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By Countercurrents.org

11 October, 2012

@ Countercurrents.org

The global food crisis is looming while the US ethanol program is pushing up corn prices by up to 21 percent as it is expanded to consume 40 percent of the harvest. The poor countries and the poor are paying the price. Biofuel is increasing hunger. Now is the time to call: “put food before fuel and people before cars.”

Africa is the most afflicted, with six of the seven states are at extreme risk. Fourteen countries are particularly vulnerable to the recent food-price increase. The food crisis reality questions the biofuel production and consumption.

Timothy A Wise, the Policy Research Director, Global Development and Environment Institute, Tufts University, Medford writes in an essay [1]:

“This is the third food price spike in the last five years, and this time the finger is being pointed squarely at biofuels. [T]he loss of a quarter or more of the projected US corn harvest has prompted urgent calls for reform in that country’s corn ethanol program.”

Excerpt from the essay:

“As I showed in my recent study, The Costs to Developing Countries of US Ethanol Expansion, the US ethanol program pushed up corn prices by up to 21 percent as it expanded to consume 40 percent of the US harvest. This price premium was passed on to corn importers, adding an estimated $11.6bn to the import bills of the world’s corn-importing countries since 2005. More than half of that – $6.6bn – was paid by developing countries between 2005 and 2010. The highest cost was borne by the biggest corn importers. Mexico paid $1.1bn more for its corn, Egypt $727m.

“Besides Egypt, North African countries saw particularly high ethanol-related losses: Algeria ($329m), Morocco ($236m), Tunisia ($99m) and Libya ($68m). Impacts were also high in other strife-torn countries in the region – Syria ($242m), Iran ($492m) and Yemen ($58m). North Africa impacts totaled $1.4bn. Scaled to population size, these economic losses were at least as severe as those seen in Mexico. The link between high food prices and unrest in the region is by now well documented, and US ethanol is contributing to that instability.

“The debate over biofuels has grown urgent since food prices first spiked in 2007-2008, ushering in a food crisis characterized by repeated jumps in global food prices. Prices for most staple foods doubled, fell when the bubble burst in 2009, then jumped again to their previous high levels in 2010-2011.

“Experts have debated how much of the price increases should be blamed on global biofuels expansion. Few argue now that the contribution is small. A US National Academy of Sciences review attributed 20-40 percent of the 2007-2008 price spikes to global biofuels expansion. Subsequent studies have confirmed this range for the later price increases.

“Why is the impact so large? Because so much food and feed is now diverted to produce fuel, and so much land is now used for biofuels feedstocks – corn and sugar for ethanol, soybeans, palm oil and a variety of other plants for biodiesel. This rapidly growing market was fuelled by a wide range of government incentives and mandates and by the rising price of petroleum.

“Nowhere is the impact clearer than in the diversion of US corn into ethanol production. Ethanol now consumes roughly 40 percent of the US corn crop, up from just 5 percent a decade ago. The biggest jump came after the US Congress enacted the RFS in 2005 then expanded it dramatically in 2007.

“A blending allowance of 10 percent for domestic gasoline added to the demand, a level now potentially being raised to 15 percent. These mandates for rising corn ethanol production combined with tax incentives to gasoline blenders and tariff protection against cheaper imports to create today’s massive ethanol demand for corn.

“As corn prices rose farmers increased production, but not enough to accommodate the increased ethanol demand. So prices just kept rising and corn stocks just kept getting thinner and thinner. They were at dangerously low levels – about 15 percent of global use – when the first price spikes happened in 2007-2008. They are at 14 percent now.

“Corn is probably the most problematic feedstock for biofuels. In many parts of the world it is grown as food for human consumption, serving as the staple grain for some one billion people worldwide. It is also a key feed for livestock, giving it another direct link to the human food supply through meat, dairy and egg prices.

“US corn ethanol is particularly disruptive to international markets. The United States is by far the largest producer and exporter of corn in the world. That 40 percent of the US corn crop being put into US cars represents an astonishing 15 percent of global corn production. The diversion of so much corn from food and feed markets has produced a ‘demand shock’ in international markets since 2004.

“For our study of the impacts on corn importers, we relied on estimates of how much lower corn prices would have been if ethanol production had not grown past its 2004 levels. The impacts rose with ethanol demand, reaching an estimated 21 percent in 2009. We took those annual estimates and calculated the added cost each year, 2005-10, to the world’s net corn-importing countries based on their net import volumes.

“The largest importer by far is Japan and the ethanol premium cost Japan an estimated $2.2bn. But our interest was developing countries because of their vulnerability to food price increases.

“Over the last 50 years, and particularly since the 1980s, the world’s least developed countries have gone from being small net exporters of agricultural goods to huge net importers. The shift came when structural reforms in the 1980s forced indebted developing country governments to open their economies to agricultural imports while reducing their support for domestic farmers. The result: a flood of cheap and often-subsidised imports from rich countries, forcing local farmers out of business and off the land.

“In the price spike of 2008, the world’s least developed countries imported $26.6bn in agricultural goods and exported only $9.1bn, leaving an agricultural trade deficit for these overwhelmingly agricultural countries of $17.5bn, more than three times the deficit recorded in 2000 ($4.9bn). This squeezes government budgets, strains limited foreign exchange reserves and leaves the poor more exposed to food price increases.

“Guatemala, for example, saw its import dependence in corn grow from 9 percent in the early 1990s to around 40 percent today. This in a corn-producing country, the birthplace of domesticated corn. According to our estimates, Guatemala saw $91bn in ethanol-related impacts, $28m in 2010 alone. How big an impact is that? It represents six times the level of US agricultural aid that year and nearly as much as US food aid to Guatemala. It is equivalent to over 10 percent of the government’s annual expenditure on agricultural development. It is devastating for a country in which nearly half of children under five are malnourished.

“Of course, poor consumers are the ones most hurt by ethanol-related price increases, especially those in urban areas. Even in a net corn exporting country like Uganda, domestic corn prices spiked as international prices transmitted to local markets. Ugandans spend on average 65 percent of their cash income on food, with poor urban consumers getting 20 percent of their calories from corn purchased in the marketplace. More than half of Ugandans were considered “food insecure” in 2007, and the price spikes have only made that worse.

“US ethanol expansion has accounted for 21 percent of corn prices in recent years, so it has forced thousands of Ugandans deeper into poverty and hunger.

“The US and other Northern governments can stop fuelling the food crisis with reckless biofuels expansion. The US can waive the RFS mandates to allow tight markets to adjust in a year of drought. It can join the European Union in reconsidering its mandates. It can halt the increase in blending targets to 15 percent.

“On World Food Day, October 16, the FAO will convene an emergency meeting on the food crisis in Rome. Disgracefully, the G-20 group of economically powerful nations declined to convene its own emergency meeting, with a US spokesperson saying that ‘agricultural commodity markets are functioning’.

“Global leaders should take a strong stand in Rome against biofuels expansion, endorse the use of food reserves to cushion markets in times of drought, demand rules to end financial speculation on food commodities and restrict the land grabs that are driven largely by global demand for biofuels.”

Timothy A Wise concludes his essay with the following call:

“It’s time we put food before fuel and people before cars.”

 

Citing global risk analysis firm Maplecroft’s food security index for 2013 Joshua Berlinger writes [2] in Business Insider on Oct. 10, 2012:

Africa is clearly the most afflicted, with six of the seven states at “extreme risk.” Afghanistan was the only nation outside of Africa at extreme risk.

Food insecurity could also become yet another factor fueling the already tense relations and civil unrest in the Middle East.

At the current rate, Rabobank, a financial specialist in agro-commodities, estimates that prices of food staples could rise by as much as 15 percent by June 2013.

Another report [3] adds:

Sub-Saharan Africa, a region that depends largely on food imports, appears to be on the verge of a serious food crisis.

Food-price hikes have been witnessed across the globe. Indeed, the Food and Agricultural Organisation announced last week that food prices rose slightly in September, approaching levels reached during the global food crisis in 2008.

The World Bank has also said that its Food Price Index soared by 10 percent in July compared to a month earlier. Over the same period, prices of maize increased by almost 25 percent and wheat prices surged by around 30 percent.

The high proportion of expenditures on food, high rates of malnutrition and the recurrent crisis and insecurity — particularly in the Sahel region — are enough reason for increased concern and monitoring, the bank said.

Aside from the external factors, the presence of desert locusts and ongoing conflict in the Sahel region of West Africa have also been linked to the risk of a food crisis in the region.

In its April issue of Africa’s Pulse, the World Bank mentioned countries like Mali and Niger as already suffering from locust infestation and said there is potential for the swarm to move to neighboring countries such as Mauritania and Chad.

“The impact of this latest food-price increase in local markets across Africa is difficult to determine as current trends show significant variation in domestic prices across the region. In West and Central Africa, prices of cereals are still at record high levels owing to low production in 2011. However, better rains in 2012 have caused prices in the coastal countries to decline…” the bank said in the October edition of Africa’s Pulse.

A recent report by the FAO and USAID’s Famine Early Warning System Network lists 14 countries as being particularly vulnerable to the recent food-price increase. In many of these countries, maize and wheat provide 20% or more of the average household’s caloric intake. For Lesotho, the figure is as high as 69% and for Malawi it is 52%.

In Ghana, rice remains a major staple in particularly urban households which have a taste for imported rice. The country’s own self-sufficiency rate of rice is estimated at 33%. A huge chunk of the rice the country consumes is imported.

Information on the National Rice Development Strategy for Ghana reveals that the per capita rice consumption in Ghana is currently 38 kg, and this is expected to rise to 63kg in 2015 — giving an aggregate demand of 1.68mn metric tones.

Ghana’s demand for rice hovers around 700,000 metric tones, but the local Ghanaian rice farmer is able to produce only 150,000, leaving a deficit of 550,000 metric tones.

According to the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, despite overall strong economic growth over the past decade, the agricultural sector in Ghana has declined from 51 percent to 36 percent of GDP.

The rural poor now account for almost three-quarters of all Ghanaians who live below the poverty line. Smallholder farmers, whose farms average just 1.2 ha, currently have limited opportunities to prosper.

Source:

[1] Al Jazeera, “US corn ethanol fuels food crisis in developing countries”, Oct. 10, 2012, http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/10/201210993632838545.html

[2] “Global Food Crisis Risk Is Soaring”, http://www.businessinsider.com/global-food-crisis-risk-is-soaring-map-2012-10

[3] GhanaWeb, “Food crisis looms”, Oct.8, 2012, http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/business/artikel.php?ID=252488

By F. William Engdahl

11 October, 2012

@ Global Research,

Url of this article:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/syria-turkey-israel-and-the-greater-middle-east-energy-war/5307902

On October 3, 2012 the Turkish military launched repeated mortar shellings inside Syrian territory. The military action, which was used by the Turkish military, conveniently, to establish a ten-kilometer wide no-man’s land “buffer zone” inside Syria, was in response to the alleged killing by Syrian armed forces of several Turkish civilians along the border.

There is widespread speculation that the one Syrian mortar that killed five Turkish civilians well might have been fired by Turkish-backed opposition forces intent on giving Turkey a pretext to move militarily, in military intelligence jargon, a ‘false flag’ operation.[1]

Turkey’s Muslim Brotherhood-friendly Foreign Minister, the inscrutable Ahmet Davutoglu, is the government’s main architect of Turkey’s self-defeating strategy of toppling its former ally Bashar Al-Assad in Syria.[2]

According to one report since 2006 under the government of Islamist Sunni Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his pro-Brotherhood AKP party, Turkey has become a new center for the Global Muslim Brotherhood.[3] A well-informed Istanbul source relates the report that before the last Turkish elections, Erdogan’s AKP received a “donation” of $10 billion from the Saudi monarchy, the heart of world jihadist Salafism under the strict fundamentalist cloak of Wahabism. [4] Since the 1950’s when the CIA brought leading members in exile of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood to Saudi Arabia there has been a fusion between the Saudi brand of Wahabism and the aggressive jihadist fundamentalism of the Brotherhood.[5]

The Turkish response to the single Syrian mortar shell, which was met with an immediate Syrian apology for the incident, borders on a full-scale war between two nations which until last year were historically, culturally, economically and even in religious terms, closest of allies.

That war danger is ever more serious. Turkey is a full member of NATO whose charter explicitly states, an attack against one NATO state is an attack against all. The fact that nuclear-armed Russia and China both have made defense of the Syrian Bashar al-Assad regime a strategic priority puts the specter of a World War closer than most of us would like to imagine.

In a December 2011 analysis of the competing forces in the region, former CIA analyst Philip Giraldi made the following prescient observation:

NATO is already clandestinely engaged in the Syrian conflict, with Turkey taking the lead as U.S. proxy. Ankara’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, has openly admitted that his country is prepared to invade as soon as there is agreement among the Western allies to do so. The intervention would be based on humanitarian principles, to defend the civilian population based on the “responsibility to protect” doctrine that was invoked to justify Libya. Turkish sources suggest that intervention would start with creation of a buffer zone along the Turkish-Syrian border and then be expanded. Aleppo, Syria’s largest and most cosmopolitan city, would be the crown jewel targeted by liberation forces.

Unmarked NATO warplanes are arriving at Turkish military bases close to Iskenderum on the Syrian border, delivering weapons from the late Muammar Gaddafi’s arsenals as well as volunteers from the Libyan Transitional National Council who are experienced in pitting local volunteers against trained soldiers, a skill they acquired confronting Gaddafi’s army. Iskenderum is also the seat of the Free Syrian Army, the armed wing of the Syrian National Council. French and British special forces trainers are on the ground, assisting the Syrian rebels while the CIA and U.S. Spec Ops are providing communications equipment and intelligence to assist the rebel cause, enabling the fighters to avoid concentrations of Syrian soldiers. [6]

Little noted was the fact that at the same day as Turkey launched her over-proportional response in the form of a military attack on Syrian territory, one which was still ongoing as of this writing, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) undertook what was apparently an action to divert Syria’s attention from Turkey and to create the horror scenario of a two-front war just as Germany faced in two world wars. The IDF made a significant troop buildup on the strategic Golan Heights bordering the two countries, which, since Israel took it in the 1967 war, has been an area of no tension.[7]

The unfolding new phase of direct foreign military intervention by Turkey, supported de facto by Israel’s right-wing Netanyahu regime, curiously enough follows to the letter a scenario outlined by a prominent Washington neo-conservative Think Tank, The Brookings Institution. In their March 2012 strategy white paper, Saving Syria: Assessing Options for Regime Change, Brookings geo-political strategists laid forth a plan to misuse so-called humanitarian concern over civilian deaths, as in Libya in 2011, to justify an aggressive military intervention into Syria, something not done before this.[8]

The Brookings report states the following scenario:

Israel could posture forces on or near the Golan Heights and, in so doing, might divert regime forces from suppressing the opposition. This posture may conjure fears in the Assad regime of a multi-front war, particularly if Turkey is willing to do the same on its border and if the Syrian opposition is being fed a steady diet of arms and training.[9]

This seems to be precisely what is unfolding in the early days of October 2012. The authors of the Brookings report are tied to some of the more prominent neo-conservative warhawks behind the Bush-Cheney war on Iraq. Their sponsor, the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, includes current foreign policy advisers to Republican right-wing candidate Mitt Romney, the open favorite candidate of Israel’s Netanyahu.

The Brookings Saban Center for Middle East Policy which issued the report, is the creation of a major donation from Haim Saban, an Israeli-American media billionaire who also owns the huge German Pro7 media giant. Haim Saban is open about his aim to promote specific Israeli interests with his philanthropy. The New York Times once called Saban, “a tireless cheerleader for Israel.” Saban told the same newspaper in an interview in 2004, “I’m a one-issue guy and my issue is Israel.” [10]

The scholars at Saban as well as its board have a clear neo-conservative and Likud party bias. They include, past or present, Shlomo Yanai, former head of military planning, Israel Defense Forces; Martin Indyk, former US Ambassador to Israel and founder of the pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), a major Likud policy lobby in Washington. Visiting fellows have included Avi Dicter, former head of Israel’s Shin Bet; Yosef Kupperwasser, former Head, Research Department, Israeli Defense Force’s Directorate of Military Intelligence. Resident scholars also include Bruce Riedel, a 30 year CIA Middle East expert and Obama Afghan adviser; [11] Kenneth Pollack, another former CIA Middle East expert who was indicted in an Israel espionage scandal when he was a national security official with the Bush Administration. [12]

Why would Israel want to get rid of the “enemy she knows,” Bashar al-Assad, for a regime controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood? Then Israel’s security would seemingly be threatened by the emergence of hard-line Muslim Brotherhood regimes in Egypt to her south and Syria to her North, perhaps soon also in Jordan.

The geopolitical dimension

The significant question to be asked at this point is what could bind Israel, Turkey, Qatar in a form of unholy alliance on the one side, and Assad’s Syria, Iran, Russia and China on the other side, in such deadly confrontation over the political future of Syria? One answer is energy geopolitics.

What has yet to be fully appreciated in geopolitical assessments of the Middle East is the dramatically rising importance of the control of natural gas to the future of not only Middle East gas producing countries, but also of the EU and Eurasia including Russia as producer and China as consumer.

Natural gas is rapidly becoming the “clean energy” of choice to replace coal and nuclear electric generation across the European Union, most especially since Germany’s decision to phase out nuclear after the Fukushima disaster. Gas is regarded as far more “environmentally friendly” in terms of its so-called “carbon footprint.” The only realistic way EU governments, from Germany to France to Italy to Spain, will be able to meet EU mandated CO2 reduction targets by 2020 is a major shift to burning gas instead of coal. Gas reduces CO2 emissions by 50-60% over coal.[13] Given that the economic cost of using gas instead of wind or other alternative energy forms is dramatically lower, gas is rapidly becoming the energy of demand for the EU, the biggest emerging gas market in the world.

