force (BDF) to take all necessary measures in order to implement the Act. Beside the BDF, public security, National Guard and other forces will be deployed if their services are required, the decree said.A statement carried by the Bahrain News Agency attributed enforcement of the Act to the threats citizens and expatriates have been exposed to because of street violence that have not spared religious places and educational institutions.On the diplomatic front, Bahrain recalled its ambassador to Tehran after the Iranian government condemned the arrival of Gulf Arab forces in the archipelago and defended the “legitimate” demands of pro-democracy protesters. Hamad Al Hamer, Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs for Regional Affairs, told the Press on Tuesday that such a statement is interference in Bahrain’s internal affairs and should not come from a country with good relations. He said Bahrain strongly condemned the statement and highlighted that the GCC Peninsula Shield Forces came as part of strong ties among Gulf countries.A source at Salmaniya Hospital, which has been receiving most of the casualties, confirmed an earlier report that a Bahraini man was killed. It also said a Bangladeshi man had died in clashes in the town of Sitra.Meanwhile, the Ministry of Interior said that a “group of vandals” had opened fire with automatic weapons on police patrols in the region of Buri, south of Manama, adding that no injuries were reported. A security official said police had begun “reopening roads closed by the demonstrators” in the southern Shia regions. But “no decision has yet been taken regarding Pearl Square,” the epicentre of protests.Read the full story here.

• HT:BigPeace.Former Minister of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards: Kill the Americans!We must give a directive to the people of the various regions that they should, without hesitation, kill the first American who steps foot on their land.In an interview with the defense reporter from the Iranian regime-run Fars News Agency, Mohsen Rafiqdoost, the former minister of the Revolutionary Guards, discussed the Islamic uprisings in the Middle East and Iran’s corresponding role:When people gain awareness and rise up, they become victorious. It is this populist support, as well as the support offered by the Iranian government to these protests, that is enough; we do not need to directly meddle.Rafiqdoost, in reference to the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, stated: Our revolution, in comparison to the movements that people in the region have undertaken, was much greater. Our people rose up against the fifth largest non-nuclear army in the world and won.He continued : We fought for a full year on the streets and then we found ourselves climbing up the tanks; but the Egyptians climbed the tanks too soon in their movement. I hope they do not get fooled and are not diverted from their path and mission….The fact that our people and our government support these protests emboldens the citizens of those countries and will make them victorious.Rafiqdoost added:We must publicize the issue of a possible U.S. military attack on Libya and announce that anytime the U.S. military’s presence is felt, it should be turned into their graveyard. We must give a directive to the people of the various regions that they should, without hesitation, kill the first American who steps foot on their land. I had openly said this during the imposed war (Iran-Iraq) as well, and it is for that reason that I cannot travel abroad.As a side note: Mohsen Rafiqdoost, as the minister of the Revolutionary Guards, was personally responsible for establishing ties with various terrorist groups around the world, as well as funding and arming them. Also, four years after the Marine barracks bombing in Beirut, Mohsen Rafiqdoost boasted that “both the TNT and the ideology, which in one blast sent to hell 400 officers, NCOs, and soldiers at the Marines headquarters, were provided by Iran.”Hmmmmm........Obama "Lets go to Rio"there's radiation heading towards the USA.Read the full story here.

• Egypt - Muslim Brotherhood Sticks to Ban on Christians and Women for Presidency.A leading figure in the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), Egypt's largest opposition group, said on Monday that the MB's new "Freedom and Justice Party" would continue to stick by its view that Christians and women are unsuitable for the presidency.Saad al-Husseini, a member of MB's Guidance Bureau, the highest executive authority within the group, said the new party program will be announced late March after it is approved by the MB's Guidance Office and Shura Council. Al-Husseini said that although they stick by this view, they "respect all opinions"."Our adherence to the jurisprudential opinion refusing the appointment of women or Christians as president does not mean we impose this opinion on the people, who have inherent jurisdiction in this regard," he said."I personally accept for Copts to be appointed in hundreds of positions, including sensitive leadership positions in the country in accordance with the criterion of efficiency and competence, regardless of their proportion in society."Meanwhile, MB spokesman Mohamed Morsi said the group is pushing for a civil state, without the tutelage of the clergy. Morsi said the group does not call for a religious state.During an interview on state-owned television on Sunday night, Morsi said, "The civil state sought by Islam and the MB would ensure equal rights for Copts."He pointed out that the new party will not discriminate in its membership between Muslims and Christians, or males and females, and that it will represent the politically focused side of the group, while the MB will continue to practice all of its social and preaching activities.Hmmmm....The people Obama pledges to give 1,57 billion Dollar in 2012!Read the full story here.

• And now for something completely different!Video: In the epic battle of Zionist Boobs vs. Snake: Boobs 1, Snake 0.It should have been an alluring photoshoot between two of nature's beautiful creatures as a model wrapped herself in a snake.But surgically enhanced Israeli model Orit Fox got more than she bargained for when the massive boa constrictor took objection to her over familiarity and reacted by biting into her breast.However, it was the snake who came off worse because, while Ms Fox need a tetanus shot in hospital, the reptile later died from silicone poisoning.That will teach snakes to bite a Zionist! Hmmmm......Makes you wonder if it kills a snake,can it be healthy in your body?Read the full story here. HT : TheJawaReport.