[Al Ahram] Mohammed Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, has pledged an additional $2 billion aid comprising deposits and grants to support Egypt, state's Al-Ahram Arabic-language news website reported on Monday.
That's $2 billion that won't be flowing toward Al Qaeda & Friends...
Al-Ahram has quoted anonymous sources in Egypt's Cabinet as saying that the Emirate's prince vowed to support the country in several fields through making new investments in the domestic market.
Al-Nahyan, who is also the deputy supreme commander of the UAE Armed Forces, arrived in Cairo on Sunday to discuss ways of supporting Egypt with the interim figures after the 30 June uprising that led to the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.
Egypt's Central Bank said in July that it received $3 billion in aid from UAE, part of the $12 billion pledged by Gulf Arab states after Morsi's removal.
The UAE has also sent seven shipments of fuel worth $225 million in the same month.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/03/2013 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under: Arab Spring
[TheTimes] British military chiefs are being ejected from US meetings about Syria in the first direct consequence of David Cameron ... has stated that he is certainly a big Thatcher fan, but I don't know whether that makes me a Thatcherite, which means he's not. Since he is not deeply ideological he lacks core principles and is easily led. He has been described as certainly not a Pitt, Elder or Younger, but he does wear a nice suit so maybe he's Beau Brummel ... 's refusal to join military action.
The role of senior British officers based at US Central Command in Tampa, Florida, has been downgraded because they cannot be trusted with high-level intelligence about a conflict with which they are no longer involved, military sources say.
About 30 British personnel have been working alongside the Americans and French at the headquarters, fine-tuning a list of targets and orchestrating military assets as part of war planning underway for weeks.
Posted by: Paul D ||
09/03/2013 6:17 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Austin would have NOT made that decision unilaterally. Champ would have had to approve such a measure.
A second grader could have surmised the location of potential Syrian targets for a 2-3 day punitive raid. This is yet another spiteful response from the regime which will produce unwelcomed future dividends.
#3
As I understand it, it wasn't Cameron but the representatives of the people who were not interested in this war. Which is, to use the dumb chant, what democracy looks like.
#4
Residents of Albion aren't the only ones with no interest in another Middle Eastern conflict. It will be interesting to see how our own elected officials vote on this matter.
#6
Certainly a nice 'thank you' for one of our staunchest wartime allies, who contributed a substantial amount of both blood and treasure in our feckless, decade-plus, Afghan cock-up. No mention of Iraq, Korea. Revenge of the Mau Mau! We've at long last retrieved the abjured trophy of perfidiousness.
#7
I'm sure the Brits have reasons for leaving their people at Central Command, but if Cameron really wanted to send a statement he'd bring them home. For 'consultation', of course.
Barack wants to go it alone: let him.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/03/2013 10:23 Comments ||
Top||
#8
Hopefully the Poms won't invite us to leave the Joint Analysis Center (JAC) at RAF Molesworth, UK. They're no doubt thinking on it.
#9
My view of the real issue in Syria: Much of the world was so horrified by gas warfare in WW-1 that they wrote and signed treaties against. As time went on more definitive treaties were written and signed. For smaller nations these treaties serve another purpose ... they save them the danger and cost of spending their wealth on a stupid weapon they would never want to use. One of the problems is that these treaties were signed so long ago many of these nations have forgotten what it buys them. Now the USA jumps up and says we need to bomb Syria for using them. The unsaid part of that statement is to keep these treaties from becoming worthless paper.
We can afford to do gas if we want or nukes or whatever so for us folks using gas is just the horror of it. Perhaps we should quit being cops here and convene a meeting of all the treaty signing nations and ask them if they want to collectively protect these treaties or just tear them up!
#10
The bottomline is you have sunni jihadis on one side and Assad regime on the other.Who do u support?
Posted by: Paul D ||
09/03/2013 12:01 Comments ||
Top||
#11
Regardless of non participation in any action we may take, such an affront to our closest ally can only worsen the relationship. Policy and politics are never ever separate for immature amateurs and the nasty alinskyites in the WH are the worst I've ever seen.
