WAR 06/07 to 06/14 ***The***Winds***of***WAR***

[The Flying Dutchman]

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(12)05/08 to 05/15 ***The***Winds***of***WAR***
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showt...***of***WAR***

(13)005/16 to 05/23 ***The*** Winds***of***WAR***
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showt...***of***WAR***

(14)05/24 to 05/30 ***The***Winds***of***WAR***
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showt...***of***WAR***

(15)05/31 to 06/06 ***The***Winds***of***WAR***
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?405629-05-31-to-06-06-***The***Winds***of***WAR***

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Israeli feared dead as Arizona police
trace burned SUV to missing family

Police say board member of local synagogue primary
suspect in death of his wife and three daughters.

By The Associated Press | Jun.07, 2012 | 12:00 AM
http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world...e-trace-burned-suv-to-missing-family-1.434833​

An SUV found burning in the Arizona desert with five bodies inside on Saturday was registered to a missing family of five, police in the Phoenix suburb of Tempe said Tuesday. The mother is a native Israeli.

Neighbors who talked to The Associated Press said that Yafit Butwin, who reportedly immigrated to the United States from Israel in the mid-1990s, and her husband James were going through a divorce and that he was battling a brain tumor.

Robert Kempton, the Butwin family acquaintance who first called authorities, told police on Monday that he was worried about them after receiving a note from James Butwin with instructions on how to operate his construction business without him, Tempe police Sgt. Jeff Glover said.

Investigators went to the Butwin home, but Glover declined to specify what evidence was found. He did say that no murder weapon was found in the home.

Glover said that the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office notified them that the SUV in the desert was registered to the Butwin family’s home.

He said that although they can’t be entirely certain that the Butwins are the same five people found in the burning SUV, investigators are so sure that they’re dead that they aren’t looking for them and believe there are no outstanding suspects.

Glover said that the Butwins were experiencing financial difficulties, and court records show that Yafit filed for divorce in September and that the process was ongoing.

Two of the couple’s children were teenagers and one was a pre-teen. The five bodies found in the desert have not been positively identified because they were burned so badly beyond recognition, said Gregory Hess, chief medical examiner for Pima County. He said the bodies could have included older children but not younger ones.

Kempton, who said he and his wife were planning a summer trip to Israel with the Butwins, told The Associated Press that James Butwin’s tumor had returned and that he was discouraged that treatment wasn’t helping him.

Kempton said he has lived in the well-manicured, upper-middle-class neighborhood for 12 years, and the Butwins moved in a few years afterward.

An attorney for Yafit Butwin, Steven Wolfson, told The Arizona Republic newspaper that Yafit Butwin immigrated to the United States in the mid-1990s from Israel and married Butwin in New Jersey. He said the couple was still living together during the divorce under a temporary agreement to share the home. Wolfson said that Yafit Butwin never sought an order of protection and said there was no hint of domestic violence.

Earlier Tuesday, the sheriff’s office said they were also investigating the possibility that the burned bodies belonged to five men involved in illegal activities.

Sheriff’s spokesman Tim Gaffney said a man called investigators Saturday and said that his brother-in-law was involved in illegal activity and feared that he could be among the dead. The man said his brother-in-law told him the night before the bodies were found that he was “going to Vekol Valley to make money” with four of his acquaintances.

The man told investigators that when he tried to call his brother-in-law and the other men on their cellphones, the calls all went straight to voicemail.

Sheriff Paul Babeu said Monday that the location of the smoldering SUV in a known smuggling corridor and the nature of the crime itself had him all but certain that a violent smuggling cartel was responsible. Babeu said that the burned car likely is the same car that a Border Patrol agent saw four hours earlier Saturday when it was still dark.

The agent saw a stopped white Ford Expedition and became suspicious, but when he approached, the vehicle fled and the agent lost track if the vehicle, Babeu said. When the sun came up, the same agent saw car tracks in the area leading into the desert and shortly after, found a smoldering white Ford Expedition, Babeu said.

When the agent approached the car, he saw four burned bodies lying down in the back of the vehicle, and one body in the back passenger seat.





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[The Flying Dutchman]

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Finder of ‘Flame’ Virus Tells Israel
to “Stop Before It’s Too Late”

By Karl Vick | @karl_vick
June 6, 2012
http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/20...rus-warns-israel-to-stop-before-its-too-late/​

Eugene Kaspersky, the Russian cyber sleuth who last week revealed the most sophisticated virus yet targeting Iran, was greeted as a hero at the Tel Aviv University conference on digital security Wednesday. He didn’t pretend not to know why, any more than the Israeli audience that played along with the coy remarks its officials have made about the country’s role in the digital espionage bedeviling the Iranian program.

“Maybe there are some people here who are not happy with work I was doing with Stuxnet and Flame,” he told an audience of more than 1,000 at the university’s annual International Conference on Cyber Security. (Stuxnet was the previous virus that hit Iran, targeting its nuclear program; Flame hit the petroleum industry.) Then the keynote speaker, clad in jeans and an untucked linen shirt, leaned forward and said in a stage whisper, “I’m really sorry.” Waves of laughter and applause followed. “It’s not personal,” Kaspersky went on, drawing out the laughter, which had a quality of mutual congratulation. “It’s my job…. So next time, be more careful.”


But when the room quieted down, the guru got serious. Cyber-weapons, Kaspersky advised,”are a very very bad idea.” Whatever advanced knowledge allowed engineers to fashion the malicious software targeted at Iran’s nuclear program will, in short order, become known to other nations, he said, and next time could well be directed back at the originators — the very worry President Obama reportedly voiced in approving the digital espionage in a joint program with Israel. “I’m afraid that in the future there will be other countries in this game,” Kaspersky said. “It’s only software. Maybe ‘hacktivists’ will become cyber-terrorists. And maybe the traditional terrorists will be in touch with the cyber-terrorists.

“My message is: Stop doing that before it’s too late. The ideas are spreading too fast. There is a genie in a bottle.”

Kaspersky, who was introduced as one of the top four experts on cyber-security in the world, pointed out that cyber-weapons “can replicate,” as Stuxnet did — escaping the Iranian centrifuge machinery that was its sole intended target and infecting computers around the globe. Flame is even more complex, monitoring computers it has infected and even recording conversations; it appears to infect computers disguised as a legitimate Microsoft Windows update. The Russian said his concern is the vulnerability of civilian infrastructure that relies on computer operating systems such as Microsoft Windows, which cannot be hardened against attack.

The only way to secure systems that deliver water, electricity and the economy is through a newly designed OS with security at its core. And until that new system is developed, he said, any country that launches a digital attack is running a terrific risk. “There are a lot of software engineers in Israel, I know,” he said. “But I don’t think there are enough to do it in three or five years.” In the meantime, he said, “I’m afraid that that cyber-boomerang may get back to you.”

Silence greeted the warning. Earlier in the day, Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak acknowledged for the first time publicly that the Jewish state has an offensive cyber-warfare capability. The acknowledgment came, however, as part of an emphatic assertion that defending against cyber-attacks is far more important: ”Our goal with cyber defense, which is the more important and difficult component, is to prevent damage,” he said. “It is more than we can benefit from an offensive action, even though both aspects exist.”



Read more: http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/20...el-to-stop-before-its-too-late/#ixzz1x3wudQnC




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[The Flying Dutchman]

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Flame's "god mode cheat code" wielded
to hijack Windows 7, Server 2008 (Updated)

Code "better than" any zero-day exploit
took complete control of systems.

by Dan Goodin - June 6 2012, 3:26pm CDT
http://arstechnica.com/security/201...rstechnica/index+(Ars+Technica+-+All+content)​

The Flame malware that was likely spawned by a nation-state to spy on Iran employed a highly sophisticated cryptography attack that allowed it to pierce defenses Microsoft added to later versions of its Windows operating system, new research shows.

The "chosen prefix collision attack," which exploited known weaknesses in the aging MD5 cryptographic hashing algorithm, was used to remove text strings from counterfeit certificates the attackers used to hijack the Windows Update process. If the critical extension had been allowed to remain in the certificates, they would have caused machines running Vista and later versions of Windows to reject the updates, Microsoft researchers said in a report published Wednesday.

The counterfeit certificates, which were minted by exploiting weakness in Microsoft's Terminal Server product, worked fine against versions that predated Vista. But by using the collision attack to remove the "Microsoft Hydra" extension from the certificate's cryptographic hash, they were able to trip up machines running Vista, Server 2008, and Windows 7 as well. In a separate report also published Wednesday, a Kaspersky researcher said the technique gave Flame powerful control over machines running Microsoft's most fortified operating systems.

"What we've found now is better than any zero-day exploit," Alex Gostev, chief security expert at Kaspersky Lab, wrote. "It actually looks more like a 'god mode' cheat code—valid code signed by a keychain originating from Microsoft."

Slaying Hydra​

Separate capabilities in Flame were designed to allow the espionage malware to spread from machine to machine inside a victim's network. It worked by setting up a fake server that masqueraded as a legitimate source for Windows updates. For the proxies to work they needed to include the imprimatur of Microsoft's root authority key, and that's where the fraudulent certificates came in. By exploiting weaknesses in the way Terminal Server issued end-user licenses, the Flame attackers were able to create certificates that were authorized by Microsoft's sensitive root to verify their malicious code was legitimate.

But the Flame attackers had one more hurdle to jump through: Credentials ultimately derived from the Terminal Server exploit still contained the Hydra extension, and that flag in turn would cause Vista and later Windows versions to reject the certificate. To remove the extension, they relied on the highly esoteric collision attack, in which two different plaintext sources generate the same cryptographic hash. They used that attack to generate a similar looking certificate that removed the Hydra data and other fields constraining its permitted use. A 2008 exploit that used that technique allowed researchers to create a rogue certificate authority that was trusted by all browsers.

"Without this collision attack, it would have been possible to sign code that would validate on systems pre-dating Windows Vista, but that signed code would fail validation on Windows Vista and above," Jonathan Ness, of Microsoft Security Response Center Engineering, wrote in Wednesday's blog post. "After this attack, the attacker had a certificate that could be used to sign code that chained up to the Microsoft Root Authority and worked on all versions of Windows."

As previously reported, Microsoft on Sunday issued an emergency update to all Windows users that invalidated the entire certificate chain used by the Terminal Server licensing mechanism. In the Wednesday post, Ness said Microsoft has replaced the mechanism's chain with a new hierarchy that's no longer linked to the company's Root Authority. Instead, it has a stand-along root that's not trusted by the rest of Windows. The certificates use SHA-1, an algorithm that cryptographers consider much stronger than MD5. Microsoft has also curtailed the practice of issuing code-signing certificates under the licensing regimen.

Ness's post never explained one of the biggest mysteries arising from the Flame aftermath, which is why Microsoft engineers designed the old system with such poor key management. The Microsoft Root Authority is the cryptographic equivalent of a master key that can unlock virtually any door in the company's sprawling body of software. Tying that authority to Terminal Server's licensing mechanism is tantamount to using a hotel's universal key to control access to the janitor closet.





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[The Flying Dutchman]

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Only global efforts’ can halt
cyber terrorism: Kaspersky Lab

Wednesday, 06 June 2012
By Tova Cohen and Maayan Lubell
Reuters
http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/06/06/219054.html​

Eugene Kaspersky, whose lab discovered the Flame virus that has attacked computers in Iran and elsewhere in the Middle East, said on Wednesday only a global effort could stop a new era of “cyber terrorism.”

“It’s not cyber war, it’s cyber terrorism and I’m afraid it’s just the beginning of the game ... I’m afraid it will be the end of the world as we know it,” Kaspersky told reporters at a cyber-security conference in Tel Aviv.

“I’m scared, believe me,” he said.

News of the Flame virus surfaced last week. Researchers said technical evidence suggests it was built for the same nation or nations that commissioned the Stuxnet worm that attacked Iran's nuclear program in 2010.


In recent months U.S. officials have become more open about the work of the United States and Israel on Stuxnet, which targeted Iran’s Natanz nuclear enrichment facility.

The West suspects Iran is developing atomic weapons. Tehran denies this and says it is enriching uranium only for civilian use.

Security experts say Flame is one of the most sophisticated pieces of malicious software so far discovered. They are still investigating the virus, which they believe was released specifically to infect computers in Iran and across the Middle East.

Kaspersky named the United States, Britain, Israel, China, Russia and possibly India, Japan and Romania as countries with the ability to develop such software, but stopped short of saying which nation he thought was behind Flame.

When asked whether Israel was part of the solution or part of the problem regarding cyber war, Kaspersky said: “Both.”

‘Cyber boomerang’​

“Flame is extremely complicated but I think many countries can do the same or very similar, even countries that don’t have enough of the expertise at the moment. They can employ engineers or kidnap them, or employ ‘hacktivists’,” he said.

“These ideas are spreading too fast,” Kaspersky later said, “That cyber boomerang may get back to you.”

Kaspersky said governments must cooperate to stop such attacks, as they have done with nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. Operating systems must be redesigned, he added.

“Software that manages industrial systems or transportation or power grids or air traffic, they must be based on secure operating systems. Forget about Microsoft, Linux, Unix.”

Kaspersky said malware like Flame and Stuxnet have a limited lifetime and that undiscovered viruses could be out there.

“It’s quite logical that there are new cyber weapons designed and maybe there are computers which are infected.”

At the conference Kaspersky got celebrity treatment, with students huddled around to have their picture taken with him. He spoke alongside Israel Defense Minister Ehud Barak and top security experts from leading hi-tech companies.

Barak said a more comprehensive approach was necessary to deal with cyber threats and it required cooperation on an international level.

“The damage you can save yourself from proper defense may be more than what you achieve through the offensive action, though both aspects exist,” Barak said.






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[The Flying Dutchman]

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Google Warns Users of
Government Hacker Attacks

By Jon Mitchell / June 6, 2012 11:30 AM
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archive...tm_campaign=Feed:+readwriteweb+(ReadWriteWeb)​

Never mind Stuxnet's infiltration of Iranian nuclear facilities - national governments are carrying out Internet attacks against private citizens, often their own. Now Google has stepped into the breach. If it detects an attack, the search giant says, it will warn the victim and block the perpetrator.


Diplomatic cables leaked by WikiLeaks implicated the Chinese government in hacking into alleged dissidents' Google accounts. This incident led to Google pulling its business out of China, although since then it has inched its way back. Google wants to serve the huge Chinese user base, but it will implement new security measures to protect those who might come under attack by prying governments.

Google's New Warning​

Google announced yesterday that it will show a warning message to its users who "may be the target of state-sponsored attacks." Moreover, it will attempt to stop third parties from maliciously logging into its users' accounts.

"When we have specific intelligence - either directly from our users or from our own monitoring efforts - we show clear warning signs and put in place extra roadblocks to thwart these bad actors," wrote Eric Grosse, Google's VP of security engineering.



The new warning against state-sponsored hacking reads, "Warning: We believe state-sponsored attackers may be attempting to compromise your account or computer." The message is followed by a link to "protect yourself now." Google won't provide the URL for the linked page, and the text does not retrieve any Google search results. However, a Google staffer shared some of the copy with Andy Greenberg at Forbes:


It’s likely that you received emails containing malicious attachments, links to malicious software downloads, or links to fake websites that are designed to steal your passwords or other personal information. For example, attackers have often been known to send PDF files, Office documents, or RAR files with malicious contents. We strongly recommend that you avoid clicking links or attachments in suspicious messages.

Google aims to protect its users from spoofing, phishing or malware attacks that would let these state actors gain access to the user's private data. Unfortunately, the most vulnerable link in Google's security is the human user. Malicious sites can appear to be Google sites asking for your password, but they could come from another domain and steal your login info. To counter such tricks, Google recommends creating a unique password with a mixture of capital and lowercase letters, numbers and punctuation marks, activating Google's two-step authentication for login, and making sure your software is up to date.

But in the event that a state actor takes additional measures to attack a Google user, the company will display its warning message.

How Does Google Know an Attack is State-Sponsored?​

Google spokespeople will not comment on the announcement beyond what is written therein. But Grosse anticipated the question of how Google knows an attack is state-sponsored:

"We can’t go into the details without giving away information that would be helpful to these bad actors," he wrote, "but our detailed analysis - as well as victim reports - strongly suggest the involvement of states or groups that are state-sponsored."

Google has a unique vantage point on worldwide network traffic, so it's possible that any large operation would be visible to its security team. But it doesn't want to show its hand to malicious hackers trying to attack its users through the back door.

What does Google do when governments knock on the front door (legally speaking) and ask for user data? That's another story.








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[Housecarl]

Hummmm.......

For links see article source....
Posted for fair use......
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NF07Ak01.html

Middle East
Jun 7, 2012
US rejected Iranian no nukes offer in 2005
By Gareth Porter

WASHINGTON - France and Germany were prepared in spring 2005 to negotiate on an Iranian proposal to convert all of its enriched uranium to fuel rods, making it impossible to use it for nuclear weapons, but Britain vetoed the deal at the insistence of the United States, according to a new account by a former top Iranian nuclear negotiator.

Seyed Hossein Mousavian, who had led Iran's nuclear negotiating team in 2004 and 2005, makes it clear that the reason the offer was rejected was that the George W Bush administration refused to countenance any Iranian enrichment capability, regardless of the circumstances.

Mousavian reveals previously unknown details about that pivotal episode in the diplomacy surrounding the Iran nuclear issue in memoirs published Tuesday.

Mousavian, now a visiting research scholar at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School, had been a top political aide to former president Hashemi Rafsanjani and head of the foreign relations committee of Iran's Supreme National Security Council during his political-diplomatic career in Iran.

Mousavian had been entrusted with Iran's most sensitive diplomatic missions, including negotiations on a strategic understanding with Saudi crown prince Abdullah in the early 1990s and with US officials on Afghanistan and Al-Qaeda in 2001 and 2002, his memoirs reveal. He was arrested by the Mahmud Ahmadinejad administration on charges of "espionage" in April 2007.

The British and US refusal to pursue the Iranian offer, which might have headed off the political diplomatic crisis over the Iranian nuclear program since then, is confirmed by a former British diplomat who participated in the talks and former European ambassadors to Iran.

Mousavian writes that one of the European negotiators told him that "they were ready to compromise but that the United States was the obstacle".

The episode occurred a few months after an agreement between Iran and the British, French and German governments on November 15, 2004, on terms for negotiations on "long-term arrangements", during which Iran agreed to maintain a voluntary suspension of enrichment and other nuclear activities.

The agreement to be negotiated was to "provide objective guarantees that Iran's nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes" as well as "firm guarantees on nuclear, technological and economic cooperation and firm commitments on security issues".

The EU objective in the talks was to demand a complete end to all Iranian enrichment. At the March 23, 2005, meeting in Paris, the EU called for an indefinite suspension of enrichment by Iran, meaning suspension beyond the negotiations themselves.

At the same meeting, Iranian negotiators submitted a proposal that included a "policy declaration to convert all enriched uranium to fuel rods" and "committed to getting the Additional Protocol", which would allow the IAEA to make snap inspections on undeclared facilities, ratified by its parliament.

Conversion of low enriched uranium (LEU) to fuel rods only usable for power plants could have provided a guarantee against using the enriched uranium for nuclear weapons. Iran did not have the capability to fabricate fuel rods, so the implication was that the LEU would have to be shipped to another country for conversion or would have to be done under international auspices within Iran.

Once the fuel rods were fabricated, it would be practically impossible for Iran to reconvert them for military purposes.

Peter Jenkins, then the British permanent representative to the IAEA and a member of the British delegation to the Paris meeting with Iran, recalled in an interview with IPS, "All of us were impressed by the proposal."

The European delegations asked for a break to discuss it among themselves, Jenkins recalled, but soon decided to tell Iran they would "need more time to consider further".

But the Europeans did not seek to explore the Iranian offer further.
Mousavian reveals that Iran learned a few weeks after that meeting that the Europeans had no intention of negotiating any agreement that would allow Iran to have any enrichment program. On April 12, 2005, Mousavian recounts, the French ambassador to Iran, Francois Nicoullaud, told him it was impossible for the Europeans to negotiate on the Iranian proposal.

"For the US the enrichment in Iran is a red line which the EU cannot cross," Mousavian quotes Nicoullaud as saying.

In June 2009, Nicoullaud signed a statement with five other former European ambassadors to Iran recalling that in 2005 "Iran was ready to discuss a ceiling limit for the number of its centrifuges and to maintain its rate of enrichment far below the high levels necessary for weapons," but that "the Europeans and the Americans wanted to compel Iran to forsake its enrichment program entirely."

Jenkins recalled that he was aware that no proposal, no matter how forthcoming on assurances against diversion of LEU to a nuclear weapon, would be acceptable to the British government if it involved a resumption of enrichment.

"I knew in my heart of hearts that this was a waste of time - that it would not fly," he recalled.

"The British objective was to eliminate entirely Iran's enrichment capability," Jenkins said. "I remember we couldn't even allow Iran to have 20 centrifuges for R&D [research and development] purposes because we ourselves had mastered the technology with even fewer than that."

The Iranians had made clear to the European three that they could not agree to any loss of their right to enrich, according to Jenkins, but the Europeans hoped that it was merely an opening negotiating position.

"I don't think we realized fully in March 2005 that Iran was not prepared to give up enrichment as the price of a settlement," Jenkins recalled. "We believed that if we could come up with sufficient incentives and scare Iran with the threat of referral to the [United Nations] Security Council, they would give in."

After reading Mousavian's minutes of the meeting with Nicoullaud, the Supreme Leader instructed his nuclear policy coordinator, Hassan Rowhani, to restart the uranium conversion facility at Isfahan. Iran had included the conversion facility in its suspension of enrichment activities only with great reluctance under the pressure of the European negotiators.

Meanwhile, Mousavian made the rounds to try to persuade the Europeans to accept an Iranian offer to ensure that it would not divert uranium to nuclear weapons. He recalls offering his German counterpart, Michael Schaefer, in Berlin yet another proposal that had not yet been cleared by Iranian leaders.

Under the Mousavian proposal, Iran would have resumed uranium conversion at the Isfahan plant but would have exported its product to "an agreed-upon country" in exchange for yellowcake, the form uranium takes prior to enrichment.

At a later stage of the proposal, Iran would have begun enrichment at Natanz with some 3,000 centrifuges, but again would have exported all the enriched uranium to "an agreed-upon country".

While those extraordinary arrangements were being carried out, Mousavian proposed, negotiations on a "final compromise" on "objective guarantees of non-diversion" and EU "firm guarantees" on comprehensive relations with Iran would continue for a maximum of one year, and that Iran would adopt a timetable for enrichment agreed upon with the EU "based on Iran's fuel requirements".

Schafer encouraged Mousavian to pursue the proposal with the French and British, and French political director Stanislas Lefabvre Laboulaye told him it would depend on the British response.

But Mousavian writes that the British director general for political affairs, John Sawers, told him that the Bush administration "would never tolerate the operation of even one centrifuge in Iran".

After his round of meetings with the Europeans, Mousavian was informed by Rowhani that the package he had proposed had been accepted by the Iranian leadership, based on a minimum of 3,000 centrifuges and a one-year limit on the negotiations. But a third condition was that the Europeans had to agree on the plan before the August Iranian presidential election.

