Majority of Turks , Europe and U.S. against Syria intervention: Survey.

Majority of Turks against Syria intervention: Survey.(HD).

A majority of Turks disapprove of any potential military intervention in Syria, much like their European and American counterparts, a survey has revealed.

In Turkey, 72 percent of respondents to the Transatlantic Trends 2013 survey, which was conducted by the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF), said their country should stay out of Syria, up 15 percentage points from last year, while only 21 percent – down 11 percentage points – favored intervention.

The respondents were told that there had recently been discussion about intervening in Syria, where the government has been using military force to suppress an opposition movement. They were then asked whether their government should stay out completely or intervene.

Apart from Turkey, 11 European Union member states were surveyed: France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, as well as the United States. Polling was conducted between June 3 and June 27.

In the U.S., a two-thirds majority, 62 percent, up 7 percentage points from 2012, along with nearly three-fourths of respondents in Europe, 72 percent, up 13 percentage points from 2012, preferred to stay out.

Only one-in-three respondents in the United States, 30 percent, down 5 percentage points from 2012, and even fewer in Europe, 22 percent, down 10 percentage points from 2012, felt their countries ought to intervene in Syria.

In a separate question about recent developments in North Africa and the Middle East, respondents to the survey were asked to choose between two propositions: “stability is more important even if it means accepting non-democratic governments” and “democracy is more important even if it leads to a period of instability.” A majority in Europe, 58 percent, and a plurality in the United States, 47 percent, preferred democracy over stability.

A majority of Turkish respondents, 57 percent, preferred democracy in North Africa and the Middle East, 25 percent said they preferred stability, while 18 percent said they did not know or refused to answer.

Syria crisis - Standoff In The Mediterranean: The US Vs Russian Navies.

Syria crisis - Standoff In The Mediterranean: The US Vs Russian Navies.HT: ZeroHedge.

While the leaders of the two superpowers are shaking hands for the camera in St. Petersburg, their navies are sending a different message. 

Here is the latest breakdown of the world’s key navies in the Mediterranean theater of naval operations as of last night. By now it is likely woefully outdated, now that there are reports the Chinese have joined the fray too (not on the side of the ‘free droning world’). 

Hmmm.......How many US and Russian subs ?

Russian large landing ship Nikolai Filchenkov heads to coast of Syria.

Russian large landing ship Nikolai Filchenkov heads to coast of Syria.(RBTH).

The large landing ship Nikolai Filchenkov of the Russian Black Sea Fleet on Friday will leave Sevastopol for Novorossiysk, from where it will then depart for the coast of Syria, the General Staff of the Russian Navy told Interfax-AVN.

"The Nikolai Filchenkov under the command of Captain 2nd Rank Igor Dmitriyenko is immediately going on a distant mission today. The ship will go to Novorossiysk, where it will take special cargo (S-300?)on board and will head to its appointed combat service area in the Eastern Mediterranean," the source said.
The source in the General Staff of the Russian Navy said the warship has just returned to Sevastopol after four voyages to the Mediterranean from Novorossiysk. The ship had been working on tasks as part of the naval group since April.

Two more Russian naval ships to join Mediterranean unit.

The Nastoichivy destroyer of the Russian Baltic Fleet and the Smetlivy escort ship of the Black Sea Fleet will join the Russian naval unit in the Mediterranean within the next few days, a Russian Navy Main Staff source told Interfax-AVN on Wednesday.
"The Smetlivy escort ship will start its combat mission in the Mediterranean according to the operational command's plans within the next few days. There are plans that the Nastoichivy destroyer, the Baltic Fleet flagship, should join our ships as well," the source said.
The Smetlivy has a water displacement of 4,460 tonnes and is armed with the Kh-35 Uran anti-ship missiles, the AK-726 artillery system, the Volna anti-aircraft missile system (16 missiles), a 533-mm torpedo launcher (5 torpedoes), and two RBU-100 launchers.
According to the Russian Defense Ministry information, the Neustrashimy escort vessel and the Alexander Shabalin, Admiral Nevelskoi, and Peresvet landing ships are currently performing their missions in line with the operational headquarters' plans.
The Novocherkassk and Minsk landing ships belonging to Russia's Black Sea Fleet and Baltic Fleet should join the group on September 5-6. The SSV-21 Priazovye medium reconnaissance vessel, which left the port of Sevastopol on September 1, is performing a special General Staff mission.

Related: Russia sends warship with ‘special cargo’ towards Syria

Video - Beware of Naive interventionists.

Video - Beware of Naive interventionists.HT: SunNewsNetwork.

Michael Coren warns against western intervention in Syria and points to the real threat coming from Iran.

Video - Syrian Rebels firing gas cilinders, We shall now fire in to the Greek Hospital...with Allah's permission.

HT: InfidelBloggers.

Related and a MUST READ!

A Detailed Summary Of The Evidence On Munitions Linked To The August 21st Attacks

In all but the January 4th Daraya and August 2nd Homs video they are described as chemical munitions. In the case of the 3 videos from Adra on August 5th, they are linked directly to an attack that took place on the same day, with videos of the victims of the attack showing the same kinds of symptoms. I spoke to a doctor in Damascus who claims to have treated victims from both the August 21st attack and August 5th attack, and he claimed the symptoms where the same in both attacks.

The following video may also show the same munition being launched, from Qadam railway station in Damascus, currently under the control of Syrian government forces.

I've taken three close up frames of the munition in the video and pasted them side by side

Report: China Sends Warships to Coast of Syria.

Chinese ship Jinggangshan project

Report: China Sends Warships to Coast of Syria.(Telegrafist).Google Translate.

Despite the fact that the political decision to send warships, apparently, it was decided a long time, we know about it is just now from unofficial sources. Thus, the Chinese military blog that specializes in articles about military equipment the United States, Russia and China, said that several Chinese ships already close to the shores of Syria, citing its sources in the PLA.

The authors openly admit that the ships would not be in any way involved in a potential conflict, but only observe the actions of NATO and Russian ships.

What kind of ships were sent to the coast of Syria is unknown. Meanwhile, the social network Vkontakte citing a confidential source was reported that a Chinese ship Jinggangshan project was seen when passing the Red Sea toward the Suez Canal.

"2:00 this pepelats back among us in the direction of the Suez Canal. Board number 999. Speed ​​14 knots, judging therefore has specific instructions to be at some point. We are now in the Red Sea somewhere in the center, "- wrote the author.

By tail number is later found out that this is a Chinese amphibious assault ship dock Jinggangshan, which can carry on board a landing craft air cushion or other bulky loads.

Recall that, according to several sources in Syria might be Chinese counterparts S-300 systems. Meanwhile, this information officially confirmed no one, and the Chinese amphibious ships were seen in the ports of Syria.

In a related story, China today toughened its rhetoric on Syria, warning President Barack Obama that, “Military action would have a negative impact on the global economy, especially on the oil price – it will cause a hike in the oil price.”

The Global Times, a newspaper described by Foreign Policy Magazine as “hyper nationalistic” and an “angry Chinese government mouthpiece, also published an editorial yesterday which slammed Obama for failing to prove that last month’s chemical weapons attack was the work of the Syrian government, charging that Washington’s “geopolitical interests” in the region were behind the military build-up.

The editorial, which also complains of the total lack of media coverage in America concerning reports that Syrian rebels admitted responsibility for last month’s chemical weapons attack, accuses the White House of “ignoring logic as it beats war drums.”

Three Russian warships cross Bosphorus, en route to Syria.

The Priazovye

Three Russian warships cross Bosphorus, en route to Syria. (HD).

Three Russian warships crossed Turkey's Bosphorus Strait Thursday en route to the eastern Mediterranean, near the Syrian coast, amid concern in the region over potential US-led strikes in response to the Damascus regime's alleged use of chemical weapons.

The SSV-201 intelligence ship Priazovye, accompanied by the two landing ships Minsk and Novocherkassk passed through the Bosphorus known as the Istanbul strait that separates Asia from Europe, an AFP photographer reported. The Priazovye on Sunday started its voyage from its home port of Sevastopol in Ukraine "to the appointed region of military service in the eastern Mediterranean", a military official told the Interfax news agency. Russia, a key ally of Damascus, has kept a constant presence of around four warships in the eastern Mediterranean in the Syrian crisis, rotating them every few months.