Huge gas resource discoveries in Israel, in Qatar and in Syria combined with the emergence of the EU as the world’s potentially largest natural gas consumer, combine to create the seeds of the present geopolitical clash over the Assad regime.

Syria-Iran-Iraq Gas pipeline

In July 2011, as the NATO and Gulf states’ destabilization operations against Assad in Syria were in full swing, the governments of Syria, Iran and Iraq signed an historic gas pipeline energy agreement which went largely unnoticed amid CNN reports of the Syrian unrest. The pipeline, envisioned to cost $10 billion and take three years to complete, would run from the Iranian Port Assalouyeh near the South Pars gas field in the Persian Gulf, to Damascus in Syria via Iraq territory. Iran ultimately plans then to extend the pipeline from Damascus to Lebanon’s Mediterranean port where it would be delivered to EU markets. Syria would buy Iranian gas along with a current Iraqi agreement to buy Iranian gas from Iran’s part of South Pars field.

South Pars, whose gas reserves lie in a huge field that is divided between Qatar and Iran in the Gulf, is believed to be the world’s largest single gas field. [14] De facto it would be a Shi’ite gas pipeline from Shi’ite Iran via Shi’ite-majority Iraq onto Shi’ite-friendly Alawite Al-Assad’s Syria.

Adding to the geopolitical drama is the fact that the South Pars gas find lies smack in the middle of the territorial divide in the Persian Gulf between Shi’ite Iran and the Sunni Salafist Qatar. Qatar also just happens to be a command hub for the Pentagon’s US Central Command, headquarters of United States Air Forces Central, No. 83 Expeditionary Air Group RAF, and the 379th Air Expeditionary Wing of the USAF. In brief Qatar, in addition to owning and hosting the anti-Al-Assad TV station Al-Jazeera, which beams anti-Syria propaganda across the Arab world, Qatar is tightly linked to the US and NATO military presence in the Gulf.

Qatar apparently has other plans with their share of the South Pars field than joining up with Iran, Syria and Iraq to pool efforts. Qatar has no interest in the success of the Iran-Iraq-Syria gas pipeline, which would be entirely independent of Qatar or Turkey transit routes to the opening EU markets. In fact it is doing everything possible to sabotage it, up to and including arming Syria’s rag-tag “opposition” fighters, many of them Jihadists sent in from other countries including Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Libya.

Further adding to Qatar’s determination to destroy the Syria-Iran-Iraq gas cooperation is the discovery in August 2011 by Syrian exploration companies of a huge new gas field in Qara near the border with Lebanon and near to the Russian-leased Naval port of Tarsus on the Syrian Mediterranean.[15] Any export of Syrian or Iranian gas to the EU would go through the Russian-tied port of Tarsus. According to informed Algerian sources, the new Syrian gas discoveries, though the Damascus government is downplaying it, are believed to equal or exceed those of Qatar.

As Asia Times’ knowledgeable analyst Pepe Escobar pointed out in a recent piece, Qatar’s scheme calls for export of its huge gas reserves via Jordan’s Gulf of Aqaba, a country where a Muslim Brotherhood threat to the dictatorship of the King is also threatening. The Emir of Qatar has apparently cut a deal with the Muslim Brotherhood in which he backs their international expansion in return for a pact of peace at home in Qatar. A Muslim Brotherhood regime in Jordan and also in Syria, backed by Qatar, would change the entire geopolitics of the world gas market suddenly and decisively in Qatar’s favor and to the disadvantage of Russia, Syria, Iran and Iraq. [16] That would also be a staggering negative blow to China.

As Escobar points out, “it’s clear what Qatar is aiming at: to kill the US$10 billion Iran-Iraq-Syria gas pipeline, a deal that was clinched even as the Syria uprising was already underway. Here we see Qatar in direct competition with both Iran (as a producer) and Syria (as a destination), and to a lesser extent, Iraq (as a transit country). It’s useful to remember that Tehran and Baghdad are adamantly against regime change in Damascus.” He adds, “if there’s regime change in Syria – helped by the Qatari-proposed invasion – things get much easier in Pipelineistan terms. A more than probable Muslim Brotherhood (MB) post-Assad regime would more than welcome a Qatari pipeline. And that would make an extension to Turkey much easier.” [17]

The Israeli Gas dilemma

Further complicating the entire picture is the recent discovery of huge offshore Israeli natural gas resources.

The Tamar natural gas field off the coast of northern Israel is expected to begin yielding gas for Israel’s use in late 2012. The game-changer was a dramatic discovery in late 2010 of an enormous natural gas field offshore of Israel in what geologists call the Levant or Levantine Basin. In October 2010 Israel discovered a massive “super-giant” gas field offshore in what it declares is its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). [18]

The find is some 84 miles west of the Haifa port and three miles deep. They named it Leviathan after the Biblical sea monster. Three Israeli energy companies in cooperation with the Houston Texas Noble Energy announced initial estimates that the field contained 16 trillion cubic feet of gas—making it the world’s biggest deep-water gas find in a decade, adding more discredit to “peak oil” theories that the planet is about to see dramatic and permanent shortages of oil, gas and coal. To put the number in perspective, that one gas field, Leviathan, would hold enough reserves to supply Israel’s gas needs for 100 years.[19]

Energy self-sufficiency had eluded the state of Israel since its founding in 1948. Abundant oil and gas exploration had repeatedly been undertaken with meager result. Unlike its energy-rich Arab neighbors, Israel seemed out of luck. Then in 2009 Israel’s Texas exploration partner, Noble Energy, discovered the Tamar field in the Levantine Basin some 50 miles west of Israel’s port of Haifa with an estimated 8.3 tcf (trillion cubic feet) of highest quality natural gas. Tamar was the world’s largest gas discovery in 2009.

 

Source:  Jerry Gordon,  newenglishreview.org 2011

Israel discovered huge gas in Levantine Basin with Noble Energy. Source: Noble Energy map, see above

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

At the time, total Israeli gas reserves were estimated at only 1.5 tcf. Government estimates were that Israel’s sole operating field, Yam Tethys, which supplies about 70 percent of the country’s natural gas, would be depleted within three years.

With Tamar, prospects began to look considerably better. Then, just a year after Tamar, the same consortium led by Noble Energy struck the largest gas find in its decades-long history at Leviathan in the same Levantine geological basin. Present estimates are that the Leviathan field holds at least 17 tcf of gas. Israel went from a gas famine to feast in a matter of months.[20]

 

Now Israel faces a strategic and very dangerous dilemma. Naturally Israel is none too excited to see al-Assad’s Syria, linked to Israel’s arch foe Iran and Iraq and Lebanon, out-compete an Israeli gas export to the EU markets. This could explain why Israel’s Netanyahu government has been messing inside Syria in the anti-al-Assad forces. However, a Muslim Brotherhood rule in Syria led by the organization around Mohammad Shaqfah would confront Israel with far more hostile neighbors now that the Muslim Brotherhood coup by Egypt’s President Mohamed Morsi has put a hostile regime on Israel’s southern border.

It is no secret that there is enmity bordering on hate between Netanyahu and the Obama Administration. The Obama White House and US State Department openly back the Muslim Brotherhood regime changes in the Middle East. Hillary Clinton’s meeting with Turkey’s Davutoglu in August this year was reportedly aimed at pushing Turkey to escalate its military intervention into Syria, but without direct US support owing to US election politics of wanting to avoid involvement in a new Middle East debacle.[21]

State Department Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin has been accused by several Republican Congress Representatives of ties to organizations controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood. Dalia Mogahed, Obama’s appointee to the Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, also a member of the US advisory council of the Department of Homeland Security, is openly linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and an open foe of Israel as well as calling for the toppling of Syria’s al-Assad. [22] Obama’s Washington definitely seems to be backing the Muslim Brotherhood horse in the race for control of the gas flows of the Middle East.

And the Russian role

Washington is walking a temporary tightrope hoping to weaken al-Assad fatally while not appearing directly involved. Russia for its part is playing a life and death game for the future of its most effective geopolitical lever—its role as the leading natural gas supplier to the EU. This year Russia’s state-owned Gazprom began delivery of Russian gas to northern Germany via Nord Stream gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea from a port near St. Petersburg. Strategically vital now for the future role of Russia as an EU gas supplier, is its ability to play a strategic role in exploiting the new-found gas reserves of its former Cold war client state, Syria. Moscow has long been engaged in promoting its South Stream gas pipeline into Europe as an alternative to the Washington Nabucco pipeline which was designed to leave Moscow out in the cold. [23]

Already Gazprom is the largest natural gas supplier to the EU. Gazprom with Nord Stream and other lines plans to increase its gas supply to Europe this year by 12% to 155 billion cubic meters. It now controls 25% of the total European gas market and aims to reach 30% with completion of South Stream and other projects.

Rainer Seele, chairman of Germany’s Wintershall, the Gazprom partner in Nord Stream, suggested the geopolitical thinking behind the decision to join South Stream: “In the global race against Asian countries for raw materials, South Stream, like Nord Stream, will ensure access to energy resources which are vital to our economy.” But rather than Asia, the real focus of South Stream lies to the West. The ongoing battle between Russia’s South Stream and the Washington-backed Nabucco is intensely geopolitical. The winner will hold a major advantage in the future political terrain of Europe.[24]

Now  a major new option of Syria as a major source for Russian-managed gas flows to the EU has emerged. If al-Assad survives, Russia will be in the position as savior to play a decisive role in developing and exploiting the Syrian gas. Israel, where Russia also has major cards to play, could theoretically shift to back a Russian-Syrian-Iraqi-Iran gas consortium were Israel and Iran to reach some modus vivendi on the nuclear and other issues, not impossible were the political constellation in Israel to change after the coming elections. Turkey, which is presently in a deep internal battle between Davutoglu and President Gül on the one side and Erdogan on the other, is dependent on Russia’s Gazprom for some 40% of gas to its industry. Were Davutoglu and his faction to lose, Turkey could play a far more constructive role in the region as transit country for Syrian and Iranian gas.

The battle for the future control of Syria is at the heart of this enormous geopolitical war and tug of war. Its resolution will have enormous consequences for either world peace or endless war and conflict and slaughter. NATO member Turkey is playing with fire as is Qatar’s Emir, along with Israel’s Netanyahu and NATO members France and USA. Natural gas is the flammable ingredient that is fueling this insane scramble for energy in the region.

F. William Engdahl is author of Myths, Lies and Oil Wars. He may be contacted through www.williamengdahl.com .

Notes

[1] Reuters, Turkish artillery strikes on Syria continue for second day: Several Syrian soldiers killed in overnight attack; Turkey launched artillery strikes after mortar bomb fired from Syria killed five Turkish civilians, October 4, 2012. Accessed in

http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/turkish-artillery-strikes-on-syria-continue-for-second-day-1.468142

[2]  Hüsnü Mahalli, Davutoglu  Betting on the Fall of Assad, Al Akhbar English, August 7, 2012, accessed in http://english.al-akhbar.com.

[3] Steven G. Merley, Turkey, the Global Muslim Brotherhood, and the Gaza Flotilla, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, 2011, accessed in http://www.jcpa.org/text/Turkey_Muslim_Brotherhood.pdf. See also for more ties between Erdogan’s Turkish AKP and the Musllim Brotherhood, GlobalMB, Syrian Ambassador Names Associate Of Turkish Prime Minister As Muslim Brotherhood Leader, May 25, 2011, accessed in http://globalmbreport.org/?p=4496

[4] The figure of $10 billion was relayed in a private discussion with the author by a Turkish businessman and political figure who asked to remain anonymous. Indian diplomats, including H.E. Gajendra Singh, former Ambassador to Ankara, have independently confirmed Saudi funding of the Turkish AKP. Presumably like most $10 billion cash grants, it came with heavy strings attached from Riyhad.

[5] F. William Engdahl, Salafism+CIA: The winning formula to destabilize Russia, the Middle East, Voltairenet.org, 13 September, 2012, accessed in http://www.voltairenet.org/article175801.html

[6] Philip Giraldi, NATO vs Syria, December 19, 2011, The American Conservative, accessed in

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/nato-vs-syria/.

[7] Linda Gradstein, Israel fears Syrian violence spilling over Golan Heights border, October 4, 2012, accessed inhttp://news.nationalpost.com/2012/10/04/israel-fears-syrian-violence-spilling-over-golan-heights-border/

[8] Daniel Byman, Michael Doran, Kenneth Pollack, and Salman Shaikh, Saving Syria: Assessing Options for Regime Change, The Brookings Institution, Washington D.C., March 2012, accessed in http://www.scribd.com/doc/108893509/BrookingsSyria0315-Syria-Saban

[9] Ibid., p. 6.

[10] Andrew Ross Sorkin, Schlepping to Moguldom, September 5, 2004, accessed in

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/05/business/yourmoney/05sab.html?ei=5088&en=9eb8c2a72c2b5e7d&ex=1252123200&partner=rssnyt&pagewanted=print&position&_r=0; see also Source Watch, Haim Saban, accessed in

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Haim_Saban.

[11] M. J. Rosenberg, AIPAC Cutout: The Rise & Fall Of The Washington Institute For Near East Policy, Talking Points Memo (TPM), 11 April 2010, accessed in http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/art.php?aid=126218

[12] Nathan Guttman, Bush officials subpoenaed in AIPAC trial, Jerusalem Post, March 13, 2006, accessed in http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=15860

[13] Alexander Medvedev, Role of Gas in a Sustainable Energy Future, 2^nd Ministerial Gas Forum, Doha, Qatar, 30 November, 2010.

[14] Hassan Hafidh and Benoit Faucon, Iraq, Iran, Syria Sign $10 Billion Gas-Pipeline Deal, The Wall Street Journal, July 25, 2011, accessed in http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903591104576467631289250392.html

[15] Daily Star, Syria Announces Gas Discovery, August 17, 2011, accessed in http://www.naturalgasasia.com/syria-homs-gas-discovery.

[16] Pepe Escobar, Why Qatar Wants to Invade Syria, Asia Times, September 27, 2012, accessed in http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NI28Ak03.html.

[17] Ibid.

[18] F. William Engdahl, The New Mediterranean Oil and Gas Bonanza – Part 1: Israel’s Levant Basin—a new geopolitical curse?, VoltaireNet.org, 20 February, 2012, accessed in http://www.voltairenet.org/article172827.html

[19] Ibid.

[20] Ibid.

[21] The Economist, Turkey’s political in-fighting: Erdogan at bay: The Turkish prime minister faces new enemies both at home and abroad, Feb 25th 2012; see also Hillary Clinton, Remarks With Foreign Minister Davutoglu After Their Meeting, Conrad Hotel Istanbul, Turkey, August 11, 2012, accessed in http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2012/08/196358.htm

[22] CSP,  Center Report Reveals Radical Islamist Views and Agenda of Senior State Department Official Huma Abedin’s Mother, Washington, Center for Security Policy, July 22, 2012, accessed in  http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/p19045.xml?genre_id=3. See also  Aaron Klein, Muslim Brotherhood endorses Obama faith adviser: Gives thumbs up to ‘Sister Mogahed’ for Twitter post on dead journalist, WorldNetDaily, April 29, 2012, accessed on http://www.wnd.com/2012/04/muslim-brotherhood-endorses-obama-faith-adviser/.

[23] F. William Engdahl, Moscow’s High Stakes Energy Geopolitics, Voltairenet.org, 15 November, 2011, accessed in http://www.voltairenet.org/article171902.html

[24] Ibid.

 

Copyright © 2012 Global Research

 

Tens of Machinegun-Equipped Cars Destroyed, Many Terrorists, Some Not Syrians, Killed

Oct 10, 2012

PROVINCES, (SANA)- The Armed Forces on Wednesday destroyed 3 stolen ambulance vehicles loaded with weapons and ammunition and 2 DShK-Equipped cars near Agyour roundabout in Aleppo city.

SANA reporter quoted a source at the province as saying that terrorist Ahmad Abu al-Lail, leader of an armed terrorist group, along with 3 PKC gunmen and 2 RPG users were killed.

The army continued the operation of clearing the area of Karm al-Jabal in Aleppo from the terrorists, eliminating large numbers of them.

A unit of the Armed Forces targeted a terrorists’ gathering in Bab al-Hadid roundabout and destroyed a truck equipped with a mortar and a twin-mounted anti-aircraft machinegun and two Jeeps.

The army members also killed and wounded a large number of the terrorists in the area. Terrorist Ahmad Lolek, leader of one of the armed terrorist groups, was identified among the dead.

Another unit of the Armed Forces confronted an armed terrorist group attempting to enter the Great Umayyad Mosque, killing and injuring a large number of its members while the rest fled away.

An official source in the province dismissed as “baseless and false” the news reported by some instigative channels about the terrorists taking over the Mosque, SANA reporter said.

A unit of the armed forces destroyed 9 cars equipped with DShK machineguns and a twin-mounted anti-aircraft machinegun in a qualitative operation against terrorists near Qadi Askar roundabout and Kefah al-Ghaderi School in Aleppo city.

The operation resulted in killing scores of terrorists, in addition to destroying 5 stolen ambulances loaded with weapons and ammunition.

A leader of an armed terrorist group, nicknamed Abu Issam, and a number of terrorists were killed in a qualitative operation near al-Wahda bakery in Kadi Askar area in Aleppo.

The armed forces carried out a qualitative operation that destroyed a Volvo refrigerated truck and several ambulances loaded with weapons and ammunition and terrorists on al-Bab road in Aleppo.

Armed forces units targeted terrorist headquarters in Bustan al-Qasser and Souq al-Fustuq areas, eliminating a number of terrorist and injuring others. One of the injured is Ahmad Afesh, the leader of a terrorist group, and his assistance who is nicknamed al-Zabbah (throat-slitter).

