Surveillance at the United Nations
By Danny O’Brien and Katitza Rodriguez | EFF | September 17, 2013
The surveillance scandal has now reached the United Nation’s Human Rights Council, which opened its 24th session last week to a volley of questions about privacy and spying, many of them targeted at the United States and United Kingdom. (That’s perhaps not surprising, since U.N. representatives were among those listed as being monitored by the NSA and GCHQ).
The opening statement by the eminent South African human rights lawyer Navi Pillay (now the U.N.’s High Commissioner for Human Rights) warned of the “broad scope of national security surveillance in countries, including the United States and United Kingdom,” and urged all countries to “ensure that adequate safeguards are in place to prevent security agency overreach and to protect the right to privacy and other human rights.” On September 13, the German Ambassador Schumacher delivered a joint statement on behalf of Austria, Germany, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland and Hungary expressing their concern about the consequences of “surveillance, decryption and mass data collection.”
One part of the potential solution to those concerns will be officially launched this Friday in a Human Rights Council side-meeting on digital privacy hosted by these same concerned countries: the International Principles on the Application of Human Rights to Communications Surveillance.
For over a year, EFF has been working with other civil liberties groups to develop these principles that spell out how existing human rights law applies to modern digital surveillance. The 13 Principles — which have been signed by 258 organizations across the world— also provide a benchmark that people around the world can use to evaluate and push for changes in their own surveillance laws. For this 24th session, EFF has joined RSF and APC in a joint written submission to the HRC, advocating for these checks and balances.
The Human Rights Council isn’t the only diplomatic venue at the United Nations where complaints about the United States’ surveillance practices are being heard. The Human Rights Committee is also set to scrutinize the United States on its compliance with Article 17 (right to privacy) of the International Coventant on Civil and Political Rights. The United States’ written response to Human Rights Committee has already laid out its diplomatic response in favor of the Patriot and FISA provisions. It notably dodges the key question that is emerging from other countries regarding these programs: if the U.S. government cannot rein in its domestic surveillance program, riven as it is with constitutional and statutory problems, just how much worse are the controls on the surveillance of non-US persons?
More directly relevant to the diplomatic community is a connected question: how can the United States accuse, with a straight face, other countries of undermining “Internet Freedom” through the use of malware and mass spying, when it seems that there are precious few internal limits to what its own security services are permitted to do in the same arena?
This is not just a matter of the United States’ international reputation. The greatest risk to the Internet in the international arena right now lies in the formation of an unholy alliance between countries who are already seeking excuses to spy and censor the net and those, like the United States, who have previously argued against such practices, but are now having to defend their own surveillance excesses with similar language.
Without promising substantive reform at home, the U.S. and the U.K. risk alienating their own allies at the United Nations, while granting a carte blanche for other countries to pursue a repressive Internet agenda abroad. The Western countries implicated in the NSA scandal should grab onto the full set of principles as a liferaft: a way that they can show a commitment to transparency and proportionality in a way that obliges other countries to follow the same standards. Otherwise, the U.S. and the U.K. will be seen as having started a race to the bottom of privacy standards: a race too many other countries will be happy to join.
Swiss take obligatory army service to referendum
RT | September 18, 2013
On Sunday, the Swiss are voting on a proposal to abolish military conscription in favor of a voluntary army. The country with no clear foes and a long tradition of neutrality could find better ways of spending money than playing at war, proponents say.
Switzerland, once a proud supplier of mercenaries for numerous wars in Europe, has maintained a policy of armed neutrality for the last five centuries. It isn’t a member of any defense pacts and wasn’t even member of the United Nations until 2002. But it has an army of 150,000, the size of Austria’s, Belgium’s, Norway’s, Finland’s and Sweden’s armies combined.
Under Swiss law, all able-bodied males must take part in compulsory military service between the ages of 18 and 34. This comprises 18 to 21 weeks of basic training and further yearly refresher courses lasting 19 days. Senior officers may have to serve up to the age of 50 and spend more than twice as much time on army duty than ordinary recruits.