It also has a naval base in the Syrian port of Tartus whose origins date back to Moscow's close relationship with Damascus under the Soviet Union.

Moscow vehemently opposes the US-led plans for military action against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in response to the chemical attack outside Damascus last month. Russian President Vladimir Putin warned on Wednesday that any US Congress approval for a military strike against Syria without UN consensus would represent an "aggression".

Khamenei: ""The U.S. makes a mistake with Syria, and both the U.S. and Western states will get hurt if they launch an attack on Syria,"

Khamenei: ""The U.S. makes a mistake with Syria, and both the U.S. and Western states will get hurt if they launch an attack on Syria," (Taz).

The policy of U.S. does not care about human lives, Iran's Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said at the meeting with members of country's Assembly of experts, Mehr news agency reported.

Khamenei was speaking about possible military actions from the U.S. on Syria.

"The U.S. makes a mistake with Syria, and both the U.S. and Western states will get hurt if they launch an attack on Syria," Khamenei said.

Some Western countries as well as Turkey have already supported intervention in Syria following another escalation of the situation there.

On August 21, media outlets reported a large scale deployment of chemical weapons near Damascus by Syrian Government Troops. Over 600 people were the victims of the attack.

Clashes between the government forces and armed opposition have been continuing in Syria for over two years.

According to UN statistics, the total number of victims of the conflict in Syria is more than 100,000 people. The Syrian authorities say they are opposed by well-armed militants.

Khamenei went on to note that while the Americans claim the human issues are important for them, it really isn't so.

Khamenei brought up examples of Guantanamo Bay, the Iraqi Abu Ghraib prison, and the chemical weapons used in Iraqi city of Halabja during the Iran-Iraq war.

"Any person in the world knows that the U.S. doesn't seek to solve human issue problems in Syria," Khamenei noted.

Israel offers to leave settlements, military bases intact in West Bank.

Israel offers to leave settlements, military bases intact in West Bank.(HD).

Israel has proposed leaving intact dozens of Jewish settlements and military bases in the West Bank as part of a package to establish a Palestinian state in provisional borders, a Palestinian official told The Associated Press on Sept. 4, in the first detailed glimpse at recently relaunched peace talks.

The official said the proposal is unacceptable to the Palestinians, underscoring the tough road ahead as the sides try to reach an agreement ending decades of conflict.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because Israel and the Palestinians have pledged to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry not to discuss the content of their talks with the media, a pledge that has largely held up until now. For their future state, the Palestinians seek the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza Strip, territories captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war.

With Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opposed to a return to the pre-1967 lines, the idea of a Palestinian state in temporary borders has gained appeal with the Israelis. Such a deal could give the Palestinians independence, while leaving the thorniest issues, such as the fate of Jerusalem and the status of millions of Palestinian refugees and their descendants, to later negotiations. The Palestinians reject any notion of a provisional agreement, fearing that a temporary arrangement that falls short of their dreams will become permanent.

The Palestinian official said formal talks on borders have not yet started, and that negotiations have focused on security matters. He said the Israelis want to retain control of the West Bank’s border with Jordan, keep early-warning stations on hilltops, and retain military bases near the Jordanian border.
“Israel is using the issue of security to take land,” he said. “From the general discussions we had in the last couple of weeks, the Israelis have shown no intention to dismantle any settlement.” He said the current proposals indicated that Israel would seek to retain control over about 40 percent of the West Bank.

“They said, ‘Let’s discuss a state with provisional borders.’ We said, ‘Let’s agree on a state based on the 1967 borders first, and then we can agree on having this state in phases.”

In the previous round of talks, conducted in 2008 under then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Israel offered to withdraw from roughly 94 percent of the West Bank, and compensate the Palestinians with the equivalent of 6 percent through a “land swap” that would allow Israel to keep major settlements. Olmert also proposed international administration of Jerusalem’s holy sites.

The official said the Palestinians have proposed resuming peace talks from the point they broke off. Netanyahu has said he is not obligated to accept Olmert’s proposals.

A senior Israeli official refused comment on the Israeli proposal, citing the commitment to keep the talks secret. Netanyahu’s office declined comment, citing the pledge not to discuss the negotiations in public. Likewise, there was no immediate U.S. comment.

In a statement released for the Jewish new year holiday that began Wednesday evening, Netanyahu said he hoped the talks would succeed.

“We seek to advance peace with the Palestinians while maintaining our security and ensuring that the peace will be a real and enduring peace. Not a ceremony, not an agreement that we celebrate for two minutes and then collapse,” the statement said. Yasser Abed Rabbo, a top aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, would not discuss the specifics of the talks. But speaking on the Voice of Palestine radio station, he said, “Until now, there are no signs of progress. The Israeli position has not changed. It’s the one that we know on the ground, through daily settlement expansion.”

Russia: Strike on Syria could mean nuke disaster.

Russia: Strike on Syria could mean nuke disaster.(HD).

Russia is warning that a U.S. strike on Syria's atomic facilities might result in a nuclear catastrophe and is urging the U.N. to present a risk analysis of such a scenario.

The warning comes from Russia's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Alexander Lukashevich. He said in a statement Wednesday that a strike on a miniature reactor near Damascus or other nuclear installations could contaminate the region with radioactivity, adding: "The consequences could be catastrophic."

IAEA spokeswoman Gill Tudor told the AP in an email Thursday that her agency is ready to "consider the questions raised" by Lukashevich if it receives a formal request to do so from Moscow.

Russia's Interfax news agency says that Moscow intends to bring up the issue at next week's 35-nation IAEA board meeting.

Iranian General: Iran to back Syria in case of US military aggression.

Iranian General: Iran to back Syria in case of US military aggression.HT: ItarTass.(GoogleTranslate).

CAIRO, September 5. (Itar-Tass). - Iran "would be supporting Syria till the end" in case of possible military aggression from a coalition lead by the US, as stated by General Qasem Soleimani, commander of Qods Force, Iranian elite special detachment forming part of Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution.

"The US is not intending to defend human rights in Syria," he said quoted by Iran's Fars news agency. "They aim at destroying resistance power (against Israel)."

The General noted that Washington uses not only political leverage, but special tactics including sending of Al-Qaeda militants to Syria, in order to overthrow President Bashar Assad. Soleimani expressed confidence that "the last excuse invented by the White House to justify the attack on Syria will not lead to a result desired by the US". The Iranian officer said that "95% of Syrian opposition militants are foreigners, and the rest is represented by military absentees from the Syrian army and by local Islamists". However, Iran's Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan excluded the possibility of Iranian army's direct participation in the possible military conflict in Syria. "Syria has its own air defense system," he said.

Wednesday, September 4, Iran's President Hassan Rouhani stated that any aggression against Syria "will not only negatively impact the situation in the region, but will also affect US allies in the Middle East". "Proceeding from its religious and humanitarian commitments Iran will work on helping the Syrian nation in case any problem emerges," he stressed.

Video - Putin: "Kerry lies. And he knows that he lies. This is sad,"

Video - Putin: "Kerry lies. And he knows that he lies. This is sad,"HT: RT.

Russia needs convincing proof, not rumors, from UN experts that chemical weapons were used in Syria, said the Russian president in an interview with First Channel and AP. It is up to the UN Security Council to decide on the next course of action, he said.

Speaking to journalists from Russia’s state Channel 1 television and Associated Press, Russian President Vladimir Putin made a number of decisive statements regarding the supposed use of chemical weapons in the Syrian conflict, which evoked a threat of a US-led strike on Syria.

“We believe that at the very least we should wait for the results of the UN inspection commission in Syria,” Putin said, adding that so far there is no information about what chemical agent exactly was used in the attack in Damascus’ suburbs and who did it.

“I’ve already said I find it absolutely ridiculous that [Syrian] government’s armed forces, which today are actually on an offense mission and in some regions have already encircled the so-called rebels and are finishing them off, that the Syrian army has used prohibited chemical weapons,” Putin said.

