Have We Had Our Fill of This Asshole Yet?

What about this one?

Are we ready to stop being distracted?

Netanyahu Confirms Secret Attack on Syria:

Israel's opposition leader, Binyamin Netanyahu, has given the first confirmation from his country of a mysterious air strike on an unknown target deep in Syria earlier this month - fuelling frenzied speculation about exactly what happened.

The leader of the rightwing Likud party said he had given the prime minister, Ehud Olmert, his backing for the attack, which Damascus said took place on September 6. Before that, the Israeli government had enforced a news blackout on the story.

Asked during a TV interview, Mr Netanyahu said: "When a prime minister does something that is important and necessary to Israel's security ... I give my backing." He refused to give further details.

Syria protested to the UN about the "flagrant violation" of its airspace. Officials in Damascus have reported that their air defences forced Israeli F15 jets to flee, dropping "munitions" and fuel tanks in the desert near the Turkish border.

US and other officials have claimed that Israel hit Syrian targets that may have had links to North Korean nuclear arms - dismissed by Damascus as "a big lie".

Meanwhile, Mr Olmert last night confronted critics within his centrist Kadima party who fear he may concede too much to Palestinians, and urged them to seize an opportunity to make peace after 60 years of conflict. Mr Olmert said he would free more Palestinian prisoners as part of "measured gestures" toward President Mahmoud Abbas as they try to agree terms for a US-sponsored peace conference.

Israel, U.S. Shared Data on Suspected Nuclear Site

The Washington Post reports:

Israel's decision to attack Syria on Sept. 6, bombing a suspected nuclear site set up in apparent collaboration with North Korea, came after Israel shared intelligence with President Bush this summer indicating that North Korean nuclear personnel were in Syria, U.S. government sources said.

The Bush administration has not commented on the Israeli raid or the underlying intelligence. Although the administration was deeply troubled by Israel's assertion that North Korea was assisting the nuclear ambitions of a country closely linked with Iran, sources said, the White House opted against an immediate response because of concerns it would undermine long-running negotiations aimed at persuading North Korea to abandon its nuclear program.

Ultimately, however, the United States is believed to have provided Israel with some corroboration of the original intelligence before Israel proceeded with the raid, which hit the Syrian facility in the dead of night to minimize possible casualties, the sources said.

The target of Israel's attack was said to be in northern Syria, near the Turkish border. A Middle East expert who interviewed one of the pilots involved said they operated under such strict operational security that the airmen flying air cover for the attack aircraft did not know the details of the mission. The pilots who conducted the attack were briefed only after they were in the air, he said. Syrian authorities said there were no casualties.

U.S. sources would discuss the Israeli intelligence, which included satellite imagery, only on condition of anonymity, and many details about the North Korean-Syrian connection remain unknown. The quality of the Israeli intelligence, the extent of North Korean assistance and the seriousness of the Syrian effort are uncertain, raising the possibility that North Korea was merely unloading items it no longer needed. Syria has actively pursued chemical weapons in the past but not nuclear arms -- leaving some proliferation experts skeptical of the intelligence that prompted Israel's attack.

Syria and North Korea both denied this week that they were cooperating on a nuclear program. Bush refused to comment yesterday on the attack, but he issued a blunt warning to North Korea that "the exportation of information and/or materials" would affect negotiations under which North Korea would give up its nuclear programs in exchanges for energy aid and diplomatic recognition.

"To the extent that they are proliferating, we expect them to stop that proliferation, if they want the six-party talks to be successful," he said at a news conference, referring to negotiations that also include China, Japan, South Korea and Russia.

Unlike its destruction of an Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981, Israel made no announcement of the recent raid and imposed strict censorship on reporting by the Israeli media. Syria made only muted protests, and Arab leaders have remained silent. As a result, a daring and apparently successful attack to eliminate a potential nuclear threat has been shrouded in mystery.

"There is no question it was a major raid. It was an extremely important target," said Bruce Riedel, a former intelligence officer at Brookings Institution's Saban Center for Middle East Policy. "It came at a time the Israelis were very concerned about war with Syria and wanted to dampen down the prospects of war. The decision was taken despite their concerns it could produce a war. That decision reflects how important this target was to Israeli military planners."

Israel has long known about Syria's interest in chemical and even biological weapons, but "if Syria decided to go beyond that, Israel would think that was a real red line," Riedel said.

Edward Djerejian, a former U.S. ambassador to Syria and founding director of Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy, said that when he was in Israel this summer he noticed "a great deal of concern in official Israeli circles about the situation in the north," in particular whether Syria's young ruler, Bashar al-Assad, "had the same sensitivity to red lines that his father had." Bashar succeeded his Hafez al-Assad as president of Syria in 2000.