Boot camp is praised by advocates as a character-building experience, which teaches working in a team under stress and gives a chance to develop leadership skills. It also serves as a kind of glue for Swiss society, with connections made in the service lasting on in civilian life. For a country with four different language groups, it is seen by many Swiss as crucial for national unity.
The military is also the cornerstone of the Swiss militia, which has a role similar to the National Guard in the US. Those in the army help civilian authorities and respond to natural disasters and other major events. Many continue helping society as volunteers after retiring from the service by joining the fire service, participating in local politics. or serving other public duties.
An anachronism that costs too much
However, there are plenty who see military traditions as an expensive anachronism, which is no longer necessary. The pacifist Group for Switzerland without an Army (GSoA) has gathered the 100,000 signatures necessary to put their abolition proposal to a national referendum.
Referenda are essential to Switzerland’s direct form of democracy and are held several times a year at national, regional and local levels. An initiative must win support from a majority of voters and a majority of cantons to be passed and made law.
GSoA, which has been campaigning against obligatory army service since 1982, argues that the country located in the heart of Europe doesn’t need big military firepower to protect itself and that a purely voluntary force would suffice. It criticizes conscription, which excludes Swiss women and disrupts study and work for men, costing an estimated $4.3 billion to the economy annually.
“Not everyone has time to play war,” declares the GSoA campaign poster.
The group has pushed unsuccessfully for several referendums in the past, trying to scrap the military, preventing the procurement of American fighter jets, banning all arms exports from Switzerland, and stopping the Swiss tradition of conscripts keeping their assault rifles at home after initial training.
Sunday’s vote is not expected to go in favor of the GSoA. A survey by Swiss television in August revealed that 40 per cent of respondents would reject the initiative, with another 17 per cent leaning that way. The support for the military is particularly strong in the older generations, with 68 per cent of those over 65 opposing the initiative. Less than a third of Swiss people support the proposal.
“Switzerland needs an army,” says Jakob Büchler of the Christian Democrat Party (CVP), a member of the National Council, which rejected the initiative as cited by The Local. “We are a small country, we are a neutral country, and we are a country that isn’t in any defense alliances. We have to therefore organize our own defense and security ourselves, and that’s why we need an army.”
Opponents of the initiative fear that there won’t be enough volunteers for military service and Switzerland would then have to start a costly change to a professional army.
Globalization advancing
Lately, GSoA reasoning has found support from an increasing number of multinational firms who are not happy to see local staff being sent to boot camps, reports Reuters. The contact-building aspect of the military is diminishing too, with Swiss companies being infiltrated by foreigners – just six of the CEOs at Switzerland’s top 20 companies hold Swiss nationality – and of course females are climbing the corporate ladder, too. Meanwhile young men nowadays have other options such as internships abroad.
While the GSoA proposal is likely to be thrown out, they are still hoping for a strong showing of support for their stance as they continue their fight. “The more ‘yes’ votes we receive, the greater the pressure will be to reform the army,” says Seraina Patzen, a spokeswoman for the group.
The Swiss military are not objecting to undergoing reform. They have already shrunk the number of troops considerably. In the late 1980s Switzerland had 800,000 soldiers and officers, but by 2003 the number had dropped to 350,000. The plan is to reduce the current army of 150,000 to 100,000 in coming years.
Conscription rules were made less strict. Since 1996 conscientious objectors may serve an extended period in the civil service as an alternative to joining the military.
But the Defense Ministry maintains that a conscripted military is necessary for the country. During a recent media tour of barracks, Defense Minister Ueli Maurer said Switzerland may not face an enemy in the field, but may become, for example, a target of a cyber attack disrupting the transport network. In order for the army to respond to national emergencies, it needs to be able to draw on the best IT specialists, engineers and technicians the country has to offer.
Palestinian teen ‘executed’ by Israeli forces in Jenin
By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC & Agencies | September 17, 2013
Palestinian medical sources have reported that a Palestinian youth was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers invading his home in the Jenin refugee camp, in the northern West Bank city of Jenin on Tuesday. Dozens of residents have been injured during ensuing clashes, and one was kidnapped.
