US snub of Syria talks ‘proof of weakness in position’ – Duma speaker
RT | September 6, 2013
State Duma speaker Sergey Naryshkin has told the press that no Russian parliamentary delegation is going to the United States to discuss the Syrian issue, adding that the US refusal to meet was regrettable.
“The unwillingness to listen to arguments on inter-parliamentary level testifies to the fact that our American partners themselves understand the weakness of their positions. In addition, this step characterizes their attitude to the norms of international law,” he said.
Naryshkin added that “the United States is used to considering the most important issues of other nations and of whole world’s regions to be their internal affairs, despite the fact that the current system of international law and the UN’s global security architecture have been built by the lengthy and thorough efforts of the whole international community on the basis of the results of WWII.”
He emphasized that it was extremely dangerous to neglect the valuable institutions and the system of guarantees built on the lessons taught by the greatest disaster of the 20th century. He again reminded that the international political organizations were created in order to save the world from future global disasters.
On Monday this week the heads of the both chambers of the Russian parliament suggested that President Vladimir Putin hold bilateral talks with US lawmakers in order to find a solution to the crisis in Syria. Putin supported the initiative, calling it timely and correct, and adding that direct talks might help US politicians to hear firsthand arguments and understand Russian motives in the standoff.
By Tuesday, Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko had sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid suggesting a meeting be called without delay to find a peaceful solution to the Syrian problem by common effort and as soon as possible.
According to Russian Senator Ilyas Umakhanov, initially the US official said that he was ready to assist the consultations between Russian and US lawmakers. However, by the end of the week CNN reported that Reid had turned down the Russian proposal.
House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner also turned down the Russian embassy’s request to directly meet with the parliamentary delegation.
The Most Awkward G20 Summit Ever
By Dan Beeton | CEPR Americas Blog | September 5, 2013
President Obama is in St. Petersburg, Russia to participate in the G20 Summit today and tomorrow, amidst a time of heightened tensions between the U.S. and several G20 member nations. Looming over the summit are the Obama administration’s plans for a possible military attack on Syria, while Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that a U.S. military response without U.N. Security Council approval “can only be interpreted as an aggression” and UNASUR – which includes G20 members Argentina and Brazil, issued a statement that “condemns external interventions that are inconsistent with the Charter of the United Nations.”
New revelations of NSA spying on other G20 member nation presidents – Dilma Rousseff of Brazil and Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico – leaked by NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden and first reported in Brazil’s O Globo, have also created new frictions. Rousseff is reportedly considering canceling a state visit to Washington next month over the espionage and the Obama administration’s response to the revelations, and reportedly has canceled a scheduled trip to D.C. next week by an advance team that was to have done preparations for her visit. The Brazilian government has demanded an apology from the Obama administration. In an interview with Reuters on Wednesday, an anonymous senior Brazilian official underscored the gravity of the situation:
[T]he official, who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the episode, said Rousseff feels “patronized” by the U.S. response so far to the Globo report. She is prepared to cancel the visit as well as take punitive action, including ruling out the purchase of F-18 Super Hornet fighters from Chicago-based Boeing Co, the official said.
“She is completely furious,” the official said.
“This is a major, major crisis …. There needs to be an apology. It needs to be public. Without that, it’s basically impossible for her to go to Washington in October,” the official said.
Other media reports suggest that Brazil may implement measures to channel its Internet communications through non-U.S. companies. But when asked in a press briefing aboard Air Force One this morning, Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications Ben Rhodes did not suggest that such an apology would be forthcoming:
Q The Foreign Minister said he wanted an apology.
MR. RHODES: Well, I think — what we’re focused on is making sure the Brazilians understand exactly what the nature of our intelligence effort is. We carry out intelligence like just about every other country around the world. If there are concerns that we can address consistent with our national security requirements, we will aim to do so through our bilateral relationship.
Such responses are not likely to go far toward patching things up with Brazil. It is conspicuously dishonest to suggest that the U.S. government “carr[ies] out intelligence like just about every other country around the world,” as no other country is known to have the capacity for the level of global spying that the NSA and other agencies conduct, and few countries are likely to have the intelligence budgets enjoyed by U.S. agencies – currently totaling some $75.6 billion, according to documents leaked by Snowden and reported by the Washington Post.
There are also signs that the Washington foreign policy establishment is troubled by the Obama administration’s dismissive attitude toward Brazil’s understandable outrage. On Tuesday, McClatchy cited Peter Hakim of the Inter-American Dialogue – essentially the voice of the Latin America policy establishment in Washington:
Peter Hakim, the president emeritus of the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based policy group, noted that Secretary of State John Kerry had visited Brasilia last month to patch things up after the initial NSA leaks but “really did not do a very good job. He just brushed it off.”
Hakim said he believed the O Globo report, and he added that “snooping at presidents is disrespectful and offensive.”