#12
We didn't care when Iran/Iraq were tossing chemicals at each other. We didn't care when Iraq dropped chemicals on his own people. Why should we care now? Because our President mispoke? I can't even imagine how the left would have reacted if the Bush folks floated that excuse.
#13
Ruled by a bafoon that puts his feet on the table.
When understanding of respect is lacking, how could anyone feel hurt when added to his 'not invited to the party' list.
[Jpost] Computer hackers aligned with Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor. If he'd stuck with it he'd have had a good practice by now... struck an Internet recruiting site for the US Marine Corps on Monday, urging troops to "refuse your orders" if the United States attacks Syria.
The attack appeared to be the work of the Syrian Electronic Army, which also recently targeted the New York Times ...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... ' website and Twitter.
The hackers posted a message and images on the website www.marines.com, signing it "delivered by SEA," a reference to the Syrian Electronic Army. A Defense Department front man said the site, on commercial network rather than the Defense Department network, had been restored after an outage of a few hours.
The seven-sentence "Message to the United States Marine Corps," said the Syrian Army "should be your ally, not your enemy" against "a vile common enemy" of terrorism.
"Refuse your orders," said the message which included six photos of people in military-style uniforms, their faces obscured and holding hand-written messages, such as "I will not fight for Al Qaeda in Syria."
I've seen similar photos circulating on Facebook, tagged, "Support our troops." Interesting.
[Telegraph] One fifth of applicants to US intelligence agencies who had suspicious backgrounds were found to have links to al-Qaeda or other hostile groups, according to a CIA review revealed today.
The discovery, reported by The Washington Post, has heightened fears that America's intelligence community is being targeted by terrorist and other bad turban organizations for infiltration, as well as by foreign governments' own spies. All such US agencies are investigating thousands of their own employees to counter the threat.
The classified budget document which revealed the extent of the CIA's efforts was itself passed to the newspaper by the former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, now a runaway in Russia under temporary asylum after leaking thousands of secret documents.
Although the file did not describe the nature of the jobseekers' bad turban or hostile ties, it cited Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,, Hizbollah and al-Qaeda and its affiliates most often.
The fear of infiltration is such that the NSA planned last year to investigate at least 4,000 staff who obtained security clearances. It detected potentially suspicious activity among staff members after trawling through trillions of employee keystrokes at work.
Suspect behaviour is said to have included staffers accessing classified databases they do not usually use for their work or downloading several documents, two people familiar with the software used to monitor staff told the Post.
But serious delays and uneven implementation have hit the multimillion-dollar effort, and the spy agencies did not detect Mr Snowden's own copying of a wide range of the NSA's highly classified documents.
The runaway leaker is wanted by Washington on espionage charges linked to media disclosures about US surveillance programs.
"Over the last several years, a small subset of CIA's total job applicants were flagged due to various problems or issues," one official told the Post.
"During this period, one in five of that small subset were found to have significant connections to hostile intelligence services and or terrorist groups."
The NSA is also creating a huge database known as WILDSAGE to help share sensitive intelligence among cybersecurity centers, according to the budget document. But the move has raised concern that the database could be infiltrated.
Intelligence agencies have stepped up scrutiny of insider threats following the disclosure of hundreds of thousands of military and diplomatic files by WikiLeaks in 2010.
Army Private Bradley Manning, an intelligence analyst now known as Chelsea Manning, had leaked the documents to the anti-secrecy group.
In 2011, Congress ordered Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to set up an "automated insider threat detection programme" to prevent further such leaks, stop possible abuses and identify double agents.
But the project was apparently delayed several times as the intelligence community dealt with the aftermath of Manning's leaks.
President Barack Obama Republicans can come along for the ride, but they've got to sit in the back... 's administration has cracked down on insider threats. In November last year, Obama issued a National Insider Threat Policy that defined the threats as coming from "espionage, terrorism (or) unauthorised disclosure of national security information".
