With its latest purchases from Washington, the Saudi Air Force will have more US fighter-bombers of more advanced models than the Israeli Air Force as well as a substantial influx of sophisticated Eurofighter Typhoons. Deep concern over this was recently relayed by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak to President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta. Israel acted on the quiet in view of Gulf anxiety over Iranian threats.

Washington and military sources that Israel made its concern known with the utmost discretion so as not to be seen as hampering the expansion of the Saudi Royal Air Force as Riyadh gets set to tackle Tehran should Saudi oil exports be sabotaged by Iranian attacks on its oil production or the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, its primary export outlet.

Last month, the US agreed to sell Saudi Arabia 84 advanced F-15SA fighter-bombers worth $29.4 billion. First deliveries are due in 2015. The package included the upgrading of 70 F-15 planes of the Saudi air fleet. Riyadhis also buying 72 advanced Eurofighter Typhoon fighter bombers. All in all, the oil kingdom will have the largest and most sophisticated fighter-bomber fleet in the Middle East.
Israel leaders reminded the Obama administration of its standing pledge to maintain Israel’s qualitative military edge in the region. The aircraft supplied to the Saudis will place that edge in doubt.
They voiced two additional causes for concern:

1. One fine day, Saudi Arabia, which has never agreed to peace relations with Israel, may be moved to attack the Jewish state from an air base very close to Israel’s shores. That proximity and the size and quality of its air force will allow dozens of warplanes to penetrate Israel’s air defenses and drop bombs on southern and central Israel.
2. Israel also fears that four or five Saudi pilots or hired Islamist fliers may one day form an al Qaeda cell inside the Saudi Air Force and conspire to carry out a suicide attack on Israeli cities on the model of al Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, most of whose participants were Saudis.

Israeli intelligence officials in close touch with American counterparts asked them if Washington had asked for Saudi assurances about the reliability of the air crews who will man the new F-15SA planes. They were told that no such guarantees had been requested.

For now, Israel has brought its concerns to the notice of the Obama administration without making specific requests to hold up delivery. Israel is conscious that the Gulf region is on tenterhooks over its security and the Saudis are deep in military preparations to beat back potentially aggressive Iranian moves in the wake of the oil embargo approved by the US and the European Union against Tehran’s nuclear program.

Jerusalem also takes into consideration the importance to the flagging American economy of the huge warplane transaction with the Saudis which will support 50,000 jobs in the US air industry and 600 American contractors of aircraft parts.

Obama will certainly not be approachable on this issue while running for re-election.

But none of these considerations allays the deep anxiety prevailing in the top echelons of Israel’s high military and air command over the radical upgrade awarded Saudi air power providing it with the capacity to outclass and outgun Israel.

Scientists believe that we can only see about 5% of the matter in the Universe. The rest is made up of invisible matter (called Dark Matter) and a mysterious form of energy known as Dark Energy.

Israel is said to have been stunned by the U.S. decision to export advanced weapons to Egypt.

Officials said the Israeli military and Defense Ministry have been closely monitoring a spate of recent U.S. arms sales to Egypt.

Officials said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak have raised the issue repeatedly with U.S. leaders. They said Egypt failed to use U.S. military aid to stabilize the Sinai Peninsula, which has turned into a staging ground for attacks against the Jewish state.

“U.S. financial support to Egypt, following the peace with Israel, could be terminated if the peace treaty is canceled,” Netanyahu told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Jan. 16. “It is clear to us that all we knew in Egypt under Mubarak’s regime is not what will be in the future, and there will be wide security implications.”

Israeli officials said the U.S. weapons exports would significantly bolster Egypt’s army and navy as the military regime becomes allied with the Muslim Brotherhood, which rejects the peace treaty with Israel.

“Washington is pretending that [President Hosni] Mubarak is still in power and can keep the military on a pro-Western course,” an official said.

In late 2011, the Defense Department granted contracts for he export of the U.S.-origin Harpoon advanced anti-ship missile and theM1A1 main battle tank. Officials said the administration of President Barack Obama has ignored appeals by Israel to adopt a cautious approach toward post-Mubarak Egypt.

