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Israel nixes UNESCO visit to Jerusalem

Foreign Ministry rescinded its offer to let a team from the UN cultural agency inspect historical sites in the Old City of Jerusalem, saying the Palestinians violated a prior agreement that the visit be apolitical.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomac...emium-1.524970

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Israel to allow UNESCO inspections in Jerusalem after Palestinians agree to pull damning resolutions

UNESCO inspectors will visit Old City on May 19 to inspect renovation and rehabilitation projects, but will not visit the Temple Mount; Foreign Ministry officials say deal is the result of Israeli diplomatic initiative.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomac...emium-1.517228

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Assailant, a Jew from Beersheba in his 40s, shoots himself after killing four at Bank Hapoalim; Police suspect man was enraged by the bank's refusal to extend his credit line; Netanyahu labels incident a "terror attack."

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The man, a 40-year-old Jew from Beersheba, first visited the bank in an effort to extend his credit line to cover his mortgage. A dispute followed after the bank refused his request.

The assailant then returned to the bank, armed with guns, and shot two bank employees on sight. During the commotion, another two bystanders were shot, and the suspect took a hostage.

The assailant was reportedly barricaded inside the bank with one female hostage, before shooting himself.

A hospital spokesman said at least five people were injured, and four suffered from shock.

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A Budapest court has handed down prison sentences of two and three years to three men who verbally abused visitors to the World Jewish Congress (WJC) that was held in the city this week, state newswire MTI reported Friday.

The agency said the visitors were victims of an anti-Semitic attack during their stay in the Hungarian capital for the WJC, held from May 5 to 7. The three men were convicted after a fast-track trial.

"The main culprit received a three-year prison sentence, while two more received two-year sentences, both suspended for three years," said MTI.

The incident happened close to the city's Great Synagogue, the agency said.

AFP reported that the three assailants shouted Nazi slogans and anti-Semitic insults at the WJC group, and made Nazi salutes, before plain-clothed police intervened.

The main culprit -- who was on probation for a previous drug offence – is appealing his sentence, the report said.

The WJC decided to hold its conference in Budapest in a show of solidarity with the local Jewish community which has suffered increasing anti-Semitism in recent years.

Anti-Semitism in Hungary has been on the rise over the past several years. Recent incidents include Hungary's chief rabbi being verbally abused on a Budapest street, anti-Semitic chants at a football match against Israel and pig's trotters being placed on a statue of Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who saved thousands of Budapest Jews in World War II.

In late November, a far-right deputy from the openly anti-Semitic Jobbik party called publicly for the resignation of a fellow MP who claimed to have Israeli citizenship.

The comments came after another Jobbik parliamentarian released a statement saying that a list should be compiled of all of the Jewish members of government.

WJC President Ronald Laude warned in a speech at the conference on Sunday that continued anti-Semitism is causing Hungarian Jews to consider leaving the country.

During the conference, the WJC adopted a resolution calling on governments in Europe to “consider banning neo-Nazi parties or organizations whose aim is to overthrow the democratic order, or which pose a threat to the safety and well-being of ethnic, religious or other minorities.”

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LONDON – Britain’s Labour Party has suspended one of its lords after he allegedly blamed a Jewish conspiracy for his conviction for dangerous driving.

According to The Times of London, Lord Ahmed told a Pakistani television channel, “My case became more critical because I went to Gaza to support Palestinians. My Jewish friends who own newspapers and TV channels opposed this.”

He added that Mr. Justice Wilkie, the judge who sentenced him, was appointed to the high court after helping a “Jewish colleague” of Tony Blair’s during another case.

Pakistani-born Lord Ahmed, who in 1998 was one of the first Muslim men appointed to the House of Lords, hit a car that had stopped on the hard shoulder of a motorway on Christmas day in 2007, killing 28-year-old Martyn Gombar. Lord Ahmed, who admitted sending and receiving text messages two minutes before the crash, was sentenced to 12 weeks in jail in 2009, but served 16 days.

His alleged comments on Jews, made in Urdu last April, were published by The Times on Thursday. The Labour Party acted swiftly, suspending him “pending an investigation.”

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From Poland to Azerbaijan: Israel is world's largest exporter of drones

In eight years Israel exported $4.6 billion worth of UAVs, to countries ranging from Britain to India and Uganda.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomac...emium-1.524771

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19 May 2013


The EU decision to lift Syrian oil sanctions to aid the opposition has accelerated a scramble for control over wells and pipelines in rebel-held areas and helped consolidate the grip of jihadist groups over the country's key resources.

Jabhat al-Nusra, affiliated with al-Qaida and other extreme Islamist groups, control the majority of the oil wells in Deir Ezzor province, displacing local Sunni tribes, sometimes by force. They have also seized control of other fields from Kurdish groups further to the north-east, in al-Hasakah governorate.

As opposition groups have turned their guns on each other in the battle over oil, water and agricultural land, military pressure on Bashar al-Assad's government from the north and east has eased off. In some areas, al-Nusra has struck deals with government forces to allow the transfer of crude across the front lines to the Mediterranean coast.


As a result of the rush to make quick money, open-air refineries have been set up in Deir Ezzor and al-Raqqa provinces. Crude is stored in ditches and heated in metal tanks by wood fires, shrouding the region with plumes of black smoke, exposing the local population to the dangers of the thick smog and the frequent explosions at the improvised plants.

Heating oil, diesel and petrol is condensed in hoses running from the tanks through pools of water and sold across the north, as far as Aleppo. The remaining crude is shipped by road on tankers to Turkey.

One leading opposition figure said: "The northern front hasn't just gone dormant; the northern front has gone commercial."

The EU announced it was lifting its oil embargo in April to help the moderate opposition. The implementation regulations have yet to be issued so the decision has not taken effect, but regional experts say the announcement intensified the race for oil – a race the western-backed moderates lost.

Joshua Landis, an expert on the region at the University of Oklahoma who runs the Syria Comment blog, said the EU decision on oil "sent a message that oil could come back online faster than most thought possible".

"Whoever gets their hands on the oil, water and agriculture, holds Sunni Syria by the throat. At the moment, that's al-Nusra," Landis said. "Europe opening up the market for oil forced this issue. So the logical conclusion from this craziness is that Europe will be funding al-Qaida."

Abu Albara, an al-Nusra fighter who spoke to the Guardian by telephone from Deir Ezzor, said: "Now, we can say that most of the oil wells are in the hands of the rebels, only a single oil facility in Hasakah is still under the control of [Kurdish fighters]. There are two other oil wells close to the Iraqi borders in the desert. The Iraqi army have surrounded them with tanks but we do not know what they are doing with them."