Rousseff and Pena Nieto had to issue strong statements, Hakim said. “Both have to show they are not pushovers, that they can stand up to the U.S.,” he said.
The ongoing revelations made by Snowden have affected U.S. relations with other countries as well. As the Pan-American Post points out, Peña Nieto may continue to reduce intelligence sharing with the U.S.; he also said yesterday that “he may discuss the issue with President Barack Obama at the summit.” U.S.-Russian relations, of course, have also recently become tense following Russia’s granting of temporary political asylum to Snowden.
The G20 Summit also comes just after the IMF, at the direction of the U.S. Treasury Department, changed its plan to support the Argentine government in its legal battle with “vulture funds” – meaning that U.S.-Argentine relations may also be relatively cool.
Related article
Russian defense official warns Israel on missile launch in Mediterranean
Press TV – September 4, 2013
A top Russian defense official has warned the Israeli regime against “playing with arms and missiles” in a volatile region after it admitted to firing ballistic projectiles in the Mediterranean Sea without a prior warning.
Underscoring the current volatility of the Mediterranean and the massive arms build-up in the region, Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov told journalists on Tuesday “I don’t completely understand how someone could play with arms and missiles in that region today.”
Although the Russian official did not mention the Zionist regime by name, his remarks came hours after Israeli officials admitted to firing “ballistic targets” that resembled missiles in the growingly tense region, RIA Novosti reported on Wednesday.
“The Mediterranean is a powder keg,” Antonov emphasized. “A match is enough for fire to break out and possibly spread not only to neighboring states but to other world regions as well. I remind you that the Mediterranean is close to the borders of the Russian Federation.”
He further recalled that a meteorological rocket launch by Norway in 1995 was mistaken as a possible rocket attack against Russia.
The Russian then called on “those who launched the so-called missile-like targets” to be more responsible for regional security and “not play with fire,” according to the report.
After the Russian military detected the firing of two ballistic projectiles on Tuesday, the Israeli military announced that it launched the missiles as part of a joint effort with the US to “test” its missile defense system.
Russia, meanwhile, placed its General Staff’s Central Command Center on high alert following the two Israeli launches, the report noted, citing remarks by Antonov.
According to a Russian Defense Ministry spokesman, Russia detected the missile launch by radar at 10:16 a.m. Moscow time (6:16 a.m. GMT) in the southern Russian city of Armavir.
This is while Israeli military officials claimed in a statement that the first test of the latest version of the so-called Sparrow target missile had been successful, with the missile following its planned trajectory toward the Israeli coast and the Arrow radar system detecting and tracking its path.
However, a military spokeswoman for the regime, Myriam Nahon, declined to address questions on whether the test had been connected to the current state of affairs in Syria, saying only that such tests are “conducted periodically,” and “it happens whenever it has to happen.”
In Washington meanwhile, the Pentagon further issued a statement, admitting to its role in providing technical assistance and support to the Zionist regime for the so-called Sparrow test launch.
The development comes as US President Barack Obama has vowed to wage unilateral military action against the Syrian nation without a UN mandate, citing its accusation, based on “classified information,” that the Syrian government was behind a recent chemical attack in the nation.
Damascus, however, has fiercely denied the allegation, insisting that the foreign-backed militants in the country launched the chemical attack.
Related articles
Putin: US should present Syria evidence to Security Council
RT | August 31, 2013
Russian President Vladimir Putin has declared ‘utter nonsense’ the idea that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons on its own people and called on the US to present its supposed evidence to the UN Security Council.
Putin has further called the Western tactic a ‘provocation.’
Washington has been basing its proposed strategy of an attack on Syria on the premise that President Bashar Assad’s government forces have used chemical agents, while Russia finds the accusations unacceptable and the idea of performing a military strike on the country even more so. Especially as it would constitute a violation of international law, if carried out without the approval of the UN Security Council.
Further to this, Putin told Obama that he should consider what the potential fallout from a military strike would be and to take into consideration the suffering of innocent civilians.
The Russian president has expressed certainty that the strategy for a military intervention in Syria is a contingency measure from outside and a direct response to the Syrian government’s recent combat successes, coupled with the rebels’ retreat from long-held positions.
“Syrian government forces are advancing, while the so-called rebels are in a tight situation, as they are not nearly as equipped as the government,” Putin told ITAR-TASS. He then laid it out in plain language:
“What those who sponsor the so-called rebels need to achieve is simple – they need to help them in their fight… and if this happens, it would be a tragic development,” Putin said.
Russia believes that any attack would, firstly, increase the already existing tensions in the country, and derail any effort at ending the war.
“Any unilateral use of force without the authorisation of the U.N. Security Council, no matter how ‘limited’ it is, will be a clear violation of international law, will undermine prospects for a political and diplomatic resolution of the conflict in Syria and will lead to a new round of confrontation and new casualties,” said the Russian Foreign Ministry’s spokesman, Aleksandr Lukashevich, adding that the threats [have been] issued by Washington “in the absence of any proof” of chemical weapons use.