In al-Marjeh area , terrorist Sleiman Mahmoud al-Hantoush was injured all the members of his terrorist group were killed in an operation by the armed forces.

An armed forces unit destroyed two trucks loaded with weapons and eliminated a number of terrorists near Khayyata Mosque in al-Fardous area.

Father Imad al-Daher was wounded when two mortar rounds were fired by terrorists at the Greek Catholic Archdiocese in Farhat Square.

DShK-equipped Cars Destroyed in Aleppo Countryside

On Tuesday, the Armed Forces carried out a qualitative operation against a terrorists’ gathering in Andan area in Aleppo countryside.

The operation resulted in destroying 9 cars equipped with DShK machineguns and killing a large number of terrorists.

Terrorists Abdul-Aziz Oneizi Bin Hamed, of a non-Syrian nationality, Abdullah al-Ahmad al-Dahho and Mahmoud al-Mahmoud al-Dahho were identified among the dead.

12 year-old child Ali Mohammad al-Hammoud was injured when a terrorist group led by Mohammad Ismael al-Beff opened fire on a protest demanding that terrorists leave the village of Assan in Aleppo.

An armed forces unit destroyed eleven cars equipped with DShK machineguns along with the terrorists inside them on the road between Tal Refaat and Akhtyarin in Aleppo countryside.

The armed forces targeted gathering and bases of terrorists in al-Kamari, al-Khafsa and Deir Haffer, leaving tens of them dead or injured.

Armed forces units carried out an operation targeting terrorist bases in al-Atareb area, resulting in the death of tens of terrorist including Khalaf al-Sawat from Saudi Arabia and Mahmoud Talal al-Fahed from Iraq, in addition to Mohammad Barakat from Jabal al-Zawiye, Tamam Mushir al-Masri from Jisr al-Shughour, and Abdullah Mohammad Eid from Daret Azza.

Another armed forces unit targeted a terrorist base in Oram al-Sughra, killing a number of terrorists and injuring others.

Terrorists Killed, DShK-Equipped Cars Destroyed in Homs

A unit of the Armed Forces on Wednesday destroyed 4 DShK-equipped cars and killed scores of terrorists in the town of Burj Qa’ai in al-Houla area, Homs countryside.

SANA reporter quoted a source in the province as saying that a number of terrorists were killed and others injured in Burj Qa’ai town and in al-Rastan city.

The source added that another unit of the Armed Forces targeted a terrorists’ gathering near Bab Hud in Homs city, killing scores of them.

The armed forces also carried out an operation in Bab Hud neighborhood in which a 23.5 mm cannon was destroyed and a number of terrorists were killed or injured.

An armed forces unit targeted gatherings of terrorists in the towns of Kammam and al-Saloumiye in al-Qseir northern countryside in Homs province, killing and injuring a number of terrorists.

Another unit pursued terrorist groups in the areas of al-Zira’a, al-Nizariye and Jusiye in al-Qseir southern countryside, eliminating a large number of terrorists.

Terrorist Mohammad Bakkar, leader of a terrorist group, was killed along with his entire group in an operation carried out by the armed forces in al-Qseir countryside.

In the town of al-Rastan, an armed forces unit targeted terrorist gatherings, killing and injuring them, while another unit clashed with a terrorist group in al-Khalidye neighborhood, eliminating a number of them and injuring others.

Armed Forces Seize Explosive Device Factory, Locally-Made Missilles in Damascus Countryside

In Damascus countryside, armed forces discovered a factory for making explosive devices, locally-made rockets hidden underground and various weapons, including U.S.-made sniper rifles in Jisreen Farms in Eastern Ghouta.

A military source told SANA reporter that the army killed dozens of terrorists during the operation.

The authorities arrested terrorist Omar Kamel al-Shamandi while he was planting an explosive device in al-Suyouf square in Jaramana. Engineering units are working to dismantled the device.

Army Kills Scores of Terrorists in Daraa

A unit of the Armed Forces on Tuesday evening clashed with an armed terrorist group that tried to attack a law-enforcement post in al-Yadouda town in Daraa countryside, killing and wounding scores of the terrorists.

SANA reporter was informed by a source in the province that terrorists Thaer al-Haj Ali, Mohammad Shtara and Mohammad al-Hasheesh were identified among the dead.

The source added that another army unit clashed with terrorists in the town of Kafr Shams in the countryside, killing scores of them.

The source said that terrorists Mohammad Ibrahim al-Shaabani and Mohammad Mousa al-Dammad were among the dead.

In the same context, the authorities confiscated a large amount of weapons, ammo and stolen medical supplies while pursuing terrorists in the towns of al-Karak al-Sharqi and al-Ghariyeh al-Sharqiyeh in Daraa countryside.

A source at the province said that the authorities pursued terrorists in the area of Waar al-Masmiyeh in al-Lajat area, eliminating a large number of them and confiscating automatic rifles and handguns they had in the possession.

The source added that engineering units dismantled a large number of explosive devices and antitank landmines planted by terrorists at the entrances of al-Karak al-Sharqi and al-Ghariyeh al-Sharqiyeh.

Armed Forces Destroy Terrorists’ Den near the Farmers Union in Deir Ezzor

A unit of the Armed Forces in Deir Ezzor Province on Wednesday destroyed a terrorist’s den near the Farmers Union building.

Authorities Confiscate Weapons and Explosives in al-Sejen Neighborhood in Lattakia

During a raid of a terrorist hideout in al-Sejen neighborhood in Lattakia city, the authorities confiscated weapons and firearms, including 175 kilograms of C4.

Confiscated items also include detonators, RPG rounds, remote-controlled circuits for detonating explosives, diving equipment, and gas masks.

Authorities Clash with Terrorist Group in Raqqa Countryside

The authorities clashed with a terrorist group near the turnpike of the village of Ali Bajlia in Tal Abyad area, Raqqa countryside.

The clash resulted in the destruction of 3 pickup trucks equipped with machineguns and the elimination of the terrorists inside them, in addition to confiscating two RPG rounds, ammo and three pump-action shotguns.

Premier al-Halqi: National Media Confronted Terrorism… Al-Moallem: Solving Crisis through Political Dialogue, National Reconciliation

Oct 10, 2012

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – Prime Minister Dr. Wael al-Halqi highly appreciated the high performance of public and private national media in the face of terrorism and the misleading methods of some foreign media outlets in dealing with events in Syria.

Chairing the Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Premier al-Halqi stressed the importance of constructive communication and cooperation between public institutions and media outlets, calling upon ministries and related bodies to provide journalists with information and facilitation needed to carry out their role in conveying the truth within a transparent and clear framework to serve the public interest.

Deputy Prime Minister, Foreign and Expatriates Minister Walid al-Moallem briefed the cabinet on the outcome of his meetings on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session, especially things that are relevant to the situation in Syria and the different international stances in this regard.

He reviewed the Syrian delegation’s efforts to explain the reality of what is taking place in Syria as an international terrorism that is backed by foreign powers and countries to destabilize Syria’s security serving the U.S. and Israeli interests.

Al-Moallem said that the delegation stressed the firm Syrian stance in solving the crisis through political dialogue, national reconciliation and rejection of foreign intervention in the Syrian internal affairs.

Later on, Deputy Prime Minister for Services Affairs, Minister of Local Administration Omar Ghalawanji and Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs, Minister of Internal Trade and Consumer Protection, Qadri Jamil presented a review on the services and economic situation, hailing the government’s efforts to provide food, oil derivatives and basic materials for citizens, in addition to following up on the situation of the displaced families in the makeshift centers and the rehabilitation of damaged services facilities.

In turn, Minister of State for National Reconciliation Affairs Ali Haidar reviewed the ministry’s communications and meetings with national figures and powers within the framework of its task in pushing the national dialogue ahead and encouraging national reconciliation in some areas to restore stability and normal life.

The cabinet discussed a number of draft laws, approving the new draft law on scientific missions.

Minister of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform, Subhi al-Abdullah briefed the Cabinet on the ministry’s procedures to provide farmers and livestock breeders with their production needs for the winter season in all provinces.

In turn, Minister of Transport, Mahmoud Ibrahim Said, reviewed the results of his visit to Russia and the talks with Russian companies with the aim of enhancing the railway, air and maritime transport systems in Syria.

He added that the two sides have completed procedures to purchase two planes while other procedures are underway to provide the air transport sector with 14 planes in the next five years.

In a statement to the journalists following the meeting, Minister of Electricty, Imad Khamis said that the cabinet approved the ministry’s proposal on supporting solar water heaters as part of the government’s policy to encourage the use of renewable energy as a substitute for fossil fuels.

He added that the government has allocated SYP 2 billion to support the first stage of the project.

Photographer of al-Ikhbariya TV Martyred by Terrorists’ Gunfire in Deir Ezzor

Oct 10, 2012

DEIR EZZOR, (SANA) – Photographer of al-Ikhbariya TV Mohammad al-Ashram was martyred by terrorists’ gunfire in Deir Ezzor city on Wednesday.

Journalists’ Union Condemns the Heinous Act

Journalists’ union condemned the terrorist act which targeted al-Ikhbariya TV photographer Mohammad al-Ashram while he was conveying the reality of what is going on in Deir Ezzor.

In a statement on Wednesday, the Union called on Arab and international organizations and bodies to condemn that criminal act and prosecute its perpetrators.

“Once again the terrorism targets the media body without any deterrent of conscience or moral.. today al-Ikhbariya TV cameraman was martyred in line of duty in Deir Ezzor at the hands of terrorists,” the statement said.

National Media Council: Martyrdom of al-Ashram Shows National Media is Doing Its Duty of Uncovering Terrorists’ Crimes

The National Media Council denounced the continuing attacks against national media and journalists, with the martyrdom of al-Ikhbariya TV correspondent Mohammad al-Ashram in Deir Ezzor showing that national media is doing its duty of uncovering the crimes and terrorism of the armed groups.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, the Council said that the assassination of al-Ashram is a reprehensible crime that violates all laws and conventions on freedom of press and the right of journalists to do their job during times of wars and preserving their lives.

The statement said that attempts to target the Syrian national media will fail to achieve their goals as the national media and those who work in it will continue to carry out their noble duty to serve the truth and uncover the enemies of Syria.

The Council offered sincerest condolences to the family of the martyr and all Syrian journalists.

Director of al-Ikhbariya TV: Martyrdom of Colleague al-Ashram Only Makes Journalists at the Channel More Determined to Say the Truth

Director of al-Ikhbariya TV, Imad Sara, said that the martyrdom of al-Ashram while carrying out his national duty of relaying the truth of what is happening in Syria will only make journalists working at the channel more determined to say the truth.

In a statement to SANA, Sara said that terrorists had abducted al-Ashram before and tortured him, and even burned down his house and his mother’s house, all because he insisted to do his job for Syria’s sake.

He affirmed that workers at al-Ikhbariya TV will remain faithful to their country and will continue to relay the whole truth due to their commitment to the homeland.

Makdissi: UN Secretary General’s Statement on Unilateral Ceasefire by the Syrian Side Incomplete

Oct 10, 2012

Damascus, (SANA)_Foreign and Expatriates Ministry Spokesman, Jihad al-Makdissi said that the UN Secretary General’s statement in Paris yesterday on the implementation of unilateral ceasefire by the Syrian side during his talks in New York, and that the Syrian side has asked him about what is next is incomplete and contained half of the truth regarding what has really happened during the talks and here is the whole story:

The UN Secretary General proposed implementing unilateral ceasefire and, in the same session, the Syrian side informed him that the Syrian Arab Republic has already implemented this proposal twice. The first time was during the work of the Arab Observers Mission headed by al-Dabi and the second one was on April 12th in the presence of the UN Observers Mission to Syria and in line with Mr. Kofi Annan’s six-point plan.

In both times, the armed groups exploited the commitment of the Syrian government to expand their armed deployment in some areas and since then human losses among military and civilians doubled due to the terrorist operations carried out by these groups in violation of the truce.

In light of what has been said, we agreed with the UN Secretary General on that the truce aims at creating appropriate atmosphere for the desired political dialogue and not to undermine Syria’s stability and exploit the commitment of the Syrian state. Therefore we asked the Secretary General to send his envoys to the countries concerned, especially Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey which fund, harbor, train and arm the armed groups to ensure these countries’ commitment to refrain from such acts, since they have influence on the armed groups, and to use their power to halt violence by the other side.

He added that the Syrian side asked to be informed on the outcome of the UN Secretary General’s efforts to discuss them with its leadership and make necessary arrangements.

Speaker of People’s Assembly Discusses with Lamani Efforts to Solve Crisis in Syria

Oct 10, 2012

DAMASCUS, (SANA)_Speaker of the People’s Assembly, Mohammad Jihad al-Laham discussed on Wednesday with Mokhtar Lamani, the head of UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi’s office in Syria, the efforts to come out of the crisis in Syria.

The two sides stressed the importance of finding a peaceful settlement to the crisis and ending violence, and work to launch a national dialogue that brings together the different spectrums of Syrian people with the aim to protect Syria.

Al-Laham reviewed the terrorist acts of the armed terrorist groups, in addition to the fierce media campaign led by misleading media and the impact of the unjust economic sanctions on the lives of the Syrian people.

Al-Laham highlighted the reforms enacted in Syria in response to the citizens’ demands and the People’s Assembly’s efforts to achieve national reconciliation, especially after setting up a permanent committee for this end so as to play an effective role on the ground to emphasize dialogue until achieving reconciliation.

Lamani said he will resume his meetings with different parties in Syria to listen to their viewpoints and urge them to engage dialogue to reach a solution to the crisis.

In a statement to SANA after the meeting, Lamani said ”the meeting comes as part of a series of meetings with different parties to listen to their views about the crisis,” indicating that he discussed with al-Laham the crisis in Syria and listened to the People’s Assembly position on it.”

Chavez Reiterates Support to Syria, Stresses That the US Most Responsible for Crisis

Oct 10, 2012

CARACAS, (SANA) – The Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Tuesday reiterated his country’s support to Syria in the face of the pre-planned scheme targeting it, stressing that the U.S. administration is one of the powers most responsible for the crisis in Syria.

In his first press conference after being re-elected as Venezuela’s President, Chavez said that he will continue supporting the Syrian government under the leadership of President Bashar al-Assad.

“How can we not suppor the government of President Bashar al-Assad as long as it is Syria’s legitimate government? If we didn’t support it, then who should we support? Should we support the terrorists who want a transitional council and kill people wherever they are?!”, President Chavez wondered.

He considered it odd that some western governments are holding meetings with terrorists and no longer recognize a legitimate government.

The Venezuelan President hailed the stance of Russia and China regarding the crisis in Syria.

Chavez stressed in a statement last September that the Syrian people is currently the victim of a violent imperialist policy.

Lavrov: We Will Defend UN Charter while Solving Crisis in Syria

Oct 10, 2012

MOSCOW, (SANA) – Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, stressed on Wednesday that Russia will defend the principles of the UN Charter regarding solving the crisis in Syria and settling the Iranian nuclear file.

Russia Today website reported Lavrov as saying before the Russian Federation Council that arbitrary interpretations of the general principles of the UN Charter such as preventing the use and threat of force, resorting to peaceful solutions to pending issues, respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of countries and non-interference in the internal affairs constitute a threat to the global system.

Lavrov added that Russia will continue its persistence on the sovereignty of law in the international issues, pointing out that his country is exerting efforts to search for means to solve crisis in Syria and the Iranian nuclear file.

The Russian Foreign Minister expressed Moscow’s readiness for holding the second meeting of the action group on Syria at any time.

“We are ready to hold this meeting at any time but we realize that it should be prepared to,” said Lavrov, noting that when Russia last August proposed holding a meeting for the group to stress the necessity to implement Geneva statement and most importantly for the members to take upon themselves to influence the two parties to the conflict in Syria, its partners were not ready for that.

In the same context, Lavrov said that Syria and Turkey should engage into a direct dialogue to settle the situation after the incident which took place on the border early October.

He added that the Syrian side “is interested in regaining contact with Turkey”, expressing hope that Ankara too is ready to communicate with Damascus.

Lavrov noted that the UN envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, will formulate, after having visited Damascus, ideas for “settling the conflict” in the country based on Geneva statement.

“Brahimi visited the region and Damascus, and now is heading to the region again. Afterwards, he’ll formulate ideas that will be based, as he told me in New York, on the main points of Geneva meeting, which is absolutely correct,” said Lavrov.

On the Iranian issue, the Russian Foreign Minister warned of the dangerous repercussions that would result from launching military strikes against Iran, hoping that there would be no such strikes.

He considered that such developments, if happened, “would be the nearest way towards undermining the efforts seeking to settle all the issues regarding the Iranian nuclear file.”

Al-Maliki: Iraq Rejects NATO Intervention in Syria under Pretext of Defending Turkey

Oct 10, 2012

MOSCOW, (SANA) – Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said that his country rejects the NATO intervention in Syria under the pretext of defending Turkey which adopts a wrong policy that affects the security of the region, stressing that Turkey is not under threat.

In a statement to journalists in Moscow, al-Maliki said that a war should not be ignited, nor a whole organization such as the NATO alliance dragged to such a war to defend Turkey which is not really under threat.

He considered what has been circulated by some media about Syrian aircrafts bombing the Turkish territories an exaggerated allegation and does not deserve to wage a war for its.

Al-Maliki warned against the risks of NATO intervention in Syria since it might lead to a big war in the whole region.

Regarding the Turkish policy towards Syria, the Iraqi Premier described it as wrong, adding that Turkey is taking risks through its policies, particularly those related to the security in the region, and its behavior is rude as it takes the responsibility of solving the issues in Syria instead of the Syrian people, indicating that Turkey wants to impose its decision and that is why the international community has to take action to stop Turkey.