Officials said the administration has determined that the new military regime in Cairo would continue a pro-U.S. policy as well as honor the peace treaty with Israel. But they said many in Congress disagree with the White House assessment and warned that the Brotherhood has become the new political power in the aftermath of parliamentary elections.

A key concern by Israel was that the administration would accede to anEgyptian demand to accelerate procurement of 20 F-16 Block 52+ fighter-jets from Lockheed Martin. Officials said the administration, despite Israel’s urging, has pledged to Cairo to proceed with the F-16 project and begin deliveries over the next 18 months.

“Egypt today faces no threat from its neighbors, but wants to engage in an arms race with us,” another official said. “This is dangerous.”

According to the Bible, Jews and Arabs are related [Genesis 25]. Jews descended from Abraham’s son Isaac, and Arabs descended from Abraham’s son Ishmael. So not only are both groups Semitic, but they’re also family.

Military tensions in the Persian Gulf shot up again Thursday, Jan. 26, after Dubai police commander Gen. Dhahi Khalfan said on Al Arabiya television that an imminent Gulf war cannot be ruled out and first signs are already apparent. “The world will not let Iran block Hormuz but Tehran can narrow the strait to the maximum,” he said.

He echoed predictions that Iran will not shut down the Strait of Hormuz completely, but gradually cut down tanker traffic which carries 17 million barrels, or one-fifth of the world’s daily consumption, through the waterway. Our Iranian sources report that the rule of thumb Tehran has devised for confront sanctions is to respond to the tightening of an oil embargo by having the Revolutionary Guards gradually narrow the tankers’ shipping lanes through the strategic strait. This will progressively cut down the amount of oil reaching the markets.

Tehran will not go all the way and shut the channel down completely for fear of provoking a military showdown with the United States. But each time Washington manages to stop Iran supplying a given country, the IRGC will shut down another section of the strait.

General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff admitted on Jan. 8 that Iran has the capacity to block the Strait of Hormuz temporarily but the US would get it reopened within a short time.

Saudi Arabia and Dubai are skeptical about the ability of the American navy and Gulf forces to keep the Strait of Hormuz open at all times in the face of continuous Iranian attacks.

The prevailing view in Gulf capitals is that for the six months from February through July 1, when the European embargo on Iranian oil and the Iranian national bank freeze kick in, a war of attrition will unfold as Iran carries out sporadic strait closures, either by mining the waterway or firing missiles at tankers from unmarked speedboats.

These operations will push up the price of oil and so drum home to oil-dependent Asian and European governments the high cost to them of the alternate opening and closing of the Strait of Hormuz.

A Saudi official said Wednesday, Jan. 1, that Tehran’s threats to punish Riyadh for offering to make up the shortfall incurred from the oil embargo against Iran “could be seen by Saudi Arabia as an act of war.”

The Iranian threats followed the pledge made this week by Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi to raise daily production by up to 2.7 million barrels per day to supply the countries caught short of supplies from Iran.

However, the Saudi minister could not say how the oil would make its way out of the Persian Gulf to destination if the Strait of Hormuz were to be shuttered partially or fully.

Military and Gulf sources report that Persian Gulf capitals are talking less these days about an outbreak of armed hostilities over Iran’s nuclear program and more about the coming war over the oil shipping routes out to market.

The Dubai general’s remarks Thursday about an imminent conflict referred not only to the flow of American reinforcements to the Gulf region but also to the new deployments of the armies of Gulf Cooperation Council states. They are moving into position in expectation of a military confrontation with Iran.

The rift between the Shia and Sunni started right after Muhammad’s death and originally reduced to a power struggle regarding who was going to become the authoritative group for continuing the faith.

The Shia believed Muhammad’s second cousin Ali should have taken over (the family/cleric model). The Sunni believed that the best person for the job should be chosen by the followers (the merit model) and that’s how the first Caliph, Abu Bakr, was appointed.

Although the conflict began as a political struggle it now mostly considered a religious and class conflict, with political conflict emanating from those rifts.