The third condition suggests that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei did not want either of the two presidential candidates, Hashemi Rafsanjani or Ahmadinejad, to get credit for the agreement with the Europeans.

The conversion of the bulk of Iranian low enriched uranium to fuel rods after being exported to France or Russia was the basis for the Barack Obama administration's diplomatic proposal to Iran in October 2009.

The Ahmadinejad government negotiated with the US and European diplomats on the proposal, but in the end Iran was not willing to part with as much as 80% of its stockpile of enriched uranium without getting any change in US policy in return.

Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specializing in US national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam, was published in 2006.

(Inter Press Service)

Related Articles:
Iranophobia and Obama the cyber-warrior (Jun 4, '12)

Coded messages for Iran (May 30, '12)

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm....

For links see article source....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/NF07Ae02.html

Southeast Asia
Jun 7, 2012
Cold counter to warming US-Vietnam ties
By Adam Boutzan

In late May, an analysis of supposed United States intentions toward Vietnam was posted on a popular Vietnamese blog site. The document cited what was purported to be a Vietnamese military intelligence analyst's report on remarks made by US Embassy Deputy Chief of Mission (DCM) Claire Pierangelo and three younger American officials named only as Gary, Greg and Chuck.

The blog site, Dan Lam Bao (People Make the News), says the report is one of many leaked to it by an anonymous source. Some foreign experts who have reviewed the document in question believe that it's a fabrication. Perhaps so, but probably not; a fake would have likely been more expertly done.

The Vietnamese intelligence report's author cobbles together comments attributed by "sources" to the aforesaid Americans that, he says, provide insight into a supposed US strategy of undermining Vietnam’s communist regime. If so, the analysis is out of step with mainstream views of a budding bilateral relationship.

Vietnam's rapprochement with the US began in the early 1990s and has developed particular strength in recent years. From the beginning, however, Hanoi's decision to repair relations with its former foe was controversial within the Communist Party elite.

Party "liberals" argued that the collapse of the Soviet Union left Vietnam with no recourse but to seek to develop its prostrate economy on Western models. "Conservatives" stressed that if the nation shifted to a free-market orientation, as implemented by the doi moi policy, it would be impossible to prevent political and social contamination.

In the 20 years that followed, Vietnam's economy boomed and relations with the West - including the US - have extended to include vigorous educational exchanges, military cooperation driven by shared wariness of an increasingly assertive China, and a virtually unhindered flood of Western, Japanese and Korean pop culture. It now seems that the predictions of both party factions were correct.

While liberals now celebrate what some refer to as a "strategic relationship" with the US, party conservatives lament a progressive weakening of public morality and the party's authority. From the perspective of party liberals, the comments attributed to the Americans in the leaked document are hardly outrageous. From the perspective of conservatives, however, their tone, alternately celebratory and disparaging, is likely viewed as offensive.

DCM Pierangelo is quoted as saying the biggest problem with the Vietnamese economy is the leadership's short-term focus and its incestuous relationship with inefficient state enterprises. "Economic restructuring ... is an empty phrase. The government knows its problems, but private and parochial considerations blur their vision and slow the pace of change."

"Corruption has become a serious disease," the American DCM allegedly adds, pointedly implicating Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and unnamed ministers, "to the point that the people attribute all bad things to 'Communism'." She is said to conclude that the regime's failures put it on a collision path with the aspirations of an Americanized younger generation.

The economic assessment is consistent with the opinions of experts from international development banks and has long been standard critical fare for op-eds in Western newspapers. It's what Pierangelo - trained as an economic specialist - might say if giving a private briefing to a group of visiting American businessmen.

In the leaked report, however, she also sounds strangely smug: "The US was worried about the solidity of the China-Vietnam relationship, but [because of the penetration of American culture] now Vietnam has escaped the influence of Chinese culture."

"Vietnam's problems are of its own making. ... Before, we thought we'd have to spend a lot of money to accomplish our objectives, but that's no longer necessary ... We'll press Vietnam's government on human rights issues in order to achieve our [other] strategic objectives."

Lastly, Pierangelo allegedly sums up: "With all that's going on in Vietnam right now, the face of the country will change greatly in the next twenty years ... It's very possible that the Communist regime will not endure."

Naive assessments
Interspersed with the diplomatic bomblets attributed to Pierangelo, Gary (identified as a State Department political officer), Greg (said to be a US Army major) and Chuck (a Marine captain) provide comparative comic relief. These three are apparently recent graduates of the Washington DC-based Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), which is identified by the analyst as an "incubator for CIA agents".

The three men seem to have been sent to Hanoi on brief "familiarization" assignments. Attributed to them is the sort of commentary one might expect from newbies: (1) people they've met in cafes and beer halls are fed up with petty corruption and criticize the government for not standing up to Beijing on South China Sea territorial claims; (2) Vietnamese really hate China, and not just because it plays dirty on the territorial issue; and (3) the Vietnamese are fast becoming Americanized and are real friendly to Americans.

Greg, the supposed State Department official, disclosed, "that if American policy makers understood the situation in Vietnam better, as we do, then surely Americans would regard Vietnam very differently. Americans don't know much about Vietnam because they haven't had opportunities to come here and meet the people. Our job [ie, his, Gary's and Chuck's] is to help Americans understand Vietnam better. Vietnam now is very close to us."

To Colonel Nguyen Tan Tien, under whose signature the supposed report was forwarded to the head of military intelligence, the implications of these remarks are clearly sinister: the Americans believe that their "peaceful evolution" policy is succeeding so well that all they have to do is wait for the regime to collapse.

"What's especially significant," he says, "is that [they think] the weaknesses and shortcomings of our economy and society, as well as the emergence of pro-American, anti-Chinese thinking, is causing the people to lose confidence in the Party and the regime."

The reports says: "That establishes a foundation for Vietnam's 'self-transformation', and all it will take to collapse the regime is a nudge by the Americans at the appropriate time. In the short run, the US (particularly the embassy in Hanoi) is finding ways to set up a social network in Vietnam, enticing and converting the younger generation, vigorously propagandizing, causing contention between China and Vietnam ... aiming at transforming [and/or] overthrowing Vietnam's regime within the next 20 years."

If a novice analyst were making these deductions, diplomatic observers would conclude that he was out of his depth. Colonel Tien, however, is presumably a veteran. The self-serving and overwrought conclusions he extracts from the remarks attributed to DCM Pierangelo and the three other Americans seem calculated to reinforce the suspicions of conservatives among the ruling elite, to wit, that the perfidious Americans are bent on poisoning Vietnam's relations with China and replicating an Eastern European-type "peaceful evolution" in Vietnam.

Of course, the report may not be genuine after all: there are some who might have both motive and capability to manufacture and disseminate such disinformation. That could include members of the Viet Tan party, an underground/exile group of dissidents which the Hanoi regime insists are criminal terrorists.

Since it published the report described above, the Dan Lam Bao blog has, up to June 3, published three other texts that it claims to have received from the same anonymous source. Two are reports of Vietnamese diplomatic contacts with Chinese counterparts in Beijing, and the third is a memorandum summarizing preparations by the American Chamber of Commerce for a meeting in February with visiting Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell.

The ordinariness of the three other reports suggests that the leaked documents are genuine, not disinformation. Evidently Dan Lam Bao plans to publish about one document per day. A researcher who regularly monitors Vietnam's blogosphere says that the disclosures haven't attracted particular attention in the online community of political pundits.

Put another way, it seems that the indiscretions attributed to DCM Pierangelo and the other Americans are of special interest only to those who suspect that America's real intention in Vietnam is to bring down its government.

Adam Boutzan, a pseudonym, is an independent writer.

Copyright 2012 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved.

Related Articles:
Vietnam floats between China and US (May 12, '12)

Vietnam edges towards casino capitalism (Apr 19, '12)

 

[The Flying Dutchman]

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Mideast game-changer
Israel’s costly Lebanon ‘victory’

Last Updated: 12:42 AM, June 6, 2012
Amir Taheri
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinio...5H?utm_medium=rss&utm_content=Oped+Columnists​

With a Shiite-Sunni sectarian war brewing along the Syrian border, few Lebanese might want to remember the Israeli invasion of 1982, which started 30 years ago today. Yet that war and its sequels not only changed the balance of power in Lebanon but also set the stage for the regional power struggle across the Middle East today.

Israel’s key war aim was to flush the Palestine Liberation Organization out of southern Lebanon, thus dismantling Yasser Arafat’s fiefdom known as Fatahland.

The Shiites of Southern Lebanon, the majority in the area, would become the chief beneficiaries of the Israeli victory. This is why they greeted units of the Israeli Defense Force with flowers and sweets.

Few imagined that within less than two years, Fatahland would be replaced by an even more hostile “Imamistan” — a fiefdom controlled by Hezbollah, acting as Iran’s cat’s paw.

To deal with that unintended consequence of its victory, Israel had to hang on to a strip of territory inside southern Lebanon for two decades, at enormous cost in blood and treasure.

Israel’s second objective was to capture or kill Arafat and coterie. It didn’t — because the United States, acting with UN approval, intervened militarily to escort Arafat and hundreds of his associates out of Beirut and into safety. And the massacre of Palestinians at Sabra and Shatila, although carried out by the Phalangist militia, provided Arafat and his clan with a new addition to their anti-Israeli narrative of victimhood.

America and its chief ally in that intervention, France, paid heavily for breathing fresh life into the moribund Palestinian cause: Some 241 US Marines and 57 French paratroopers were murdered in suicide attacks organized by Iranian and Syrian agents in Lebanon. In the following decade, 23 American and French citizens were a held hostage by Hezbollah on orders from Tehran and Damascus, and three were murdered.

Israel’s third objective was to impose Bashir Gemayel, a Maronite militia commander, as president of Lebanon, hoping to have a friendly neighbor to the north. Once again, a seemingly easy victory quickly turned into a setback: Gemayel became president — but only for a brief moment before he was murdered by Syrian agents.

Already mired in civil war, Lebanon quickly degenerated into a badland where terrorism, kidnapping, drug-smuggling and gun-running became industries employing tens of thousands of people. The civil war would last another decade in its intense form — and, in a sense, continues to this day.

The 1982 war marked the start of a process in which Israel has been sucked into asymmetric war against militias controlled by regional powers. At different times, Libya under Col. Khadafy, Iraq under Saddam Hussein and the Arab oil kingdoms financed and armed different armed factions in Lebanon. Iran and its main Arab client Syria still do so today.

Thirty years later, Lebanon poses a serious threat to Israel’s security. Yesterday, the official Iranian news agency, IRNA, boasted that the Islamic Republic had supplied Hezbollah with thousands of short- and medium-range missiles capable of “hitting every single spot” in Israel. It also claimed that 30,000 Hamas fighters and 5,000 “holy warriors” from the Islamic Jihad, based in Gaza, were getting ready “for the final battle with Zionism.”

Militarily, Israel achieved a clear victory in Lebanon in 1982. But its leaders couldn’t translate that victory into lasting political gain. Part of that was due to UN intervention, which was (as always) designed to prevent Israel from cashing its chips, as it were. But another part was Israeli leaders’ failure to see beyond the tactical changes that their victory had produced.

The war was a game-changer in the sense that it turned Lebanon into a battleground between Iran and Syria (backed by Russians) on one side and the United States, with its Arab allies plus Israel, on the other.

Today, Lebanon remains a major strategic prize — control of which could impact the conflict in Syria and the prospect of change in Iran.


Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinio..._changer_n9yZjy0eYZr4yuNlYUpl5H#ixzz1x42XVxFi



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[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

For links see article source....
Posted for fair use....
http://www.thestar.com/opinion/arti...-not-over-islam-but-dictatorship-vs-democracy

Egypt’s battle not over Islam but dictatorship vs. democracy
Published 34 minutes ago

By Haroon Siddiqui Editorial Page

Mainstream media in Canada and the United States generally give us the American-Israeli take on the Arab Middle East — indeed, the right-wing version of it.

On the Arab Spring, for example, they have kept up a steady drumbeat about the dangers of democracy — how it may let the “Islamists” take over, especially in Egypt. In fact, the real danger in the largest Arab nation is that the Muslim Brotherhood would not be allowed to win and even if it is, would not be allowed to govern. If that happens, there’d be hell to pay.

The army and the security agencies remain as entrenched as ever. So does the old state bureaucracy — in the ministries, in the judiciary and in public sector corporations, many of which are huge business enterprises run by the defence establishment (not unlike Pakistan and, to a lesser degree, Turkey).

The Egyptian “Deep State” has intervened repeatedly in Tahrir Square and elsewhere in the last 15 months to thwart the nascent democracy.

While a Cairo criminal court last weekend sentenced Hosni Mubarak to life imprisonment for his role in the killing of 850 pro-democracy protesters last year, his security chiefs were acquitted. He and his two sons were also acquitted on charges of corruption. The anger over the verdict has refilled Tahrir with protesters in recent days.

Various state agencies are suspected of manipulating the first round of the presidential election in which Ahmed Shafiq, the former air force chief, finished a surprising second. He had been disqualified by a court from running. But the election commission, run by Mubarak-era toadies, let him. It also ignored his seemingly flagrant disregard for election financing restrictions and other rules. Companies and tycoons close to the army establishment and the now-barred Mubarak-era National Democratic Party worked tirelessly for him.

Election monitors, both foreign and local, were not accredited until the last minute. They were not allowed to linger long at the polling stations. They were barred from the election headquarters in Cairo for the final tallying of ballots. The outcome stunned Egyptians.

The electoral roll had jumped by 4.5 million voters between the parliamentary election six months ago and now (from 46.4 million to 50.9 million).

The Brotherhood candidate, Mohammed Mursi, barely ended first, at 25 per cent. Shafiq was second at 24 per cent, having won several Brotherhood strongholds and also the Nile Delta, where peasants have traditionally been railroaded by officials into voting as told.

A leftist candidate, Hamdin Sabbahi, finished third. The much-talked about Aboul Fotouh, a liberal Islamist, finished fourth. Amr Moosa, the well-known former head of the Cairo-based Arab League, finished fifth.

As in previous elections, a stark polarizing choice has been set for the runoff (June 16-17) between the “stability” of the army’s candidate and the “chaos” of an Islamist. In the past, the former always won. We shall see what happens this time.

Despite all these machinations, one can already see the benefits of the limited democracy that has been permitted. The Islamists did start off with an advantagebeing the most organized (as they had to be to survive decades of persecution). But democratic scrutiny cracked open their tightly controlled organization.

The more conservative ones formed their own Salafist group. The liberal ones split off to run as independents (as Fotouh) or join other political groups.

Between the parliamentary election and now, the Brotherhood lost nearly half its support (from 10 million votes to 5.8 million).

Either it has been systematically robbed or it has lost public support for several reasons: It went back on its word not to field a presidential candidate. It tried to cut side deals with the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. It failed to speak up when the army cracked down on pro-democracy activists. It was ineffective in parliament (never mind that it was not allowed to do much by the army). It was uncompromising in the formulation of a parliamentary panel that’s to write a new constitution (including what powers the president should have).

Not surprisingly, the Brotherhood is busy moving to the centre. It does not talk much about sharia and a caliphate. Mursi is trying hard to win over the liberal and secular Sabbahi and Fotouh camps that are insisting on rights of women, rights of Coptic Christians (who voted en masse for Shafiq, as was their right) and freedom of speech. Neither Mursi nor any serious leader of the Brotherhood is questioning the peace treaty with Israel.

These compromising forces of democracy should be allowed to play themselves out, says Heba Morayef, the Cairo-based researcher for Human Rights Watch.

The real issue in Egypt, as across all the lands swept up by the Arab Spring, is not secularism vs. Islam (whether foreign tourists can keep their bikinis and beer, as the media have it) but rather between dictatorships and democracy, and between corrupt crony capitalism and transparent economies that give hope to long-suffering citizens.

hsiddiqui@thestar.ca

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/mubaraks-health-in-rapid-decline-7821034.html

Mubarak's health in rapid decline
AP
Thursday 07 June 2012

Hosni Mubarak's health entered a "dangerous" phase yesterday, and doctors had to use a respirator five times to help the deposed Egyptian leader to breathe, according to security officials at his prison.

Mubarak's health crisis came days after he was sentenced to life in prison for failing to stop the killing of protesters in the uprising that unseated him last year.

The officials at Torah prison south of Cairo said Mubarak, 84, was suffering from shock and high blood pressure as well as breathing problems.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source....
Posted for fair use....
http://blogs.voanews.com/breaking-news/2012/06/06/activists-at-least-78-killed-near-syrias-hama-2/

Activists: At Least 78 Killed Near Syria’s Hama
Posted Wednesday, June 6th, 2012 at 8:00 pm

Syrian activists said Wednesday pro-government militia and security forces killed at least 78 people, including women and children, in the central province of Hama. They said some of those killed in the villages of al-Kubeir and Maazarif were stabbed to death and at least 12 bodies were burned.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 'shabiha' militiamen armed with guns and knives carried out the attack after regular troops had shelled the area.

Activists called for an immediate investigation. There was no comment from the Syrian government, and events on the ground are difficult to verify as Syria tightly restricts access to international media.

Meanwhile, senior U.S. officials are warning Syria and its backers that tougher international action against President Bashar al-Assad's government could follow unless Damascus demonstrates “meaningful compliance” with U.N. efforts to end the violence.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Wednesday the administration and its allies could soon tighten sanctions against the Syrian government and its leaders. He spoke to representatives from 55 countries gathered in Washington to discuss increasing pressure on Mr. Assad and his top officials.

“Strong sanctions, effectively implemented, aggressively enforced, can help deprive the Syrian regime of the resources it needs to sustain itself and to continue its repression of the Syrian people. Strong sanctions make clear to the Syrian business community and other supporters of the regime, their future is bleak so long as the Assad regime remains in power.”

Geithner said the U.S. would ask, if necessary, to invoke “Chapter 7″ of the United Nations charter – a measure that could authorize the use of force.

“We, the United States, hope that all responsible nations will soon join in taking appropriate economic actions against the Syrian regime, including, if necessary, Chapter 7 action in the U.N. Security Council as called for by the Arab League last weekend.”

Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Istanbul late Wednesday to co-chair a meeting on Syria with her Western and Arab colleagues.

A senior U.S. State Department official said after the meeting that Clinton made three points:

One: The international community has got to be united in understanding what needs to happen to make a political transition work in Syria. The transition must include President Bashar al-Assad leaving power, a fully inclusive interim government leading to free and fair elections, a ceasefire, and equality for all Syrians under the law.

Two: The international community must increase its pressure on the regime and its supporters both inside and outside the country. It must tighten existing sanctions and add more in the coming weeks to peal away the support of military and business community. Chapter 7 remains on the table “at an appropriate time.”

Three: The international community must improve coordination among those countries providing direct assistance to the Syrian opposition. Turkey will host a meeting in mid-June with the opposition and relevant governments.

The U.S. officials said special envoy for Syria Fred Hoff will go to Moscow Thursday, and France will host a Friends of Syria meeting in Paris on July 6, which Secretary Clinton is expected to attend.

Also Wednesday, U.N. diplomats said international envoy Kofi Annan will present the Security Council with a new proposal later this week to rescue his failing peace plan for Syria, where 15 months of violence have brought the country to the brink of civil war.

They said Annan's new plan would establish a “contact group” for Syria that would include the five permanent members of the Council and key regional players with influence on Damascus or the opposition, such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and Iran. The group would attempt to map out a “political transition” leading to Mr. Assad's departure and the holding of free elections.

In China, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov seemed to follow up on the contact group idea, saying nations exerting influence over Syrian opposition groups should join an international gathering to rescue Annan's faltering cease-fire deal. Russia is a longtime ally of the Assad government and has blamed his opponents for much of Syria's violence. China and Russia issued a statement Wednesday saying they are “decisively” against military intervention in Syria and regime change.

Secretary Clinton reacted cooly to Lavrov's proposal for a meeting on Syria that would include Iran, saying it is “a little hard to imagine inviting a country that is stage-managing the Assad regime's assault on its people.”

The State Department has said Iran's paramilitary Quds Force is training Syrian militia, like those who Washington believes responsible for last month's killing of civilians in Houla. Clinton meets with Kofi Annan on Friday.

As Western pressure continues, Mr. Assad appointed a loyalist Baath party member as the country's new prime minister Wednesday, the latest step of what the president has called a political reform process. State media said the prime minister-designate, Riad Farid Hijab, will form Syria's next government.

Snowiss reported from Washington and Stearns from Istanbul.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use......
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/07/us-syria-crisis-idUSBRE84S0P020120607

Syria accused of new massacre as U.N. meets
By Mariam Karouny and Erika Solomon

BEIRUT | Wed Jun 6, 2012 8:59pm EDT

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian troops and militiamen loyal to President Bashar al-Assad stood accused by opponents on Thursday of a new massacre of scores of villagers hours before a divided U.N. Security Council convenes to review the crisis.

If confirmed, the killings of at least 78 people at Mazraat al-Qabeer, near Hama, will pile on pressure for world powers to act, but there is little sign they can overcome a paralysis born of sharp divisions between Western and Arab states on the one hand and Assad's defenders in Russia, China and Iran.

Several activists who monitor the 15-month-old revolt gave accounts to Reuters that women and children were among the dead when the village in central Syria came under artillery bombardment before fighters moved in on the ground and shot and stabbed dozens of people to death.

Echoing descriptions of a massacre of 108 civilians at Houla on May 25, which U.N. observers attributed to Assad's troops and loyalist "shabbiha" militia, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, "Shabbiha headed into the area after the shelling and killed dozens of citizens, among them women and children."

Some activists said at least 40 of the dead were women and children. At Houla, near Homs, nearly half had been children.

In that earlier case, Assad himself condemned the atrocity but denied any hand in it and blamed opponents whom he described as foreign-backed "terrorists."

Shabbiha, drawn mostly from Assad's minority Alawite sect that identifies with the Shi'ites of Iran, have been blamed for the killings of civilians from the Sunni Muslim majority. That has raised fears of an Iraq-style sectarian bloodbath and reinforced a wider regional confrontation between Iran and the mainly Sunni-led Arab states of the Middle East.

The main Syrian National Council opposition group responded to reports of the new massacre by calling for stepped-up military assaults on Assad's forces.

CEASEFIRE MONITORS

The failure of a ceasefire brokered by U.N. envoy Kofi Annan in March to halt the bloodshed has raised questions over its continued worth. Annan, the former U.N. secretary-general, is to brief the Security Council later on Thursday in New York.

A 300-strong force of U.N. truce observers has been in Syria for weeks and can be expected to investigate the accounts from Mazraat al-Qabeer, which came in under nightfall in Syria.

There was no immediate comment from the government, and events on the ground are difficult to verify as Syria tightly restricts access to international media.

Activists, including the Observatory based in Britain, called for an immediate investigation: "The Syrian Observatory for Human rights calls on the international monitors to go immediately to the area. They should not wait to tomorrow to investigate this new massacre," it said in a statement.

"They should not give the excuse that their mission is only to observe the ceasefire, because many massacres have been committed during their presence in Syria."