The Maan News Agency has reported that a large Israeli military force invaded that camp, during late night hours, and that the soldiers broke into and violently searched dozens of homes.
The invasion led to clashes with local youths who hurled stones and empty bottles at the invading forces.
Medical sources said that resident Islam Husam Toubasy, 19, was shot by rounds of live ammunition fired at him by the invasion soldiers who broke into his home after detonating its door.
His family told Maan that, immediately after invading their property, the soldiers headed to the rooftop where Islam sleeps in his room, and shot him in the foot before dragging him onto the ground, taking him out of his home while he was heavily bleeding.
His brother, Kamal, stated that after the soldiers shot and injured Islam, and dragged him out of the home, undercover soldiers of the Israeli army shot him again, the Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA) has reported.
The army then moved him to the Al Khodeira hospital, inside the 1948 territories, where he died due to the massive bleeding he suffered as a result of his injury.
The family said that the soldiers forced them in one room, and that they saw Islam bleeding and unconscious before the soldiers took him away. The soldiers did not allow the family to help their son.
Army then withdrew from the camp, but re-invaded it, and the city of Jenin, in the morning, leading to clashes with dozens of local youths.
Eyewitnesses said that at least twenty armored Israeli military vehicles, and a military ambulance, invaded the area, leading to clashes with dozens of students heading to their school.
The soldiers fired more rounds of live ammunition, gas bombs and concussion grenades at the residents leading to several injuries.
One of the wounded, Nael Ghazzawy, 13, was shot by a live round in his leg while standing at the balcony of his home.
Soldiers also kidnapped a resident identified as Mohammad Bassam Al-Fayed, 21, and took him to an unknown destination.
It is worth mentioning that, in 2006, undercover soldiers of the Israeli army, shot and killed Ahmad, the brother of Islam, and demolished his home. Their brother Sa’id, is a political prisoner held by Israel after being sentenced to 32 years imprisonment by a military court.
Earlier on Tuesday, Israeli soldiers invaded various Palestinian communities in different parts of the occupied West Bank, and kidnapped at least nine Palestinians.
On Monday, Israeli soldiers kidnapped at least fifteen Palestinians, including a legislator, in different parts of the occupied West Bank.
The invasions are part of daily violations carried out by the army against the Palestinians and their property in different parts of occupied Palestine.
Related article
UK new forced conscription bill: a look
Press TV – September 16, 2013
The British government has launched a new debate on reintroducing mandatory National Service, or conscription, for the 18 to 26-year-olds, 50 years after the last conscripted British soldier ended his service.
The bill was tabled by Conservative MP Philip Hollobone, who said the service can inspire young people with “self-respect, personal reliance, discipline and behavior.”
The legislation was introduced to the parliament for debate on June 24, which is considered its first reading though no debate took place at that stage.
MPs are expected to hold a second reading debate on the bill on February 28, 2014.
The bill predicts the introduction of a year-long charitable or military service that could involve care for the elderly or the disabled, work for the emergency services or service in the armed forces with a necessary “residential element” that requires participants to live away from their homes.
“Every individual who has attained the age of 18 years, and who has not attained the age of 26 years, shall be liable to serve one year of national service at some point between these years unless exempt,” the bill reads.
“Regulations shall provide that the scheme must extend the scope of the National Citizen Service and include the following elements,” it adds.
The bill, if voted into law, makes it a criminal offense to skip National Service.
The reference in the text of the proposed law to the National Citizen Service (NCS), which was introduced by Prime Minister David Cameron for the 16 and 17-year-olds in 2010, raises suspicion that the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government has been planning to reintroduce the long-forgotten National Service early after taking office.
NCS is now in full swing in England and offers voluntary short-time tours for individuals to take part in team projects away from home to help their community.
London first introduced conscription during the First World War in 1916, which lasted until 1919.
Another forced service was launched in 1939 at the beginning of the Second World War, continuing until 1960, with the last conscripted soldiers ending their service in 1963.
