Hurricane Irene Looks ‘Terrifying’ From Space, Astronaut Says

“Hurricane Irene is bearing down on the U.S. East Coast and has turned into a frightening storm, according to an astronaut on the International Space Station.

NASA astronaut Mike Fossum said that Hurricane Irene, like all hurricanes, looks ‘terrifying from above,’ and its evolution into a major storm this week has been unmistakable from orbit.

‘We saw a big change in the structure of the storm over the several days that we’ve watched her, especially yesterday,’ Fossum told SPACE.com today (Aug. 25) during a video interview from space.

Hurricane Irene is currently a Category 3 storm with winds of 115 mph (185 kph) that is battering the Bahamas. Space station astronauts and satellites have kept a constant watch on the growing storm.

The storm is expected to hit the North Carolina coast on Saturday (Aug. 27) and follow the coastline north, where it may make landfall on Long Island, posing a threat to New York City, according to OurAmazingPlanet, a sister site of SPACE.com.” Read more.

NYC mayor orders Zone A nursing homes to evacuate – “Mayor Michael Bloomberg has ordered nursing, senior homes and hospitals in Zone A low-lying areas to evacuate beginning Friday. He asked these facilities and hospitals to coordinate evacuation efforts with health officials. The mayor at a press conference Thursday said Hurricane Irene appears to be heading toward eastern Queens, New York. Bloomberg says shelters will open for residents at 4 p.m. Friday. He also announced that the emergency command center had been activated.” Read more.

Hurricane Irene: As many as 200,000 evacuate in North Carolina – “For thousands of tourists in the barrier islands off North Carolina, the threat of Hurricane Irene has just cut their vacations short. On Thursday, state officials ordered tourists to pack up the sand toys and abandon the beach rentals. Residents have been asked to find a safe spot farther inland as well. Local news reports pegged the number of evacuees — tourists as well as residents — at 200,000, although Ernie Seneca, a spokesman for North Carolina Division of Emergency Management, said he was unable to confirm it. It did not surprise him, however.” Read more.

China Announces Support for Palestinian UN Statehood Bid

“China says it supports a Palestinian plan to seek full membership in the United Nations next month.

Negotiations with Israel on the terms of Palestinian statehood have been frozen since 2008. As an alternative, the Palestinians have decided to seek UN recognition of an independent ‘Palestine’ in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, the areas Israel captured in the 1967 Six Day War.

The Netanyahu government adamantly opposes the Palestinian efforts to seek UN membership without a negotiated peace agreement with Israel, but many countries around the world have already promised Palestinian leaders diplomatic support for the venture.

China’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement Thursday that Wu Sike, its special envoy on the Middle East, told Palestinian leaders in a meeting in Ramallah that Beijing and the Chinese people have always supported the Palestinian cause.

The Foreign Ministry statement said Wu expressed understanding, respect and support for the Palestinians’ bid for statehood.” Read more.

Gaza: Islamic Jihad Vows to Send Rockets Deeper Into Israel

“Hours after Palestinian sources reported that the IAF killed to Islamic Jihad operatives in the Gaza Strip, the terrorist group vowed to extend the range of their rocket capabilities, sending projectiles deeper into Israeli territory, Israel Radio reported Thursday.

According to Islamic Jihad, a small terrorist group with roots in the Muslim Brotherhood, it would triple the number of Israelis affected by rocket attacks.

A ceasefire with Hamas in Gaza seemed distant Thursday evening as the violence in the south of the country continued with at least 15 rockets and mortar shells exploding in Israeli territory.

The Code Red siren was heard throughout the Eshkol and Sha’ar Hanegev Regional Councils and in Ashkelon as 15 rockets and mortar shells fell throughout those areas, the IDF Spokesman’s Office said in a statement.

No injuries were reported in Thursday’s attacks, but their was damage caused to a building in the Erez border crossing at the Gaza border.

In response to the building damage at Erez, the IAF struck a rocket-launching pad in the northern Gaza Strip, the spokesman’s statement said.” Read more.

Are Iranian Leaders Seeking an Arab War With Israel to Protect Assad?

