Only viable political solution for Syria is 1 w/out Asad; partnering w/ regime wld not only be wrong, but dangerous b/c wld strengthen ISIL
— Samantha Power (@AmbassadorPower) March 31, 2015
The tweet above was retweeted by the French Ambassador to the US, @GerardAraud, and by the US State Department.
It starts: Emirates first two nuke plants applies for licenses, to go online by '17
Anyone who thought that an Iranian nuclear capability would not set off an arms race in the Middle East needs to be concerned about this: The United Arab Emirates has submitted its first two applications for operating licenses for nuclear power plants, with four such power plants expected to go online by 2020.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) Federal Authority for Nuclear
Regulation (FANR) will now examine the submission. ENEC is aiming to
receive the operating licence for Barakah unit 1 in 2016, in time for
the plant to become operational in 2017, with the licence for Barakah
2 expected to be received the same year. The company is seeking a
licence to operate both units for 60 years, in line with the expected
operating life of the Korean-designed APR1400 units.
ENEC CEO Mohammad Al Hammadi said the on-time submission of the OLA
was a crucial milestone towards the 2017 start-up of the UAE's first
nuclear power plant. "The submission is the culmination of many years of
work by ENEC and Kepco. It is proof of the organization's successful
transformation into a world-class nuclear operating company," he said.
ENEC has already applied to FANR for two separate licences covering
the import, receipt and possession of radioactive and nuclear materials,
which it anticipates receiving well ahead of its first fuel load for
Barakah 1 in 2016.
Barakah will ultimately comprise four APR-1400 reactors built by the
KEPCO-led consortium. Unit 1, under construction since 2012, is now over
69% complete and on schedule for its 2017 start-up. Units 2, 3 and 4
are scheduled to follow on at 12-month intervals, with units 2 and 3
under construction. Work has yet to begin on the fourth unit, which is
expected to start up in 2020.
The Emirates has the fourth largest (fifth if you include OPEC as a country) proven oil reserve in the world. Now, obviously these plants are intended for civilian purposes (the United States actually is helping the UAE to build the plants), but Iran claims the same thing about their nuclear power plants, and one has to wonder whether the United Arab Emirates would be seeking a nuclear energy capability were it not facing Iran, which will soon have one. And like Iran, the UAE is not exactly a democracy.
Jewish Community Federation of Richmond (Virginia) blasts State Bar Association for boycotting Israel
The Jewish Community Federation of Richmond (Virginia) has issued a powerful response to the State's Bar Association's decision to cancel a trip to Israel, essentially abiding by the diktat of the European-Arab-Muslim Boycott-Divest-Sanction movement.
'Palestinians': We never agreed to drop the ICC prosecution
The 'Palestinians' are denying a story I ran earlier today that claimed that they had agreed to drop their attempt to have Israel prosecuted for 'war crimes' in the International Criminal Court in exchange for having their tax moneys released.
A senior Palestinian official told Haaretz that the report, which
first appeared in The Jerusalem Post, was entirely false and merely spin
put out by the Prime Minister's Office.
"We continue to seek membership of the
International Criminal Court and we expect the ICC to open an
investigation into Israeli settlements, as well as the recent war in
Gaza," the official said.
"The reports in the Israeli newspapers are nothing
more than spin from Netanyahu's bureau; there was no such agreement. The
money that Netanyahu transferred is Palestinian money and he isn't
doing us any favors."
As far as the Palestinian Authority is concerned,
the official added, Ramallah is more determined than ever to forge ahead
with war crimes charges in The Hague.
"This Wednesday," he said, "Palestine will become a
member of the ICC and the Palestinian Foreign Minister, Dr. Riyad
al-Maliki, will represent the Palestinians in The Hague." He added that
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said as much during the Arab League summit in Egypt over the weekend.
Who wants to bet that they did agree to drop it and changed their tune once the money was released?
Iran would not
necessarily have to ship its stockpile of highly enriched uranium abroad
under a nuclear pact with major powers, U.S. State Department
spokeswoman Marie Harf said on Monday.
"You don't have to ship it out
of the country to get to a year breakout time," she said in a conference
call, referring to the goal of stretching the amount of time it would
take Iran to acquire enough fissile material to make one atomic bomb.
"You can have some other dispositions for it that get us where we need to be in terms of our bottom line," Harf said.
One evening this past September, Vice President Joe Biden and his
wife, Jill, hosted a gathering in Washington to celebrate Rosh Hashanah,
the Jewish new year. The guests—political supporters, leaders of Jewish
organizations, members of Congress, Jewish officials of the Obama
administration, and the stray journalist or two—gathered by the pool of
the vice president’s house, on the grounds of the U.S. Naval
Observatory.
Biden was characteristically prolix. He talked about the Shoah, and
about the many contributions Jews have made to American life, and he
mentioned, as he invariably does in such settings, his first encounter
with a legendary Israeli prime minister.
“I had the great pleasure of knowing every prime minister since Golda
Meir, when I was a young man in the Senate, and I’ll never forget
talking to her in her office with her assistant—a guy named Rabin—about
the Six-Day War,” he said. “The end of the meeting, we get up and walk
out, the doors are open, and … the press is taking photos … She looked
straight ahead and said, ‘Senator, don’t look so sad … Don’t worry. We
Jews have a secret weapon.’ ”
He said he asked her what that secret weapon was.
“I thought she was going to tell me something about a nuclear
program,” Biden continued. “She looked straight ahead and she said, ‘We
have no place else to go.’ ” He paused, and repeated: “ ‘We have no
place else to go.’ ”
“Folks,” he continued, “there is no place else to go, and you
understand that in your bones. You understand in your bones that no
matter how hospitable, no matter how consequential, no matter how
engaged, no matter how deeply involved you are in the United States …
there’s only one guarantee. There is really only one absolute guarantee,
and that’s the state of Israel. And so I just want to assure you, for
all the talk, and I know sometimes my guy”—President Obama—“gets beat up
a little bit, but I guarantee you: he shares the exact same commitment
to the security of Israel.”
Hmm.
P5+1 foreign ministers meeting at #Iran talks in Lausanne has broken up - after only 18 minutes.