“They know all too well that this could become a cause for sanctions and even for a military operation against them. That’s stupid and illogical.”

“We proceed from the assumption that if anyone has information that chemical weapons were used by the Syrian regular army, then such proof must be presented to the UN Security Council and the UN inspectors,” Putin said, stressing that the proof must be “convincing” and not based on “rumors” or any sort of “eavesdropped intelligence data,” conversations etc.

“Even in the US there are experts who question the reliability of the facts presented by the administration. These experts do not exclude the possibility that the Syrian opposition has conducted a pre-planned provocation in order to give their sponsors a reason for military intervention,” he acknowledged.

Putin later leveled criticism at US Secretary of State John Kerry as he spoke to human rights activists on Wednesday, saying Kerry “lied” by claiming there was no Al-Qaeda militants fighting in Syria and that the military strike against President Assad will not boost the terrorist network’s presence in the region.

“They lie, plainly. I watched the Congressional debate. A congressman asked Mr. Kerry: “Is there any Al-Qaeda [in Syria]? There are reports they have been growing stronger.” He [Kerry] replied: “No. I say with all responsibility: there is no [Al-Qaeda] there,” Putin explained.

The Russian President then said the Al-Nusra Front terrorist organization, which pledged allegiance to Al-Qaeda, has been at the forefront of the rebel groups fighting Assad’s forces, and that the US is well aware of that.

“Well, he [Kerry] lies. And he knows that he lies. This is sad,” Putin remarked.

Speaking of Kerry’s confidence in that Assad’s forces used chemical weapons, Putin recalled former US Secretary of State Colin Powell’s rhetoric on the eve of American invasion in Iraq.

Powell even brandished some test tube with a white powder as he attempted to persuade the international community that Iraq has chemical weapons, Putin said, stressing that it later turned out that “all these arguments did not hold water.”

Putin says he “does not exclude” that Russia may agree with a military operation if it is proved that the Syrian government is behind the attack, however he emphasized that in accordance with international law a decision of the UN Security Council is needed for that.

“All other reasons and means that excuse using military force against an independent sovereign state are unacceptable and cannot be classified otherwise but as an aggression,” Putin noted.

“We would be convinced by a detailed investigation and direct evidence of who exactly used chemical weapons and what substances were used. Then we’ll be ready to take decisive and serious action,” said the president.

Answering a question about video records of dead children that allegedly died in the chemical attack in Damascus, Vladimir Putin called the material with dead children “horrible”.

“The questions are what exactly was done and who is to blame. This video does not answer these questions,” Putin said, sharing an opinion that this video is a compilation made by the militants who – even the US acknowledges – have links with Al-Qaeda and are notorious for extreme atrocities.

Putin recommended to pay attention to the fact that in the video with dead children there are no parents, children’s relatives or even medical personnel, while people who do appear in the video remain unidentified. However terrible the picture could be, it cannot be proof of anybody’s guilt, Putin said, and called for investigation of the incident.

Russia is fulfilling arms contracts with Syria “because we believe that we are working with the legitimate government and we are violating neither international law, nor our obligations,” assured Putin, stressing that the UN had imposed no sanctions on the export of weapons to Syria.

He confirmed that Moscow has a signed contract with Damascus to deliver S-300 air defense missile complexes to Syria. The S-300 system is kind of outdated, said Putin, “though they might be a little better than Patriot missiles.”

Russia already has deployed S-400 and forthcoming S-500 systems, “[and] these are all certainly very efficient weapons,” Putin noted.

“We have a contract to supply S300 missiles, and we’ve already supplied some parts, but not all of it, because we decided to suspend the supplies for a while. But if we see international law being violated, we will reconsider our future actions, including supplies of such sensitive weapons to certain regions of the world,” he promised.

Hmmm....Obama: "And by the way, Iran doesn’t deny it. Even Syria doesn’t actually deny that they were used. And that is what the U.N. investigators are supposed to be determining. And frankly, nobody’s really disputing that chemical weapons were used. The only remaining dispute is who used them -- which is outside the parameters of the U.N. investigation. So the U.N. investigation will not be able to answer that preliminarily. They’re not supposed to.

The Pentagon estimates it will take 75,000 “boots on the ground” in Syria to secure the chemical weapons.

The Pentagon estimates it will take 75,000 “boots on the ground” in Syria to secure the chemical weapons.HT: AmericanWatchtower.

Regardless of what Barack Obama is saying he, and not the world or humanity, drew a red line in the sand regarding the use of chemical weapons in Syria. Now that either the Syrian government, or the al-Qaeda rebels we are about to support, used chemical weapons Barack Obama is seeking authorization from the Congress to conduct military operations in the war-torn country.

  The president is assuring the Congress, and the American people, that this will be a limited strike and will include no boots on the ground in Syria, however when John Kerry was pressed on this he hedged his bets:

It would be preferable not to, not because there is any intention or any plan or any desire whatsoever to have boots on the ground,” Kerry said.

“But, in the event that Syria imploded, or in the event there was a threat of a chemical weapons cache falling into the hands of” someone who should not have chemical weapons, “then clearly in the interest of our allies … to prevent those weapons of mass destruction falling into the hands of the worst elements,” Kerry said later. “I don’t want to take that off the table an option that might or might not be available to the president of the United States

  When pressed even further John Kerry stated that “there will not be American boots on the ground with respect to the civil war.”  That statement does leave the issue open-ended, doesn’t it? While the United States will not put boots on the ground to interfere with the Syrian civil war it leaves the possibility open that we would actually put boots on the ground for some other issue related to Syria, but for what purpose would that be?

  We may now know the answer to that question.

    Let me ask you a couple of questions: What good does it do to simply send a message to Syria that chemical weapons are not to be used if we leave these weapons in the hands of whichever group comes to power if and when this war ever ends? Shouldn’t the action taken by the United States also include the securing of these weapons if we really want to ensure they are not used again?

  According to this story the Pentagon has already considered this action and is estimating that it will take 75,000 boots on the ground to secure the chemical weapons.

  In addition, it appears as if the resolution now being debated in the Congress might actually allow the United States to put these boots on the ground in spite of what the president, and Congressional leaders, are saying.

Meanwhile, the draft text of the resolution authorizing President Barack Obama to use force in Syria that is being taken up by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today prohibits the president from putting ground troops in Syria “for the purpose of combat operations”–but appears to leave open the possibility that the president could put troops in Syria to secure chemical weapons.

“The authority granted in section 2 does not authorize the use of the United States Armed Forces on the ground in Syria for the purpose of combat operations,” says the text of the draft resolution.

However, Section 2 of the resolution gives the president the authority to use the Armed Forces in Syria “as he determines necessary and appropriate” for a limited set of purposes, including “to protect our allies and partners against the use of” weapons of mass destruction.

  So yes, in spite of what we are being told, it does appear as if the Obama regime, and its willing accomplices in the Congress, are prepared to escalate our involvement in this war far above what we are being led to believe.

MFS - The Other News

                        Morning Posting.

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity in Alaska 7.1 ! More info here.

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

• Hurricane Katia : Latest Updates here.

• 9/11 Photo Gallery: The Towers Across the Water, The last Sunrise between the Towers ! here.