Three weeks after Tehran threatened action against any US aircraft carrier entering the Strait of Hormuz, Washington made two moves: US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta disclosed Sunday, Jan. 22, that the USS Enterprise Carrier Strike Group would steam through the strait in March; carrier through the strategic strait without incident, accompanied by British and French warships.

Defusing the Hormuz crisis set the scene for resumed nuclear negotiations leading up to which several messages were exchanged through back channels between the Obama administration and Tehran in recent weeks - amid Israeli preparations to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities.

These developments deepened the breach between the US and Israel. Two days earlier, on Friday, Jan. 20, Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint US Chiefs of Staff, visited Israel and with Israeli leaders emphasized the cooperation between Washington and Jerusalem on the Iranian threat. The Netanyahu government complained that action against Iran had been postponed for years on one pretext on another, and the same thing was happening to effective sanctions against Iran’s oil exports and central bank. Israel was therefore compelled to exercise its military option against the mortal peril of a nuclear Iran, said the Israeli prime minister, before it was too late.

Then Sunday, Jan. 22, Defense Secretary Panetta stood in a hangar of the Enterprise clad in the uniform of a ship’s crewman and told an audience of 1,700 personnel that the carrier would be sent to Hormuz in March. His statement was a red herring. A few hours later, the Abraham Lincoln was already through.

But what he said on the Enterprise was this: “That’s what this carrier is all about. That’s the reason we maintain a presence in the Middle East… We want them to know that we are fully prepared to deal with any contingency and it’s better for them to try to deal with us through diplomacy.”

Washington sources note that Panetta was the first high-ranking administration official to give Tehran an ultimatum: Accept the American offer to negotiate terms for halting your nuclear weapon program, or face up to America’s mighty fleet of American aircraft carriers. ”Our view is that the carriers, because of their presence, because of the power they represent, are a very important part of our ability to maintain power projection both in the Pacific and in the Middle East,” said the defense secretary.

However, behind this show of strength, Washington was actively preparing to sit down and talk.

Saturday, Jan. 21, the Washington Post disclosed that Obama had sent a special emissary to Tehran with an oral message proposing that Iran join the United States for resumed nuclear negotiations.

The emissary was not named - although there was some speculation that Turkish Foreign Minister was chosen for the mission - nor was Iran’s reply revealed.

According to the WP, its content was as follows: The United States and the international community have a strong interest in the free flow of commerce and freedom of navigation in all international waterways… Since taking office, the president has made it clear that he is willing to engage constructively and seriously with Iran about its nuclear program.

Also on Saturday, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards stated it considered the likely return of US warships to the Gulf part of its routine activity. They were not climbing down from their original threat. The statement came only after Tehran saw the USS Stennis, the object of threat, exiting the Gulf Friday, Jan. 20, and decided it was the Americans who had backed down.

Panetta’s comments Sunday aimed at correcting that impression and making it very clear to Tehran that although the Stennis was gone, the Abraham Lincoln was there and the Enterprise was coming “fully prepared to deal with any contingency.”

Cosmic Latte is the color of the universe, according to a team of astronomers from Johns Hopkins University. In 2001, Karl Glazebrook and Ivan Baldry determined that the color of the universe was a greenish white, but they soon corrected their analysis in “The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey: constraints on cosmic star-formation history from the cosmic spectrum“.

The Islamist opposition, fresh from an overwhelming victory in parliament, was preparing to confront the military regime in Egypt.

The Muslim Brotherhood intends to conduct a review of the military once it takes over parliament and the next Egyptian government.

The Brotherhood said the military, including its huge unreported economy, would be overseen by civilians.

“We respect and appreciate the Army, but the military council must be held accountable for any mistakes,” Brotherhood leader Mohammed Badie said.

The proposed policy was announced as the Brotherhood won 47.1 percent of Egypt’s parliament in elections that took place in late 2011 and early 2012.

The Brotherhood’s leading ally, the Salafist movement, was said to have won nearly 25 percent of the vote, giving any coalition a commanding majority of the National Assembly, scheduled to begin its session on Jan. 23.

In a television appearance on Jan. 20, Badie said the new parliament would demand an examination of the military’s budget. The U.S.-origin military was said to control the defense, energy and housing industry that comprised up to a third of Egypt’s economy.