The policy places whistleblowers, spies and "terrorists" in a single category, and critics say the three are distinct groups which should regarded separately.
According to US classified budget document leaked by US whistle-blower Edward Snowden, individuals with past connections to al-Qaida, Hezbollah and Hamas, have attempted to obtain employment within the CIA, The Washington Post reported on Monday.
#3
Forcing Equal Opportunity on 'clandestine' services at the expense of nationalists was a bad idea. Manning and Snowden didn't have formative role models and lost their way.
[Dawn] Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... on Monday said that national security is the top most priority of the present government and all resources would be utilised to ensure it.
He was chairing a high level meeting here to review the overall security situation of the country.
The meeting discussed issues pertaining to national security including the internal and external threats being faced by the country.
The prime minister further said that all political forces must rise to the occasion so that national consensus is evolved to address the problems faced by the country.
He said that broad based national consensus among all stakeholders would enable the government to find enduring solutions to the problems being faced by the country.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/03/2013 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
ISLAMABAD: Police on Monday registered murder charges against former military ruler Pervez Musharraf in connection with the death of a radical cleric during the siege of a mosque in 2007.
It is the latest in a series of charges dating back to Musharrafs 1999-2008 rule, which the retired general has faced since returning from self-imposed exile in March.
Perv's gonna wish he stayed in Oman...
Radical cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi was one of more than 100 people killed after troops stormed the Red Mosque in Islamabad on July 10, 2007. Ghazis brother, Abdul Aziz, escaped in a burqa. The operation opened the floodgates to a Taliban-led insurgency that has killed thousands of people in Pakistan.
The High Court ordered Islamabad police to register murder charges against Musharraf on a petition filed by the son of Rashid Ghazi, said Tariq Asad, a lawyer who represented Ghazi in court.
The court ordered police to register the case earlier as well but their instructions were not followed. Today, the court made Islamabad police officials write the case inside the court room and comply with the orders right there, he said. Police confirmed that the charges had been registered.
We have booked Musharraf under section 302/119 of the law, which deals with murder charges, Qasim Niazi, a senior police official, told AFP.
An anti-terrorism court last month charged Musharraf with the murder of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, who died in a gun and suicide attack after a political rally in December 2007.
Musharraf also faces murder accusations over the 2006 death of Baloch rebel leader Nawab Akbar Bugti.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/03/2013 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
ISLAMABAD: The office of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in Karachi has been closed down after it received threats from an ethnic political party in the city, sources said on Monday.
Since the last eight to nine days the staff members of the BBC instead of working in the office have confined themselves to their houses and are working from there, sources further said. South Karachi DIG Ammer Sheikh has visited the BBC office to look into the matter.
Sources further said the threats may be a reaction to the documentary on MQM chief Altaf Hussain broadcast by the BBC. The documentary sparked an unprecedented response from the MQM which termed it fake and Taliban-sponsored propaganda. Meanwhile, various journalist bodies have expressed their concern over the closure of the BBC office.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/03/2013 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
Health authorities in North Waziristan tribal areas recently confirmed five new polio cases there and suspect there are many more.
It's usually 20-30 cases of infection for every case of paralysis...
It's one of a series of outbreaks this year in parts of the country where security threats have kept out vaccination teams.
Officials worry these outbreaks -- inflamed by militant threats and attacks on vaccination teams -- could worsen and spread to other parts of Pakistan, especially since the country is entering the high season for virus transmission.
This doesn't happen in more civilized countries...
My Mom used to be afraid to let us go swimming in August, the "dog days," when polio transmission was at its highest levels for the year. That was only sixty years ago. The sugar cube I eventually got didn't make me sterile. I don't think I could memorize the Koran, though, so maybe there's something to it.
"It's not like a pot of boiling water where you see bubbles coming from everywhere, but there is steam coming out from specific areas," said Dr Elias Durry, emergency coordinator for polio eradication in Pakistan for the World Health Organisation. "Our fear is that the virus from these areas can go out and seriously jeopardise the success in fighting polio that has been achieved in the past couple of years."
