North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un climbs North Korea's highest mountain: State media.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un climbs North Korea's highest mountain: State media.(channelnewsasia).

SEOUL: North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un has scaled the country's highest mountain, state-run media said Sunday (Apr 19), arriving at the summit to tell troops that the hike provides mental energy more powerful than nuclear weapons.(Climbing shoes?)

He's so full of 'hot air' the snow melts. 

A photo of the leader of the isolated state showed a smiling and wind-swept Kim standing on a snow-covered mountaintop, the sun rising behind him. (Shadow?)

"Climbing Mt Paektu provides precious mental pabulum more powerful than any kind of nuclear weapon," the Rodong newspaper quoted Kim as saying.

The story is the latest run by state media on the feats of the Kim dynasty, which has ruled for more than six decades with an iron fist and pervasive personality cult.

Just last week the regime insisted Kim could drive by the time he was three years old, while his late father Kim Jong-Il said he had scored an incredible 11 holes-in-one the first time he ever played golf.

The 2,750-metre peak of the volcanic mountain, lying on the border with China, is considered a sacred place in Korean folklore and plays a central role in the propaganda glorifying the Kim family.

Pyongyang's state hagiography has it that Kim Jong-Il was born on the mountain - although many historians say he was born in Russia - and praises the family for their "Mt. Paektu bloodline".

State-run news service KCNA reported that the young ruler of the impoverished but nuclear-armed North scaled Mt. Paektu on Saturday morning along with hundreds of fighter pilots as well as top army and party officials.
  Hmmmm.....well actually they probably flew him over with a helicopter and took him back once his uncovered head got cold.

Video - Israeli PM Netanyahu Interviewed on Six International Media

PM Netanyahu Interviewed on Six International Media Networks (Communicated by the Prime Minister's Media Adviser)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, last night (Wednesday, 1 October 2014), was interviewed by National Public Radio's Inskeep, Univision's Jorge Ramos, and MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell. Today he is due to be interviewed by Fox's Greta Van Susteren and CNN's Fareed Zakaria, as well as appear on CBS's Face the Nation.

Following are excerpts from Prime Minister Netanyahu's interview on Univision regarding reports on the construction in Jerusalem and the similarity between ISIS and Hamas:

"This isn't a settlement. These are neighborhoods in Jerusalem. If you said to me that in some city in the United States or in Mexico, or anywhere else, Jews cannot buy apartments, there would be an uproar. You know, there's not only the freedom of property, but the right of every individual to live where they want, as long as they purchase the apartment legally and don't expropriate, don't take over, which isn't the case here. This was a free transaction.

So I just want to understand this policy. It flies in the face of American values, and it flies in the face of common sense." (In his MSNBC interview, the Prime Minister added that the criticism was levelled at a mixed neighborhood in which a large portion of the approved construction will be designated for Arab residents alongside Jewish residents.)

"I didn't say that Hamas and ISIS are twins. I said that they're brothers. They're branches as I said in the UN of the same poison tree of militant Islam. They both share fanatic ideology of first getting these enclaves of militant Islam and then expanding them through terror ultimately to in their view, to dominate the world. Now, they also share the same fanatic methods. And they're very similar, though not identical.

Video - "Obama isn't happy unless he's undoing America"

Senior Fatah Official: Hamas must HIDE its weapons in Gaza

Senior Fatah Official: Hamas must HIDE its weapons in Gaza. (IMRA).

Israel Radio Arab Affair Correspondent Gal Berger reported on the noon news program on Reshet Bet today that at a press conference in Ramallah with PA head Mahmoud Abbas and senior Fatah official Jibril Rajoub, Rajoub said that while Hamas will be prohibited from publicly showing weapons in the Gaza Strip that Hamas is not required to hand over their "weapons of
resistance". Instead Hamas is to hide the weapons.

It should be noted that when Mahmoud Abbas proclaimed again at the UN General Assembly that they would honor all of their agreements ("we want: a sovereign and independent State living in peace and building bridges of mutual cooperation with its neighbors; that respects commitments,
obligations and agreements") that these signed agreements prohibit the PRESENCE of missiles and other various weapons in the Gaza Strip rather than their BEING DISPLAYED.

Ahead of Netanyahu-Obama meet, Palestinians submit draft statehood bid to UN.

Ahead of Netanyahu-Obama meet, Palestinians submit draft statehood bid to UN. (TOI).

Security Council petition calls for Israeli withdrawal by November 2016, ‘a just resolution’ to the refugee problem, and an end to all Israeli military and settlement activity.

