IDF Chief of Staff: "Israel Can Act Alone against Iran Nukes".

IDF Chief of Staff: "Israel Can Act Alone against Iran Nukes".(VOC).Written by Gil Ronen - Arutz Sheva.IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz said in an interview broadcast Tuesday on Voice of Israel public radio that the IDF has the ability to act on its own against the Iranian nuclear program.

In response to a question, Lt. Gen. Gantz said that there are ongoing deliberations between the political echelon and the military echelon, and that it would not be accurate to call these discussions "arguments."

When asked if the IDF has the capability to take action on its own against the Iranian nuclear program, he replied "absolutely, yes."

Regarding the terror that emanates from Gaza, Lt. Gen. Gantz said that he was favorably surprised by the relatively long period of calm that followed Operation Pillar of Defense last November. However, he noted, there have been some "isolated" incidents of attacks from Gaza lately.

"If this quiet continues, there will be quiet in Gaza. If this quiet does not continue, things will be very unquiet in Gaza, and there will be great pain in Gaza. If we need to repeat what we did and even widen our operation, in terms of its scope and methods, we will have no qualms about doing this."Hmmm......Due to the sequester the US can't even master a second carrier in the Strait of Hormuz, Israel is on it's own.Read the full story here.

Iranian Gov't, Parliament to Set Up Joint Committee to Counter Oil Sanctions, control oil flow trough Hormuz strait.

Iranian Gov't, Parliament to Set Up Joint Committee to Counter Oil Sanctions, control oil flow trough Hormuz strait.(Fars).The move comes after the EU enforced a set of sanctions on Iranian oil supplies on Sunday despite Iran's repeated warnings. The joint committee will comprise oil ministry officials, members of the parliament's energy commission and the national security and foreign policy commission. A day after the enforcement of the new EU sanctions, the parliament's national security and foreign policy commission drafted a bill requiring the government to stop oil tankers from shipping crude through the Strait of Hormuz to the countries that support sanctions against Iran, a commission member said on Monday. "This project is a response to the oil sanctions imposed by the European Union on the Islamic Republic," Ebrahim Agha Mohammadi said. "This bill has been developed as an answer to the European Union's oil sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran."
"In line with this draft law, the government has the right to stop the transit of tankers (through Hormuz) carrying oil to countries which have imposed oil sanctions on Iran," he added. Parliament would be asked to approve the draft law and consider it a double-urgency priority, he said. Agha Mohammadi said that 100 parliament members had signed the bill as of Sunday. Tehran has repeatedly cautioned that such measures will hurt talks with world powers over its nuclear program. Iran has threatened to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz at the entrance to the oil-rich Persian Gulf if its nuclear program is targeted by air strikes that Israel and the United States reserve as an option.Read the full story here.

IRGC Commander Stresses Iran's Monopoly on Missile-Launching Speedboats.

IRGC Commander Stresses Iran's Monopoly on Missile-Launching Speedboats.(Fars).Tehran - Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Navy Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi said that Iran has allocated thousands of its speed boats for military purposes, adding that production of missile-launching speedboats is under Iran's monopoly."All throughout the world, Iran is the only country which has speed vessels with the ability of firing (rockets and missile) at high speeds," Fadavi said addressing the second national conference on speedboats here in Tehran on Sunday. "We now have speedboats which can launch missiles as they traverse at a speed over 60km (per hour)," the commander underscored. He further announced that Iran has several thousands of high-speed vessels, 20,000 of which are used for military purposes, adding that the fate of any war between Iran and the US in the sea will be determined by Iran's speedboats. In March 2011, Fadavi had said that speed boats, specially the newly mass-produced missile-launching vessels, have granted high mobility and power to the IRGC Navy and made it a unique force in the world. "As regards high-speed missile-launching vessels, no country in the world enjoys such a power (that Iran has)," Fadavi said, addressing a ceremony held to mark inauguration of the production lines of two types of new speed vessels. "We emphasize that we have gained a unique power in this field of naval defense," Fadavi went on saying. Admiral Fadavi further compared the high speed of the Iranian vessels and the IRGC Navy's high mobility with the US Navy, and said, "US warships currently have a maximum speed of 31 knots while the Iranian vessels can traverse twice as fast on average."Hmmmm.....Whoever sold the 'Bladerunner' to Iran was a moron.Read the full story here.

Gulf Cooperation Council forces wil join in military exercises called "Islands of Loyalty".

Gulf Cooperation Council forces wil join in military exercises called "Islands of Loyalty". (IMRA).The nations that make up the Peninsula Shield Force will conduct war-game exercises called "Islands of Loyalty" on Sunday and Monday, the state news agency Wam reported yesterday. "The Peninsula Shield Force will test the harmony and coordination among ground, air and naval forces and their readiness," Wam said. It added the force would test its members' ability to carry out "special, limited and major missions along coasts and islands within the territorial waters". There were no further details. Peninsula Shield, which has carried out routine multilateral exercises since 1983, said next week's exercises were part of their continuing cooperation. The force, comprising up to 30,000 troops, was founded in 1982 and consists of elements from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and the UAE. The exercises follow a diplomatic furore over the recent visit by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the island of Abu Musa, widely condemned by Arab and western states. Iran invaded and occupied Abu Musa and the Greater and Lesser Tunbs in 1971. This week, a senior commander of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) underlined the strategic importance of the islands to Iran. He added that the republic had deployed forces and equipment to defend them this week. "Various types of offensive and defensive systems, including brigades of IRGC marines, have been deployed in the Iranian islands, especially in Abu Musa, the Lesser Tunb and the Greater Tunb," Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi, the commander of IRGC Naval Forces, said on Monday.Read the full story here.