The al-Nusra guerilla said the group was merely guarding the wells it captured, but the rival groups have accused the Islamists of asset-stripping them for quick money.

"Jabhat al-Nusra is investing in the Syrian economy to reinforce its position in Syria and Iraq. Al-Nusra fighters are selling everything that falls into their hands from wheat, archaeological relics, factory equipment, oil drilling and imaging machines, cars, spare parts and crude oil," Abu Saif, a fighter with the Ahrar Brigade, linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, told the Guardian by phone from the Deir Ezzor area.

"The Syrian regime itself is paying more than 150m Syrian lire [£1.4m] monthly to Jabhat al-Nusra to guarantee oil is kept pumping through two major oil pipelines in Banias and Latakia. Middlemen trusted by both sides are to facilitate the deal and transfer money to the organisation."

A western diplomat watching the situation said: "We understand that in Deir Ezzor, it's a bit of a mix. Al-Nusra is there and there is sometimes co-operation with the regime for practical reasons. In some areas oil products are being given to the local communities, but there are clear dangers in these kinds of open-air refineries."

The diplomat said the EU implementation regulation for the lifting of the oil embargo would include safeguard clauses that would give the western-backed opposition, the National Coalition, the power to authorise exports. But as things stand, the coalition and its allies hold very little of Syria's oil wealth in their hands.

A former Syrian oil executive in the rebel-held areas said: "In the last few months, they seem to have figured a way to sell the oil supply across the lines from the rebels to government forces, through intermediaries trusted on both sides."

The former executive said the oil trade had spawned a growing demand for oil tanker lorries, as a single shipment could earn a profit of up to $10,000 (£6,600). He added that al-Nusra and other jihadist groups were using much of the money to win hearts and minds in areas they have captured, such as al-Raqqa city, which fell in March.

"If you look at what the money does in these places," he said, asking for his name not to be used because of the sensitivity of the issue. "It doesn't take a rocket scientist. You bring in flour, you repair the bakeries, so there are big smiles in the local community. It's an incredible marketing machine."

In April, the head of the western-backed rebel Supreme Military Council, General Selim Idriss, pledged to create a force to secure the oilfields and other economic resources in Deir Ezzor, al-Hasakah and Raqqa provinces, but that force has yet to materialise and observers doubt Idriss has the money, manpower or weaponry to displace the jihadists.

"Idriss probably felt he had to say that, to reassure the Europeans," Landis said. "But nobody takes such claims seriously. Where is he going to get 30,000 men from?"

The only rivals to the power of the jihadists in the oil region are the Kurds in al-Hasakah, and the Sunni tribes around Deir Ezzor, who have found themselves increasingly marginalised by Islamic extremists.

In one well-documented case, fighting broke out in the village of al-Musareb, near Deir Ezzor, between al-Nusra fighters and local tribesmen over ownership of an oil tanker. The al-Nusra commander, a Saudi called Qasura al-Jazrawi, was killed. As a reprisal, the jihadist group levelled much of the village and executed 50 of its residents.

Apart from the latest round of conflict the oil rush has triggered, human rights campaigners have raised concerns about the health impact of the wildcat refining industry. Skin and breathing complaints have become common while there are reports of workers on the improvised oil fields, including children, being burned to death in accidents.

An opposition activist in Hasakah, Salman Kurdi, said: "They refine oil by boiling it to very high temperatures by using gas cans, and most of the time, they blow up. It's killed many of the people who work there.

"A month ago, an explosion happened in an oil well called Shadada, in the countryside south of here, and five people were killed. They dig a big hole and put lots of fire in it and gas to make it boiling. If you travel south to the countryside, you can spot the smoke rising every few kilometres."

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Lew asks Congress for debt increase, says it’s 'not open to debate'

By Peter Schroeder 05/17/13 01:30 PM ET


Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-mone...#ixzz2TgRJwohu
Follow us: @thehill on Twitter | TheHill on Facebook
Treasury Secretary Jack Lew on Friday urged congressional leaders to raise the debt limit and insisted that the White House is not going to negotiate over the increase because lawmakers have "no choice."

"We will not negotiate over the debt limit," Lew wrote. "The creditworthiness of the United States is non-negotiable. The question of whether the country must pay obligations it has already incurred is not open to debate."...

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Hamas, Fatah to form unity gov't within 3 months

Palestinian factions agree on timeline for reconciliation after talks in Cairo that will continue until agreement is reached.

Fatah and Hamas announced on Tuesday that they have agreed on a timeline of three months to achieve reconciliation between the two rival parties.

The announcement was made in Cairo following discussions between Fatah and Hamas representatives under the auspices of the Egyptian authorities.

This was not the first time that the two parties had announced an agreement to end their differences. Over the past few years, Fatah and Hamas have reached a number of such agreements that were never implemented.

Talks between the two sides were abruptly suspended earlier this year due to the wide gap between them. But the latest agreement says that Hamas and Fatah have agreed to end their differences within the next three months.

According to the agreement, Fatah and Hamas representatives will continue to hold discussions until they reach agreement on the formation of a new Palestinian government and set a date for elections for the presidency, the Palestinian Legislative Council and the Palestine National Council (the PLO’s parliament-in-exile).

The statement said that the new government would be headed by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, as stipulated in the Doha Accord that was signed between the two parties last year.

The statement said that Abbas would issue a decree to form the proposed government and hold new elections within three months.

Hamas official Musa Abu Marzouk expressed hope that the two sides would be able to overcome their differences within the next three months.

He said that the discussions during the coming weeks would focus on passing a new electoral law for the Palestine National Council and the Palestinian Legislative Council.

Azzam al-Ahmed, head of the Fatah team to the talks with Hamas, said that a number of joint committees would hold meetings in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to overcome remaining obstacles.

Abbas is scheduled to meet with Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi in Cairo on Thursday to discuss the new agreement and issues related to the Middle East peace process.

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ntelligence sources in Israel spoke to the London-based "The Times" and said that an intact, but weakened, Assad regime would be preferable for Israel and the entire region.

“Better the devil we know than the demons we can only imagine if Syria falls into chaos and the extremists from across the Arab world gain a foothold there," a senior Israeli intelligence officer in the north of the country was quoted ny the paper as saying.

An additional defense official, who also remained unnamed in The Times' report, said that at first Israel had assessed that Assad’s regime would fall sooner.

“We originally underestimated Assad’s staying power and overestimated the rebels’ fighting power,” the official said, adding that in any case, it was preferable for Israel that the two sides fight each other instead of joining forces against Israel.

