Saudi billionaire eyes new links with News Corp.

By TAREK EL-TABLAWY

The Saudi billionaire whose investment firm is one of the biggest stakeholders in Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. said he is looking to expand his alliances with the media giant, in the latest indication that his appetite for growth remains robust even as his company retrenches.

Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, a nephew of the Saudi king and who was listed last year by Forbes as the world's 22nd richest person, met with News Corp.'s chief executive Rupert Murdoch on Jan. 14 in a meeting that "touched upon future potential alliances with News Corp.," according to a statement released by his Kingdom Holding Co. late Saturday.

Media reports have indicated that News Corp, parent to Fox News and Dow Jones & Co., among others, may be thinking of buying a stake in Alwaleed's Rotana Media Group, which includes a number of satellite channels that air in the Middle East.

Neither company has commented publicly on the possible deal, but the talks offer an indication yet that such an agreement may yet be in the offing.

Kingdom Holding's statement said Alwaleed is already the second largest stakeholder in News Corp., with 5.7 percent of the shares of the media company. The stake is held through Kingdom Holding, in which Alwaleed holds a 95 percent stake.

The investment company has a diverse portfolio, ranging from hotels to shares in Apple, eBay and Citigroup.

Alwaleed, and the investment firm, were hit hard by the global meltdown.

He has since focused on shoring up borrowing power, in part through a recent decision to transfer 180 million of his shares in Citigroup to Kingdom Holding. In a statement last week, he described the move - valued at about $600 million - as key to facilitating future borrowing and growth.

The Saudi royal also met last week with Citigroup's chief executive Vikram Pandit, according to a statement by Kingdom Holding e-mailed Sunday.

Alwaleed told Pandit that the "honeymoon is now over," a clear indication that one of the banking giant's largest investors wants solid results this year, according to a transcript of an interview that aired Thursday on Fox Business News.

"I told him that clearly the market gave you two years leeway, but I think now it's time to deliver," Alwaleed said. "And 2010 is really for him is year to make it or break it, and he has to deliver. "

Alwaleed raised his stake in Citigroup to 5 percent in late 2008 from less than 4 percent in a move that came as the company was facing a possible collapse. Kingdom Holding says Alwaleed is the single largest shareholder in Citigroup.

Citigroup has repaid the money it borrowed from the U.S. government during the financial crisis, but still faces a new fee to be levied on banks by the Obama administration to recoup $120 billion in taxpayer money used to support faltering companies.

Alwaleed said he was opposed to the move, arguing that "I believe taxing the banks right now is not the right time at all."

"It's like you have a patient just coming out of ICU, intensive care unit, and all of sudden bang him with another tax. I think it's too much, it's too early for that if it's going to have that happen," he said, according to the transcript.

The $120 billion recovery goal is the most that administration officials expect to lose from the government's $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program that bailed out banks, automakers and other financial firms.

Alwaleed's Rotana already has an alliance with News Corp.

In 2008, the two companies teamed up to bring Fox Movies to the Arab world and then last year, Rotana and Fox International Channels signed a multi-year output deal with The Walt Disney Co. to provide a range of programing to viewers in the Middle East, according to the statement by Kingdom Holding.

Alwaleed has also been meeting with officials in Abu Dhabi, the oil-rich emirate that recently bailed out Dubai, its glitzy neighbor awash in debt.

A statement by Kingdom Holding said the Saudi royal met with senior officials in Abu Dhabi, which holds the presidency of the United Arab Emirates, a federation of seven semiautonomous city-states.

Abu Dhabi's largest sovereign wealth fund, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, alleges "fraudulent misrepresentations" by Citigroup over the fund's $7.5 billion investment in the banking giant. ADIA has said it is seeking compensation or an exit from the deal.

KansasCity.com

US Soldier Held Captive By Taliban Shown In Video

July 18

Video footage is available via AP and ABC News

The Taliban has just released a video of the American soldier missing from his base in eastern Afghanistan since June 30.

The soldier, whose identity has not yet been confirmed by the Pentagon pending notification of members of Congress and the soldier’s family, states his identity on the video according to AP sources.

The soldier said the date is July 14. He says he was captured when he lagged behind on a patrol.