• The Obama Administration Takes on ‘Islamophobia’and trashes the 1st Amendmend.(NationalReview).An unprecedented collaboration between the Obama administration and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC, formerly called the Organization of the Islamic Conference) to combat “Islamophobia” may soon result in the delegitimization of freedom of expression as a human right.The administration is taking the lead in an international effort to “implement” a U.N. resolution against religious “stereotyping,” specifically as applied to Islam. To be sure, it argues that the effort should not result in free-speech curbs. However, its partners in the collaboration, the 56 member states of the OIC, have no such qualms. Many of them police private speech through Islamic blasphemy laws and the OIC has long worked to see such codes applied universally. Under Muslim pressure, Western Europe now has laws against religious hate speech that serve as proxies for Islamic blasphemy codes.Last March, U.S. diplomats maneuvered the adoption of Resolution 16/18 within the U.N. Human Rights Council (HRC). Non-binding, this resolution, inter alia, expresses concern about religious “stereotyping” and “negative profiling” but does not limit free speech. It was intended to — and did — replace the OIC’s decidedly dangerous resolution against “defamation of religions,” which protected religious institutions instead of individual freedoms.But thanks to a puzzling U.S. diplomatic initiative that was unveiled in July, Resolution 16/18 is poised to become a springboard for a greatly reinvigorated international effort to criminalize speech against Islam, the very thing it was designed to quash.Amb. Zamir Akram, Pakistan’s Permanent Representative on behalf of the OIC to the HRC, commented regarding the initiative that the OIC would not compromise on “anything against the Quran, anything against the Prophet and anything against the Muslim community in terms of discrimination.As for reciprocity — for example, reforming the Saudi national curriculum that continues to teach students to “kill” Jews, “fight” polytheists, view Christians as “enemies,” and spread Islam through “jihad” — there probably won’t be any.
  Citing a need to “move to implementation” of Resolution 16/18, the Obama administration has inexplicably decided to launch a major international effort against Islamophobia in partnership with the Saudi-based OIC. This is being voluntarily assumed at American expense, outside the U.N. framework, and is not required by the resolution itself.In his 2009 Cairo speech, President Obama said, “I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam whenever they appear.” There are a number of problems with this statement: One is that it encourages the diplomatic folly that is this conference.Read the full story here.

• John Bolton Positioning Himself For V.P.?(BigGovernment).Former UN Ambassador John Bolton has the look and sound of someone about to announce his candidacy for U.S. President, dogging Barack Obama at every possible media opportunity. Or perhaps- given it is this late in the process and there is no apparent infrastructure or exploratory committee in place- does he have the look and sound of someone strategically positioning himself to become a Vice Presidential running mate for one of the leading candidates. I asked him that question and others recently on my radio show and Ambassador Bolton used some of his harshest language yet in calling Obama a ‘radical’, saying “that he (Obama) cannot walk and chew gum at the same time”.Thr former Ambassador spoke in strong terms about Obama and on the importance of nominating the right ‘person’.,“He is the most radical President we have ever had”…“the economy can recover if he would just take his government and go stand in the corner”…“I am not hesitant to say 2012 is a critical election for the future of America, we just have to get the right person nominated and we cannot afford another four years of Obama”.Hmmmm......Now this is the perfect candidate for the American Presidency .Read and hear the full interview here.

• Even Goldman Sachs Secretly Believes That An Economic Collapse Is Coming.(BlacklistedNews).By Michael Snyder. Goldman Sachs is doing it again. Goldman is telling the public that everything is going to be just fine, but meanwhile they are advising their top clients to bet on a huge financial collapse. On August 16th, a 54 page report authored by Goldman strategist Alan Brazil was distributed to institutional clients. The general public was not intended to see this report. Fortunately, some folks over at the Wall Street Journal got their hands on a copy and they have filled us in on some of the details. It turns out that Goldman Sachs secretly believes that an economic collapse is coming, and they have some very interesting ideas about how to make money in the turbulent financial environment that we will soon be entering. In the report, Brazil says that the U.S. debt problem cannot be solved with more debt, that the European sovereign debt crisis is going to get even worse and that there are large numbers of financial institutions in Europe that are on the verge of collapse. If this is what people at the highest levels of the financial world are talking about, perhaps we should all start paying attention.There is a tremendous amount of fear in the global financial community right now. As I wrote about the other day, the financial world is about to hit the panic button. Things could start falling apart at any time. Most of these big banks will not admit how bad things are publicly, but privately there is a whole lot of freaking out going on.According to the Wall Street Journal, Brazil believes that “as much as $1 trillion in capital may be needed to shore up European banks; that small businesses in the U.S., a past driver of job production, are still languishing; and that China’s growth may not be sustainable.”Perhaps most startling of all is what the report has to say about the debt problems of the United States and Europe.For example, this following excerpt from the report sounds like it could have come straight from The Economic Collapse Blog….“Solving a debt problem with more debt has not solved the underlying problem. In the US, Treasury debt growth financed the US consumer but has not had enough of an impact on job growth. Can the US continue to depreciate the world’s base currency?”Remember, this statement was not written by some guy on the Internet. A top Goldman Sachs analyst put it into a report for institutional investors.The report also goes into great detail about the financial crisis in Europe. Brazil writes about how the euro is headed for trouble and about how dozens of financial institutions in Europe could potentially be in danger of collapse.But in any environment Goldman Sachs thinks that it can make money. The following is how Business Insider summarized the advice that Brazil gave in the report regarding how to make money off of the impending collapse in Europe….

•Buy a six-month put option on the Euro versus the Swiss Franc, thus betting the Euro will drop against the Franc (the Franc being the currency that an official Goldman report recently referred to as the most overvalued in the world)

•Buy a five-year credit default swap on an index of European corporate debt—the iTraxx 9. This is a bet that some of these companies will default, and your insurance policy, the CDS, will pay off.

This is so typical of Goldman Sachs.They will say one thing publicly and then turn around and do the total opposite privately.Sadly, the power of the “too big to fail” banks just continues to grow. At this point, the “big six” U.S. banks (Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo) now possess assetsequivalent to approximately 60 percent of America’s gross national product.Goldman Sachs was the second biggest donor to Barack Obama’s campaign in 2008, so don’t expect Obama to do anything about any of this.We have a financial system that is deeply, deeply corrupt and all of that corruption is a big reason why things are falling apart.Sadly, the 54 page report mentioned above is right – we really are facing aglobal debt meltdown and we really are heading for an economic collapse.You aren’t going to hear the truth from the mainstream media or from our politicians because “keeping people calm” is much more of a priority to them than telling the truth is.The debt crisis in the United States is unsustainable and the debt crisis in Europe is unsustainable. Right now we are in the calm before the storm, and nobody knows exactly when the storm is going to strike.But let there be no doubt – it is coming.The amazing prosperity that we have enjoyed for the last several decades has largely been a debt-fueled illusion. It was a great party while it lasted, but now it is coming to an end and the aftermath of the coming crash is going to be absolutely horrific.Keep watch and get prepared. We don’t know exactly when the collapse is going to happen, but it is definitely on the way and now even Goldman Sachs is admitting that.Read the full story here.

• London: Protesters Who Disrupt Israeli Orchestra are Jeered by Crowd, which cheered when they were forced from the theater.(ArutzSheva).Protesters with the “Palestinian Solidarity Campaign” disrupted a concert by the Israeli Philharmonic in London on Thursday night.Results of the protest were mixed. While the PSC crowd managed to force the cancellation of a live broadcast of the concert, they were widely jeered by the crowd, which cheered when they were forced from the theater.Minister Ed Vaizey took to the Twitter site to report, “Demonstrators seem to have turned entire audience pro Israel.”The philharmonic was performing in the BBC Proms, a 116-year-old concert series held each summer. The BBC had extra security at the hall due to fears that the performance would be disturbed.A total of roughly 30 protesters were removed from the hall, 12 following the first disruption and the rest after subsequent attempts to draw attention away from the music.The BBC’s live broadcast of the event continued after the first disruption, but a second outbreak led the station to decide to broadcast pre-recorded versions of the songs instead. “We are disappointed that BBC Radio 3 audiences were not able to enjoy the full performance,” a BBC statement said.A similar incident took place in 2008, when PSC protesters interrupted a Jerusalem String Quartet concert, screaming, “They’re Israeli army musicians! End genocide in Gaza, boycott Israel!” The protesters were later found innocent of racially aggravated behavior.The PSC has faced condemnation recently over its support for a Scottish student convicted of anti-Semitic abuse, and over a lead member’s conspiracy theories linking Israel to a recent massacre in Norway.Read the full story here.