By Reza Kahlili – “Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, has ordered the Revolutionary Guards to draw Israel into another Middle East war through their Islamic Jihad, Hamas and Hezbollah proxies in an effort to save Bashar Assad’s brutal regime in Syria, sources report.

The ploy appears to be working, as Israeli opposition leaders are demanding the Netanyahu government launch a major military campaign against the terrorist-controlled Gaza Strip.

Just in the past few days, militants in the Hamas-ruled strip have bombarded southern Israel with more than 100 rockets and mortars. The instability in Cairo with the fall of the Mubarak regime has helped the Iranian-backed terrorists in the Sinai area attack Israel from within Egypt’s borders and has enabled Iran to smuggle in thousands of rockets to arm the militants. On Aug. 18, gunmen infiltrated Israel and killed six civilians and two soldiers. And at least one civilian was killed and 20 others were wounded in the rocket attacks.

The Iranian leader had previously sent a letter to President Obama warning him that unless he avoided interfering in Syria’s affairs, consequences would take place in Afghanistan and Iraq. As the White House continued its condemnation of the atrocities in Syria, attacks against U.S. forces picked up in both Iraq and Afghanistan, with several U.S. fatalities.

When Mr. Obama openly called for the ouster of Mr. Assad last week, Iran retaliated by handing out eight-year sentences to the two American hikers held since 2009 on charges of espionage.

The Iranian regime apparently is willing to start a similar Arab-Israeli war like the one in 2006 initiated by the terrorist group Hezbollah in Lebanon. At that time, the Iranian regime feared that President George W. Bush had decided to attack Iran, and therefore it created a diversion not only to flex its muscle in the region but also to keep America busy with yet another crisis. Now fearing the fall of Mr. Assad, who has been complicit in many of Iran’s terrorist plots in the region over the years, it sees the need for another war to divert attention from Syria’s suppression of its people.” Read more.

Ahmadinejad: Iran is Determined to Eradicate the ‘Infectious Tumor’ of Israel, ‘Will Never Withdraw’ From This Policy

By Haaretz – “Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that Iran was determined to eradicate Israel, ISNA news agency reported Thursday.

‘Iran believes that whoever is for humanity should also be for eradicating the Zionist regime (Israel) as symbol of suppression and discrimination,’ Ahmadinejad said in an interview with a Lebanese television network, carried by ISNA.

‘Iran follows this issue (the eradication of Israel) with determination and decisiveness and will never ever withdraw from this standpoint and policy,’ the Iranian president added in the interview with the Al-Manar network.

The remarks by Ahmadinejad came one day before the annual anti-Israeli rallies named Qods (Jerusalem) Day, which are held nationwide in Iran on the last Friday of the fasting month of Ramadan.

Ahmadinejad on Monday said that Iranians and Muslim nations worldwide should hold Qods rallies and show their willingness to dispose of this ‘infectious tumor and this regime full of rascality.'” Read more.

Iranian Commander Reiterates Need Fully Annihilate The ‘Cancerous Tumor’ Called Israel, ‘The Zionist Regime … Will Be Cut’ – “Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Major General Hassan Firouzabadi said that threats and sanctions will not deter the Islamic Republic from ‘its revolutionary causes and ideals,’ and stressed that the regime will remain committed to the full annihilation of the Jewish state… ‘The Iranian nation is standing for its cause that is the full annihilation of Israel,’ Firouzabadi said… ‘The Zionist regime is a real cancerous tumor that should be cut and will be cut, God willing,’ he added.” Read more.

North Korea Supplying Iran With Software For Developing Nuclear Deapons – “North Korea sent Iran software that could be used to develop nuclear weapons, a German news report said Wednesday, citing unidentified Western intelligence sources. North Korea also sent a team of scientists to Iran in February to train about 20 employees of its Defense Ministry in the operation of the neutron flow simulation program, the Sueddeutche Zeitung reported. Calculating neutron flow in radioactive material allows scientists to determine when a chain reaction, or explosion, would occur.” Read more.

Japan: Fukushima Caesium-157 Leaks ‘Equal 168 Hiroshimas’

“Japan’s government estimates the amount of radioactive caesium-137 released by the Fukushima nuclear disaster so far is equal to that of 168 Hiroshima bombs.