He is interviewed in English by his captors, and he is asked his views on the war (extremely hard), Islam ( wants to learn more it) and the morale of American soldiers (which he said was low.)

Asked how he was doing, the soldier said:

“Well I’m scared, scared I won’t be able to go home,” he said on the video. “It is very unnerving to be a prisoner.”

Read Full Article

Fox News has additional details from the video here

Source: Homeland Security News

Sorry Neda, We Have a Pedophile to Worship

Friday, June 26, 2009

Joy Tiz

For previous generations, the question: “Where were you when Kennedy was shot” has served as a conversation starter as well as a catalyst for exploration of a shared history. It would seem that the quintessential question will soon be: “where were you when you found out Michael Jackson was dead?”?

For the record, I was at the gym. Credulous, I trusted that the Jackson story would get a few minutes of coverage before Bret Baier returned. My jejune confidence that Charles Krauthammer would momentarily be providing commentary about actual news was hastily crushed. Abstrusely, Fox News brought Shepard Smith in to cover this astounding turn of events.

You know what would be really shocking? Michael Jackson dying at the age of 87. That would have been a real stunner, well deserving of the nauseating nonstop narration that should be reserved for heads of state.

Time really stands still on the treadmill when you are listening to a fervid Geraldo lamenting Anna Nicole Jackson’s “shocking” death.

All other news of the day having been declared inconsequential, Fox proceeded to indulge in unnecessary and disproportionate keening about the calamitous death of the world’s most famous pedophile.

The same Michael Jackson who once told a reporter it was “sweet” and “charming” to sleep with little boys and ply them with “Jesus Juice” (known to lucid people as “wine”) has been deified. Jackson, who dangled one of his babies off of a hotel balcony also obtained those children via a bizarre and labyrinthine arrangement, named one of them Blanket and made them wear burkas.

Jackson is exceedingly popular in the United Kingdom, confirming Mark Steyn’s reflection that the United Kingdom is further along than the United States in the march toward complete social and economic collapse. But not to worry, we won’t quit until we’re Number One.

Michael Jackson recently converted to Islam. Michael’s brother, Jermaine, converted to Islam in 1989. Even the Religion of Peace failed to deliver true bliss.

Americans know far more about Michael Jackson than they do about the history of Iran and its relationship to the United States. Most of what America knows is wrong, having been subjected to pertinacious propaganda in Ayers’ based public education.

Which is why the interest in the life and death of Neda Agah-Soltan was so facilely dwarfed by the opulent freak show that surrounds Michael Jackson.

Neda was the beautiful young Iranian woman who was gunned down in the streets of Tehran for the crime of showing up. She showed up to take a stand for freedom and took a bullet in the neck for her aspirations. A relative in the United States had cautioned Neda not to attend any demonstrations, telling her “They’re killing people.” To which the lionhearted and prescient Neda replied: “Don’t worry, it’s just one bullet and its over.”

For just a flicker in time, Neda became an icon, a symbol of the young Iranians’ longing for the most elemental liberties. It was easy for Americans to be incensed at the barbarous slaughter of a young woman so lovely and earnest. Young Iran has caught a glimpse of freedom, the inescapable byproduct of advancing technology. The noteworthiness of Neda is in no small measure due to the ease with which young Americans can appreciate her as not so unlike themselves.

Part of the delusive indoctrination that goes on in public schools includes the rewriting of Iranian history in a way that abets the left.

In actuality, before the Jimmy Carter regime, the United States and Iran were on friendly terms. The Shah of Iran was the least backward of all Muslim leaders.

The shah, who is erroneously characterized as a villain, was responsible for giving women the right to vote. In other Arab states, they still don’t have the right to leave the house without a husband or other male relative.

Unimaginable though it may be post-Carter, Iran and Israel were not always bitter enemies. The current government of Iran is as much an enemy of the Iranian people as it is of Israel.

Iranians are understandably horrified by the new American president who has referred to the Ayatollah as Supreme Leader, a show of respect for the legitimacy of the barbaric regime. Barack Obama went so far as to send a letter to the Ayatollah Khomeini weeks before Iran’s June 12th election. Obama was pandering to the brutal, backwards and oppressive Iranian leadership.