IRGC Commander Stresses IRGC's Full Control over US Navy in Persian Gulf.

IRGC Commander Stresses IRGC's Full Control over US Navy in Persian Gulf.(Fars).Tehran - Commander of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Navy Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi stressed his forces domination and control over the US Navy ships in the Persian Gulf, and said that the American naval forces need IRGC's permission for any move in the regional waters."Today, Americans admit and acknowledge that the Persian Gulf is under the tight control of the IRGC Navy," Fadavi said on Tuesday. "This doesn't mean inspection (of their ships), but controlling (them). That is to say, they should receive our permission and account to us for any move they want to make," he explained. Last week, another commander of the IRGC said that all vessels, including the US warships, enter the Persian Gulf waters through the Strait of Hormuz only after they are checked by the IRGC naval forces. "The alien vessels which enter the Persian Gulf via the Strait of Hormuz always provide the needed answers and information to the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) units," Lieutenant Commander of the IRGC Navy Alireza Tangsiri said on Wednesday. He further noted the deployment of a US aircraft carrier in the region, and said, "This vessel, similar to the other warships, answered all the questions asked by the IRGC Navy without any problem or making any particular move and then continued the path to its specified destination." The remarks by the Iranian commanders came as the US launched a propaganda campaign through a number of western media outlets about the deployment of the nuclear-powered USS Enterprise along with the Abraham Lincoln carrier in waters near the Persian Gulf, implying that their deployment means a fortification of the US military presence in the region against Iran. The US says that the deployment is "routine" and the two carriers will support the American military operations in Afghanistan and anti-piracy efforts off Somalia's coast and in the Gulf of Aden.Read the full story here.

'Gulf states plan to meet over UAE-Iran of Abu Mousa island row'.

'Gulf states plan to meet over UAE-Iran of Abu Mousa island row'.(Jpost).DUBAI - Gulf Arab states plan to meet next week to discuss a dispute between the United Arab Emirates and Iran which broke out after the Iranian president visited a Gulf island claimed by both countries, a source familiar with the matter said on Saturday. Wednesday's meeting of foreign ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council will be held in the Saudi capital Riyadh, the source told Reuters. "This will be an extraordinary meeting which was called for by the UAE following Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit," the source added.
The UAE has recalled its ambassador to Tehran for consultations after what it called a "flagrant violation" of its sovereignty, the state news agency WAM reported. Iranian state media said Ahmadinejad visited Abu Musa island, some 60 km off the UAE, on Wednesday as part of a tour of Iran's Gulf coast. Both countries claim Abu Musa and two other small islands, located near key shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Gulf. The islands have been held by Iran since 1971, shortly before the seven Gulf emirates gained full independence from Britain and formed the UAE. Ahmadinejad's visit "is a flagrant violation of the United Arab Emirates' sovereignty over its territory and a transgression of efforts to find a peaceful settlement to end Iranian occupation of the three UAE islands," UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahayan was quoted as saying by WAM on Wednesday. Abdullatif al-Zayani, head of the GCC - a regional bloc grouping the six Gulf Arab states - condemned the visit as "provocative" and a violation of UAE sovereignty.The UAE also cancelled a friendly match with Iran's national soccer team, due to be held on Tuesday in the Gulf Arab state. Iran rejected the protests and said Ahmadinejad's visit was an "internal Iranian matter". Tehran said it was determined to improve bilateral ties and was ready for a dialogue with the UAE to resolve "possible misunderstandings." The UAE has urged Tehran to agree to take the dispute to the International Court of Justice in The Hague or to hold direct negotiations. Iran says its sovereignty over the islands is not negotiable but has called for talks with the UAE to clear up "misunderstandings."Read the full story here.

Iranian MP Hossein Ebrahimi, Deputy Head of the Iranian Parliament's National Security Committee: "The Persian Gulf Will Be Turned into a Graveyard" for International Forces

Hossein Ebrahimi: [Closing the Hormuz Strait] is the prerogative of the sacred regime of the Islamic Republic, in the event that our interests are threatened, and the export of Iranian oil is blocked. If we cannot export our oil, I expect that the oil of other countries will not pass through these waters either - especially not through the Hormuz Strait, because Iran controls it. This is indeed one of the strategic plans of the Islamic Republic of Iran. We will not allow countries from all corners of the world to give orders to the countries of the Persian Gulf, thus jeopardizing our national interests. We will never let this happen. If we see that our national interests are in danger, and that the [West] is serious about disrupting the export of Iranian oil, we will jeopardize their interests as well, and they should know this.
If they undertake this measure, I personally believe that in addition to closing the Hormuz Strait, the Persian Gulf will be turned into a graveyard for the forces coming from all corners of the earth to this sensitive region. Source : Memri.

MFS - The Other News

                    Morning Posting.

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity situation Vanuatu 4.9!More info here.

