12/11/12

* Noah's Ark opens in Netherlands Just as the first storms of winter roll in, Dutchman Johan Huibers has finished his 20-year quest to build a full-scale, functioning model of Noah's Ark.

* 'Khartoum allowing Iran to establish Red Sea base' Sudanese opposition groups accused Khartoum this week of reaching a secret agreement with Tehran to establish an Iranian military base on the Red Sea.

* To Egyptians, new president behaves just like his predecessors The freshly scrawled graffiti depicting Mohammed Morsi as a pharaonic Saddam Hussein tells the tale of high hopes dashed with record speed.

* Intelligence community: U.S. out as sole superpower by 2030 A new report by the intelligence community projects that the United States will no longer be the world's only superpower by 2030.

* Iranian Ambition Iran possesses the "largest number of ballistic missiles in the Middle East" and is secretly producing long-range missiles capable of carrying a nuclear payload.

* Sudan Captures Israeli 'Spy Vulture' Sudanese officials announced Monday that they have captured an electronically-tagged vulture suspected of being dispatched by Israel on a spying mission.

* PLO calls on EU to 'reconsider' relations with Israel The Palestine Liberation Organization called on the European Union on Tuesday to "reconsider" it's political and trade relations with Israel over what it called "provocations."

* Egypt crisis: Cairo crowds gather for rallies The opposition have breached a barrier outside the presidential palace but there has been no violence.

* US Sends Muslim Brotherhood's Morsi 20 F-16 Warplanes Egypt's increasingly unstable Muslim Brotherhood regime, voted into power on an anti-US and anti-Israel platform, is about to receive 20 F-16 fighters jets despite calls to suspend arms sales to Cairo.

* PM: Settlements don't preclude Palestinian state The suggestion that Israeli construction plans for the E1 area of Jerusalem preclude the eventual emergence of a Palestinian state is "simply false," Prime Minister Netanyahu asserted on Monday.