• President Obama Acting Like King George III.(BigPeace).When the President publicly ordered the leaders of the House and the Senate to appear at the White House the next day, prepared to answer his demands for a debt ceiling resolution, many observers noted the high-handedness of his way of dealing with the coordinate and equal branches of government. He showed no respect for their constitutional independence.Now, though, matters have taken a turn distinctly for the worse. The President has commanded that they make the floors of the legislative houses available to him at a specific time and date without first clearing it with them. Worse, he did so by way of a public announcement rather than a private discussion. He acted, that is, not as president and commander-in-chief but as a royal authority.This extraordinary abuse exceeds all prior levels of contempt and disrespect for the coordinate and equal branches of government. To his credit, House Speaker John Boehner responded, politely to be sure, with a firm suggestion that the President would be welcome on a different schedule.The specific problem here is that the President has no constitutional authority within the houses of Congress. He can not order their performance according to his druthers. Yet, it is clear that Mr. Obama believes he should have such authority, and he is determined to exercise it even if he does not. He acts more like he imagines himself a new George III rather than a Barack II.This “minor” incident has all the indicia of gravity that would suggest the need for wakefulness to a looming threat of tyranny, such that thoughtful citizens will need to wonder whether they can decently wait the interval of fourteen months for the chance to remove the pretender in an election.Let’s be clear about the nature of the offense. Mara Leierson, NPR news analyst and Fox News commentator, sought to clear the President with the observation that from time immemorial presidents have always sent letters to the House and Senate requesting joint sessions and that these have always been followed by automatic invitations. That, she holds, has been the protocol. But she is wrong. No president has ever released a letter to the public, indicating such a request, without first having consulted privately with the leadership of the House of Representatives and the Senate to confirm the propriety of the proposal. What Mr. Obama did on August 31 is exactly the opposite. He assumed that the mere expression of his wish were sufficient to command the compliance of the Speaker and the Majority Leader. Hence, he issued it publicly, expecting no opposition to his proposal.Mr. Obama did not learn the lesson that George Washington learned, when in 1789 he presented himself in person before the Senate seeking “advice and consent” on seven important points in relation to negotiating treaties with Indians. Upon recognizing that the Senate were rather disposed to debate than to respond immediately (thus leaving him in feckless limbo), he effectively turned on his heels, red-faced and resolved never to repeat the folly.What Washington learned thereby was that the branches of government were indeed independent, none subject to the direction of any of the others. The constitutional orders called for their collaboration through the forms of their offices and especially for courtesy and respect in their interactions. He ever after acted in accord with that truth, to the strengthening and betterment of the new republic.Mr. Obama is the first president in 222 years to demonstrate ignorance of that constitutional propriety. Or, is something other than constitutional ignorance? Is it possible that the current president simply has decided to perform the Constitution into a different political alignment than that bequeathed to the heirs of the founders?Increasingly, that seems to be the case.Read the full story here.

• Related - Proof: Obama WAS Trying to Use Joint Speech One-Upmanship As Political Ploy.(BigGovernment).At 10PM on the night of August 31, Obama’s reelection campaign sent out an email titled “frustrated.”“I know that you’re frustrated by that. I am, too,” the email had Obama “saying” to his supporters.The email goes on:

It’s been a long time since Congress was focused on what the American people need them to be focused on. That’s why I’m putting forward a set of bipartisan proposals to help grow the economy and create jobs — that means strengthening our small businesses, giving needed breaks to middle-class families, while taking responsible steps to bring down our deficit.The president continued: “I’m asking lawmakers to look past short-term politics and take action on that plan. But we’ve got to do this together.

This whole joint session date dance was obviously engineered to make the GOP look like they are obstructionists for the president’s obviously selfless desire to get America back on track and the Old Media did its best to assist Obama to parlay that feeling.Contrary to what the Old Media is trying to lead America to believe, this whole mess over the date of his jobs speech was a cynical political ploy in an attempt to make the GOP look like the bad guy in Washington. This means that all the pettiness, all the contentiousness, all the foolishness was started by The White House. The GOP merely reacted.If even CNN’s James Carville understands that the president was “out of bounds,” you know that the White House was attempting political brinkmanship with the GOP debate.If you click a link provided in the email, you’re kindly invited to send over your email address. Those who have been forwarded the message by others will be signed onto the campaign. Those already signed up will be given an exciting new cause to believe in, as Obama operatives try to stir their increasingly disenchanted base of foot soldiers.
Without apparent irony, Obama says in what is a CAMPAIGN EMAIL that he wants Republicans “to look past short-term politics and take action.”The direct call in the message for political pressure on members of Congress to “do the right thing” and to “hold them accountable if they don’t” points to a nakedly political motive for the speech itself.If Obama were serious about advancing major legislation to improve the economy, he’d be downplaying politics, not directly injecting it into the debate.Hmmmm......Is there a plan...or is the plan to attack, blame and abolish Congress?Read the full story here.

• Five of 12 NASCAR Drivers Invited To Meet With Obama At White House Decline Offer.(SB Nation) — President Barack Obama will honor NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson and the 11 other Chase drivers from last year in a White House ceremony on Wednesday — but nearly half of the 2010 playoff contenders won’t be there.NASCAR said Thursday that five drivers — Greg Biffle, Kurt Busch, Carl Edwards, Kevin Harvick and Tony Stewart — will not be attending the White House visit due to “schedule conflicts.”They must be very busy people. Regardless of one’s political views, the president is still the president — and an opportunity to speak with the leader of the free world is a rare and special one.You’d think whatever photo shoots or sponsor appearances these drivers have lined up on Wednesday afternoon — if that’s indeed the reason — could be rescheduled. After all, this is the President of the United States we’re talking about here.For a sport that prides itself on patriotism, having so many drivers turn down the president’s invitation simply seems strange.Johnson, Denny Hamlin, Jeff Gordon, Kyle Busch, Clint Bowyer, Jeff Burton and Matt Kenseth will attend.Read the full story here.

• Mayor Bloomberg’s De facto ‘Jihad’ on Religion at the 9/11 Memorial.(BigGovernment).By Mike Angley .People have vivid memories of certain tragic events in our history. It used to be common to hear folks ask, “Where were you when JFK was shot?” Or, “What were you doing when Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated?” Tragedies etch themselves into our collective psyche and the things we were doing at the time we first heard the news, or witnessed events first-hand, help us to remember.Such is the case with the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Not since Japan’s World War II attack on Pearl Harbor has the United States had its territorial sovereignty violated by such aggression. Everyone who was alive on 9/11/01 recalls today what they were doing, and how they reacted, felt, grieved, mourned, and prayed. For most Americans, that grief, sadness and prayer will never end.Faith becomes more important to people when they are faced with the loss of loved ones. Religious ceremonies typically accompany the burial process, and the same holds true for memorial events like the upcoming September 11, 2011 ten-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks. Except that in the case of the ceremony to be held at the site of the World Trade Center– Ground Zero – Mayor Michael Bloomberg has put the kibosh on having religion be a part of it.It is a decision that seems to defy all logic and commonsense, and it comes off as cruel, heartless, and suggests Hizzoner is out of touch with the people who elected him to be Mayor (not King) of New York City. It falls on the heels of another take-your-breath-away decision about the same event. In mid-August, Mayor Bloomberg nixed inviting first responders to the 10-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the WTC.Faith and first responders defined the attacks and their aftermath. Let’s remember – although the mainstream media tries its best to make us forget – that the attacks themselves were motivated by a perverted sense of faith, by radical Islamists hell-bent on a twisted brand of Jihad against the west. First responders pulled people from the wreckage of this religion-inspired assault, many losing their lives in the process. It is faith that has sustained Americans as they have tried to make sense of the devastation and loss ever since.Mayor Rudy Giuliani made religion a part of the healing process shortly after 9/11 during an interfaith ceremony at Yankee Stadium. Let’s not forget how President George W. Bush injected faith into everything he did as President, recognizing its importance in a nation grounded in Judeo-Christian roots. So why exclude first responders and faith, Mr. Mayor?I don’t think Mayor Bloomberg has excluded faith from the 9/11 memorial this year because he is anti-religion. Quite the contrary. In May 2010, he came out in full-force defense of the proposal to build a mosque near Ground Zero. He’s even on record for saying the government, “shouldn’t be in the business of picking” one religion over another. So why the hostility toward religion at a time when most Americans (indeed New Yorkers) demand it?There’s a paradox about liberalism that I have observed for many years – if not a downright psychopathology. At the risk of possibly offending a few in the minority, liberals intentionally offend the majority. Mayor Bloomberg is likely guided by this distorted sense of reasoning. He’d rather guarantee that he insults a majority of Christian, Jewish, and people of other faiths in order to avoid even the potential of offending a minority of Muslims. We saw it with his decision to support the Ground Zero Mosque, and we’re seeing it with the decision to remove religion from the 9/11 anniversary memorial. But how to explain the prohibition on first responders? I can only think of the famous punch line comedian Ron White uses often: “You can’t fix stupid!” But you can vote it out of office.Hmmmm....What would be the odds that Imam Rauf would be there on 9/11?Read the full story here.