U.N. diplomats said they expected Annan to present the Security Council with a new proposal to rescue his failing peace plan by creating a "contact group" of world and regional powers.

Some rebel groups, which have helped escalate what began as popular demonstrations for democracy into what is approaching a civil war, have lost faith in any ceasefire calls and are calling for more foreign arms and other support.

Western leaders, wary of new military engagements in the Muslim world and especially of the explosively complex ethnic and religious mix that Syria represents, have offered sympathy but show no appetite for taking on Assad's redoubtable armed forces, which can call on Iran and Russia for supplies.

In Washington on Wednesday, the United States and Saudi Arabia, among dozens of mostly Western and Arab countries in the Friends of Syria working group, called for further economic sanctions against Syria including an arms embargo, travel bans and tougher financial penalties.

ISTANBUL MEETING

Separately, ministers and envoys from 15 countries and the European Union agreed at a meeting hosted by Turkey in Istanbul on Wednesday to convene a "coordination group" to provide support to the opposition but left unclear what it may involve.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was among officials from Europe, Turkey and Arab states who discussed "additional steps" including coordination on an "effective and credible transition process" to lead to a "democratic, post-Assad Syria," a Turkish statement said, adding that the group would be represented at a meeting in Istanbul next week of Syrian rebels.

Clinton told the group that transition in Syria must include a full representative interim government that would pave the way for a full transfer of power in free and fair elections.

Annan hopes his new idea can prevent a total collapse of his plan for a truce and negotiated political solution, U.N. diplomats said. The core of the proposal, diplomats said, would be the establishment of a contact group that would bring together Russia, China, the United States, Britain, France and key regional players with influence on Syria's government or the opposition, such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and Iran.

By creating such a contact group, envoys said, Annan would also be trying to break the deadlock among the five permanent council members that has pitted veto powers Russia and China against the United States, Britain and France and prevented any meaningful U.N. action on the Syrian conflict.

It would attempt to map out a "political transition" for Syria that would lead to Assad stepping aside and the holding of free elections, envoys said. One envoy said the idea was "vaguely similar" to a political transition deal for Yemen that led to the president's ouster.

The main point of Annan's proposal, they said, was to get Russia to commit to the idea of a Syrian political transition, which remains the thrust of Annan's six-point peace plan that both the Syrian government and opposition said they accepted earlier this year, but have failed to implement.

'LIFE SUPPORT'

While Russia has said repeatedly it is not protecting Assad, it has given no indication it is ready to abandon him. Assad has proven to be a staunch Russian ally and remains a top purchaser of weapons from Russian firms, and diplomats say Moscow continues to reward him for his loyalty.

"The thought is one that we've had for a little while, which is that you need to bind Russia into some sort of transition strategy on Syria," a senior Western diplomat said.

An unnamed diplomat leaked further details of Annan's proposal to Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, who said that if the contact group agreed on a transition deal for Syria, it would mean "Assad would presumably depart for Russia, which is said to have offered him exile."

It was not immediately clear if the idea of Russian exile for Assad was something Annan was pushing or if it was Ignatius' speculation. The Post article said that another option for Assad would be to seek exile in Iran, Damascus' other staunch ally.

In what could be the first step toward the creation of Annan's contact group, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday floated the idea of an international meeting on the Syrian crisis that would bring together the prime candidates for Annan's proposed contact group, including Iran.

Clinton, however, reacted coolly to including Iran, which she said was "stage-managing" the Syrian government assault on the opposition that the United Nations says killed at least 10,000 people.

Before he addresses the Security Council, Annan will speak to the 193-nation General Assembly, along with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby.

Separately, envoys said it was unclear if the council would agree to extend the 90-day mandate of the unarmed U.N. observer mission in Syria, which is increasingly at risk of attack. Its mandate expires in late July.

(Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Michael Roddy and Todd Eastham)

____

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Posted for fair use......
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/06/us-syria-crisis-friends-idUSBRE8551FD20120606

Secretary of State Clinton sketches out path for Syria
ISTANBUL | Wed Jun 6, 2012 7:54pm EDT

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Western and Arab nations at a meeting in Istanbul on Wednesday that a transition strategy in Syria must include President Bashar al-Assad's full transfer of power, a senior U.S. State Department official said.

"Tonight the secretary laid out a set of essential elements and principles which we believe should guide that post-Assad transition strategy, including Assad's full transfer of power," the official told reporters after the meeting.

Clinton also told the meeting that transition in Syria must include a fully representative interim government that would lead to free and fair elections.

She was speaking at a high-level meeting on Syria attended by British Foreign Minister William Hague, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu as well as other foreign ministers and high-level envoys from 15 countries and the European Union.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the U.S. official suggested that Clinton was trying to lay down a set of minimum benchmarks for how a transition in Syria could unfold in the hopes Russia might back it despite its past support for Assad.

The official said Clinton had also decided to send Fred Hof, a senior State Department official who works on Syria, to Moscow on Thursday to hold follow-up conversations with Russia.

The official sidestepped a question on whether Russia was willing to increase pressure on Assad to go, saying one reason for sending Hof to Moscow is "to get a sense of how close we are."

The official all but acknowledged the failure of U.N. special envoy Kofi Annan's six-point peace plan.

"We have all been hoping, expecting, pressuring Assad to live up to his commitment to meet Kofi Annan's six points," the official said.

"In the absence of any significant movement by Assad on any of the tracks and in fact increased violence, it's time for the international community, working with the Syrian people, to start fleshing out the alternatives to Assad and how this is going to go," the official added.

France had also announced at the meeting it would hold a full "Friends of Syria" meeting in Paris on July 6, the U.S. official said.

In a written statement, host country Turkey said the members had agreed to convene a "coordination group" to provide support to the Syrian opposition. Each country had agreed to send a representative to Istanbul on June 15-16 to attend the coordination meeting of all the Syrian opposition groups.

(Reporting by Jonathon Burch, Tulay Karadeniz and Arshad Mohammed; editing by Michael Roddy and Todd Eastham)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/07/w...ard-in-bank-bailout-talks.html?pagewanted=all

Spain Holds a Trump Card in Bank Bailout Talks

By NICHOLAS KULISH and RAPHAEL MINDER
Published: June 6, 2012

BERLIN — The bargaining has begun over a deal to rescue Spain’s ailing banks, confronting Europe with urgent choices about whether to try to enforce onerous bailout terms on Madrid as the crisis spreads to the region’s largest economies.

The question has seemingly become one of when, and not if, Spain’s banks will receive assistance from European countries, with investors on Wednesday predicting an imminent rescue and pushing up stocks and bonds on both sides of the Atlantic.

Spain, the euro zone’s fourth-largest economy, is too big to fail and possibly too big to steamroll, changing the balance of power in negotiations over a bailout. Political leaders in Madrid are insisting that emergency aid to their banks avoid the stigma in capital markets that has hobbled countries like Greece, Portugal and Ireland after accepting tough rescue terms. They are also fighting to slow the pace of austerity and economic change that have pushed those smaller countries into deeper recessions.

Spain has the added advantage of seeking help in a changed political environment in which calls for growth have begun to outweigh German insistence on austerity. Unlike Greece, Spain’s government did not run large budget deficits before the crisis, giving it leverage to argue that European aid to its banks should not come weighed down with a politically delicate loss of decision-making power over its own economic and fiscal policies.

Madrid’s trump card in this latest game of euro-zone poker is that the consequences of a Spanish default and exit from the euro zone would probably be so catastrophic that policy makers in Berlin will be willing to bend their bailout rules for Spain, and are on the verge of doing just that.

German officials have said they are prepared to weather a Greek exit from the euro if necessary, but no such claims are made about Spain. As such, Spanish leaders, who feel Madrid has already made many painful changes and spending cuts, are holding out for a deal that requires only a tightening of oversight on the financial sector and no strings attached to the country’s budget powers.

Spain also appears to be forcing a reckoning about the expensive steps political leaders in Europe need to take if they want to hold the euro zone together. Hopes that the European Central Bank would ride to the rescue, as it did with two waves of generous loans to Europe’s banks in December and March, or at the very least cut interest rates, now at 1 percent, were dashed when the bank’s president, Mario Draghi, said Wednesday that he did not “think it would be right for monetary policy to fill other institutions’ lack of action.”

“Some of these problems in the euro area have nothing to do with monetary policy,” Mr. Draghi said at a news conference, his message to European leaders boiled down to: “Your problem, not mine.”

The wrangling over Spain underlines the way the European Union stumbles to solutions for each problem as it arises. Frustration has grown over the uncertainty afflicting the global economy as a result of Europe’s instability and the toll it takes on an already slowing growth rate.

“The strategy of plugging holes only works for so long,” said Friedrich Mostböck, chief economist and head of research for the Erste Group in Vienna. “Eventually, you come to the point where a common euro area requires a common fiscal policy.”

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy of Spain has made clear that he intends to draw a distinction between Spain, which has a lower level of debt as a percentage of gross domestic product even than Germany, and Greece, which has given up a great deal of its fiscal sovereignty to lenders in exchange for assistance.

For Spain, a bailout is more than a matter of pride and sovereignty. “The experience of Ireland, Portugal and Greece is that it diminished their access to commercial markets,” said John Chambers, managing director and chairman of the sovereign rating committee at Standard & Poor’s. “Spain doesn’t want to go that route.”

The Spanish economy minister, Luis de Guindos, made a surprise visit to Brussels on Wednesday to meet with the European commissioner in charge of competition, Joaquín Almunia, a fellow Spaniard, followed by a trip to Paris to meet with Pierre Moscovici, France’s finance minister. That fueled speculation that Madrid was laying the groundwork to formally request help sooner rather than later.

Because Spain has already made many painful changes and spending cuts, officials in Brussels and Berlin are much more open to a bailout that mostly imposes conditions and oversight on the financial sector in Spain.

Mr. Moscovici said Wednesday that Europe stood ready to help Spain. “If Spain desires, we in the euro zone can mobilize rapidly,” Mr. Moscovici said at a news conference in Paris. But Mr. de Guindos said there were currently no plans to seek a bailout.

Yet, as recently as Tuesday, Spain’s budget minister told Spanish radio that the financial markets were closed to Spain. The mixed signals coming from Spanish officials seemed to reflect an odd balancing act — trying to reap the advantages of sounding alarmed, but not so desperate that they signal a willingness to let European officials dictate harsh terms and conditions.

Mr. de Guindos has spent this week shuttling between European capitals to secure some sort of rescue package for Spain’s troubled banks. The list starts with Bankia, which was nationalized in early May and needs $24 billion of additional funds after restating its accounts, to a 2011 loss of almost $3.75 billion rather than the $388 million profit it had reported in February.

German officials have been privately pressing the Spaniards to take a bailout. On Tuesday, Volker Kauder, the head of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats in Parliament, said that Spain “has to seek a rescue.” But as long as Brussels and Berlin believe aid is necessary, Spain retains bargaining power — the chance that it self-destructs implicitly holds the rest of Europe hostage until they agree to terms.

One crucial issue is whether emergency lending would be made directly to Spanish banks. That is a line in the sand for German officials, who argue that under Europe’s hybrid structure, banks are the responsibility of their sovereign governments, not the European collective.

But making emergency loans to the Spanish government to rescue its own banks, as European lenders did for Ireland, presents other problems, because it would increase government debt and impair Spain’s ability to sell bonds.

The German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung reported Wednesday that officials here were examining a possible compromise under which rescue funds were paid directly to Spain’s Fund for Orderly Bank Restructuring, known as FROB.

Should Berlin agree to a rescue package with limited conditions, it would allow Mr. Rajoy to save face, after repeatedly pledging that Spain would not request a Greek-style bailout.

The ultimate solution will hinge on Germany and how much its leaders are willing to bend. Berlin has an incentive to get the Spanish problem under control before Greek parliamentary elections on June 17, to help contain contagion in the event of instability after the vote, said Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg Bank.

“I’m naïvely optimistic that it would be good to have the Spanish problem solved before the Greek election,” he said, “and my impression is the relevant policy makers think the same.”

Nicholas Kulish reported from Berlin, and Raphael Minder from Paris. Jack Ewing contributed reporting from Frankfurt, Paul Geitner from Brussels, and David Jolly from Paris.

 

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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/07/b...aves-rate-unchanged-at-1.html?_r=1&ref=europe

Central Bank Leaves Rate Alone, Putting Pressure on Europe’s Leaders
By JACK EWING
Published: June 6, 2012

FRANKFURT — The European Central Bank left its main interest rate unchanged Wednesday, choosing to put the onus on political leaders to address increasingly dangerous tension in the euro zone.

The central bank kept its benchmark rate at 1 percent, where it has been since December.

Noting the stress in Europe and signs of flagging economic growth, the central bank promised to continue providing banks with effectively unlimited low-interest loans at least through the end of the year.

While most analysts had not expected the central bank to cut rates at its monthly meeting on Wednesday, there was growing speculation that the governing council might cut below 1 percent for the first time in an attempt to restore confidence in the euro zone.

The bank and its president, Mario Draghi, appear to have decided to wait at least another month in order to discourage complacency by political leaders. Mr. Draghi and other top central bank officials have repeatedly stressed that they lack the tools and the mandate to address the underlying problems in the euro zone.

Mr. Draghi said the central bank had no “silver bullets” for what he acknowledged was a worrying situation.

“Some of these problems in the euro area have nothing to do with monetary policy,” Mr. Draghi said at a news conference after the monthly meeting of the bank’s governors. “I don’t think it would be right for monetary policy to fill other institutions’ lack of action.”

In a statement, Mr. Draghi noted “increased downside risks to the economic outlook” and said that, judging by futures prices for commodities, annual inflation rates should fall below 2 percent again in early 2013.

By keeping its firepower in reserve for now, the central bank put pressure on political leaders to weave the euro zone more closely together, for example by sharing the cost of bank bailouts and giving up more control over government spending.

The central bank may also be concerned that earlier measures intended to calm tensions in the banking system have had unwanted side effects. For example, Spanish banks used inexpensive central bank credit to buy Spanish government bonds. That helped lower the government’s borrowing costs but also made Spanish banks vulnerable to the fortunes of their hard-pressed government.

While few analysts expected the central bank to cut rates, many still expect a cut in coming months. Mr. Draghi said that a few of the 23 members of the bank’s governing council had argued for a rate cut and left open the option of a cut later on. “We will stand ready to act,” he said.

Many analysts said the effect of a cut would be mostly psychological because short-term interest rates are already close to zero.

In an attempt to reassure financial markets, the central bank pledged to continue providing banks with low-interest credit, but stopped well short of promising another blast of cheap, three-year loans like the ones it offered in December and March.

At the news conference, Mr. Draghi seemed to be groping to appear neither alarmist nor complacent. He said the current level of tension was not as bad as it was last fall, or at the end of 2008 after the collapse of the investment bank Lehman Brothers.

He said Europe should not take all the blame for slow economic growth in the United States or other parts of the world. But he also described the interbank lending market, which is crucial to the functioning of the financial system, as “dysfunctional,” and acknowledged anxiety among investors.

On Wednesday, the European Commission announced a plan for more coordinated oversight of large banks, in part to prevent problems at one institution from spreading. The plan would shift the cost of bailouts to the banking industry and bondholders, though the measures will not be in place in time to help Spain deal with Bankia.

Political leaders seem to be responding to Mr. Draghi’s call last month for a “bold leap” toward a more cohesive euro zone. But by keeping rates unchanged, the central bank appeared to be signaling that it would like to see concrete steps, not proclamations or statements of good intent.

“From the E.C.B. perspective, there is likely to be frustration at euro area governments’ seeming inability to deploy the collective mechanisms they developed,” analysts at Barclays said in a note to clients Wednesday. “The E.C.B.’s inaction so far seems to reflect an attempt to put greater pressure on governments to address fiscal and banking issues.”

David Jolly contributed reporting from Paris.

 

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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/07/world/middleeast/iran-threatens-delays-in-nuclear-talks.html

Iran Threatens Delays in Nuclear Talks
By RICK GLADSTONE and ARTIN AFKHAMI
Published: June 6, 2012

Iran raised the possibility on Wednesday of delaying or canceling the resumption of nuclear talks with the big powers, scheduled in less than two weeks, because of what it called dithering by the other side in holding preliminary meetings aimed at ensuring some success.

The warning, made by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the office of Saeed Jalili, Iran’s chief negotiator in the talks, came as its ambassador to the United Nations nuclear monitoring agency accused some of its inspectors of espionage.

Taken together, the messages suggest that Iran’s leaders have decided to reduce expectations that the negotiations, which resumed in April after a 15-month suspension, would produce an agreement on the country’s disputed nuclear program, or at least lead to an easing of the onerous sanctions imposed on Iran by the United States and the European Union. The sanctions are scheduled to turn more severe on July 1, when the European Union bans all imports of Iranian oil, the country’s most important export.

The warning of a possible delay in the next round of talks, to be held in Moscow on June 18 and 19, was conveyed by Mr. Jalili in a letter to his counterpart, Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s foreign policy chief and chief negotiator for the big powers: Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States.

Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency, which reported the letter, said that Mr. Jalili had expressed irritation over what he called “the E.U. failure to arrange experts’ meeting led by deputies of the negotiators to draft agenda of the talks.” The agency said this had “created an atmosphere of doubt and ambiguity for success of the Moscow talks.”

Other Iranian news agencies said that Mr. Jalili’s deputy, Ali Baqeri, had sent two letters to his counterpart in Ms. Ashton’s office, Helga Schmid, requesting such a meeting and had received no response. “The success of the Moscow meeting depends on making the necessary preparations and drawing up a comprehensive agenda,” the Mehr News Agency quoted Mr. Baqeri’s letter as saying.

Mr. Ahmadinejad, who was in Beijing for regional cooperation talks, also expressed irritation, saying Ms. Ashton’s office had failed to keep its promises. “We believe that the West is after concocting excuses and wasting time,” Mr. Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying by Iran’s Press TV Web site.

A spokeswoman for Ms. Ashton, Maja Kocijancic, said in an e-mailed response for comment that Ms. Ashton had replied to the letter from Mr. Jalili and that she saw no need for further preparatory meetings. “We are not against technical meetings in principle, but the time is not right,” Ms. Kocijancic said.

Western diplomats said they believed that the Iranian requests for such meetings were part of a deliberate effort to bog down the process. Ms. Ashton and fellow negotiators have said they have no patience for stalling tactics or “talks for the sake of talks.”

At the last meeting, on May 23 and 24 in Baghdad, the sides agreed to keep talking after having made no substantive progress in the underlying dispute: Iran’s enrichment of uranium in defiance of United Nations Security Council resolutions demanding a suspension.

Iran has contended that its growing stockpile of enriched uranium is for peaceful energy and medical uses. The United States, the European Union and Israel have accused Iran of secretly working on the capacity to build nuclear weapons.

The suspicions were reinforced last November in a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency of the United Nations, which cataloged questionable activities in Iran, including possible testing of explosives that could be used in nuclear weapons triggers. Agency inspectors have sought access to the site where they suspect the testing took place, but Iran has not allowed it. Further talks on this issue are planned on Friday at the agency’s Vienna headquarters.

The Iranians have demanded the evidence the agency cited as the basis for its suspicions. They have also complained about what they call the agency’s demand for overly intrusive inspections.

Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s ambassador to the agency, appeared to go further in his remarks on Wednesday to the agency’s board of governors. “The inspectors, which are supposed to verify fissionable nuclear materials and related nuclear facilities declared by member states according to the Safeguards Agreements, are forced by a couple of states to be involved in intelligence activities,” he said in remarks quoted by Iranian news agencies.

Iran’s nuclear efforts appeared to suffer a further setback this week with news that the country’s Bushehr nuclear power plant, built by Russia, would face indefinite delays in achieving full electricity production. The Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Valery Limarenko, the head of Atomstroyexport, the Russian company that helped build the plant, as saying that further experimental trials were necessary and that the date when it would become fully operational “has not been determined.”

The Bushehr plant has endured numerous delays since 1976, when Iran and a subsidiary of Siemens AG signed the original contract.

 

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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-afghan-bombing-20120607,0,1048674.story

Afghanistan bombers kill 22 at busy market
Suicide attackers stagger blasts for maximum effect. Elsewhere, Afghan authorities say a raid killed 18 civilians. NATO reports no civilian deaths.

By Laura King, Los Angeles Times

June 7, 2012

KABUL, Afghanistan — The dusty truck stop in southern Afghanistan, with its surrounding crush of humble, tumbledown shops outside an American-run military base, was every bit as chaotic and oh-just-give-me-your-business in attitude as always.

Logically enough, it was during the busy late morning Wednesday when the attackers chose to strike, with a coolly thought-out plan. A violent initial hit, and then a short wait until rescuers arrived. Pause just until the crush of panicked bystanders had rushed in to help the bloodiest and most helpless of the victims of the first thundering explosion.

And then a second, equally powerful, blast.

That was the scenario that unfolded when one suicide bomber, followed rapidly by a second, attacked a crowded highway rest stop and parking lot for Western-contracted supply trucks backed up outside the Kandahar airfield, NATO's biggest base in southern Afghanistan.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, which killed at least 22 people.

Many people, at that near-noon hour, had reason to be in the vicinity. The area is a bustling market zone on the main road leading south to the Pakistani border, toward the ragged frontier outpost of Spin Buldak.

Elsewhere, Afghan officials said 18 women and children were killed along with about a dozen insurgents in a raid headed by the NATO force outside Kabul, the capital, before dawn Wednesday.

The Western military confirmed the deaths of "multiple insurgents" in the joint Afghan-NATO operation in Lowgar province, but reported no civilian fatalities. It said two women were injured in what a military statement described as a "precision airstrike."

The differing casualty counts could not immediately be reconciled.

Civilian casualties remain an extremely sore point between the Afghan government and foreign forces, even though the United Nations reported a significant decline in injuries and deaths among noncombatants in the first four months of this year.

As a prelude to the withdrawal of most NATO combat troops in 2014, Afghan troops now take part in all "night raids" like the one in Lowgar. The Western military often describes such operations as Afghan-led, although officials acknowledge that key responsibilities such as intelligence-gathering, planning, logistics and air support fall to North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops.

The Lowgar police chief, Ghulam Sakhi Roghlewani, said the Lowgar raid targeted Taliban commanders meeting in the Baraki Barak district. The coalition force called in an airstrike after coming under fire, Western and Afghan officials said.

The strike destroyed a walled compound, and Afghan officials cited villagers as saying the bombardment killed 18 women and children who were inside. Police described an additional 12 or 13 dead as insurgents and their commanders.

laura.king@latimes.com

Special correspondents Aimal Yaqubi and Hashmat Baktash contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2012, Los Angeles Times

 

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http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...lear-drone-attacks-will-continue-in-pakistan/

Panetta makes it clear drone attacks will continue in Pakistan

Published June 06, 2012
Associated Press

NEW DELHI – Just two days after a drone strike killed Al Qaeda's second-in-command, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta made it clear Wednesday that such attacks will continue as long as the U.S. needs to defend itself against terrorists that threaten America.

Speaking in India -- on Pakistan's doorstep -- Panetta unapologetically dismissed suggestions that the strikes could violate Pakistan's sovereignty.