The comments came in wake of comments made in the New York Times Wednesday in which a senior Israeli official signaled that Israel was considering further military strikes on Syria to stop the transfer of advanced weapons to Islamic militants.

The official also warned Syrian President Bashar Assad that his government would face crippling consequences if it retaliated against Israel, the New York Times reported.

“Israel is determined to continue to prevent the transfer of advanced weapons to Hezbollah. The transfer of such weapons to Hezbollah will destabilize and endanger the entire region," the official said in an interview.

Earlier on Friday, The Wall Street Journal reported Russia has sent at least a dozen warships to its naval base on the Syrian coast, a buildup that US and European officials see as a newly aggressive stance meant partly to warn the West and Israel not to intervene in Syria's bloody conflict.

Meanwhile, the New York Times reported that Russia has sent advanced anti-ship cruise missiles to Syria. The missiles are apparently an improved version of the Yakhonts, which Russia has previously provided to Syria, and have been outfitted with an advanced radar that makes them more effective.

General Martin Dempsey commented on the issue and said that a Russian shipment of anti-ship missiles to Syria was ill-timed and could embolden President Bashar Assad's forces, in addition to prolong the conflict.

"It's at the very least an unfortunate decision that will embolden the regime and prolong the suffering, so it's ill-timed and very unfortunate," Dempsey told reporters at the Pentagon.

On Thursday, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov announced that Russia would remain committed to previously signed arms deal "regarding agreements pertaining to aerial defense weapons."

Lavrov was referring to the S-300 advanced missile defense system, considered by many to be a game changing addition to Syria's arsenal, which could intercept aircraft in a range exceeding 100 km.

The reports and developments came on the back drop of what was perceived to be a failure on the part of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who had attempted to block the Russian sale of S-300 advanced missiles to Syria by making a lighting visit to Russia last week.

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An Egyptian Coptic cleric who was abused by Israeli police during Orthodox Easter services in Jerusalem is threatening to sue, as UNESCO prepares to send a fact-finding commission to investigate ongoing Israeli crimes in the Holy Land.

Video uploaded to the Internet shows Israeli police shoving 85-year-old Arsanious al-Orshalimi and putting him in a headlock.

The incident took place during Orthodox Christian Holy Saturday on May 4 in Jerusalem's Old City. The event drew thousands of people to the area, and hundreds of Israeli police were on guard.

A dozen church leaders in Jerusalem later signed a letter complaining over the ill treatment of clergymen and pilgrims, and for preventing them from entering places of worship.

Orshalimi says he will not remain silent and will "take this issue to court because of all the pain that I suffered."

"It is not only that Israel has isolated our occupied capital from the rest of our country – forcing our people to apply for special military permits to access their families and holy places for religious occasions – but even Palestinians from Jerusalem were beaten when trying to reach the Church of the Holy Sepulchre," said Hanna Amireh, a member of the PLO Executive Committee and Head of the Presidential Committee on Church Affairs.

Police said tens of thousands of Orthodox Christians gathered in the streets around the site where Christians believe Jesus was crucified, buried and resurrected, causing huge delays at dozens of checkpoints.

"The Israeli forces turned a religious occasion into a battle camp scenario," Amireh said.

"This is part of Israel's plan to turn Jerusalem into an exclusive Jewish city. Palestinian Christians and Muslims face countless difficulties in order to reach their holy sites and conduct their celebrations, while Jews from anywhere are allowed to freely pray at their holy places,” he added.

Amireh continued: "It is time for the international community to take real action. What was witnessed in Jerusalem was an attempt to cancel a tradition of 700 years. The Israeli government is doing everything possible in order to achieve its goal of changing Jerusalem's landscape, by building more settlements, demolishing more Palestinian homes, revoking more IDs and by attempting to prevent the normal celebration of Christian and Muslim religious events..."

The PLO said Israeli police stopped a visit organized by Palestinian Christian groups with foreign diplomats and Adnan Ghaleb al-Husayni, the governor for Quds (Jerusalem) Governorate, as they tried to enter the Old City of Jerusalem.

Meanwhile Palestinian foreign minister Riyad al-Maliki on Thursday announced that UNESCO will send a fact-finding commission on May 20 to investigate the ongoing Israeli abuses in Jerusalem.

Maliki told a news conference in Ramallah that the commission would spend five days in Jerusalem before returning to the UNESCO headquarters in Paris to submit a detailed report.

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In the past two weeks, the U.S. and its allies have done just about everything short of getting down on their collective knees and begging Russia to stop delivering weapons to the Syrian government. President Vladimir Putin has received visits this month from three of the most powerful statesmen in the western world — U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on May 7, British Prime Minister David Cameron three days later and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu three days after that. Along with U.S. President Barack Obama, who spoke to Putin by phone on April 29, they have all implored the Russian leader to stop arming President Bashar Assad‘s regime.

However, last week it became clear that Russia was going ahead with S-300 sales immediately despite Kerry’s overtures. This week, the New York Times reported that Russia is delivering not only the sophisticated S-300 anti-aircraft systems to Syria but the dreaded Yakhont “ship killer” missiles, which would make it a lot more painful for any foreign navies trying to intervene in Syria or provide supplies to the rebels by sea.

Why has Russia apparently decided to ramp up its arms supplies to Damascus, despite the West’s pleas? TIME spoke last week with top Russian diplomat Andrei Klimov, the deputy chairman of the foreign affairs committee in the Russian parliament, who explained it as Moscow hedging its bets.

Weapons systems like the S-300, he said, “would simply set the right conditions” for negotiating Assad’s departure. On May 7, Kerry and Putin agreed to begin those negotiations at an international summit in the coming weeks. “To put it simply, the S-300 will put a damper on any desire to attack Syria from the air if that is the real intention of our partners” heading into these negotiations. Russia’s intention in all of this is to avoid making the same mistake it made with Libya, says Klimov, who has travelled to Syria during the civil war there to assess Russia’s options. In 2011, the Kremlin — then led by Putin’s more liberal protege Dmitri Medvedev — was a lot more sympathetic to the international outrage against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was then trying to crush his own violent rebellion. The U.S. and its allies convinced Medvedev not to block a U.N. resolution against Gaddafi, allowing it to pass a vote in the U.N. Security Council.

As Putin sees it, that resolution was taken way beyond its stated purpose of imposing a no-fly zone over Libya — it also opened the door for a full-scale military intervention. Under the U.N. mandate, the U.S. and NATO began flying bombing raids against Gaddafi’s military convoys, which were then moving toward the rebel-held city of Benghazi with the express aim of “cleansing” its revolutionary populace. After fending off that assault, NATO air power continued to provide the rebels with a clear military advantage.