• Obama: The Problem We All Live With.(BigGovernment).Obama, the current “problem” all Americans are forced to “live with,” felt it was as good a time as any to hang in a hallway outside the Oval Office Norman Rockwell’s “The Problem We All Live With” – a canvas that revives hurt rather than cultivates healing.The President’s taste in artwork indicates that America’s “post-racial president” may be secretly nursing a deep-seated wound. It’s either that, or he’s uninterested in fostering unity. If that weren’t a distinct possibility, why didn’t he choose Norman Rockwell’s “Murder in Mississippi (Southern Justice),” which portrays the deaths of three civil rights workers, two of whom where white, killed for their efforts to register African American voters, or “Negro in the Suburbs,” which depicts black children interacting with the white children in their new neighborhood?Mr. Obama could have requested any painting, but he chose the one that depicts “U.S. marshals escorting Ruby Bridges, a 6-year-old African-American girl, into a New Orleans elementary school in 1960 as court-ordered integration met with an angry and defiant response from the white community.”The thrust of the painting is not subtle. America’s vilest racial epithet appears in letters several inches high at the top of the canvas. To the left side, the letters “KKK” are plainly visible. The crowds, mostly women who gathered daily to taunt Bridges as she went to a largely empty school, are not shown in the picture. But the racist graffiti and a splattered tomato convey the hostile atmosphere.Rather than displaying a reminder of division and hatred, shouldn’t America’s first black president be focusing on the harmony that the historic nature of his presidency promised to deliver? Instead, his attraction to an artist’s rendition of one of the “ugliest racial episodes in U.S. history” indicates that the President of the United States may harbor a measure of latent acrimony.Thus, Barack’s behavior has exposed yet another example of his duplicitous insincerity. Because when it comes to the “ugliest [religious] episode in U.S. history,” the President has been more than willing to extend the same level of forgiveness and understanding to Muslim Americans that hanging Norman Rockwell’s disquieting painting deprives white America.Choosing to present such an explosive representation of prejudice toward blacks outside the office of an American president is on par with the message Muslim Americans might get if Obama displayed a painting of September 11th hijacker-pilot Mohammed Atta preparing to crash into the World Trade Towers.Such an affront would never take place, because Obama is committed to placating and reassuring the Muslim community that he believes their religion is one of peace. In fact, a few weeks prior to the anniversary of 9-11, with the Ruby Bridges image and the vile “N” word emblazoned above her head hanging 20 feet away from the Oval Office, Barack Obama hosted an Iftar dinner in the State Dining Room extolling the efforts of valiant Muslims on September 11th.Americans of every race, religion, and color were both victims and heroes on 9-11. For that reason, just prior to breaking the Ramadan fast, the President attempted to absolve the innocent of guilt by reminding his 100 dinner guests that “Muslim Americans were [the] first responders … the EMTs … the nurse who tended to so many victims, the naval officer at the Pentagon who rushed into the flames and pulled the injured to safety.”Obama even cited the “brave service of our men and women in uniform, including thousands of Muslim Americans … [and] some [who] have made the ultimate sacrifice.”The President’s efforts with the Muslim community are commendable. However, what is striking is that thus far Obama rarely, if ever, takes a similar opportunity to mention the contributions of white Union soldiers and abolitionists in the Civil War, or the civil rights activists who despised the treatment little Ruby Bridges was subjected to and died proving it.Who else but America’s first black president should express admiration for the 2.5 million soldiers who fought and the 360,000 who lost their lives in a war to ensure little girls like Ruby would be free to attend school like other children?Instead, without a word, when deciding whom to shield and not to shield from undeserved stereotypes, Obama demonstrates prejudice. The President may not realize it, but the unspoken message of choosing the volatile Norman Rockwell painting denies white Americans the same measure of differentiation between bravery and villainy that he freely showers upon adherents to Islam every chance he gets.Whatever the explanation, Obama has yet to formally acknowledge that the attitude of 21st century white America has as much connection with the racist brutes opposing integration in 1960 as that of the President’s Ramadan guests, whose faith he contends has no connection to those responsible for inspiring and carrying out the attacks on September 11th.Hmmmm.......Michelle "For the first time i'm proud of my country".Read the full story here.

• Flashback : OBama :"I think it's really important for your readers to know that I have been a member of the same church for almost 20 years, and I have never practiced Islam".

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/januaryweb-only/104-32.0.html?start=2

”I was a little Jakarta street kid,” he said in a wide-ranging interview in his office (excerpts are on my blog, www.nytimes.com/ontheground). He once got in trouble for making faces during Koran study classes in his elementary school, but a president is less likely to stereotype Muslims as fanatics — and more likely to be aware of their nationalism — if he once studied the Koran with them.

Mr. Obama recalled the opening lines of the Arabic call to prayer, reciting them with a first-rate accent. In a remark that seemed delightfully uncalculated (it’ll give Alabama voters heart attacks), Mr. Obama described the call to prayer as ”one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset.”

http://scottthong.wordpress.com/2008/09/09/who-says-obama-was-a-muslim-why-himself-of-course/

A blogger who goes by "An American Expat in Southeast Asia" found that "Barack Hussein Obama was registered under the name 'Barry Soetoro' serial number 203 and entered the Franciscan Asisi Primary School on 1 January 1968 and sat in class 1B. … Barry's religion was listed as Islam."

http://laotze.blogspot.com/2007/01/tracking-down-obama-in-indonesia-part-3.html

The public school

: Paul Watson of the Los Angeles Times learned from Indonesians familiar with Obama when he lived in Jakarta that he "was registered by his family as a Muslim at both schools he attended." Haroon Siddiqui of the Toronto Star visited Besuki, the Jakarta public school Obama attended, and found that "Three of his teachers have said he was enrolled as a Muslim." Although Siddiqui cautions that "With the school records missing, eaten by bugs, one has to rely on people's shifting memories," he cites only one retired teacher, Tine Hahiyari, retracting her earlier certainty about Obama's being registered as a Muslim.

Koran class

: In his autobiography, Dreams of My Father, Obama relates how he got into trouble for making faces during Koranic studies, thereby revealing he was a Muslim, for Indonesian students in his day attended religious classes according to their faith. Indeed, Obama still retains knowledge from that class: Nicholas D. Kristof of the New York Times, reports that Obama "recalled the opening lines of the Arabic call to prayer, reciting them [to Kristof] with a first-rate accent."

Mosque attendance

: Obama's half-sister recalled that the family attended the mosque "for big communal events." Watson learned from childhood friends that "Obama sometimes went to Friday prayers at the local mosque." Barker found that "Obama occasionally followed his stepfather to the mosque for Friday prayers." One Indonesia friend, Zulfin Adi, states that Obama "was Muslim. He went to the mosque. I remember him wearing a sarong" (a garment associated with Muslims).

Piety

: Obama himself says that while living in Indonesia, a Muslim country, he "didn't practice [Islam]," implicitly acknowledging a Muslim identity. Indonesians differ in their memories of him. One, Rony Amir, describes Obama as "previously quite religious in Islam."Hmmmmm...........Yup! "and I have never practiced Islam". Source .