“No one is above accountability,” Badie said.

Over the last three months, the Brotherhood sought to negotiate an agreement with the military for the transfer of power. But Islamic sources said the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces refused to submit to parliamentary scrutiny, and talks broke down in early January.

“Stability is the first goal,” Maj. Gen. Ismail Othman, a military regime member, said. “If there is tension between the people and the armed forces, it must be removed.”

A former senior Gulf Cooperation Council security official said Iran was directing insurgency attacks in at least two Gulf Arab states as well as neighboring Yemen.

Former Bahraini State Security chief, Col. Adel Flaifil, cited Manama and neighboring Saudi Arabia as two key targets of the Teheran regime.

“The outrage of the Houthis [Shi'ite fighters] in [Yemen's] Sa’ada and saboteurs in Bahrain and Qatif came on orders from Iran, particularly from hardline general and presidential candidate Dr. Qassim Suleimani, who is backed by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,” Flaifil said.

In a briefing on Jan. 16, Flaifil said Saudi Arabia reached agreement with Iran to end Shi’ite unrest in the kingdom’s Eastern Province.

He said Iran’s intelligence chief held meetings in Riyad in November in which the Saudis pledged to delay their demand for a UN Security Council resolution that would condemn an alleged plot by Teheran to kill the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Adel Al Jubeir.

But Iran did not keep its promise,” Flaifil said. “I also have information that the Iranian intelligence director is visiting Riyad to plead with our Saudi brothers to activate what had been reached earlier.”

Bahrain has blamed Iran for Shi’ite unrest that paralyzed the Sunni kingdom in the spring of 2011. The massive Shi’ite protests were quelled when several GCC states, particularly Saudi Arabia, sent more than 5,000 troops to Manama.

In January, unrest was renewed in both Bahrain and Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province. Flaifil said Iran was behind the attacks on the GCC regimes as part of Teheran’s effort to foil Western sanctions and the deployment of U.S. Navy warships in the Strait of Hormuz.

”In my view, there is only 20 percent possibility of war in the Gulf,” Flaifil said. “To my knowledge, there are U.S.-European assurances to protect GCC countries from any Iranian attack. The assurances also include not encouraging or standing by the Shi’ites and terrorist organizations.”

Flaifil, in remarks reported by the state-controlled Bahraini media, said the United States was recruiting GCC and NATO members to expand operations to protect Gulf shipping. He said military commanders from Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United States would meet at the end of January 2012.

”Iran will have to listen to reason,” Flaifil said.

Flaifil said GCC and other Sunni Muslim states were forming a powerful coalition to confront Iran. He said the coalition was helping the revolt against Syrian President Bashar Assad as well as the Sunni minority in northern and western Iraq.

“Iran has no alternative but to give in to the Arabs, because it is not capable of confrontation,” Flaifil said. “If [Iraqi prime minister] Mr. Al Maliki’s intransigence continues along with the marginalization of the Sunnis, it is expected that Sunni tribes in

Anbar and Salah Eddin could opt for an autonomous province. The Arabs will help them militarily and politically.”

February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.

Like many leftists, President Obama has deep contempt for Christianity and democracy. This is why his administration has declared war on the Catholic Church and religious liberty.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius recently went ahead and approved last year’s decision to mandate that many religious organizations provide health insurance plans to their employees that include contraception, abortion-inducing drugs and sterilization coverage - and this must be done without charging a co-pay.

In other words, Mr. Obama has done something that is ominous and unprecedented: compelling religious groups to embrace and subsidize free birth control. Catholic universities, hospitals and charities must either betray their fundamental social teachings or drop insurance coverage for their employees, thereby triggering massive financial penalties under Obamacare. The choice is simple: Abandon Catholic doctrine or go out of business.

The ruling will not simply devastate the Catholic heath care system and elaborate social network, which includes soup kitchens, adoption centers, immigrant services and parochial schools. It directly assaults and violates the conscience rights of Catholics. The church teaches that contraception is a sin, an immoral attempt to obstruct God’s will of when and whether human life should be created. It is the ultimate embodiment of pride: man trying to act as God. That is why opposition to birth control is at the heart of the Catholic faith.