He said that Ankara is trying to drag the NATO to interfere in Syria’s affairs which is a serious matter as it means a repetition of the Libyan scenario, stressing that the solution to the crisis in Syria should be peaceful so that in the future, the Syrian people will be able to decide what they want, adding that”Only then, there will be no danger threatening Syria or other countries in the region.”

Al-Maliki refuted the US allegations of Iran sending aircrafts loaded with weapons to the Syrian government through the Iraqi territories as baseless, adding that “We will not allow using the Iraqi territories to transport weapons and fighters to the neighboring countries. We searched the aircrafts without earlier warning and no weapons were found on their boards.”

He added that transporting weapons through transit violates the international law and the Iraqi Constitution and it might cause problems to the country, describing the U.S. allegation to be a political game or trick since Syria does not need weapons to be transported through the Iraqi territories.

Premier al-Maliki said that Iraq has asked for evidence on such allegations but it received none, adding that “We did not get assurances that Iranian aircrafts are transporting weapons to Syria. We informed both Syria and Iran that we allow transporting cargos but not weapons and we will continue conducting international inspections in this regard.”

Minister of Education: Syria Submitted Written Reports on Transgressions against Syrian Heritage to UNESCO

Oct 10, 2012

PARIS, (SANA) –The Syrian Minister of Education, Hazwan al-Wazz stressed Syria’s cooperation with all friends and its openness to all sincere initiatives to end the crisis.

Speaking on his behalf at the opening session of the 190th session of the Executive Council of the United Nations Education, Science and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Syria’s Permanent Representative to the UNESCO, Ambassador Lamia Shakkour reiterated Syria’s sincere call for starting unconditional national dialogue to get out of the crisis and overcome its repercussions through appropriate solutions.

He added that Syria believes that the solution to the crisis should be Syrian and by the Syrians themselves without excluding anyone.

On September 16th, Syria’s children started their new school year and the Syrian universities and institutes opened despite the huge damage caused by the armed terrorist groups to the education sector, Shakkour said.

He indicated that 2,073 schools have been damaged, some of which need to be reconstructed completely, while 796 other schools were transferred into makeshift centers for those who were displaced and forced to leave their houses and cities in light of the criminal acts committed by the armed terrorist groups.

Al-Wazz said that the ministry documented the assassination of 88 workers at the education sector and the value of damage caused to this sector alone was estimated at SYP 5,444 billion, not to mention the damage caused to universities, media institutions, services facilities, museums, in addition to hindering the tourism movement and industry as well as other aspects of life in the country.

The statement added that Syria’s calls upon the UNESCO and other international organizations stressed these organizations’ right and freedom to send whoever they want to closely inspect the reality and the huge damage on the ground.

The Minister added that Syria, under the current crisis, is facing real threats to its rich cultural heritage, indicating that the Syrian government has adopted firm measures to protect the national cultural heritage, including those sites which are listed on the World Heritage List.

The Minister of Education said that coordination with the UNESCO and its bodies continues, adding that UNESCO and international concerned bodies have been provided with written reports on the transgressions against the Syrian heritage to unite international and national efforts to protect and preserve the Syrian heritage, calling upon international sides to adhere to their obligations according to the Heritage Protection Agreements / 1954 – 1972 and 2003/ and the relevant protocols.

The statement added that ” contrary to the US Permanent Representative’s false allegations and the non-objective information, Syria has always welcomed the General Director’s support and the nomination of a team of international experts to head to Syria as soon as possible to organize a workshop, adding that ”We look forward that the UNESCO and the specialized bodies would have a role in reaching an international census on “the position of Morals in Preserving World Heritage”.

He said that Syria, which is committed to the UN Charter and the principles of the international law and the legitimacy of human rights on respecting the independence and sovereignty of states and the inadmissibility of foreign intervention in their domestic affairs, in addition to these countries’ complete responsibility of protecting the civilians, is punished today in such a precedent that has never been witnessed throughout the history of the international relations.

He regretted that ”the appreciation and the confidence in some brothers and friends made them betray us and our people and became tools in the hands of sponsors of strange western project that serves a serious Zionist scheme as they practiced misleading media and provided money and arms to armed terrorist takfiri groups that are killing, kidnapping and terrifying the Syrians, not to mention destroying economic, scientific, cultural and social infrastructure in Syria.

He added that “In Syria, we still have hope that these countries and powers which support the armed terrorist groups will reconsider their stances to play objective and moral roles that maintain their reputation in history within the international community’s efforts to form a just and transparent order to face climate, environment and security challenges… an order that is based on the UN Charter and the international law that guarantee the inadmissibility of intervention in the sovereign affairs of countries.”

The minister said that the Syrian national sides presented to the Security Council and the international organizations concerned official documents and references on the crimes committed against the Syrians serving major powers and their regional projects.

The minister added that the 18-month crisis in Syria never hindered the enactment of reforms to fulfill popular demands as a new constitution was issued including political plurality, parliamentary elections and local administration laws, freedom of press and media, decentralization and the formation of new government that comprised representatives of national opposition parties.

”Through this, Syria achieved a wide popular participation in the Syrian government’s reform project and its commitment to enhance democratic atmosphere for a political and economic future that stressed the rule of the law, preserved security and stability and consolidated the national unity.”

”Despite that, the armed terrorist groups continued their violations of the moral principles and the international conventions, resorted to what might hinder the process of reform and national reconciliation and targeted the lives of innocents, their security and their daily living backed and covered by major foreign powers,” said the minister.

It is no more a secret what Syria is facing, the killing of journalists, the misleading media campaigns, the fabrications, the halt of the Syrian TVs broadcast and the instigation on violence and hatred by some media outlets.

He said “On August 29th, President Bashar al-Assad stressed the Syrian people’s ability to overcome the current situation and its repercussions ,” adding that today in Syria we are determined to make reforms that meet the aspirations of our citizens and their struggle to restore rights and achieve comprehensive and just peace that is based on international legitimacy resolutions despite all obstacles.

The minister called upon the UNESCO to inform the member states about the progress made regarding the implementation of the resolutions on the occupied Arab territories in Palestine and the occupied Syrian Golan, especially forming expert committees to inspect the daily aggressive practices of the Israeli occupation authorities against cultural and educational institutions, their transgressions against al-Aqsa Mosque and their attempts to juadize Jerusalem City and threatening its cultural heritage.

He expressed Syria’s appreciation to the UNESCO resolution on accepting the full membership of Palestine, reiterating Syria’s stance in support of the just causes of G77, China, the Non-Aligned Movement and other friendly countries represented in the UNESCO, hailing their humanitarian and political stances in support of Syria against this ferocious attack which threaten its security, sovereignty and territorial unity.

He added that Syria, which is a unique model of fraternity and coexistence, strongly condemns desecrating religions, messengers and holy sites, and urges world countries to be alarmed to the threats posed by terrorism that undermines the values of societies, urging UNESCO to take a firm stance against these violations.

The minister expressed Syria’s welcome to the ”Education First” initiative that was put forward by the UN Secretary-General that UNESCO was honored to lead, indicating that Syria has paid its annual financial donation despite the unjust sanctions.

National Media Council: Protecting Syrian Human Heritage a Defense of the Homeland

Oct 10, 2012

DAMASCUS, (SANA)_The National Media Council stressed that protecting the Syrian human heritage is a defense of the homeland threatened by groups of extremist gunmen allied with the mafias of ancient monuments, and a defense of the world human civilization.

In a statement on Wednesday, the Council called upon the journalists, reporters, intellectuals, students and clergymen to defend the Syrian cultural identity through defending the national ancient monuments that are a symbol of this culture, indicating that the international organizations should shoulder responsibilities in protecting this human heritage as this lies at the core of the tasks of the Arab League Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (ALECSO), the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO), and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

The Council saw that there must be an immediate scientific action that would put an end to the violations and thefts threatening these human and cultural milestones, calling upon the Syrians who value their heritage to be a staunch shield in defense of their heritage.

The Council alarmed to the grave danger threatening the archeological sites, historical buildings and the Syrian museums amid the current war waged on Syria, adding that in parallel with targeting the economic, educational, service and health structure, the terrorist groups are targeting the Syrian cultural identity and world mafias are threatening the Syrian ancient treasures.

The statement indicated that the barbaric targeting of Syrian antiquities is evidenced by reports on the excavations in al-Madiqe, the Krak des Chevaliers and Ebla citadels and attempts to steal the mosaic floors in Apamea and the Aramaic golden statue from Hama museum, and armed attacks on Maaret al-Nu’man museum, burning down Aleppo ancient souks, demolishing ancient churches, monasteries and mosques in Homs as the armed terrorist groups are using citadels, historical buildings and souks as barricades, making the invaluable cultural achievements a battlefield.

”The Syrian civilizations have endowed the Syrian society with diversity and made the Syrian spiritual structure take pride in the cohesive social fabric…this historical cultural memory is derived from the material landmarks exhibited in museums,” the statement concluded, warning of the goals of the terrorist colonial war on Syria which aims at uprooting this unequalled example of diversity.

Ghalawanji Chairs Meeting on Establishing Funds for New Organizational Regions

Oct 10, 2012

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – Deputy Prime Minister for Services Affairs, Minister of Local Administration Omar Ghalawanji on Wednesday chaired a meeting on establishing funds for the two new organizational regions established as pet Legislative Decree No. 66 for 2012 and financing them.

The meeting discussed the steps needed to provide funding for the two regions and carrying them out according to schedule, which will cost around SYP 90 billion; 24 billion for the infrastructure, 6 billion for paying rents of former occupants of the two areas, and 60 billion to build houses.

The meeting also tackled establishing funds for financing and managing the costs of the two regions, with Ghalawanji noting that there are various options for providing the necessary funding such as bank loans, partnering up with companies, and so on.

Ghalawanji ordered the formation of a committee to study all possible scenarios for securing funding for the project from start to finish, in addition to studying the establishment of the funds.

For his part, Governor of Damascus Bishr al-Sabban gave a presentation on the organizational regions in question, noting that Damascus Governorate Executive Office allocated SYP 500 million for funding this project from the Governorate’s budget.

In turn, Governor of the Central Bank of Syria Adib Mayyaleh stressed the need to adopt a balanced and calculated solution to fund the project to avoid hurdles, suggesting te possibility of finding additional sources for funding the projects other than banks and loans to guarantee its continuation and take inflation into account.

Britain Admits British Extremists Intend to Join Fighting in Syria

Oct 10, 2012

LONDON, (SANA) – Britain’s Foreign Secretary William Hague on Wednesday admitted that British extremists intend to join the fighting in Syria.

In a statement to BBC, Hague said that the government is aware of some British people joining the battles in Syria, warning them against traveling there or taking part in the fight.

“We strongly advise them not to travel to Syria, and we do not want British people taking part in violent situations anywhere in the world,” he said.

Hague’s implicit confessions came in line with the divulging of the conspiracy hatched against Syria, not to mention the flow of international media reports which revealed the involvement of the US and some western countries in sending terrorists to Syria and providing them with military and financial support by some Gulf countries with the aim of toppling the Syrian state and spreading chaos.

Today, the British Police arrested a man and a woman, both aged 26, on suspicion of preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism in Syria as part of the investigation into travelling there and supporting terrorist acts.

The police statement indicated that the two were arrested upon their arrival at Heathrow Airport after which they were taken to a police station in central, adding that are still in custody.

The statement added that the police searched several properties in eastern London as part of the investigations.

In the same context, BBC News on Monday uncovered that shipments of weapons intended for the Saudi army have been diverted to the gunmen in Aleppo.

“Three crates from an arms manufacturer – addressed to Saudi Arabia – have been seen in a base being used by gunmen in the city of Aleppo.” BBC correspondent in Syria Ian Pannell reported.

Rizospastis, the newspaper of the Communist Party of Greece, stressed that the imperialist powers are targeting Syria and the entire Middle East region through using mercenary armed terrorist groups to hit Syria’s stability under the cover of opposition, with the aim of overcoming Iran and controlling the oil and natural gas transfer lines.

The newspaper called upon the Greek people and the other peoples in the region to be cautious and aware of these schemes.

General Union of Arab Students Reiterates Rejection of Foreign Intervention in Syria

Oct 10, 2012

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – The General Union of Arab Students reiterated rejection of all forms of foreign intervention in Syria, calling for immediate halt of violence and launching the comprehensive dialogue among all sides to draw up Syria’s future.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, the Union called for cancelling all the unjust Arab, western and U.S. sanctions imposed on the Syrian people.

It also called upon monarchies of the Gulf and the Turkish government not to interfere in Syria’s internal affairs, to stop supplying criminal mercenaries with funds and arms and to leave the Syrian people alone to decide their future.

Second Syrian Youth Sculpture and Drawing Forum Kicks Off

Oct 10, 2012

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – The second Syrian Youth Sculpture and Drawing Forum kicked off on Wednesday at the courtyard of Damascus Citadel, organized by the Fine Arts Directorate and the Institute of Applied Arts.

Director of Fine Arts at the Ministry of Culture, sculptor Aktham Abdelhamid, said that this event provides young artists with a chance to meet and build bridges with art establishments, noting that it also helps artist train in working within a set time period to prepare them for participating in international events.

Abdelhamid noted that the forum also aims to nurture young talents, and that holding it during these difficult times shows the world that the Syrian people will continue living life to the fullest regardless of the difficulties.

Sculptor Nisreen al-Saleh said that her participation in the forum consists of an abstract presentation of the woman as a mother, sister and wife, using poplar wood as a medium.

In turn, sculptor Waddah Salameh said his sculpture represents a composition of social layers that suffered cultural disorders that caused them to become destabilized, using both wood and iron to produce his piece.

For her part, sculptor Wala’a Kateb said her piece is an abstract representation connecting different pieces through a mutual emotion, with an underlying theme of the role of music in clarifying the human spirit, using olive wood as her medium of choice.

Similarly, sculptor Julia Wahbe said that she’s working on an abstract expressionist piece representing aesthetic values through the human being’s higher qualities, naming the sculpture “wing and pride.”

Artist Juliana Salloum said her painting consists of three windows depicting similar conditions that combine the elements of earth, air, water and fire.

In turn, forum supervisor and artist Lina Affash said that the event contains a wide variety of artistic styles and techniques, revealing the Syrian youths’ creativity.

Old Coins Exhibition in Shahbaa Festival for Heritage and Arts Activities

Oct 10, 2012

SWEIDA, (SANA) – The second day of Shahbaa Festival for Heritage and Arts observed the opening of an exhibition for historical currencies and antique instruments.

The exhibition, held in cooperation with the locals in Qanawat town, showcased more than 200 old paper money and 500 antique coins, most of which are Syrian, as well as to a collection of Arab and foreign coins that date back to early last century.

Member of the executive office for the Provincial Council for Tourism and Antiquities told SANA reporter that the festival is an opportunity to introduce Syria’s history and enhance the role of governmental sector and the civil organizations in protecting national archeological findings.

In turn, head of Qanawat committee in the Antiquities institution, Hussein Zariyfeh stressed the importance of preserving the national identity and the cultural and intellectual heritage against globalization.

He reviewed the institution’s efforts to take care of ancient ruins and make use of the archeological sites in the province to contribute to tourism industry.

Head of Sweida Antiquities Department, Hussein Zein Eddin said that a number of archeological houses have been acquisitioned in Qanawat town with the aim of showing their historical value.

Syrian Firefighters Have Become a Target of Terrorists’ Hatred-charged Gunfire

Oct 10, 2012

DAMASCUS, (SANA)- Number 113 is very known by all the Syrians, as it is considered their first resort when exposed to any harm or accident which necessitate calling the firefighters.

Despite their noble mission and the humanitarian services they offer to those in need, firefighters in Syria have also been a target of the terrorists’ hatred and perfidy as the bullets of the terrorists claimed the lives of many firefighters.

“The firefighters are now being targeted like all the Syrians who care for protecting their homeland,” a firefighter said in a statement to SANA, expressing grief over the loss of number his comrades who were the victim of the terrorist groups’ gunfire.

Known for their extraordinary self-motivation and enthusiasm to respond to any a call of fire or help, the Syrian firefighters are now not only being blocked from doing their job, but also shot dead by the mercenary and armed terrorist groups.

“This is our homeland and we should maintain it…build it stone by stone,” the firefighter said.

“It takes minutes to destroy the walls of this great edifice of Syria, while years are needed to rebuild it,” he went on as saying, stressing that “this is the message I address to the terrorists.”

He called upon all those who participate in the destruction of the homeland to return to their senses and to contribute to preserving Syria and its dignity and honor.

Early Warning System for Communicable Diseases during Crisis Established

Oct 10, 2012

DAMASCUS, (SANA)- The Ministry of Health has recently established an early warning system to collect information on communicable diseases during the current crisis the country is going through.

A workshop held recently by the Ministry in cooperation with the World Health Organization (WHO), which helped in setting up the early warning system, discussed means of taking the appropriate measures to prevent the outbreak of epidemics and diseases.

The participants in the workshop focused on gathering information on the temporary residential places where displaced families are staying, who fled the practices of the armed terrorist groups, with the aim of ensuring their needs of vaccine, medicines and reproductive health services.

Health Minister, Saeed al-Nayef pointed out 104 health centers across the provinces were chosen for weekly notification on a specific list of diseases including 12 contagious diseases.

“This aims for early confrontation and treatment of such diseases upon emerging,” said the Minister.

He highlighted that the health sector in Syria has been subjected to great losses during the current crisis, estimating these losses at SYP 6 billion, which included hospitals, clinics, health centers, ambulances and medical equipment.