Pakistan -- one of only three countries left where polio is endemic -- had 198 confirmed cases in 2011, the highest number of any nation in the world. Pakistan was able to bring that number down to 58 in 2012 through a vaccination program that is supported by the United Nations.
But the militant threats could reverse that progress. There have been 27 confirmed polio cases in Pakistan so far this year -- the third highest total in the world after Somalia and Nigeria. Seventeen of them have occurred in the country's semiautonomous tribal region, the main sanctuary for Taleban and Al Qaeda militants, Durry said. Two powerful Pakistani Taleban militants have banned vaccinators from North and South Waziristan over roughly the past year because of their opposition to US drone strikes. Gunmen have also killed over a dozen vaccination workers and police guards in different areas of the country. Many suspect the Taleban of carrying out the murders, although the group has denied the allegation.
Militants have claimed the vaccine is meant to sterilise Muslim children and accused health workers of being US spies. The allegation gained traction after the CIA used a Pakistani doctor to try to confirm the presence of Osama bin Laden in 2011 under the guise of an immunisation program.
Some families couldn't afford to make the six-hour journey to get the vaccine from Peshawar even if they wanted to take the risk. Health workers have stationed themselves at two checkpoints protected by the army in North Waziristan, where they are vaccinating children riding by in vehicles. But many people are afraid the militants will find out if they vaccinate their children at the checkpoints.
Durry, the WHO official, said authorities have confirmed five polio cases in North Waziristan and three others in the nearby district of Bannu this year. The five cases in North Waziristan were confirmed since the beginning of August, two of them on Wednesday, said a local health official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media. Officials are still investigating 20 suspected cases, he said.
There have been a total of 12 confirmed cases since the militant ban, the official said. Tribal elders sent to ask the militants to change their minds haven't been successful, said Jahan Mir, a senior government health official in Miran Shah.
There also have been confirmed polio cases this year in the Khyber tribal area and the provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh and Punjab, Durry said. Health officials had planned to immunise 34 million children across the country, but 1.5 million have not received the vaccine because of security threats, he said.
Threats by Al Qaida-linked militants also have hampered vaccination efforts this year in Somalia, which has suffered the worst polio outbreak in the world. The country has confirmed 108 cases so far, more than all other countries combined, according to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative website. There have been at least 192 confirmed cases worldwide in 2013.
Somalia isn't even one of the three countries where polio is considered endemic. Those are Pakistan, its neighbor Afghanistan and Nigeria, where militants killed polio vaccinators in the northern city of Kano in February.
Irfan Khan, a father of two young children in North Waziristan's Mir Ali town, said he hoped authorities succeed in appealing to the militants to protect the local population.
"The government and the militants should both compromise to allow children to get the vaccine," he said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/03/2013 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
"Mo didn't have vaccines, neither will you"
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/03/2013 10:42 Comments ||
Top||
According to military sources, the test demonstrated that since delaying his planned strike on Syria last Saturday, President Barack Obama has revised his plans and instead of "a narrow, limited" attack is contemplating a broader offensive for degrading the Assad regime. The arrival of the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier in the Red Sea is further evidence of this intention.
The missile trial also indicates an updated US-Israeli consensus that Iran, Syrian and Hizballah mean business by the mounting level of the threats to fire missiles at Israel, Jordan and Turkey if the Americans go through with their strike against Syria. Such retaliation cold lead to the Syrian conflict expanding substantially into a regional war, which Moscow, Tehran and Damascus have in the last 48 hours admitted was virtually unavoidable.
Israel has been using the Ankor as the target missile for its own and US tests of their Arrow-2 .Washington has made no mention of the joint test. It is therefore not known whether American missiles took part in the test. Neither was there any word about whether the test was successful.
