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Russia's peace initiative: Syria encouraged to hand over its chemical weapons to avoid U.S. airstrikes, al-Assad's government agrees


RT
Mon, 09 Sep 2013 17:01 UTC
Image
© AP/Ivan Sekretarev
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, right, welcomes Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem, left, in Moscow, Monday, Feb. 25, 2013
Russia has urged Syria to put its chemical weapons under international control for subsequent destruction to avert a possible military strike.

"We are calling on the Syrian authorities not only agree on putting chemical weapons storages under international control, but also for its further destruction and then joining the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons," Lavrov said. "We have passed our offer to [Syrian Foreign Minister] Walid al-Muallem and hope to receive a fast and positive answer," he added.

It is unclear if Syria will support the offer, but if it helps to avoid a military strike, Russia is immediately prepared to work with Damascus, Lavrov said.

The Foreign Minister's statement comes shortly after US Secretary of State John Kerry's comment that the Syrian President "could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community" to avoid a military strike on the country.

"Sure, he could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week - turn it over, all of it without delay and allow the full and total accounting [of it[, but he isn't about to do it and it can't be done," Kerry said.

Comment: Syria has since accepted this Russian offer. So the ball is back in the Americans' court...

Syria welcomes Russia's offer to put its chemical weapons under intl control

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Oscar

Obama Drama: The Hill to the rescue on Syria? - Don't hold your breath

Andrew J. Bacevich
Al Jazeera
Sun, 08 Sep 2013 15:51 UTC
Obama
© Reuters
"Obama has implicitly opened the door for a Great Debate regarding the trajectory of US policy in the Middle East," writes Bacevich, a former US Army Colonel
Sometimes history happens at the moment when no one is looking. On weekends in late August, the president of the United States ought to be playing golf or loafing at Camp David, not making headlines. Yet Barack Obama chose Labour Day weekend to unveil arguably the most consequential foreign policy shift of his presidency.

In an announcement that surprised virtually everyone, the president told his countrymen and the world that he was putting on hold the much anticipated US attack against Syria. Obama hadn't, he assured us, changed his mind about the need and justification for punishing the Syrian government for its probable use of chemical weapons against its own citizens. In fact, only days before administration officials had been claiming that, if necessary, the US would "go it alone" in punishing Bashar al-Assad's regime for its bad behaviour. Now, however, Obama announced that, as the chief executive of "the world's oldest constitutional democracy," he had decided to seek Congressional authorisation before proceeding.
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Red Flag

RT sources: Syrian rebels plan false flag chemical attack on Israel to blame Assad regime


RT
Mon, 09 Sep 2013 15:28 UTC

Comment: Although any information that comes from unnamed sources is usually suspect to the journalistic eye, it is interesting that this one spells out a scenario that is normally foreseen only by the alternative media - in spite of the fact that books of history carry plenty of examples of false flag attacks used as excuses to trigger wars (9-11, anyone?).

The Russians, who are clearly opposed to letting the US start a regional or even global war, obviously know their history and understand that the possibility is real. They also know their enemy and how keen they are to 'make war by way of deception', and probably have real intelligence on what they might do next. By putting the possibility on a news outlet like RT, they may be making a clever attempt to spoil the plan for the CIA, Mossad, or anyone in control of the so-called 'Syrian rebels' to provide an indisputable casus belli for the US or Israel against Syria.

In other words, now that this scenario has been discussed publicly, it is less likely to happen. Perhaps that was the intention.

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Bad Guys

Assad warns 'expect everything' if US attacks Syria


RIA Novosti
Mon, 09 Sep 2013 15:28 UTC
Image
© AFP 2013/ CBS News / 'This Morning'
Syrian President Bashar Assad, right, during an interview with CBS news anchor Charlie Rose, which aired Monday
The United States and its allies should "expect everything" if military strikes are launched against Syria, as the Middle East teeters on "the brink of explosion," Syrian President Bashar Assad warned in excerpts of an interview with a veteran US journalist that aired Monday.

"You should expect everything, not necessarily through the government," Assad told CBS This Morning co-host Charlie Rose in what CBS said was the first television interview given by the embattled Syrian leader since President Barack Obama asked Congress to approve military action against Syria in retaliation for an alleged chemical weapons attack last month that Washington has blamed on the Assad regime.

"Everything is on the brink of explosion - you have to expect everything," Assad said, warning that his government is not in control of the volatile situation in Syria, where the United Nations says at least 100,000 people have been killed in a three-and-a-half-year civil war, because it is "not the only player in this region."
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Bad Guys

The mysterious case of the royal Canadian Navy's "missing" equipment - spies, miscommunication and financial problems


The Ottawa Citizen
Sun, 08 Sep 2013 14:59 UTC
The military contractor who allegedly disappeared with $1 million of Canadian government money and failed to build an acoustic monitoring system for the navy has a question for the Department of National Defence: When are you going to pick up your equipment?

Department officials say they have been trying since 2009 to get the equipment from Applied Radar and Sonar Technologies GmbH, a German firm.

But the company is no longer registered in Germany and "cannot be contacted," according to a December 2012 briefing note prepared for senior department staff. The company's contract has been terminated and DND is going to use an international collection agency to try to recover the $1 million it already paid to Applied Radar and Sonar Technologies.

But the Citizen has tracked the firm to Izmir, a city in Turkey, and interviewed its director, Klaus Kremer.

He says not only is the transportable acoustic range equipment ready to be picked up, but DND officials know very well where he is since they have visited him at least four times over the years.
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Eye 1

Spiegel: NSA Can Spy on Smart Phone Data


Spiegel
Mon, 09 Sep 2013 15:05 UTC
SPIEGEL has learned from internal NSA documents that the US intelligence agency has the capability of tapping user data from the iPhone, devices using Android as well as BlackBerry, a system previously believed to be highly secure.