• US navy head Admiral Jonathan Greenert: Iran strait 'keeps me awake at night'.(JPost).WASHINGTON - The chief of the US Navy acknowledged on Tuesday that preparing for a potential conflict in the Strait of Hormuz is the kind of thing he loses sleep over."If you ask me what keeps me awake at night, it's the Strait of Hormuz and the business going on in the Arabian Gulf," said Admiral Jonathan Greenert, who became the chief of naval operations in September.The comments by Greenert follow threats by Iran last month to shut off the Strait of Hormuz -- the world's most important oil shipping lane -- if new US and EU sanctions over its nuclear program halted Iranian oil exports.The United States has said it would not allow Iran to block the Strait, calling it a "red line" for the US military. General Martin Dempsey, the top US military officer, said over the weekend said that would be a "intolerable act.""Yes, they can block it ... But we would take action and reopen the Straits," Dempsey told a television talk show.Greenert did not get into details about what steps the US Navy would take to re-open the Strait. But when asked what about the Strait kept him awake at night, he responded: "I'm an organizer, a trainer and equipper. I'd make sure that our people have the right equipment to do the right thing.""Our folks that transit in and around that area, I want to make sure that they're able to (deal) with the things that they need to deal with, basically self-protection, counter-swarm, ASW (anti-submarine warfare)," Greenert said.Air Force Chief of Staff General Norton Schwartz told Reuters on Monday the Air Force would "clearly" play a role in potentially unblocking the Strait of Hormuz, if the United States took on that job.He said the Air Force could ensure "either localized or broader air superiority," providing support to other US military assets and ensuring secure communications channels through satellites.It would also play a key role in providing surveillance data from its satellites and aircraft.Hmmmm......I sure hope they do better than in the "Millenium Challenge '02" war games we staged in the Persian Gulf , quote: "U Sank My Carrier!" Read the full story here.

• "Imperial" President Barack Obama still determined to close Guantanamo, says White House.(IndiaTimes). The White House insisted that President Barack Obama was determined to close Guantanamo Bay, despite failing to do so by the war on terror camp's 10th anniversary this week. Obama declared within a few hours of taking office in January 2009 that he would shutter the camp within a year, saying it was used as a recruiting tool for terrorists, and detrimental to US national security. But in the face of deep opposition in Congress to moving inmates to the US mainland and over the idea of holding civil trials for key Al-Qaeda suspects, Obama has failed to live up to his vow. "The commitment that the president has to closing Guantanamo Bay is as firm today as it was during the (2008) campaign," said White House spokesman Jay Carney. "We are all are aware of the obstacles to getting that done as quickly as the president wanted to get it done ... but the president's commitment hasn't changed at all." Carney said that Obama, top national security officials and senior members of the military still believed that closing Guantanamo was in US interests. "We will continue to abide by that commitment and work towards its fulfillment," he said. Given staunch opposition to closing the camp at the US base in southeastern Cuba, and pressures of election year politics, there does not appear to be a viable route to closing Guantanamo in the near future. Several key planners of the September 11 attacks in 2001 are among 171 prisoners still languishing at the camp and are awaiting military tribunals there. The US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba accepted its first prisoners from the newly drawn battlefields of the global war on terror on January 11, 2002. Hmmmm........"The latest defense bill adopted by Congress moved to mandate military detention for most future al Qaida cases. The White House withdrew a veto threat on the eve of passage, and then Obama signed it into law with a “signing statement” that suggested he could lawfully ignore it."Read the full story here.

• Britain 'working very hard' with US to close Guantanamo: PM.(HurriyetDaily). Prime Minister David Cameron said Wednesday that Britain was working "very hard" with the United States to help close Guantanamo Bay detention camp, on the tenth anniversary of its opening.One British citizen, Shaker Aamer, remains in the prison on Cuba and the government has been pressing for his release, including at talks between Foreign Secretary William Hague and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in December.A lawmaker raised Aamer's case at Cameron's weekly question and answer question in parliament and asked if the premier would commit to doing all he could to ensure 2012 is the last year that Guantanamo operates."The foreign secretary is working very hard with the United States to try and secure this issue and to bring this chapter to a close," Cameron said.He also highlighted a settlement agreed in 2010 with 16 former Guantanamo inmates who alleged British involvement in their arrest and transfer to the camp, and an ongoing inquiry into those claims."We have taken steps as a government, as a country, to try and achieve some closure about what happened in the past by a settlement with those people who were in Guantanamo Bay, and also setting up a proper inquiry to make sure the British government was not complicit in any way in terms of torture to those people who were in Guantanano Bay or indeed elsewhere." Although they initially welcomed the British torture inquiry, rights groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have now boycotted the process, saying it is neither sufficiently credible nor transparent.Hmmmm........Has the 'Emperial' President decided that he will 'release' all prisoners?Read the full story here.

 

 

 

• Remarks by the President at Campaign Event.You know, President Kennedy used to say after he took office what surprised him most about Washington was that things were just as bad as he had been saying they were. (Laughter.) And I understand what he meant. (Laughter.) When you’ve got the top Republican in the Senate saying his party’s number-one priority is not to create jobs, not to fix the economy, but to beat me -- that gives you a sense of the mentality here. Things aren't on the level. That’s how you end up with Republicans in Congress voting against all kinds of proposals that they supported in the past. Tax cuts for workers and small businesses, rebuilding roads and bridges, putting cops and teachers back to work used to be bipartisan ideas.   Now, I’ve said I will continue to look for every opportunity during the course of this year to work with Congress to move this country forward and create jobs.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: We can't wait!

