Ohio State Muslim students ‘outraged’ over ads linking Muslim Student Association to terrorism
By BNI News
Outraged Muslim students at the Ohio State University have mobilized after The Lantern, the campus’s official student-run newspaper, published what they say is a discriminatory advertisement linking the Muslim Student Association to international terrorism.
DH Freedom Center Titled “Former leaders of the Muslim Student Association (MSA)”, the advertisement asks “Where are they now?” and lists nine MSA co-founders and former Presidents as having ties to alleged terrorist groups. One such listing describes Jamal Barzini as both a co-founder of the MSA and a close associate of Hamas.
The advertisement was paid for by FrontPage Magazine, an online publication funded by the David Horowitz Freedom Center, a national institution recognized for its harsh and derogatory bold and accurate stance against Islam.
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Report says AQAP pulls out of Yemeni town
By Bill Roggio/Long War Journal
Reuters reported that al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has left the town of Rada’a in the central province of Baydah after negotiating with tribesmen to ensure that key AQAP prisoners would be released and that sharia, or Islamic law, would be imposed in the town. AQAP, under the command of Tariq al Dhabab, the brother-in-law of Anwar al Awlaki, took control of Rada’a more than a week ago after hundreds of fighters stormed the town.
The Reuters report says Dhahab demanded a prisoner release.
“Dhahab had demanded the release of several prisoners including his brother Nabil, as well as the formation of a council to run the town under Islamic law, but previous efforts to broker the militant group’s withdrawal fell through,” the report said.
“According to the deal which is due to be implemented on Wednesday, the leader of the group must withdraw his followers from the town and move to… a rural area located far from the town until the al Qaeda operatives are freed from the central security prison,” said tribal leader Ahmed al-Kalz, who took part in the talks, late on Tuesday.
For the rest of the story…
http://www.longwarjournal.org/threat-matrix/archives/2012/01/aqap_withdraws_from_yemeni_tow.php
Analysts suggest greater potential for a ‘world war’
By Dr. Michael LeDeen/Family Security Matters
A report this week in Family Security Matters says that the U. S. is making a tactical mistake by assuming the danger of war is receding.
National Security writer and analyst Dr. Michael LeDeen says Iran’s sabre-rattling is a sign of the region’s continued volatility. In a story for Family Security Matters, LeDeen says the president is greatly miscalculating Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s intentions…
“Speaking at the Pentagon on January 5th, President Obama proclaimed: ‘Even as our troops continue to fight in Afghanistan, the tide of war is receding.’
“He could not be more dangerously mistaken. As he spoke, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was packing his bags for yet another foreign sortie, not, as you might imagine, to Damascus to bolster the morale of Bashar Assad — alongside whom Iran’s killers are conducting mass murder in Syria’s cities and villages — but rather to Latin American capitals much closer to us, including Caracas, Quito, Guatemala City, Havana, and Managua. The Nicaraguan visit was on the occasion of the inauguration of our old enemy, Daniel Ortega. The others are to discuss matters of “mutual interest.”
“Venezuela is far and away the most important, but each of the others is significant, and shows that we are engaged in a global war that is advancing, not receding. The “matters of joint concern” feature military and “asymmetrical” projects aimed directly at the American homeland. And that is only the Western hemispheric dimension of the real war.
“Ahmadinejad and his cohorts have worked very energetically to forge a global network that includes Russia, China, (sometimes) Turkey, Syria, and the Western hemisphere gang. In part, the network helps Iran bust the sanctions that have recently catalyzed a spectacular drop in the value of Iran’s currency. Money, weapons, refined petroleum products, and even crude oil get laundered through foreign banks, shell companies, and ports.
“Sanctions-busting is the least of it. Al-Qaeda terrorists of the stature of Saif al Adel (acting AQ chief between bin Laden and Zawahiri) fought against us in Mogadiscio, and lived for years in Iran. Zarqawi, the head of al-Qaeda in Iraq, operated from Tehran for a long time. Hezbollah, an arm of the Iranian regime, sends killers to Syria to massacre protesters.