Angela Merkel
© Reuters
The United States' National Security Agency intelligence-gathering operation is capable of accessing user data from smart phones from all leading manufacturers. Top secret NSA documents that SPIEGEL has seen explicitly note that the NSA can tap into such information on Apple iPhones, BlackBerry devices and Google's Android mobile operating system.

The documents state that it is possible for the NSA to tap most sensitive data held on these smart phones, including contact lists, SMS traffic, notes and location information about where a user has been.

The documents also indicate that the NSA has set up specific working groups to deal with each operating system, with the goal of gaining secret access to the data held on the phones.

In the internal documents, experts boast about successful access to iPhone data in instances where the NSA is able to infiltrate the computer a person uses to sync their iPhone. Mini-programs, so-called "scripts," then enable additional access to at least 38 iPhone features.
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Arrow Down

U.S. client regimes in Middle East outlaw online "dissemination of ideas that could affect public order or morality" under pretext of 'fighting terrorism'


Raw Story
Mon, 09 Sep 2013 12:21 UTC
Internet ban
© Agence France-Presse
People typing on their laptops.
Saudi Arabia said Monday it will outlaw the dissemination of information on the Internet for the benefit of "terrorist" groups, in line with a decision taken by Gulf Arab monarchies.

The official SPA news agency said the cabinet approved the "unified legislation against cybercrime," which the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) adopted in December.

The legislation targets those who "create sites and publish information on the Internet or a computer network for the benefit of a terrorist group to enable contacts among its leaders or its members, to promote its views or funding," said the agency.

It also prohibits "the dissemination of ideas that could affect public order or morality," said SPA, without providing further details.

Most members of the six-nation GCC - Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates - have tightened their laws against cybercrime in recent years.

Source: Agence France-Presse

Comment: That list of countries also happen to be U.S. client regimes and most repressive in the region. Coincidence?

You have to laugh in horror when you hear that Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, the biggest regional exporters of terrorism - culturally, materially, and financially - are doing all this under the pretext of 'fighting terrorism'.

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Newspaper

Assad did not order Syria chemical weapons attack, says German press

Simon Tisdall and Josie Le Blond
The Guardian
Mon, 09 Sep 2013 14:05 UTC
Bild am Sonntag cites high-level German surveillance source suggesting Syrian president was not personally behind attacks.

Syria
© David Mcnew/Getty
A anti-Syria strike demonstration in LA. German paper Bild am Sonntag has cited information saying the Syrian president did not personally order chemical attacks, but this does not exonerate his regime
President Bashar al-Assad did not personally order last month's chemical weapons attack near Damascus that has triggered calls for US military intervention, and blocked numerous requests from his military commanders to use chemical weapons against regime opponents in recent months, a German newspaper has reported , citing unidentified, high-level national security sources.

The intelligence findings were based on phone calls intercepted by a German surveillance ship operated by the BND, the German intelligence service, and deployed off the Syrian coast, Bild am Sonntag said. The intercepted communications suggested Assad, who is accused of war crimes by the west, including foreign secretary William Hague, was not himself involved in last month's attack or in other instances when government forces have allegedly used chemical weapons.

Assad sought to exonerate himself from the August attack in which hundreds died. "There has been no evidence that I used chemical weapons against my own people," he said in an interview with CBS.

But the intercepts tended to add weight to the claims of the Obama administration and Britain and France that elements of the Assad regime, and not renegade rebel groups, were responsible for the attack in the suburb of Ghouta, Bild said.
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Pirates

Monsanto took over regulatory bodies all over the world to lobby GMO

SophieCo
RT News
Wed, 04 Sep 2013 13:14 UTC
Image
© AFP Photo/Nicholas Kamm
Monsanto is trying to take full control of the world's seed supply for a greater profit, hiding any report of damage GMO does to the ecosystem and human health, Jeffrey M. Smith, GMO researcher from the Institute for Responsible Technology, told RT.

Jeffrey M. Smith spoke about the dangers posed by GMO products and Monsanto aggressive policies on RT's SophieCo.
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Bad Guys

The (farcical) emperor is naked

Pepe Escobar
Asia Times Online
Mon, 09 Sep 2013 13:24 UTC
cheney, obama
There is nothing tragic about the Obama presidency, capable of drawing the analytical talents of a neo-Plutarch or a neo-Gibbon. This is more like a Pirandello farce, a sort of Character in Search of An Author.

Candidates to Author are well documented - from the Israel lobby to the House of Saud, from a select elite of the industrial-military-security complex to, most of all, the rarified banking/financial elite, the real Masters of the Universe. Poor Barack is just a cipher, a functionary of empire, whose ''deciding'' repertoire barely extends to what trademark smile to flash at the requisite photo-ops.

There's nothing ''tragic'' about the fact that during this week - marking the 12th anniversary of 9/11 - this presidency will be fighting for its bombing ''credibility'' trying to seduce Republican hawks in the US Congress while most of the warmongers du jour happen to be Democrats.

Republicans are torn between supporting the president they love to hate and delivering him a stinging rebuke - as much as they are aching to follow the orders of their masters, ranging from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee to military contractors. Once again, this is farce - caused by the fact that a man elected to finish off wars is eager to start yet another one. And once again without a United Nations vote.

The White House ''strategy'' in this crucial negotiating week boils down to this; to convince the US Congress that the United States must start a war on Syria to punish an ''evil dictator'' - once again, as bad as Hitler - for gassing children. The evidence? It's ''indisputable''.
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