Within weeks, Gaddafi’s army was routed, his convoy was bombed from the air while fleeing the Libyan capital, and the dictator himself was captured hiding in a drain pipe in his hometown. A video of rebels beating, insulting and finally killing Gaddafi soon appeared on YouTube. Putin was furious over this turn of events — seeing it as a blatant violation of Libyan sovereignty and a betrayal of Russia’s willingness to trust the west’s intentions. He has not gotten over the slight. “What we really do not want is to allow the same mistake as with Libya,” Klimov says, “when we believed we were getting one thing and got something totally different.”

Russian weapons will give Assad a good chance of defending himself if any Western powers decide to continue the aerial assaults that took place early this month. The strikes on Syrian targets on May 3 and May 5, apparently carried out by Israeli war planes, also spurred Russia to step up its arms shipments to Assad, Klimov says. “When we see these bombings taking place in Syria, which seem by all accounts to be coming from Israel, we realize that a sovereign government has the right to self-defense,” he says. “In our understanding, these deliveries do not violate any international agreements. Rather, they forbid any aerial attacks against Syria from taking place with impunity.”

Russia points out that its weapons sales to Assad do not violate any international agreements. Unlike with Libya, Russia and China have vetoed every attempt in the past two years to impose a weapons embargo against Assad in the U.N. Security Council. And the Kremlin has no intention of backing away from that position, says Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of the journal Russia in Global Affairs and a top foreign policy expert in Moscow. “If the position on providing arms to the rebel side does not change, then Russia will not back away from any [arms] contracts with Assad,” he says. “And at this point we only see movement in the direction of providing more arms to the rebels, not less.”

On Wednesday, U.S. Senators Robert Menendez and Bob Corker introduced a bipartisan bill to pressure the Obama Administration to provide weapons to “vetted” rebel forces in Syria. “To change the tipping point in Syria against the Assad regime, we must support the opposition by providing lethal arms,” Menendez said in a statement accompanying the legislation, which the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will take up on May 21. “This effort coupled with Russia’s willingness to participate in talks for political transition will give us the best opportunity for a better outcome.”

Talks over a political transition are expected to start early next month. As Putin and Kerry agreed, representatives from Assad’s government and from the rebel forces will be able to attend the conference. The aim is to map out a political transition to end the civil war, which has already claimed some 80,000 lives. “What gives me serious pause,” says Lukyanov, “is that the US and Russia can agree on whatever they want, and maybe they will. But its pompous to think that the people fighting in Syria will obey that decision, put down their arms and go home.”

Still, Lukyanov says it is a sign of progress that Russia and the West have even agreed to a framework for such a conference. They were previously at a deadlock over the issue of whether Assad or his representatives could take part in the transition to a new Syrian government. Putin has always insisted that the ruling regime must be at the table, as well as Assad’s other major ally, Iran. “Now in Moscow there has appeared a tender hope that the West is finally starting to hear what we’ve been telling them all along,” says Klimov. “This conference will be where we can make real progress, if not a compromise, then at least the conditions for a compromise.” And just in case it falls apart, Russia is providing its ally with a radar-guided insurance policy.

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WASHINGTON — The Treasury Department’s inspector general told senior Treasury officials in June 2012 he was investigating the Internal Revenue Service’s screening of politically active organizations seeking tax exemptions, disclosing for the first time on Friday that Obama administration officials were aware of the matter during the presidential campaign year.

At the first Congressional hearing into the I.R.S. scandal, J. Russell George, the Treasury inspector general for tax administration, told members of the House Ways and Means Committee that he informed the Treasury’s general counsel of his investigation on June 4, and Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin “shortly thereafter.”
It remained unclear how much the disclosure would affect the broader debate over the I.R.S.'s problems. Complaints from Tea Party groups that the I.R.S. was singling them out became public in 2012, through media accounts.
Mr. George told Treasury officials about the allegation as part of a routine briefing about ongoing investigations he would be conducting in the coming year, and he did not tell the officials of his conclusions that the targeting had been improper, he said.
Still, the inspector general’s testimony will most likely fuel efforts by Congressional Republicans to show that Obama administration officials knew of efforts to single out conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status for additional scrutiny, but did not reveal that knowledge during President Obama’s re-election campaign.


Representative Paul D. Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, who joined the Republican ticket as the vice-presidential candidate later in the year, said, “That raises a big question.”
Representative Dave Camp of Michigan, the House Ways and Means chairman, said in opening the hearing, “This appears to be just the latest example of a culture of cover-ups — and political intimidation — in this administration. It seems like the truth is hidden from the American people just long enough to make it through an election.”

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When it eventually comes time for Hugh Hefner to leave us for that big Playboy Mansion in the sky, his new bride won’t have to worry about where she’ll end up.

The 87-year-old mogul has bought his wife, 27-year-old former Playboy Playmate Crystal Harris a stunning 6,000-square-foot pad off Hollywood’s Sunset Strip for nearly $5 million, according to real estate website Redfin. The two married in December.

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The commander in chief of the American armed forces today forced a violation of Marine Corps regulations, so he wouldn’t get wet.
According to Marine Corps regulation MCO P1020.34F of the Marine Corps Uniform Regulations chapter 3, a male Marine is not allowed to carry an umbrella while in uniform. There is no provision in the Marine Corps uniform regulation guidelines that allows a male Marine to carry an umbrella.
Nevertheless, during a press conference under a light drizzle with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan this morning, President Obama allowed the First Head to be protected from the elements by an umbrella held by a male Marine corporal.
The relevant portion of the regulation reads, “3035. UMBRELLAS (Female Marines). Female Marines may carry an all-black, plain standard or collapsible umbrella at their option during inclement weather with the service and dress uniforms. It will be carried in the left hand so that the hand salute can be properly rendered. Umbrellas may not be used/carried in formation nor will they be carried with the utility uniform.”
Items not expressly delineated as authorized components of the Marine Corps uniform are prohibited. Male Marines are informed never to carry an umbrella from the earliest phases of training.
Not even the President of the United States can request a Marine to carry an umbrella without the express consent of the Commandant of the Marine Corps, according the Marine Corps Manual.

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Venezuela hopes to wipe out toilet paper shortage by importing 50m rolls

Minister blames shortage on 'excessive demand caused by media campaign generated to disrupt the country'

Associated Press in Caracas

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 16 May 2013 04.31 EDT

First milk, butter, coffee and cornmeal ran short. Now Venezuela is running out of the most basic of necessities – toilet paper.