Minister al-Nayef stressed that the Ministry is cooperating with the friendly countries of Iran, Korea, Cuba, India and China, in addition to international organizations and civil charity associations, to bridge the gaps suffered by the health sector.

Acting WHO Representative in Damascus, Elizabeth Hoff, said the Organization has established the early warning system to enhance the National System for Epidemic-prone Disease Surveillance during Emergencies, which is aimed at detecting diseases that constitute danger on public health and informing about them in the right time.

She stressed that the WHO will provide the necessary technical support to this system through securing communication means and helping in specifying the data and issuing reports.

For his part, Director of Health Care Department at the Ministry, Ahmad al-Abboud, said the objective behind launching the early warning system was the spread of local internal immigration inside the cities and provinces, which he said created a kind of overpopulation and caused reduction in the level of vaccine coverage.

The Health Ministry is launching a national vaccination campaign by the beginning of November that targets children aged between 1 and 5 for measles and paralysis.

Director of Contagious and Chronic Disease Department at the Ministr, Kinaz Sheikh, affirmed that no unusual disease cases were recorded in the National Surveillance System despite the unprecedented circumstances faced by the System staff while performing their duty.

Kilicdaroglu Slams Turky’s Foreign Policy as Strategic Blidness

Oct 10, 2012

ANKARA, (SANA) – Leader of the Turkish Republican People’s Party (CHP) Kemal Kilicdaroglu on Tuesday slammed Turkey’s foreign policy decisions, calling Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu “an idiot”.

The Turkish newspaper of Hurriyet quoted Kilicdaroglu as wondering “who is on Turkey’s side?”, citing Hamas, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, while Syria has Brazil, Iran, Russia and China on its side.

“Is this a strategic depth or a strategic blindness?”, he asked.

Kilicdaroglu said that the process that resulted in Turkey’s becoming part of such a meaningless balance comes from a foreign minister whose incompetence is known by the entire world.

“You don’t need deep knowledge to know that. You have to be a real idiot to do that,” he added.

Late September, Kilicdaroglu stressed, in a large popular demonstration in Istanbul, that the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyib Erdogan followed the course of the West against Syria, adding that Erdogna’s policy towards Syria is dangerous and contrary to conscience and morals as it is helping in training, arming and sending fighters to Syria.

Syria’s Youth Football Team Wins 5-0 over Kuwaiti Counterpart in Friendly Match

Oct 09, 2012

KUWAIT, (SANA)- Syria’s national youth football team beat the Kuwaiti counterpart 5-0 in a friendly match held on Tuesday at the stadium of al-Qaddissiya Club in the capital Kuwait.

Three of the goals were scored in the first match, while the other two were scored in the second.

Both teams will meet again in a second friendly match on October 14 before the Syrian team comes back to Damascus.

Tuesday’s match was part of the preparations of the Syrian team to participate in the Asian Cup finals set to be held in November in the UAE.

Syria’s team is in group D, along with Australia, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

 

By Countercurrents.org

11 October, 2012

@ Counterurrents.org

The US has confirmed reports it has a military task force in Jordan while Turkey warns Syria of stronger response over shelling. Along with the warning, Turkey has forced a Syrian passenger plane to land at Ankara airport. The presence of US military specialists in Jordan and the action and warning by Turkey are clear signs that the Syria-intervention scenario is escalating.

Leon Panetta, US defence secretary, told the BBC on October 10, 2012 that an American military team was in Jordan helping it deal with the influx of Syrian refugees [1].

Panetta has confirmed that US troops have been dispatched to the Jordan-Syrian border to help bolster Jordan ‘s military capabilities [2].

“And we’ve also been working with them to help them develop their own military and operational capabilities in the event of any contingency there, and that’s the reason we have a group of our forces there. They’re working to help them build a headquarters there and to ensure that we make the relationship between the United States and Jordan a strong one so that we can deal with all of the possible consequences of what is happening in Syria ,” Panetta added.

Panetta’s comments came during a NATO conference of defense ministers in Brussels on October 10, 2012 .

But earlier in the day, Jordan ‘s military had denied the US military was helping the kingdom deal with the influx of Syrian refugees and other security related issues.

“News reports that the United States is helping Jordan deal with the Syrian refugees or face dangers related to chemical weapons are not true,” state-run Petra news agency cited a Jordan Armed Forces spokesperson as saying.

The US has previously used Jordan as a base for other Syria-related military activities. In May of this year, Washington held military drills in Jordan dubbed ‘Operation Eager Lion,’ which saw around 12,000 troops from several nations participate in undisclosed training exercises.

A US defense official in Washington said the forces were composed of 100 military planners and other personnel who had stayed on in Jordan after attending the annual exercise in May. Several dozen more had subsequently been flown in, and they are operating from a joint US-Jordanian military center north of the capital, the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AP .

The Obama administration denied accusations in the Syrian media that the May exercises were a threat against President Assad, and maintained that the action focused on the treatment of refugees, anti-terrorism tactics and naval interception of smuggling vessels.

The revelation of US military personnel so close to the Syrian conflict suggests an escalation in the US military involvement in the conflict, even as Washington pushes back on any suggestion of a direct intervention in Syria [3].

The development comes with the US presidential election less than a month away, and at a time when Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee, has been criticizing President Obama’s foreign policy, accusing the administration of embracing too passive a stance in the convulsive Mideast region.

Jordanian men also are moving the other way across the border — joining what intelligence officials have estimated around 2,000 foreigners fighting alongside Syrian rebels.

In another development, Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, said: NATO must not use protecting Turkey as a pretext to intervene in Syria . He was speaking at a Russian press conference. “The story goes that supposedly Syrian planes dropped bombs on Turkish territory, but everything has been over-exaggerated, even if it did really happen,” al-Maliki said [4].

­He argued that no one was threatening Turkey , and that there was no need for them to call on NATO for support.

“ Turkey is being presumptuous, you could say, as if it were taking responsibility for solving the Syrian conflict instead of the Syrian people and wants to impose its own solution. For this reason the international community needs to stop Turkey from intervening,” he said.

Al-Maliki is on a visit to Russia , where he said that Iraq ‘s position on Syria is similar to Russia ‘s one as both countries are calling for peaceful resolution of the conflict.

While in Moscow , Al-Maliki also pushed back on allegations that Iraq allowed Iran to deliver weapons to Syria through its territory.

“This is not true,” he told Interfax on Oct. 10, 2012 , arguing that the claims are politically motivated. “We have been doing random checks of aircrafts and have not discovered any weapon aboard.”

“We have found no evidence of Iranian planes carrying weapons to Syria . We clearly stated to Syria and Iran that we allow delivery of different cargo, but not weapons,” he said.

Earlier, the US urged Iraq to close its airspace to Iranian planes.

Maliki’s latest statements are evidence that Arab opinion on the Syrian conflict is fractured.

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin postponed a visit to Ankara because of his busy schedule this month.

Earlier, Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister said: “To Moscow ‘s great disappointment Ankara has taken a very firm stance against President Assad in the Syrian conflict, Turkey has practically become a base for the so-called ‘Friends of Syria.’ … Ankara ‘s actions contradict Russia ‘s calls not to take sides in the conflict.”

The BBC report mentioned before added:

Panetta confirmed a report in the New York Times that said more than 150 American specialists were helping Jordan to provide humanitarian aid and with preparations for the possibility of the Syrian conflict spreading to the wider region.

The Syrian passenger plane that has been forced to land at Ankara airport was said to have been traveling from Moscow .

The Turkish armed forces chief of staff Gen Necdet Ozel told reporters: “We have retaliated [for Syrian shelling] and if it continues, we’ll respond more strongly.” He was visiting the town of Akcakale .

Syrian foreign ministry spokesman Jihad Maqdisi said rebels would have to stop fighting first, and that Damascus had instead asked Mr Ban to send delegates to countries including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey who he said “finance, shelter, train and arm these armed groups” asking them to show “their commitment to stopping these acts”.

Source :

[1] BBC , Oct. 10, 2012 , http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-19894110

[2] RT , “Confirmed: Pentagon deploys military forces to Jordan-Syria border”, Oct. 10, 2012 , http://rt.com/news/panetta-syria-jordan-troops-111/

[3] Citing Brussels datelined AP report by Lolita C. Baldor and Pauline Jelinek U.S. News & World Report , “Panetta: US sends forces to Jordan”, Oct. 10, 2012, http://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2012/10/10/official-pentagon-team-in-jordan-for-syria-crisis

[4] RT , “ Iraqi PM: Turkey not threatened by Syria , don’t overblow war or drag in NATO”, shortUrlInit(‘http://rt.com/news/iraqi-turkey-syria-nato-100/’); /* var short_url_link_obj = $(‘#get_short_url_link’); short_url_coords = short_url_link_obj.offset(); short_url_real_top = short_url_coords.top; short_url_real_left = short_url_coords.left; */ Oct. 10, 2012 , http://rt.com/news/iraqi-turkey-syria-nato-100/

President al-Assad Appoints Sattam Jad’an al-Dandah as Syria’s Ambassador to Iraq 

Oct 09, 2012

DAMASCUS, (SANA)- President Bashar al-Assad on Tuesday issued decree no. 358 for 2012 appointing Sattam Jad’an al-Dandah as Syria’s Ambassador to Iraq.

Al-Dandah was sworn in before President al-Assad.

Afterwards, the President received al-Dandah and provided him with his directives, wishing him success in his duties.

The swearing-in ceremony was attended by Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign and Expatriates Minister Walid al-Moallem.

Terrorist Groups Trying to Cross Border from Lebanon and Turkey Repelled

Oct 09, 2012

PROVINCES, (SANA)-  The Armed forces on Tuesday carried out qualitative operations destroying a field hospital, three DShK-equipped vehicles, three anti-aircraft machineguns and six cars used by terrorists to transfer weapons and ammunitions near Dar al-Shifa and al-Shaar Hospitals in al-Shaar area in Aleppo city.

The armed forces also destroyed a terrorist center in the same area.

Six cars transporting terrorists, another carrying a number of terrorist groups’ leaders and two DShK-equipped vehicles were destroyed in the area around the Sports Institute in Bustan al-Basha.

All the terrorists inside the vehicles were killed.

An army unit destroyed two vehicles equipped with DShK machineguns and two others transporting terrorists, weapons and ammunition near the Infrimary in the same area.

Another army unit destroyed a truck loaded with weapons and ammunition, killing all the terrorists inside it in the area around the Infirmary.

A sniper and a number of terrorists were killed during the operations carried out by the armed forces to clear Karm al-Jabal area of the armed terrorist groups.

An armed forces unit carried out an operation al-Sha’ar roundabout in Aleppo city, resulting in the destruction of 4 busses full of terrorists, 4 cars equipped with DShk machineguns and two sets of twin-mounted anti-aircraft machineguns, and a gathering of terrorists.

A unit of the armed forces targeted gatherings and centers of terrorists near Sukkar Mosque and al-Thawra School in Bustan al-Qasr, south of the Justice Palace and near Yousef al-Azmeh School in al-Hawooz roundabout in Aleppo, inflicting heavy losses upon them.

Terrorists Target State Cleaning Workers in Aleppo While on Duty

A number of terrorists opened fire at cleaners affiliated with Aleppo City Council, killing the driver Turki l-Naseh and the worker Taleb Bartilo.

Meanwhile, a mortar shell, fired by terrorists in the area of al-Sheikh Maqsoud in the city of Aleppo, caused the martyrdom of cleaner Ammar Na’na’ and citizen Jarrah Ayoub Issa, and the injury of three others.

Another cleaner, Mohammad Khayat, in Qadi Askar area was also martyred in shooting by an armed terrorist group while he was in the line of duty.

Armed Forces Deal Painful Blows to Terrorists in Aleppo Countryside

Units of the armed forces destroyed a convoy of vehicles used by terrorists on Kafr Touran road in the countryside of Aleppo, in addition to destroying three DShK-equipped cars and a number of motorcycles with all the terrorists inside of them.

Another army unit killed a number of terrorists in Zrouneh village to the south of Ebin town in the countryside of Aleppo, destroying a number of motorcycles they were using.

A unit of the armed forces targeted centers of terrorists in Kafr Hamra in the countryside of Aleppo, killing a number of them.

Terrorists Jamal Shamta from Andan, Walid Hmandoush from Deir Hafer and Faisal Kdro from Badees were identified among the dead.

Authorities in Hama Kill, Injure a number of terrorists

The competent authorities clashed with a number of terrorists at al-Hamiydea, Masha’a al-Arabe’en in Hama, killing and  injuring most of them and confiscating their weapons.

A source in Hama told SANA reporter that among the terrorists killed were Ammar bin Ahmad Jihad al-Ahmad, known as Abu Hadid and Ahmad al-Khart, known as Ahmad Jero.

Among the weapons seized were snipers, rifles, RPGs and explosives.

Terrorists Killed in Bab Houd, Homs

A unit of the armed forces clashed with an armed terrorist group at Bab Houd neighborhood in Homs, killing most of them

A source in Homs said that another Army unit found 50 explosive devices, 180 booby-trapped gas cylinder planed by the terrorists in the houses of people at Bab al-Turkman neighborhood after forcing the citizens to leave their homes.

Army units clean al-Rawda, al-Midan, Beit Fares and al-Araja villages in Lattakia countryside from the armed terrorist groups

The army units cleaned al-Rawda, al-Midan, Beit Fares and al-Araja villages in Lattakia countryside from the armed terrorist groups.

A source in Lattakia told SANA reporter that during the cleansing operations, the army destroyed a number of DSHK-equipped cars and machineguns, killing all the mercenaries.

Authorities in East Ghouta Pursuit, kill mercenaries

The competent authorities pursued armed terrorist groups in the East Ghouta, Damascus countryside, killing most of them and confiscating their weapons including RPGs, bombs and machineguns.

A source in the Governorate told SANA reporter that the authorities also killed a number of mercenaries in al-Hajera, among them of non-Syria nationalities, destroying their cars equipped with machineguns.

Afghani and Chechen Terrorists Killed in Homs Countryside

A unit of the armed forces on Tuesday killed a number of mercenary terrorists of Afghani and Chechen nationalities in al-Ziraa village in al-Qsier countryside in Homs.

SANA reporter quoted a source in the province as saying that the armed forces also seized various kinds of weapons, including 2 RPG launchers, M-16 rifles, a sniper rifle, and Israeli-made machinegun and a number of explosive devices with 30-50 kg weight.

 

Military engineering units dismantled 8 explosive devices planted by armed terrorist groups at al-Dareh al-Kabireh crossroad near Homs-Hama detour.

A source told SANA reporter that the explosive devices were planted under a bridge, noting that they weighed 80 to 100 kg.

Al-Khandaq Street in in Homs City Cleared from Terrorists, Terrorists Killed While Attempting to Flee al-Khalidiye Neighborhood

The armed forces cleared al-Khandaq Street in Bab Hood neighborhood, Homs city, from the terrorist groups killing a number of terrorists.

Authorities eliminated a number of terrorists who attempted to flee al-Khalidiye neighborhood in Homs city to the areas of Jouret al-Shiyah and al-Ghouta via the sewers.

An official source told SANA’s correspondent that the authorities set an ambush for the terrorists, leading to the death of many of them including the leader of a terrorist group called Talal Sa’eq Qamhiye.

The source added that the authorities also clashed with terrorists near Balqis School in al-Khalidiye neighborhood, eliminating most of them, and that a workshop for manufacturing explosive devices was also uncovered opposite Zanoubia School in the neighborhood, while engineering units dismantled many explosive devices planted in one of the streets in the same area.

Terrorists Trying to Cross Border from Lebanon Repelled

Another unit of the armed forces killed a number of terrorists who attempted to infiltrate from the Lebanese territories into Syria near Khirbet al-Nea’mat site in al-Qsier countryside.

Terrorists Arrested in Eastern Ghota, Damascus Countryside

A unit of the Armed Forces carried out a qualitative operation against an armed terrorist group in Deir al-Assafir town in Eastern Ghota in Damascus Countryside.

The army arrested terrorist Mohammad Yassin al-Rifae, one of the most dangerous terrorist groups’ leaders, and a number of his armed group’s members.

Armed Forces Foil Terrorist Infiltration Attempt from Turkish Territories into Syria

A unit of the armed forces foiled on Tuesday a terrorist infiltration attempt from the Turkish territories into Syria in Jisr al-Shughour countryside in Idleb province.

A source in the province told SANA reporter that the armed forces clashed with the armed terrorist group and eliminated a large number of its members, adding that the armed forces seized the terrorists’ weapons, while the rest of the group ran away back into the Turkish territories.

The authorities destroyed  several vehicles equipped with various machineguns and eliminated tens of terrorists in Maaret al-Numan area in the countryside of the province.

Armed Forces Raid Terrorists’ Den, Seize Weapons in Hama City

In Hama province, an armed forces unit on Tuesday raided a den for the armed terrorist groups in al-Hamidiyeh neighborhood in the city of Hama.

A source in the province told SANA reporter that the army members seized amounts of weapons, ammunition and wireless communication devices used by the terrorists in the den.

Two of the most dangerous leaders of terrorist groups in the area, who are Ammar Ahmad Jihad al-Ahmad and Ahmad Mqaffaq Hamameh, were killed in the operation, while the leader of a third terrorist group, called Ahmad al-Kharat, was arrested.

Citizens Injured in Roadside Bomb Blast in al-Zablatani, Damascus

Oct 09, 2012

DAMASCUS, (SANA)- A number of citizens on Tuesday got injured in an explosion of a roadside bomb planted by a terrorist group in al-Zablatani area in Damascus.

The explosion caused damage to a number of cars.

