Syria peace talks likely to be postponed until July or August

Syria peace talks likely to be postponed until July or August

    Friday, May 31, 2013   No comments

Peace talks in Geneva between Syria's warring parties are almost certain to be postponed after further diplomatic setbacks on Friday, as Russia announced its intention to ship more weaponry to the Assad regime.

Heavy fighting continued on the ground in Syria, where it emerged that a British man and American woman had been killed, apparently while fighting with the rebels in Idlib, in the north, earlier this week.

The US and Russia had together conceived the Geneva talks between the Assad regime and the Syrian opposition, raising hopes that the two superpowers, long at odds over the civil war raging in the country, could at last make some progress in curbing the violence.


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Pro-Fracking Spin on Public Radio: Brought to you by Qatar

Pro-Fracking Spin on Public Radio: Brought to you by Qatar

    Friday, May 31, 2013   No comments

The April edition of the monthly public radio program America Abroad, "Global Energy and Innovations," sounded like an infomercial for the natural gas "fracking" industry. Which, in essence, is what it was.
The show, which is distributed by Public Radio International (PRI), began with host Madeleine Brand declaring:
Thanks to a breakthrough in the technology known as "fracking," the hydraulic fracturing of rock, the United States is enjoying a boom in cheap natural gas.
She went to say that "supporters argue that the new technology not only brings new jobs but also provides cleaner energy than coal."
And what do fracking opponents say? That's unclear; the counterpoint to fracking's boosters--"natural gas will do everything we want it to do," as one soundbite put it--is the observation that "some experts" think that cheap gas means "there’s less incentive to develop clean, renewable energy."

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Turkish Police foil al-Nusra bomb attack planned for Adana

Turkish Police foil al-Nusra bomb attack planned for Adana

    Thursday, May 30, 2013   No comments

Seven members of Syria's militant al-Nusra group were detained on Wednesday after police found sarin gas, which was reportedly going to be used in a bomb attack, during a search of the suspects' homes, Turkish media have reported.
Newspapers claimed on Thursday that two kilograms of sarin gas, which is usually used for making bombs and was banned by the UN in 1991, had been found in the homes of suspects detained in the southern provinces of Adana and Mersin. Twelve suspects were caught by the police on Monday. The reports claimed that the al-Nusra members had been planning a bomb attack for Thursday in Adana but that the attack was averted when the police caught the suspects. Along with the sarin gas, the police seized a number of handguns, grenades, bullets and documents during their search. Five of the suspects were released later on Thursday.

In another incident in Adana, the police received intelligence that a bomb-laden vehicle had entered Adana, the bombs being of the same type used in a recent attack in Hatay's Reyhanlı town, the Taraf daily reported on Thursday.

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Sen. John McCain accused of meeting with kidnappers in Syria

Sen. John McCain accused of meeting with kidnappers in Syria

    Thursday, May 30, 2013   No comments

Senator McCain poses with kidnappers in Syria

Sen. John McCain is denying Lebanese media reports that he posed with known kidnappers during his recent visit to Syria.

Two men pictured next to Mr. McCain were responsible for kidnapping 11 Lebanese Shiites, press from that country is claiming, as reported in the Daily Mail. And nine of those abducted are still being held hostage, the Daily Star in Beirut claims.

The two suspected kidnappers — Mohamed Nour and Abu Ibrahim — in the photo with Mr. McCain are members of the Northern Storm militant group, who are believed to have planned and executed the abduction, the Daily Star said.

Mr. McCain’s office went on the defensive, issuing a statement through spokesman Brian Rogers.
“A number of the Syrians who greeted Sen. McCain upon his arrival in Syria asked to take pictures with him, and as always, the senator complied,” he said, as quoted in the Daily Mail. “[It] would be regrettable” if those pictured with the senator were kidnappers, he added.

He spoke about his visit on CNN Wednesday night. "We can identify who these people are. We can help the right people," he said.

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Read the Associated Press Report Here >>

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Turkish FM fails to convince Syrian opposition to attend Geneva II meeting

Turkish FM fails to convince Syrian opposition to attend Geneva II meeting

    Thursday, May 30, 2013   No comments

Turkey

Syria’s main opposition group said today it would not take part in proposed U.S.-Russia peace talks, a day after, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu participated in their Istanbul meeting.

The Syrian National Coalition (SNC) will not take part in any international conference or any such efforts so long as the militias of Iran and Hezbollah continue their invasion of Syria,” the opposition acting chief George Sabra told reporters in Istanbul today, according to Agence France-Presse.

In addition to the question of participation in the proposed Geneva conference, the election of a new president, the agreeing on an interim government and the voting in of new members to join the group were the other main reasons for the gathering in Istanbul.

The minister will address the opposition on behalf of the 11 core group members of Friends of Syria, a Turkish Foreign Ministry official told the Hürriyet Daily News ahead of his meeting on May 29.

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New York Times, sarin and skepticism

New York Times, sarin and skepticism

    Wednesday, May 29, 2013   No comments

During the run-up to the Iraq War, the New York Times amplified erroneous official claims about weapons of mass destruction (FAIR Action Alert, 9/8/06). Looking at the paper's coverage of allegations of chemical weapons use by Syria, some of the same patterns are clear: an over-reliance on official sources and the downplaying of critical or skeptical analysis of the available intelligence.
In "Syria Faces New Claim on Chemical Arms" (4/19/13), the paper told readers that, according to anonymous diplomats, Britain and France had sent letters to the United Nations about "credible evidence" against Syria regarding chemical weapon use. On April 24, the Times reported that Israel had "evidence that the Syrian government repeatedly used chemical weapons last month."