Blaming political opponents for the shortfall, as it does for other shortages, the government says it will import 50m rolls to boost supplies.

That was little comfort to consumers struggling to find toilet paper on Wednesday.

"This is the last straw," said Manuel Fagundes, a shopper hunting for tissue in Caracas. "I'm 71 years old and this is the first time I've seen this."

One supermarket visited by the Associated Press in the capital on Wednesday was out of toilet paper. Another had just received a fresh batch, and it quickly filled up with shoppers as the word spread.

"I've been looking for it for two weeks," said Cristina Ramos. "I was told that they had some here and now I'm in line."

Economists say Venezuela's shortages stem from price controls meant to make basic goods available to the poorest parts of society and the government's controls on foreign currency.

"State-controlled prices – prices that are set below market-clearing price – always result in shortages. The shortage problem will only get worse, as it did over the years in the Soviet Union," said Steve Hanke, professor of economics at Johns Hopkins University.

President Nicolás Maduro, who was selected by the dying Hugo Chávez to carry on his "Bolivarian revolution", claims that anti-government forces, including the private sector, are causing the shortages in an effort to destabilise the country.

The government this week announced it also would import 760,000 tonnes of food in addition to the 50m rolls of toilet paper.

Commerce minister Alejandro Fleming blamed the shortage of toilet tissue on "excessive demand" built up as a result of "a media campaign that has been generated to disrupt the country".

"The revolution will bring the country the equivalent of 50 million rolls of toilet paper," he was quoted as saying Tuesday by state news agency AVN. "We are going to saturate the market so that our people calm down."

Finance minister Nelson Merentes said the government was also addressing the lack of foreign currency, which has resulted in the suspension of foreign supplies of raw materials, equipment and spare parts to Venezuelan companies, disrupting their production.

"We are making progress … we have to work very hard," Merentes told reporters on Wednesday.

Many factories operate at half capacity because the currency controls make it hard for them to pay for imported parts and materials. Business leaders say some companies verge on bankruptcy because they cannot extend lines of credit with foreign suppliers.

Merentes said the government had met the US dollar requests of some 1,500 small- and medium-sized companies facing supply problems, and was reviewing requests from a similar number of larger companies.

Chávez imposed currency controls a decade ago trying to stem capital flight as his government expropriated large land parcels and dozens of businesses.

Anointed by Chávez as his successor before the president died from cancer, Maduro won a close presidential election on 14 April against opposition candidate Henrique Capriles, who refused to accept the result, claiming Maduro won through fraud and voter intimidation.

He filed a complaint to the supreme court, asking for the vote to be annulled, though that's highly unlikely to happen since the court is packed with government-friendly justices.

Patience is wearing thin among consumers who face shortages and long queues at supermarkets and pharmacies. Last month, Venezuela's scarcity index reached its highest level since 2009, while the 12-month inflation rate has risen to nearly 30%. Shoppers often spend several days looking for basic items, and stock up when they find them.

Fleming said monthly consumption of toilet paper was normally 125m rolls, but that current demand "leads us to think that 40m more are required".

"We will bring in 50m to show those groups that they won't make us bow down," he said.

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Every time a plane crashes, a team of engineers and aviation experts jump into action, methodically reconstructing the event to determine the cause—whether mechanical failure, bad design, pilot error, or poor aircraft maintenance. This painfully acquired knowledge is then immediately fed back into remediation programs for existing airplanes, while informing future aircraft designs. If negligent culpability is found, executives are cashiered and enormous damage claims are paid. The insurers that make these payouts then revise their policies, rates, and eligibility requirements. Airlines with consistently bad safety records disappear. As a result of this feedback, air travel is safer now that it has ever been in the history of aviation.

Compare this to what happens every time a stock market, currency, or national economy crashes. Teams of bankers, economists, and technocrats are dispatched by those in power—to deny responsibility and affix blame on rival bankers, economists, and technocrats. Financial engineers who examine the wreckage rarely agree on what caused the problem, and even when they do politicians ignore their recommendations if they find them unpalatable. Painfully acquired knowledge is usually dismissed because “this time is different.”

Culpable individuals rarely face consequences, and some even run for Congress or governor or get appointed Secretary of the Treasury. Failed banks that had implicit government backing are bailed out and given explicit backing. Congress passes massive regulatory bills that bear little or no relation to the actual cause of the problem. And after a few cursory mea culpas, everyone resumes business as usual, in a vicious circle that has left the global economy less stable after each crisis.

As the Western Democracies expand their footprint across the world’s financial plumbing, the great money center banks increasingly eschew the boring world of commercial lending and dive ever deeper into the trading of derivative instruments so exotic that not one person in a thousand understands them, and certainly not the bureaucrats trying to regulate them. Each turn of the cycle brings tighter global connectivity and integration, everything riding on hair trigger algorithmic trading seeking to squeeze out the last drops of advantage. Many believe this interdependency has reduced the risk of catastrophic failure. These are the same people who tell us that “this time is different.” They are living under a cloud of willful denial about the fragile chains of counter-party risk upon which the whole edifice is propped, believing that the web of complex financial instruments they have woven will protect their own fortunes because their equations tell them so.

Providing the liquidity for it all is an opaque and unaccountable ringmaster whose unique legal status confounds all efforts to audit it, much less bring it under control—the U.S. Federal Reserve. This banker to the banks, lender of last resort, and greatest money printer in history has embarked on a plan of indefinite monetary expansion as a magic tonic to cure unemployment, restore growth, and mitigate the political class’ fiscal insanity. As the Fed presides over this plan-with-no-exit, it gets an assist from hordes of court economists and friendly media pundits who try to convince the rest of us that everything is under control.

“Look at the stock market, it’s booming! Look at the housing market, it’s recovering! Look at consumer price inflation, it barely moves the needle! Look at gold, we have crushed it! Pay no attention to that debt behind the curtain! Forward!”

Outsiders watch bewildered. What does it mean that hopelessly bankrupt nations like Spain can borrow money at less than 5 percent interest? What does it mean that 60 percent of home purchases in many U.S. metro markets are being made in cash, and that hedge funds and institutional investors are the largest buyers? What does it mean that the Dow and S&P 500 are hitting record highs while 47 million Americans are on food stamps? What does it mean that the official unemployment rate is going down while the number of people not working is going up? What does it mean that the Consumer Price Index is showing less than 2 percent inflation?

I’ll tell you what it means. It means that this whole thing has become an insider’s game.