THE PRESIDENT: But we can’t wait. (Laughter and applause.) When Congress -- whenever this Congress refuses to act in a way that hurts our economy and puts our people at risk, I’ve got an obligation as President to do what we can without them. (Applause.) I’ve got an obligation to work on behalf of you and the American people. (Applause.) I’m not going to let members of Congress put party ideology ahead of the people that they were elected to serve -- not when there's this much at stake. This is a make-or-break moment for this country, for the middle class in this country and folks who want to get into the middle class. So, for example, that’s why last week I appointed Richard Cordray as America’s consumer watchdog. (Applause.) Now, this is a man whose sole job is to look out for the best interests of American consumers -- to protect families from the kinds of unfair or deceptive, abusive financial practices that helped to bring the economy to its knees. That shouldn’t be controversial. Why would somebody be against that? (Laughter.) And yet, for almost half a year, Republicans in the Senate blocked his appointment. They wouldn’t even vote on it, not because they said he wasn’t qualified, because they couldn’t say that. Former attorney general -- you had Democrats and Republicans across the country, including his home state of Ohio, saying he was qualified. They just wanted to weaken Wall Street reforms. They thought, well, this might be too tough on these financial firms.Now, does anybody here think that the reason we got into this financial mess was because we had too much oversight? Hmmmmm......"whenever this Congress refuses to act in a way that hurts our economy and puts our people at risk, I’ve got an obligation as President to do what we can without them".Read the full story here.

• HURT: Obama’s naked thuggery.(WT).By Charles Hurt.After all these years it took a great constitutional scholar who had spent a life cloistered in academia and street work to utterly rape our most cherished Constitution.This business of bypassing the Senate to pick “recess” appointments to positions most Americans have never heard of may seem trivial. It is anything but. What Barack Obama has done has been to disembowel the U.S. Senate and shred the most carefully worded document in the history of civilized society.Recess appointment powers were designed by the Founders as a way to fill important Senate-confirmed positions back in the days when the Senate would be out of session for months at a time. It was never intended as a way to skip confirmation in a Senate so deeply divided on a president’s nominees that it simply could not agree to confirm them.Shattering precedent, Mr. Obama is now installing his henchmen to Senate-confirmed positions without the “advice and consent” of the Senate as explicitly stipulated by the Constitution and explicitly directed by the very laws that created those positions.The very constitutional tenets he tossed out to make these appointments are the only tenets that require the president to seek Senate approval of Supreme Court nominees. What is to stop Mr. Obama now — or any future president — from simply “recess appointing” thugs to the Supreme Court in order to uphold his socialist platform?During the previous administration, a minority of Democrats in the Senate stalled dozens of nominees to the federal courts. For some, they steadfastly refused for years on end to give a final up-or-down vote.There was endless idle chatter in Senate hallways of breaking the impasse in various ways that would strain the Constitution. But it always came down to a deep reverence for the document and a larger system that slavishly protects the minority. And Republicans knew that one day they would again be in that minority.What Mr. Obama has done here, though, doesn’t just strain the Constitution. He has torn right though it. When he says it is all supportable by the Constitution, he is lying. There is simply no other explanation for such a learned scholar to say such a thing. Unless he is learned, yet illiterate, which is entirely possible considering the perniciousness of affirmative action at places like Harvard Law School.Whether it is staining our Constitution, killing U.S. citizens with his beloved drones, or drowning us in taxes and Orwellian health regulations, Barack Obama has become our homegrown enemy.He shreds the Constitution with the unflinching calmness of a suicide bomber, uncaring that he is destroying the only system on Earth that could have given him the life and success he has enjoyed, thinking only of the martyrdom that will come through his annihilation of what is most important to others.So, where are the so-called liberal voices of outrage? Are they so high on the elixir of power that they no longer care for the minority or the only refuge on Earth where they are protected? Or have their principled souls been lost in partisan blood thirst?It was no mistake that Mr. Obama chose the very day of the Iowa Republican caucuses to leak word of his decision to rescind the Constitution. It was a hellfire warning of what is to come and that he will stop at nothing to advance his socialist agenda.Hmmmmm.....I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes. ~ Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776.Read the full story here.

• Obama hosts Saudi foreign minister at White House.(JPost).WASHINGTON - US President Barack Obama hosted Saudi Arabia's foreign affairs minister, Prince Saud Al-Faisal, in the Oval Office on Tuesday to discuss key issues related to the Middle East, the White House said."The president and Prince Saud affirmed the strong partnership between the United States and Saudi Arabia and discussed recent developments on key regional issues of mutual interest," it said in a statement. The meeting was not previously announced by the White House. Read the full story here.

• Obama to host Jordan's King Abdullah at White House.(Haaretz).U.S. President Barack Obama will host King Abdullah II of Jordan at the White House next Tuesday, in an effort to advance a negotiated peace between Israel and the Palestinians. According to a White House statement, Obama and King Abdulla II will discuss "a broad range of bilateral and regional economic and security issues during their Oval Office meeting," including their "shared goal of a negotiated peace between Israel and the Palestinians."The White House added that Obama "also welcomes the opportunity to underscore the strong bonds of friendship between the United States and Jordan, and to demonstrate support for the political reforms that King Abdullah II is leading to produce a government that is more transparent, inclusive, and responsive to the aspirations of the Jordanian people." The announcement comes one week after the first Jordanian-mediated meeting between Israeli and Palestinian envoys in months, and just one day after the envoys' second meeting. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's envoy Isaac Molho met chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat in Amman last Tuesday. They then met for a second time on Monday. Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh and representatives of the Quartet - the United States, Russia, the UN and the European Union - also attended Monday's meeting. The prime minister's aides refused to give details of the talks but said another meeting is scheduled before the end of January.Hmmmmm.........How to Fly to Iran from Israel........Jordan......Saudi Arabia.........Iran?Read the full story here.

• ADL offers $2,500 reward for info on anti-Semitic incidents.(JPost).The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) announced Wednesday that it was offering a $2,500 award for information leading the arrest and conviction of those responsible for a "spate of anti-Semitic incidents in New York City reported this past weekend." The incidents included graffiti of a swastika on the windows of four large stores on the Avenue of America in Manhattan, and anti-Jewish slogans on the 18th Avenue and Kingston Avenue subway stations.According to the ADL, Manhattan saw the most anti-Semitic incidents in 2010 of the five boroughs, with 52 out of 133 acts carried out there. Read the full story here.