On Friday, Washington said a plan for a limited military response was in the works to punish Assad for a “brutal and flagrant” chemical attack that allegedly killed more than 1,400 people in the capital Damascus 10 days ago.
The Syrian government has been denying all allegations, calling the accusation preposterous and pointing its own accusations against rebel forces, especially Al-Qaeda-linked extremists who have wreaked havoc on the country in the two years since the start of the civil war.
Moscow: No Strike Against Syria This Week
By Jean Aziz | Al-Akhbar | August 29, 2013
Diplomatic sources in Russia say that those who are expecting a military strike against Syria will have to wait a little longer, predicting a fight at the UN Security Council before Washington sends its Tomahawks over Damascus.
There are those in the Syrian capital who were convinced that media reports of an imminent strike – with many reporting that Thursday, August 29 was the zero hour – were largely accurate, expecting US missiles to rain down on Damascus in the coming hours.
The media had declared that four US naval vessels were already in place near the Syrian coast, ready to unleash 90 Tomahawk missiles each on a variety of military targets throughout the country. Western officials and analysts, however, all talked of a limited attack that was not intended to topple the regime.
A Russian diplomatic source seemed quite confident that Washington is not quite ready to carry out the attack, at least not this week, and all the bluster that we heard from Western capitals is beginning to temper, particularly after considering the repercussions of military action on the region as a whole.
The diplomat explained that the Obama administration has now decided to expend all means to get “international legitimacy” for the strike by resorting to the UN Security Council, where they will once again hit a wall of opposition from China and Russia. This, the source added, will take them at least a few days to reach a dead end.
There is also the question of obtaining Congress’ approval, which Obama has decided to seek, perhaps for internal political calculations, according to the Russian diplomat, adding that they do not plan to meet to discuss the issue before the beginning of next week.
He noted that Moscow has opened all its lines of communication with Washington, and that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is in constant contact with his US counterpart John Kerry to keep up with all the developments and prevent any misunderstandings or miscommunication.
It is through these channels, which the source says Moscow opened with the Europeans too, that they have sensed a de-escalation on the part of the West, moderating their tone. This may not mean that they no longer intend to wage an attack and are just buying time to prepare the necessary forces, he added, but it does offer an opportunity to try to diffuse the situation.
The diplomat was not overly concerned about the fact that Washington canceled the August 28 meeting in The Hague to discuss plans for the Geneva II conference, maintaining that the American side remains keen on a political solution to the Syrian crisis and will agree with Russia on a new date this Fall.
He went on to reveal that there are approximately 17,000 Russian citizens that remain in Syria today, who work as “experts” in various state institutions, and it is the duty of Moscow to protect them from any bodily harm. He explained that there are no plans to evacuate them for the time being, confirming that a few hundred families have departed by way of Beirut in the last few days.
What will happen then? All possibilities are still open – it is like the Cuban missile crisis but on a smaller scale, he replied, so anything is possible. What is important is that we don’t think anything will happen this week, so sleep easy and we will wake you when the hour of reckoning approaches.
Related articles
- US, UK Pressure for Action on Syria Hits UN Hurdle – Bloomberg (bloomberg.com)
- British jets to be sent to Cyprus ahead of military strikes on Syria (independent.ie)
Russian rocket engine export ban could halt US space program
RT | August 27, 2013
Russia’s Security Council is reportedly considering a ban on supplying the US with powerful RD-180 rocket engines for military communications satellites as Russia focuses on building its own new space launch center, Vostochny, in the Far East.
A ban on the rockets supply to the US heavy booster, Atlas V, which delivers weighty military communications satellites and deep space exploration vehicles into orbit, could put a stop to NASA’s space programs – not just military satellites.
An unnamed representative of Russia’s Federal Space Agency told the Izvestia newspaper that the Security Council is reconsidering the role of Russia’s space industry in the American space exploration program, particularly the 2012 contract on delivering to the US heavy-duty RD-180 rocket engines.
Previously, Moscow has not objected to the fact that America’s Atlas V boosters rigged with Russian rocket engines deliver advanced space armament systems into orbit. If a ban is put in place, however, engine delivery to the US would probably stop altogether, starting from 2015.
RD-180 rocket engine used in the first stages of American rockets Atlas-3 and Atlas-5. (RIA Novosti / Sergey Pyatakov)
Over the last decade, most of NASA’s Atlas V heavy rocket launches, performed by the United Launch Alliance (a Boeing/Lockheed Martin joint venture), were carried out using Russian RD-180 dual-nozzle rocket engines, a legacy of the Soviet Buran space shuttle program and its unparalleled rocket booster Energia, which could put 100 tons of spacecraft or satellites into orbit.