The reason we are not seeing consumer price and wage inflation is precisely because quantitative easing—the Fed’s fancy term for flooding the economy with new cash—is failing, and everybody knows it. Businesses and consumers are not fooled by the illusory wealth effect. Despite the happy-days-are-here-again campaign, ordinary people and companies are not running out to borrow and spend, hire, or expand, because they are not stupid. Anyone with half a brain is hunkering down, knowing that when the next crisis comes, it’s going to be very, very ugly.

The insiders don’t care because, as Keynes said, we are all dead in the long run. They are too busy making paper fortunes as they watch the tsunami of freshly printed money chase its own tail in ever tightening circles, all within the financial industry. The Fed, through its bond buying and interest rate manipulation, has destroyed the yield on safer assets, and thus driven investors into a desperate search for return. Predictably, bubbles are forming everywhere this money can be put to work. And behind it all, acting like a giant debt sponge, is the Federal Reserve, loading up on mortgages and sovereign bonds.

Meanwhile, every other central banker on the planet must follow suit, lest they risk destroying their countries’ export industries due to competitive devaluation. Mortgage debt and sovereign bonds, every bank stuffed to the gills, all “insured” by a chain of derivatives only as strong as its weakest counter-party link. But isn’t the souring of mis-priced debt exactly what caused the last catastrophe? Yep. So what is different this time? What is different this time is that when history’s biggest Bad Bank, the lender of last resort, the printer of the only global reserve currency runs out of gas, there will be no one left to bail it out.

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Turkey has defied both Washington and Baghdad by agreeing an energy deal with the north of Iraq that the US warns could further fracture the Middle Eastern state, but which Ankara sees as central to its own future.

Several Turkish officials confirm Ankara struck a secretive framework agreement earlier this year with the autonomous Kurdish Regional Government of Northern Iraq for Turkish state energy companies to take stakes in the region’s oil and gasfields. They add the deal is still so sensitive that it is unlikely to be acknowledged publicly until after a visit by prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Washington this week, a trip that takes place against a backdrop of increased tension in Iraq itself.

The agreement, together with Turkey’s political opening towards its own Kurdish population, is set to bolster Ankara’s influence in the energy-rich north of Iraq and could help it generate sufficient energy supplies to meet its ambitious growth targets. Mr Erdogan has previously described the deal as a “win win”.

Kurdish officials welcome closer relations. “Let’s be honest: Turkey is our door to the world,” said one, pointing to the KRG’s problematic ties with other neighbours. “Look at the [strained] situation with Iran, Syria, the rest of Iraq . . . Turkey is a big power in the region and, if it follows good policies like at the moment, why not be an ally?”

But the central Iraqi government in Baghdad says that without its permission the energy agreement violates the Iraqi constitution. A direct pipeline link to Turkey under the deal would give the KRG, which already has its own military force, much greater economic independence than before. At present, the only export pipelines available to the region are federally controlled and the KRG has halted exports through them because of a budget dispute with Baghdad.

Washington has also campaigned hard against the Kurdish-Turkish deal, with John Kerry, secretary of state, calling Masoud Barzani, the KRG’s president, in March to warn him against concluding an agreement with Turkey or any other state in the face of Baghdad’s opposition.

“The US have their views on certain issues, we have ours,” said a senior Turkish official. “They cannot speak so strongly on a matter of strategic and national interest.” He added that the stability of Iraq would not be served by further concentrating power in the hands of Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister.

US officials fear that, by further alienating Mr Maliki, a deal could push Iraq closer to Iran, while heightening the tensions between the KRG and the central government. Washington hopes to reduce the impact of the deal on already frayed diplomatic ties between the Shia-dominated government in Baghdad and Sunni-majority Turkey.

The tensions between the two capitals was highlighted last week when Mr Maliki said it was unacceptable for fighters from the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, to enter Iraq from Turkey. The Kurdish fighters’ current pullout from Turkish territory is a key part of the peace process between Ankara and the outlawed group.

With an annual energy import bill of more than $50bn, Ankara wants to guarantee sufficient energy supplies to meet its ambitious economic goals and officials voice their regret at having passed up previous deals in the past with Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan.

Indeed, five years after Turkey and the KRG came close to conflict because of Kurdish militant activity in Northern Iraq, some diplomats suggest the region could become a virtual client statelet for Ankara while remaining within Iraqi frontiers. About 1,000 Turkish companies are active in the landlocked territory, which depends on Turkey’s roads and ports for access to Europe.

Abdullah Ocalan, the PKK leader, has talked of a “stateless union” between Kurdish populations in Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran, which would increase integration while maintaining borders. Meanwhile, Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkey’s foreign minister, has called for the Middle East to make the region’s current “artificial” borders irrelevant – rhetoric that has particular resonance on the border between Turkey and the KRG.

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LONDON (AP) — Seven men were convicted in London on Tuesday for sexually abusing underage girls, including one who was just 11, by plying them with alcohol and drugs before forcing them to commit sex acts.

The guilty verdict followed five months of testimony indicating the pedophile sex ring exploited girls between 2004 and 2012 in the Oxford area, some 60 miles (95 kilometers) northwest of London. Charges include rape, trafficking and child prostitution.

The case follows several other high-profile ones of sex rings that took advantage of underage girls.

Chief prosecutor Baljit Ubhey said the girls were subjected to "truly appalling" abuse by a network of perpetrators.

"No one, let alone a child, should ever be exploited as these young victims were," she said. "The men who have been convicted have still failed to accept any responsibility for their crimes. They are nothing less than vicious sexual predators."

Prosecutors said seven of the men on trial were of Pakistani descent and two had family roots in North Africa. Other recent high profile cases, including one in Rochdale that involved a similar sex ring, have also involved Pakistani men convicted of abusing young white girls, in some cases sparking ethnic tensions and protests.

On Tuesday, Judge Peter Rook told the men that long prison sentences are "inevitable" because of the serious nature of the offenses.

This case was slightly different in that it involved many instances of child prostitution. The girls were taken to various parts of Britain and forced to have sex with men who paid the convicted men for access to the girls. But as in the Rochdale case, it appeared the police missed opportunities to stop the cycle of abuse.

Most of the victims — whose names cannot be released for legal reasons — gave evidence from behind a curtain at the five-month trial, describing forced encounters, physical abuse and intimidation.
One described how she was even threatened with arrest for wasting police time when she tried to report the abuse. She wept as she recounted how the gang threatened to burn her brother alive unless she had sex with them, saying that nothing happened after she went to police when she had decided to break away from her abusers.