• Court Refuses to Unblock Oklahoma Ban on Islamic Law.(Vinienco).A federal appeals court on Tuesday blocked a proposed amendment to the Oklahoma constitution that would prevent the state’s courts from considering Sharia, or Islamic religious law.The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit in Denver affirmed a decision by U.S. District Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange to block the constitutional amendment, which garnered support from 70 percent of Oklahoma voters in a November 2010 ballot measure. Muneer Awad, the executive director of the Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, sued in November 2011 to prevent the Save Our State amendment from taking effect. He said the amendment would prevent Muslims from executing valid wills, asserting religious liberty claims in court and accessing the judicial system. He also argued that the amendment violated the First Amendment by singling out Islam for negative treatment.The First Amendment’s Establishment Clause prevents the government from discriminating among religions, unless serving a compelling state interest.The state election officials opposing the suit “do not identify any actual problem the challenged amendment seeks to solve,” Judge Scott Matheson wrote for the three-judge panel, noting that there was no evidence an Oklahoma court had ever applied Sharia law.The officials argued that the amendment banned all religious laws from Oklahoma courts, listing Islamic religious law as an example. But the court rejected that claim, finding it conflicted with the plain language of the statute, which mentioned Sharia law twice.“My office will continue to defend the state in this matter and proceed with the merits of the case,” said Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt in an emailed statement. With the temporary stay in place, the case now returns to the district court in Texas to determine the amendment’s constitutionality.“The First Amendment ensures that all faiths are treated equally. This amendment violates that central principle by sending a message that Muslims are religious and political outsiders,” said Daniel Mach, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who represents Awad.Mach said more than half of U.S. states have considered some type of legislation that would ban state courts from using international or Sharia law. Three other states have passed such laws, he said, but unlike Oklahoma, they do not single out Sharia by name.The case is Awad v. Ziriax et al, U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, No. 10-6273.Read the full story here.

• Companies being Fined for Not Using a Biofuel That Doesn’t Exist.(DougRoss).WASHINGTON — When the companies that supply motor fuel close the books on 2011, they will pay about $6.8 million in penalties to the Treasury because they failed to mix a special type of biofuel into their gasoline and diesel as required by law.But there was none to be had. Outside a handful of laboratories and workshops, the ingredient, cellulosic biofuel, does not exist. In 2012, the oil companies expect to pay even higher penalties for failing to blend in the fuel, which is made from wood chips or the inedible parts of plants like corncobs. Refiners were required to blend 6.6 million gallons into gasoline and diesel in 2011 and face a quota of 8.65 million gallons this year.“It belies logic,” Charles T. Drevna, the president of the National Petrochemicals and Refiners Association, said of the 2011 quota. And raising the quota for 2012 when there is no production makes even less sense, he said.Penalizing the fuel suppliers demonstrates what happens when the federal government really, really wants something that technology is not ready to provide. ...Even advocates of renewable fuel acknowledge that the refiners are at least partly correct in complaining about the penalties... “From a taxpayer/consumer standpoint, it doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense that we would require blenders to pay fines or fees or whatever for stuff that literally isn’t available,” said Dennis V. McGinn, a retired vice admiral who serves on the American Council on Renewable Energy.Yes, but don't ya know that a bunch of masterminds in Washington -- who have never produced a drop of oil, or refined a gallon of gasoline, or know jack-squat about anything related to energy -- are fully capable of producing regulations, fees, and fines, all with the force of law, to demand that technological innovation keep pace with their dreams and desires?These bureaucrats demand -- demand! -- that innovation keep up with their central planning! How else can they organize an entire society?Hmmmm.....Welcome to the plan bureau of"Obama in Wonderland"?Read the full story here.

• Iran - 'Car bomb kills nuclear scientist near Tehran university'.(JPost).A university professor and department head of a uranium enrichment facility was killed by a bomb placed on his car by a motorcyclist in Tehran on Wednesday, Iranian media reported, in an incident that looked similar to attacks on nuclear scientists in the city more than one year ago.The semi-official FARS news agency cited witnesses as saying a motorcyclist stuck a bomb on the side of the car which then exploded, killing one and injuring two people inside. Witnesses told Reuters one other pedestrian was killed in the bombing. FARS identified the victim as Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan. State-run Press TV said he was a university professor.According to the FARS report, Roshan, 32, was a graduate of an "oil industry university," and headed a department at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility in the Isfahan province in central Iran.    A local official likened the attack to previous ones against Iranian scientists, and implicated Israel in the bombing. The today bombing method was similar to the 2010 terrorist bomb attacks against the then university professor, Fereidoun Abbassi Davani - who is now the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization - and his colleague Majid Shahriari. "The bomb was a magnetic one and the same as the ones previously used for the assassination of the scientists, and is the work of the Zionists (Israelis)" FARS quoted Deputy Governor Safarali Baratloo as saying.Witnesses told Reuters they saw two people on the motorbike stick the bomb to the car. As well as the person killed in the car, a pedestrian was also killed by the blast. Another person in the car was gravely injured, they said. Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization said on Wednesday the country’s nuclear path will not change after Tehran accused Israel of killing one of its nuclear scientists in a “heinous act.”The agency said in a statement that the disputed nuclear program, which Iran says is for energy and the West says aims to make atomic weapons, would carry on despite international pressure, Iran’s Arabic language al Alam TV reported.“We will continue our (nuclear) path without any doubt ... Our path is irreversible,” said the statement quoted by the television channel.The statement said the lecturer, who was killed on Wednesday by a magnet bomb fixed to his car by a motorcyclist, was an Iranian nuclear scientist.The heinous acts of America and the criminal Zionist regime (Israel) will not disrupt our glorious path and Iran will firmly continue this path with no doubt,” the statement said.“The more you kill us, the more our nation will become awakened as our late leader of the Islamic revolution Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had said.”Read the full story here.More here (Video).