(Removes extraneous word)
— Matt Lee (@APDiploWriter) March 30, 2015
For months, Irantentatively agreed that it would send a large portion of its stockpile of uranium to Russia,
where it would not be accessible for use in any future weapons program.
But on Sunday Iran’s deputy foreign minister made a surprise comment to
Iranian reporters, ruling out an agreement that involved giving up a
stockpile that Iran has spent years and billions of dollars to amass.
“The
export of stocks of enriched uranium is not in our program, and we do
not intend sending them abroad,” the official, Abbas Araqchi, told the
Iranian media, according to Agence France-Presse. “There is no question
of sending the stocks abroad.”
On Saturday, former IAEA chief inspector Ollie Heinonen published a paper that concluded that based upon leaks about what is in the current deal, Iran could have a nuclear breakout in 7-8 months.
What is Iran's current breakout time?
Natural uranium has only 0.7 percent of the isotope U-235, and the
effort required to enrich it to one SQ of WGU is about 5,000 Separative
Work Units (SWUs). Iran currently has about 9,000 functioning
first-generation IR-1 centrifuges, with another 9,000 not in operation.
The IR-1s installed in the Natanz and Fordow facilities have been
performing at an average per unit rate of 0.75 to 1 SWU per year. Using
the 1 SWU/year performance of the latest IR-1 model, the breakout time
with 9,000 machines using a natural uranium feed would be six to seven
months. However, Iran also has substantial stocks of 3.5 percent
enriched uranium hexafluoride (UF6) that can be used as an alternative
feed, shrinking the breakout time to three months.
If Iran brought online its other nearly 9,000 IR-1s, breakout time
would be about three months with natural uranium feedstock and four to
six weeks with 3.5 percent UF6 feedstock. Iran has also developed the
more advanced IR-2m centrifuge, rated at 5 SWU/year. If the 1,000 IR-2ms
installed at Natanz were used in conjunction with all 18,000 IR-1s, the
respective breakout times would be cut by a third.
According to media accounts, the proposed nuclear agreement
would lower the number of operating centrifuges to around 6,500. In that
circumstance, what would Iran's breakout time be?
Using IR-1s with natural uranium as a feed, the breakout time for 6,500
centrifuges would be about nine months. A crucial question will be how
much 3.5 percent enriched UF6 will remain in Iran. Yet even if UF6
stocks are reduced from their current 7.5-8 tons to 500 kg, a breakout
time of between seven and eight months would still be possible given the
program's enrichment capabilities with natural uranium feed. Since
these breakout times are less than the goals set by the U.S.
administration, it is important to know what parameters Washington used
for its estimates.
So everyone other than the Obama administration has figured out that this is a bad deal? What could go wrong?
Success? 'Palestinian Authority' to drop ICC in exchange for tax moneys
The Jerusalem Post is reporting that the 'Palestinian Authority' has agreed to drop its efforts to haul Israel before the International Criminal Court in exchange for tax moneys.
The Palestinian Authority will formally join the International Criminal
Court on April 1, but – following Israel’s decision on Friday to
release frozen tax revenues – is not expected at this time to take
steps against Israel in the ICC regarding settlement construction.
In
addition, The Jerusalem Post has learned that while the ICC prosecutor
has – at the PA’s request – opened a preliminary examination on
alleged Israeli war crimes during Operation Protective Edge over the
summer, the PA is not expected at this time to take additional legal
steps in the ICC regarding the Gaza operation.
As a result of
Israel’s decision to free up the funds, the PA also does not intend now
to stop its security cooperation with Israel, the Post also learned.
It
was the PA’s steps to join the ICC at the end of December that led
Israel to freeze the monthly tax transfers in the first place.
Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Friday that, at the
recommendation of the security establishment, the money that has accrued
since then, some $500 million, will be freed up, though the PA’s
electric, water and hospital bills to Israel will be subtracted from
those funds.
...
One government official said that no decision has yet been made
regarding whether March’s revenues will be transferred, an indication
that this will depend on whether the PA does indeed not pursue other
moves at this time at the ICC, and whether it maintains its security
cooperation with Israel.
With the security establishment
recommending for weeks the transfer of the frozen funds in order to
reduce tension in the West Bank, it was expected for some time that
this move would take place relatively soon after the March 17 election.
So if you squeeze them hard enough, they eventually cry 'uncle.' There's a lesson here for the future.
I've been way too busy with work to post very much. But this morning, I awoke to an email from one of my law colleagues that was a bit surprising.
One of my law firms is having a meeting in May, part of which is scheduled to take place in Virginia. This morning, I had an email from one of my colleagues attaching a link to this article from the Times of Israel reporting that the State Bar Association of Virginia has canceled a November seminar in Israel, claiming that 'many' of its members will not be allowed in because... wait for it... they are Arabs or Muslims.
In a letter sent late Friday night, Kevin Martingayle, president of the Virginia State Bar, wrote, “Upon review of US State Department advisories and other research, and after consultation with our leaders, it has been determined that there is enough legitimate concern to warrant cancellation of the Israel trip and exploration of alternative locations.”
Martingayle told the Washington Times that the trip was canceled due to concerns that “many of its members” would not be let in to Israel.
The concerns appear to stem from a change.org petition by the Concerned Members of the Virginia State Bar, which said, “It is without question that Israel employs discriminatory entry and exit policies for US citizens, particularly against visiting Arab- and Muslim-Americans.”
The petition also said, “As members of the VSB, we have taken an oath to uphold our profession’s highest ideals. At the core of these ideals is the belief that no person or group should be subjected to differential treatment on the basis of their immutable characteristics. The location of this year’s Seminar, however, strikes at the heart of our profession’s ideals.”
The petition was closed after the decision to cancel the trip. It had 39 signatures.
Writing in his group blog in the Washington Post, the Volokh Conspiracy's David Bernstein has a few reactions.