Back when the news still took the trouble to cover the bloodbath in Iran, the world saw young Iranians holding signs in English. Urgent pleas were coming through computers worldwide begging the leader of the free world to help the Iranian people. Many Americans would be amazed to learn how many Iranians were educated via petrodollars in the United Kingdom or the United States. Some Iranian young people speak far better English than your local high school kids.

The late shah’s son reached out to Obama for support:

“I would like to take this opportunity and tell the President this is a crucial moment - on behalf of my compatriots and millions who have been turning to the outside world, particularly to this President - to say: don’t let us down.”

While Barack Obama was eating ice cream, Neda’s parents were forced from their home by government agents. Public displays of mourning were shut down. Nineteen year old Kaveh Alipour was gunned down by government barbarians. After frantically searching for news about his missing son at hospitals and eventually the morgue, Alipour’s father was told he would be required to pay a $3000 “bullet fee” to reimburse the government for the ammo expended in executing his child.

Barack Obama did eventually deliver the obligatory “we are outraged” statement. He held off as long as he could, until public opinion became too clamorous to overlook. While he gabbled, the violence in Iran escalated. Iranian citizens were being massacred in the streets with axes and machetes. Students were being routed from their beds in their dorm rooms.

Ronald Reagan responded to a similar cry for help from the people of Poland who were then enslaved by the Soviet Union. Reagan minced no words in decrying the Soviet Union as an “Evil Empire”. He never expelled gibberish about how the United States shouldn’t “meddle” as innocent citizens suffer.

Then, as today, pantywaist liberals were caterwauling about toning down the rhetoric so as not to pique oppressive dictators. Thankfully, Reagan ignored such nattering. The Poles were doing what the Iranians are today: insisting on the most basic of human liberties. Ronald Reagan had no intention of sitting on the sidelines waiting to see how this thing played out:

“In a stiff note to Soviet boss Leonid Brezhnev; Reagan said that if the Russians kept up their thuggish response to Poland they ‘could forget any new nuclear arms agreement.’ Gone too would be better trade relations, and in their place would be the ‘harshest possible economic sanctions’ if they even thought of invading Poland as they had done with Czechoslovakia in 1968 or Hungary in 1956.”

The Soviets responded by declaring martial law and shutting down the Polish borders, as well as squelching communications with the outside world.

Reagan was unflinching. He wrote in his diary:

“I took a stand that this may be the last chance in our lifetime to see a change in the Soviet Empire’s colonial policy re Eastern Europe. We should take a stand and tell them unless and until martial law is lifted in Poland, the prisoners were released and negotiations resumed between Walesa and the Polish government, we would quarantine the Soviets and Poland with no trade or communications across their borders. Also tell our NATO allies and others to join us in such sanctions or risk an estrangement from us. A TV speech is in the works. “

Reagan helped spirit the defecting Polish Ambassador out of the country and to the United States. Leonid Brezhnev was livid. Reagan was delighted; Brezhnev’s outrage confirmed to Reagan that he was on the right track. Ronald Reagan went on to use every tool at his disposal to topple Brezhnev’s regime and replace him with Lech Walesa.

Ronald Reagan won the battle to liberate the Polish people. They have not forgotten. He is considered, in the words of the Polish president, the ”architect of democracy.”

Barack Obama is certainly no Ronald Reagan. The entire world, including the United States would be better off and more secure if the Ayatollah’s government toppled. The death of a pedophile has created a distraction from having to deal with the knotty problem of full scale slaughter in the streets of Iran.

Source: Canada Free Press

Pro-HAMAS Rallies Billed as "Anti War" Protests

JON SCOTT: You have seen protests around the world over the violence in Gaza, but demonstrations in Washington, D.C. and New York billed as anti-war rallies look a lot more like anti-Israel rallies in this exclusive video by the Investigative Project on Terrorism.

The protesters are chanting pro-HAMAS slogans – one man wearing a shirt that reads "Holocaust: it is time to the ovens again."

Steve Emerson is Executive Director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism. Why don't we see more of this video, Steve?