Government nuclear experts, however, said the World War II bomb blast and the accidental reactor meltdowns at Fukushima, which has seen ongoing radiation leaks but no deaths so far, were beyond comparison.

The amount of caesium-137 released since the three reactors were crippled by the March 11 quake and tsunami has been estimated at 15,000 tera becquerels, the Tokyo Shimbun reported, quoting a government calculation.

That compares with the 89 tera becquerels released by ‘Little Boy’, the uranium bomb the United States dropped on the western Japanese city in the final days of World War II, the report said.

The estimate was submitted by Prime Minister Naoto Kan’s cabinet to a lower house committee on promotion of technology and innovation, the daily said.” Read more.

Astronomers Discover Planet Made of Diamond

I find this kind of, well, hard to believe.  Regardless, no word yet on whether they’ve also found streets of gold and a sea of glass …

By Ben Hirschler – “(Reuters) – Astronomers have spotted an exotic planet that seems to be made of diamond racing around a tiny star in our galactic backyard.

The new planet is far denser than any other known so far and consists largely of carbon. Because it is so dense, scientists calculate the carbon must be crystalline, so a large part of this strange world will effectively be diamond.

‘The evolutionary history and amazing density of the planet all suggest it is comprised of carbon — i.e. a massive diamond orbiting a neutron star every two hours in an orbit so tight it would fit inside our own Sun,’ said Matthew Bailes of Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne.

Lying 4,000 light years away, or around an eighth of the way toward the center of the Milky Way from the Earth, the planet is probably the remnant of a once-massive star that has lost its outer layers to the so-called pulsar star it orbits.” Read more.

Occupation Without Tanks or Soldiers: European ‘No-Go’ Zones for Non-Muslims Proliferating

By Soeren Kern – “Islamic extremists are stepping up the creation of ‘no-go’ areas in European cities that are off-limits to non-Muslims.

Many of the ‘no-go’ zones function as microstates governed by Islamic Sharia law. Host-country authorities effectively have lost control in these areas and in many instances are unable to provide even basic public aid such as police, fire fighting and ambulance services.

The ‘no-go’ areas are the by-product of decades of multicultural policies that have encouraged Muslim immigrants to create parallel societies and remain segregated rather than become integrated into their European host nations.

In Britain, for example, a Muslim group called Muslims Against the Crusades has launched a campaign to turn twelve British cities – including what it calls ‘Londonistan‘ – into independent Islamic states. The so-called Islamic Emirates would function as autonomous enclaves ruled by Islamic Sharia law and operate entirely outside British jurisprudence.

The Islamic Emirates Project names the British cities of Birmingham, Bradford, Derby, Dewsbury, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, Luton, Manchester, Sheffield, as well as Waltham Forest in northeast London and Tower Hamlets in East London as territories to be targeted for blanket Sharia rule.

In the Tower Hamlets area of East London (also known as the Islamic Republic of Tower Hamlets), for example, extremist Muslim preachers, called the Tower Hamlets Taliban, regularly issue death threats to women who refuse to wear Islamic veils. Neighborhood streets have been plastered with posters declaring ‘You are entering a Sharia controlled zone: Islamic rules enforced.’ And street advertising deemed offensive to Muslims is regularly vandalized or blacked out with spray paint.

In the Bury Park area of Luton, Muslims have been accused of ‘ethnic cleansing’ by harassing non-Muslims to the point that many of them move out of Muslim neighborhoods. In the West Midlands, two Christian preachers have been accused of ‘hate crimes’ for handing out gospel leaflets in a predominantly Muslim area of Birmingham. In Leytonstone in east London, the Muslim extremist Abu Izzadeen heckled the former Home Secretary John Reid by saying: ‘How dare you come to a Muslim area.'” Read more.

Hurriyet Daily News: With 10 Million Muslims Killed Since 1948 at the Hands of Fellow Muslims, Golda Meir Was Right

“Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.” – Golda Meir, Statement to the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., 1957.  Golda Meir, one of the founders of the State of Israel, served as Minister of Labor, Foreign Minister, and was also the fourth Prime Minister of Israel …

By Burak Bekdil – “It has been more than two and a half years since Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told to Israeli President Shimon Peres’s face, ‘You (Jews) know well how to kill.’