(1) The American Bar Association has recently held meetings in Israel, for example here and here [update: along with hundreds of international conferences that are held in Israel every year, including, for example, a conference on Arabic literature with Muslim attendees from abroad.] Virginia has a state agency called the Virginia Israel Advisory Board “that
proactively serves as the bridge and facilitator between Israeli
companies and the Commonwealth of Virginia.” The idea that either the
state bar as an attorney organization or as a state agency has some
obligation to avoid Israel is nonsense. Surely Martingayle and
colleagues can’t be so naive and out-of-touch to think that the concerns
raised are not part of the broader divestment, sanctions, and boycott
movement meant to delegitimize Israel.
(2)
If the Virginia State Bar is in effect boycotting Israel, I, and I
suspect many others, will henceforth be boycotting the State Bar, in my
case beyond what is necessary to assist my students, which is my
professional obligation. I would hope that no Virginia attorneys who are
supporters of Israel will attend whatever alternative venue the State
Bar settles on.
(3) As near as I can tell, the only public discussion of all this before Martingayle’s letter was a petition circulated three days ago by anonymous “Concerned Members of the Virginia State Bar”
that, as of this writing, has received a grand total of thirty-four
signatures. It’s hard to imagine that the Martingayle and colleagues
canceled a planned event that already had a hotel booked, a CLE program, and even optional tours set up based on those objections. Who are the “other individuals” mentioned by Martingayle who objected?
(4) Relatedly, as a state agency, the Virginia State Bar is subject to FOIA.
If no enterprising journalist is already FOIAing the relevant
correspondence that led to this decision, I’m sure somebody else will
be.
UPDATE: The email Martingayle sent
out is timestamped 9:59 pm on March 27. Yet somehow the virulently
anti-Israel “Electronic Intifada” managed to have a copy of the letter
on its Facebook page and
website more than two hours earlier. Inquiring minds want to know who
had a copy of this letter before it was sent out to bar members at
large, and why. [Comments below suggest that while I and several others I
know received the 9:59 time stamp, other members of the bar received
the same message time-stamped earlier. If so, mystery solved.]
Hearing rumors from Israeli officials of a shift in attitude towards the #Irantalks, "best we can do now is influence finer points."
— Sheera Frenkel (@sheeraf) March 29, 2015
And for those who don't know Sheera Frenkel....
Buzzfeed News Middle East Correspondent. Formerly of The Times of London, NPR, and McClatchy.
Hmmm.
UPDATE 10:26 AM
More confirmation.
"Today or tomorrow, Iran is expected to win international recognition of its nuclear-threshold status." - Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth
— Dan Williams (@DanWilliams) March 29, 2015
Report: Lubitz tweeted "A Germany in which religious feelings have more rights than the meaning of freedom - is not my Germany"
Andreas Lubitz, the co-pilot of the Germanwings plane who deliberately crashed in the Alps on Tuesday killing 150 people, retweeted (actually looks more like shared on Facebook) the photo above, with the caption "A Germany in which religious feelings have more rights than the meaning of freedom - is not my Germany." (Hat Tip: Mike K).
And the New York Times reported on Friday that Lubitz "lived, at least part time, with his parents. Mr. Lubitz’s mother was an organist at a Protestant church near the town center.”
Mike K adds:
Here is the sad, but probably true story.
He is not a murderer or Muslim.
He took medications which overcame him as he flew. The
Pharmaceuticals do not tell the public all the
side-effects of their meds. They put people into murderous, zombie
like states. Most school shooters were on anti-depressants.
There is every reason to believe that this guy may have been overcome by
his medications. Medications
which are legal for pilots to take. The FAA allows pilots to fly on
SSRI anti-deressants (Click
Here)
SSRI medications are chemically similar to LSD-25. He could
have had a flash back without warning.
He did not say Allahu Aqbar. Those are the magic words required to
get 72 virgins. So he was probably
NOT Muslim.
His heart rate remained steady. Not something one would expect from a
man soon expecting death.
His medication probably did this to him, or a medical condition.
Morally, his culpability may be minor or non-existent.
OMG: Iranian reporter covering nuke talks defects, says US mainly speaking on Iran's behalf to other P 5+1 countries
Shavua tov, a good week to everyone.
An Iranian reporter covering the nuclear talks in Lausanne, Switzerland has defected, saying that there is no point to practicing his profession in Iran, because he can only write what he is told anyway. The same reporter had some choice words to describe the United States' role in the talks.
Amir Hossein Motaghi, who managed public relations forMr Rouhani during his 2013 election campaign, was said by Iranian news agencies to have quit his job at the Iran Student Correspondents Association (ISCA).
He then appeared on an opposition television channel based in London to
say he no longer saw any “sense” in his profession as a journalist as
he could only write what he was told.
“There are a number of people attending on the Iranian side at the
negotiations who are said to be journalists reporting on the
negotiations,” he told Irane Farda television. “But they are not
journalists and their main job is to make sure that all the news fed
back to Iran goes through their channels.
“My conscience would not allow me to carry out my profession in this
manner any more.” Mr Mottaghi was a journalist and commentator who went
on to use social media successfully to promote Mr Rouhani to a youthful
audience that overwhelmingly elected him to power.
But he was also subject to the bitter internal arguments within the
Iranian regime. One news website claimed he had been forced in to report
to the ministry of intelligence weekly, and that he had been tipped off
that he might be subject to arrest had he returned to Tehran.
In his television interview, Mr Mottaghi also gave succour to western critics of the proposed nuclear deal, which has seen the White House
pursue a more conciliatory line with Tehran than some of America’s
European allies in the negotiating team, comprising the five permanent
members of the UN security council and Germany.
“The US negotiating team are mainly there to speak on Iran’s behalf
with other members of the 5+1 countries and convince them of a deal,” he
said.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration continues its fight for truth, justice and the American wayIslam.
German media: Germanwings co-pilot did it for Allah
German media is confirming that Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Gunter Lubitz had converted to Islam. Lubitz was the co-pilot of the Germanwings Airbus A-320 who deliberately flew the plane into a mountain in the French Alps on Tuesday killing all 150 people on board, after locking the pilot out of the cockpit cabin.
A German news website claims Andreas Lubitz was a Muslim convert. Speisa.com reported:
According to Michael Mannheimer, a writer for German
PI-News, Germany now has its own 9/11, thanks to the convert to Islam,
Andreas Lubitz.