For the rest of the story…
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.11284/pub_detail.asp
Indian Colonel says China preparing to attack India
By MEMRI
Former Indian Army Officer Col. Dr. Anil Athale Warns: Expect a Chinese Attack Against India by ‘June/July 2012′
In a recent article, former Indian Army officer Dr. Anil Athale warned that China is carefully orchestrating security-related incidents against India. Such incidents include Chinese military incursions into Indian territory in the Western and North-Eastern border regions of India, recent mistreatment of Indian diplomats and businessmen in China, recurring disputes on the issuance of visas, and diplomatic rows involving Chinese attempts to question Indian sovereignty in Jammu & Kashmir.
Colonel (retired) Anil Athale, who is an author of the official history of the 1962 India-China conflict and now coordinator of the Indian Initiative for Peace, Arms Control & Disarmament (a think tank based in the city of Pune), warned that the government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is failing to prepare the country’s armed forces to fight a likely war against China, which he warns could come as early as June/July 2012.
He said that such a war could be like Pakistan’s Kargil war, the 1999 conflict which originated after Pakistani troops and jihadists marched into Kashmir. ”It is time India woke up. Luckily, we do have some time. At the moment the Himalayan passes are frozen and no military operations are possible. The likely threat will only emerge in June/July 2012.
It must be made clear that one is not talking of an all-out war. What we must accept is a short, sharp, attack by the Chinese, more in the nature of a slap!” he wrote in a recent article. The article, titled “Expect a Chinese attack by June/July”, was published by rediff.com, a leading Indian news and community portal.
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Navy SEALs rescue American, Danish hostage in Somalia
By Karen DeYoung, Greg Jaffe/Washington Post
U.S. Special Operations forces rescued an American hostage and her Danish colleague in Somalia early Wednesday in the kind of daring raid that the Obama administration has said will be the hallmark of future U.S. military missions.
Officials said the raid, by members of the Navy SEAL Team 6 unit that killed Osama bin Laden in May, demonstrated President Obama’s focus on the narrow, targeted use of force after a decade of large-scale military deployments.
The mission is “yet another message to the world that the United States of America will stand strongly against any threats to our people,” Obama said in a statement Wednesday morning.
Jessica Buchanan, 32, and Poul Hagen Thisted, 60, employees of a Danish aid agency, had been held for three months by armed men near the town of Adado in north-central Somalia.
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New battlelines drawn-up in cyber war
By Peter Kotsov/Asia Times
What is the relationship between the self-imposed blackout of Wikipedia and the September 2007 Israeli air raid against an alleged Syrian nuclear reactor? The sophisticated worm Stuxnet, dubbed the first cyber-weapon in history? Or the “cyber-war” between Saudi and Israeli hackers? And while we are on it, might we add WikiLeaks and the debates on media freedom?
On Wednesday, a number of leading Internet media, including Wikipedia and Wired, launched a protest against two bills, ostensibly intended to combat Internet piracy, which are making rounds in the United States Congress – the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PIPA whose full name has undergone several transformations but which was originally called the Protect Intellectual Property Act.
In a recent editorial, Wired magazine calls the two “legislation that threatens to usher in a chilling Internet censorship regime here in the US comparable in some ways to China’s ‘Great Firewall’.”
For the rest of the story…
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NA21Ak02.html
Egypt’s Parliament 75 % Muslim Brotherhood; Egypt-Israel peace deal faltering
By Barry Rubin/Pajamas Media
We’re starting to get a good picture of what the lower house of Egypt’s parliament will be like, though it will take another month to be certain. Close to 50 percent of the seats will be held by the Muslim Brotherhood. Another 25 percent will be held by the al-Nour party of Salafists. With 75 percent, the two Islamist parties will be able to do as they please.
But, they — or at least the Brotherhood — are determined to be cautious. Note that there is a big difference between actually being moderate and simply being patient, advancing step by step toward radical goals. The Western media will report that the Brotherhood is indeed moderate. Actually, as I review coverage over the last year it is almost impossible to find even a single article in the mass media that reports any such evidence, much less analysis, despite the massive documentation available to the contrary .
The non-Islamist seats will be held by the Wafd, nine percent, and the Free Egyptians Party, another nine percent, with the rest spread among a dozen different parties, mainly liberal with a small number of leftists.