"They threatened on a number of occasions to arrest me for wasting police time for turning up at a police station in a state after running away," she told the court. "Any self-respecting police officer would have seen something was wrong. If you pick up a child who is covered in cigarette burns and bruises, something is fundamentally wrong."
One victim said she was "branded" with a hairpin after it was heated up to show that she was the property of one of the abusers.

Another victim said the men told her she would be shot if she did not have sex with them. She was 14 at the time.

The girls were generally from troubled families and many were living in "care homes" where administrators ignored their frequent absences and their substance related problems.
Oxford County Council chief executive Joanna Simons said she was "incredibly sorry" authorities were not able to stop the abuse earlier.

One teenager who said she was groomed at the age of 11 and turned into a sex slave described being followed into a bathroom and raped by one of the men convicted Tuesday. Her rapist later introduced her to other men and told her to perform sex acts on them. At the age of 12, she told the court, she was forced to undergo an illegal abortion on a living room floor.

The men convicted include Akhtar Dogar, 32, who was found guilty of five counts of rape and other charges and his brother Anjum, 31, who was convicted of three counts of rape and other charges.

Another set of brothers, Mohammed Karrar, 38, and his brother, Bassam, 33, were also convicted of rape involving a child under 13 and other charges, including facilitating child prostitution.

Kamar Jamil, 27, was convicted of multiple rape charges and other crimes; Assad Hussain, 32, was convicted of two counts of sexual activity with a child; and Zeeshan Ahmed, 27, was also convicted of two counts of sexual activity with a child.

Two men were cleared of sex abuses charges Tuesday.

The convicted men will be kept in custody until they are sentenced next month.

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Rival Islamic groups battle to shape Egypt’s future

By Borzou Daragahi in Cairo


A battle between rival religious power centres over Egypt’s institutions and the nature of its Muslim identity threatens economic and political stability in the Arab world’s most populous country.

While Egypt observers have fixated on the battle between secularists and Islamists as the defining fact of political life since the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi won the presidency last year, some analysts say there is an equally intense contest between competing religious groups.

This fight has already had economic consequences and political implications as rival groups battle for popular advantage on issues such as a new market for debt securities, a multibillion dollar IMF loan package and the country’s rising birth rate.

“I think what we’re seeing is a battle for who represents Islam in Egypt,” said Shadi Hamid, a scholar at the Brookings Doha Centre think-tank. “It’s up for grabs and there are a lot of competitors. Each has a different conception of the role of Islam in public life.”

Islamist groups have proliferated since the revolution more than two years ago but are broadly divided between the politically dominant Brotherhood, the Salafis and the leadership at al-Azhar, Egypt’s most revered Islamic school of learning. All three foresee Islam playing a vital role in the public life, institutions and economy of post-revolutionary Egypt but are divided by political loyalties and doctrinal differences.

Salafis, grouped into several political parties and a proselytising institution, believe in a puritanical, orthodox version of Islam and a strict interpretation of the Koran.

The Brotherhood’s religious views have been shaped by its years in the trenches of politics and social service.

Al-Azhar, a sprawling mosque, university and elementary school system is led by highly educated clergy sympathetic to the mystical Sufi strain of Islam and close to the liberal opposition.

“You’ve got these movements that draw their authority from different sources,” said Nathan J Brown, an Egypt expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think-tank. “The Brotherhood draws from democratic credentials. Azhar has it on the basis of their own expertise. And the Salafists refer to the original texts. The question is who speaks authoritatively and finally in the name of Islam.”

The most potentially destabilising fallout from the power struggle could be over Egypt’s economy, analysts say. After Mr Morsi secured the passage of a law to create and regulate a market in debt-like securities called sukuk al-Azhar scholars wanted to review the legislation for compliance with Muslim jurisprudence. Some Salafis oppose a $4.8bn proposed IMF loan deal on the grounds that interest is forbidden.

The impact of the power struggle is being felt in all parts of Egyptian life. When international family planning officials met in Egypt last month before a June conference on population control, they were told no one from the Muslim Brotherhood or its political party, the country’s dominant political force, would attend. “They were clear,” a senior international official said. “They said, ‘We are not against family planning. But we don’t want to create problems with Salafis’,” their more hardline Islamist rivals. Two Brotherhood spokespersons contacted declined to comment.

Conflict has burst into the open. Salafis and the Brotherhood jumped on a chance to weaken the moderate leadership at Azhar. When students fell sick from food poisoning, Mr Morsi denounced mismanagement at the institution. Salafis, often derided by the senior Azhar clergy, piled on criticism. The institution’s president was fired and is to be replaced in a hotly contested election.

Rivalry has intensified over appointments to vacant seats on the 40-man body that oversees Azhar. The fierceness of the battle to appoint the new grand cleric or mufti – in the end, a liberal was selected – “illustrates how politically fraught senior religious appointments have become,” Professor Brown wrote.

Other battles hint at the geopolitical influences that overshadow Egyptian politics. When hundreds of Iranian tourists arrived in Upper Egypt in April the Salafis accused the government of allowing Shia proselytisers into Sunni Egypt.

“We won’t gain much out of this except funding terrorism,” said a Salafi party leader who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Mohamed Soudan, a spokesman for the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice party, said: “These are tourists.

He added of the protests: “Maybe this is because of pressure coming from Saudi Arabia.”

Saudi Arabia has sway over the Salafis and fears growing links between Egypt and Iran.

How these arguments shake out will shape Egyptian politics, economics and society for years.

“Long-term I think that there is a battle going on over who speaks for Islam and over the ways in which Egypt’s status as a Muslim society will translate into day-to-day affairs,” Prof Brown said.

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The International Criminal Court (ICC) has launched a preliminary inquiry into an Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla which left nine Turkish activists dead.

ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said it would establish whether there were grounds for a full investigation.

The move follows a request from the Comoros islands, in which one of the vessels was registered.

The boats were trying to transport aid supplies to Gaza in May 2010.

The Free Gaza Flotilla, which had more than 600 pro-Palestinian activists aboard several ships, was trying to break Israel's naval blockade.

The activists were killed when Israeli commandos boarded the lead flotilla vessel, Mavi Marmara.

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Israel is the poorest country in developed world, OECD report shows

Israel is the most impoverished of the 34 member countries, with a poverty rate of 20.9%, according to a report released by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/national...emium-1.524096

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To maintain discipline in the military, it must have been necessary at that time," said Mr Hashimoto. "For soldiers who risked their lives in circumstances where bullets are flying around like rain and wind, if you want them to get some rest, a comfort women system was necessary. That is clear to anyone."

The Chinese Foreign ministry said the use of Chinese women as sex slaves was a "serious crime".