The Israeli attack came just three days after a North Korean ship docked at the Syrian port of Tartus, carrying a cargo that was officially listed as cement.

The ship's role remains obscure. Israeli sources have suggested it carried nuclear equipment. Others have maintained that it contained only missile parts, and some have said the ship's arrival and the attack are merely coincidental. One source suggested that Israel's attack was prompted by a fear of media leaks on the intelligence.

The Bush administration's wariness when presented with the Israeli intelligence contrasts with its reaction in 2002, when U.S. officials believed they had caught North Korea building a clandestine nuclear program in violation of a nuclear-freeze deal arranged by the Clinton administration.

After the Bush administration's accusation, the Clinton deal collapsed and North Korea restarted a nuclear reactor, stockpiled plutonium and eventually conducted a nuclear test. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice convinced Bush this year to accept a deal with North Korea to shut down the reactor, infuriating conservatives inside and outside the administration.

But for years, Bush has also warned North Korea against engaging in nuclear proliferation, specifically making that a red line that could not be crossed after North Korea tested a nuclear device last year. The Israeli intelligence therefore suggested North Korea was both undermining the agreement and crossing that line.

Conservative critics of the administration's recent diplomacy with North Korea have seized on reports of the Israeli intelligence as evidence that the White House is misguided if it thinks it can ever strike a lasting deal with Pyongyang. "However bad it might be for the six-party talks, U.S. security requires taking this sort of thing seriously," said John R. Bolton, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who was a top arms control official in Bush's first term.

But advocates of engagement have accused critics of trying to sabotage the talks. China on Monday abruptly postponed a round of six-party talks scheduled to begin this week, but U.S. officials now say the talks should start again Thursday.

Some North Korean experts said they are puzzled why, if the reports are true, Pyongyang would jeopardize the hard-won deal with the United States and the other four countries. "It does not make any sense at all in the context of the last nine months," said Charles "Jack" Pritchard, a former U.S. negotiator with North Korea and now president of the Korea Economic Institute.

U.S. Officials Confirm Israel Strike on Syria

Only in a parallel universe is Israel's act of aggression not considered an act of war.

Reuters reports:

U.S. officials on Wednesday confirmed Israel launched air strikes against Syria last week and said they were to target weapons Israel believes were headed for the militant group Hezbollah.

One defense official dismissed speculation Israel had aimed for any nuclear-related target. Two others said the target included weapons Israeli and U.S. officials have said Iran provides to Hezbollah through Syria.

"They saw a weapons flow," one official said, referring to weapons caches intended for Hezbollah, which fired thousands of rockets into Israel during a 36-day conflict last year.

It was still unclear whether Israel hit its targets in the September 6 air strikes.

Israel has declined comment on the strikes. Syria says the munitions dropped by Israel did no damage.

One U.S. defense official, speaking only on condition of anonymity, said the significance of the strikes was not whether Israel hit its targets, but rather that it displayed a willingness to take military action.

Syria has protested to the United Nations about the air strikes. On Wednesday, Syria's U.N. ambassador said Israel's motive was to torpedo peace moves.

SYRIA AT U.N.

"We think the Israeli purpose behind such an aggressive act is to torpedo the peace process, to torpedo the idea of holding an international conference," Syrian Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari told reporters.

Asked about Hezbollah's weapons, Ja'afari said, "This is blah, blah. This is nonsense, this is an unfounded statement. It is not up to the Israelis or anyone else to assess what we have in Syria."

"There was no target," he added. "They dropped their munitions. They were running away after they were confronted by our air defense."

Israeli public radio stations, which like all media in the country are under military censorship, led morning news bulletins with a New York Times report that U.S. officials had said Israel carried out the strikes -- and that U.S. officials believed Syria may have obtained nuclear material.

While some officials speculated that Syria and North Korea had opened some form of cooperation on nuclear weapons, other U.S. officials and former intelligence officials told Reuters that seemed unlikely and technically difficult.

A European diplomat speaking on condition of anonymity told Reuters satellite surveillance of an alleged nuclear site in Syria had been inconclusive due to poor weather. However, he said monitoring of this site would continue.

Israeli jets last struck in 2003 across a border that remains tense but quiet 34 years after the last war between the two neighbors ended in an edgy ceasefire. In June last year Syrian guns opened fire on Israeli aircraft over Syria.