For the rest of the story…
Romney campaign led by advisers for Republican turned independent Charlie Crist
By Andrew Haney/Newsmax
As Mitt Romney puts the South Carolina primary in his rear-view mirror and hits the accelerator in a bid to win Florida, he may discover himself crashing headlong into the bitter legacy of Charlie Crist, the former Florida governor who defected from the GOP and was soundly defeated for the U.S. Senate by Marco Rubio.
Romney’s “Charlie Crist” problem is this: Romney’s chief campaign strategist and several of his most senior campaign staff were Crist’s top political advisers — the same ones who crafted Crist’s moderate, ignore-the-tea-party strategy epitomized in Crist’s famous “hug” of President Barack Obama. That strategy led Crist, once the most popular Republican governor in the nation, to defeat.
Crist’s erstwhile political team was led by controversial GOP strategist Stuart Stevens. Stevens and partner Russ Schriefer are the principals in the high-profile Stevens & Schriefer Group consultant firm and are playing the lead role in crafting Romney’s primary and national campaign strategy.
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Christian convert in Uganda survives under Muslim family’s persecution
By Compass Direct
NAIROBI, Kenya, January 23 (CDN) — Hassan Muwanguzi, a convert from Islam in Uganda who lost his family and job because of his Christian faith, is thankful after fighting off the latest attack – an attempt by Muslims to imprison him and shut down the school he started.
Following his conversion in his early 20s in 2003, Muwanguzi’s family immediately kicked him out of their home, and enraged Muslims beat him, he said. His wife left him that same year, and he lost his job as a teacher at Nankodo Islamic School, near Pallisa.
Undaunted, a year ago he opened a Christian school, Grace International Nursery and Primary School, at Kajoko, Kibuku district, 27 kilometers (17 miles) from Mbale town; the area’s population of 5,000 people is predominantly Muslim.
Incensed by his boldness, an Islamic teacher, Sheikh Hassan Abdalla, filed a false charge that Muwanguzi had “defiled” his daughter, a minor.
For the rest of the story…
http://www.compassdirect.org/english/country/uganda/article_1360848.html
Nebraska’s Governor seeks to force early Keystone decision–over Obama objections
By Michael Carl/CKUA
Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman told a jam-packed conference room that he wants to expedite the decision process on the Keystone Pipeline by proposing an alternate route to around the Ogallala Aquifer.
Heineman hopes to have a proposal ready for President Obama as early as September, and wants a decision from Obama before the November general election.
Heineman’s actions could bypass another complete application process by Trans Canada Corporation, the developer of the original Keystone XL pipeline project.
Nebraska Sierra Club Executive Director Ken Winston says the Governor may be overstepping his authority.
‘I question whether he has any authority to act on this. It’s a federal permit, why is Nebraska acting unilaterally?’ Winston said.
‘I doubt is he has any legal status,’ Winston said.
Some Nebraska political leaders are sceptical of the governor’s motives because it was Heineman’s objections last September that led to another round of hearings and forced another extension on the decision deadline.
However, members of Nebraska’s unicameral and officially non-partisan legislature say by objecting to the previous route, they were acting in the state’s best interests.
‘We have to go through the process of finding another route and having it evaluated. I think that’s what we owe the people of Nebraska,’ State Senator Ken Haar said. ‘The time it takes to do this right.’
‘I can’t control the national politics, but we need to take the time to do it right for Nebraskans,’ Haar said.
Haar believes the route, the deadlines, the schedule and the permit process have been turned into a divisive political issue, not a solution to North America’s energy needs.
However, Haar pulled back when asked about whether the governor may be playing politics by pressing Obama for a pipeline decision right before the November election.
Energy analyst James Taylor at the conservative energy think tank, the Heartland Institute, believe that President Obama’s rejection of the permit is an effort to solidify support from the president’s base.
‘Saying that he didn’t want to be rushed is simply playing to his base. The pipeline’s been studied for close to four years and we know that there are no major safety issues,’ Taylor said.
‘Obama is just trying to solidify his support in his environmentalist base,’ Taylor said.