• Obama Allies, MSM Trying To Paint 2012 Campaign As a Religious War.(Washington Examiner).By Byron York. The fundamental facts of the presidential race at this moment are that unemployment is high, the economy is by far the most important issue to American voters, and President Obama’s handling of economic questions is overwhelmingly unpopular. Republican presidential hopefuls Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, Michele Bachmann and others are hammering the president daily on matters of job creation and economic growth.Now some of Obama’s activist allies and supporters in the press are engaged in a sharply focused effort to change the subject. Even as economic anxieties continue to rise, some of the nation’s premier political journalists are consumed with the alleged influences of obscure religious philosophers on Republican candidates; on questions of creationism, evolution, and the age of the Earth; and on the fantasy that a Republican president might transform the United States into an Iranian-style theocracy.For example, the Daily Beast/Newsweek recently published an article titled “A Christian Plot for Domination?” claiming that Perry and Bachmann are “deeply associated with a theocratic strain of Christian fundamentalism” known as Dominionism. A widely discussed article in the Texas Observer claimed that Dominionists — a “little-known movement of radical Christians” — are readying an “army of God” to “commandeer civilian government,” with Perry the “vessel” for their ambitions. Finally, the New Yorker published a long article claiming that Bachmann believes “Christians, and Christians alone, are Biblically mandated to occupy all secular institutions until Christ returns.”Surveying those articles, the executive editor of the New York Times, Bill Keller, concludes that “an unusually large number” of Republican candidates “belong to churches that are mysterious or suspect to many Americans.” Perry and Bachmann, in particular, are connected to “fervid subsets of evangelical Christianity,” which Keller says “has raised concerns about their respect for the separation of church and state, not to mention the separation of fact and fiction.” Fearing that Perry or Bachmann could be a “Trojan horse” for a religious takeover of the government, Keller advocates strict questioning of candidates on doctrinal issues.Read the full story here.

• Turkey expels Israeli ambassador.(Ynet).Israel-Turkey relations sink to a new low: Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu announced on Friday that following Jerusalem's adamant refusal to apologize over the 2010 Gaza flotilla raid, Ankara will be downgrading its diplomatic relations with Israel and suspending key military agreements. In a dramatic turn of events, Turkey announced that it was expelling Israeli Ambassador Gabby Levy from Ankara. Davutoglu said Turkey's diplomatic representation in Israel would be further reduced to second-secretary level. In accordance, all lower Israeli diplomatic personnel above the second-secretary level have also been expelled.The announcement followed a press conference, in which Davutoglu said that some of the UN's Palmer Report findings on the raid were "unacceptable," adding that it was "time for Israel to pay the price... The highest price it can pay is losing our friendship." "Israel, in fact, has misused many of the chances that were given to them and the Israeli government, on the other hand, see themselves (as being) above international laws and human conscience," the Turkish FM said. Turkey withdrew its own ambassador to Israel immediately after the raid. Davutoğlu's stated that Ankara views the Israeli government as responsible for the situation, and that Turkey will not revise its position on the matter until Israel reconsiders its stand on the flotilla incident. Davutoğlu added that despite the Palmer Report findings, Turkey does not recognise the legality of the Israeli blockade on Gaza.  Turkish President Abdullah Gul reportedly said Friday that as far as Turkey was concerned, the Palmer Report was "null and void." Ankara is also said to be exploring its options against Israel with the International Court of Justice.Earlier Friday, Turkey vowed that its demand for an apology from Israel would remain unchanged, stating that it is powerful enough to protect the rights of its citizen. The statement was made in Ankara's first official reaction to a leaked United Nations panel report on Mavi Marmara incident. Israel remains adamant over its decision not to offer Turkey an official apology. A senior official told Ynet that while Israel is aware of the implications of its decision to refrain from issuing an apology, "we cannot conduct ourselves based on ultimatums."The Palmer Report does not demand an Israeli apology, establishing instead that Israel should express regret and pay reparations, the official said, adding that Jerusalem still hoped that the two countries could "return to the cooperation that was a cornerstone of regional stability." Another senior official added that "the severing of ties goes against Turkey's strategic interests."Jerusalem sources were unfazed by the move, saying that Israel's military agreements with Turkey had previously been suspended – by Israel. "Military trade with Turkey was suspended a while ago… we didn’t want to risk any weapons made in Israel falling into the wrong hands," a diplomatic source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.Meanwhile, Turkey's Zaman news site reported Friday that Davutoğlu had spoken with United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and that he raised The New York Times issue with him. Davutoğlu added that UN’s Ban was also surprised to hear about the publication of the leaked report. Read the full story here.

• Is Turkey preparing to drag Nato and the US in a conflict against Israel?(AstuteBlogger).Hmmm....I completely agree with his point of view, i only wanted to add"What's Obama's role in all this , why the weekly phonecalls between Obama and Erdogan?The one thing they have in common is their 'love' for Israel."Read the full story here.

• Photos: Chinese Environmental Coalition Issues Scathing Report on Apple and Pollution.(DougRoss).A report issued yesterday by the Beijing-based Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (www.ipe.org.cn) says Apple Computer has made a conscious decision to "use polluting companies whilst sacrificing the environment and [surrounding] communities... so as to continue to grab for their own super profits [while turning] itself into a barrier to China’s pollution reduction." The report, frankly, is downright frightening. The following is an excerpt, by no means complete, that alleges serious issues with Apple's supply chain in China. Could someone tell the EPA so that they can pursue an investigation... overseas? In the report titled ‘The Other Side of Apple,’ published January 2Oth, 2011, the coalition of environmental organizations brought to light many serious problems in Apple Inc.’s supply chain in China. After the report was published, Apple went on to issue their own annual CSR report in which they acknowledged, for the first time, that 137 workers had been poisoned by n-hexane while working at a production line for one of their products... Yet, to this very day, some of the poisoned workers’ very reasonable demands for treatment and compensation have not been fully resolved. The workers have written three letters to Apple, but they have not received a word of reply. Furthermore, Apple remains completely non-responsive about the pollution cases raised by the environmental groups... On the one hand Apple has been silent about its environmental and social responsibilities, yet at the same time, in order to satisfy the upsurge in market demand, the company continues to expand its supply chain in China.. ...Apple Inc.’s policy of not commenting and to bury their heads in the sand when queries are raised by the public does not mean that the problems of pollution and poisoning within the supply chain will automatically vanish. On the contrary, its continuously expanding supply chain signifies that its environmental risks will also simultaneously increase. Faced with a stubbornly evasive Apple Inc., a number of Chinese environmental NGOs decided to dig deeper and to further investigate the environmental problems that exist within Apple’s supply chain. Through five months of research and field investigations we found that the pollution discharge from this enormous industrial empire has been expanding and spreading throughout its supply chain, seriously encroaching on the local communities and their environment. Hmmmm........Read and see the full story here.