Israel has urged Syria to stop supporting militant Palestinian groups and the Lebanese movement Hezbollah.

Some Israeli intelligence officials also have suggested Syria's government might be ready to try to take by force parts of the Golan Heights captured by Israel in the war of 1967.

Syrian officials have said Syria was seeking peaceful means to recover the Golan, although some also have suggested force remained an option if diplomacy failed. Israeli-Syrian peace efforts have been stalled for seven years.

And notice how the media went to black-out.

Unholy Alliance

"North Korean Commies ate my giant rabbits!" says a German rabbit breeder who sold 12 of his animals to North Korea so the communist country could start its own breeding program fears they have been eaten by officials.

Karl Szmolinsky with one of his giant rabbits, which weighs 23lb

From the Telegraph:
Karl Szmolinsky sent the huge rabbits, which can grow as big as dogs and produce 15lb (7kg) of meat, to North Korea last year so they could be bred and used to ease desperate food shortages.

He thought they were being kept at a zoo in the capital Pyongyang and was planning to travel to the country after Easter to give advice on setting up a breeding facility.

But the 68-year-old says his trip has been cancelled and he suspects it may be because communist officials have eaten the rabbits, which he sold for a cut-price €80 (£54) each rather than the usual €200.

Mr Szmolinsky, who has won prizes for his rabbits during 47 years of breeding them, said: "That’s an assumption, not an assertion. But they’re not getting any more.

"I think the animals aren’t alive any more. I was due to go and inspect the animals and look at the facility.

"They kept delaying the trip. I would have liked to go."

He added that he will no longer export rabbits to the country. "North Korea won’t be getting anything from me any more, they shouldn’t even bother asking."

But the North Korean embassy in Berlin denied anyone had contacted Mr Szmolinsky and insisted his "German grey giant" rabbits were still alive.

"The rabbits aren’t intended to be eaten, they are for breeding purposes," a spokesman said.

Kim Jong Il, North Korea's leader, is said to be a huge film buff, owning a collection of more than 20,000 video tapes. His reported favorites are the slasher film Friday The 13th, Rambo, the James Bond and Godzilla series, any movie with Elizabeth Taylor, and Hong Kong action movies. He is the author of the book On the Art of the Cinema. In 1978, on the orders of Kim, South Korean film director Shin Sang-ok and his actress wife Choe Eun-hui were kidnapped in order to build a North Korean film industry. In 2006 he was involved in the production of the Juche (self-reliance) based movie Diary of a Girl Student – depicting the life of a girl whose parents are scientists – with a KCNA news report stating that Kim "improved its script and guided its production".

More than two million people are thought to have died as a result of a famine in North Korea during the mid-1990s, and its citizens have been encouraged to breed rabbits to be eaten as food shortages continue.

Mr Szmolinsky, meanwhile, is in talks to sell his rabbits to a host of other countries including China and Russia.

I'd like to know how far Szmolinsky's 'ranch' is from a nuclear power plant.

Screwing around with nature:

According to Szmolinsky, eight female rabbits should produce between 60-70 offspring each year. So, in theory, North Korea could have a large enough population of German Grey Giants in less than decade to begin using the rabbits as a food crop. Each rabbit should provide around 7 kg. of meat, enough to feed more than one family.

If it is true that North Korea plans on turning these rabbits into a high-volume food source to help feed its 23 million citizens, it will be interesting to see how Pyongyang actually makes it happen.

Many European countries, China, and Indonesia do produce and consume significant amounts of rabbit meat. But no major population on earth uses rabbit meat as a primary food source.

Malta is the worldwide leader in per capita rabbit consumption. And, at present, North Korea is not even one of the world’s major rabbit meat producers.

The problems that North Korea faces setting up this programme are significant. First, how would Pyongyang establish such a large breeding operation? It is doubtful that the government could create the infrastructure needed to make this a viable industry. In order to produce 2,273,000 kg. of rabbit meat annually, North Korea would have to build facilities to house at least one million rabbits. The number and size of housing could be reduced by turning a large portion of the public into “backyard breeders.”

But, leaving this programme in the hands of an underfed populace and small farms is not a viable option. Especially when you consider the eating habits of these giant hares. Each rabbit eats close to one kg. a day of grains and vegetables that could otherwise be consumed by humans. Szmolinsky himself limits the number of rabbits he keeps on-hand because of the cost of feeding them.

Nationwide, a population of 1,000,000 rabbits would be consuming 910,000 kg of food staples daily. Should this rabbit population grow into the millions, it is conceivable that the rabbits would end up eating more potatoes and rice daily that the North Korean population.