Military payloads
It is widely believed that many Atlas V launches have a military payload. Such Lockheed Martin-designed military spacecraft include the Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) series of communications satellites launched for Air Force Space Command, the mysterious super-secret Palladium at Night communication platform designed for the US Navy’s Ultra-High Frequency (UFO) Follow-On program and most certainly all three launches of Boeing’s X-37 unmanned demonstrator spacecraft. These are only a part of the military space missions undertaken by Atlas V rockets, boosted by RD-180 engines
A ban could also affect the US’s non-military space exploration launches, which are also highly dependent on the Atlas V rocket and RD-180 engines. The most famous and challenging among them are NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft mission, now traveling to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt (launched in 2006), and the Curiosity Mars rover (launched in 2011) currently operating on the Red Planet
A number of experts told Izvestia that termination of the rocket engine contract would not be a good idea commercially for NPO Energomash, which produces the rockets, because at the moment it makes RD-180 engines exclusively for the US space industry. The rockets typically take Energomash 16 months to produce.
If production of the RD-180 engine is stopped, the enterprise would have to find other contracts to keep the production line and experienced staff busy.
“In my opinion, stopping the export of rocket engines to the US is stupid, as we would suffer financial and reputational losses,” Ivan Moiseyev, scientific head of the Space Policy Institute, told Izvestia. “The US would not suffer much and would definitely continue with military space launches, while Russia would have to stop production of the RD-180, because no one else needs the RD-180 engine.”
However, many space experts believe that the US would find it difficult to quickly replace the Russian rockets. Also, Energomash could find other orders soon. Russia plans to start space launches from its new, multibillion-dollar Vostochny cosmodrome in the Far East in 2015. Vostochny will host a heavy rocket class launch pad, which means the producer of the world’s most powerful rocket engines will be kept busy for many years to come.
The RD-180 is equivalent to half of the Soviet-era Energia booster, the most powerful liquid rocket engine ever made by man. With 20 million horsepower output, the Soviet-era RD-170 was about 5 percent more powerful, yet 1.5 times smaller, than American’s F-1 first stage rocket engine made for the Saturn V booster of the Apollo lunar program.
Reportedly, when the Energia booster with the Buran space shuttle was launched in November 1988, the massive concrete bays paving the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan were flying around like dry leaves, due to the immense power coming from the four RD-170 engines, which blasted the 2,400-ton rocket booster into space.
In the post-Soviet era, Russian-US rocket engine cooperation started back in 1996, when America’s General Dynamics Company bought exclusive rights for use of RD-180 in the US, later selling it to Lockheed Martin for its Atlas rocket program. NPO Energomash, the producer of unique engines based in Moscow’s suburb Khimki, signed a contract for production of 50 RD-180 engines and an option for the production of another 51 units.
A specially created joint venture, RD-AMROSS, between NPO Energomash and Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, has already delivered 63 engines to the US worth $11-15 million apiece, reportedly 40 of them have already been used. In December 2012, a new contract was signed to deliver another 31 engines. But this contract is now being reconsidered by Russia’s Security Council, according to Izvestia.
Rocket engines: space at stake
The RD-AMROSS joint venture has always been controversial for Russia’s military.
In 2011 Russia’s Audit Chamber announced that the RD-180 rocket engines delivered to the US according to the 1996 contract were sold for only a half of their real production value. The total loss in 2008-09 reached 880 million rubles (about $30 million) or 68 percent of all financial losses of NPO Energomash at the time, the Audit Chamber said.
In an interview, the general director of RKK Energia Corporation, Vitaly Lopota, estimated that at the time of the RD-180 first launch in the late 1980s, USSR was “at least” 50 years ahead of America’s liquid fuel rocket engine technology.
In the 1990s Russia agreed not only to sell unique engines to the US, but also provided the Americans with full documentation on the engine’s design specifications. But the US space industry opted to buy ready made engines instead of trying to make them on their own, because of the technological and material engineering gap between the two countries’ space industries.
And today the situation appears to be pretty much the same.
In December 2012, the head of Roskosmos, the Russian Federal Space Agency, Vladimir Popovkin, commented to Izvestia on the engines: “Americans are buying RD-180 engines and are negotiating to buy promising new RD-193 engines, because they’ve learned that we’re making a quality product, the best liquid-fueled rocket engines in the world. For them it’s easier to buy than to make up with us, [while] for us it is important to ensure the development of the NPO Energomash enterprise.”
In June 2013, the US Federal Trade Commission launched an antitrust investigation into United Launch Alliance, which was accused of “monopolizing” the rocket engine market and thus barring its direct rival, Orbital Sciences Corporation, from obtaining RD-180 engines for its Antares rocket booster to break into the lucrative market for US government rocket launches.
Experts say that the fact that Orbital Sciences Corporation is battling for the RD-180 could only mean that the company has so far failed to acquire anything similar on either the American, or the international space industry market.