29 Citizens from Aleppo Involved in Recent Events Released

Oct 09, 2012

ALEPPO, (SANA) – 29 citizens from Aleppo who got involved in recent events but did not commit murders were released on Tuesday after turning themselves in and handing over their weapons to the authorities.

The released citizens pledged not to take up weapons again or commit any act that might harm Syria’s security and stability.

NPF Parties and National Powers Forum Stresses Political Dialogue, Rejects Violence and Foreign Interference

Oct 09, 2012

DAMASCUS, (SANA)- The political forum of the coalition parties of the National Progressive Front (NPF) and national and progressive powers on Tuesday affirmed rejection of all forms of foreign interference in Syria’s internal affairs as they are aimed at destabilizing the country and seizing its sovereignty and political decision.

In its concluding statement, the forum stressed that confronting foreign interference is a national duty and the responsibility of all the spectrums and social and political components of the Syrian people.

“Evoking foreign interference is a betrayal whose perpetrators should be held to account according to the laws and rules imposed by the requirements of protecting the homeland and defending its land and people,” the statement said.

It highlighted the participant parties’ stress that there will be no reconciliation with those who have given up their conscience to the homeland’s enemies.

The forum underscored that the political dialogue integrates with the higher national interests and goes in line with the keenness on the homeland and its people and resources.

It affirmed that Syria is now facing universal imperialist conspiracies, hailing the national role and the great sacrifices of the Syrian Arab Army and the armed forces in defending the homeland and the unity binding the Syrian people and its army.

The statement said the phenomenon of terrorism in an imported one that is aimed at sabotaging the state in service of powers seeking to deviate Syria from its natural role in the region, stressing that the ongoing mission of combating and uprooting terrorism is in response to reasons of national security and protection of citizens.

The statement called for adopting an economic and social policy that preserves national production, fulfills the citizens’ needs and improves their living conditions through developing productive sectors.

It also underlined the role of the public sector and the need for developing means of the state’s intervention in economic and social domains.

The statement stressed the necessity of protecting state institutions and upgrading their performance and role, in addition to combating all the negative phenomena, especially corruption, through following rationalized economic policies that contribute to ending corruption and achieve social justice.

The forum highlighted that the NPF parties and national powers converged on common national and progressive points to share in embracing them and implementing them on the ground, stressing their commitment to their principles and exerting efforts to be active and enhance their presence in the country side by side with all spectrums of the Syrian people.

The forum’s concluding session continued deliberations on national dialogue as a must to get out of the crisis and the role of the national reconciliation in reuniting the Syrian people, in addition to the role of the Syrian Arab army in the face of the armed terrorist groups to restore security and stability.

Member of the political bureau of the Arab Democratic Union Party, Nassr Ali Younes Ghanem, said that undermining Syria is the main goal for passing the US scheme in the region, integrating Syria into the western strategy, quashing the national and pan-Arab ideology of the Syrian Arab Army and ending Syria’s support to the Arab resistance and forcing it to sign incomplete peace agreement with the Zionist entity.

In turn, Ayman Mikhail Samaan from the Arab Socialists Movement said that Syria is facing an international terrorism as there are several countries that provide financial and military support as well as harbor to the gunmen who carry out terrorist operations against the Syrian state, stressing Syria’s right to defend and protect its citizens and entity.

He called upon the Syrian people to stand by the Syrian army in its war against the armed terrorist groups which target the homeland and its service institutions, infrastructure, worship houses, scientific experts and clergymen.

Iskandar Jaradeh from the Syrian Communist Party underlined the importance of dialogue in reaching a common ground among all sides without giving up national principles.

In turn, Maher al-Jajeh from the Syrian Unified Communist Party said that the Syrian Arab Army with its high morale and spirit provide to be the primary defender of the country, stressing the ened for national reconciliation to focus on the social aspects of citizens who were marginalized by previous economic policies.

Maher Sakkour of the Arab Writers Guild called on progressive and national parties and forces to boost their participation in resolving the crisis, while Laith Ramadan of the Arab Socialists Movement noted that the Syrian Arab Army was the main target of the war against Syria due to weaken it and deviate it from its main task of defending the homeland and protecting citizens.

For his part, Basem Radwan of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party called on all national forces to put the country’s interests above all others and help restore security and safety and continue the process of building and reform, in addition to confronting terrorists and their extremist mentality.

Similarly, Habib Ali Issa of the General Union of Farmers said that resolving the crisis must begin by having parties and national forces assume their role in all neighborhoods, villages and cities and by organizing meetings between popular organizations and citizens to achieve reconciliation.

Najdat Yousef of the Syrian Unified Communist Party said that the National Progressive Front bear part of the responsibility for the current crisis as it didn’t carry out its role effectively.

Meanwhile, chairman of Damascus Trade Union Jamal al-Qadri said that this forum will help find a way out of the crisis with its recommendations and suggestions, calling for a new political discourse that guarantees the rights of all social classes, primarily workers and farmers.

In turn, Ahmad al-Dalati of the Democratic Socialist Unionist Party said that dialogue and reconciliation are the basis of overcoming the crisis and formulating Syria’s future, while Mohammad Muayed of the Arab Socialist Union Party lauded the heroics of the Syrian Arab Army and called for dialogue on the national basis of protecting the unity of Syria and its people, rejecting violence and foreign interference, creating a realistic economic model, providing citizens’ needs, combating monopolists, and controlling spending and consumption.

Nizar Benni al-Marjeh of the Arab Writers Guild said that the vision has become clearer regarding the crisis, with signs indicating that the conspiracy against Syria is falling apart. He also called for an active political role on the ground, involving youths, and establishing an organized  popular structure to support the army and help preserve Syria’s security and stability.

The two-day forum  tackled the topics of political dialogue, the army as the shield of the homeland, combating terrorism, rejection of foreign intervention, national reconciliation, and protecting the state and its institutions.

China against Any Action to Escalate Tension on Turkish-Syrian Border

Oct 09, 2012

BEIJING, (SANA)- China called for keeping away from any action that could escalate tension on the border between Turkey and Syria, stressing the necessity of respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the two countries and showing self-restraint.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hong Li, expressed at a press conference on Tuesday, reported by Xinhua news agency, his country’s concern about the current conditions in Syria and their repercussions.

The Chinese spokesman’s statement came at a time when the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan continues escalating the situation and threats of action against Damascus while going ahead with smuggling terrorists and weapons into Syria to disturb its stability.

Abdollahian: Armed Terrorist Groups in Syria Responsible for Lives of the 47 Abducted Iranians

Oct 09, 2012

TEHRAN, (SANA) – Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Arab and African Affairs, Hossein Amir Abdollahian, affirmed that the armed terrorist groups are responsible for the lives of the 47 Iranians who were abducted while visiting Syria, voicing optimism over the possibility of their release.

In a statement to the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) on Tuesday, Abdollahian said that there are intense communication and discussions currently being carried out by the Iranian Foreign Minister with counterparts in some countries to release the abductees, adding that all 47 abductees are currently in a good physical condition.

On whether Saudi Arabia has withdrawn from the quartet launched by Egypt to resolve the Syrian crisis, Abdollahian said that Saudi Arabia’s failure to participate in the two most recent meetings of the quarter is something that warrants consideration, adding that Iran supports the Egyptian initiative particularly since it’s based on resolving the crisis through political methods only.

He stressed that Iran defended the Syrian people and the Syrian government’s reform project in all conferences, and that it affirmed the need for an immediate cessation of violence, monitoring borders, and refraining from arming irresponsible groups, in addition to underlining the need to hold negotiations between the opposition, the Syrian people’s representatives and the government.

Abdollahian also affirmed that Iran supports Syria strongly regarding the matter of the resistance axis.

Yurt Newspaper: Armed Terrorist Groups trade in Organs of Syrian Martyrs

Oct 09, 2012

ANKARA, (SANA)-Turkish Yurt Newspaper said that the armed terrorist groups in Syria trade in the organs of the Syrian martyrs whom they abduct and kill, then giving their stolen organs to the guerillas of organ trafficking with expensive prices.

The newspaper’s correspondent in Syria has shed the light on heinous events and violations regarding the organ trafficking, quoting a Syrian citizen who works as a director as saying “Most of the Syrians abducted by the armed groups would be killed, then gunmen trade in their corpses through removing their kidneys, eyes and liver.”

It added that the Syrian citizen underlined that “unknown persons contacted him and offered 300.000 Syrian Pounds in return for handing them the body of his brother who was martyred at the hands of terrorists.

Greek Communist Party Newspaper: Syria and the Region Targeted by Imperialist Powers

Oct 09, 2012

ATHENS, (SANA)- Rizospastis, the newspaper of the Communist Party of Greece, stressed that the imperialist powers are targeting Syria and the entire Middle East region through using mercenary armed terrorist groups to hit Syria’s stability under the cover of opposition, with the aim of overcoming Iran and controlling the oil and natural gas transfer lines.

In an article published on Tuesday, writer Dimitris Karagiannis scoffed at the claims for freedom and democracy promoted by the imperialist powers and the Gulf monarchies and emirates like Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey as means to justify the targeting of Syria.

The writer ridiculed Erdogan government’s today’s talk about human rights while thousands of political prisoners of left-wing powers and Kurds are languishing in its jails.

The article pointed out that the real objective behind Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey’s arming, funding and training of the mercenary and armed terrorist groups and sending them to Syria over more than a year now is to destroy Syria and divide it into weak cantons that will be unable in the future of confronting the imperialist ambitions.

Karagiannis affirmed that what is happening in Syria is part of the imperialist plots in the region to take control of the gas and oil transfer lines, noting that the government in Turkey is seeking its share from this.

He cautioned against the pretexts used by the Turkish government and the NATO to justify waging an attack on Syria while this government continues shelling areas in north Iraq.

Russian Journalist: What is Happening in Syria is Organized Terrorism Promoted by Arab and Foreign Satellite Channels

Oct 09, 2012

TARTOUS, (SANA) – Russian journalist Anhar Kochneva affirmed that what is taking place in Syria is organized terrorism supported by foreign sides and promoted by Arab and Foreign satellite channels to spread fear among Syrians and shed the blood of civilians and military personnel.

In a lecture delivered on Tuesday at the Arab Cultural Center in Tartous, Kochneva said that she accompanied the Syrian Arab Army during several of its operations and Damascus and its countryside, photographing and documenting them and later publishing.

She noted that the army personnel were committed to protecting the journalists accompanying them, even if it cost them their lives.

Kochneva said that terrorists attack journalists accompanying the army,  affirming that terrorist groups failed to affect the Syrians’ awareness and so they resorted to bombings, murder, abduction and massacres to manipulate the world’s public opinion.

She pointed out that biased media broadcasts false urgent news that have no credibility, which is something she verified personally, calling on the Syrian national media to continue carrying out its mission and do so faster to prevent satellite channels from fabricating news.

Kochneva said that the unjust sanctions and decisions against Syrian media constitute a medal of honor for Syrian journalists, stressing that emerging from the current crisis requires resilience, fidelity, sacrifice, confidence and a lot of work.

During the lecture, Kochneva showed video footage she recoded personally showing the Syrian Arab Army entering areas devastated by the terrorists, in addition to videos showing the terrorists using children in their crimes and committing massacres against civilians.

Lattakia Harbor Receives 599 Ships Carrying 3.86 Million Tons of Cargo in Nine Months

Oct 09, 2012

LATTAKIA, (SANA) – During the past nine months, the General Establishment of Lattakia Harbor received 599 ships carrying 3.86 million tons of cargo, primarily soy, lumber, machinery, equipment, cement and iron.

Director General of the Establishment, Hatem al-Mahmoudi, said that the Harbor exported 613,000 tons of goods, mostly consisting of fertilizer, glass and machinery, with the Harbor’s profits amounting to around SYP 1.406 billion since the beginning of 2012.

In September, the Harbor saw the movement of around 214,000 tons of goods; 157,000 of them imports and 57,000 of them exports.

‘Colorful Drops’ Voluntary Team in Lattakia… Initiative to Encourage Social Interaction

Oct 09, 2012

LATTAKIA, (SANA) – Colorful Drops Voluntary team, established one year ago by a group of youth in Lattakia province, is aimed at encouraging the spirit of initiative and interaction among people from different ages and social classes.

The main purpose of the team was to encourage citizens to be active members in any societal initiative that contribute to adding more to the province’s beauty and improving the society and health awareness.

The team coordinator , Nour Ibrahim, said that they started as a training group of “Colors” project, which is a local initiative to promote collective voluntary work in Lattakia, adding that the team trained more 60 boy and girl who in turn will train others with the aim to carry out a certain development project.

Ibrahim added that the team carried out two voluntary projects since its establishment, indicating that the first one aimed to increase health awareness of gibbosity and scoliosis diseases among the youth between ages 12 and 18 given that school bags and desks are among their main causes.

She added that the project was conducted in a number of schools in Lattakia and its countryside over one month and it benefited about 5500 students.

She said that the team collected necessary information and health consultations from several health institutions and associations, after which the team members were trained to introduce the subject and prepare all related releases, in addition to benefiting from the medical expertise of some members.

A supervisor in the team, Nour al-Zaman Haidar, said that the second project’s main idea was to rehabilitate a neglected neighborhood in Lattakia city last summer with the aim of improving life conditions of its inhabitants, who expressed readiness to contribute to the project.

She attributed choosing the area for many reasons since it is a popular neighborhood that brings together all spectrums of the Syrian people , not to mention the distorted urban structure.

Haidar said that the indirect reasons of the project can be summed up in raising environmental awareness of the inhabitants and spreading the culture of voluntary work, in addition to strengthening national unity and encouraging popular initiatives by the inhabitants.

She hailed the aid provided by Lattakia City Council and Directorate of Parks as well as the authorities concerned and other civil organizations to make their project a success within a short period of time.

She added that the work plan of the project, which took ten day, included cleaning the neighborhood and repainting the walls and doors of its houses after which the phrase “With Love We Build Syria” was written on the wall in a puzzle form with Ugaritic letters.

Team of “Colorful Drops” comprises 20 young volunteers from different university specializations.

 

By Chris Hedges

09 October, 2012

@ TruthDig.com

Chris Hedges gave this talk Sunday night in New York City at a protest denouncing the 11th anniversary of the war in Afghanistan. The event, at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, was led by Veterans for Peace.

Many of us who are here carry within us death. The smell of decayed and bloated corpses. The cries of the wounded. The shrieks of children. The sound of gunfire. The deafening blasts. The fear. The stench of cordite. The humiliation that comes when you surrender to terror and beg for life. The loss of comrades and friends. And then the aftermath. The long alienation. The numbness. The nightmares. The lack of sleep. The inability to connect to all living things, even to those we love the most. The regret. The repugnant lies mouthed around us about honor and heroism and glory. The absurdity. The waste. The futility.

It is only the maimed that finally know war. And we are the maimed. We are the broken and the lame. We ask for forgiveness. We seek redemption. We carry on our backs this awful cross of death, for the essence of war is death, and the weight of it digs into our shoulders and eats away at our souls. We drag it through life, up hills and down hills, along the roads, into the most intimate recesses of our lives. It never leaves us. Those who know us best know that there is something unspeakable and evil many of us harbor within us. This evil is intimate. It is personal. We do not speak its name. It is the evil of things done and things left undone. It is the evil of war.

We do not speak of war. War is captured only in the long, vacant stares, in the silences, in the trembling fingers, in the memories most of us keep buried deep within us, in the tears.

It is impossible to portray war. Narratives, even anti-war narratives, make the irrational rational. They make the incomprehensible comprehensible. They make the illogical logical. They make the despicable beautiful. All words and images, all discussions, all films, all evocations of war, good or bad, are an obscenity. There is nothing to say. There are only the scars and wounds. These we carry within us. These we cannot articulate. The horror. The horror.

War gives to its killers a God-like power to take life. And there are those here tonight that have felt and exercised that power. They turned other human beings into objects. And in that process of killing they became objects, machines, instruments of death, war’s victimizers and war’s victims. And they do not want to be machines again.

We wander through life with the deadness of war within us. There is no escape. There is no peace. We know an awful truth, an existential truth. War exposed the lies of patriotism and collective virtue of the nation that our churches, our schools, our press, our movies, our books, our government told us about ourselves, about who we were. And we see through these illusions. But those who speak this truth are cast out. Ghosts. Strangers in a strange land.

Who are our brothers and sisters? Who is our family? Whom have we become? We have become those whom we once despised and killed. We have become the enemy. Our mother is the mother grieving over her murdered child, and we murdered this child, in a mud-walled village of Afghanistan or a sand-filled cemetery in Fallujah. Our father is the father lying on a pallet in a hut, paralyzed by the blast from an iron fragmentation bomb. Our sister lives in poverty in a refugee camp outside Kabul, widowed, desperately poor, raising her children alone. Our brother, yes, our brother, is in the Taliban and the Iraqi insurgency and al-Qaida. And he has an automatic rifle. And he kills. And he is becoming us. War is always the same plague. It imparts the same deadly virus. It teaches us to deny another’s humanity, worth, being, and to kill and be killed.

There are days we wish we were whole. We wish we could put down this cross. We envy those who, in their innocence, believe in the innate goodness of America and the righteousness of war and celebrate what we know is despicable. And sometimes it makes us wish for death, for the peace of it. But we know too the awful truth, as James Baldwin wrote, that “people who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster.” And we would rather be maimed and broken and in pain than be a monster, and some of us, once, were monsters.

I cannot heal you. You will never be healed. I cannot take away your wounds, visible and invisible. I cannot promise that it will be better. I cannot impart to you the cheerful and childish optimism that is the curse of America. I can only tell you to stand up, to pick up your cross, to keep moving. I can only tell you that you must always defy the forces that eat away at you, at the nation—this plague of war.

Sometimes I feel like a motherless child?