#1
'Twas on the TV News earlier this week, about how the kind of authorization POTUS Bammer was asking the Congress to approve is so broad or subjective as be inclusive of launching milstrike(s) agz Baby Assad himself, not just agz his ChemWar arsenal???
h/t Donald Sensing
The two leading members of the House of Representatives - Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor - will support President Barack Obama and his call for military strikes on Syria.
#2
Then the weeping wonder and Cantor own it! We are so fok'd with these people. They just can't stand it unless we're in the kak in some Godforsaken place. Absolute insanity.
#4
I'm with you Snowy. Let's do it right! Everyone of the bastids that votes 'yes' should go in on the first assault wave. Skinny legs can raise a five iron and direct them to the objective. Have at it and show us how she's done!
#5
To me this ain't a question of "is this action a good idea or not," it's a question of "are these people trustworthy or not?"
Jawn Friendly Kerry had enough blood on his hands and human flesh in his bank account _BEFORE_ he met with and talked about how nice Bashir Assad was when he was helping "the resistance" kill Iraqi civilians and American soldiers.
I think large numbers of people are going to die because these idjits are too retarded and chickenshit to stand up and say that the current executive branch can't be trusted.
#6
The only reason we have put on this Chinese Finger Trap is because Cmdr. Zero had to shoot his mouth off about red lines.
Many in D.C. are now in a lather doing all they can to rally around someone clearly out of his league in order to preserve American "seriousness." Along the way, we get to listen to (1) All manner of hoary justifications like they just happened last month; and (2) The "Moral Justification."
Such is the downside in electing a weak person for President....
#7
With a carrier battle group steaming toward the med, appears he [Champ] is going to attack with, or without the congress. So, as R. Paul says, congressional debate is little more than a convenient sham, or a delaying tactic. Boehner needs REPLACING NOW! He's already declared, and congressional debate has just begun. Give me a fok'n break.
#8
Heard a former CIA guy today, sum it up: "Russia is backing Syria.... Putin is a professional, just check his resume... Obama is an amateur" as stated by good Doc Krauthammer.
#11
Just ask Democratic Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes...she said Democratics are going to vote with the President because they don't want him to be humiliated on the national stage and out of party loyalty. wow.
[An Nahar] Former high-ranking U.N. officials urged the United States and others Monday to refrain from bombing Syria over a devastating chemical attack, and instead work harder to broker a political solution in the war-torn country.
Former deputy chief of the United Nations ...the Oyster Bay money pit... Hans-Christof von Sponeck launched the appeal in Swiss daily Le Temps' online edition, with support from his former U.N. colleagues Denis Halliday, Said Zulficar, Samir Radwan and Samir Basta.
"True courage does not consist in sending in cruise missiles, ... it consists in radically breaking from this murderous logic," wrote von Sponeck, who coordinated the U.N.'s humanitarian actions in Iraq from 1998 to 2000. Because I'm an old fart and my mind is mostly gone, that statement doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I'm trying to recall the instance when the Pencilneck regime talked instead of gassing. One side can radically break from the murderous logic all it pleases, but if the other side continues to kill people, they'll continue to be dead forever. The statement would thus seem to lack any vestige of the concept of justice or accountability. But nobody listens to me. I'm just an old crank.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/03/2013 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
#1
Well, Fred we don't hear the Arab nation screaming in indignation now do we?. Why are we the only nation that is crying that is a sin against humanity.? Maybe the Brits and or the French, but why not any other countries in the region?
#2
Because Moslem Values don't have any problem with gassing civilians or anybody else, for that matter. Its a Culture thing.
Sort of thing you expect from the religion of piss thingy.
Well,,, hhmmm don't you? It seems THEY do.
Moslems really don't have a problem with poison gas...Nasser even used it. Remember?
#3
Its really a problem with this neo-liberalism, like a drug dealer using the product, at some level they think they can turn cordite into pollen with a song and meditate a fire out of a hay bale.
I don't know of Hansy or any of these people actually believe it, but that is the call and appeal they choose to tack, and it implies a real passive fatalism, as opposed to letting the fire burn out or putting the gloves on and getting in the soot, it is looking at the fire and wishing it could not have caught fire.