Orbital Sciences’ Antares rocket is powered by Aerojet AJ-26 engines, which are actually Soviet NK-33 engines produced for the super-heavy N-1 rocket booster of USSR lunar program. Orbital Sciences once managed to buy 43 NK-33 engines stored for decades in Russian space corporation’s depots, and then adopted them for their needs. Now Orbital Sciences would like to restart production of the NK-33, but Energomash announced that this engine is out of production for the time being. In this situation, Orbital Sciences is taking ULA to court for the right to buy Russia’s RD-180 rocket engines.
SpaceNews reported earlier this month that NASA’s internal agency audit is warning that the Orion deep-space manned spacecraft program faces a “difficult budget environment” that ultimately could cause delays and cost increases. The Orion capsule could be launched with various rockets, including ULA’s Atlas V and Space Exploration Technologies’ Falcon 9.
In spring this year, Amazon founder and space enthusiast Jeff Bezos, owner of the Blue Origin space exploration start-up, financed a successful expedition recovering two F-1 engines for Apollo project’s Saturn V rocket from the Atlantic sea bed near Florida’s Kennedy Space Center. Bezos said that his fascination with space began back in 1969 with the Apollo program, when he saw astronaut Neil Armstrong walk on the Moon.
The rocket engines still remain property of NASA and the US government, and Bezos has promised have NASA put them on display at a museum in Seattle as “testament to the Apollo program.”
London faces calls to make its case for a possible war before parliament
Press TV – August 27, 2013
Opposition to a possible military intervention in Syria has intensified in Britain with the Labour party demanding that the government “make their case” before the parliament.
An alleged chemical attack hit parts of the Syrian capital Damascus on Wednesday killing hundreds of people.
Foreign-backed terrorists in the country claimed that the government forces were behind the assault in the Damascus suburbs of Ain Tarma, Zamalka and Jobar while medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, which treated those affected in the attack, said it cannot even “scientifically confirm” the use of chemical weapons.
Shadow Foreign Secretary Douglas Alexander said on Monday that the cabinet has to “make their case” in the parliament before they can make a decision whether to go to a new war, if any such decision is to be made.
“Given both the seriousness of the reported chemical weapons strikes in Syria, and the enduring and complex nature of the conflict itself, ahead of any action being taken I would fully expect the Prime Minister to make his case to Parliament,” Alexander said.
“[The Prime Minister must be] open about the objectives, the legal basis, and the anticipated effect of any [British military action],” he added.
Meanwhile, British Conservative MP John Baron, who is leading MPs’ demands for a parliamentary session on the matter, expressed serious concerns about Britain going to war without the approval of the UN Security Council because of a Russian opposition to military intervention in Syria.
“Essentially, it is a civil war. If the West intervenes without a UN resolution … I think there is a more serious risk of this escalating beyond Syrian boundaries,” he said.
This comes as legal experts have seriously questioned the legality of a military move against Syria, saying it would create a “controversial situation”.
“The difficulty here is there’s no threat as I understand it to the security of this country or the United States and therefore on what basis can we intervene?” Michael Caplan, an international lawyer, asked during an interview on BBC Radio 4.
Following the alleged chemical attack in Syria, which government forces say was a false flag attack by foreign-backed militants, Britain, the US and France have been beating drums of war to punish what Washington described as a “moral obscenity” by Bashar al-Asad government in Syria.
Russia has demanded evidence from the three on their claims but no proof has yet been presented or even announced to exist.
The situation has sparked fears that Britain is assisting the US to justify another war based on totally unfounded claims after former British PM Tony Blair tampered with evidence related to Iraq weapons of mass destruction to facilitate the invasion of the country in 2003.
The fears are especially strong because the Syrian government cannot have sensibly carried out a large-scale attack when UN weapons inspectors were stationed almost 20 kilometers away from the site of the attack, waiting to probe earlier claims of poisonous gas strikes.
Qualms are also fueled by sporadic reporting of Syrian foreign-backed militants being in possession of chemical weapons, including a Twitter post by Abdola Al-Jaledi, a former high-ranking member of the Jabaht al-Nusra militant group, which said his colleagues were in possession of chemical weapons.
Related article
- Syrian war drums beat ever louder (morningstaronline.co.uk)
Russia ‘regrets’ US decision to shelve Syria talks
RT | August 27, 2013
Moscow has voiced “regret” over a US decision to put off bilateral talks over Syria. Russia has sought to placate calls for military action over the alleged use of chemical weapons, saying there is no evidence of the Assad regime’s complicity.
The US government announced it was postponing bilateral talks with Russia late Monday, citing “ongoing consultations” over the Syrian government’s alleged use of chemical weapons.
Russian and American officials had been scheduled to meet in The Hague on Wednesday for bilateral talks on the Syrian conflict.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov tweeted a response to the move Tuesday morning, expressing concern over Washington’s decision.