The church teaches that the primary purpose of sexual activity within the sacred bonds of marriage is procreation - to perpetuate humanity from one generation to the next. For nearly 1,500 years, such thinking underpinned the Christian West. That was then; this is now. Since the 1960s, modern society is obsessed with contraception, abortion and sexual hedonism. The results have been declining birth rates and shrinking native populations. Literally, the West is dying.

As the late Pope John Paul II put it, we are in the grips of “a culture of death.” Birth control is a key pillar. It is a seminal aspect of the socialist drive to establish a secular utopia - smash the traditional family by relentlessly advancing the sexual revolution. The pill and the condom are the hammer and sickle of cultural Marxism. Decades ago, the Vatican warned that birth control eventually would lead to the West’s demise. A civilization unable - and unwilling - to reproduce itself is doomed.

Yet even if one does not care a scintilla about the church’s stance on contraception, the ruling should frighten everybody - Christian and non-Christian.

America was founded upon one key principle: religious freedom. The Pilgrims fled religious persecution. Our Founding Fathers deliberately created a republic banning an established church, such as England’s Anglican Church, and championed a nation where different religious denominations could exist - and flourish - without government harassment. Religious liberty lies at the core of American freedom. In fact, the Founders considered it so important that it comes before all other rights enshrined in the First Amendment. James Madison, the primary author of the Constitution, said, “Conscience is the most sacred of all property.” The Obama administration is telling Catholics that their conscience rights can be trampled with impunity. The state has the power to coerce people to support and pay for practices they find morally repugnant and contravene their fundamental religious beliefs. This is tyranny.

Mr. Obama is the most radical president in our history. He is spearheading a liberal social revolution, not just an economic one. He supported partial-birth abortion - the heinous procedure of killing babies just before they are to be delivered. His administration refuses to uphold the Defense of Marriage Act. He has enabled homosexuals to serve openly in the military, transforming the armed forces into a vast laboratory for social engineering. His signature legislation, Obamacare, allows for the federal funding of abortion. Hence, Christians will be forced to have their tax dollars subsidize the mass murder of unborn children - a direct attack on their most basic religious tenets. He is making Christians complicit in infanticide.

To commemorate the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Mr. Obama made a remarkable and revealing statement. He said legalized abortion is indispensable “to ensure that our daughters have the same rights, freedoms and opportunities as our sons to fulfill their dreams.” In other words, being pregnant is a burden - an obstacle - to be overcome. That a human life is destroyed is irrelevant to him and the feminist left. Murder, it appears, is sometimes necessary to achieve liberalism’s much-vaunted goal of personal liberation.

“Religion is the opiate of the masses,” Karl Marx said. This is why Marxists and their fellow travelers have sought to eradicate religious faith - especially Christianity. Tens of millions of Christians were slaughtered by Vladimir Lenin, Josef Stalin and Mao Zedong. At its core, communism is based on anti-Christian bigotry (just as national socialism is infused with anti-Semitism).

Mr. Obama is a militant secularist. His aim is to purge religion from the public square, forcing it to retreat into the private sphere - making it nothing more than a personal lifestyle choice. He wants us to leave our faith at the door when engaging in civic life. Yet religion is natural to human beings. The only way radical progressives can forge a secular social order is through a repressive state.

The Obama administration is eroding the First Amendment, assaulting the conscience rights and religious liberties of Catholics and waging a relentless campaign to destroy America’s Judeo-Christian values. Catholics must engage in civil disobedience. Otherwise, Mr. Obama will succeed in dismantling our republic. Today, he is coming for us. Tomorrow, it will be you.

A golden razor removed from Tutankhamen’s tomb over 3000 years after his death was still sharp enough for use.

A prominent analyst has predicted that North Korea will not survive the next 20 years as democratic and external market forces threaten Pyongyang’s rigid, isolated system.

Alexander Dynkin, director of Russia’s state-run think tank, the Institute of World Economy and International Relations, also said the unfavorable conditions would force the North’s new ruler Kim Jong-Un to feel a need for change, despite fear that doing so could spell the collapse his regime.