"We are shocked and indignant at the Japanese politician's remarks, as they flagrantly challenge historical justice and the conscience of mankind," he said. "How Japan treats its past will decide its future," he added.

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IRS official Lerner speedily approved exemption for Obama brother’s ‘charity’

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/05/14/ir...#ixzz2TK56ozCK
Lois Lerner, the senior IRS official at the center of the decision to target tea party groups for burdensome tax scrutiny, signed paperwork granting tax-exempt status to the Barack H. Obama Foundation, a shady charity headed by the president’s half-brother that operated illegally for years.

According to the organization’s filings, Lerner approved the foundation’s tax status within a month of filing, an unprecedented timeline that stands in stark contrast to conservative organizations that have been waiting for more than three years, in some cases, for approval.

Lerner also appears to have broken with the norms of tax-exemption approval by granting retroactive tax-exempt status to Malik Obama’s organization....

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A steeper-than-expected rise in US shale oil reserves is about to change the global balance of power between new and existing producers, a report says.

Over the next five years, the US will account for a third of new oil supplies, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

The US will change from the world's leading importer of oil to a net exporter.

Demand for oil from Middle-East oil producers is set to slow as a result.

"North America has set off a supply shock that is sending ripples throughout the world," said IEA executive director Maria van der Hoeven.

The surge in US production will reshape the whole industry, according to the IEA, which made the prediction in its closely-watched bi-annual report examining trends in oil supply and demand over the next five years.

The IEA said it expected the US to overtake Russia as the world's biggest gas producer by 2015 and to become "all but self-sufficient" in its energy needs by about 2035.

The rise in US production means the world's reliance on oil from traditional oil producing countries in the Middle East, which make up Opec (the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries), would end soon, according to the report.

Slower growth
US production is set to grow by 3.9 million barrels of oil per day (bpd) from 2012 to 2018, accounting for some two-thirds of the predicted growth in traditional non-Opec production, according to the IEA.

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The regional fallout from the 'Arab Spring' is taking a toll on investment and capacity growth”

IEA
Meanwhile, global oil demand is set to increase by 8% which would be met mainly by non-Opec supplies, the report said

The IEA still expects production capacity among traditional Opec suppliers in the Middle East to continue to grow over the next five years, but at a slower rate.

Opec capacity, which counts for 35% of today's global oil output, is expected to rise by 1.75 million bpd to 36.75 million bpd in 2018, about 750,000 bpd less than predicted in the IEA's 2012 forecast.

The IEA cites the "growing insecurity in North and Sub-Saharan Africa" in the wake of the Arab Spring uprisings as a key reason for the slowdown.

"The regional fallout from the 'Arab Spring' is taking a toll on investment and capacity growth," the IEA said.

Fracking
The sharp rise in US oil production is largely thanks to shale oil, a product many have hailed as the saviour of the US energy market.

Fracking, the process of blasting water at high pressure into shale rock to release oil (or gas) held within it, has become widespread in the US.

But critics of shale oil point to environmental concerns such as high water use and possible water contamination, the release of methane and, to a lesser extent, earth tremors caused by drilling.

The process has been banned in France, while the UK recently lifted a moratorium on drilling for shale gas.

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) - Russia expelled a U.S. diplomat on Tuesday after saying he had been caught red-handed with disguises, special equipment and wads of cash as he tried to recruit a Russian intelligence agent to work for the CIA.

The announcement, a throwback to the Cold War, came at an awkward time for Washington and Moscow as they try to improve relations and bring the warring sides in Syria together for an international peace conference.

Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said Ryan Fogle, a third secretary at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, had been detained overnight carrying "special technical equipment", a disguise, a large sum of money and instructions for recruiting his target.

The Foreign Ministry summoned U.S. Ambassador Michael McFaul to discuss the case on Wednesday and released a statement demanding Fogle leave Russia without delay.

"Such provocative actions in the spirit of the Cold War will by no means promote the strengthening of mutual trust," it said.

Russian television showed grainy footage of a man identified as Fogle being arrested, and the state-run Russia Today channel published photographs on its website that it said showed Fogle being detained in a blond wig.

In one photograph, a man lay face-down on the ground with his arms being pinned behind his back.

Another image showed two wigs, apparently found on him, as well as three pairs of glasses, a torch, a mobile phone and a compass. Also displayed was a wad of 500-euro ($650) notes and a letter addressed to a "Dear friend".

"YOUR COOPERATION VALUED"

"This is an advance from someone who has been highly impressed by your professionalism, and who would highly value your cooperation in the future," the letter said.

"We are willing to offer you $100,000 and discuss your experience, expertise and cooperation, and payment could be significantly larger, if you are willing to answer concrete questions," it said, offering $1 million a year for long-term cooperation plus possible bonuses for useful information.

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Boycotting Israel, while chiding Britain and the U.S. for 'war crimes' but not boycotting them, shows that the renowned scientist has dual standards.
He called the war in Iraq, and the United Kingdom’s participation in it, “a war crime,” and as one who identifies with the British Labour Party’s left wing, he expressed his support, in principle, for his country’s unilateral nuclear disarmament.

in light of these opinions, Hawking’s decision to join the academic boycott of Israel is still surprising. What measures did he take after deciding that Britain’s participation in the war against Saddam Hussein was a “war crime”? Did he refuse to pay taxes to his government? Did he tell Israeli researchers and scientists to refuse invitations from British academic and official institutions then? Does he do so now?

The war in Iraq was led by the United States, which continues to operate a completely illegal detention camp at Guantanamo Bay. I never heard Hawking announce that he was boycotting the U.S. and its academic and public institutions because of war crimes that he felt the U.S. had committed in Iraq.
In 2009, President Barack Obama awarded Hawking the Presidential Medal of Freedom, that country’s highest civilian honor. At the time, Hawking expressed enthusiastic support for Obama’s positions; we may assume that the president’s decision to award the Medal of Freedom to Hawking was an act of gratitude for that support.

There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s the way of the world, and Hawking is certainly one of the greatest scientists living among us. But didn’t it bother him to receive the medal — and the Medal of Freedom, no less — from the president of the U.S. who, despite his statements, continues waging the complicated war in Afghanistan even more strongly than before, and who, despite his statements, is the leader of a superpower that continues to operate the detention center that is a kind of “black hole” (a concept that Hawking certainly understands)? Hawking finds the president of the State of Israel unacceptable because of Israel’s policy toward the Palestinians, but he finds the president of the U.S. is perfectly all right and the atrocity known as the detention center at Guantanamo Bay doesn’t bother him?
http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/steph...emium-1.523601

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