“It is a pity that our western partners have decided to cancel the bilateral US-Russian meeting to discuss calls for an international conference on Syria,” Gatilov wrote on Twitter. He added in a later post that discussing terms for a political solution were needed now more than ever in the face of possible military intervention in Syria.
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Gennady Gatilov (RIA Novosti / Vladimir Fedorenko)
Foreign Affairs Committee chairman of the Russian Duma, Aleksey Pushkov also posted on his Twitter, alleging the US had already made the decision to strike Syria and they had gone too far.
A number of western countries including France, the US and the UK have condemned President Bashar Assad’s government for last week’s alleged chemical weapons attack in a Damascus suburb and called for a response, hinting at possible military action. On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin told British Prime Minster David Cameron in a phone conversation that there was still no evidence the Assad government was behind the attack.
However, Cameron insisted that Assad’s forces were behind the “chemical weapons” attack, saying that the Syrian opposition did not have the facilities to orchestrate such an attack. Cameron also cited the Syrian government’s delay in allowing a team of UN experts to examine the site as an indication that it had something to hide.
Washington has also seen an increase in rhetoric, urging action against the Assad government. Samantha Power, the US Ambassador to the UN, decried the Assad government for the attack on her Twitter account, and demanded accountability:
“Haunting images of entire families dead in their beds. Verdict is clear: Assad has used CWs against civilians in violation of int’l norm.”
Meanwhile, the UN weapons inspectors are due to start their second day of investigations in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta, where the toxic attack happened last Wednesday. The team’s convoy of vehicles came under fire from unknown assailants Monday as they visited the area.
In spite of the sniper attack, the team managed to collect samples for analysis and gather witness testimonies at a local hospital. Contradicting claims from the US and UK that the probe was too late to yield accurate results, the UN stressed the mission was still valid, although almost a week has passed since the supposed attack.
The alleged attack took place last Wednesday in an eastern suburb of Syria’s capital. Media published conflicting reports on the death toll, ranging from “dozens” to over 1,300 dead. French charity Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders) put the death toll at about 355.
Russia Warns US Again Against Syria Intervention
Al-Manar | August 26, 2013
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has warned US Secretary of State John Kerry over the “extremely dangerous consequences” of launching military action against Syria, the foreign ministry said Monday.
Russia, USLavrov told Kerry in a telephone call Sunday that Moscow was “deeply alarmed” by comments from US officials indicating a readiness to intervene in Syria over alleged use of chemical weapons which the Syrian government had strongly denied, it said in a statement.
“Sergei Lavrov drew attention to the extremely dangerous consequences of a possible new military intervention for the whole Middle East and North Africa region,” it added. Lavrov told Kerry that it appeared certain elements inside the United States wanted to launch military action in Syria outside of the United Nations to undermine joint US-Russia efforts to organize a peace conference.
The Russian minister urged his US counterpart “to refrain from using military pressure against Damascus and not to give in to provocations.” The ministry said Kerry promised to “attentively” study the arguments of the Russian side.
Russia underlined the necessity of an objective UN investigation into the claimed chemical attack and repeated its doubts that the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad was to blame. “There is mounting evidence that the incident was a pretence set up by the rebel opposition with the aim of accusing the Damascus government of everything,” the statement said.
US has ignored 5 Russian extradition demands in recent years
RIA Novosti | August 21, 2013
MOSCOW – Five of Russia’s extradition requests sent to the United States in the past few years have been left unanswered, a deputy Russian prosecutor general has said in an interview.
“Since 2008, the United States has refused 16 times to extradite people to us citing the absence of a relevant treaty,” Deputy Russian Prosecutor General Alexander Zvyagintsev told the Rossiiskaya Gazeta government daily.
“We have been insisting on concluding such a treaty but have been getting a refusal based on unconvincing arguments,” he said. “Another five of our requests sent to the United States in 2011-2012 have not been answered.”
The United States has been unsuccessfully pushing Russia for extradition of fugitive intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.
Snowden, a former contractor for the US National Security Agency (NSA), is wanted by the United States on espionage and other charges after he gave journalists classified documents detailing the NSA’s far-reaching electronic and telephone surveillance programs.
Snowden formally requested temporary asylum in Russia on July 16. Washington repeatedly called on Moscow to reject his request and send him back to the United States to stand trial, but in vain. Snowden was granted the asylum in early August.
Zvyagintsev said Russia has not received any official request for Snowden’s extradition from the United States.
Related articles
- Russia asks France to extradite Kazakh oligarch Ablyazov (uk.reuters.com)
- UK ignores Russian request on former Magnitsky boss Browder – prosecutor (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Russian official slams US for turning down Moscow’s extradition requests (alethonews.wordpress.com)
UK ignores Russian request on former Magnitsky boss Browder – prosecutor
RT | August 20, 2013
Great Britain was the only state that refused to fulfill the official request of Russian law enforcers in the search for William Browder, the former head of an investment fund wanted for embezzlement and tax evasion.