The Palestinians have asked the UN Security Council to set a deadline of November 2016 for an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

A draft resolution circulated to council members and obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press also called for “a just resolution” of the status of Jerusalem as the capital of two states, and the Palestinian refugee problem.

It follows Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s announcement to the UN General Assembly on Friday that he would ask the council to set a deadline for an Israeli withdrawal.

The draft also demands an end to all Israeli military operations and settlement activities, the opening of all border crossings in the Gaza Strip, and deployment of “an international presence” throughout the Palestinian territories to protect Palestinian civilians.

Abbas said Wednesday that it would reevaluate its security coordination with Israel in the West Bank if its statehood bid to the UN Security Council was rejected, and added that the Palestinians would file for membership to the ICC if the petition failed to pass, according to Arabic media.

Speaking to journalists in Ramallah, Abbas said the Palestinians were meeting with representatives of the Security Council states to persuade them to accept the resolution once proposed. He added that once a timetable for Israeli withdrawal was set, he would agree to return to the peace talks with Israel.

“As soon as we get that, we are willing to return to the negotiating table,” he said, according to the Haaretz daily.

The unilateral move, widely expected to be shot down in a veto, has been lobbied against by Israel and the United States, which say the conflict needs to be resolved through a negotiated settlement.

Israel’s Channel 2 quoted the chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat saying that the US has already told him it will veto Abbas’s statehood resolution.

Nonetheless, the Palestinians are pushing to try to win the support of 9 of the 15 UN Security Council members in order to force a veto.

The TV report also quoted a new series of offensive statements made against Israel by leading PA figures.

“We are the lords of the land for 3,000 years, Netanyahu can return to his Brooklyn roots,” Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian UN ambassador, said Wednesday in connection with the statehood bid.

It also showed a clip of Abbas aide Jibril Rajoub calling Netanyahu a “Nazi fascist.”

However, the PA president on Wednesday reiterated his stance against armed conflict with Israel, stating that “not even one bullet” will be fired under his watch. Hmmm....If i were Israel, i wouldn't count too much on that US Veto.....not with this President in the WH.

Video - Obama 'admin' Disagrees With Netanyahu's Charge That Militant Islam Aims to ‘Dominate World’

Video - State Departmen Disagrees With Netanyahu's Charge That Militant Islam Aims to ‘Dominate World’ (CNSNews).

The Obama administration does not share Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s view that the forces of militant Islam, whether Sunni or Shi’ite, have in common an ultimate goal “to dominate the world,” a State Department spokeswoman said Monday.

In a hard-hitting speech at the United Nations, the Israeli leader said that entities such as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS/ISIL), Hamas, the Iranian regime, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda and Boko Haram share that eventual goal.

Jen Psaki was asked at the State Department daily briefing later whether the administration agreed with Netanyahu’s argument that those various groups “are all part of the same kind of militant Muslim – Islamic attempt to rule the world.” “We would not agree with that characterization, no,” she replied. Hmmm.....Scary and unreal, totally in denial of reality. Read the full story here.

"CHANGE" - Record 20% of Households on Food Stamps in 2013.

"CHANGE" - Record 20% of Households on Food Stamps in 2013.(CNSNews).

A record 20% of American households, one in five, were on food stamps in 2013, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

The numbers also show there was a record number of individuals on food stamps in 2013 and that the cost of the program, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), was at an all-time high.

The USDA says that there were 23,052,388 households on food stamps in the average month of fiscal 2013, an increase of 722,675 from fiscal year 2012, when there were 22,329,713 households on food stamps in the average month.Read the full story here.

Bin Laden was ‘one-eyed:’ Qaeda leader Zawahiri.

Bin Laden was ‘one-eyed:’ Qaeda leader Zawahiri.(AA).Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri resurfaced for the second time in a month on Wednesday in an online video on the life of his late predecessor Osama bin Laden who he said was blind in one eye. In the almost hour-long video, the third in a series entitled “Days with the Imam,” Zawahiri narrates stories about bin Laden who was killed by elite U.S. Navy SEALS in May 2011 at his compound in the town of Abbottabad, Pakistan. Dressed in a white thawb cloak and turban, Zawahiri revealed “for those who do not know” that Saudi-born bin Laden was left blind in the right eye after an accident in his youth.
He also said bin Laden was a former member of the Saudi branch of the Muslim Brotherhood before being evicted for insisting on jihad against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Bin Laden travelled to Pakistan to deliver cash aid to the jihadists in Peshawar but defied orders from the Brotherhood and joined the armed struggle, Zawahiri said. Zawahiri’s latest video posted on a jihadist forum appeared to be around two months old as he offered greetings to Muslims for the start of the fasting month of Ramadan which ended on August 20.Read the full story here.