It has been more than two and a half years since Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told to Israeli President Shimon Peres’s face, ‘You (Jews) know well how to kill.’ Prime Minister Erdoğan has also declared more than a few times that the main obstacle to peace in this part of the world is Israel, once calling the Jewish state ‘a festering boil in the Middle East that spreads hate and enmity.’ In this holy month of Ramadan full of blood on Muslim territories, let’s try to identify who are the ones who know well how to kill.

As the Syrian death count clicks every day to come close to 2,000, the Turkish-Kurdish death count does not stop, already over 40,000 since 1984, both adding to the big pool of blood called the Middle East. Only during this Ramadan, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK’s, death toll has reached 50 in this Muslim Kurds vs. Muslim Turks war. This excludes the PKK casualties in Turkey and in northern Iraq due to Turkish military retaliation since they are seldom accurately reported.

Let’s speak of facts.

Sudan is not in the conventional Middle East, so let’s ignore the genocide there. Let’s ignore, also, the West Pakistani massacres in East Pakistan (Bangladesh) totaling 1.25 million in 1971. Or 200,000 deaths in Algeria in war between Islamists and the government in 1991-2006.

But a simple, strictly Middle East research will give you one million deaths in the all-Muslim Iran-Iraq war; 300,000 Muslim minorities killed by Saddam Hussein; 80,000 Iranians killed during the Islamic revolution; 25,000 deaths in 1970-71, the days of Black September, by the Jordanian government in its fight against the Palestinians; and 20,000 Islamists killed in 1982 by the elder al-Assad in Hama. The World Health Organization’s estimate of Osama bin Laden’s carnage in Iraq was already 150,000 a few years earlier.

In a 2007 research, Gunnar Heinsohn from the University of Bremen and Daniel Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum, found out that some 11 million Muslims have been violently killed since 1948, of which 35,000, (0.3 percent) died during the six years of Arab war against Israel, or one out of every 315 fatalities. In contrast, over 90 percent who perished were killed by fellow Muslims.

According to Mssrs. Heinsohn and Pipes, the grisly inventory finds the total number of deaths in conflicts all over the world since 1950 numbering around 85 million. Of that, the Muslim Arab deaths in the Arab-Israeli conflict were at 46,000 including 11,000 during Israel’s war of independence. That makes 0.05 percent of all deaths in all conflicts, or 0.4 percent of all Arab deaths in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

In another calculation ignoring ‘small’ massacres like the one that goes on in Syria and other deaths during the Arab Spring, only Saddam’s Iraq, Jordan, the elder al-Assad’s Syria, Iran-Iraq war, the bin Laden campaign in Iraq, the Iranian Islamic revolution and the Turkish-Kurdish conflict caused 1.65 million Muslim deaths by Muslims compared to less than 50,000 deaths in the Arab-Israeli conflict since 1950, including fatalities during and after Operation Cast Lead which came after the Heinsohn-Pipes study. For those who don’t have a calculator ready at their desks, allow me to tell: 50,000 is three percent of 1.65 million.

Golda Meir, the fourth prime minister of Israel, or rather the ‘Mother of Israel,’ had a perfectly realistic point when she said that peace in the Middle East would only be possible ‘when Arabs love their children more than they hate us.'” Source – Hurriyet Daily.

Egypt: Muslim Brotherhood Threatens to Kill Israel’s Ambassador to Cairo If He Does Not Leave the Country

By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu – “The Muslim Brotherhood has threatend to kill Israel’s ambassador to Cairo if he does not leave the country. The radical Muslim group has been leading daily protests at the Israeli embassy in Cairo, demanding the expulsion of the envoy and a break in relations between Egypt and Israel.

Hundreds of demonstrators surrounded the embassy Monday as armored military and police officers prevented them from repeating Saturday night’s incident when rioters broke down the gate. One firebomb smashed through a front window of the embassy’s office.

One anti-Zionist, now referred to as ‘Spiderman,’ became an instant hero throughout Egypt by scaling the multi-story wall and replacing the Israeli flag with one of Egypt. The Israeli flag was burned.