[An Nahar] Senator John Maverick McCain ... the Senator-for-Life from Arizona, former presidential candidate and even more former foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution... said Monday that Congress' failure to authorize military action in Syria would be "catastrophic" because it would undermine U.S. credibility.
"It would undermine the credibility of the United States of America and the president of the United States. None of us want that," he said after meeting with President Barack Obama My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world. I hope you'll join with me as we try to change it...
Posted by: Fred ||
09/03/2013 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[8 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
#1
"Catastrophic" Like John McCains run against an 8th grader in 2008?
#4
Translation...They diss the man. We got to get the posse together and do a drive by cause we can't afford to lose respect.
"It would undermine the credibility of the United States of America and the president of the United States. None of us want that,"
However, that's what you have.
John, given who is head of these Crips, we don't deserve respect. Votes have consequences. You had an opportunity to pull the knives out and actually run an election campaign, but choose to do a 'kinder gentler' high school debate approach. You are part of the problem. You have little credibility yourself.
#9
I have found people who were puit away "by that ignorant, stypid woman Sarah Palin" and given McCain's age fered she could end becoming Preside,t after his death. Actually she was the learned, smart memebr of the ticket.
#12
He's useful, for the moment, to the media again. His dry cleaner will have to put on an overtime shift to deal with the stain down the pantleg of his suit...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
09/03/2013 18:00 Comments ||
Top||
#13
You really don't have to be Nostradamus to have predicted this.
Another autographed pair of Obama knee pads for McCain...
[An Nahar] The First Military Examining Magistrate called on Monday for the release of the head of the pro-Syria Islamic Tawhid Movement-Command Council ...The Tawhid party is divided into two parts, one led by Sheikh Bilal Shaaban, a close ally of Hezbollah who is said to be financed by Iran, while the other is headed by Sheikh Hashem Minkara, a staunch Syria supporter... but he issued arrest warrants against two other suspects in connection with twin bombings in the northern city of Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn...
Judge Riyad Abu Ghida ordered the release of Sheikh Hashem Minkara after questioning him, and referred back his file to State Commissioner to the Military Court Judge Saqr Saqr.
The sheikh had been accused by the military prosecution of withholding information from the authorities. But Saqr ruled against Abu Ghida's judgment and kept him in jug pending the ruling of the Military Court of Cassation.
Also Monday, Abu Ghida ordered the arrest of Sheikh Ahmed al-Gharib and informer Mustafa Houri following their interrogation.
Saqr on Friday charged the three men for forming an armed gang and undermining the authority of the state.
They were also charged with forming a terrorist network and planting explosives and booby-trapped cars.
Forty-five people were killed and at least 800 maimed in the Tripoli bombings that targeted two Sunni mosques as worshipers were performing weekly prayers.
Saqr also charged Syrian Khodr al-Arban and a Syrian Captain identified as Mohammed Ali with killing people and moving car bombs.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/03/2013 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
[Dawn] Syria has asked the United Nations ...an organization originally established to war on dictatorships which was promptly infiltrated by dictatorships and is now held in thrall to dictatorships... to try to "prevent any aggression" against it, state news agency SANA said Monday, as the United States weighs military action against Damascus.
"The Syrian government calls on the UN secretary general to assume his responsibilities ... and to make efforts to prevent any aggression against Syria," the agency said, quoting a letter from Syria's UN representative Bashar al-Jaafari.
The letter also urged the United Nations to help seek a "peaceful political solution to the crisis" in Syria, where more than 110,000 people have been killed in violence since an uprising against the regime began in March 2011.
US President Barack Obama My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world. I hope you'll join with me as we try to change it... is seeking approval from Congress for military action against Syria in response to an alleged chemical attack on Damascus suburbs on August 21 that killed hundreds.
Much of the international community, including the United States, Britannia and La Belle France, has accused the Syrian regime of carrying out the attack, a charge that the government in Damascus denies.