The next day (4/25/13), the Times reported that, according to an unnamed "senior official," the White House "shares the suspicions of several of its allies that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons." The article spoke of the "mounting pressure to act against Syria," adding, "Some analysts say they worry that if the United States waits too long, it will embolden President Bashar al-Assad."
And then on April 26, under the headline "White House Says Syria Has Used Chemical Arms," the Times reported:

The White House, in a letter to Congressional leaders, said the nation's intelligence agencies assessed ''with varying degrees of confidence'' that the government of President Bashar al-Assad had used the chemical agent sarin on a small scale.

 The story included a source, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D.-Calif.), who presented the intelligence as more definitive: She "said the agencies actually expressed more certainty about the use of these weapons than the White House indicated in its letter."

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Despite Horrific Repression, the U.S. Should Stay Out of Syria

Despite Horrific Repression, the U.S. Should Stay Out of Syria

    Wednesday, May 29, 2013   No comments

Syria

By Stephen Zunes

The worsening violence and repression in Syria has left policymakers scrambling to think of ways the United States could help end the bloodshed and support those seeking to dislodge the Assad regime. The desperate desire to “do something” has led to increasing calls for the United States to provide military aid to armed insurgents or even engage in direct military intervention, especially in light of the possible use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime.

The question on the mind of almost everyone who has followed the horror as it has unfolded over the past two years is, “What we can do?”

The short answer, unfortunately, is not much.

This is hard for many Americans to accept. We have a cultural propensity to believe that if the United States puts in enough money, creativity, willpower, or firepower into a problem that we can make things right. However, despite the desires of both the right-wing nationalists and liberal hawks, this isn’t always the case.

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Pakistan’s Foreign Policy Challenges

Pakistan’s Foreign Policy Challenges

    Wednesday, May 29, 2013   No comments

Pakistan

The new government in Pakistan will have to take some hard decisions on difficult issues pertaining to foreign policy, even though the choices will be very limited. Numerous complexities will emerge not only in its dealings with its immediate neighbours like Afghanistan and China, but also external players in the sub-continent, predominantly the US.

As far as Afghanistan is concerned, the most difficult challenge for the new Pakistani leadership will be how to manage the situation post-2014, and how best to guard its interests. Within a year, two things are expected to happen: fresh elections for the Afghan President and the withdrawal of the US forces from Afghanistan. In a situation where Karzai is not very popular either with the non-Pashtuns or with the Taliban, Nawaz Sharif will have an onerous task to ensure that the next president is acceptable to Pakistan, and will help in safeguarding Pakistan’s interests. The second part of the challenge will be the roadblocks to the reconciliation process and how Nawaz Sharif will influence the final outcome – whether he will continue to give support to the Taliban, which will not be acceptable to the Americans or to Karzai, or whether he will try to accommodate the non-Pashtuns and non-Taliban Pashtuns to arrive at a durable solution. The core interest of Pakistan will be the same, to ensure that a pro-Pakistan dispensation is in place once the Americans leave. Whether or not to support the Taliban will be a difficult choice.

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Syrian rebels turn on their political leaders: Fighters want more of their members added to exiled Syrian National Coalition

Syrian rebels turn on their political leaders: Fighters want more of their members added to exiled Syrian National Coalition

    Wednesday, May 29, 2013   No comments

Syrian rebels carrying out pubic executions

Syrian rebel groups have strongly criticised their political leadership outside Syria, saying it has no real connection to the rebellion and calling for half of its members to be drawn from fighters inside the country.

The rebuke follows a chaotic week for the Syrian National Coalition (SNC) and is likely to further undermine the standing of the opposition to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad which has been treated by its foreign backers as if it were capable of replacing Mr Assad and its regime.

A meeting of the exiled SNC in Istanbul has still not decided if it will attend a peace conference in Geneva, tentatively planned for June, and, if so, who should attend. It is also deadlocked about Western-supported proposals to broaden the membership of the 60-member coalition with more secular representatives.

The statement issued in the name of the Revolutionary Movement in Syria said that the failure of the opposition had opened the door to “blatant interference” by outside powers. This is probably a reference primarily to Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which support different opposition factions; Qatar supports the Muslim Brotherhood, which is regarded with suspicion by the Saudis.

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Syria: Arms Sans Frontières

Syria: Arms Sans Frontières

    Wednesday, May 29, 2013   No comments

If it was already a gargantuan task to get all sides conducting and feeding the war in Syria around a table in August, three events in the last three days have just made that task much more difficult but no less urgent. The first and by far the most important was Hassan Nasrallah's speech on Saturday in which the leader of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah personally committed his movement to the survival of the Assad regime. Unlike any other development in the grinding two-year war of attrition between Syria's Sunni majority and its Alawite-dominated government and military, Nasrallah's statement has the power to upset the fragile balance between Sunnis, Shias and Christians in Lebanon that has lasted since the end of its own 15-year civil war. For the first time in its history, Hezbollah shed the fig leaf that its sole purpose was to defend Lebanon against Israel, and publicly committed itself to waging a sectarian war against fellow Arabs.

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