The recruitment was named War Service or Military Service during the wars and National Service, as formulated by the National Service Act 1948, between 1948 and 1960.
The second national service period that started in 1939 lasted beyond the World War II (1939-1945) partly because of Britain’s involvement in the Korean War of the 1950’s.
That could be adequate precedence for the British public to fear a decade of military adventurism, including the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya – not to mention the saber-rattling against Syria — has triggered the renewed call for a national service.
Indeed, the public opposition to the bill emerged from the very onset after an e-petition was launched demanding the government to “stop the National Service Bill 2013-2014”. The petition has already collected over 27,000 signatures.
It rejects the mandatory service as “unacceptable”, calling on the government to reject the bill “in its entirety” and “reassure us that non voluntary service and any residential or military style training, or service, will always be a freedom of choice”.
Under the Coalition agreement any e-petition attracting more than 100,000 signatures becomes eligible for a Commons debate.
The public concern over the new initiative has been clearly reflected in the e-petition.
“We do not want our children and grandchildren to fight and die in wars, or in training that they or we have no control over,” the petition says.
There are also concerns that the forced conscription is against the idea of a free society as compulsory recruits will have to spend a year in service with minimum wage at the end of their high school or college, when they could rather start a job or begin university education in anticipation of a difficult future amid Britain’s economic woes.
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NSA masqueraded as Google to spy on web users – report
RT | September 13, 2013
The NSA used ‘man in the middle’ hack attacks to impersonate Google and fool web users, leaks have revealed. The technique circumvents encryption by redirecting users to a copycat site which relays all the data entered to NSA data banks.
Brazilian television network Globo News released a report based on classified data divulged by former CIA worker Edward Snowden on Sunday. The report itself blew the whistle on US government spying on Brazilian oil giant Petrobras, but hidden in amongst the data was information the NSA had impersonated Google to get its hands on user data.
Globo TV showed slides from a 2012 NSA presentation explaining how the organization intercepts data and re-routes it to NSA central. One of the convert techniques the NSA uses to do this is a ‘man in the middle’ (MITM) hack attack.
This particular method of intercepting internet communications is quite common among expert hackers as it avoids having to break through encryption. Essentially, NSA operatives log into a router used by an internet service provider and divert ‘target traffic’ to a copycat MITM site, whereupon all the data entered is relayed to the NSA. The data released by Edward Snowden and reported on by Globo News suggests the NSA carried out these attacks disguised as Google.
When the news broke about the NSA gathering information through internet browsers, tech giants such as Google and Yahoo denied complicity, maintaining they only handover data if a formal request is issued by the government.
“As for recent reports that the US government has found ways to circumvent our security systems, we have no evidence of any such thing ever occurring. We provide our user data to governments only in accordance with the law,” said Google spokesperson Jay Nancarrow to news site Mother Jones.
Google, along with Microsoft, Facebook and Yahoo, has filed a lawsuit against the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) to allow them to make public all the data requests made by the NSA.
“Given the important public policy issues at stake, we have also asked the court to hold its hearing in open rather than behind closed doors. It’s time for more transparency,” Google’s director of law enforcement and information security, Richard Salgado, and the director of public policy and government affairs, Pablo Chavez, wrote in a blog post on Monday.
The tech giants implicated in NSA’s global spying program have denied criticism that they could have done more to resist NSA spying. Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo, claimed that speaking out about the NSA’s activities would have amounted to ‘treason’ at a press conference in San Francisco on Wednesday.
In Yahoo’s defense, she argued that the company had been very skeptical of the NSA’s requests to disclose user data and had resisted whenever possible. Mayer concluded that it was more realistic to work within the system,” rather than fight against it.
NSA, no way! Anti-spying sentiments on the rise amid steady stream of disclosures
RT | September 11, 2013
The National Security Agency isn’t making many friends, apparently: a new poll published this week suggests that a majority of Americans continue to have complaints with the NSA’s surveillance practices amid a myriad of recent disclosures.