Translation from German: All evidence indicates that the copilot of Airbus machine in
his six-months break during his training as a pilot in Germanwings,
converted to Islam and subsequently either by the order of
“radical”, ie. devout Muslims , or received the order from the book of
terror, the Quran, on his own accord decided to carry out this mass
murder. As a radical mosque in Bremen is in the center of the investigation, in which the convert was staying often,
it can be assumed that he – as Mohammed Atta, in the attack against New
York – received his instructions directly from the immediate vicinity
of the mosque. Converts are the most important weapon of Islam.
Because their resume do not suggests that they often are particularly
violent Muslims. Thus Germany now has its own 9/11, but in a reduced
form. And so it is clear that Islam is a terrorist organization that are
in accordance with §129a of the Criminal Code to prohibit it and to
investigate its followers. But nothing will happen. One can bet that the
apologists (media, politics, “Islamic Scholars”) will agree to assign
this an act of a “mentally unstable” man, and you can bet that now, once
again the mantra of how supposedly peaceful Islam is will continue. And
worse still, the attacks by the left against those who have always
warned against Islam, will be angrier and merciless.
For now the German Islam supporters like never before have their backs against the wall.
Michael Mannheimer, 26.3.2015
Apparently from the comments at German PI – Andreas Lubitz was Muslim convert from his Facebook page.
Of course, in much of the West it remains politically incorrect to mention these facts. And there is little hope that the airlines will screen their pilots for religious beliefs. Until they get hit with a huge lawsuit because they should have known something like this.
Airlines are changing procedures to ensure two crew are in the cockpit at all times following the Germanwings tragedy that killed 150 people.
...
Now budget carrier EasyJet has announced the move will come into force tomorrow - and aviation insiders say there are moves to make it 'mandatory' across airlines.
The move comes after the Civil Aviation Authority urged airlines to review their policies to avoid the pilot or co-pilot being alone at the controls.
An easyJet spokeswoman said: 'easyJet can confirm that, with effect from Friday 27 March, it will change its procedure which will mean that two crew members will be in the cockpit at all times.
'This decision has been taken in consultation with the Civil Aviation Authority. The safety and security and of its passengers and crew is the airline's highest priority.'
EasyJet said a cabin crew member will temporarily enter the cockpit if the pilot or co-pilot needs the toilet. The airline will not have a third trained pilot on board.
And a spokesman for Virgin Atlantic said: 'We always ensure we have the highest safety standards and, while it is our common practise to have two members of our crew in the flight deck at all times, in light of recent events we are now in the process of formalising this to be policy.'
So now commercial air travel will be safe so long as both pilots are not Muslims... and so long as a flight attendant is willing and able to overpower a suicidal pilot.
Questions about the religious background of Andreas Lubitz, the
Germanwings pilot who investigators said deliberately crashed a plane in
the French Alps this week, killing all on board, have sparked outrage
and debate about whether such information is relevant to the
investigation. When a reporter asked French Prosecutor Brice Robin of
Marseille, during a news conference Thursday, whether he knew Lubitz’s
religion, Robin said he did not know and added, “I don’t think that’s
where the answer to this lies.”
The question suggested that Lubitz’s religious background was
relevant to the investigation behind the pilot’s alleged deliberate
downing of Germanwings Flight 9525 on Tuesday. Robin said the crash did
not show any signs of terrorism. Some were appalled by the reporter’s
inquiry.
“This line of questioning makes no sense to me whatsoever,” said
Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, an associate professor of political science with
a courtesy appointment in religious studies at Northwestern University
in Illinois. “I find it disturbing and depressing that at a time like
this some people feel compelled to search desperately for explanations
that presume religious causation.”
Really, Professor Hurd? NO SENSE? It's all just a coincidence?
In 1999, the pilot of a Boeing 767 intentionally plunged the fully
loaded plane into the Atlantic Ocean 30 minutes after takeoff from New
York City on a nonstop flight to Cairo. An investigation found the
pilot, Gamal al-Batouti, had said several times in
Arabic, “I rely on God,” as the plane's autopilot function was
disconnected and Egypt Air 999 plunged. The phrase is often associated
with the moments before death.
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board concluded that no
mechanical event could have caused the plane to dive. But Egyptian
officials never accepted the conclusion that al-Batouti had
intentionally crashed, and conspiracy theories spread.
Investigators are now telling the London Telegraph that Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 was taken on a suicide mission.
The team investigating the Boeing 777’s disappearance believe no malfunction
or fire was capable of causing the aircraft’s unusual flight or the
disabling of its communications system before it veered wildly off course on
a seven-hour silent flight into the sea. An analysis of the flight’s
routing, signalling and communications shows that it was flown “in a
rational way”.
An official source told The Telegraph that investigators believe “this has
been a deliberate act by someone on board who had to have had the detailed
knowledge to do what was done ... Nothing is emerging that points to
motive.”
Asked about the possibility of a plane malfunction or an on-board fire, the
source said: “It just does not hinge together... [The investigators] have
gone through processes you do to get the plane where it flew to for eight
hours. They point to it being flown in a rational way.”
...
The flight remains shrouded in mystery and misinformation. Malaysia Airlines
revealed for the first time yesterday that Fariq Abdul Hamid, the
27-year-old co-pilot, was on his first flight aboard a Boeing 777 as a
fully-approved pilot. Fariq joined the airline seven years ago and had flown
2,763 hours but was only on his sixth flight in the cockpit of a 777 – and
his first without a check pilot overseeing him.
But analysts said the co-pilot’s inexperience in a 777 cockpit would probably
not have posed a risk.
Somewhat surprisingly, Malaysia Airlines said last night its “prayers go out
to all the loved ones of the 226 passengers and of our 13 friends and
colleagues” – even though the passenger manifest shows 227 passengers and 12
crew. The airline has not yet explained the discrepancy.
Would not have posed a risk, but would have made it much more likely
that it took him a while to figure out what was going on. And most of
the passengers probably never knew what happened. Unless someone had a
transponder (unlikely), most passengers on a flight like that would just
go to sleep. The crew probably served dinner without realizing what
their captain had done. From the families' perspective, they might take
some solace in the fact that the passengers probably died peacefully -
many of them in their sleep.