"This is about our sovereignty as well," he said when answering questions from the audience after a speech at an Indian think tank.

And he was blunt about the difficulties in the U.S. relationship with Pakistan, as insurgents continue to find safe haven there, despite repeated protests from American leaders.

"It's a complicated relationship, often times frustrating, often times difficult," Panetta said. "They have provided some cooperation. There are other times when frankly that cooperation is not there. But the United States cannot just walk away from that relationship. We have to continue to do what we can to try to improve (the) areas where we can find some mutual cooperation."

Panetta's message is likely to reverberate in Pakistan, particularly since it was delivered in India -- Pakistan's long-standing archrival.

But he also publically urged India to work toward a better relationship with Pakistan, its fellow nuclear-armed neighbor.

Both the U.S. and India must overcome deep differences with Pakistan to bolster peace and security in South Asia, he said in a speech to the Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses here.

"Pakistan is a complicated relationship, complicated for both of our countries but it is one that we must continue to work to improve," Panetta said. "India and the United States will need to continue to engage Pakistan, overcoming our respective -- and often deep -- differences with Pakistan to make all of South Asia peaceful and prosperous."

He said he welcomed steps that India and Pakistan have taken to normalize trade relations as key to resolving their differences and a way to help Pakistan counter extremism within its borders.

But Panetta's speech comes as U.S. tensions with Pakistan continue to fray, strained by the persistent CIA drone attacks that target insurgents inside Pakistan as well as a deadlock in negotiation over U.S. shipments of supplies across the Afghanistan border.

Adding to that potential discord, Panetta also urged Indian leaders in meetings Tuesday and Wednesday to consider providing additional support to Afghanistan, including trade, reconstruction and assistance for the Afghan security forces.

Any increase in India's support for Afghanistan is likely to worry Pakistan, fueling fears that Islamabad's influence on the Afghans' future could diminish.

The U.S. is hoping that India can play a more robust role in the war effort, particularly in the training of Afghan forces, as the number of American and NATO troops in Afghanistan continues to decline over the next year.

In the past, India has cautiously helped the Afghan army, partly to avoid offending Pakistan or being drawn into Afghan security affairs.

India assisted Kabul mostly with economic and development aid and has helped build up the Afghan security forces by training Afghan police officers.

Training for Afghan soldiers extended to individual army officers who attended a multination course at the National Defense College in Delhi. There was no organized training of Afghan national army soldiers at Indian defense schools, but Afghan army soldiers have been attending courses at Indian military academies over the past few years.

Wrapping up a week of travel across Asia, Panetta said military cooperation with India is the linchpin to America's defense plan to focus more on the region. And he said that the two nations must move beyond individual arms sales and increase both the quality and quantity of their defense trade.

"For this relationship to truly provide security for this region and for the world, we need to deepen our defense and security cooperation," he said.

Panetta made only a passing reference to Iran in his speech and did not mention ongoing U.S. concerns that India continues to import large amounts of oil from Iran.

Earlier in the day Panetta met with Indian Defense Minister A.K. Antony and discussed increased defense trade and plans to conduct military exercises together. America's defense ties with India have grown steadily since about 2000, including a substantial increase in arms sales that now total more than $8.5 billion over the last 11 years.

 

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http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-n...7-Jun-2012/pakistan-china-ink-four-agreements

Pakistan, China ink four agreements
By: Agencies | June 07, 2012 |

BEIJING - Pakistan and China Wednesday signed three MoUs –Tarbela-Islamabad water supply, establishment of Special Economic Zone in Zulfikarabad in Sindh and building of 6,000 flats in I-15 sector – and an agreement for de-silting of canals and barrages in Sindh.

President Asif Ali Zardari and members of his entourage witnessed the signing ceremony, presidential spokesperson Farhatullah Babar said.

The President also held separate meetings with the four leading Chinese business executives, inviting them to take advantage of the investment-friendly policies of the government. Babar said the President assured them of his government’s all-out support and safety of the Chinese personnel.

The first meeting was held with the Chairman of Orient Group/United Energy Group, Zhang Hongwei, which was followed by meeting with Ren Hongbin, Chairman of China National Machinery Industry Corp (SINOMACH), the largest machinery manufacturer in China.

During meeting with Cao Guangjing of Three Gorges Project Corporation, the third meeting in the series, Zardari remarked that the project was a living testament to the genius and vision of the Chinese people and their leadership. The President said the Pakistani government, in view of future scarcity of water, intends to invest in the water sector for conservation of the water resources.

The fourth meeting was held with Shi Li Rong, President of ZTE. During the meeting, the President appreciated ZTE’s role in the development of Pakistan’s telecommunication sector.

Chen Qiufa, Administrator State Administration for Science, Technology and Industry (SASTIND) and Chairman China Shipbuilding and Offshore International Company (CSOC) also called on President Zardari. Matters relating to promoting mutual cooperation in the respective areas were discussed during the meeting.

In his meeting with Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai, President Zardari said containers carrying syllabus books for Afghan kids were being allowed to move into Afghanistan. “Keeping in view the importance of education for children, containers carrying books for Afghan children are being released,” presidential spokesperson said quoting Zardari.

He reaffirmed Pakistan’s resolve to support Afghanistan in its endeavours for peace, stability and socio-economic development.

Zardari underlined the importance of close interaction between the two countries at leadership level to deal with common challenges.

He said Pakistan had been participating in the Istanbul Process meetings and would attend the Kabul Ministerial Conference on June 14.

Separately, President Zardari met his Tajikistan counterpart on the sidelines of SCO summit in Beijing. The two leaders agreed to work together to strengthen regional connectivity through road, air and rail links for promoting mutual trade and economic activities in the region.

Babar said the President called for developing implementation mechanisms for effective follow up on agreed decisions.

The President pointed out that the existing formal trade between the two countries amounting to a mere $15m in 2011 was much below their potential and emphasised liberalisation of trade through appropriate mechanisms and in this context proposed facilitating visas to the business community.

Zardari also expressed the hope that opening of branch of National Bank of Pakistan in Dushanbe would play an important role in enhancing trade between the two countries.

He said that Pakistani ports offered great opportunities to Tajikistan and Central Asia by providing easy access to the sea and called for the signing of a trilateral transit agreement between Pakistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan.

President Zardari said that lack of air, road and rail connectivity was a major impediment in promotion of bilateral economic relations, people to people contacts and tourism between the two countries. The President also said that Pakistan was committed to early implementation of CASA-1000 project expressing the hope that the project would receive international support.

The President also offered training facilities in the country’s defence institutions to personnel of Tajik armed forces.

 

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http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/06/06/unleash-drones-against-our-enemies/

Unleash Drones Against Our Enemies
Max Boot | @MaxBoot 06.06.2012 - 9:51 AM

Congratulations are due to the CIA, which carried out the strike, and to President Obama, who ordered it (and approved the target personally, as the New York Times has revealed) for the elimination of a major enemy of the United States–Abu Yahya al-Libi, al-Qaeda’s No. 2 commander. Like many of al-Qaeda’s operatives, Libi was killed by a drone strike in Pakistan. He was the effective, day-to-day field commander of al-Qaeda, and his death will no doubt cause serious disruption to whatever operations al-Qaeda Central is involved in. The importance of his elimination is somewhat decreased, however, by the fact that so many of the terrorist organization’s operations have migrated outside of Pakistan, to regional affiliates from Mali to Yemen; Libi’s death probably will not have much impact on their operations.

This highlights the declining utility of targeting al-Qaeda Central: the organization has already been severely hurt by the continuous elimination of its top cadres. Such operations must be maintained to keep the pressure on, but they can no longer be the exclusive focus of counter-terrorism operations. It is good to see the drone campaign being ramped up in Yemen, but there are limits to what strikes from the air can achieve. There is a desperate need to expand lawful authority in such ungoverned areas to keep groups such as al-Qaeda from regenerating themselves. If the U.S. government has a plan to accomplish that in Pakistan, Yemen or other countries, from Mali to Libya, I have not heard of it.

Admittedly, it would not be easy to design or implement such a strategy. Much easier, however, would be to expand the drone strikes to a group that has been curiously exempt from such attacks: namely the Taliban. There have been a few drone strikes on the Haqqani Network in and around Waziristan, Pakistan, but none, so far as I am aware, on the Taliban leadership headquartered in Quetta, Pakistan–nor on the operational Taliban hub at Chaman, Pakistan, just across the border from southern Afghanistan. These groups are actively killing Americans all the time–more than al-Qaeda Central can boast of these days. Yet we have not unleashed the CIA and Special Operations Forces to do to them what they have done to al-Qaeda. Why not? Largely because of the sensitivities of the Pakistani government which is an active sponsor of the Taliban and the Haqqanis.

But so what? The Pakistanis have declining leverage over us; they have kept their supply line to Afghanistan closed since last fall and it has not seriously disrupted NATO operations. The administration needs to figure out whether it’s serious about leaving a more stable Afghanistan behind when the bulk of U.S. troops are withdrawn. If it is, it will unleash the Reapers against the Taliban and Haqqanis–not just against al-Qaeda.

____

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http://www.realclearworld.com/blog/2012/06/going_to_war_with_pakistan_won.html

June 06, 2012
Going to War with Pakistan Won't Stabilize Afghanistan

Posted by Greg Scoblete at 9:13 AM

dronesaway.jpg

Max Boot wants to send drones after the Taliban inside Pakistan:

There have been a few drone strikes on the Haqqani Network in and around Waziristan, Pakistan, but none, so far as I am aware, on the Taliban leadership headquartered in Quetta, Pakistan–nor on the operational Taliban hub at Chaman, Pakistan, just across the border from southern Afghanistan. These groups are actively killing Americans all the time–more than al-Qaeda Central can boast of these days. Yet we have not unleashed the CIA and Special Operations Forces to do to them what they have done to al-Qaeda. Why not? Largely because of the sensitivities of the Pakistani government which is an active sponsor of the Taliban and the Haqqanis.

But so what? The Pakistanis have declining leverage over us; they have kept their supply line to Afghanistan closed since last fall and it has not seriously disrupted NATO operations. The administration needs to figure out whether it’s serious about leaving a more stable Afghanistan behind when the bulk of U.S. troops are withdrawn. If it is, it will unleash the Reapers against the Taliban and Haqqanis–not just against al-Qaeda.

It's just as likely that U.S. efforts to expand the number of drone war targets would lead Pakistan to destabilize Afghanistan even more than it has already done. Drones can't defeat the Taliban insurgency. What they can do, at best, is pare back the leadership. But if that comes at the expense of enraging Pakistan, the gains would be quickly undermined. As Anatol Lieven has noted, Pakistan has indeed supported the Afghan Taliban but it has not equipped them with very powerful weaponry nor directed them to wage the kind of proxy war they could fight if the Pakistani military decided it wanted to (aka what happened to the Soviets during their Afghan occupation).

The end result of this strategy would be to turn Afghanistan into a proxy-war battlefield between the CIA and ISI at a time when the CIA should be focused on keeping whatever's left of al-Qaeda from rearing its head. Utopian schemes of an Afghanistan free of Taliban or Pakistani influence shouldn't get in the way (again) of a more limited and achievable goal.

A wider drone campaign against sensitive Pakistani targets also enhances the risks of destabilizing Pakistan, which would be an absolute disaster for U.S. interests for reasons that should be clear to everyone.

 

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http://business.time.com/2012/06/05...-the-creaking-grows-louder/?iid=biz-main-lede

China’s Antiquated Financial System: The Creaking Grows Louder
By Knowledge@Wharton | June 5, 2012

In April, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao took aim at China’s powerful state-owned banks. According to Reuters, he said at a discussion with local businesses: “Frankly, our banks make profits far too easily. Why? Because a small number of major banks occupy a monopoly position, meaning one can only go to them for loans and capital. That’s why right now, as we’re dealing with the issue of getting private capital into the finance sector, essentially, that means we have to break up their monopoly.”

Wen’s attack on China’s big banks, followed two weeks later by the Chinese central bank’s move to widen the renminbi-to-dollar trading range from 0.5% to 1%, raises the question of whether China is about to accelerate bank and financial system reforms. Against the backdrop of the spectacular fall of Chongqing Communist Party boss Bo Xilai, who upheld the heavy hand of the state-owned enterprises in the economy, and the dramatic escape of political prisoner Chen Guangcheng, are liberal reformers now gaining momentum as China undergoes its next leadership transition this fall?

Experts say further financial liberalization is in the cards, as both domestic and external pressures mount. “The fall of Bo Xilai pushes up reform forces in the Chinese party, government and society, and that’s a good sign,” says Hoest Loechel, professor at Frankfurt School of Finance and Management in Germany and a visiting professor at the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) in Shanghai. Pieter Bottelier, senior adjunct professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and former World Bank chief of resident mission in Beijing, predicts: “Liberalization of bank interest rates could come very soon, by the end of the year, linked to further internationalization of the renminbi (RMB).” He notes that the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) says the time is right for China to open its capital account in phases, starting over the next three years, transitioning to full financial liberalization in five to 10 years.

(MORE: China’s Yesterday’s News. Who are the Next High-growth Superstars?)

To date, the state-dominated financial sector has funded the extraordinary growth in China’s real economy, averaging 10% a year over the last 30 years. “The striking thing about China’s reform model is that they have used the financial sector as a tool to achieve reform in the real economy,” says Bottelier. But, says Gary Liu, deputy director of the China Europe International Business School’s Lujiazui International Finance Research Center in Shanghai, this system can also end up holding back the domestic economy.”Soon, this lag in financial sector reform will drag down growth in the real economy,” especially as China aspires to transition from a low-wage, investment-led, manufactured export-based economy to a higher-margin, consumption-led, knowledge-based economy. “If you want innovation, one precondition is an efficient financial system,” Liu notes. “That’s why the U.S. is so strong in innovation, because U.S. companies, at whatever stage of growth, can borrow money — from private equity, banks or the stock market. In China, many small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have to bribe government officials to get loans.”

Though China’s top banks have acquired private shareholders via initial public offerings over the last decade, the government still controls bank deposit and lending rates, and maintains ownership stakes and considerable control of banks. The Big Five — the Bank of China, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, China Construction Bank, Bank of Communications and Agricultural Bank of China — together dominate the sector with a 50% market share of total assets, according to Loechel. Under China’s controlled deposit and loan rates, banks receive a guaranteed spread of about three percentage points. In turn, the banks lend at favorable terms to state-owned enterprises, often for large infrastructure investments. About 90% of Chinese companies’ financing comes from bank loans, according to the World Bank.

Internal and External Pressures

Meanwhile, ordinary household savers are on the short end of the stick. Factoring in inflation, they earn negative interest rates of about 2% from their deposits. With China’s bank deposits totaling 80 billion RMB last year, that negative return amounts to $1.6 trillion RMB, notes Liu. CK. Raising interest rates on household savings deposits would boost domestic consumption, drive growth and help alleviate social inequality.

Household-funded nation building can work as long as the economy is growing. But it can foment discontent when the economy starts slowing, say experts. “This kind of financial system can generate tremendously high levels of economic activity because it forces the household sector to subsidize borrowing costs very heavily,” says Michael Pettis, a professor at Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management, specializing in the Chinese financial system. “As long as growth rates are high and the investment is not being wasted, this system is sustainable and wealth generating, but … once we shift into a phase where investment is being misallocated, the system tends to generate unsustainable levels of debt.” Adds Wharton finance professor Franklin Allen: “The economy can keep growing at 7% to 8% per year by building infrastructure in Tier II and II cities, but China probably wants to start some reforms to make sure the economy doesn’t fall any further when that infrastructure development is completed.”

Meanwhile, external pressures are building, too. The biggest driver is China’s desire to internationalize its currency, says Allen. China must lessen its dependence on the U.S. dollar and euro, viewing both as becoming less reliable as a store of value for China’s massive foreign reserves. To internationalize the RMB, “China needs to open up the capital account, and let money in and out more easily,” Allen says.

(MORE: Are China’s Big State Companies a Big Problem for the Global Economy?)

To maintain a stable RMB-to-dollar exchange range so far, China has had to ensure that Chinese and U.S. interest rates do not diverge widely, to prevent higher Chinese interest rates from driving up the RMB’s value. Since that makes China unable to use interest rates as a monetary policy tool, the PBOC has relied primarily on administrative controls, such as bank reserve requirements and loan growth rate targets, to control inflation. Allowing greater exchange rate flexibility will open the way for more market-based interest rates in the domestic financial system — both for inflation control by the PBOC and for more efficient, market-driven capital allocation by the banks. “If China continues to be the world’s largest exporter and second-largest importer, and holds aspirations for RMB to be at least one of world’s reserve currencies, they have to make these changes to the financial system over the next five to 10 years,” says Wendy Dobson, a professor at the University of Toronto’s Joseph L. Rotman School of Management.

Yet, some experts say true liberalization cannot occur until banks stop performing the government’s fiscal functions. Yukon Huang, a former World Bank economist and now senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C., notes that government expenditure in Europe is 45% of GDP; in the U.S., 30% to 35%; and in China, only 28%. “How can a socialist economy have such a low share of government spending?” asks Huang. “Government spending is done through the banks.” While there is nothing wrong with government spending through the banks or the budget, “as long as the money is well spent,” he says, in the long run, “the broader question is how to reform the budget system. Are the country’s institutions strong enough” to be able raise and collect taxes, rather than relying on household bank deposits?

But, as Wharton management professor Marshall W. Meyer notes: “China rarely institutes sweeping reforms in one stroke. Maybe now is the time to experiment seriously in banking.” For now, to continue the path of financial liberalization, analysts are recommending that China take the following major steps:

(MORE: Why China Will Have an Economic Crisis)

Liberalize interest rates. A flexible exchange rate will bring pressures to liberalize bank interest rates. Wharton’s Allen anticipates China’s first step in bank reform is to lift controlson deposit and loan rates. That move could shrink the spread between the two from three to one percentage point, “challenging the business model of the big banks,” says Loechel. Today, about 80% of Chinese bank revenues come from lending, compared to an international average of 50%, he says. But Chinese banks can still thrive if they follow the example of the Bank of China, which already makes 30% of its revenues from asset management. If banks double their current commission business, even while their interest spreads decline and labor costs rise, the big Chinese banks will still have a greater return on assets than their Western counterparts, he says.

Promote private-sector lending. To address the pressing need to financeprivate SMEs, China should allow private investors to invest in the banking system, says Liu. The handful of privately owned Chinese banks, including China Minsheng Bank, Ping An Bank and Zhejiang Tailong Commercial Bank, are doing well, he notes. In March, Chinese officials named Wenzhou in Zhejiang province a “special financial zone,” to encourage the growth of private lending institutions. Separately, the Supreme Court overturned its earlier death penalty ruling for Wu Ying, a Zhejiang-based entrepreneur accused of illegally raising money from private investors, signaling government openness to private-sector financing.

Create other capital markets. To give banks more competition, companies an alternative source of funding and households potentially higher-yielding investment vehicles, China should set up a corporate bond market, says Dobson. In March, China Securities Regulatory Commission chief, Guo Shuqing, said China could open up a junk bond market soon to help finance private SMEs. If so, China needs to strengthen the rule of law, says Dobson. “Financial markets are transparent and run on trust and confidence, based on rules and laws that are enforced,” she notes.

Strengthen bank supervision and deposit insurance. As China liberalizes its banking system, it must concurrently build bank supervisory capabilities, notes a former Morgan Stanley banker who has worked in Greater China for two decades. Widening the RMB trading band and liberalizing bank interest rates can take place relatively quickly, butdeveloping strong supervision could take at least 10 years, including the training of competent personnel, he notes. Likewise, creating a deposit insurance system will help safeguard against potential banking crises.

As China faces its next leadership transition, these reforms are an economic imperative that even conservatives in power cannot overlook, say experts. “If China cannot reform its banks and financial sector, it will have a deep negative impact on economic development and for social stability,” says Loechel. But the magic elixir of these reforms may be the true test of leadership. Says Dobson: “The really hard part is you need the rule of law for a modern financial system, based on trust and transparency, to function. Whether it’s Bo Xilai or Chen Guangcheng, many roads can lead to political reform. That’s the great opportunity now and the great unknown.”

(MORE: Why China Should Slow Down – But Probably Won’t)

Republished with permission from Knowledge@Wharton, the online research and business analysis journal of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Read other related stories about this:

China looks to boost private-sector investment in banks BBC
Five Reasons China's Banks Are Not Taking Over The U.S. Banking System Forbes

 

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Tall Tales About China’s Banks Hide Economy’s Problems
By Yukon Huang Jun 5, 2012 4:00 PM PT
6 Comments

As China’s growth slows, its banking system is coming under greater scrutiny. The general perception outside the country is that negative real interest rates are causing financial instability, repressing consumption and encouraging excessive investment in capital-intensive industries.

Amplifying this perception was Premier Wen Jiabao’s much- publicized recent statement that the big four state commercial banks -- Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd., China Construction Bank Corp., Agricultural Bank of China Ltd. and Bank of China Ltd. -- have a monopoly position and earn excessive profits while neglecting small private companies and catering to the interests of large state enterprises.

Although this storyline has a degree of validity, some aspects of it are more myth than reality. Those myths risk diverting attention from the real nature of the banking system’s problems.

MYTH: Negative real interest rates are a problem specific to China.

REALITY: These days, negative real interest rates are a global norm. Real interest rates for savers are more negative in the U.S. (-2 percent) than they are in China (-0.5 percent) given recent inflation and benchmark one-year deposit rates.

What makes China’s form of financial repression unique is not negative real interest rates per se but the restricted investment choices -- reinforced by capital controls -- for household savings. The authorities strictly limit how much cash individuals can take out, review the purpose and origins of bank transfers and regulate investment options. As a result, government can more easily capture household savings for its own spending.

MYTH: Negative real interest rates explain low consumption in China.

REALITY: Such rates are a relatively minor factor in explaining the 15 percentage point decline in the share of consumption to GDP in China over the past two decades. Most of this decline is due to the industrialization process as workers move from agriculture to industry. In the process, household income typically declines relative to GDP, causing the share of consumption to fall.

The same phenomenon occurred in other rapidly industrializing economies including Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and even the U.S. a century ago. In these countries, consumption as a share of GDP fell by 20 to 40 percentage points over several decades.

Household consumption in China has notably grown by more than 8 percent annually over the past two decades. This is higher than any other major economy. The goal is to maximize sustainable growth in consumption over time and not its share of gross domestic product. The concern that consumption has been repressed is thus misplaced.

MYTH: China’s big four state commercial banks enjoy a monopoly position and earn excessive profits.

REALITY: The four banks now command about 45 percent of banking assets, but this compares with 75 percent two decades ago. And while reporting high profits, these banks will inevitably be forced to take major write-offs by the defaults from the 2008 stimulus program.

So the big four neither enjoy more of a monopoly position nor earn excessive profits. The real problem is the limited presence of other financial intermediaries and the rudimentary nature of bond and equity markets, both of which poorly serve the needs of small private companies and local governments.

MYTH: China’s low interest rates encourage excessive investment in capital-intensive industries.