Russia’s Deputy Prosecutor General Aleksandr Zvyagintsev said at a Tuesday press conference in Moscow, “I have signed several requests addressed to Great Britain, Cyprus, Latvia and Estonia. All these countries excluding Great Britain fulfilled the international investigation instructions ahead of time.
“We hope that Great Britain heeds the international community’s call and hands us over the people who have violated the law. In the whole history of Russian-British relations the UK has only handed one person over to us – and this was an ordinary hooligan. As for the rest – the multi-millionaires and billionaires who continue to launder money in Albion – unfortunately, these are not extradited,” Zvyagintsev added.
William Browder is a US-born British citizen who founded the Hermitage Capital Management investment fund – a major firm working with Russian securities since the mid-1990s that earned its owners hundreds of millions of dollars. Browder fled Russia in 2006 after law enforcers showed interest in some of the fund’s financial schemes.
The investigation continued and led to a court process in which Browder was found guilty of large-scale tax evasion and sentenced to nine years in prison in absentia.
Another person convicted in this case is the now famous auditor, the late Sergey Magnitsky, whose name became known after his tragic death in a Moscow pre-trial detention center in 2009. According to forensic report, Magnitsky died of pancreatitis and a heart condition, but Browder and his colleagues have claimed that Russians law enforcers deliberately tortured and killed the accountant.
The case was intensely covered in the mass media and promoted in US political circles, eventually leading to the so-called Magnitsky Act – a US law imposing sanctions on Russian state and justice officials suspected in human rights violations.
Russia blasted the move as an attempt to influence an independent court in a sovereign state and retaliated with its own Guantanamo list – an act imposing sanctions on US officials suspected of violating Human Rights.
The spat between the two countries apparently allowed the General Secretariat of Interpol to refuse Russia’s warrant for Browder in July this year, claiming that the case was influenced by politics. It also ordered to delete all information about Browder from Interpol’s international databases.
Russia’s Interior Ministry replied with a statement that it was “puzzled by Interpol’s General Secretariat’s decision.”
“[The ministry] continues to consider Interpol an organization which is not motivated by political and judgmental decisions in its work, but acts solely in accordance with international law and the organization’s constitution,” the statement read.
Obama Calls For ‘Pause’ in US-Russia Ties
RIA Novosti | August 9, 2013
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama on Friday called for “a pause” in US relations with Russia, even as both countries stressed that cooperation is crucial to their mutual interests and to the world despite sharp differences on a broad range of issues.
“It is probably appropriate for us to take a pause, reassess where it is that Russia is going, what our core interests are, and calibrate the relationship so that we’re doing things that are good for the United States and, hopefully, good for Russia as well,” Obama told a White House news conference Friday.
The comments came two days after the White House announced it had canceled Obama’s planned summit next month with Russian President Vladimir Putin, citing lack of prospects for progress in the bilateral agenda as well as Moscow’s harboring of accused US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden.
But they also coincided with talks in Washington between top US and Russian officials that both sides took pains to describe as constructive while largely downplaying discord over issues such as missile defense, the ongoing civil war in Syria and Russia’s decision to grant temporary asylum to Snowden, who is wanted by the United States to face espionage charges at home.
In his most expansive public discussion of frayed US-Russian relations since his reelection last November, Obama told Friday’s news conference that Putin’s return to the Kremlin last year has coincided with “more rhetoric on the Russian side that was anti-American, that played into some of the old stereotypes about the Cold War contest between the United States and Russia.”
“I’ve encouraged Mr. Putin to think forward as opposed to backwards on those issues – with mixed success” in the effort, Obama said.
He added that both countries should recognize “that there are just going to be some differences, and we’re not going to be able to completely disguise them.”
Obama denied that he had poor relations with Putin despite much public parsing of frosty looking images of their one-on-one meetings.
“I don’t have a bad personal relationship with Putin,” Obama said. “ … I know the press likes to focus on body language and he’s got that kind of slouch, looking like the bored kid in the back of the classroom. But the truth is, is that when we’re in conversations together, oftentimes it’s very productive.”
Officials from both countries on Friday downplayed the importance of the Snowden impasse in a bilateral agenda that includes US missile defense plans, which Russia sees as a threat to its security, and the violence in Syria, where the Kremlin warns that US military aid to rebel forces risks empowering terrorists and US officials accuse Moscow of propping up Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Obama said his decision to scrap the summit was not based “simply around Mr. Snowden,” but rather on what he described as Russia’s failure to move “on a whole range of issues where we think we can make some progress.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, meanwhile, told reporters following meetings with US Secretary of State John Kerry and the two countries’ top defense officials in Washington on Friday that Snowden “did not overshadow our discussions.”
“This was mentioned as a fact which we have on our hands,” Lavrov said of the standoff over Snowden. “But the main discussion was about the issues of the agenda, which are of huge interest to the United States, to the Russian Federation and to the entire world.”