The captain - distraught over a divorce and over his political idol
being jailed, and devout in his Muslim religion (that which must never
be mentioned) - took them all down with him.
It was said that Lubitz had a Muslim girlfriend. It is unclear if she
was still dating Lubitz at the time of the crash. It is unclear if he
met the woman through his Muslims friends.
One said that Lubitz had broken off the relationship after he pledged to commit Jihad for Allah.
We do know that Lubitz trained at the Lufthansa Flight Training School in Bremen, Germany.
Bremen is home to the Mosque Masjidu-l-Furqan Mosque:
This Mosque was raided by the police in December 2014
BERLIN, Dec 5 (KUNA) — German authorities have closed a mosque in the
northern city of Bremen, after it was accused of encouraging youth to
join the extremist Islamic State group (known as ISIL), which is
carrying out violent killings across Syria and Iraq.
In unprecedented circumstances, more than 100 German police personnel
carried out a search of Masjidu-l-Furqan and its accompanying cultural
office, which had both been under police radar since 2007.
The decision comes amid the fight against ISIL ideology, Bremen Interior
Secretary Ulrich Maurer said, accusing the mosque’s management of
promoting ISIL values and encouraging young Muslims in the city to
travel to Syria and Iraq, and join the ranks of the group, along with
Al-Nusra Front – another extremist group in Syria.
The centre have so far succeeded in inspiring a total eight men, seven
women and 11 juveniles to travel to Syria and join ISIL, according to
the official.
Lubitz did his time in Bremen when the Mosque was under surveillance.
...
Lubitz converted to Islam during his break.
Reason that pushed Lubitz over the edge? The raid on the Mosque in Breman this past December?
The Police say they found a significant discovery in his home - not a suicide note:
Police investigating the Germanwings crash said they had made a
'significant discovery' at the home of co-pilot Andreas Lubitz, who
deliberately ploughed the Airbus A320 into the French Alps. Officers
refused to reveal details of the potential breakthrough but said it was
not a suicide note. Speaking outside the flat on the outskirts of
Dusseldorf, police said they had 'found something' that would now be
taken for tests, adding it may be a 'clue' as to what happened to the
doomed jet. Daily Mail Read More>>>
Is the significant discovery something Islamic? Something on his computer? A Koran? A Muslim prayer rug?
And for those of you who - like me - have the choice of flying Israeli, European or American airlines, here is a sobering thought:
The A320 is designed with safeguards to allow emergency entry if a
pilot inside is unresponsive, but the override code known to the crew
does not go into effect — and indeed goes into a lockdown — if the
person inside the cockpit specifically denies entry, according to an
Airbus training video and a pilot who has six years of experience with
the jets.
Airlines in Europe are not required to have two people
in the cockpit at all times, unlike the standard U.S. operating
procedure after the 9/11 attacks changed to require a flight attendant
to take the spot of a briefly departing pilot.
Sounds like the US procedure is a good idea. I don't know what the Israeli procedure is, but I would guess there is some kind of safeguard to keep a lone pilot from crashing a plane.
What a sad commentary on our times that these things are necessary.
The co-pilot of the doomed Germanwings jet locked his captain out of the cockpit before deliberately crashing into a mountain to 'destroy the plane', it was sensationally revealed today.
French prosecutor Brice Robin gave further chilling details of the final ten minutes in the cockpit before the Airbus A320 plunged into the French Alps killing 150 people.
Revealing data extracted from the black box voice recorder, he said the co-pilot - 28-year-old German Andreas Lubitz - locked his captain out after the senior officer left the cockpit.
At that point, Lubitz used the flight managing system to put the plane into a descent, something that can only be done manually - and deliberately.
He said: 'The intention was to destroy the plane. Death was instant. The plane hit the mountain at 700kmh (430mph).
'I don't think that the passengers realised what was happening until the last moments because on the recording you only hear the screams in the final seconds'.
Earlier in the flight, Mr Robin said Lubitz's responses were initially courteous, but became 'curt' when the captain began the mid-flight briefing on the planned landing of the plane.
The captain - named by local media as German father-of-two Patrick Sonderheimer - then left the cockpit but found himself locked out when he tried to re-enter.
Mr Robin said: 'We hear the pilot asking the co-pilot to take over and we hear the sound of a chair being pushed back and a door closing so we assume that the captain went to the toilet or something.
'So the co-pilot is on his own, and it is while he's on his own that the co-pilot is in charge of the plane and uses the flight management system to start the descent of the plane.
'At this altitude, this can only be done voluntarily. We hear several shouts from the captain asking to get in, speaking through the intercom system, but there's no answer from the cockpit.'
Audio from the recording captures Mr Sonderheimer furiously pounding on the door to no avail.
Obama's revenge continues - exposes Israel's nuke program
Did you ever have a kid throw a tantrum and just start throwing things around your house? That's what Barack Hussein Obama is doing. He's having a tantrum and he's throwing around pieces of the US-Israel relationship.
The mainstream media has largely missed it, but early last month, the Obama administration exposed details about Israel's nuclear program. The details were part of a 1987 report on the nuclear capabilities of Israel and the NATO countries. But Israel - and only Israel - has been exposed.
[T]he Pentagon early last month quietly declassified a Department of
Defense top-secret document detailing Israel's nuclear program, a highly
covert topic that Israel has never formally announced to avoid a
regional nuclear arms race, and which the US until now has respected by
remaining silent.
But by publishing the declassified document from 1987, the US
reportedly breached the silent agreement to keep quiet on Israel's
nuclear powers for the first time ever, detailing the nuclear program in
great depth.
The timing of the revelation is highly suspect, given that it came as tensions spiraled out of control between
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and US President Barack Obama ahead
of Netanyahu's March 3 address in Congress, in which he warned against
the dangers of Iran's nuclear program and how the deal being formed on
that program leaves the Islamic regime with nuclear breakout
capabilities.