REALITY: Given China’s unusually high savings rate of about 50 percent of GDP, interest rates might actually fall in a fully liberalized financial system. Regardless, the government’s intentions, and not low interest rates, drive the investment pattern in China.

In an economy of China’s size and diversity, the industrial structure would normally span the full range of light to heavy industries. The buildup in heavy industries has been triggered not by low interest rates but by an overly ambitious effort to rapidly rebuild its depleted capital stock in the post-Mao period.

Despite high investment rates, China’s capital stock in relation to the size of its economy has been below average for middle-income East Asian countries. Together with the strategic push for rapid urbanization, this has driven growth in steel, cement and heavy construction machinery.

MYTH: Reforms will allow the banking sector to play a more prominent role in the economy.

REALITY: Bank deposits as a share of GDP are abnormally large in China because the government has been using credit expansion to drive demand and households have limited investment options. In a reformed world, the banking footprint will shrink and other financial services will increase to serve more diversified interests.

MYTH: Reforming the banking system means improving its governance and regulatory framework.

REALITY: This thinking misses the point. Weaknesses in the banking system -- as serious as they may be -- are less important than the inadequacies of the fiscal system in serving the needs of a state-driven economy. Government expenditures account for only 27 percent of GDP in China compared with about 35 percent in other middle-income economies and more than 40 percent in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries.

When reforms began decades ago, government revenue and the profits of state enterprises had collapsed and the only feasible option to secure resources for investment was to tap household savings deposits. With an increasingly sophisticated economy, China’s leadership needs to move away from having banks as the main instrument for funding public expenditures.

Thus the key to reforming the financial sector begins by getting the fiscal system to take on the responsibilities it should normally have. This would encourage more accountable and transparent practices, and reduce the likelihood of waste and corruption.

(Yukon Huang is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment and a former World Bank country director for China. The opinions expressed are his own.)

Read more opinion online from Bloomberg View. Subscribe to receive a daily e-mail highlighting new View columns, editorials and op-ed articles.

Today’s highlights: the View editors on Brazil’s economy; Susan Crawford on Barry Diller’s new venture; Clive Crook on the Fed’s global leadership; Peter Orszag on the Congressional Budget Office’s long-term outlook; Gary Shilling on Japan’s deficits; Tim Judah on Syria and Iraq.

To contact the writer of this article: Yukon Huang at yhuang@ceip.org.

To contact the editor responsible for this article: James Gibney at jgibney5@bloomberg.net.

 

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Iran Casts Nuclear Inspectors as Spies in Envoy’s Defiant Speech
By Jonathan Tirone - Jun 6, 2012 4:22 PM PT
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Iran pulled back from an announced deal to permit expanded international nuclear inspections and signaled it will take a hard line in the next round of negotiations over curtailing its nuclear activities.

Iran “will not permit our national security to be jeopardized” by International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors working for Western intelligence agencies, the nation’s IAEA envoy, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, said yesterday. “Iran will never suspend its enrichment activities.”

Soltanieh contradicted IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano’s May 22 announcement after returning from talks in Tehran that a decision had been made to allow inspectors increased access. Iran’s top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili had only pledged his country’s “determination” to reach an accord, Soltanieh said at a press briefing in Vienna.

IAEA officials are scheduled to meet their Iranian counterparts on June 8 to attempt to conclude the deal for wider access to sites of suspected atomic weapons work, including the Parchin military complex. The outlook for those talks -- and for broader international negotiations scheduled for June 18-19 in Moscow -- was clouded by Soltanieh’s vow that Iran won’t suspend uranium enrichment, a key demand by the U.S. and Israel to avert threatened military strikes.

“Two weeks before the meeting in Moscow, Ambassador Soltanieh is showing Iran will be defiant,” Mark Hibbs, a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace nuclear analyst, said in an interview in Vienna. “That’s not a good development.”

‘U.S. Hostility’

In Beijing, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao that Iran has engaged in talks, “but recent behavior of western side of the nuclear negotiations has not been encouraging,” according to the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency. “Western propaganda against Iran’s nuclear activities or China internal affairs has its roots in U.S. hostility toward the two countries.”

Soltanieh’s comments in Vienna came as the IAEA’s 35-member board of governors concluded its quarterly review of the country’s nuclear work. Iran, the No. 2 producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, says its nuclear program is peaceful.

Israeli Ambassador Ehud Azoulay accused Iran of a strategy of “deception, defiance and concealment” to move toward developing nuclear weapons, the Associated Press reported.

IAEA inspectors use intelligence received from member states to press Iran for answers on its program. The agency reported in November that it had “credible” intelligence pointing to Iranian work on a nuclear trigger at the Parchin complex. The country has subsequently cleaned-up the site, Amano said on June 4 at a press conference.

Violating Authority

Soltanieh accused the IAEA of violating its authority by seeking information on military and missile work as well as making public preliminary details of the country’s enrichment activities. Iran has been subject to more than 4,000 man-days of IAEA inspections, including about 100 surprise visits, since 2003, he said.

“The agency, which is supposed to be an international technical organization, is somehow playing the role of an intelligence agency,” he said.

While “optimistic” that a deal can still be struck with IAEA inspectors, Soltanieh didn’t support Amano’s assertion that a bargain was imminent. The UN atomic agency’s director reiterated at the June 4 press conference that Iran’s top negotiator gave assurances that the remaining differences between the country and inspectors could be bridged “quite soon.”

Expanded Inspections

The U.S. ambassador to the 154-nation organization, Robert Wood, said June 5 that he isn’t optimistic that Iran will agree to expanded inspections.

“We have all seen this movie many times before with Iran,” he said. “I certainly hope that an agreement is reached but I’m not certain Iran is ready.”

Amano’s comments, after his Tehran talks, were received by regional experts and the oil markets as a sign of easing tensions ahead of the second round of negotiations over Iran’s uranium enrichment and other nuclear activities.

Diplomats from China, France, Germany, Russia, the U.K. and the U.S. are scheduled to hold a third round of talks with their Iranian counterparts in Moscow on June 18-19.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said yesterday that the first two rounds, in Istanbul and Baghdad, had advanced the negotiating process. The Moscow talks can’t be expected to yield a final agreement and should aim to pave the way for more discussions, he said.

Limited Time

Lavrov said that imposing new sanctions on Iran will upset efforts to strike an agreement over its disputed nuclear program. Iran is facing growing pressure from economic sanctions as well as from statements by Israeli leaders that their patience for diplomacy is limited as Iran continues to expand its stockpile of enriched uranium that could be converted to bomb fuel.

The U.S. and European Union have slapped financial sanctions on Iran and are pressuring nations to buy less of its oil. The EU is set to impose an embargo on Iranian oil on July 1, the kind of move that Lavrov called counterproductive.

“It’s in no one’s interests to go from a negotiating process to the forceful application of sanctions,” Lavrov told reporters in Beijing yesterday. “We view new sanctions as absolutely counterproductive. These sanctions will undermine our collective efforts.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Jonathan Tirone in Vienna at jtirone@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: James Hertling at jhertling@bloomberg.net; John Walcott at jwalcott9@bloomberg.net

 

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EU Fighting Total Lack of Trust in Aid Models, Fitch Says
By Adam Ewing and Rebecca Christie - Jun 6, 2012 3:01 PM PT

European policy makers are fighting a “complete lack of confidence” in their ability to resolve the crisis after failing to persuade investors they’re united in their choice of tools to handle the turmoil, Fitch Ratings President Paul Taylor said.

“The key issue in European markets is very much about confidence,” Taylor said in an interview in Copenhagen yesterday. “There is a complete lack of confidence in the system, in the use of tools that could be available and even in the ones that have been announced. The problem through this crisis is that there has been the lack of a central view point.”

Officials inside the currency union remain divided on how to support Spain as its undercapitalized banks threaten to destabilize the euro area’s fourth-largest economy. The European Commission last month lent support to Spanish calls for direct aid from the European Stability Mechanism, while Germany remains opposed to such a model. It’s the latest example underscoring divisions in the 17-member currency bloc that have plagued decision making and prolonged the crisis.

“There is clearly pressure on countries within the eurozone that require some form of response,” according to Taylor, who spoke while attending a meeting of the Institute of International Finance in the Danish capital. “I sympathize, somewhat, with the position that you aren’t going to put short- term market fixes in place while the medium-term structural challenges haven’t been fixed.”

‘The System’

Spanish borrowing costs approached 7 percent last week, the level that prompted Greece, Ireland and Portugal to seek bailouts. Spain is struggling to avoid an international loan that would add to its debt burden and wants any aid to go directly to its financial industry. Germany, which is backed by AAA rated Finland in its stance, argues any aid must come with austerity strings attached.

“It needs to be the system, Europe as a whole coming together, probably using the European institutions to form a solution,” Taylor said. “It can’t be individual countries. It needs to be through the European institutions.”

European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said yesterday policy makers discussed cutting interest rates to a record low as they respond to a worsening debt crisis. The ECB, which left its main rate at 1 percent, has been under pressure to help ease the turmoil after political efforts fell short.

While the ECB yesterday extended into next year its policy of lending banks as much money as they want for periods of up to three months, Draghi indicated another round of three-year loans is not imminent, keeping up pressure on governments to improve their response to the crisis.

“I don’t think it would be right for the ECB to fill other institutions’ lack of action,” Draghi said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Adam Ewing in Stockholm at aewing5@bloomberg.net; Rebecca Christie in Brussels at rchristie4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Frank Connelly at fconnelly@bloomberg.net; James Hertling at jhertling@bloomberg.net

 

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Diplomats say Annan will ask key nations to come up with new strategy to end Syria conflict
By Associated Press, Wednesday, June 6, 10:18 PM

UNITED NATIONS — Against the backdrop of a new massacre in Syria, international envoy Kofi Annan on Thursday will propose tasking a group of world powers and key regional players including Iran to come up with a strategy to end the 15-month conflict, U.N. diplomats said.

Annan will present the United Nations with a plan for creating a “contact group” whose final proposal must be acceptable to Syria’s allies Russia and China, which have blocked all U.N. action, as well as the U.S. and its European allies, who insist that President Bashar Assad must go, they said.

There has also been talk about a meeting of key world leaders on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Mexico later this month to discuss the growing crisis in Syria and possible next steps, the diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity because consultations have been private.

“It’s time for all of us to turn our attention to an orderly transition of power in Syria that would pave the way for democratic, tolerant, pluralistic future,” U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters Wednesday before leaving Azerbaijan for Turkey.

The violence in Syria has grown increasingly chaotic in recent months, and it is difficult to assign blame for much of the bloodshed. The government restricts journalists from moving freely, making it nearly impossible to independently verify accounts from either side. The opposition blames government forces and militias that support them known as shabihas while the government blames rebels and “armed terrorist groups.”

At the U.N., diplomats are increasingly concerned that the country is spiraling toward civil war.

Annan, the joint U.N.-Arab League envoy, will give his latest assessment of the Syrian conflict at an open meeting of the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday morning along with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby, and a representative of U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay. Annan will then brief the U.N. Security Council behind closed doors Thursday afternoon and have dinner with ambassadors from the council’s five permanent nations — the U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France, a council diplomat said.

Reports by Syrian activists of a surge of bloodshed in the central Hama province late Wednesday, with at least 23 people killed — and possibly many more — are bound to reinforce the growing belief that Annan’s six-point peace plan is unraveling.

The violence comes on the heels of a horrific massacre on May 25 and 26 in Houla, a cluster of villages in the central Homs province, which left over 100 dead including many women and children gunned down in their homes. U.N. investigators blamed pro-government gunmen for at least some of the killings but the Syrian regime denied responsibility and blamed rebels for the attacks.

U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice warned last week that the worst but most probable scenario in Syria is a failure of Annan’s peace plan and a spreading conflict that creates “a major crisis” not only in Syria but also region-wide. To avoid this, Rice urged Syria to implement the plan and if it doesn’t she said the Security Council should set aside its differences and increase the pressure on Syria with sanctions.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner followed up Wednesday, warning Syria that U.N. sanctions may be near and calling for the world to exert “maximum financial pressure” on Assad’s government.

Russia and China, however, who have vetoed two resolutions threatening possible sanctions, issued a joint statement after a summit in Beijing reiterating their opposition to any outside military interference or forceful imposition of “regime change” in Syria. The statement also indicated opposition to U.N. sanctions.

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters in Beijing on Wednesday that Moscow is proposing an international conference on Syria to try to persuade all Syrian opposition groups to respect Annan’s plan, end all violence and sit down for talks.

“Russia considers it essential to fulfill Kofi Annan’s peace plan along with the U.N. Security Council resolution that approved this plan,” Lavrov said in remarks posted on the Russian Foreign Ministry’s website.

“We believe that it’s necessary to convene a meeting of the countries which have a real influence with various opposition groups” including the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, Turkey, Iran, the Arab League, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the European Union, he said.

While Lavrov focused on getting the divided opposition to implement the Annan plan, Clinton in recent days has been trying to open the door to a compromise with Russia, calling Assad’s ouster a necessary outcome of any political transition but not necessarily a “precondition.” The nuance suggests the U.S. is willing to allow Assad to hang on in power for part of a structured regime change.

Key nations have also been working on trying “to bind Russia into some sort of transition strategy on Syria,” a U.N. diplomat said, pointing to Clinton’s contacts with Lavrov, British Foreign Secretary William Hague’s visit to Moscow and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visits to Germany and France.

U.N. diplomats said the key to the success of any Annan initiative is whether it can get all parties behind a transition strategy, and that still remains a distant goal.

___

Associated Press Writer Bradley Klapper contributed to this report from Azerbaijan

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

 

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Bloomberg News
Panetta Visits Afghanistan as Attacks on Coalition Rise
By Gopal Ratnam on June 07, 2012

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta arrived in Kabul to assess troop pullout plans in Afghanistan even as attacks on coalition forces by the Taliban and the Pakistan-based Haqqani network are escalating.

“There clearly has been an increase in the attacks,” Panetta told reporters accompanying him at the end of a week- long Asia trip. “We’ve seen a recent attack that was much more organized than what we have seen before, using a vehicle IED combined with suicide bombers,” he said, referring to improvised explosive devices.

The Pentagon had anticipated that attacks would increase over the next few months as it prepares to withdraw the additional troops President Barack Obama sent to Afghanistan in 2010 as part of his administration’s surge strategy, Panetta said. Still, Marine Corps General John Allen, the top coalition commander in the country, has “expressed concern at the renewed level of attacks,” said Panetta, who’s on his fourth visit to Afghanistan as defense secretary.

The U.S. faces multiple challenges as Obama seeks to end the 11-year war in Afghanistan. It must hold the international coalition together; train, equip and transfer security missions and logistical support to Afghan forces; and prevent a Taliban resurgence.

At the same time, it needs to secure Pakistan’s cooperation in halting cross-border attacks by the Taliban and the Haqqani network, reopening coalition supply lines, and at least tacitly accepting allied drone strikes on terrorist targets in Pakistan such as the one this week that killed al-Qaeda’s second-in- command.
Friend and Foe Alike

Finally, the U.S. administration must reassure friends that it isn’t abandoning Afghanistan and foes that they can’t simply wait until America and its allies depart.

The American-led international coalition plans to pull out most of the 88,000 U.S. troops and their 40,000 counterparts from other nations by the end of 2014. Once the withdrawal is complete, “the Afghan war as we understand it is over,” Obama said last month. An unspecified number of U.S. troops would remain in training roles.

Panetta plans to meet with Allen, U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker, and the Afghan defense minister, General Abdul Rahim Wardak.

In addition to the escalating attacks on coalition forces, the U.S. is concerned about corruption in the Afghan government and safe havens in Pakistan, Panetta said.
Border Zone

The U.S. continues to urge Pakistan to “take care of terrorists who reside” in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas along the mountainous border with Afghanistan in the northwest of the country, Panetta said. “We have not given up hope that Pakistanis are going to take action to control the safe havens.”

In discussions with U.S. officials, Pakistani Army Chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani “continues to indicate a willingness to cooperate in that effort,” Panetta said. “We have to do as much as we can to urge Pakistan to take that on.”

Speaking yesterday in New Delhi, Panetta said achieving U.S. goals for Afghanistan “is going to be in large measure dependent on a Pakistan that can confront terrorism within their own borders.”

The U.S. is still negotiating with Pakistan in an effort to reopen routes used to transport military supplies to Afghanistan, Panetta said. Pakistan halted the transit after coalition air strikes in November killed 24 of its soldiers.
India, Pakistan

The U.S. also is urging traditional enemies India and Pakistan to improve their relations so the South Asian nations don’t turn Afghanistan into the battleground of a proxy war after 2014, Panetta said.

India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who met with Panetta in New Delhi, recognizes that danger and “has an interest in trying to pursue improving” ties with Pakistan, Panetta said.

Trade ties and military-to-military talks between India and Pakistan are improving, Panetta said.

In New Delhi, Panetta also met India’s Defense Minister A.K. Antony and National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon and urged them to “continue, and if possible expand” India’s efforts to train Afghan military and police units, he said.

About 30,000 Afghan forces already receive training in India as part of an agreement between the two countries. Pakistani officials, though, have expressed concern about Indian influence in Afghanistan.
‘No Plan B’

The U.S. isn’t studying any alternatives to the U.S.-led training effort in Afghanistan after 2014, Panetta said yesterday in response to a question after speaking at an event in New Delhi organized by the Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses. He said no effort is under way to organize a regional peace-keeping force led by the United Nations.

“We don’t have a Plan B because we don’t think we need a Plan B,” Panetta said. “Our goal is to continue to train and support and assist the Afghan army so they can be a permanent force.”

The continued presence of U.S. military trainers beyond 2014 is “additional insurance” against any weakening of Afghan capabilities, he said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Gopal Ratnam in Kabul at gratnam1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Walcott at jwalcott9@bloomberg.net

 

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7 June 2012 Last updated at 02:49 ET

China morning round-up: Central Asia bloc summit

Leaders attending the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit are pictured pose for a group photo in Beijing, 06 June 2012 Interaction between Hu Jintao and Vladimir Putin is seen as the focus of this SCO summit

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit is the top story for most Chinese newspapers on Thursday, with leaders from China, Russia and four central Asian countries meeting in Beijing.

China Daily and People's Daily reported on the first day of the summit on their front pages.

Chinese President Hu Jintao told the summit that members should enhance economic cooperation, and step up support for each other on matters relating to territorial integrity, national security, social stability and development, reports say.

As the SCO marks its 10th anniversary this year, the People's Daily Overseas Edition ran a panel discussion on how the bloc - consisting of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan - has shifted its focus from security issues to economic development.

Meanwhile, as Shanghai Daily reports, Mr Hu is hoping that the SCO can play "a bigger role in Afghanistan's peaceful reconstruction".

At the same time, Beijing's foreign ministry emphasised that the SCO is not aiming to rival Nato as a military bloc, reports the China Daily.

The bilingual editorial of the Global Times carried an editorial mocking worries in Western countries about the possibility of the SCO becoming the "Nato in the East".

"Everything appears to be a challenge in the eyes of American elites who are showing a hegemonic fragility," said the editorial. "They see the rise of China as a threat, and are highly alert to China-Russia cooperation, and are even uneasy toward regional cooperation among Central Asian countries."

Regional papers such as Beijing News focused on the interaction between Mr Hu and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

In a joint declaration, the two leaders agreed to reduce military presence along the Sino-Russian border, as well as enhance cooperations in energy, civil aviation and space exploration.

"Quiet please!" declared asked the Shanghai Daily, as the annual National College Entrance Examination begins on Thursday.

This year's examination will see more than 9m high school students in China entering the "battle to determine one's fate", as the paper has described - just over two-thirds will be able to enrol for a place in universities and tertiary institutions across the country.

Many regional newspapers are branding this year's two-day national exam as having "the tightest security ever" in terms of anti-cheating measures.

Beijing Times says at least four policemen will be on guard at each test centre in Beijing, while Beijing News says teachers must transport exam papers on dedicated routes and under heavy surveillance.

In Guangzhou, Southern Metropolis Daily reports that some taxi companies in the city are offering free rides for students taking the exam.

There are many personal tales about the exam in the papers. Shanghai Morning Post says a student suffering from a collapsed lung just three days before the exam will now take his tests under the watch of doctors and nurses.

There is also the story of a high school teacher in Hubei province who guarded hundreds of admission tickets for the exam from a thief who robbed her. Beijing Times reports that she is still in hospital for a serious head injury.

In Hong Kong, Ming Pao Daily News and the AM730 newspaper lead their front pages with the death of leading Chinese dissident Li Wangyang.

The news is met with an outcry from democrats in Hong Kong as they echoed the family's challenge to what local police said is a suicide.

A senior Hong Kong TV journalist who interviewed Mr Li just a few weeks before his death has been devastated by the news, blaming himself, reports Ming Pao.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/07/usa-philippines-idUSL1E8H64RN20120607

Philippines president visits U.S. as allies eye China

Thu Jun 7, 2012 1:00am EDT

* Visit shores up historic US-Philippines alliance

* Aquino has eye on territorial dispute with China

* U.S. helps Manila's defense build-up, seeks no bases

By Paul Eckert

WASHINGTON, June 7 (Reuters) - Philippines President Benigno Aquino arrived in the United States on Wednesday for a visit that will highlight the Southeast Asian archipelago's growing importance in U.S. strategic thinking, as the White House "pivots" to Asia and both countries worry about China's intentions.

Aquino, well-regarded by the U.S. government, not least for his battles against corruption, is being accorded a White House meeting on Friday with President Barack Obama.

That meeting comes as Washington has begun helping Manila beef up its modest military capacities in the face of a confrontation with China over contested South China Sea reefs.

The United States, colonial ruler of the Philippines from 1898-1946 and a treaty ally with Manila since 1951, has embraced the Philippines as part of a policy that makes the Asia-Pacific region the center of U.S. security and economic strategy.

"The meeting between President Aquino and President Obama will lay the groundwork for the future of the strategic partnership between the Philippines and the United States," said Jose Cuisia, the Philippines ambassador in Washington.

Aquino will also meet senior U.S. lawmakers for "discussions on our bilateral economic and defense cooperation, the shift in the focus of the United States toward the Asia-Pacific and ways to revitalize our alliance," the envoy said in a statement.

Washington's "rebalancing" of forces to the Asia-Pacific region, a post-Cold War strategy two decades in the making, has accelerated under the Obama administration as a response to China's rapid military modernization and growing assertiveness in that region.

A U.S. official said Washington saw Aquino as a leader who is "trying to do the right thing" to tackle the corruption, cronyism and red tape that have held back the economy of his nation of 93 million people.

But the United States is moving cautiously in solidifying defense ties with Manila. The Philippines evicted the U.S. military from Naval Station Subic Bay in 1992, and nationalist sentiment remains high.

NO NEW U.S. BASES

Even as it fought wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States kept more than 70,000 troops in a network of military bases in Japan and South Korea that date back to the 1950s.

The Obama policy has focused on Southeast Asia and crafting flexible arrangements with other allies in Asia, Australia and the Philippines, and ship visits to Singapore and Vietnam.