According to the results of survey released this week by the Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, anti-NSA sentiment remains rampant in the United States more than three months after former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden first began disclosing top-secret documents exposing the inner-workings of a vast surveillance apparatus operated by America’s premier spy agency. Meanwhile, concerns regarding those practices are growing amid members of Congress and even independent coalitions.
Polling conducted by the AP and NORC last month and released on Tuesday suggest that 56 percent of Americans surveyed oppose the NSA’s collection of telephone records, and 54 percent said they were against the practices that put Internet metadata into the hands of federal investigators.
A confused poll earlier this year in July by the PEW Research Center found that 44 percent of Americans disapproved of the NSA program, with half of the country not opposing the surveillance methods.
Now only 34 percent — or roughly one-third of those polled — say they are okay with the dragnet collection of metadata, or raw information including information on the sender and recipient, time and location pertaining to emails and phone calls. Additionally, 53 percent of Americans polled from a group of 1,008 adults say the federal government is doing a good job of ensuring freedom, a drop in seven percentage points since 2011. That earlier study concluded that 40 percent of Americans thought the government was doing a good job of protecting privacy, and today that number is down to 34 percent.
The AP poll also concluded that an overwhelming 71 percent of those asked opposed US officials eavesdropping on calls without warrant, and 62 percent said they were against the monitoring of email content.
Results from the latest poll were published on Tuesday, one day before the UK’s Guardian newspaper published the latest top-secret document in a series of classified leaks attributed to Snowden since early June. On Wednesday morning, the Guardian published a NSA memo from 2009 in which it’s revealed how US intelligence officials have shared raw data collected from American persons with Israeli counterparts without domestic agents even analyzing that information before it changes hands.
Commenting to the AP, Trevor Timm of the Electronic Frontier Foundation suggested the recent NSA disclosures undoubtedly have influenced the public’s perception of the US intelligence community and the way it conducts itself.
“For the first time, the public is able to see what’s going on behind closed doors and it’s changing minds,” Timm told the AP.
The EFF, along with the American Civil Liberties Union and more than two dozen other entities, are named as plaintiffs in a collection of lawsuits challenging the Obama administration’s surveillance programs. Attorneys for the EFF are representing plaintiffs in the matter of First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles v. NSA, which grew in size this week when five new organizations signed on to sue the White House. The EFF announced on Tuesday this week that Acorn Active Media, the Charity and Security Network, the National Lawyers Guild, Patient Privacy Rights and The Shalom Center have all signed on to the suit, which attorneys say challenges the government’s surveillance alleged abuse of Section 215 of the Patriot Act to collect bulk telephone metadata — an activity first disclosed on June 5 after Snowden leaked documents to the Guardian and Washington Post.
“The First Amendment guarantees the freedom to associate and express political views as a group,” EFF legal director Cindy Cohn said in a statement. “The NSA undermines that right when it collects, without any particular target, the phone records of innocent Americans and the organizations in which they participate. In order to advocate effectively, these organizations must have the ability to protect the privacy of their employees and members.”
Also signing on in support of NSA reform is US Rep. Darrell Issa (R-California), who only this week announced he’d be seeking changes in the way America conducts surveillance operations. Issa previously voted against a measure proposed by colleague Rep. Justin Amash (R-Michigan) which would have aimed to thwart the NSA’s now-infamous practices, but this week wrote a letter to Congress saying lawmakers on Capitol Hill should debate those policies once again as leaks continue to raise concerns.
“Now that it has been publicly acknowledged that the communications of Americans were included in the NSA’s data collection program, likely violating their Fourth Amendment rights, Congress must respond in a manner that both increases the transparency of the agency’s programs and reinforces the constitutional protections of our citizens,” Issa wrote in a letter first published by Politico.
“We’re very pleased that Chairman Issa supports our amendment,” Amash spokesman Will Adams told US News & World Report. “If the Amash amendment does get taken up by the House and it does pass this fall, it will put pressure on the committees to start passing comprehensive reforms.”