• Five Muslim men accused of hate crime over anti-gay leaflet.(Guardian).Five Muslim men from Derby have gone on trial for allegedly handing out leaflets calling for gay people to be killed in the first ever prosecution under new legislation making such actions a hate crime.The men, Ihjaz Ali, 42, Mehboob Hussain, 45, Umar Javed, 38, Razwan Javed, 27, and Kabir Ahmed, 28, are accused of handing out to passersby and posting through letterboxes a leaflet calling for gay people to be given the death penalty, and stating that gay sex is a great sin that leads to hell.They are accused of stirring up hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation, the first prosecution under new legislation which came into force in March 2010. They deny the charges.A jury at Derby crown court heard that the five men had handed out a leaflet entitled The Death Penalty? outside and near the Jamia mosque in Rosehill Street, Derby, in July 2010, as well as putting it through nearby letterboxes. The pamphlet showed an image of a mannequin hanging from a noose.The leaflet was one of several that the men were distributing, but the charges relate only to one called The Death Penalty? the jury heard.Bobbie Cheema, opening the case for the prosecution, said: "The leaflets you will see are not educational or simply informative. They are, we suggest, threatening, offensive, frightening and nasty."A fourth leaflet, entitled Dead Derby, had been found but not distributed, she told the court. It described homosexuality as a "vile, ugly, cancerous disease" and stated: "Gay today, paedophile tomorrow?""A word of warning," she told the jury of seven men and five women. "This case is not about, and we must not make it about, an interference with the defendants' freedom of religion or freedom to express their religious views in an attempt to educate or inform people."The vast majority of Muslim, and indeed other religious people, or people with no religion but who have strong views about homosexuality, are able to express their views if they wish in a critical but lawful, moderate and self-controlled way. That's one of the rights we have."The Crown says Ali was charged with four counts because he was the person responsible for the distribution of the leaflets.Each of the five men admits distributing the leaflets, but Cheema said they would probably put forward various lines of defence.In police interviews, she told the court, Ahmed had said he did not feel that the views expressed in The Death Penalty? leaflet – which suggested three different ways to murder gay people – were wrong and simply expressed what Islam says about homosexuality, adding that it was his duty as a Muslim to condemn it.Read the full story here.

• Egypt’s al-Azhar wants Bill of Rights.(BikyaMasr).CAIRO: The head of al-Azhar in Egypt – the Sunni Islamic world’s top religious institution – has called for a Bill of Rights ahead of creating a new constitution this year.In the document put forth on Tuesday, Ahmed el-Tayeb, called for a document that upholds freedom of expression and belief before lawmakers are to put pen to paper in inking a new constitution following last year’s ousting of President Hosni Mubarak.Al-Azhar hopes the document, which The Associated Press reported was three months in the making and was the collaborative work of both Islamic scholars and secular leaders, will enable the institution to exert force as conservative groups gain power in the country.It also comes as the Muslim Brotherhood’s political arm, The Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) and the ultra-conservative al-Nour Salafist party, have won the lion’s share of votes in the first election in the post-Mubarak era, increasing fears that Islamic identities will be put into the new constitution.“We need a new revolution or something that brings together all parties in this country,” George Ishaq, a leading political figure and member of the National Coalition for Change, told Bikyamasr.com.“As we push on, the military must go and we must guarantee the rights of all Egyptians no matter what they believe or what they say. This will be the new Egypt, but right now, I am not convinced,” he added.Al-Azhar hopes the document will be able to support the change Egyptians died for during the 18 days of uprising last January and February. It also has the backing of the country’s intellectuals.A previous document by Al-Azhar, also backed by intellectuals, supported the Arab revolutions and the public’s rights to democratic change.But now, as the military junta appears entrenched in power, and the Islamists showing massive gains in the recent elections, worries abound over the rights of minority groups.Activist Farid Fahmy told Bikyamasr.com that “a lot of the struggle will continue and we believe in democracy and the rights for people, but with so much of the military taking power and the Islamists claiming victory, it will be hard.”El-Tayeb told reporters the bill of rights, which “preserves freedoms of worship, opinion, scientific research and art and creative expression,” was drafted to be a “basis for the country’s new constitution,” according to comments published by Egypt’s state news agency MENA.He argued that Islamic rulings protect freedom of religion and guarantee equal citizenship rights, in a message to Egypt’s increasingly frustrated and worried Christian minority.Read the full story here.

• Syrian patriarch says Christians feel betrayed by West.(BikyaMasr).Europeans and the Americans have come to the conclusion that it is inevitable that Islamist religious fanatics will come to power in the Middle East and they have given up. Istanbul (dpa) – Syria’s Christians, who make up more than 6 percent of the population, are fearful they will be caught up in the 10-month power struggle between the Alawite-dominated government of President Bashar al-Assad and the largely Sunni opposition movement.In an exclusive interview with dpa, Patriarch Ignatius Joseph III, head of the Syriac Catholic Church, which is in full communion with Rome, accused Western governments of sacrificing the rights of minorities in the Middle East in pursuing their geostrategic and economic interests.

dpa: In recent months there have been talks between Syrian churches on the position Christians should take in the conflict between al-Assad and the protest movement. What is the current position here?