STEVEN EMERSON: You know, it's a good question. We had crews shooting in five cities and then we found some other stuff on YouTube and these rallies, as you point out, are not just anti-Israeli, but they're pro-terrorist – calling for Israel's destruction, calling for HAMAS and Hizballah to beat the Jews – for the Jews to be annihilated using a taunt that has been chanted at them for a thousand years.

I find it absolutely strange and disturbing that the mainstream networks are not reporting on this as they have reported on the casualties in Gaza. This is a very important development in the United States insofar as these are American protesters promoting Hizballah, HAMAS, and even al Qaeda. More ...

Source: FNC
H/T: The Investigative Project

Is The Media Fair In Its Portrayal Of The Israeli-Hamas Conflict?

COLMES: In his most recent posting on TheDailyBeast.com, terrorism expert Steve Emerson dissects what he says is the New York Times' clearly sympathetic view lf Hamas when reporting on the Israeli-Hamas conflict in Gaza.

Emerson says The Times is trying to humanize the terror group. Emerson references a particular article back in October of 2008 where New York Times reporter Tagreid al-Khaduri (ph) wrote, "Taking advantage of the pause in violence, the Hamas leaders have turned to matchmaking, bringing together single fighters and widows and providing dowries and wedding parties for the many here who cannot afford such trappings or -- of matrimony," end of the quote.

Joining us now from InvestigativeProject.org, Steve Emerson.

Steve, The New York Times is an easy target, but would you honestly say that, in the United States, there's a fair and balanced presentation, media-wide, giving both sides of the issue here? More ...

Source: FNC
H/T: The Investigative Project

Israel 'cannot accept' ceasefire with Hamas

From Correspondents in Washington | December 28, 2008

ISRAEL "cannot really accept" a ceasefire with Hamas, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said in a U.S. television interview today, rejecting calls by the United Nations and the European Union for a truce after Israeli air strikes killed 227 people in Gaza.

"For us to be asked to have a ceasefire with Hamas is like asking you to have a ceasefire with al Qaeda. It's something we cannot really accept," Barak told Fox News from Tel Aviv.

Asked whether Israel would follow up the air strikes with a ground offensive, Barak said, "If boots on the ground will be needed, they will be there."

"Our intention is to totally change the rules of the game," he said.

Source: The Australian

ISNA: "ISNA is in no way associated with the Muslim Brotherhood"

Direct link to video

ISNA claims no connection to Muslim Brotherhood. Muslim Brotherhood documents prove otherwise:

An Explanatory Memorandum
On the General Strategic Goal for the Group (Muslim Brotherhood)
In North America
5/22/1991

A list of our organizations and organizations of our friends Since ISNA is #1 on the list, it is more likely to be a MB organization than an organization of MB friends.
1. ISNA (Islamic Society of North America)
2-16 ...
17. IFC (ISNA Fiqh Committee)
18. IPAC (ISNA Political Awareness Committee)
19-29 ...

Source: Fox News / The Investigative ProjectISNA
Latest recipient of the Distinguished Islamofascist Award

Islamonazis Circling the Wagons

Source: FNC
H/T: Creeping Sharia

Fox News Special: Islamic Honor Killings in America

This FNC special will be on Saturday 8pm, Sunday 8pm, 11pm 2am ET.
Source: Atlas
H/T: Gramfan

The "YouTube" Debate on "Jihad USA" has begun; be a part of it!

Part I


Part II


Part III


Part IV


H/T: Walid Phares

Al Qaeda Trains Young Boys as Terrorists, Tapes Show

By Jennifer Griffin

WASHINGTON - Al Qaeda propaganda tapes released by Multinational Forces-Iraq reveal a possible new trend in the group's terror strategy in Iraq.

The tapes, obtained by FOX News and later released to the media, are training videos showing black-masked Iraqi children between 6 and 14 being taught how to hold AK-47s, stop a car and carry out a kidnapping, break into a house and break into a courtyard and terrorize the individuals living there.

Footage aired for reporters showed an apparent training operation in which the boys are seen storming a house and holding guns to the heads of mock residents. Another tape showed a young boy wearing a suicide vest and posing with automatic weapons. Read more ...

Source: Fox News / AP
H/T: Jihad Watch