A long ways from home

A long ways from home

Towering about us are banks and other financial institutions that profit from war. War, for some, is a business. And across this country lies a labyrinth of military industries that produce nothing but instruments of death. And some of us once served these forces. It is death we defy, not our own death, but the vast enterprise of death. The dark, primeval lusts for power and personal wealth, the hypermasculine language of war and patriotism, are used to justify the slaughter of the weak and the innocent and mock justice. … And we will not use these words of war.

We cannot flee from evil. Some of us have tried through drink and drugs and self-destructiveness. Evil is always with us. It is because we know evil, our own evil, that we do not let go, do not surrender. It is because we know evil that we resist. It is because we know violence that we are nonviolent. And we know that it is not about us; war taught us that. It is about the other, lying by the side of the road. It is about reaching down in defiance of creeds and oaths, in defiance of religion and nationality, and lifting our enemy up. All acts of healing and love—and the defiance of war is an affirmation of love—allow us to shout out to the vast powers of the universe that, however broken we are, we are not yet helpless, however much we despair we are not yet without hope, however weak we may feel, we will always, always, always resist. And it is in this act of resistance that we find our salvation.

Chris Hedges writes a regular column for Truthdig.com. Hedges graduated from Harvard Divinity School and was for nearly two decades a foreign correspondent for The New York Times. He is the author of many books, including: War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning, What Every Person Should Know About War, and American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America. His most recent book is Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle.

By Tom Engelhardt

09 October, 2012

@ Tomdispatch.com

Americans lived in a “victory culture” for much of the twentieth century. You could say that we experienced an almost 75-year stretch of triumphalism — think of it as the real “American Century” — from World War I to the end of the Cold War, with time off for a destructive stalemate in Korea and a defeat in Vietnam too shocking to absorb or shake off.

When the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991, it all seemed so obvious. Fate had clearly dealt Washington a royal flush. It was victory with a capital V. The United States was, after all, the last standing superpower, after centuries of unceasing great power rivalries on the planet. It had a military beyond compare and no enemy, hardly a “rogue state,” on the horizon. It was almost unnerving, such clear sailing into a dominant future, but a moment for the ages nonetheless. Within a decade, pundits in Washington were hailing us as “the dominant power in the world, more dominant than any since Rome.”

And here’s the odd thing: in a sense, little has changed since then and yet everything seems different. Think of it as the American imperial paradox: everywhere there are now “threats” against our well-being which seem to demand action and yet nowhere are there commensurate enemies to go with them. Everywhere the U.S. military still reigns supreme by almost any measure you might care to apply; and yet — in case the paradox has escaped you — nowhere can it achieve its goals, however modest.

At one level, the American situation should simply take your breath away. Never before in modern history had there been an arms race of only one or a great power confrontation of only one. And at least in military terms, just as the neoconservatives imagined in those early years of the twenty-first century, the United States remains the “sole superpower” or even “hyperpower” of planet Earth.

The Planet’s Top Gun

And yet the more dominant the U.S. military becomes in its ability to destroy and the more its forces are spread across the globe, the more the defeats and semi-defeats pile up, the more the missteps and mistakes grow, the more the strains show, the more the suicides rise, the more the nation’s treasure disappears down a black hole — and in response to all of this, the more moves the Pentagon makes.

A great power without a significant enemy? You might have to go back to the Roman Empire at its height or some Chinese dynasty in full flower to find anything like it. And yet Osama bin Laden is dead. Al-Qaeda is reportedly a shadow of its former self. The great regional threats of the moment, North Korea and Iran, are regimes held together by baling wire and the suffering of their populaces. The only incipient great power rival on the planet, China, has just launched its first aircraft carrier, a refurbished Ukrainian throwaway from the 1990s on whose deck the country has no planes capable of landing.

The U.S. has 1,000 or more bases around the world; other countries, a handful. The U.S. spends as much on its military as the next 14 powers (mostly allies) combined. In fact, it’s investing an estimated $1.45 trillion to produce and operate a single future aircraft, the F-35 — more than any country, the U.S. included, now spends on its national defense annually.

The U.S. military is singular in other ways, too. It alone has divided the globe — the complete world — into six “commands.” With (lest anything be left out) an added command, Stratcom, for the heavens and another, recently established, for the only space not previously occupied, cyberspace, where we’re already unofficially “at war.” No other country on the planet thinks of itself in faintly comparable military terms.

When its high command plans for its future “needs,” thanks to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey, they repair (don’t say “retreat”) to a military base south of the capital where they argue out their future and war-game various possible crises while striding across a map of the world larger than a basketball court. What other military would come up with such a method?

The president now has at his command not one, but two private armies. The first is the CIA, which in recent years has been heavily militarized, is overseen by a former four-star general (who calls the job “living the dream”), and is running its own private assassination campaigns and drone air wars throughout the Greater Middle East. The second is an expanding elite, the Joint Special Operations Command, cocooned inside the U.S. military, members of whom are now deployed to hot spots around the globe.

The U.S. Navy, with its 11 nuclear-powered aircraft carrier task forces, is dominant on the global waves in a way that only the British Navy might once have been; and the U.S. Air Force controls the global skies in much of the world in a totally uncontested fashion. (Despite numerous wars and conflicts, the last American plane possibly downed in aerial combat was in the first Gulf War in 1991.) Across much of the global south, there is no sovereign space Washington’s drones can’t penetrate to kill those judged by the White House to be threats.

In sum, the U.S. is now the sole planetary Top Gun in a way that empire-builders once undoubtedly fantasized about, but that none from Genghis Khan on have ever achieved: alone and essentially uncontested on the planet. In fact, by every measure (except success), the likes of it has never been seen.

Blindsided by Predictably Unintended Consequences

By all the usual measuring sticks, the U.S. should be supreme in a historically unprecedented way. And yet it couldn’t be more obvious that it’s not, that despite all the bases, elite forces, private armies, drones, aircraft carriers, wars, conflicts, strikes, interventions, and clandestine operations, despite a labyrinthine intelligence bureaucracy that never seems to stop growing and into which we pour a minimum of $80 billion a year, nothing seems to work out in an imperially satisfying way. It couldn’t be more obvious that this is not a glorious dream, but some kind of ever-expanding imperial nightmare.

 

This should, of course, have been self-evident since at least early 2004, less than a year after the Bush administration invaded and occupied Iraq, when the roadside bombs started to explode and the suicide bombings to mount, while the comparisons of the United States to Rome and of a prospective Pax Americana in the Greater Middle East to the Pax Romana vanished like a morning mist on a blazing day. Still, the wars against relatively small, ill-armed sets of insurgents dragged toward their dismally predictable ends. (It says the world that, after almost 11 years of war, the 2,000th U.S. military death in Afghanistan occurred at the hands of an Afghan “ally” in an “insider attack.”) In those years, Washington continued to be regularly blindsided by the unintended consequences of its military moves. Surprises — none pleasant — became the order of the day and victories proved vanishingly rare.

One thing seems obvious: a superpower military with unparalleled capabilities for one-way destruction no longer has the more basic ability to impose its will anywhere on the planet. Quite the opposite, U.S. military power has been remarkably discredited globally by the most pitiful of forces. From Pakistan to Honduras, just about anywhere it goes in the old colonial or neocolonial world, in those regions known in the contested Cold War era as the Third World, resistance of one unexpected sort or another arises and failure ensues in some often long-drawn-out and spectacular fashion.

Given the lack of enemies — a few thousand jihadis, a small set of minority insurgencies, a couple of feeble regional powers — why this is so, what exactly the force is that prevents Washington’s success, remains mysterious. Certainly, it’s in some way related to the more than half-century of decolonization movements, rebellions, and insurgencies that were a feature of the previous century.

It also has something to do with the way economic heft has spread beyond the U.S., Europe, and Japan — with the rise of the “tigers” in Asia, the explosion of the Chinese and Indian economies, the advances of Brazil and Turkey, and the movement of the planet toward some kind of genuine economic multipolarity. It may also have something to do with the end of the Cold War, which put an end as well to several centuries of imperial or great power competition and left the sole “victor,” it now seems clear, heading toward the exits wreathed in self-congratulation.

Explain it as you will, it’s as if the planet itself, or humanity, had somehow been inoculated against the imposition of imperial power, as if it now rejected it whenever and wherever applied. In the previous century, it took a half-nation, North Korea, backed by Russian supplies and Chinese troops to fight the U.S. to a draw, or a popular insurgent movement backed by a local power, North Vietnam, backed in turn by the Soviet Union and China to defeat American power. Now, small-scale minority insurgencies, largely using roadside bombs and suicide bombers, are fighting American power to a draw (or worse) with no great power behind them at all.

Think of the growing force that resists such military might as the equivalent of the “dark matter” in the universe. The evidence is in. We now know (or should know) that it’s there, even if we can’t see it.

 

Washington’s Wars on Autopilot

After the last decade of military failures, stand-offs, and frustrations, you might think that this would be apparent in Washington. After all, the U.S. is now visibly an overextended empire, its sway waning from the Greater Middle East to Latin America, the limits of its power increasingly evident. And yet, here’s the curious thing: two administrations in Washington have drawn none of the obvious conclusions, and no matter how the presidential election turns out, it’s already clear that, in this regard, nothing will change.

Even as military power has proven itself a bust again and again, our policymakers have come to rely ever more completely on a military-first response to global problems. In other words, we are not just a classically overextended empire, but also an overwrought one operating on some kind of militarized autopilot. Lacking is a learning curve. By all evidence, it’s not just that there isn’t one, but that there can’t be one.

Washington, it seems, now has only one mode of thought and action, no matter who is at the helm or what the problem may be, and it always involves, directly or indirectly, openly or clandestinely, the application of militarized force. Nor does it matter that each further application only destabilizes some region yet more or undermines further what once were known as “American interests.”

Take Libya, as an example. It briefly seemed to count as a rare American military success story: a decisive intervention in support of a rebellion against a brutal dictator — so brutal, in fact, that the CIA previously shipped “terrorist suspects,” Islamic rebels fighting against the Gaddafi regime, there for torture. No U.S. casualties resulted, while American and NATO air strikes were decisive in bringing a set of ill-armed, ill-organized rebels to power.

In the world of unintended consequences, however, the fall of Gaddafi sent Tuareg mercenaries from his militias, armed with high-end weaponry, across the border into Mali. There, when the dust settled, the whole northern part of the country had come unhinged and fallen under the sway of Islamic extremists and al-Qaeda wannabes as other parts of North Africa threatened to destabilize. At the same time, of course, the first American casualties of the intervention occurred when Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans died in an attack on the Benghazi consulate and a local “safe house.”

With matters worsening regionally, the response couldn’t have been more predictable. As Greg Miller and Craig Whitlock of the Washington Post recently reported, in ongoing secret meetings, the White House is planning for military operations against al-Qaeda-in-the-Magreb (North Africa), now armed with weaponry pillaged from Gaddafi’s stockpiles. These plans evidently include the approach used in Yemen (U.S. special forces on the ground and CIA drone strikes), or a Somalia “formula” (drone strikes, special forces operations, CIA operations, and the support of African proxy armies), or even at some point “the possibility of direct U.S. intervention.”

In addition, Eric Schmitt and David Kilpatrick of the New York Times report that the Obama administration is “preparing retaliation” against those it believes killed the U.S. ambassador, possibly including “drone strikes, special operations raids like the one that killed Osama bin Laden, and joint missions with Libyan authorities.” The near certainty that, like the previous intervention, this next set of military actions will only further destabilize the region with yet more unpleasant surprises and unintended consequences hardly seems to matter. Nor does the fact that, in crude form, the results of such acts are known to us ahead of time have an effect on the unstoppable urge to plan and order them.

Such situations are increasingly legion across the Greater Middle East and elsewhere. Take one other tiny example: Iraq, from which, after almost a decade-long military disaster, the “last” U.S. units essentially fled in the middle of the night as 2011 ended. Even in those last moments, the Obama administration and the Pentagon were still trying to keep significant numbers of U.S. troops there (and, in fact, did manage to leave behind possibly several hundred as trainers of elite Iraqi units). Meanwhile, Iraq has been supportive of the embattled Syrian regime and drawn ever closer to Iran, even as its own sectarian strife has ratcheted upward. Having watched this unsettling fallout from its last round in the country, according to the New York Times, the U.S. is now negotiating an agreement “that could result in the return of small units of American soldiers to Iraq on training missions. At the request of the Iraqi government, according to General Caslen, a unit of Army Special Operations soldiers was recently deployed to Iraq to advise on counterterrorism and help with intelligence.”

Don’t you just want to speak to those negotiators the way you might to a child: No, don’t do that! The urge to return to the scene of their previous disaster, however, seems unstaunchable. You could offer various explanations for why our policymakers, military and civilian, continue in such a repetitive — and even from an imperial point of view — self-destructive vein in situations where unpleasant surprises are essentially guaranteed and lack of success a given. Yes, there is the military-industrial complex to be fed. Yes, we are interested in the control of crucial resources, especially energy, and so on.

But it’s probably more reasonable to say that a deeply militarized mindset and the global maneuvers that go with it are by now just part of the way of life of a Washington eternally “at war.” They are the tics of a great power with the equivalent of Tourette’s Syndrome. They happen because they can’t help but happen, because they are engraved in the policy DNA of our national security complex, and can evidently no longer be altered. In other words, they can’t help themselves.

That’s the only logical conclusion in a world where it has become ever less imaginable to do the obvious, which is far less or nothing at all. (Northern Chad? When did it become crucial to our well being?) Downsizing the mission? Inconceivable. Thinking the unthinkable? Don’t even give it a thought!

What remains is, of course, a self-evident formula for disaster on autopilot. But don’t tell Washington. It won’t matter. Its denizens can’t take it in.

Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project and author of The United States of Fear as well as The End of Victory Culture, his history of the Cold War, runs the Nation Institute’s TomDispatch.com. His latest book, co-authored with Nick Turse, is Terminator Planet: The First History of Drone Warfare, 2001-2050.

9 October, 2012

@ RT.com

The United States and Israel are already involved in discussions over how they could soon conduct a joint surgical strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, a source close to the talks tells Foreign Policy magazine.

After months of urging from Israeli authorities for the US to intervene in a rumored Iranian plan to procure a nuke, a source speaking on condition of anonymity tells Foreign Policy’s David Rothkopf that the two allies have come close to signing off on an attack against Iran.

Although no plan of action has been set in stone yet, the source says the attack will likely be from the sky and consist of drone strikes and bomber jets for only “a couple of hours” at best but would not require more than “a day or two” of action.

But while the US has not officially signed onto the strike, the source reports, American involvement would be absolutely necessary in order to effectively take out the structures where Iranian scientists are assumed to be attempting to procure a nuclear warhead.

“To get to buried Iranian facilities, such as the enrichment plant at Fordow, would require bunker-busting munitions on a scale that no Israeli plane is capable of delivering,” Rothkopf writes in the article, published Monday, October 8. “The mission, therefore, must involve the United States, whether acting alone or in concert with the Israelis and others.”

Israel has long attested that Iranian officials are enriching nuclear materials to be used with volatile warheads, despite longstanding claims from Iran that any program they are operating exists for peaceful purposes only. Hostilities between Israel and their neighboring foe have only worsened as of late, prompting Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to insist that America draw “red lines before Iran,” and demand that the US offer them an ultimatum before time runs out. Last month US President Barack Obama dismissed Israel’s warnings against an escalating nuclear threat, though, saying he understand their concerns over what damage Iran could do with a nuclear weapon, but that he would continue to “block out any noise” from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he insists on American intervention.

Speaking before the United Nations General Assembly only days later, though, President Obama appeared to be more willing to act if Iran is proven to be procuring a weapon of mass destruction, vowing, “the United States will do what we must to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon,” and said that any attempts by Iran to procure a nuclear warhead would “threaten the elimination of Israel, the security of Gulf nations, and the stability of the global economy” and is “not a challenge that can be contained.”

Now following a report RT published last week concerning classified footage of Iranian facilities believed to be handed over to American intelligence from a defected member of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad entourage, the US may finally be ready to give in to Israeli pressure and strike Iran.

If the rumored plan of attack is put into action, the source says, the strike is expected to set back the nation’s nuclear program “many years,” and doing so without civilian casualties. The end result, however, could be one immensely beneficial to America, specifically its holdings in the Middle East where the country has long expressed a vested interested.

Should US provide power to strike Iran, the source says, the attack would have a long-term effect in the region, but particularly on America’s investments there. The strike, says the source, would be “transformative,” – “saving Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, reanimating the peace process, securing the (Persian) Gulf, sending an unequivocal message to Russia and China, and assuring American ascendancy in the region for a decade to come.”

Should Israel strike Iran without the direct aid of the US, however, America would not necessarily be in the clear. Although President Obama has advocated for a peaceful resolution to Israeli/Iranian disputes, Iran’s officials have suggested that they have no problem with striking the US if their allies make the first move.

Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard told reporters last month that his country “will definitely be at war with American bases should a war break out,” explaining that “There will be no neutral country in the region,” and, “To us, these bases are equal to US soil.”

© Autonomous Nonprofit Organization “TV-Novosti”, 2005 – 2011. All rights reserved.

 

By Joseph Kishore

09 October, 2012

@ WSWS.org

In a bellicose foreign policy speech Monday, Republican Party presidential candidate Mitt Romney threatened war with Iran, expanded military intervention in Syria, an unending occupation of Afghanistan, and the reintroduction of US troops into Iraq.

While framed as a criticism of the policy of the Obama administration, the main contours of Romney’s speech were in line with the agenda proposed by the current president. Romney’s remarks highlighted the bipartisan conspiracy against the American people, as both candidates plan an aggressive expansion of US militarism abroad, behind the backs of the public.