Ignatius Joseph III: We Christians of the Middle East are disappointed at the policies pursued by the European Union and the United States, because we note that the Europeans and the Americans regard the problems of the Middle East solely from a political and economic viewpoint.They have come to the conclusion that it is inevitable that Islamist religious fanatics will come to power in these countries and they have given up. We Christians feel that we have been betrayed by them.

dpa: What do you say to the accusation from the opposition that Syria’s Christian churches are supporting the regime, even though it is violating human rights?

Ignatius Joseph III: Yes, we are accused of being on the side of the regime, but all we aim to achieve in the end is that our communities will be able to live in peace. We always have the negative example of Iraq in mind, where many of our co-religionists had to emigrate.

dpa: Certain Syrian Christians say they are, on religious grounds, unable to support a regime that uses violence and kills children.

Ignatius Joseph III: This is a totalitarian regime – that cannot be denied. This is regrettable. But in Syria there has been no democratic education. Apart from a brief phase following the end of the colonial period, we have never had democracy…It is true that this is a police state, and there are many political prisoners … But when there is conflict, and the security forces want to re-establish order in an area, then this cannot happen without the use of force.

dpa: Have you spoken to Western governments, which are banking on the fall of the Syrian government, in order to highlight the situation of the Christians?

Ignatius Joseph III: In May, I met French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe in Paris, and I realized that France and the EU have a preconceived opinion of the Baath regime in Syria. They think this is a monstrous regime that kills its own citizens.Yes, there have been and there are massacres. But nobody talks about the hundreds of thousands of deaths that took place in Iraq (after the US-led invasion) or of the tens of thousands who died recently in Libya.

dpa:What would a solution to the conflict in Syria look like, now that so many people have died in a way that has set in motion a spiral of violence on both sides?

Ignatius Joseph III: There should be dialogue … But in our society we still have the concept of revenge. It is not the way it is in Turkey, where there is an Islamic party in power, but which shows a certain tolerance of those who think differently…Why not have dialogue? Because 5,000 people have been killed? After World War II, which caused the death of millions, Germany and France also engaged in dialogue.Read the full story here.

• Egypt activists vow no Israeli pilgrimage to tomb.(AlArabiya).Egyptian Islamists and other activists vowed Wednesday to prevent Israelis from making an annual pilgrimage to the tomb of a 19th-century Jewish holy man in the Nile Delta.Pilgrimage opponents have decided to stage protests on roads leading to the tomb of Rabbi Yaakov Abuhatzeira in the village of Daymouta, 180 kilometers (112 miles) north of Cairo, said Gamal Heshmat of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group which is the country’s best organized political movement.He said that the late December and early January pilgrimage would be a “suicide mission” for Israelis, because of popular opposition to their presence in Egypt.“Normalization (of relations) with Israel is forced on the people, and the visits too come against the will of people and despite popular rejection,” said Heshmat, who recently won a seat in parliament in the country’s first elections following the ouster of former president Hosni Mubarak.Egyptian activists have rallied against the pilgrimage every year for most of the last decade. Egypt’s daily Al-Ahram newspaper reported Tuesday that 31 parties and groups had joined this year's campaign.The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights organization based in Los Angeles, denounced the attempts to block the pilgrimage. In a Tuesday statement, the center’s Abraham Cooper accused the Brotherhood of trying to “curb religious freedom of Jews.”“In their worldview, there is no respect for the traditions for Jews, dead or alive,” he said.A son to a chief rabbi of Morocco, Abu Hatzeira was revered by some Jews as a mystic renowned for his piety and for performing miracles. The elderly rabbi was making his way from his native Morocco to the Holy Land in 1879 when he fell ill and died in the Egyptian city of Damanhour near Alexandria.According to tradition, his followers tried to move his tomb three times, and three times heavy storms prevented them.After Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty in 1979, Jewish devotees - mostly of Moroccan origin - have traveled annually to the site. But Egypt has limited the numbers of pilgrims.In 2001 and 2004, two court orders banned the ceremony after opponents filed legal challenges.The tomb is a vestige of Egypt’s once-prosperous Jewish community, which at the time of the first war with Israel in 1948 numbered about 80,000 people.But the Arab-Israeli wars, and the resentment and expulsions that they engendered, have reduced the number of Egypt’s Jews to about 60 mostly individuals, living in Alexandria and Cairo, according to the Israeli embassy.Hmmmm.......“In their worldview, there is no respect for the traditions for Jews, dead or alive,”.Read the full story here.

• Israeli Mossad recruiting Iranian exiles in Iraq’s Kurdish region: report.(Stratrisks).The Israeli spy agency Mossad is using Iranian exiles living in the autonomous Iraqi region of Kurdistan to target Iranian nuclear experts and sabotage the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program, says an Iraqi security official quoted by the French daily Le Figaro.“The Mossad agents have increased their infiltration in the Kurdish regions of Iraq,” the unnamed security official was quoted as saying.He said Iranian refugees in the Kurdish regions opposed to the current regime in Tehran are being recruited by the Israeli agents to target Iranian experts in nuclear technology.Iran has regularly accused the United States and Israel of targeting its nuclear scientists in a bid to disrupt its nuclear program.On Monday, Iran’s Revolutionary Court sentenced an Iranian-American man to death on charges of espionage for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), a charge that the U.S. has denied as baseless.Hekmati, a 28-year-old of Iranian descent born in the southwestern U.S. state of Arizona, was arrested in December and Iran’s Intelligence Ministry accused him of receiving training at U.S. bases in neighboring Afghanistan and Iraq.Iran’s judiciary said Hekmati admitted to having links with the CIA but denied any intention of harming Iran, which has had no relations with the United States since its 1979 Islamic Revolution, according to Reuters. Mutual antagonism has reigned since.Iran, which often accuses its foes of trying to destabilize its Islamic system, said in May it had arrested 30 people on suspicion of spying for the United States and later 15 people were indicted for spying for Washington and Israel.Read the full story here.