Another highly suspicious aspect of the document is that while the
Pentagon saw fit to declassify sections on Israel's sensitive nuclear
program, it kept sections on Italy, France, West Germany and other NATO
countries classified, with those sections blocked out in the document.
The 386-page report entitled "Critical Technological Assessment
in Israel and NATO Nations" gives a detailed description of how Israel
advanced its military technology and developed its nuclear
infrastructure and research in the 1970s and 1980s.
Israel is "developing the kind of codes which will enable them to
make hydrogen bombs. That is, codes which detail fission and fusion
processes on a microscopic and macroscopic level," reveals the report,
stating that in the 1980s Israelis were reaching the ability to create
bombs considered a thousand times more powerful than atom bombs.
The revelation marks a first in which the US published in a document a description of how Israel attained hydrogen bombs.
The report also notes research laboratories in Israel "are equivalent
to our Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore and Oak Ridge
National Laboratories," the key labs in developing America's nuclear
arsenal.
Israel's nuclear infrastructure is "an almost exact parallel of the
capability currently existing at our National Laboratories," it adds.
"As far as nuclear technology is concerned the Israelis are
roughly where the U.S. was in the fission weapon field in about 1955 to
1960," the report reveals, noting a time frame just after America tested
its first hydrogen bomb.
Institute for Defense Analysis, a federally funded agency operating under the Pentagon, penned the report back in 1987.
Obama's term cannot come to an end soon enough. What a despicable piece of dirt.
Russia Today has published a list of the nationalities of the passengers and crew of Germanwings 9525, which crashed on Wednesday in the French Alps. The list is not just Spaniards and Germans. It includes two Iranians, two Venezuelans, an Israeli and two Americans.
12:47 GMT:
AFP reports that these are the
nationalities of the A320 victims, which have been confirmed by either
Germanwings or the country’s governments:
72 Germans
35 Spaniards; Spain says there may be up to 39
3 British, confirmed by the government, which says there may be more.
3 Kazakhs
2 Americans
2 Argentines
2 Australians
2 Colombians
2 Iranians
2 Japanese
2 Venezuelans
1 Belgian
1 Dane
1 Dutch
1 Israeli
1 Mexican
1 Moroccan
1 Turk
Obviously, the nationalities could be totally innocent and I would not suspect that, for example, the Israeli and the Americans were involved in any foul play. Or the nationalities could be less than innocent.
Here's a report from the Guardian's website on the ongoing search and rescue operations for Germanwings flight 9525, which crashed on Tuesday in the French Alps.
In Washington, the White House said the crash did not appear to have
been caused by a terrorist attack. Lufthansa said it was working on the
assumption that the tragedy had been an accident, adding that any other
theory would be speculation. French president Francois Hollande will
visit the area on Wednesday along with German chancellor Angela Merkel
and Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy.
Germanwings said the plane started descending one minute after
reaching its cruising height and continued losing altitude for eight
minutes.
“The aircraft’s contact with French radar, French air traffic
controllers, ended at 10.53 am at an altitude of about 6,000 feet. The
plane then crashed,” Germanwings’ Managing Director Thomas Winkelmann
told a news conference.
Winkelmann later said some Germanwings crew members had declared
themselves unfit to fly, leading to some cancellations. “We understand
that on a day like today, they wouldn’t feel able to fly,” he told
German broadcaster ZDF.
Experts said that while the Airbus had descended rapidly, it did not seem to have simply fallen out of the sky.
A Lufthansa flight from Bilbao to Munich on Nov. 5 lost altitude
after sensors iced over and the onboard computer, fearing the plane was
about to stall, put the nose down. As a result, the European Aviation
Safety Agency ordered a change in procedure for all A320 jets.
Asked whether something similar could have occurred on Tuesday,
Winkelmann said, “At this time this evening, we are ruling out a
possible cause in this area.”
France’s interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, has told RTL radio all
options must be looked into to explain why the Airbus A320 ploughed into
an Alpine mountainside on Tuesday but a terrorist attack is not the
most likely scenario.
A journalist, speaking with a Spanish accent, asked during a press
conference: “Germanwings this morning explained something about this
flight, what do you think of that?”
It’s not clear to what she was referring but the Lufthansa representative seemed to understand.
Heike Birlenbach, Lufthansa vice-president for Europe initially
blocked the question with a fairly standard ‘No Comment’ but then turned
to her advisors and added in German.
“That was what he was not supposed to say.”
What was the question and why was it (apparently) not to be brought up at the press conference? Let's look at the press conference first.
Let's go to the videotape.
I watched the press conferences given by Germanwings' CEO and by the Deputy Interior Minister of France, and I didn't find anything suspicious. Hmmm.
From January 2009 to the present, the conflict between Israel and the
United States has never been connected to any real chance of peace or
ending the conflict in a manner that is consistent with American pledges
about ensuring the Jewish state’s security. At this point, it is time
for even those that have rationalized and apologized for Obama’s
penchant for attacking Israel to face up to the fact that his behavior
requires a better explanation than an alleged desire to save it from
itself. Nor is the argument about Iran enough to justify what we are
witnessing. Nothing about the current argument can be traced to U.S.
security needs. Rather, its motive seems more about personal anger and
vague ideological assumptions about Israel and the Palestinians that
have no connection to reality.
That is a sobering thought that should motivate even those Democrats
who are no fans of Netanyahu to begin speaking up against an
administration policy that seems rooted in spite, not strategy.
Where does Israel fit into this? It seems that Victor Davis Hanson got it partly right when he wrote:
Does
Team Obama really believe that a murderous autocratic cabal like Hamas
is merely different from a democratic constitutional republic like
Israel? At best we have naiveté at the helm (Obama thinks he can
mesmerize misunderstood killers), at
worst, a genuine feeling that Israel is an aggressive, Western
imperialist power exploiting indigenous people of color who simply wish
to be free--in other words, the Rev. Wright-Bill Ayers-Rashid Khalidi
view of the Middle East.
If D'Souza is correct (and
what he writes is certainly plausible), it should be clear that Obama
views Israel - like the United States - as a post-colonial country that
is "an aggressive, Western imperialist power exploiting indigenous people of color who simply wish to be free."