The Amash Amendment would have barred the NSA from using the PATRIOT Act provision at the center of First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles v. NSA to collect the phone records of all Americans. It was defeated in the House last month by a 12 vote margin.
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Legal loophole: US offers no apologies for hacking internet encryption
RT | September 6, 2013
The US Director of National Intelligence has issued a statement in response to a report revealing that the National Security Agency, with help from international allies, secretly inserted backdoors into various encryption and internet security services.
Intelligence agencies in the US and United Kingdom have spent millions to bribe technicians – perhaps even planting agents inside telecommunication companies – in a bid to penetrate the encryption used by hundreds of millions of people to protect their privacy online.
The report detailing the intelligence agency’s efforts was published Thursday by The Guardian, and is the latest result of the leaks from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
The office of James Clapper, director of US national intelligence, has responded by saying the government would simply not be doing its job if it did not use legally dubious techniques to quietly monitor Americans’ everyday communications.
“It should hardly be a surprise that our intelligence agencies seek ways to counteract our adversaries’ use of encryption,” read the statement issued Friday. “Throughout history, nations have used encryption to protect their secrets, and today, terrorists, cyber-criminals, human traffickers and others also use code to hide their activities.”
Close readers may focus their attention on the statement’s mention of “and others,” a loophole that conceivably writes the government a blank check to spy on anyone it sees fit.
“I am the other because I do not trust my government in general, or the people working for its security apparatus in particular,” wrote Ken White of the Popehat law and civil liberties blog.
“I am the other because I believe the security state and its representatives habitually lie, both directly and by misleading language, about the scope of their spying on us. I believe they feel entitled to do so,” he adds.
Among the representatives of the so-called “security state” is US President Barack Obama, who again drew the ire of civil liberty advocates this week when he appeared to admit that he lacks the knowledge of what exactly the NSA is doing.
Obama participated in a press conference at the G20 summit in which he was questioned about accusations from Brazil and Mexico that the NSA has spied on their heads of state.
“I mean, part of the problem here is we get these through the press and then I’ve got to go back and find out what’s going on with respect to these particular allegations,” said President Obama in St. Petersburg. “I don’t subscribe to all these newspapers, although I think the NSA does, now at least.”
Obama took time out of his G20 schedule to hold a closed doors session with Brazil’s President Rousseff for nearly 30 minutes on Thursday, to address the country’s outrage at allegations that her communications with top members of her government had been intercepted.
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EU court verdict on Iran sanctions angers US
Press TV – September 7, 2013
A new EU court ruling that rejected sanctions on a number of Iranian entities has drawn the ire of the United States, prompting Washington to extend its illegal embargoes against more individuals and businesses.
The EU’s General Court in Luxembourg lifted the bloc’s sanctions against seven Iranian companies on Friday, ruling that there wasn’t sufficient evidence to justify the embargoes.
The top EU court ruled that the bloc wrongly blocked the accounts of Post Bank of Iran, the Iran Insurance Company, Good Luck Shipping and the Export Development Bank of Iran, from 2008 to 2011.
“We are very disappointed by the [EU] court’s decision today,” a spokesman for the US Treasury Department said in a statement on Friday.
The US Treasury later announced that it blacklisted six individuals and four businesses over their alleged links to Iranian oil sales.
At the beginning of 2012, the US and the European Union imposed new sanctions on Iran’s oil and financial sectors aimed at preventing other countries from purchasing Iranian oil and conducting transactions with the Central Bank of Iran.
The illegal US-engineered sanctions were imposed based on the unfounded accusation that Iran is pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program.
Iran rejects the allegation, arguing that as a committed signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.
In addition, the IAEA has conducted numerous inspections of Iran’s nuclear facilities but has never found any evidence showing that Iran’s nuclear activities have non-civilian purposes.
Pope calls on world leaders to abandon military options in Syria
RT | September 5, 2013
Pope Francis called on world leaders attending the G20 summit in Russia to seek peace in Syria through diplomatic means and to lay aside the “futile pursuit” of a military solution.