Lavrov insisted that Russia had acted in accordance with its own laws and with international law in granting Snowden asylum last week, a position he said Moscow has consistently communicated to Washington since the fugitive former US intelligence contractor landed in Moscow on a flight from Hong Kong on June 23.
A senior US official told reporters during a conference call after Friday’s meetings that the Snowden affair did not “dominate or overshadow” the talks between Lavrov, Kerry, US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.
“What we were able to agree on was the need to move forward on areas of mutual interest,” the official said, adding that the talks focused on missile defense, arms reduction, political and military cooperation, and regional security, including in Syria, Afghanistan, Iran and North Korea.
Both sides said Friday that they had agreed that a political settlement is the only acceptable resolution to the civil war in Syria and that they remain committed to holding the so-called so Geneva-2 conference aimed at bringing an end to the violence in Syria.
Speaking in Moscow on Friday, Putin’s top foreign policy aide, Yury Ushakov, said Obama’s invitation to meet the Russian president in Moscow remains open and that the Kremlin hopes the American president will accept the offer.
Talks between the two countries at the highest level are “very important … not only for both of our countries, but for guaranteeing global stability and security,” Ushakov said.
Obama said the United States said effective cooperation is possible if Russia “is looking forward into the 21st century” but that a “zero-sum” mindset is counterproductive for bilateral ties.
“If issues are framed as if the US is for it, then Russia should be against it, or we’re going to be finding ways where we can poke each other at every opportunity, then probably we don’t get as much stuff done,” Obama said.
Featured Video
Billionaires and Officials Are Just Blatantly Ignoring the Will of the People
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
World War II Didn’t End The Great Depression
Stark Realities with Brian McGlinchey | April 4, 2024
A principal goal of Stark Realities is to “expose fundamental myths across the political spectrum” — and few myths are as universally embraced as the notion that US participation in World War II (1941-1945) lifted the American economy out of the Great Depression.
This myth is dangerous not only because it leads citizens and politicians to see a bright side of war that doesn’t really exist, but also because it helps foster a belief that government spending is essential to countering economic downturns. That belief, in turn, has helped propel us to a point where the national debt now exceeds $34.6 trillion, with interest payments alone on pace to reach $1 trillion a year in 2026, inviting financial catastrophe. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- 46 IPCC Scientists Break Rank, Publicly Challenge Long-Standing Dogmatic Climate Claims
- Coming Off Seroquel Alone
- Iran’s ‘threat’ to Western hegemony is not nuclear weapons
- Iran warns UAE, Bahrain over alignment with US, Israeli interests
- ‘Little Sparta’: Why The UAE Attacked Iran for Israel’s Sake
- Iran Blames European Tanker for Oil Slick Near Kharg
- Hamas leaders say targeting families will fail to extract concessions
- Harrowing testimonies expose Israeli torture of Gaza hospital director
- UAE provides $100m for US-backed Gaza police force vetted by Shin Bet
- Britain quietly approves $11.85m arms licence to Israel despite Gaza ban
- If Americans Knew
- Group indicted for insider trading allegedly used ‘going to Israel’ as code for illegal sales
- Israel is enabling a possible plague in Gaza – Daily Update
- A Conservative’s View: Trump’s War on Iran Is Destroying America
- Israel’s war on the West Bank comes for Palestinian greenhouses
- New $270 million Israeli-only roads project in the West Bank is Netanyahu’s latest bid to impose de facto annexation
- Gaza investigation: A family’s fight to find their missing relatives
- MSF: Israel’s deliberate restriction of food and aid led to alarming malnutrition levels in Gaza
- Israel earmarks $270M for Israeli-only roads (that’s apartheid) – Daily Update
- Two Supreme Court Justices were secret agents who helped Israel cover up its attack on the USS Liberty
- Bari Weiss ‘Meddles’ With ‘CBS Sunday Morning’ Story on Palestine
- No Tricks Zone
- New Study: Declining Trends In 1980-2023 Tropical Cyclone Frequency, Accumulated Energy
- 46 IPCC Scientists Break Rank, Publicly Challenge Long-Standing Dogmatic Climate Claims
- Another Study Links Warming To Cloud Forcing, Shortwave Radiation, Natural Atmospheric Circulation
- Wind Energy Is Toxic, Hazardous To Human Health, Scientific Review Shows
- Oversupply Of Volatile Solar Energy Leads To Record NEGATIVE Prices!
- New Study: Extreme Heat Records, Heatwaves, Extreme Cold Records Declining Across US Since 1899
- It’s The Cold, Stupid! Cold 20 Times More Lethal Than Heat, Multiple Studies Show
- European Institute For Climate And Energy: “Climate Debate is Seldom About Science”
- New Study: The Climate May Be 5 Times More Sensitive To Solar Forcing Than Commonly Assumed
- EV Industry Reached $70 Billion In Losses In 2024 Due To Delusional Green Ideologies
Aletho News 