But Hanson got one detail wrong. Obama doesn't look at us that way
because of Wright, Ayers and Khalidi. They just reinforced the view of
Israel that Obama already had in his blood from his Kenyan father.
I've been telling you all for eight years that the company a politician keeps matters. We could all have figured this out eight years ago (I did). What could go wrong?
Obama says there won't be a 'peace agreement,' blames Netanyahu, will try to force creation of a 'Palestinian state'
Barack Hussein Obama has acknowledged the 'reality' that there won't be a 'peace agreement' during his term in office, and has decided instead to attempt to force the creation of a 'Palestinian state' through the United Nations. For all of this he blames Binyamin Netanyahu.
In a stark assessment of U.S.-Israel relations,
Mr. Obama, speaking at a news
conference, put a firm end to one of the
top foreign-policy goals of his second term: a Middle East peace deal that
includes the creation a Palestinian state.
“What we can’t do is pretend that there’s a
possibility for something that’s not there,” Mr. Obama said. “And we can’t
continue to premise our public diplomacy based on something that everybody knows
is not going to happen at least in the next several years.”
He added, “For the sake of our own credibility I
think we have to be able to be honest about that.”
...
Messrs. Obama and Netanyahu are deeply divided
over nuclear talks with Iran, an issue likely to resurface as the next deadline
in negotiations arrives next week. The two leaders have long disliked each
other, but Mr. Obama played down the notion that personal discord was motivating
his policy decisions.
“The issue is not a matter of relations between
leaders. The issue is a very clear substantive challenge: We believe that two
states is the best path forward for Israel’s security, for Palestinian
aspirations, and for regional stability,” Mr. Obama said. “And Prime Minister
Netanyahu has a different approach.”
The president said the U.S. is considering
alternatives to Israeli-Palestinian talks, including taking action at the United
Nations that would afford Palestinians statehood.
Most pro-Israel administration evah? Really? Is this what we can expect next? Now that the US has left Iraq to Islamic State and Afghanistan to the Taliban, they have the troops available. What could go wrong?
Egypt Air 990, Malaysia Air 370 and... Germanwings 9525?
Am I the only one with the sickening feeling that the unexplained loss of Germanwings 9525 may be yet another pilot suicide? (I know I'm not because someone already emailed me with the same suspicion).
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve
said a black box had been found, but did not say whether it was a data
recorder or a cockpit voice recorder.
“A black box was found and will be delivered to investigators,” Cazeneuve told reporters.
The crew of the Germanwings flight did not send a distress signal, civil aviation authorities told AFP.
“The crew did not send a Mayday. It was air
traffic control that decided to declare the plane was in distress
because there was no contact with the crew of the plane,” the source
said.
France’s junior transport minister said there were no survivors from the crash.
Photos of crash site from the La Provence
newspaper showed scattered black flecks across a mountain and several
larger airplane body sections with windows, five in one chunk and four
in another. French officials said a helicopter crew that landed briefly
in the area saw no signs of life.
“Everything is pulverized. The largest pieces
of debris are the size of a small car. No one can access the site from
the ground,” Gilbert Sauvan, president of the general council,
Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, told The Associated Press.
Germanwings said Flight 9525 carried 144
passengers, including two babies, and six crew members. Officials
believe 67 German nationals were on board, including 16 high school
students on an exchange program from the German town of Haltern. Dutch
officials said one citizen was killed.
And apparently one Israeli according to the article linked above. His name, like the pilot's, has not yet been released.
At 0147:55, the relief first officer stated, "Look, here's the new first officer's pen. Give it to him please. God spare you,"9
and, at 0147:58, someone responded, "yeah." At 0148:03, the command
captain stated, "Excuse me, [nickname for relief first officer], while I
take a quick trip to the toilet...before it gets crowded. While they
are eating, and I'll be back to you." While the command captain was
speaking, the relief first officer responded, "Go ahead please," and the
CVR recorded the sound of an electric seat motor as the captain
maneuvered to leave his seat and the cockpit. At 0148:18.55, the CVR
recorded a sound similar to the cockpit door operating. At 0148:30, about 11 seconds after the captain left the cockpit, the CVR recorded an unintelligible comment.10 Ten seconds later (about 0148:40), the relief first officer stated quietly, "I rely on God."11
There were no sounds or events recorded by the flight recorders that
would indicate that an airplane anomaly or other unusual circumstance
preceded the relief first officer's statement, "I rely on God."
At
0149:18, the CVR recorded the sound of an electric seat motor. FDR data
indicated that, at 0149:45 (27 seconds later), the autopilot was
disconnected.12
Aside from the very slight movement of both elevators (the left
elevator moved from about a 0.7° to about a 0.5° nose-up deflection, and
the right elevator moved from about a 0.35° nose-up to about a 0.3°
nose-down deflection)13
and the airplane's corresponding slight nose-down pitch change, which
were recorded within the first second after autopilot disconnect, and a
very slow (0.5° per second) left roll rate, the airplane remained
essentially in level flight about FL 330 for about 8 seconds after the
autopilot was disconnected. At 0149:48, the relief first officer again
stated quietly, "I rely on God." At 0149:53, the throttle levers were
moved from their cruise power setting to idle, and, at 0149:54, the FDR
recorded an abrupt nose-down elevator movement and a very slight
movement of the inboard ailerons. Subsequently, the airplane began to
rapidly pitch nose down and descend.
Between 0149:57 and 0150:05, the relief first officer quietly repeated, "I rely on God," seven additional times.14 During this time, as a result of the nose-down elevator movement, the airplane's load factor15 decreased from about 1 to about 0.2 G.16
Between 0150:04 and 0150:05 (about 10 to 11 seconds after the initial
nose-down movement of the elevators), the FDR recorded additional,
slightly larger inboard aileron movements, and the elevators started
moving further in the nose-down direction. Immediately after the FDR
recorded the increased nose-down elevator movement, the CVR recorded the
sounds of the captain asking loudly (beginning at 0150:06), "What's
happening? What's happening?," as he returned to the cockpit.