In a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is hosting the G20 summit, Francis said that lopsided global interests have blocked a diplomatic course in the Syrian conflict and have led to the “senseless massacre” of innocent people.
“To the leaders present, to each and every one, I make a heartfelt appeal for them to help find ways to overcome the conflicting positions and to lay aside the futile pursuit of a military solution,” Francis wrote.
The letter follows an announcement earlier this week that the Vatican will host a vigil for peace in Syria in St. Peter’s Square on Saturday.
The Vatican outlined Thursday its position on Syria to ambassadors accredited to the Holy See.
“Confronted with similar acts one cannot remain silent, and the Holy See hopes that the competent institutions make clear what happened and that those responsible face justice,” the Vatican’s Foreign Minister, Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, told the 71 ambassadors regarding the chemical weapons attack that took place outside Damascus on August 21. The US and its allies believe the attack was launched by the Syrian government.
Mamberti said the main priority was to stop the violence which he said is risking the involvement of other countries and creating “unforeseeable consequences in various parts of the world.”
He did not mention possible military strikes by the US, but stressed peace in all facets of a potential solution to the violent conflict.
In addition, Mamberti said the Vatican does not want Syria to be split up along ethnic or religious lines, and that Syrian minorities – including Christians – should have basic rights guaranteed, including freedom of religion.
The Assad regime in Syria has long supported ethnic and religious minorities including Christians, Shiite Muslims, and Kurds. The Assad family and many regime officials are Alawites, followers of an offshoot of Shiite Islam, while most rebels and their supporters are Sunni Muslims.
On Wednesday, the head of the Vatican’s Jesuit order, Rev. Adolfo Nicolas, said that military action by the US and France would ultimately punish the Syrian people.
“I cannot understand who gave the United States or France the right to act against a country in a way that will certainly increase the suffering of the citizens of that country, who, by the way, have already suffered beyond measure,” he said.
Egypt creates a buffer zone with Gaza
MEMO | September 2, 2013
The Egyptian army is working to create a buffer zone on the Egyptian border with the Gaza Strip in a purported effort to undermine weapon smuggling and chaos caused by militants in the Sinai Peninsula.
The military envisions that the ten kilometres long and 500 metre wide buffer zone is to be a building free area without trees. The area stretches from the Rafah Crossing through to the Mediterranean Sea.
Witnesses said that the Egyptian military bulldozers had started uprooting trees in the area and that 13 Egyptian houses had been destroyed in the al-Sarsouriya neighbourhood on Saturday.
At the time of writing this report, Egyptian military bulldozers were working fast razing sand-hills and trees in the area.
A military source, speaking anonymously, told the AP that homes had been knocked down over the last 10 days as a test of the buffer zone idea.
The interim Egyptian government said that this was a part of its “war on terrorism” campaign. The government and Egyptian mass media have been claiming that the tunnels between Egypt and Gaza have been used to smuggle weapons and Palestinian militants in to Egypt.
Egyptian residents in the neighbourhoods in the planned buffer zone took to the streets on Saturday, torching car tires and hurling stones at the Egyptian army in an effort to delay the demolition of their homes.
Witnesses said that the army called for residents to leave their houses through the loudspeakers of nearby mosques. The army bulldozers then immediately started damaging the houses.
“They did not give residents eviction notices and did not even give them enough time to collect their properties,” a tribal leader told AP.
In an interview with the Egyptian TV, CBC, Egyptian interior minister, Mohamed Ibrahim, claimed that the tunnels were the main cause of the uncertainty in Egypt. He insisted that prominent leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood had used the tunnels to enter and hide in Gaza.
Meanwhile, Hamas spokesman, Sami Abu-Zuhri, denied that the tunnels had been used to smuggle weapons and militants to Egypt or to smuggle Muslim Brotherhood leaders in to Gaza.
“Once they said that Osama Yassin was in Gaza, and two days later, they arrested him in Cairo,” Abu-Zuhri said in an example of the misinformation being reported on Gaza’s involvement in the Egyptian issue and the misuse of tunnels.