No new U.S. bases are envisioned under this scheme, although 2,500 U.S. troops will rotate through and train in Darwin, Australia. Any new arrangements with the Philippines would be smaller than the Australian program, U.S. officials say.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said last weekend the Pentagon will reposition its naval fleet so 60 percent of its battleships are in the Asia-Pacific region by the end of the decade, up from about 50 percent now. The move drew a pledge from China's People's Liberation Army to increase its vigilance.

In upgrading its military capability to protect its interests in disputed areas of the South China Sea, Manila has been looking to Washington for ships, aircraft and surveillance and equipment to build a credible defense posture.

After high-level bilateral security and diplomatic talks in late April, the Obama administration pledged to increase its annual foreign military sales program to the Philippines to $30 million, about three times the level of the 2011 program.

"We've been working with the Philippines on military modernization for 12 or 13 years, very intensively," said Walter Lohman, a Southeast Asia expert at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington think tank.

"The only thing that has changed is the urgency of this and the seriousness the Philippines has shown under the Aquino administration," he said.

US BALANCING ACT

Manila's new urgency stems from a months-long showdown with China at the Scarborough Shoal, a horse-shoe shaped reef near the Philippines in waters both countries claim.

The United States is formally neutral on South China Sea territorial issues, complex disputes which also pit China against Vietnam and other Southeast Asian nations.

Washington, however, has promoted multilateral diplomacy to handle the disputes - challenging China's insistence on bilateral talks with its weaker neighbors.

"The United States has the dilemma of balancing the many, many vital interests we have in our relations with China, with our interests in Southeast Asia and it really is a balancing act," said Southeast Asia security expert Don Weatherbee.

Weatherbee, emeritus professor at the University of South Carolina, said that while Manila could not expect a "blank check" from Washington in a territorial conflict with Beijing, U.S. credibility would face scrutiny.

"It's not just a question of U.S.-Philippines relations. It's a question of the American security guarantee in East Asia and the Asia-Pacific and what is actually meant by the word guarantee," he said.

This week's meetings in Washington will also take up the prospect of the Philippines joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a free trade pact in the Asia Pacific region with nine members that is also examining applications by Japan, Canada and Mexico. (Additional reporting by Andrew Quinn and Manuel Mogato in Manila and David Alexander in Singapore; editing by Todd Eastham)


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[danielboon]

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/07/us-syria-crisis-idUSBRE84S0P020120607

Syria accused of new massacre as U.N. meets
By Mariam Karouny and Erika Solomon

BEIRUT | Wed Jun 6, 2012 8:59pm EDT

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian troops and militiamen loyal to President Bashar al-Assad stood accused by opponents on Thursday of a new massacre of scores of villagers hours before a divided U.N. Security Council convenes to review the crisis.

If confirmed, the killings of at least 78 people at Mazraat al-Qabeer, near Hama, will pile on pressure for world powers to act, but there is little sign they can overcome a paralysis born of sharp divisions between Western and Arab states on the one hand and Assad's defenders in Russia, China and Iran.

Several activists who monitor the 15-month-old revolt gave accounts to Reuters that women and children were among the dead when the village in central Syria came under artillery bombardment before fighters moved in on the ground and shot and stabbed dozens of people to death.

Echoing descriptions of a massacre of 108 civilians at Houla on May 25, which U.N. observers attributed to Assad's troops and loyalist "shabbiha" militia, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, "Shabbiha headed into the area after the shelling and killed dozens of citizens, among them women and children."

Some activists said at least 40 of the dead were women and children. At Houla, near Homs, nearly half had been children.

In that earlier case, Assad himself condemned the atrocity but denied any hand in it and blamed opponents whom he described as foreign-backed "terrorists."

Shabbiha, drawn mostly from Assad's minority Alawite sect that identifies with the Shi'ites of Iran, have been blamed for the killings of civilians from the Sunni Muslim majority. That has raised fears of an Iraq-style sectarian bloodbath and reinforced a wider regional confrontation between Iran and the mainly Sunni-led Arab states of the Middle East.

The main Syrian National Council opposition group responded to reports of the new massacre by calling for stepped-up military assaults on Assad's forces.

CEASEFIRE MONITORS

The failure of a ceasefire brokered by U.N. envoy Kofi Annan in March to halt the bloodshed has raised questions over its continued worth. Annan, the former U.N. secretary-general, is to brief the Security Council later on Thursday in New York.

A 300-strong force of U.N. truce observers has been in Syria for weeks and can be expected to investigate the accounts from Mazraat al-Qabeer, which came in under nightfall in Syria.

There was no immediate comment from the government, and events on the ground are difficult to verify as Syria tightly restricts access to international media.

Activists, including the Observatory based in Britain, called for an immediate investigation: "The Syrian Observatory for Human rights calls on the international monitors to go immediately to the area. They should not wait to tomorrow to investigate this new massacre," it said in a statement.

"They should not give the excuse that their mission is only to observe the ceasefire, because many massacres have been committed during their presence in Syria."

U.N. diplomats said they expected Annan to present the Security Council with a new proposal to rescue his failing peace plan by creating a "contact group" of world and regional powers.

Some rebel groups, which have helped escalate what began as popular demonstrations for democracy into what is approaching a civil war, have lost faith in any ceasefire calls and are calling for more foreign arms and other support.

Western leaders, wary of new military engagements in the Muslim world and especially of the explosively complex ethnic and religious mix that Syria represents, have offered sympathy but show no appetite for taking on Assad's redoubtable armed forces, which can call on Iran and Russia for supplies.

In Washington on Wednesday, the United States and Saudi Arabia, among dozens of mostly Western and Arab countries in the Friends of Syria working group, called for further economic sanctions against Syria including an arms embargo, travel bans and tougher financial penalties.

ISTANBUL MEETING

Separately, ministers and envoys from 15 countries and the European Union agreed at a meeting hosted by Turkey in Istanbul on Wednesday to convene a "coordination group" to provide support to the opposition but left unclear what it may involve.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was among officials from Europe, Turkey and Arab states who discussed "additional steps" including coordination on an "effective and credible transition process" to lead to a "democratic, post-Assad Syria," a Turkish statement said, adding that the group would be represented at a meeting in Istanbul next week of Syrian rebels.

Clinton told the group that transition in Syria must include a full representative interim government that would pave the way for a full transfer of power in free and fair elections.

Annan hopes his new idea can prevent a total collapse of his plan for a truce and negotiated political solution, U.N. diplomats said. The core of the proposal, diplomats said, would be the establishment of a contact group that would bring together Russia, China, the United States, Britain, France and key regional players with influence on Syria's government or the opposition, such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and Iran.

By creating such a contact group, envoys said, Annan would also be trying to break the deadlock among the five permanent council members that has pitted veto powers Russia and China against the United States, Britain and France and prevented any meaningful U.N. action on the Syrian conflict.

It would attempt to map out a "political transition" for Syria that would lead to Assad stepping aside and the holding of free elections, envoys said. One envoy said the idea was "vaguely similar" to a political transition deal for Yemen that led to the president's ouster.

The main point of Annan's proposal, they said, was to get Russia to commit to the idea of a Syrian political transition, which remains the thrust of Annan's six-point peace plan that both the Syrian government and opposition said they accepted earlier this year, but have failed to implement.

'LIFE SUPPORT'

While Russia has said repeatedly it is not protecting Assad, it has given no indication it is ready to abandon him. Assad has proven to be a staunch Russian ally and remains a top purchaser of weapons from Russian firms, and diplomats say Moscow continues to reward him for his loyalty.

"The thought is one that we've had for a little while, which is that you need to bind Russia into some sort of transition strategy on Syria," a senior Western diplomat said.

An unnamed diplomat leaked further details of Annan's proposal to Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, who said that if the contact group agreed on a transition deal for Syria, it would mean "Assad would presumably depart for Russia, which is said to have offered him exile."

It was not immediately clear if the idea of Russian exile for Assad was something Annan was pushing or if it was Ignatius' speculation. The Post article said that another option for Assad would be to seek exile in Iran, Damascus' other staunch ally.

In what could be the first step toward the creation of Annan's contact group, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday floated the idea of an international meeting on the Syrian crisis that would bring together the prime candidates for Annan's proposed contact group, including Iran.

Clinton, however, reacted coolly to including Iran, which she said was "stage-managing" the Syrian government assault on the opposition that the United Nations says killed at least 10,000 people.

Before he addresses the Security Council, Annan will speak to the 193-nation General Assembly, along with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby.

Separately, envoys said it was unclear if the council would agree to extend the 90-day mandate of the unarmed U.N. observer mission in Syria, which is increasingly at risk of attack. Its mandate expires in late July.

(Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Michael Roddy and Todd Eastham)

____

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/06/us-syria-crisis-friends-idUSBRE8551FD20120606

Secretary of State Clinton sketches out path for Syria
ISTANBUL | Wed Jun 6, 2012 7:54pm EDT

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Western and Arab nations at a meeting in Istanbul on Wednesday that a transition strategy in Syria must include President Bashar al-Assad's full transfer of power, a senior U.S. State Department official said.

"Tonight the secretary laid out a set of essential elements and principles which we believe should guide that post-Assad transition strategy, including Assad's full transfer of power," the official told reporters after the meeting.

Clinton also told the meeting that transition in Syria must include a fully representative interim government that would lead to free and fair elections.

She was speaking at a high-level meeting on Syria attended by British Foreign Minister William Hague, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu as well as other foreign ministers and high-level envoys from 15 countries and the European Union.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the U.S. official suggested that Clinton was trying to lay down a set of minimum benchmarks for how a transition in Syria could unfold in the hopes Russia might back it despite its past support for Assad.

The official said Clinton had also decided to send Fred Hof, a senior State Department official who works on Syria, to Moscow on Thursday to hold follow-up conversations with Russia.

The official sidestepped a question on whether Russia was willing to increase pressure on Assad to go, saying one reason for sending Hof to Moscow is "to get a sense of how close we are."

The official all but acknowledged the failure of U.N. special envoy Kofi Annan's six-point peace plan.

"We have all been hoping, expecting, pressuring Assad to live up to his commitment to meet Kofi Annan's six points," the official said.

"In the absence of any significant movement by Assad on any of the tracks and in fact increased violence, it's time for the international community, working with the Syrian people, to start fleshing out the alternatives to Assad and how this is going to go," the official added.

France had also announced at the meeting it would hold a full "Friends of Syria" meeting in Paris on July 6, the U.S. official said.

In a written statement, host country Turkey said the members had agreed to convene a "coordination group" to provide support to the Syrian opposition. Each country had agreed to send a representative to Istanbul on June 15-16 to attend the coordination meeting of all the Syrian opposition groups.

(Reporting by Jonathon Burch, Tulay Karadeniz and Arshad Mohammed; editing by Michael Roddy and Todd Eastham)

15:47 The charred bodies of women and children lay scattered in houses across farmland in central Syria on Thursday after a brutal massacre allegedly carried out by pro-regime militiamen, a witness told AFP.

 

[The Flying Dutchman]

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New Report Finds an Israeli Attack on
Iran to be a Comprehensively Bad Idea

By Jeffrey Goldberg
Jun 6 2012, 3:05 PM ET163
http://www.theatlantic.com/internat...iran-to-be-a-comprehensively-bad-idea/258162/​

Colin Kahl, who until recently served as the Pentagon's top Middle East policy official, is just out with an exhaustive and authoritative report on the Iranian nuclear challenge. The report, written with Melissa G. Dalton and Matthew Irvine and published by the Center for a New American Security (where Kahl is a senior fellow), argues fairly persuasively that an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities -- an attack they seem to believe is highly plausible, if I'm reading them correctly -- would have a great many negative ramifications.

Their conclusions are well thought-out and argued (even the ones with which I disagree). The authors believe, among other things, that:

1) The Iranian threat is serious but not imminent;

2) Iran's leaders are rational enough to believe that they would neither use a nuclear weapon or give one to terrorists (I'm not so sure they're right on the first point, but pretty sure they're right on the second -- makes no sense to give your most prized weapon to unstable, and possibly semi-independent actors);

3) An Israeli-Iranian nuclear rivalry creates the risk of an inadvertent nuclear exchange (they downplay this risk somewhat, but not too much; I tend to think that inadvertent escalation to nuclear exchange is the prime reason to keep the bomb out of Iran's hands);

4) Containment of a nuclear Iran is not a great option for the U.S. (I'm with them on that).

On the one hand, the report represents mainstream American defense thinking on this question. On the other hand, it is not at all mindless and reflexive, unlike much of what I read on this subject these days.

I thought it would be interesting to have a conversation about the report with Kahl, who is now at Georgetown University. What follows is our exchange, which is long, but seriously, read the whole damn thing -- it's important. I should also note that Kahl is the same guy who spent the past two years working assiduously from inside the Pentagon to strengthen and deepen America's security relationship with Israel. Or, to put it another way, his opposition to an Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear program is not motivated by animus toward Israel, but by a concern that Israel stands to do something precipitous that could bring harm to itself, and accelerate Iran's drive toward a bomb.

Jeffrey Goldberg: You argue that an Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear facilities would almost certainly be disastrous for Israel. In a previous conversation (on Twitter), you suggested that Israel's only real choice is to trust that the United States will prevent Iran from crossing the nuclear threshold. Israeli leaders point have pointed out to me that the United States wanted neither Pakistan nor North Korea to cross the nuclear threshold, but they did anyway. Why is this situation different? If you were an Israeli leader (or a Saudi, or Emirati, leader) would you trust the United States to use all elements of its national power to stop Iran from going nuclear?

Colin Kahl: Good question. I think there are several reasons Israel should trust the United States on the issue.

First, this administration has been pretty clear where it stands. Obama has consistently said that an Iranian nuclear weapon is unacceptable. He clearly prefers a diplomatic solution, believes a negotiated settlement is possible and the most sustainable outcome, and thinks there is time to pursue this course. Force should be a last resort, and there is still a window of opportunity to find a peaceful way out of this crisis. But Obama has also made clear that all options, including military force, are on the table to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. In both his interview with you in March and his AIPAC speech, Obama said he does not favor a policy of nuclear containment. And his Secretary of Defense has stated more than once that Iran's development of a nuclear weapon would represent a "red line" for the United States.

Second, historically Obama is a guy who means what he says, and does what he says. And Obama has consistently matched his words with his deeds on Iran. During the 2008 campaign, he said he was willing to enter into unconditional negotiations to test the Iranian regime's willingness to reach a diplomatic agreement, and that is what he did in 2009. When Iran proved unwilling and incapable of responding, the president said he would work to forge a historic consensus to increase pressure on the regime -- and that too is exactly what he did in 2010-2011, working with the UN, international partners, and with the U.S. Congress to put in place the toughest sanctions Iran has ever faced.

Indeed, much tougher sanctions than the previous, ostensibly more "hawkish" Bush administration was ever able to accomplish. Israel and other partners should trust that he is willing to use all elements of national power to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons because he is already doing it. Sanctions, diplomatic efforts to isolate the Iranian regime, and intelligence activities have all been used and integrated toward that objective.

And, on the military front, when Obama says all options are on the table, he has actually backed that with concrete actions. Even as U.S. forces completed their drawdown from Iraq, he authorized the re-posturing of U.S. forces in the Gulf to ensure they were set to deal with any scenario, defend our partners, and check Iranian aggression in the region. He deployed a second aircraft carrier, improved U.S. air and missile defenses in the region, bolstered the defensive capabilities of Gulf states (including a record-setting arms package to the Saudis), and done more than any previous administration, in terms of security assistance and defense cooperation, for Israel's security. Moreover, Gen. Martin Dempsey, the current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has noted on more than one occasion that the United States military is prepared and has a viable plan for any Iran contingency, and Secretary Panetta and others have pointed to the unique capabilities the United States military has developed--most notably the Massive Ordinance Penetrator--to ensure the maximum prospects for success should they be called upon. So, when Obama says "all options are on the table," these aren't just words -- the options are viable and the table has been set.

Third, Obama recognizes the threat a nuclear-armed Iran would pose to Israel's security and to the stability of a region that is absolutely vital to U.S. interests. He also believes that if Iran is allowed to cross the nuclear threshold it would do grave damage to the non-proliferation regime -- an issue that he cares passionately about. Because, in Obama's view, it is a vital U.S. interest to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, one does not have to trust that he will take all necessary actions for Israel's sake -- one only has to trust that he will act in the U.S. national interest. He would clearly prefer not to use force -- and has cautioned against cavalier and "loose" talk of war given the costs and uncertainties.

But Obama has shown, repeatedly, that he is willing to use force in the U.S. national interest -- whether unilaterally or as part of a multilateral coalition. Don't take my word on that front -- just ask Osama Bin Laden or Muammar Gaddafi. Again, Obama clearly prefers a diplomatic solution, but no one should question the man's mettle on issues like this.

Finally, I think the intelligence picture, the level of inspections, and the international focus is much greater in the case of Iran than was the case with either Pakistan or North Korea. As such, I think it is much less likely that Iran could slip across the nuclear threshold without us knowing about it in time to act. At the moment, for example, it would take at least four months for the Iranians to enrich to weapons-grade level, and they would have to do it at declared facilities -- so they would get caught. Moreover, Western intelligence services have a pretty good track record of uncovering Iranian covert nuclear activities (e.g., Natanz and Fordow). I don't mean to be sanguine about the intel picture -- it is clearly imperfect and our assessments are fallible. But we are in a much better position to detect an Iranian break-out in time to act than was the case with other examples -- and, importantly, we are already focusing all elements of national power on the issue so we are poised and capable of responding quickly in the event that the Iranians are foolish enough to try to dash to a bomb anytime soon.

JG: Okay, imagine you're an intelligence officer with responsibility for Iran. You are handed evidence that Iran might -- might -- be trying a nuclear sneak-out. The evidence, like most such evidence in these cases, is ambiguous. You also know that if you, and your colleagues, were to reach the conclusion that Iran is making a dash for the bomb, you might be responsible for starting a war (intelligence officials certainly remember Iraq.) What I'm getting at is this: The U.S. intelligence community might understand that something nefarious is going on in Iran, but it might take months to process the intel, and the process might become politicized, precisely because the stakes are so high. So isn't there a chance that even if we know more-or-less that Iran is making a move, we might not be able to respond in time?

CK: It depends on what the evidence is. Some types of evidence would be relatively clear. The most important evidence of a decision to go for a bomb would be the nature of enrichment activities -- and, at least for now, these would likely be seen with enough time to react. If Iran diverted its existing stockpile of low-enriched uranium and began enriching above 90 percent or kicked out IAEA inspectors, that would both be noticed and be evidence of an intent to weaponize, and there would be enough time to react. Discovery of a wholly operational covert enrichment site (as distinct from Fordow, which was a structure under construction with no centrifuges in it when it was uncovered) might be another sign that Khamenei had made a decision to weaponize.

Where it gets trickier is if we started to see evidence that Khamenei had reversed the 2003 halt order on structured weaponization work (the order discussed by the 2007 unclassified NIE key judgments and (according to press reports) the 2010 update, and confirmed by the IAEA). We'd likely see it, but some of the evidence could be ambiguous and debated. That said, because of the technical hurdles (beyond just enrichment) that Iran would have to overcome to weaponize, current estimates suggest it would take a year from a decision to go for a bomb to generate a crude device. And that assumes a crash weaponization program. The more they rush, the more we'll see it -- and a year is a long time.

Still, at the end of the day, it is probably easier to see evidence of steps to produce weapons-grade uranium than it is to detect every element of covert weapons-related research and development, which is why it is important to limit Iran's ability to substantially shrink their dash time to producing weapons-grade uranium. That is why the 20 percent LEU issue is so important -- because, if they get one or more bombs worth of 20 percent uranium-235 they could shrink the time required to make the fissile material for the first bomb from four months to a couple of months. Similarly, if Iran began to install next generation centrifuges -- which they are testing now, but have experienced problems with -- on an industrial scale at Natanz or Fordow this could also shrink the dash time, because these machines are 3-4 times as efficient as the current models. If Iran were to successfully accomplish these steps, shrinking their dash time to a month or a few weeks, then you start getting into the margin for error where inspectors might miss something.

JG: The Iranian regime is ultimately interested in its own survival, and so direct pressure on the regime might force it to reconsider its nuclear goals. Do you think there's an appetite in Washington for regime-destabilization, and do you think it could work -- if not to bring down the regime, than to force it to deal with the demands of the international community vis-a-vis its nuclear ambitions?

CK: There is an important distinction between a strategy that aims to hold the regime "at risk" -- what I would call a compellence strategy--and a policy that actually aims at regime change. The former increases the costs to the Iranian regime to the point that it forces a difficult strategic choice--in this case a scaling back of their nuclear ambitions--that they would otherwise prefer not to make. Unprecedented sanctions and the credible threat of force can hold the Iranian regime at risk and thus help compel a change in behavior -- but only because the regime has a way out. If the regime changes its behavior, the pressure is lifted.

In contrast, a "regime change" campaign aims to topple the regime, regardless of what they do. It is grounded in the view that the current regime is irreconcilable and must fall. Applied to Iran, however, this approach is deeply problematic. For one thing, it would provide no positive incentive for the supreme leader to strike a nuclear bargain because doing so would get him nothing--it wouldn't be enough to save the regime. And, worse, it would validate the Islamic Republic's existing narrative about Western motivations and encourage Tehran to move more quickly for a bomb to produce a nuclear deterrent against externally-imposed regime change and in order to invest the international community in the continued stability of the regime. Moreover, if the policy succeeds, there is no guarantee that the regime that followed would be better--it could be an IRGC-dominated military dictatorship, for example. Or what follows might simply be state collapse and chaos.

So, while I think it is important to hold the regime at risk--and I think elements of the current strategy do that, or are at least starting to do that--I think a policy of regime change would be deeply counterproductive to resolving the current nuclear crisis.

JG: Why wouldn't a regime change program help compel the Supreme Leader to alter his nuclear course? Why wouldn't he trade aspects of his nuclear program for a Western promise to desist from regime-change operations?

CK: It completely depends on what the specific actions are. A lot of actions aimed at regime change might convince the supreme leader that we are committed to his demise no matter what he does -- making a deal less likely, and a bomb more likely. Better to increase pressure in a way that holds the regime at risk -- through tough sanctions and leaving military action on the table -- rather than make regime change our policy. This gives Khamenei a way out.

JG: A final question: How do we know that Iran would respond to a strike against its nuclear facilities by doubling-down on its program and rushing to breakout? Is there a chance Iran might simply decide that a nuclear program isn't worth it? Asked another way, is there anything that Israel or the U.S. could do to thwart Iran's nuclear ambitions post-strike? Would this require follow-up strikes, or is there a non-military option?

CK: We don't know anything for sure, but the most likely outcome of a strike is an attempt by the Iranian regime to rapidly rebuild its program. The regime is currently pursuing a nuclear "hedging" strategy in order to give it the technical capability to produce nuclear weapons at some point in the future if the supreme leader decides to do so. One motivation for pursuing this strategy is to provide a deterrent against future external threats to the regime, including a possible attack by Israel or the United States. Khamenei looks around and sees Muammar Gaddafi gone and Saddam Hussein gone, but the North Korean regime still around and he likely concludes that the biggest reason for the difference is the fact that North Korea developed nuclear weapons and the other two states had their programs removed. A second motivation for seeking the capability to produce nuclear weapons is likely the hope that it would boost Iran's prestige and Tehran's potential for coercive diplomacy, facilitating expanded Iranian influence and advancing the regime's ambitions for regional hegemony.