Romney delivered his speech at the Virginia Military Institute, continuing a tradition, shared by the current president, in which foreign policy speeches are delivered before a military audience. The military is treated as—and indeed is in fact—an independent and overriding power in the American political establishment.

After his speech, Romney held a closed-door meeting with retired generals, in which the war plans of a potential Romney administration were no doubt discussed with even greater candor.

Romney declared that the US needed to “change course in the Middle East” and said that “our words” must be “backed up by deeds.”

On Iran, Romney said that the country “has never been closer to a nuclear weapons capability…. I will put the leaders of Iran on notice that the United States and our friends and allies will prevent them from acquiring nuclear weapons capability,” he said. “I will not hesitate to impose new sanctions on Iran, and will tighten the sanctions we currently have.”

Romney’s position closely paralleled remarks made by Obama before the United Nations last month, when the president insisted that “the United States will do what we must to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.” Without presenting any evidence that Iran is actually pursuing a nuclear weapon, the US and its allies have imposed devastating economic sanctions on the country, as part of their preparations for war. (See: Obama uses UN speech to threaten war against Iran)

There are certain tactical differences within the American ruling class, and between the US and the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu, over the timing of any US strikes on Iran. Romney sought to exploit these differences to stake out a position slightly to the right of Obama, stating that “the world must never see any daylight between” the US and Israel.

However, in his own speech before the UN last month, Netanyahu suggested that his differences with the Obama administration had been at least temporarily resolved. The Israeli prime minister appeared to accept postponing military action until the spring or summer of next year, while also acceding to Obama’s call for tighter economic sanctions.

On Syria, Romney said he favored giving more supplies and heavy weapons to the Syrian opposition. “I will work with our partners to identify and organize those members of the opposition who share our values and ensure they obtain the arms they need to defeat Assad’s tanks, helicopters, and fighter jets.”

The CIA under the Obama administration is currently directing arms to the anti-Assad forces in Syria, coordinating this with Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf states. The administration has as yet refrained from sending certain weapons, in part over concern about the implications of the fact that in its campaign for regime change in Syria, the US is relying on Islamic fundamentalist elements. Any weapons could end up directed back at the US, as in the attack in Libya last month that killed the US ambassador.

The recent clashes between Syria and NATO member Turkey underscore that the proxy civil war stoked by the Obama administration could easily and rapidly explode into a war throughout the Middle East, bringing in the all the major powers, including the United States, Russia and China.

In his speech, Romney added barbs directed at both these countries—saying that “Putin’s Russia casts a long shadow over young democracies” in Europe and that “China’s recent assertiveness is sending chills through the region.”

Romney added that he would “roll back President Obama’s deep and arbitrary cuts to our national defense that would devastate our military,” a reference to the automatic military cuts included in an agreement between the Democrats and Republicans in 2011. Both parties are determined to prevent these cuts by slashing hundreds of billions more in social programs—to be implemented after the November elections.

On Afghanistan, Romney followed Obama in calling for a “transition to Afghan security forces by the end of 2014.” At the same time, he made clear, as current US generals have, that the US occupation would continue indefinitely if “conditions on the ground” and “the best advice of our military commanders” deems this necessary.

As for Iraq, Romney criticized Obama for carrying out an “abrupt troop withdrawal,” suggesting that the departure of US troops may be reversed. “The president tried—and failed—to secure a responsible and gradual drawdown that would have better secured our gains,” he said.

The general response of left-liberal circles to Romney’s remarks was to proclaim its “centrist” character, in which Romney supposedly has abandoned his more bellicose positions. The Nation’s Ben Adler, for example, headlines his comment posted Monday, “Romney’s Flip-Flop to Center Continues With Foreign Policy.”

In fact, if The Nation feels that the political distance separating it from Romney is shrinking, it is not because Romney’s calls for massive military spending and war are left-wing. It is because The Nation and the social layer for which it speaks are moving very quickly to the right and have embraced the imperialist policies proposed by both major parties.

The Obama administration has become the vehicle for the supposedly “left” layers of the upper middle class to fall entirely behind the basic strategy of American imperialism, particularly through support for the war in Libya and the US-backed civil war in Syria.

Indeed, it is notable that one of the main criticisms Romney sought to level at the Obama administration—that it is not supplying sufficiently advanced weaponry to the anti-Assad forces in Syria—is entirely in line with similar criticisms advanced by pseudo-left groups like the International Socialist Organization.

In military policy, as in domestic policy, there is a vast and unbridgeable gulf between this entire political establishment and the sentiments of the majority of the American population.

Romney is running on a platform of “more war”—bucking a tradition in which even the most reactionary politicians seek to make an appeal to the overriding anti-war sentiment of the American people. Nixon, for example, famously campaigned in 1968 on the basis of a “secret plan” to end the war in Vietnam, and then expanded the war enormously after taking office.

The Obama administration cannot mobilize popular opposition to war against Romney, however, because its policies are barely distinguishable from those proposed by the Republican candidate.

Regardless of who is elected in November, Romney or Obama, the American ruling class is set on a course that is leading to new wars in the Middle East—a policy of criminal aggression that is leading the world into a new world war, with incalculable consequences.

 

 

Oct 8, 2012 1:00 AM EDT

When a neurosurgeon found himself in a coma, he experienced things he never thought possible—a journey to the afterlife.

As a neurosurgeon, I did not believe in the phenomenon of near-death experiences. I grew up in a scientific world, the son of a neurosurgeon. I followed my father’s path and became an academic neurosurgeon, teaching at Harvard Medical School and other universities. I understand what happens to the brain when people are near death, and I had always believed there were good scientific explanations for the heavenly out-of-body journeys described by those who narrowly escaped death.

The brain is an astonishingly sophisticated but extremely delicate mechanism. Reduce the amount of oxygen it receives by the smallest amount and it will react. It was no big surprise that people who had undergone severe trauma would return from their experiences with strange stories. But that didn’t mean they had journeyed anywhere real.

Although I considered myself a faithful Christian, I was so more in name than in actual belief. I didn’t begrudge those who wanted to believe that Jesus was more than simply a good man who had suffered at the hands of the world. I sympathized deeply with those who wanted to believe that there was a God somewhere out there who loved us unconditionally. In fact, I envied such people the security that those beliefs no doubt provided. But as a scientist, I simply knew better than to believe them myself.

In the fall of 2008, however, after seven days in a coma during which the human part of my brain, the neocortex, was inactivated, I experienced something so profound that it gave me a scientific reason to believe in consciousness after death.

I know how pronouncements like mine sound to skeptics, so I will tell my story with the logic and language of the scientist I am.

Very early one morning four years ago, I awoke with an extremely intense headache. Within hours, my entire cortex—the part of the brain that controls thought and emotion and that in essence makes us human—had shut down. Doctors at Lynchburg General Hospital in Virginia, a hospital where I myself worked as a neurosurgeon, determined that I had somehow contracted a very rare bacterial meningitis that mostly attacks newborns. E. coli bacteria had penetrated my cerebrospinal fluid and were eating my brain.

When I entered the emergency room that morning, my chances of survival in anything beyond a vegetative state were already low. They soon sank to near nonexistent. For seven days I lay in a deep coma, my body unresponsive, my higher-order brain functions totally offline.

Alexander discusses his experience on the Science channel’s ‘Through the Wormhole.’

Then, on the morning of my seventh day in the hospital, as my doctors weighed whether to discontinue treatment, my eyes popped open.

‘You have nothing to fear.’ ‘There is nothing you can do wrong.’ The message flooded me with a vast and crazy sensation of relief. (Photo illustration by Newsweek; Source: Buena Vista Images-Getty Images)

There is no scientific explanation for the fact that while my body lay in coma, my mind—my conscious, inner self—was alive and well. While the neurons of my cortex were stunned to complete inactivity by the bacteria that had attacked them, my brain-free consciousness journeyed to another, larger dimension of the universe: a dimension I’d never dreamed existed and which the old, pre-coma me would have been more than happy to explain was a simple impossibility.

But that dimension—in rough outline, the same one described by countless subjects of near-death experiences and other mystical states—is there. It exists, and what I saw and learned there has placed me quite literally in a new world: a world where we are much more than our brains and bodies, and where death is not the end of consciousness but rather a chapter in a vast, and incalculably positive, journey.

I’m not the first person to have discovered evidence that consciousness exists beyond the body. Brief, wonderful glimpses of this realm are as old as human history. But as far as I know, no one before me has ever traveled to this dimension (a) while their cortex was completely shut down, and (b) while their body was under minute medical observation, as mine was for the full seven days of my coma.

All the chief arguments against near-death experiences suggest that these experiences are the results of minimal, transient, or partial malfunctioning of the cortex. My near-death experience, however, took place not while my cortex was malfunctioning, but while it was simply off. This is clear from the severity and duration of my meningitis, and from the global cortical involvement documented by CT scans and neurological examinations. According to current medical understanding of the brain and mind, there is absolutely no way that I could have experienced even a dim and limited consciousness during my time in the coma, much less the hyper-vivid and completely coherent odyssey I underwent.

It took me months to come to terms with what happened to me. Not just the medical impossibility that I had been conscious during my coma, but—more importantly—the things that happened during that time. Toward the beginning of my adventure, I was in a place of clouds. Big, puffy, pink-white ones that showed up sharply against the deep blue-black sky.

Reliving History: The search for the meaning of the afterlife is as old as humanity itself. Over the years Newsweek has run numerous covers about religion, God, and that search. As Dr. Alexander says, it’s unlikely we’ll know the answer in our lifetimes, but that doesn’t mean we won’t keep asking.

Higher than the clouds—immeasurably higher—flocks of transparent, shimmering beings arced across the sky, leaving long, streamerlike lines behind them.

Birds? Angels? These words registered later, when I was writing down my recollections. But neither of these words do justice to the beings themselves, which were quite simply different from anything I have known on this planet. They were more advanced. Higher forms.

A sound, huge and booming like a glorious chant, came down from above, and I wondered if the winged beings were producing it. Again, thinking about it later, it occurred to me that the joy of these creatures, as they soared along, was such that they had to make this noise—that if the joy didn’t come out of them this way then they would simply not otherwise be able to contain it. The sound was palpable and almost material, like a rain that you can feel on your skin but doesn’t get you wet.

Seeing and hearing were not separate in this place where I now was. I could hear the visual beauty of the silvery bodies of those scintillating beings above, and I could see the surging, joyful perfection of what they sang. It seemed that you could not look at or listen to anything in this world without becoming a part of it—without joining with it in some mysterious way. Again, from my present perspective, I would suggest that you couldn’t look at anything in that world at all, for the word “at” itself implies a separation that did not exist there. Everything was distinct, yet everything was also a part of everything else, like the rich and intermingled designs on a Persian carpet … or a butterfly’s wing.

It gets stranger still. For most of my journey, someone else was with me. A woman. She was young, and I remember what she looked like in complete detail. She had high cheekbones and deep-blue eyes. Golden brown tresses framed her lovely face. When first I saw her, we were riding along together on an intricately patterned surface, which after a moment I recognized as the wing of a butterfly. In fact, millions of butterflies were all around us—vast fluttering waves of them, dipping down into the woods and coming back up around us again. It was a river of life and color, moving through the air. The woman’s outfit was simple, like a peasant’s, but its colors—powder blue, indigo, and pastel orange-peach—had the same overwhelming, super-vivid aliveness that everything else had. She looked at me with a look that, if you saw it for five seconds, would make your whole life up to that point worth living, no matter what had happened in it so far. It was not a romantic look. It was not a look of friendship. It was a look that was somehow beyond all these, beyond all the different compartments of love we have down here on earth. It was something higher, holding all those other kinds of love within itself while at the same time being much bigger than all of them.

Without using any words, she spoke to me. The message went through me like a wind, and I instantly understood that it was true. I knew so in the same way that I knew that the world around us was real—was not some fantasy, passing and insubstantial.

The message had three parts, and if I had to translate them into earthly language, I’d say they ran something like this:

“You are loved and cherished, dearly, forever.”

“You have nothing to fear.”

“There is nothing you can do wrong.”

The message flooded me with a vast and crazy sensation of relief. It was like being handed the rules to a game I’d been playing all my life without ever fully understanding it.

“We will show you many things here,” the woman said, again, without actually using these words but by driving their conceptual essence directly into me. “But eventually, you will go back.”

To this, I had only one question.

Back where?

The universe as I experienced it in my coma is … the same one that both Einstein and Jesus were speaking of in their (very) different ways. (Ed Morris / Getty Images)

A warm wind blew through, like the kind that spring up on the most perfect summer days, tossing the leaves of the trees and flowing past like heavenly water. A divine breeze. It changed everything, shifting the world around me into an even higher octave, a higher vibration.

Although I still had little language function, at least as we think of it on earth, I began wordlessly putting questions to this wind, and to the divine being that I sensed at work behind or within it.

Where is this place?

Who am I?

Why am I here?

Each time I silently put one of these questions out, the answer came instantly in an explosion of light, color, love, and beauty that blew through me like a crashing wave. What was important about these blasts was that they didn’t simply silence my questions by overwhelming them. They answered them, but in a way that bypassed language. Thoughts entered me directly. But it wasn’t thought like we experience on earth. It wasn’t vague, immaterial, or abstract. These thoughts were solid and immediate—hotter than fire and wetter than water—and as I received them I was able to instantly and effortlessly understand concepts that would have taken me years to fully grasp in my earthly life.

I continued moving forward and found myself entering an immense void, completely dark, infinite in size, yet also infinitely comforting. Pitch-black as it was, it was also brimming over with light: a light that seemed to come from a brilliant orb that I now sensed near me. The orb was a kind of “interpreter” between me and this vast presence surrounding me. It was as if I were being born into a larger world, and the universe itself was like a giant cosmic womb, and the orb (which I sensed was somehow connected with, or even identical to, the woman on the butterfly wing) was guiding me through it.

Later, when I was back, I found a quotation by the 17th-century Christian poet Henry Vaughan that came close to describing this magical place, this vast, inky-black core that was the home of the Divine itself.

“There is, some say, in God a deep but dazzling darkness …”

That was it exactly: an inky darkness that was also full to brimming with light.

I know full well how extraordinary, how frankly unbelievable, all this sounds. Had someone—even a doctor—told me a story like this in the old days, I would have been quite certain that they were under the spell of some delusion. But what happened to me was, far from being delusional, as real or more real than any event in my life. That includes my wedding day and the birth of my two sons.

What happened to me demands explanation.

Modern physics tells us that the universe is a unity—that it is undivided. Though we seem to live in a world of separation and difference, physics tells us that beneath the surface, every object and event in the universe is completely woven up with every other object and event. There is no true separation.

Before my experience these ideas were abstractions. Today they are realities. Not only is the universe defined by unity, it is also—I now know—defined by love. The universe as I experienced it in my coma is—I have come to see with both shock and joy—the same one that both Einstein and Jesus were speaking of in their (very) different ways.

I’ve spent decades as a neurosurgeon at some of the most prestigious medical institutions in our country. I know that many of my peers hold—as I myself did—to the theory that the brain, and in particular the cortex, generates consciousness and that we live in a universe devoid of any kind of emotion, much less the unconditional love that I now know God and the universe have toward us. But that belief, that theory, now lies broken at our feet. What happened to me destroyed it, and I intend to spend the rest of my life investigating the true nature of consciousness and making the fact that we are more, much more, than our physical brains as clear as I can, both to my fellow scientists and to people at large.

I don’t expect this to be an easy task, for the reasons I described above. When the castle of an old scientific theory begins to show fault lines, no one wants to pay attention at first. The old castle simply took too much work to build in the first place, and if it falls, an entirely new one will have to be constructed in its place.

I learned this firsthand after I was well enough to get back out into the world and talk to others—people, that is, other than my long-suffering wife, Holley, and our two sons—about what had happened to me. The looks of polite disbelief, especially among my medical friends, soon made me realize what a task I would have getting people to understand the enormity of what I had seen and experienced that week while my brain was down.

One of the few places I didn’t have trouble getting my story across was a place I’d seen fairly little of before my experience: church. The first time I entered a church after my coma, I saw everything with fresh eyes. The colors of the stained-glass windows recalled the luminous beauty of the landscapes I’d seen in the world above. The deep bass notes of the organ reminded me of how thoughts and emotions in that world are like waves that move through you. And, most important, a painting of Jesus breaking bread with his disciples evoked the message that lay at the very heart of my journey: that we are loved and accepted unconditionally by a God even more grand and unfathomably glorious than the one I’d learned of as a child in Sunday school.

Today many believe that the living spiritual truths of religion have lost their power, and that science, not faith, is the road to truth. Before my experience I strongly suspected that this was the case myself.

But I now understand that such a view is far too simple. The plain fact is that the materialist picture of the body and brain as the producers, rather than the vehicles, of human consciousness is doomed. In its place a new view of mind and body will emerge, and in fact is emerging already. This view is scientific and spiritual in equal measure and will value what the greatest scientists of history themselves always valued above all: truth.

This new picture of reality will take a long time to put together. It won’t be finished in my time, or even, I suspect, my sons’ either. In fact, reality is too vast, too complex, and too irreducibly mysterious for a full picture of it ever to be absolutely complete. But in essence, it will show the universe as evolving, multi-dimensional, and known down to its every last atom by a God who cares for us even more deeply and fiercely than any parent ever loved their child.

I’m still a doctor, and still a man of science every bit as much as I was before I had my experience. But on a deep level I’m very different from the person I was before, because I’ve caught a glimpse of this emerging picture of reality. And you can believe me when I tell you that it will be worth every bit of the work it will take us, and those who come after us, to get it right.

Dr. Eben Alexander has been a neurosurgeon for the past 25 years. His book, Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife, will be published by Simon & Schuster on Oct. 23, 2012.