• Hundreds Threaten Suicide At Microsoft Supplier Plant In China.(CBS).Some 300 Chinese Foxconn employees who manufacture X-box 360 machines said they would throw themselves from their Wuhan, China, plant if demands for lost wages were not met.China Jasmine Revolution, an activist revolutionary organization with a name borrowed from the Tunisian revolt that set off the Middle East unrest, reported that employees made their demands for a wage increase for 100 employees on Jan. 2.Management at Foxconn — the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer and a crucial link in the supply chains of Apple, Dell, Nintendo and Song — responded with an ultimatum. Employees could quit with one month’s compensation awarded for each year with the plant or go back to working.Many employees quit, but Foxconn allegedly dishonored the agreement and awarded former employees nothing.Around 300 workers returned to the plant in an uproar, and staged their protest on the plant’s roof on Jan. 3.A Microsoft spokesperson wrote CBS Seattle a statement saying, “Microsoft takes working conditions in the factories that manufacture its products very seriously, and we are currently investigating this issue. We have a stringent Vendor Code of Conduct that spells out our expectations, and we monitor working conditions closely on an ongoing basis and address issues as they emerge. Microsoft is committed to the fair treatment and safety of workers employed by our vendors, and to ensuring conformance with Microsoft policy.” Touring the Longhua plant in 2011, Terry Gou, the chairman of Foxconn parent Hon Hai Precision, said suicide rates among workers in his plants were smaller compared to the country’s and added a country’s suicide rate typically climbs when its GDP does, Forbes reported.Hmmmm......'kinect' ready?Read the full story here.

• Turkish belly-dancing to Persian santouri.(HuriyetDaily).In Tehran, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu may have told his Iranian hosts that the X-band NATO radar on Turkish soil would be used to intercept missile threats from Bolivia. His Iranians hosts may have nodded and smiled. And next month, Mr. Davutoğlu may tell U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that Turkey could perfectly parent the naughty mullahs in Tehran; that everything would soon come up roses in the Middle East thanks to Turkish polity; and that, by the way, Iran never intended to build the atomic bomb. Mrs. Clinton, too, may nod and smile. The fact is, Turkey has never been the maverick interlocutor in the Islamic world that it claims it has been. Turkey’s belly-dancing around the Western-Persian conflict is not new. Ankara naively thinks that it can win hearts and minds in Tehran by opposing the sanctions; in Washington, it thinks it can do so by agreeing to host the NATO radar hostile to Iran. Professor Davutoğlu may confidently believe that his powers of persuasion work more than perfectly in Tehran and Cairo – like they more than perfectly worked in Damascus and Beirut! The foreign policy wizard may think that “the rise of a ‘Shiite Crescent’ could turn into an opportunity if Turkey and Iran enhance their dialogue.” And, in response, the Iranian soldiers may have shot two Turkish villagers who had illegally crossed into their territory to smuggle fuel. Meanwhile, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may have grinned at Mr. Davutoğlu’s not-so-creative pleasantries. But he, too, probably nodded and smiled. In other words, the sky is the limit! Mr. Davutoğlu may even have gone as far as to believe that he fully agreed with influential Shiite politician Muqtada al-Sadr on the future of Iraq. What future? A Shiite Crescent over the skies of Iraq? The Shiite Crescent which will turn into an opportunity? All the same, sadly, Mr. Davutoğlu and his briefcase full of neo-Ottoman ambitions are simply not so wanted in Tehran, Baghdad, Damascus or in influential office rooms in Beirut. Soon, they will be unwanted in Egypt and Libya, too. Instead of living in his make-believe world, Mr. Davutoğlu should think over and over again to find out why the Algerian government told Ankara to stop referring to French colonization in Turkey’s fight with France over the Armenian genocide denial bill. Or why does one Arab leader after another should keep on saying the “Turkish model” is just unwanted in the “new Arabia.” Ankara increasingly fears that a sectarian split, which has been a bitter fact of life in the Islamic world in the last millennium, would finish off the remaining bits of Turkey’s ambitions to play the leader of Middle Eastern “Islamdom.” Ankara has hoped to play the “Muslim leader” role in the entire region, not just in its selected parts divided along warring sects. A sectarian conflict will completely push Turkey out of the “Shiite Middle East” and limit its target zone to the Sunni Middle East only, where Turkey will not be welcomed since it is too un-Muslim, too un-Arab, too western and too secular. Only in an undivided Islamic region would Turkey have had a limited influence. Hence the nervousness in Ankara…Despite his sometimes illusionary policy-making, Mr. Davutoğlu, no doubt, is a hard-working, decent man of knowledge. But perhaps the pillar of his policy assumptions is not so strong. Simple populism based on “Zionist-bashing” is too weak of a bond to keep Muslim solidarity up and running.Hmmmm.........Can NATO and the U.s. rely on Turkey?Read the full story here.

MFS - The Other News

                    Morning Posting.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why?

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

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

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

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