A strike would confirm the regime's vulnerability and buttress the perception of the unrelenting hostility of foreign powers, which would provide decisive support to those inside the regime arguing that only a nuclear deterrent could prevent future attacks and arm Iran with what it needs to lead the resistance against the West. At the same time, an attack would allow Iran to play the victim, kick out the IAEA, and perhaps leave the NPT all together. And, in the absence of inspectors on the ground, Iranian leaders would likely calculate that they could rebuild their program more easily and engage in illicit activities without being detected. An Israeli attack would also shatter the international consensus that is currently slowing Iran's nuclear progress through sanctions and other counter-proliferation activities.

This is not purely hypothetical; we have a past example of this happening. As we discuss at length in our report, Israel's 1981 strike on Osirak did not end Saddam Hussein's nuclear program and actually led him to double down, devote more resources and better organize his program, and create a widely dispersed clandestine nuclear program that -- by the time of the 1991 Gulf War -- was a year or two away from producing a bomb. Ultimately, it was not the 1981 Osirak attack that ended the program, but rather the destruction of the 1991 Gulf War followed by more than a decade of sanctions, diplomatic isolation, no-fly zones, and periodic bombing that ended the program -- and even then the Bush administration thought (incorrectly) elements of the program remained.

This brings me to a final point: the only way to prevent Iran from rebuilding its program after a strike is to have sufficient international consensus and a large enough coalition to create and maintain a post-strike containment regime. Sanctions and counter-proliferation measures designed to disrupt Iranian attempts to obtain the materials necessary to rebuild their program would have to be maintained, and there would have to be regional support for the continuation of a robust military presence and potential re-strikes.

The only way to create such a post-strike containment system is to go into the war with international support and a certain degree of international legitimacy. That means acting only after non-military options have been exhausted and in the face of evidence that Iran was going for a bomb (by enriching up to weapons grade or kicking out inspectors, for example). And it means the country leads the effort must be capable of crafting and holding together a coalition. Only the United States can meet these criteria. (By the way, the criteria are so stringent because the potential costs of military action are so high and the benefits are so uncertain.)

In 2003, the Bush administration made the historic error of launching war to disarm a regime they claimed was pursuing WMD without sufficient evidence that the Iraqi threat was imminent, without sufficient international support, and without a plan for the day after. We can't make that mistake again.






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[The Flying Dutchman]

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The turks’ cold war against Israel

Posted: 11:34 PM, June 6, 2012
Benny Avni
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinio...KM?utm_medium=rss&utm_content=Oped+Columnists​

As Turkey escalates its cold war with Israel, complete with show trials against top Jerusalem security officials, hopes are fading fast that these two US-allied powers will soon resume their once-flourishing cooperation.

This week, a Turkish court issued indictments against former Israel Defense Force Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, and three other senior officials involved two years ago in the Mavi Marmara incident.

Ten Turks were killed then after clashing with Israeli SEALs. Now Ankara wants to slap the Israeli military commanders with 10 life sentences each.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to throw the full weight of the state behind Ashkenazi and the others, advising them against setting foot in Turkey.

Not that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyep Erdogan is going out of his way to make Turkey hospitable for them or any other Israeli. Here’s Erdogan yesterday in the Israeli daily Maariv: “We don’t need Israeli tourists.”

The cold war dates back to a 2009 conference in Davos, Switzerland, when the Turkish premier ambushed mild-mannered Israeli President Shimon Peres, publicly calling the Nobel Peace Prize winner a killer.

Since then, Erdogan has sharpened his attacks, scoffing not only at Israeli tourists, but at any other benefit his country might derive from relations with its former closest ally in the region.

Turkey’s secularists, military officials and businessmen are quietly urging him to lower the flames — but Erdogan, his inner circle and kept media instead are pushing a campaign of incitement.

Most recently, the discovery in the Turkish countryside of some dead migrating hummingbirds that had been tagged by Israeli ornithologists led some Turkish farmers to conclude that the birds were Mossad-trained Israeli spies violating the national airspace. In a burst of paranoia, the country’s media ran accusatory headlines, and anti-terror units launched an official investigation — before, finally, exonerating the dead avians.

Since its founding, Israel has based its regional strategy on seeking alliances with nearby non-Arab nations. Relations with Turkey flourished, peaking just as the two countries matured into economic and military powerhouses. Tourism, trade and military cooperation made for the region’s most successful pro-American alliance.

No longer. As he reiterated to Maariv yesterday, Erdogan insists Israel must apologize for the Marmara incident, pay sizable compensation and change its Gaza policies before Turkey will even talk about resumed relations.

Few Israelis are eager to apologize to Ankara for the incident, in which Erdogan’s government egged on an extremist group that tried to break Israel’s Gaza blockade — a blockade meant to help defend Israeli citizens against terrorists. (Turkey, incidentally, kills similar terrorists without mercy.)

Nevertheless, Israeli officials tell me they’ve tried several times to convey official regret over the Marmara incident — only to be rebuffed by Erdogan each time.

Meanwhile, Washington and some Israeli journalists keep leaning on Netanyahu to issue a full-throated apology.

Yet the United Nations (yes that United Nations) has determined that Israel’s blockade of Gaza is legal under international law.This, after UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had convinced Israel to cooperate with a probe that he said would help repair relations between the two countries.

It didn’t. Erdogan rejected the UN conclusions and launched his kangaroo-court proceedings instead.

Once again, good souls will urge Israel to cooperate with the Turkish court for the sake of repairing relations. ButAnkara’s behavior indicates to many in Jerusalem that endless public clashes with Israel are part of Erdogan’s larger, strategic aspirations for leadership of the region and his religion.

Improved Turkish-Israeli relations would advance America’s interests. So instead of more Israeli groveling, perhaps it’s time to try something else: Get President Obama, the one leader who might influence Erdogan, to talk turkey to the man often described as his best friend in the region.


Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinio...t_israel_mwtMbKbzBiRXSguqA804KM#ixzz1x79DxjDC



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[The Flying Dutchman]

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06/07/2012

Syria conflict: 5 warring factions

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Midd...-conflict-5-warring-factions/The-Assad-regime​

Syria is at the nexus of two of the Middle East's central problems: sectarian and ethnic rivalries and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Between that and its ties to anti-Israel groups like Hezbollah and Al Qaeda-inspired groups, as well as a three-decade alliance with Iran, the fallout from its uprising is likely to ripple, in unpredictable ways, throughout the region. Here's a brief guide to the actors in the conflict:

- Nicholas Blanford, Correspondent

The Assad regime​

After 14 months of rising violence, the regime of President Bashar al-Assad has shown no sign of disintegration. Only a handful of minor officials have defected. Mr. Assad has been bolstered by diplomatic and logistical support from Russia, China, and Iran, as well as by the West's reluctance to intervene militarily.

The regime also can rely on support from the minority Alawite community. At 12 percent of Syria's population, many Alawites fear persecution or worse at the hands of majority Sunnis if the regime falls. This also explains why key units of the Syrian Army have held together. The well-equipped, well-trained 4th Armored Division is about 80 percent Alawite. For them, the struggle to crush the opposition is potentially an existential one. But even if the regime holds on, it is certain there will be no return to the Syria that existed before the uprising began in March 2011.

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Syria's neighbors:
How 5 border nations are
reacting to Assad's crackdown

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Midd...ions-are-reacting-to-Assad-s-crackdown/Turkey​

Lebanon’s Syria-backed government has tried to distance itself from the upheaval next door, fearful of the repercussions if the violence worsens or if the Assad regime collapses. But the other four countries with that share borders with Syria have reacted in different ways to the seven-month uprising, reflecting their respective regional heft and national interests.

- Nicholas Blanford, Correspondent

Turkey​

Turkey, Syria’s non-Arab neighbor to the north, has seen its regional influence increase significantly in recent months. Once a staunch ally of President Bashar al-Assad, Turkey has come out strongly against the Syrian regime’s crackdown. It hosts the Syrian National Council and has deployed additional troops along its border with Syria.

Earlier this month, the Turkish army held military exercises in the southern Hatay Province, a symbolic prod at Syria which once possessed the coastal territory before it was ceded to Turkey by the French mandatory authorities in 1938. Turkey worries that the violence could trigger a civil war and turn the Kurdish-populated northeast Syria into a base of support for the PKK, a Kurdish separatist movement seeking a homeland in parts of southeast Turkey.

Syria has used the Kurdish card in the past against Turkey, almost triggering a war between the two countries in 1997. However, Syria yielded to Turkish threats and dropped its support for the PKK, ushering in a period of increasingly cordial relations which only ended with the outbreak of anti-regime unrest in March.








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[BREWER]

Posted For Fair Use And Discussion.
http://www.debka.com/article/22061/...he-Syrian-crisis-in-Iranian-and-Russian-hands

New Annan proposal puts the Syrian crisis in Iranian and Russian hands
DEBKAfile Special Report June 6, 2012, 11:18 PM (GMT+02:00)
Tags: Syria Kofi Annan Iran Russia Barack Obama Israeli security


Israel remains dormant despite the serious consequences to its strategic and security situation threatened by the new proposal the UN-Arab League envoy for Syria Kofi Annan is to present to the UN Thursday, June 7, for saving his peace plan. The nub of his proposal, debkafile’s sources disclose, is the creation of a “contact group” for handling the hot Syrian potato. It is to be composed of the five permanent Security Council members (US, UK, France, Russia and China) plus Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

The proposal has won the blessing of the Obama administration, meaning its consent to letting the two powers that will dominate the contact group, Russia and Iran, determine the course and outcome of the Syrian crisis.

Washington believes that only they have the clout in the Syrian army for bringing about Bashar Assad’s removal and his replacement in Damascus by a provisional military regime.

Washington also hopes, according to our sources, that this gesture will give Moscow a strong incentive to lean hard on Tehran for concessions at the next round of its talk with the six world powers on June 13.

Neither Iran nor Moscow have promised the US anything of the sort, but the administration hopes Iran will start being forthcoming on its nuclear program after being permitted to assume a central role in Damascus.

There is less optimism outside administration circles and in Israel. They expect from Tehran nothing more at the next round of talks than token nuclear concessions, and none at all toward curtailing its work on a nuclear weapon.

However the Obama administration appears to have opted for this course, even though it is the first time since the outbreak of the Arab Revolt in December 2010 that the United States is willing to let go of a major Middle East crisis and allow its foremost Middle East rivals, Moscow and Tehran, to take charge.

debkafile reported exclusively on May 31, that President Barack Obama had proposed to President Vladimir Putin the creation of a large force of 5,000 international monitors for Syria, most of them Russians, to safeguard Assad’s stock of biological and chemical weapons against falling into the hands of al Qaeda or Syrian rebels. This team consisting of thousands of Russian troops would be the operational arm of the future “contact group.”

As far as Israel is concerned, the plan has disastrous connotations. Instead of containing the spread of hostile Iranian influence in the region, as Obama promised Israel, he is opening for the door for Iran to extend its influence squarely in the countries neighboring on – and still at war with – Israel, while at the same time moving back from a focused effort to draw the sting of Iran’s nuclear bomb program.

Israel’s political and security tacticians never took into account that a consequence of the Syrian revolt would be the establishment of full-blown Iranian sway over Damascus in partnership with Russia. Indeed, for 15 months, they insisted that the Syrian uprising was proof of America’s success in breaking up the dangerous Tehran-Damascus-Hizballah axis.

 

[The Flying Dutchman]

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Clinton tells Syria's Assad
to quit, leave country

June 07, 2012 04:54 PM
By Arshad Mohammed
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Mi...ssad-to-quit-leave-country.ashx#axzz1x7EcfGZK​

ISTANBUL: U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Thursday to hand over power and leave his country, condemning a massacre near the town of Hama that opponents have blamed on his supporters as "unconscionable".

Clinton said the United States was willing to work with all members of the U.N. Security Council, which includes Russia, on a conference on Syria's political future as long as it started with the premise that Assad gave way to a democratic government.

"Assad must transfer power and depart Syria," Clinton told a news conference in Istanbul after meeting foreign ministers from Arab and Western nations to discuss counterterrorism.

"The regime-sponsored violence that we witnessed again in Hama yesterday is simply unconscionable. Assad has doubled down on his brutality and his duplicity and Syria will not, cannot be peaceful, stable or certainly democratic until Assad goes."

United Nations observers have been prevented from reaching the village of Mazraat al-Qubeir, near Hama where anti-Assad activists say Syrian troops and militiamen loyal to the president massacred at least 78 villagers, the head of the monitoring mission said on Thursday.

The reported carnage came hours before a divided U.N. Security Council discusses Syria.

The latest killings will heap pressure on world powers to act, but they have been stymied by divisions pitting Western and most Arab states against Assad's defenders in Russia, China and Iran.

Clinton urged the international community to unite behind an "achievable" plan and said Washington was willing to cooperate with any state as long as they agreed that Assad had to cede power.

"We are prepared to work with any country, including all members of the U.N. Security Council and we will do so, so long as any such gathering starts from the basic premise that Assad and his regime must give way to a new, democratic Syria."

Clinton said she would send her special adviser on Syria to Moscow on Friday to discuss with the Russian government the need for political transition in Syria.

She suggested that peace envoy Kofi Annan's plan, whose central plank was a ceasefire that never took hold, needed to be given a last chance, saying other nations - presumably Russia and China - would not support stronger action unless its failure was incontestable.

"We think it is important for us to give Kofi Annan and his plan the last amount of support that we can muster because, in order to bring others into a frame of mind to take action in the Security Council, there has to be a final recognition that it's not working," Clinton said.

Asked about upcoming nuclear talks between Iran and Britain, France, Russia, China, the United States and Germany - otherwise known as the P5+1, in Moscow on June 18, Clinton said Tehran needed to be prepared to take "concrete steps".

"We want them to come prepared to take concrete steps, particularly in the area of 20 enrichment," Clinton said.

Iran is refining uranium to 20 percent of fissile purity - well above the level required to run nuclear power plants - for what it says will be fuel for a medical research reactor.

But Western officials are worried because the 20 percent level hurdles major technical barriers to reaching the 90 percent - or bomb-grade - threshold and they believe Iran is stockpiling more material than it needs for nuclear medicine.


Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Mi...ssad-to-quit-leave-country.ashx#ixzz1x7EhfuUy
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)



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[The Flying Dutchman]

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At least 78 killed in Syria's Hama province

Associated Press
Updated: June 07, 2012 08:26 IST
http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/at-least-78-killed-in-syria-s-hama-province-228345​

Beirut: Syrian troops and militiamen loyal to President Bashar al-Assad stood accused by opponents on Thursday of a new massacre of scores of villagers, hours before a divided UN Security Council convenes to review the crisis.

If confirmed, the killings of at least 78 people at Mazraat al-Qabeer, near Hama, will pile on pressure for world powers to act, but there is little sign they can overcome a paralysis born of sharp divisions between Western and Arab states on the one hand and Assad's defenders in Russia, China and Iran.

Several activists who monitor the 15-month-old revolt gave accounts to Reuters that women and children were among the dead when the village in central Syria came under artillery bombardment before fighters moved in on the ground and shot and stabbed dozens of people to death.

Echoing descriptions of a massacre of 108 civilians at Houla on May 25, which UN observers attributed to Assad's troops and loyalist "shabbiha" militia, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, "Shabbiha headed into the area after the shelling and killed dozens of citizens, among them women and children."

Some activists said at least 40 of the dead were women and children. At Houla, near Homs, nearly half had been children.

In that earlier case, Assad himself condemned the atrocity but denied any hand in it and blamed opponents whom he described as foreign-backed "terrorists."

Shabbiha, drawn mostly from Assad's minority Alawite sect that identifies with the Shi'ites of Iran, have been blamed for the killings of civilians from the Sunni Muslim majority. That has raised fears of an Iraq-style sectarian bloodbath and reinforced a wider regional confrontation between Iran and the mainly Sunni-led Arab states of the Middle East.

The main Syrian National Council opposition group responded to reports of the new massacre by calling for stepped-up military assaults on Assad's forces.

CEASEFIRE MONITORS​

The failure of a ceasefire brokered by U.N. envoy Kofi Annan in March to halt the bloodshed has raised questions over its continued worth. Annan, the former U.N. secretary-general, is to brief the Security Council later on Thursday in New York.

A 300-strong force of U.N. truce observers has been in Syria for weeks and can be expected to investigate the accounts from Mazraat al-Qabeer, which came in under nightfall in Syria.

There was no immediate comment from the government, and events on the ground are difficult to verify as Syria tightly restricts access to international media.

Activists, including the Observatory based in Britain, called for an immediate investigation: "The Syrian Observatory for Human rights calls on the international monitors to go immediately to the area. They should not wait to tomorrow to investigate this new massacre," it said in a statement.

"They should not give the excuse that their mission is only to observe the ceasefire, because many massacres have been committed during their presence in Syria."

U.N. diplomats said they expected Annan to present the Security Council with a new proposal to rescue his failing peace plan by creating a "contact group" of world and regional powers.

Some rebel groups, which have helped escalate what began as popular demonstrations for democracy into what is approaching a civil war, have lost faith in any ceasefire calls and are calling for more foreign arms and other support.

Western leaders, wary of new military engagements in the Muslim world and especially of the explosively complex ethnic and religious mix that Syria represents, have offered sympathy but show no appetite for taking on Assad's redoubtable armed forces, which can call on Iran and Russia for supplies.

In Washington on Wednesday, the United States and Saudi Arabia, among dozens of mostly Western and Arab countries in the Friends of Syria working group, called for further economic sanctions against Syria including an arms embargo, travel bans and tougher financial penalties.

ISTANBUL MEETING​

Separately, ministers and envoys from 15 countries and the European Union agreed at a meeting hosted by Turkey in Istanbul on Wednesday to convene a "coordination group" to provide support to the opposition but left unclear what it may involve.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was among officials from Europe, Turkey and Arab states who discussed "additional steps" including coordination on an "effective and credible transition process" to lead to a "democratic, post-Assad Syria," a Turkish statement said, adding that the group would be represented at a meeting in Istanbul next week of Syrian rebels.

Clinton told the group that transition in Syria must include a full representative interim government that would pave the way for a full transfer of power in free and fair elections.

Annan hopes his new idea can prevent a total collapse of his plan for a truce and negotiated political solution, U.N. diplomats said. The core of the proposal, diplomats said, would be the establishment of a contact group that would bring together Russia, China, the United States, Britain, France and key regional players with influence on Syria's government or the opposition, such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and Iran.

By creating such a contact group, envoys said, Annan would also be trying to break the deadlock among the five permanent council members that has pitted veto powers Russia and China against the United States, Britain and France and prevented any meaningful U.N. action on the Syrian conflict.

It would attempt to map out a "political transition" for Syria that would lead to Assad stepping aside and the holding of free elections, envoys said. One envoy said the idea was "vaguely similar" to a political transition deal for Yemen that led to the president's ouster.

The main point of Annan's proposal, they said, was to get Russia to commit to the idea of a Syrian political transition, which remains the thrust of Annan's six-point peace plan that both the Syrian government and opposition said they accepted earlier this year, but have failed to implement.

'LIFE SUPPORT'​

While Russia has said repeatedly it is not protecting Assad, it has given no indication it is ready to abandon him. Assad has proven to be a staunch Russian ally and remains a top purchaser of weapons from Russian firms, and diplomats say Moscow continues to reward him for his loyalty.

"The thought is one that we've had for a little while, which is that you need to bind Russia into some sort of transition strategy on Syria," a senior Western diplomat said.

An unnamed diplomat leaked further details of Annan's proposal to Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, who said that if the contact group agreed on a transition deal for Syria, it would mean "Assad would presumably depart for Russia, which is said to have offered him exile."

It was not immediately clear if the idea of Russian exile for Assad was something Annan was pushing or if it was Ignatius' speculation. The Post article said that another option for Assad would be to seek exile in Iran, Damascus' other staunch ally.

In what could be the first step toward the creation of Annan's contact group, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday floated the idea of an international meeting on the Syrian crisis that would bring together the prime candidates for Annan's proposed contact group, including Iran.

Clinton, however, reacted coolly to including Iran, which she said was "stage-managing" the Syrian government assault on the opposition that the United Nations says killed at least 10,000 people.

Before he addresses the Security Council, Annan will speak to the 193-nation General Assembly, along with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby.

Separately, envoys said it was unclear if the council would agree to extend the 90-day mandate of the unarmed U.N. observer mission in Syria, which is increasingly at risk of attack. Its mandate expires in late July.





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[The Flying Dutchman]

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Assad’s failure to stop massacres
puts him in the crosshairs

Patrick Martin
Jerusalem — The Globe and Mail
Published Thursday, Jun. 07 2012, 8:40 AM EDT
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...es-puts-him-in-the-crosshairs/article4238250/​

The cell phone videos are particularly gruesome: badly charred bodies, with flies feeding on what remains; other bodies showing apparent stab wounds, some with intestines spilling out. They are the latest evidence of a vicious massacre in villages west of the central Syrian city of Hama.

Local activists say as many as 82 people were killed Wednesday, mostly by shooting at close range or by stabbing. Many of the bodies were set afire the activists say.

They also say some 20 children were among the victims – the videos show a smaller number of young bodies. Women also were killed in the attack, they say, although it’s difficult to tell how many as, in some cases, it’s hard to tell men from women, the bodies were so badly burned.

In early afternoon Wednesday, United Nations monitors were reported to be on their way to the scene to verify the findings. Earlier reports that the monitors were barred by Syrian forces from entering the area were denied by a UN spokesman.

Whoever is doing this – and the most likely culprits are freelance gangs of thugs sympathetic to the regime of Bashar al-Assad – are not doing the Syrian President any favours.

The worldwide reaction of horror is firming up a previously diffuse international campaign to end the violence.

In neighbouring Turkey, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the latest evidence shows that “Assad has doubled down” his tactics of trying to terrorize the population into submission.

At the United Nations, former secretary-general Kofi Annan is to address the Security Council Thursday on the progress, or lack of progress, in his peace initiative, now grown more crucial in the wake of the latest civilian killings. A request for a “fortified” effort will get a sympathetic hearing.

In Beijing, Russian and Chinese leaders condemned the violence and insisted it end immediately.

Russia earlier this week made it clear it does not insist that Mr. al-Assad remain in power any longer. Rather, Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said, Moscow only insists that a solution in Syria be political and arrived at internally, without any foreign military intervention.

Even Mr. al-Assad himself condemned last week’s Houla massacre as monstrous and denied any involvement.

The fact that it is the Syrian leader himself who suffers the most politically by these horrifying attacks sustains the theory that it is someone with an interest in seeing the regime fall that is behind the massacres. Syrian officials speak of “terrorist gangs” doing the job, pointing to al-Qaeda as a possible director of the operations.