• Pentagon Brings Back Slavery For Third World Workers in Iraq.(BlacklistedNews).By Sherwood Ross .Many of the 70,000 “third country national”(TCN) service workers employed in Afghanistan and Iraq “recount having been robbed of wages, injured without compensation, subjected to sexual assault, and held in conditions resembling indentured servitude by their subcontractor bosses,” reports Sarah Stillman in a June 6th article in The New Yorker magazine titled “The Invisible Army.” In fact, the system resembles nothing so much as a twisted form of modern slavery.“These workers, primarily from South Asia and Africa, often live in barbed-wire compounds on U.S. bases, (and) eat at meagre chow halls...” she reports. “A large number are employed by fly-by-night subcontractors who are financed by the American taxpayer but who often operate outside the law.”Since the U.S. invasions, more than 2,000 contractor fatalities and 51,000 contractor injuries have been reported in Iraq and Afghanistan as the soaring casualty rates “are now on a par with those of U.S. troops in both war zones,” Stillman writes.Although President Obama said in 2009 he would make good on his campaign pledge to do better by these contractors, the number of TCN’s in Afghanistan had increased by nearly 50 percent reaching 17,500----with no apparent improvement in their lot. Indeed, the deplorable conditions on the bases where contractors are employed have triggered widespread rioting.“Previously unreported worker riots have erupted on U.S. bases over issues such as lack of food and unpaid wages,” Stillman reports. On May 1, 2010, in a labor camp run by Prime Projects International on the largest military base in Baghdad, more than a thousand subcontractors---primarily Indians and Nepalis---rampaged using as weapons fists, stones, wooden bats, and, as one U.S. military policeman put it, “anything they could find.”“Employees started to throw gravel at the managers. Four-foot pieces of plywood crashed through glass windows. Workers broke down the door to the food cellar and made off with as much as they could carry,” the reporter noted. Several weeks later, workers in a nearby camp run by subcontractor Gulf Catering Co. staged a copycat riot, “pelting their bosses with stones and accusing the company of failing to pay them proper wages,” Stillman added.A manager in another camp operated by a K.B.R. (the former Halliburton subsidiary), told Stillman about conditions that triggered one riot. Ziad Al Karawi described how a thousand Indian and Sri Lankan men under his supervision slept on crowded floors: “Rats and flies attacked us...We had no beds to sleep at or tables to eat at....No communication, no TV,no soap to wash or bathe, no visits from anyone from the company or K.B.R....The workers had no choice except going out in a protest.”Many of the T.C.N.’s are hired by private employment subcontractors who promise them high wages but pay only a fraction of what they promised. T.C.N.’s are also lied to even about where they will be employed. Some are told they will be working in luxurious Dubai only to find themselves in Iraq under incoming fire.Stillman reports that “military privatization (of jobs) has produced convoluted chains of foreign subcontracts that often lead to cost overruns and fraud. The Commission on Wartime Contracting recently warned of the dangers associated with “poorly conceived, poorly structured, poorly conducted, and poorly monitored subcontracting,” particularly noting the military’s “heavy reliance on foreign subcontractors who may not be accountable to any American governmental authority.”The racket begins when the Pentagon outsources prime logistics contracts, worth as much as $15 billion a year, to such private military firms as K.B.R., DynCorp International, and Fluor. Stillman writes, “These ‘prime venders’ then shop out the bulk of their contracts to hundreds of global subcontractors, many based in Middle Eastern countries that are on the U.S. State Department’s human-trafficking non-compliance list. Finally, these firms call upon thousands of Third World ‘manpower agencies’---small recruiting operations...”The recruiters, who charge the job-seekers at least a thousand dollars and often more for the privilege of signing up, put them to work on military bases as cooks, cleaners, construction workers, fast-food clerks, electricians, and beauticians, etc. Kenyans truck frozen steaks and inflatable tents, Bosnians repair electrical grids, and Indians provide iced mocha lattes, Stillman writes.Stillman, who interviewed hundreds of TCNs in the process of preparing her article, said a typical story was that of a 25-year-old Taco Bell employee on a major U.S. base in Iraq who paid a Nepal recruiter $4,000 to get a job in Iraq where he was told he would make his investment back quickly. In May, 2009, the man found himself housed in a shipping container behind the U.S. Embassy in the Green Zone where he slept on a soiled mattress with 25 other migrants. “Many learned that they were to earn as little as $275 a month as cooks and servers for U.S. soldiers---a fraction of what they’d been promised, and a tiny sliver of what U.S. taxpayers are billed for their labor.”In case you think the investigative reporter’s findings are sensationalized, read the findings of the Pentagon’s own 2006 investigation into subcontractor working conditions. Government inspectors listed “widespread” abuses, including the illegal confiscation of workers’ passports, “deceptive hiring practices,” “excessive recruiting fees” and “substandard worker living conditions.” In short, another tragic example of how a greed-driven totalitarian state has no regard for the individual. Although President Lincoln abolished slavery in 1863, it appears the Pentagon has reinstituted the practice for its own ends.Read the full story here.

• Documents Reveal New Details About DHS Development of Mobile Body Scanners; Not Certified “People Scanners”.(Epic).EPIC has obtained more than one hundred fifty pages of documents detailing the Department of Homeland Security’s development of mobile body scanners and other crowd surveillance technology. The documents were obtained as a result of a Freedom Information Act lawsuit brought by EPIC against the federal agency. According to the documents obtained by EPIC, vehicles equipped with mobile body scanners are designed to scan crowds and pedestrians on the street and can see through bags, clothing, and even other vehicles. The documents also reveal that the mobile backscatter machines cannot be American National Standards Institute “certified people scanners” because of the high level of radiation output and because subjects would not know they have been scanned.Hmmmm......"Precious you look 'radiant' today?"Read the full story here.

• Turkey rebuffs Palmer findings (Ynet)- While Israel's representative in the Palmer Committee adopted the UN report on the 2010 flotilla raid, Turkey's envoy chose to reject many parts of the document that are not to Ankara's liking. In an appendix to the document, Turkey's Ozdem Sanberk rejected the Palmer Report's conclusions on the following issues: The question of the legality of the blockade imposed on Gaza by Israel; the actions of the flotilla; and naval blockades in general."The wording in the report is not satisfactory in describing the actual extent of the atrocities that the victims have been subjected to," the Turkish representative wrote in an appendix. "This includes the scope of the maltreatment suffered by the passengers in the hands of Israeli soldiers and officials."After expanding on Ankara's various objections, Sanberk wrote: "I reject and dissociate myself from the relevant parts and paragraphs of the report," proceeding to cite a long list of the document's clauses and findings. As opposed to Turkey, Israel's representative to the committee, Joseph Ciechanover, adopted the UN probe."Israel appreciates the important work of the Panel," the Israeli envoy wrote, adding that while Jerusalem has some reservations, it nonetheless appreciates "that the report concurs with Israel’s view" on a long lists of issues.However, he noted that "Israel does not concur with the Panel’s characterization of Israel’s decision to board the vessels in the manner it did as 'excessive and unreasonable.' Ciechanover chose to end his response to the report's findings by lauding the shared history of Jews and Turks."Israel cherishes the shared history and centuries old ties of strong friendship and cooperation between the Jewish and Turkish peoples and hopes that the Panel's work over the past few months will assist Israel and Turkey in finding a path back to cooperation," he wrote.Hmmmm.....The real question is if Erdogan and the Obama administration want war or peace with Israel?Read the full story here.

• Turkey - Violence against women continues during Eid al Fitr.(TodaysZaman).Violence against women has remained a hot issue even during the religious holiday and celebrations of Eid al-Fitr, with many gender based killings having occurred across Turkey in recent days, proving that domestic violence against women does not recognize time, place or even religious days.In Sakarya’s Karapürçek district, Ali Yaşar Özcan (42) killed his wife, Asiye Özcan (39), who had filed for divorce, on the first day of Eid. Ali Yaşar had been prohibited from approaching the family home due to previous events of abuse of his wife, however, he did so when their children were not home. He shot his wife twice in the head before committing suicide. Asiye Özcan died at the scene of the murder while Ali Yaşar died later in hospital.

Another incident of domestic violence during the Eid holidays took place in the village of Akçasusurluk in Bursa’s Karacabey district. Hacı A. (41) stabbed his wife, Hacer A. (35), when she told hime that she wanted a divorce. She was taken to hospital with serious injuries and her husband has been taken into police custody.

In Kocaeli’s Gölcük district, Cüneyt Koç (34) shot his common-law spouse, Emine Ş., who he had married in a religious ceremony only. The couple had decided to separate some time ago but Koç changed his mind and refused to allow Emine Ş. to leave him. Koç shot Emine Ş on Tuesday and attempted to flee but was captured by police. Koç admitted committing the crime. Emine Ş. was hospitalized with serious injuries.

In an incident in Antalya, P. A was stabbed by her ex-boy friend, E. T., when she refused to allow him to enter her home. E.T firstly beat P.A and then stabbed her before fleeing the scene. The event occurred in front of her 5-year-old daughter.

In the Altındere neighborhood of Sakarya’s Akyazı district, a man who beat his wife was killed by his brother-in-law. Osman Kurt had an argument with his wife, Havva Kurt, which escalated to physical violence. The woman was taken to hospital by her neighbors. When her brother, Abbas K. (55), heard that his sister had been beaten, he approached Osman Kurt and their discussion ended with a fight and Abbas K. shot him nine times. Kurt died in hospital and Abbas K. was taken to custody.Hmmmm.......Keep turkey out of the European union.Read the full story here.