The
airplane's load factor decreased further as a result of the increased
nose-down elevator deflection, reaching negative G loads (about -0.2 G)
between 0150:06 and 0150:07. During this time (and while the captain was
still speaking [at 0150:07]), the relief first officer stated for the
tenth time, "I rely on God." Additionally, the CVR transcript indicated
that beginning at 0150:07, the CVR recorded the "sound of numerous
thumps and clinks," which continued for about 15 seconds.
According
to the CVR and FDR data, at 0150:08, as the airplane exceeded its
maximum operating airspeed (0.86 Mach), a master warning alarm began to
sound. (The warning continued until the FDR and CVR stopped recording at
0150:36.64 and 0150:38.47, respectively.)17
Also at 0150:08, the relief first officer stated quietly for the
eleventh and final time, "I rely on God," and the captain repeated his
question, "What's happening?" At 0150:15, the captain again asked,
"What's happening, [relief first officer's first name]? What's
happening?" At this time, as the airplane was descending through about
27,300 feet msl, the FDR recorded both elevator surfaces beginning to
move in the nose-up direction. Shortly thereafter, the airplane's rate
of descent began to decrease.18
At 0150:21, about 6 seconds after the airplane's rate of descent began
to decrease, the left and right elevator surfaces began to move in
opposite directions; the left surface continued to move in the nose-up
direction, and the right surface reversed its motion and moved in the
nose-down direction.
The FDR data
indicated that the engine start lever switches for both engines moved
from the run to the cutoff position between 0150:21 and 0150:23.19
Between 0150:24 and 0150:27, the throttle levers moved from their idle
position to full throttle, the speedbrake handle moved to its fully
deployed position, and the left elevator surface moved from a 3º nose-up
to a 1º nose-up position, then back to a 3º nose-up position.20
During this time, the CVR recorded the captain asking, "What is this?
What is this? Did you shut the engine(s)?" Also, at 0150:26.55, the
captain stated, "Get away in the engines,"21 and, at 0150:28.85, the captain stated, "shut the engines." At 0150:29.66, the relief first officer stated, "It's shut." Between
0150:31 and 0150:37, the captain repeatedly stated, "Pull with me."
However, the FDR data indicated that the elevator surfaces remained in a
split condition (with the left surface commanding nose up and the right
surface commanding nose down) until the FDR and CVR stopped recording
at 0150:36.64 and 0150:38.47, respectively. (The last transponder
[secondary radar] return from the accident airplane was received at the
radar site at Nantucket, Massachusetts, at 0150:34.)22[Footnote links may not work. CiJ]
As
some of you may recall, after the NTSB investigation, the Egyptians
continued to deny that the co-pilot had committed suicide and would not
accept the NTSB report.
As the video reports, the pilots apparently turned the jet at the
perfect spot - at the point where the jet was handed off from Malaysian
to Vietnamese controllers. But if the Malaysian authorities found
anything in their homes, they're not saying.
The Malaysian government
had been looking for a reason to search the home of the pilot and the
co-pilot for several days. But it was only in the last 24 to 36 hours,
when radar and satellite data came to light, that authorities believed
they had sufficient reason to go through the residences, according to
the U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
"The Malaysians don't do
this lightly," the official said. It's not clear whether the Malaysian
government believes one or both the men could be responsible for what
happened when the Boeing 777-200 ER disappeared March 8 en route from
Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
The officials emphasize that they don't know yet what really happened to
the plane. But here's the best theory. To those of you who have been
following it should sound familiar. It's the southern corridor theory.
Flight 370 took off from
Kuala Lumpur at 12:41 a.m. on March 8. The last satellite communication
from the plane occurred at 8:11 a.m., Najib said, well past the
scheduled arrival time in Beijing.
That last communication,
Najib said, was in one of two possible traffic corridors shown on a map
released to the press. A northern arc stretches from the border of
Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to northern Thailand, and a southern arc
spans from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean.
"Due to the type of
satellite data, we are unable to confirm the precise location of the
plane when it last made contact with the satellite," Najib said.
Because the northern
parts of the traffic corridor include some tightly guarded airspace over
India, Pakistan, and even some U.S. installations in Afghanistan, U.S.
authorities believe it more likely the aircraft crashed into waters
outside of the reach of radar south of India, a U.S. official told CNN.
If it had flown farther north, it's likely it would have been detected
by radar.
Nonetheless for the last
36 hours, the U.S. military and intelligence community has been
reviewing all satellite imagery and electronic data it collects from the
region for any sign of an explosion or crash, according to another U.S.
official directly familiar with that effort.
Najib said authorities were ending search operations in the South China Sea and reassessing the deployment of assets.
"This new satellite information has a significant impact on the nature and scope of the search operation," he said.
Investigators, he said,
have confirmed by looking at the raw satellite data that the plane in
question was the Malaysia Airlines jet.
The same conclusion was
reached by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, the U.S. National
Transportation Safety Board, the British Air Accidents Investigation
Branch and the Malaysian authorities, all of whom were working
separately with the same data, he said.
Well, if it didn't crash it landed on some abandoned island somewhere in
the middle of the Indian Ocean and we'll hear a ransom demand sometime
soon. That appears unlikely. Given the level of satellite information
available today, it seems really unlikely that there would be an
airstrip in the middle of nowhere that could land a 777 that hasn't
shown up on the satellite data.
If you're wondering how they flew out of the corridor undetected, this might have had something to do with it.
Hours before Najib's
announcement, U.S. officials told CNN the flight had made drastic
changes in altitude and direction after disappearing from civilian
radar.
Malaysian military radar
showed the plane climbing to 45,000 feet -- which is above its approved
altitude limit -- soon after disappearing from civilian radar screens
and then dropping to 23,000 feet before climbing again, a U.S. official
familiar with the investigation said.
The jetliner was flying "a strange path," the official said on condition of anonymity. The details of the radar readings were first reported by The New York Times on Friday.
What's unsaid in all this is that Malaysia is - you guessed it - a Muslimcountry. As is Egypt.
Here's betting that the pilot is not Amish, Baptist, Catholic, Jewish.... Hmmm.
PS My travel agent talked me out of that flight a few months ago. She hates double connections.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