Local citizens, however, insist that the perpetrators were Alawites from nearby villages who entered the communities after a shelling of the communities by Syrian artillery – the same method of operation said to have been employed in Houla.

“All killings are now sectarian in character,” said Ammar Abdulhamid, a Syrian activist and fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington. “The killers are Alawites; the victims Sunnis.”

It will likely be only a matter of time, now, before Sunnis attack the Alawite communities in response.

Whether Mr. al-Assad is responsible or not for directing the murdering gangs is quickly becoming irrelevant. The fact that the massacres are being perpetrated on his watch, and he has not ended them, marks him as the one to target.





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[The Flying Dutchman]

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07/06/2012

Syria blocks observers from
‘massacre’ site, UN says

http://www.france24.com/en/20120607...l-observers-massacre-site-un-says-robert-mood​

Syrian forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad have barred UN observers from reaching the site where scores of civilians were reportedly killed by pro-regime militiamen, according to the head of UN monitors in the country.

AP - The chief of U.N. observers in Syria says his monitors have been blocked by Syrian troops from the site of a new mass killing.

Gen. Robert Mood said in a statement Thursday that some U.N. patrols were also stopped by civilians in the area and that observers have been informed by residents that their safety will be at risk if they entered Mazraat al-Qubair in central Hama province.

Syrian opposition groups say pro-government militiamen killed dozens of people, including women and children, in Mazraat al-Qubair Wednesday night, with some stabbed to death and others burned.

The exact death toll and circumstances remain impossible to confirm. Syria rejected the claims as "absolutely baseless."






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[The Flying Dutchman]

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Assad’s gunships and tanks
bombard opposition in Latakia

6 June 2012 / REUTERS/AP, BEIRUT
http://www.todayszaman.com/news-282746-assads-gunships-and-tanks-bombard-opposition-in-latakia.html​

Syrian army helicopters and tanks pounded opposition positions in the Mediterranean province of Latakia for a second day on Wednesday, activists said, in the heaviest clashes there since the revolt against President Bashar al-Assad erupted last year.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based group which monitors violence in the country, said army reinforcements arrived at dawn, killing an opposition captain in the town of Selma and six civilians in Haffeh, a mostly Sunni Muslim area where clashes have been most intense.

More than 35 people were reported killed on Tuesday and Assad’s forces also suffered heavy casualties with at least 26 soldiers killed, many in ambushes by the opposition.

The opposition said on Monday they were no long bound by a cease-fire brokered by international envoy Kofi Annan in April. They said the Assad government had failed to honor it.

Latakia province is home to several towns inhabited by members of Assad’s minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, which has been wary of the mostly Sunni-led uprising.

This week’s clashes there are a rare surge of violence in a coastal province outside Syria’s usual trail of bloodshed.

Local activists provided shaky footage of a Syrian helicopter firing rockets. A member of the opposition Free Syrian Army in Latakia said its lightly-armed fighters faced shellfire.

“There was heavy fighting all night. In the morning, Syrian forces started shelling Selma and Haffeh,” the FSA’s Ali al-Raidi told Reuters by telephone.

Syrian opposition forces have killed more than 100 soldiers and other security personnel in the last few days, the Observatory says.

Syria heavily restricts access to international media organizations, which Damascus says have contributed to inciting violence, making it hard to verify reports from either side.

Meanwhile, Assad named a Baath Party stalwart to form a new government on Wednesday, signaling no political concessions to a 15-month-old uprising. The appointment of Riyad Hijab, agriculture minister in the outgoing government, as prime minister follows a parliamentary election last month which authorities said was a step towards political reform but which opponents dismissed as a sham.

“We expected Assad to play a game and appoint a nominal independent but he chose a hardcore Baathist,” said opposition campaigner Najati Tayyara. The new government, like its predecessors, would wield no real power, he added.

“The cabinet is just for show in Syria and even more so now, with the security apparatus totally taking over.”

One killed in clash on Syria border with Lebanon​

Syrian government forces killed a Lebanese man and wounded at least two others in a gunfight on the Lebanese-Syrian border on Wednesday, security sources said.

They said the fighting broke out after Syrian security forces intercepted a group of arms smugglers crossing into Syria near the eastern Lebanese town of Arsal in the Bekaa Valley.

There have been regular outbreaks of violence along the poorly demarcated and porous frontier between the two countries. Damascus says weapons and fighters cross into Syria in support of the opposition battling Assad’s forces, while Lebanese residents have accused Syrian soldiers of repeated infiltrations into Lebanon. A month ago residents and a doctor in the Lebanese town of al-Qaa said Syrian troops killed a 75-year-old woman and wounded her daughter when they fired across the border. In April a Lebanese television cameraman was killed by gunfire from Syrian troops across the border, and shells have also landed inside Lebanon in the past.






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[The Flying Dutchman]

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Inside Syria: You will never
guess who arms the rebels

In any revolution, getting weapons is a key challenge.
Syria's rebels have found an interesting solution.

Tracey Shelton
June 7, 2012 06:02
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/.../120606/syrian-rebels-weapons-arms-revolution​

JABAL AL-ZAWIYA, Syria — At the Free Syrian Army base here, a group of men led a nervous prisoner from his cell to a car waiting outside. A few hours later, the rebels returned alone, with a trunkload of weapons.

As they loaded the store room with new bullets and rocket-propelled grenades, Hamza Fatahallah, an army defector who joined the Free Syrian Army nine months ago, described the transaction that had taken place.

“We have caught many army prisoners,” he said. “We send them back home for a small amount of money on the condition they do not return to the regime. We use the money to buy weapons.”

For the release of this prisoner, Ahmed Haseeba, the group received $500. With this money, Fatahallah said they were able to buy ammunition from their main supplier: Syria’s national army, also known as the enemy.

This strange cycle of exchanging prisoners for weapons has been playing out between rebel forces and President Bashar al-Assad’s army since the beginning of the revolution.

Fatahallah estimated that his village purchased 40 percent of their weapons from the regime. Prisoner exchanges have so far contributed almost $80,000 toward weapons purchases, he said. And they obtain an additional 50 percent of their weapons during battle. The remaining 10 percent are donated and smuggled from outside the country, or are purchased from private merchants, mostly from Iraq.

Occasionally, prisoners are also exchanged directly for weapons, Fatahallah said. They have received up to two Kalashnikov rifles in exchange for a prisoner in the past.

For the regime, or at least the duplicitous members of it, supplying the enemy is a big business. Government officers also sell Kalashnikov bullets, which typically sold for less than 40 cents before the uprising, for about $4 each, according to Ahmed Al Sheikh, the leader of the armed opposition in Jabal al-Zawiya. He leads about 6,000 men from eight battalions that are collectively known as the Sham Falcons.

Kalashnikovs are bought for about $1,000, he said. Rocket-propelled grenade launchers, complete with a set of four rockets, cost up to $4,000, as does a BKT machine gun.

“These officers sell to us not because they love the revolution but because they love money,” Al Sheikh said of his chain of suppliers. “Their loyalty is to their pockets only, not the regime.”

While most of the sellers are corrupt officers, they said lower ranking soldiers have occasionally stolen supplies from government weapons storage and sold them to the rebel forces.

The relationship is not always a smooth one.​

Back at the base, the men were relaxing after lunch when a loud explosion shocked everyone to their feet. As they feared, the previous night’s purchase of Kalashnikov bullets had been booby-trapped. This time their colleagues were lucky enough to survive the discovery.

The men had learned from prior experience — bullets acquired from the regime are sometimes emptied of their gunpowder and filled with TNT designed to destroy the Kalashnikov and its owner, rather than the enemy.

After several injuries and the loss of two rifles, the men had learned to spot the fakes. To everyone’s relief this had been a controlled explosion, by someone suspicious of the new batch. The damage inflicted was only a blackened hand, some singed hair and a hole in the table.

“These ones here are good bullets,” said battalion leader Asad Ibrahim, showing the red marking on the base of one of the bullets. Holding up another with a slightly darker red off-center mark he said, “These are Bashar’s bullets to explode our guns.”

The men said bullets like these have destroyed many guns and killed or seriously injured several of their fellow fighters. But desperate for ammunition, they take the risk.

Commander Al Sheikh said that half of the Sham Falcon arsenal are seized from the enemy. Most are taken either during battle, or after attacks on government checkpoints. And the rebels carry out organized raids on government weapon stores whenever they can.

During an attack on a checkpoint in Mughara last week, Al Sheikh proudly boasted that his men had managed a rare grab: a T62 tank along with anti-aircraft weapons.

Another source of arms is from the army defectors themselves, who bring their own weapons along when they join the rebel forces.

Sitting at the base, the men laughed as they recalled the story of two friends, both defectors, who told their superior they needed one of the gun-mounted vehicles and some heavy weapons to check on a call regarding rebel activity. Loading the truck with as much ammunition and weapons as they could find, they drove straight toward the rebels, checking in by radio with their boss with stories of hunting down “rebel traitors” hours after they had already betrayed sides.

While the Free Syrian Army has been adept at obtaining weapons, it has also proven skillful in manufacturing their own.

In a secret warehouse across town from the base, fertilizer and sugar were being boiled in a large pot. Everything from teapots to large metal pipes were being filled to make roadside bombs for attacks on tanks and army vehicles. 23mm bullet casings were filled with explosives with a small wick on top, looking more like an ACME special from a Loony Tunes cartoon than a deadly hand grenade.

"We are using very simple weapons against the highly sophisticated weapons of the regime — tanks, rockets, missiles. What a government! What a regime. Doing nothing but killing their people,” Fatahallah said during a tour of the busy workshop.

The men from the battalion spoke constantly of the need, not for military intervention from abroad, but for international help in obtaining more weapons. But with or without this support, they vowed to continue the fight until Assad is removed.

“The Quran says to prepare whatever weapons you can to fight your enemy,” said Al Sheikh, the commander, as his local leaders discussed preparations for their next mission.

“Even if no weapons are available and all we have left to use are stones, we will go on with our revolution until Assad falls.”






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[The Flying Dutchman]

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Six hours of slaughter which wiped out a village: Assad's men 'massacred 88 people - including 22 children - before setting fire to the bodies and dancing as they burned'

*Many of the victims were stabbed to death and at least 12 had been burned
Victims include women and children

*Pro-Assad forces 'behind attack' and 'danced round victims' bodies'
UN monitors accused of ignoring 30 calls for assistance

*Syrian state TV says bodies have been found after attack on 'terrorists'
Russian diplomat hints that Assad may flea to Moscow

*David Cameron says attack is 'sickening'
and Syria needs to be isolated

By Daily Mail Reporter
PUBLISHED: 08:42 EST, 7 June 2012
http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/news/...Six-hours-slaughter-wiped-entire-village.html​

Syrian soldiers have carried out an horrific massacre which left virtually a whole village - including women and children - dead, it was claimed today.

A witness said the charred bodies of women and children lay scattered in houses across farmland in central Syria after a brutal massacre allegedly carried out by pro-regime militiamen.

'Burned bodies of children and women and girls were on the ground,' Laith, a young villager, told AFP by telephone from near Al-Kubeir, a small Sunni enclave in the Syrian province of Hama after the killings on Wednesday.
Scroll down for video: Warning graphic content

Video uploaded to YouTube apparently shows a woman victim of the massacre which happened in the central region of Hama

Around 20 young children were among the victims of the massacre which is reported to have been carried out by pro-Assad militiamen.

'I saw something you cannot imagine. It was a horrifying massacre... people were executed and burned. Bodies of young men were taken away,' Laith said, his voice trembling.

He gave only his first name for fear of being targeted by regime forces. The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 55 people were killed in the assault on the hamlet.

Laith, from a nearby village, said the killings in Al-Kubeir, where not 'a single demonstration' had been held against the Damascus regime, began at around 2pm local time on Wednesday, when it was surrounded by tanks.

Image of teenage casualty brings home reality of bloody fighting in Syria as 80 soldiers are reported to have died in weekend shelling.

'My forces had nothing to do with massacre of children': Syria president Assad denies slaughter as eight are killed in related clashes in Lebanon

'They (Syrian troops) started to shell Al-Kubeir, and did not stop until 8pm,' he said.
Pro-regime militiamen, known as shabiha, from nearby Alawite areas entered Al-Kubeir, he said.

'They had guns and knives... They went there from nearby villages like Asileh, which is Alawite,' he said of the offshoot of Shiite Islam from which Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his family hails.

The victims were either shot or cut down with knives and there are many burned bodies.

Laith said he had heard that the bodies of some young men from Al-Kubeir were taken to Asileh.

'I heard from people I know in that village that last night the shabiha militiamen drank and danced around their corpses, chanting songs praising Assad,' an emotional Laith claimed.

He said the murders were triggered when a farmer from the area wanted to enter Al-Kubeir but was turned away at a checkpoint between Asileh and Al-Kubeir.

'The farmer still managed to get into Al-Kubeir, and that's when regime forces started to deploy around the farmland,' Laith said.

He vented his fury at UN observers for not arriving at the scene on Wednesday when they were called 'about 30 times, begging them to come to Al-Kubeir to see what was happening.'

'But they did not come. They might as well be working with the shabiha. We just can't take this any more... people are being killed, everything is a set-up, a lie. We only have God to rely on. Only God will help us.'

Activists from Hama also blamed the shabiha for the murders in the hamlet, where some 150 shepherds and farmers lived.

'I think they (the regime) used the thugs to deliver a message to the Syrian people that "either you are with us or against us",' Abu Ghazi al-Hamwi - not his real name - said via Skype.

'People who do not take sides are a target, because the regime is running out of options on how to stop the revolt. The regime tries to prove this is a war, not an uprising. And this is how they do it.'

He said Al-Kubeir was a Sunni enclave near Asileh and other Alawite villages.
'The violence is worst in areas where Sunni and Alawite live near each other. The regime is trying to break society in half,' he said.

Hamwi said he spoke to a survivor of the massacre, who pretended to be dead after being hit on the head with a stick.

Victims of the massacre are treated following the attack at Mazraat al-Qabeer

'He played dead in order to survive. He could barely speak. He was in a very bad shape. You can imagine, he'd just lost 35 members of his family,' Hamwi said.
He also blamed UN observers for not heading to the site of the massacre quickly.
'When the army deployed there, and the shelling of around 20-25 houses started, activists called the UN monitors, who said they could not go because it was late in the day. For me that means they are just not professional,' Hamwi said.

Another Hama-based activist, Mousab al-Hamadi said: 'The regime wants to create a sectarian clash in the country. The regime wants to burn down the whole country.'
Russia has hinted that it might take President Assad without the prospect of prosecution if he was to flea Syria.

A senior diplomat said that if it was what the people of Syria wanted, then such a thing to happen.

The diplomat tried to deflect pressure on Moscow to help engineer Assad's exit from power, however, saying his fate is 'not a question for us' but is up to Syrians themselves - repeating a position Moscow has long voiced.

'Application of the so-called Yemen scenario to resolve the conflict in Syria is possible only if the Syrians themselves agree to it,' Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said, according to the Interfax news agency.

'The Yemen scenario was discussed by the Yemenis themselves. If this scenario is discussed by Syrians themselves and is adopted by them, we are not against it.'
Hamadi said Syrians had lost faith in the international community.

'Everyone here is depending on the FSA (Free Syrian Army). The international community has failed' us, he said, referring to rebel forces.

Hamadi said there was no FSA presence in Al-Kubeir which he said had not been reported to have taken sides in the uprising.

'For 40 years we have lived under oppression. We know more massacres like this may happen. We are ready to go to the end, even if it means half of the Syrian people might get killed,' Hamadi said.

Prime Minister David Cameron today condemned the 'brutal and sickening' killing of civilians in Syria and called for 'concerted action' by the international community against the regime of President Bashar Assad.

Syrian state TV said troops found some bodies after attacking 'terrorists'.

Speaking during a visit to Norway, Mr Cameron said the massacre was further proof that the Assad regime was 'completely illegitimate and cannot stand'.

In a clear message to Russia and China, which have blocked international action against Assad, the Prime Minister said the whole world should show that it wants a transition to a new regime in Damascus.

'Massacre': Bodies of those killed in a alleged slaughter by Syrian fores are lined up in Houla, Homs

Speaking in Oslo, Mr Cameron said: 'If these reports are true, it is yet another absolutely brutal and sickening attack.

'Frankly, the international community has got to condemn absolutely this regime and President Assad for what he is doing.

'I think that lots of different countries in the world - countries that sit around the UN Security Council table - have got to sit down today and discuss this issue.
'None of them should be able to hide from the fact that, if this is true, it will be once again President Assad demonstrating that his regime is completely illegitimate and cannot stand.

'We need to do much more to isolate Syria, to isolate the regime, to put the pressure on and to demonstrate that the whole world wants to see a political transition from this illegitimate regime and to actually see one that can take care of its people.

'It really is appalling, what is happening in that country, and I want to see concerted action from the international community.'

Concerned: Families leave their homes in Taldou, near Houla, following last week's massacre -108 people were executed

Much of the killing was said to be done by accompanying groups of pro-government militiamen known as ‘shabiha’, who had come from nearby villages that support the government.

These heavily-armed groups of men have been seen throughout the unrest in Syria, often dressed in black and fighting alongside the official security forces.
They are accused not only of killing and beating demonstrators, but also of carrying out a campaign of intimidation that has included executions, drive-by shootings, rape and sectarian attacks.

Though there has been no independent confirmation of the latest massacre, news of the outrage in Houla emerged in a similar way and the details given by activists were later confirmed by UN ceasefire observers who are in the country.

It comes just a day before Kofi Annan, the UN-Arab League envoy to Syria, is due to address the UN General Assembly and the Security Council on the progress of his six-point peace plan.

The reports could not be confirmed, but they come less than two weeks after 108 people were executed in Houla.

The Houla attack, in which nearly half the victims were children, triggered outrage in the international community, and increased pressure on President Bashar Assad.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ghter-wiped-entire-village.html#ixzz1x7LYzhdy




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[The Flying Dutchman]

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UN monitors try to reach "massacre" village

By Mariam Karouny and Erika Solomon
Reuters – 1 hour 24 minutes ago.. .
http://in.news.yahoo.com/un-monitors-try-reach-massacre-village-130712566.html​

BEIRUT (Reuters) - U.N. monitors tried on Thursday to check reports of a massacre of at least 78 villagers by forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad - killings that prompted another U.S. demand for the Syrian leader to cede power and leave the country.

Opposition activists said up to 40 women and children were among the dead in Mazraat al-Qubeir, near Hama, on Wednesday, posting film on the Internet of bloodied or charred bodies.

Confirmation will pile pressure on world powers to act, but they have been paralysed by rifts pitting Western and most Arab states against Assad's defenders in Russia, China and Iran.

Syria's pro-government Addounia TV said U.N. observers had arrived in Mazraat al-Qubeir. The chief of the U.N. mission said earlier that Syrian troops and civilians had barred them.

"They are being stopped at Syrian army checkpoints and in some cases turned back," General Robert Mood, the head of the U.N. observer mission, said in a statement. "Some of our patrols are being stopped by civilians in the area.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described the latest reported massacre, which follows one in which 108 people were slain in the Syrian town of Houla on May 25, as unconscionable.

"We are disgusted by what we are seeing (in Syria)," she told a news conference during a visit to Istanbul.

YEMEN-STYLE TRANSITION?​

Clinton said the United States was willing to work with all U.N. Security Council members, which include Russia, on a conference on Syria's political future. But it would have to start with the premise that Assad and his government give way to a democratic government, she said.

Kofi Annan, the U.N.-Arab League envoy for Syria, was due to brief the U.N. Security Council in New York later on Thursday.

A senior Russian diplomat said Moscow would accept a Yemen-style power transition in Syria if were decided by the people, referring to a deal under which Yemeni leader Ali Abdullah Saleh stepped down in February after a year of unrest.

"The Yemen scenario was discussed by the Yemenis themselves. If this scenario is discussed by Syrians themselves and is adopted by them, we are not against it," Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said, according to the Interfax news agency.

A Syrian official in Hama denied reports from Mazraat al-Qubeir, telling the state news agency that residents had asked security forces for help after a "terrorist group committed ... a monstrous crime", killing nine women and children.

U.N. observers sent to Syria to verify what has proved to be a non-existent truce brokered by Annan investigated the Houla massacre, which the chief U.N. peacekeeper said was probably the work of Syrian troops and "shabbiha" militia.

Activists say pro-Assad gunmen also perpetrated the killings in Mazraat al-Qubeir, moving in to shoot, club and stab their victims, backed by army tanks that shelled the village earlier.

Syrian authorities have also denied responsibility for the Houla killings, blaming foreign-backed Islamist militants.

Footage purportedly from Mazraat al-Qubeir showed the bodies of at least a dozen women and children wrapped in blankets or white shrouds, as well as the remains of burned corpses.

"These are the children of the Mazraat al-Qubeir massacre ... Look, you Arabs and Muslims, is this a terrorist?" asks the cameraman, focusing on a dead infant's face. "This woman was a shepherd, and this was a schoolgirl."

BURNED BEYOND RECOGNITION​

A Hama-based activist using the name Abu Ghazi listed more than 50 names of victims, many from the al-Yateem family, but said some burned bodies could not be identified. The bodies of between 25 and 30 men were taken away by the killers, he said.

Shabbiha, drawn mostly from Assad's minority Alawite sect that is an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam, have been blamed for the killings of civilians from the Sunni Muslim majority. That has raised fears of an Iraq-style sectarian bloodbath and worsened tensions between Shi'ite Iran and mainly Sunni-led Arab states.

Events in Syria's 15-month-old uprising are difficult to verify due to tight state curbs on international media access.

U.N. diplomats said they expected Annan to present the Security Council with a new proposal to rescue his failing peace plan - a "contact group" of world powers and regional ones like Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar and Iran, which is an ally of Syria.

Rebel groups in Syria say they are no longer bound by Annan's truce plan and want foreign weapons and other support.

Western leaders, wary of new military engagements in the Muslim world, have offered sympathy but shown no appetite for taking on Assad's military, supplied by Russia and Iran.

Annan sees his proposed forum as a way to break a deadlock among the five permanent members of the Security Council, where Russia and China have twice vetoed resolutions critical of Syria that were backed by the United States, Britain and France.

It would seek to map out a political transition under which Assad would leave office ahead of free elections, envoys said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday proposed an international meeting on Syria that would include the prime candidates for Annan's proposed contact group, including Iran.

Clinton, however, reacted coolly to that idea, accusing Iran of "stage-managing" Syria's repression of its opponents in which the United Nations says over 10,000 people have been killed.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said it was important to involve Russia in peace efforts on Syria, saying the conflict there could ignite a regional conflagration.

"Assad's regime must know there is no protective hand over these atrocities," he said in Istanbul.

Leaders of a bloc grouping China, Russia and Central Asian states called on Thursday for dialogue to resolve the Syria conflict, rather than any firmer action by the Security Council.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation rejected military interference, "enforced handover of power" and unilateral sanctions, favouring a "broad nationwide dialogue, based on independence, territorial integrity and sovereignty of Syria."

France said it would host a conference of the "Friends of Syria" - countries hostile to Assad - on July 6.







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