“This regime will not survive (the) next 20 years,” Dynkin told reporters on the sidelines of a Seoul forum. He pointed out that situations within China and Russia, traditional patrons of North Korea’s, have significantly changed since 1994.

The conditions facing Kim Jong-Un today are much worse than in 1994, when his father Kim Jong-Il inherited power from national founder Kim Il-Sung.

“In 1994, China was just in the starting process of their market reforms, Russia was in a total mess after 1991, South Korea just started going out of the … totalitarian regime to democratic society, which we see now,” he said.

“Currently, this [North Korea] regime is surrounded by more or less market oriented and pro-democratic forces, maybe except in China … and [the] regime has to react somehow,” Dynkin said.

The death of Kim Jong-Il has also brought the two Koreas closer to reunification, the Russian expert said, raising doubt about Kim Jong-Un’s capacity to keep the hermit kingdom afloat.

Kim Jong-Un, thought to have been born on Jan. 8, 1983, is considered unskilled and inexperienced, and did not have enough time to build his own power base due to his father’s sudden death.

“I guess it will happen in the mid-[20]20s, something like that,” Dynkin said. “I guess that the young guy has some different experiences in comparison with his grandfather and father. I guess he uses the Internet … He has access to foreign countries, foreign information.”

Institute Vice President Vasily Mikheev also said in a Seoul forum that North Korea “is historically doomed,” and called Kim Jong-Un a “temporary figure.”

”The elite circles will be preoccupied with a struggle for power,” he said, adding an invisible struggle “will be increasing in the nest months to come.”

The U. S, Navy’s first battle flag was a yellow flag with a black snake above the words. The purpose of the Navy at this time was to harass British shipping and capture its cargo. The fleet then consisted of former merchant vessels converted into warships.

Saudi Arabia has been leading a Gulf Arab effort to conduct an independent security policy that was not dependent on the United States.

Diplomats and analysts said one option has been to strengthen relations with China, a
nuclear power that has been searching for additional energy supplies.

On Jan. 15, China and Iran signed a nuclear cooperation agreement that envisioned Beijing’s assistance for a nuclear energy program in the GCC kingdom. The agreement came in wake of Saudi threats to match Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

“The Gulf states had long looked to Washington to be their protector,” Kuwait Center for Strategic Studies president Sami Al Faraj said. “They still have the United States, but the Gulf is increasingly looking around and saying: ‘We need to take care of ourselves, too.’ ”

The sources said Saudi King Abdullah and Crown Prince Nayef were working with a range of foreign countries in a policy that would leverage the Gulf Cooperation Council’s huge energy production to counter neighboring Iran.

”Any threat to our interests or security will force us to use all available options to defend our interests, and national and regional security,” former Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki Al Faisal said.

Addressing a security conference in Bahrain on Jan. 17, Turki, also a former mbassador to Britain and the United States, raised the prospect of a war with Iran. Turki, believed to be speaking for the Saudi leadership, cited Iranian threats to block the Strait of Hormuz, the passage for 40 percent of global crude oil shipments.

“The mounting escalation and persistent tensions might end up in an adventure with unpredictable consequences or in an unwanted military confrontation,” Turki said.

Analysts and diplomats assert that the Saudi royal family has been frustrated by the U.S. hesitation to stop Iran. They cited the refusal by the administration of President Barack Obama to sign tough sanctions legislation that targeted Iran’s energy sector.

“The Gulf states are definitely taking a stronger stance against Iran and are using their considerable influence to try to convince others of their Iranian fears,” Theodore Karasik, an analyst at the Institute for Near

East and Gulf Military Analysis in the United Arab Emirates, said.Currently, the GCC, led by the Saudis, were engaged in a massive military buildup. Riyad has ordered about $30 billion worth of fighter-jets and munitions from the United States while the UAE was expected to purchase another $20 billion from Washington.

At the same time, the GCC was moving to replace Iran as the energy supplier to key countries, including China, Japan and South Korea. The GCC effort, again led by Riyad, has prompted Iranian threats.”These acts will not be considered friendly,” Iran’s envoy to OPEC, Mohammed Ali Khatibi, said.