‘Revolution,’ cried out Muslim Brotherhood activists. ‘Revolution is stronger than the Zionist attackers. The entire Egyptian people are Hamas.’

One hostile placard threatened that the ambassador must ‘get out [of Egypt] or die here.'” Read more.

‘Soon the whole world will recognize our strength and become Muslim. The only ones [who] will not convert to Islam will be the Jews, and we will destroy them.’

Zechariah 12:2-3, “Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah [and] against Jerusalem.  And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.”

Recommended: The Mark of the Beast – What Your Church May Not Be Telling You …

“… In the woods a few miles from the entrance to a small town in Dagestan, Abdul-Walid and I struck up a conversation about Islam, during which the Arab persistently pressured me to become a Muslim. He said:

‘We have not yet finished off the Zionists and their allies. Soon the whole world will see what is the reward of Allah.’

‘They (the Jews) think that money can buy everything, but the Muslims will prove to them that their money is powerless before the retribution of Allah. Money is not protection against suicide bombers, bombs and missiles.’

‘Jerusalem belongs to the Muslims. And it will be ours even if the whole world will burn in the fire,’ said Abdul-Walid.

He showed me two large boxes which were labeled ‘Koran.’ He said:

‘We have the Koran that tells us what to do. We will restore the Sharia. Allah gave us oil and martyrs. We cannot stop. Soon the whole world will recognize our strength and become Muslim. The only ones [who] will not convert to Islam will be the Jews, and we will destroy them.'” Read more.

Iranian Armed Forces: Grounds Ready for Victory over Quds [Jerusalem] Occupiers – “The Iranian Armed Forces’ Headquarters in a statement said that ongoing revolutions and popular uprisings in the region have prepared the grounds for the creation of a comprehensive Muslim front to clinch a final victory over the Zionist regime and free the holy [Jerusalem] from the Zionist occupation. The statement issued on Wednesday called for a massive turnout by the Iranian nation in the International Quds Day rallies on Friday, reminding that the rallies show that the Zionist regime of Israel is sinking in the gulf of Islamic awakening and popular anti-Zionist uprisings.” Read more.

Flashback: NBC’s Engel ‘Worried’ About ‘Ferociously Anti-Israel’ Arab Street and Concludes ‘This Thing Ends in Jerusalem’ – “A clip from NBC’s interview has now been added below. This clip was uploaded to Youtube by a Muslim poster who states, unequivocally, ‘Yes, insha’Allaah, [Allah willing] just like before, we will get back our Al Quds [Jerusalem].’ The Muslim world longs for the battle of all battles to come as soon as possible …” Read more.

Iranian Christians Facing Increased Hostility From Government, Thousands of Bibles Seized and Hundreds Burned

“Christians in Iran are facing increasing hostility from authorities in the officially Islamic country.

Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) has received reports that a pastor has been arrested for a second time on August 17.

Abdolreza ‘Matthias’ Haghnejad, a pastor in the evangelical Church of Iran denomination, was reportedly re-arrested by Iranian authorities in Rasht whilst making a pastoral visit.

His family are in the dark about why he has been arrested and his whereabouts.

There are also concerns that he does not have access to an attorney.

Pastor Haghnejad was arrested previously in 2006. Earlier this year, he was charged with activities against the order and rounded up by authorities along with 10 other members of his denomination. He was released when the authorities dropped the charges.

Last month, a Christian man and woman were detained in Iran. The man was released but the woman, Leila Mohammadi, was arrested and is believed to be behind bars in Evin prison.” Read more.

Iranians seize 6,500 Bibles, burn 300, claim they are protecting youth – “Iranian authorities have seized 6,500 copies of the Bible in northwest of Iran. In another incident, officials burned 300 Bibles. A spokesman said the Bibles were confiscated to block missionaries who ‘are trying to deviate our youth.’ Dr. Majid Abhari, adviser to the social issues committee of the parliament in Iran, told the official Iranian news agency, Mehr, ‘With regard to the activities of these Christian missionaries to deceive people specially youngsters, they have begun a huge campaign by spending huge sums and false propaganda for deviating the public. These books were made with the best paper in the world in pocket size.'” Read more.