US Secretary of State John F. I was in Vietnam, you know Kerry Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a lucky hat, conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State... on Sunday said Syria used sarin gas and La Belle France on Monday was set to provide what it says is clear evidence the regime was behind the alleged chemical attack.
"The Syrian government repeats once again that it has never used chemical weapons," Jaafari wrote in the letter.
"The world was expecting the United States to play its role as a sponsor of peace... by preparing seriously for the Geneva conference on Syria, and not as a country that uses military force against those who oppose its policies," he added.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/03/2013 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[9 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
Arab League foreign ministers on Sunday urged the United Nations and the international community to take deterrent action against the Syrian regime over alleged chemical attacks near Damascus.
At what might those be?
But they fell short of calling for military strikes as proposed by the United States, amid divisions in Arab ranks with several countries opposed to foreign intervention in Syria.
Ah, not those deterrent steps!
The United Nations and the international community are called upon to assume their responsibilities in line with the UN Charter and international law by taking the necessary deterrent measures following the August 21 suspected chemical attacks, they said in a statement.
The ministers, meeting in Cairo, said the Syrian regime was responsible for the attacks which the United States says killed hundreds of people with the use of sarin gas.
The Arab foreign ministers said those responsible for unleashing the poison gas in Syria must be tried before an international court like other war criminals.
They also called for all forms of support needed by the Syrian people but without explicitly calling for military strikes as proposed by the United States and France.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/03/2013 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
So why don't the Arabs get off their asses and do something instead of begging for others to do it?
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
09/03/2013 11:09 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Saudis are supposed to have a decent air force -- western bought, western trained, western supplied. Why not let them lob some missiles into Syria?
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/03/2013 13:23 Comments ||
Top||
Moscow - Russian authorities are planning to send a parliamentary delegation to the United States for talks with the Congress over Syria, in a move publicly endorsed on Monday by President Vladimir Putin.
"The initiative is very timely and correct," Putin told speaker of Russia's upper house of parliament Valentina Matviyenko and speaker of the lower house of parliament Sergei Naryshkin.
"Holding direct dialogue with the US parliament on the Syrian problem" will be a significant contribution to Russian-American relations, Putin said.
The carefully choreographed Kremlin meeting comes after US President Champ stunned the world on Saturday by delaying military action against Syria and saying he would seek authorisation from the Congress.
The latest Kremlin initiative appears aimed at persuading the US Congress to vote down Champ's request, although it is unclear what sway the Russian delegates could have over US lawmakers.
"We would like to address the Senate and the Congress," said Matviyenko, noting the delegation would try to travel to the United States before 9 September when US lawmakers return from their summer recess.
Russia has supported the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad throughout the two and a half year conflict and has repeatedly blocked any attempts to punish his regime at the UN Security Council.
Champ's regime says Assad's forces used nerve agent sarin to kill more than 1 400 people in a Damascus suburb on 21 August.
#1
I say, bring on the communist mentors and advisors, they'll feel right at home. Probably won't be too well received by the CBC, or the LGBT crowd, but perhaps other Democrats and a few French Republicans will follow the Snowden model, and use this as an opportunity to defect to Mother Russia.
#2
"Holding direct dialogue with the US parliament on the Syrian problem" will be a significant contribution to Russian-American relations, Putin said.
"US parliament"??? He knows better than that. This is blatant disrespect. But then, maybe it's what our politicians deserve.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Jpost] Computer hackers aligned with Syrian 
[Telegraph] One fifth of applicants to US intelligence agencies who had suspicious backgrounds were found to have links to al-Qaeda or other hostile groups, according to a CIA review revealed today.
Nawaz Sharif
ISLAMABAD: Police on Monday registered murder charges against former military ruler Pervez Musharraf in connection with the death of a radical cleric during the siege of a mosque in 2007.
Health authorities in North Waziristan tribal areas recently confirmed five new polio cases there and suspect there are many more.
John 