Since the end of the Israeli war on Gaza in 2008/2009, the tunnels have been used to smuggle goods, commodities and medicines. Numerous Palestinian, Egyptian and international journalists have observed the work of the tunnels.
They have reported that the tunnels have been used for humanitarian purposes in the light of the strict Israeli blockade on Gaza since 2006.
Resistance Is Our Destiny
By Ibrahim al-Amin | Al-Akhbar | August 31, 2013
To hell with all the talk about democracy backed by the United States, France, Britain … and Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Israel.
To hell with every bid for freedom with the support of these murderers.
To hell with every fool, criminal, and coward, no matter what they look like, what they are called, where they live, or what they do.
To hell with all those who support an international war to topple Syria.
To hell with this bunch of collaborators, who people will no doubt hold accountable one day, come chaos or stability.
To hell with all traitors, their speeches, their false tears, and to hell with their human rights groups and their subservient civil society organizations.
The decision to wage war on Syria is only the last step in the course set two and a half years ago, to destroy Resistance, its cities, people, and even its very idea.
There is no room for any kind of bargaining, and there is no room for any discussion or debate. There is no room to listen to any collaborator touting the list of causes of war and the causers, and there is no room for those who cling to their opinions, positions, or labels, wearing bandanas on their foreheads after wearing blindfolds on their eyes, and joining forces with collaborators and takfiris.
To begin with, these people live on the crumbs thrown to them by the robbers of Arab resources and fortunes. They work for them and receive from them money and all kinds of support.
It is a duty for every capable person to fight these killers, wherever they may be, wherever there is a chance to take revenge against them, and punish all the traitors, one after the other, in their beds, behind their desks, inside their tanks, or in their palaces, whether they are alone, or among their families.
What do you want from us today?
Do you want to repeat the experience of Iraq?
Do you want to repeat the experience of Afghanistan and Somalia?
Do you want to repeat the experience of Libya? Do you want to repeat the experience of war in Lebanon?
Or do you think that this will be a war to destroy the right that will never be eliminated, and whose name, forever shall remain: Palestine?
We do not have to repeat our arguments or repeat the process of searching for answers; we do not have to repeat our comments or our warnings. All we have to do is declare one position, namely, that the war being prepared for Syria is a colonial war, and every participant in it, whether by supporting it, funding it, promoting it, justifying it, or directly fighting in it, is a cowardly collaborator… .
It’s war!
They will gang up on Damascus, the mother of all cities, with the aim of crushing the people, the army, and the leadership. They want to destroy its history and its heritage of resisting invaders. They want to destroy every spirit that resists colonialism and supports resistance in the whole region. They want to extend a permanent lifeline to Israel and the oppressive regimes in our Arab countries, and they want to have collaborators of all kinds take over countries, rob their resources, and annihilate their peoples.
When America says that it needs no cover, legal justification, scientific investigation, or political support, and that it is able to manipulate the fate of a nation, for the sole reason that it has decided that its interests require it, then this means that we must act exactly like America, and wait for no cover, support, justification, or ask about international norms and so forth.
We must fight against it, and against its colonies, all forms of war, and we must spare no effort to seek to transfer the struggle to its soil, in every place of its land and cities; we must scream in the face of the butcher. We would do all this, without giving them the ability to strip us of our humanity, which we shall keep for ourselves, our children, and for the oppressed everywhere.
Yesterday, the West showed its true colors: a spiteful, murderous West, that has no place for anyone except those who know how to kneel down before it, and raise the white flag above their heads.
Yesterday, Europe showed its foul nature. It is not just a foolish old crone, but an ugly one too, with venom spewing from all its folds. Dishonor mars its opinion-makers, factories, schools, universities, and its people who do not come out to disavow the killers among them.
All we can do is resist them, with all our capabilities. Nothing will prevent us from seeking out our sole enemy, which has many faces, but one name: the barbarians, the bloodsuckers. As for us, resistance is our destiny.
Ibrahim al-Amin is editor-in-chief of Al-Akhbar.
This article has been edited for posting at Aletho News.
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