‘Must Leave’: Iran Slams Presence of US Forces in Syria, Calls for Immediate Withdrawal
By Oleg Burunov – Sputnik – 26.11.2020
In October 2019, President Donald Trump announced that the US would be withdrawing its forces from Syria, but eventually backtracked, saying that a “small” American contingent would stay behind to allegedly “keep” the Syrian oil from being seized by Daesh.
Iran’s permanent ambassador to the United Nations (UN) Majid Takht-Ravanchi has called for the immediate and full-fledged withdrawal of US troops from Syria.
“All foreign forces whose presence is not permitted by the Syrian government must leave Syria”, the diplomat told a UN Security Council meeting on Wednesday, in an apparent nod to the US. He questioned American forces’ current role in Syria, insisting that instead of fighting terrorism, they “continue supporting UN-designated terrorist groups such as al-Nusra Front as well as looting the oil and wealth of the Syrian people”.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif earlier noted that Tehran would work to strengthen economic cooperation with Syria amid Washington’s restrictive measures under the US Caesar Act, which stipulates sanctioning almost all Syrian economic and trade activities, as well as government officials.
He was echoed by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who voiced hope in May that the “Americans won’t stay in Syria and will be [finally] expelled.”
Senior US Official Boasts About Lying to Trump to Keep US Troops in Syria
Ambassador Takht-Ravanchi’s statement comes a few weeks after Jim Jeffrey, outgoing US special representative for Syria and special presidential envoy for the western coalition against Daesh, told the news outlet Defence One that he and members of his staff deliberately covered up the true size of the US military footprint in Syria from President Donald Trump.
“What Syria withdrawal? There was never a Syria withdrawal”, Jeffrey said, referring to Trump’s repeated orders in late 2018 and then again in 2019 to bring US troops home. “When the situation in northeast Syria had been fairly stable after we defeated ISIS, [Trump] was inclined to pull out. In each case, we then decided to come up with five better arguments for why we needed to stay. And we succeeded both times. That’s the story”, the US envoy added.
He argued that the actual number of US troops in Syria is “a lot more” than the estimated 200-400 that POTUS agreed to leave behind in 2019 to “secure” the country’s oil fields and prevent them from falling into the hands of the Syrian government or terrorists.
American troops, jointly with the Arab-Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), maintain control over a part of northeastern Syria as the US-led coalition of more than 60 nations has been carrying out airstrikes and other operations against terrorists in Syria since September 2014.
The coalition operates in Syria without the approval of the Assad government or any UN Security Council authorisation. Damascus, in turn, sees the US presence on Syrian soil as a violation of national sovereignty and an attempt to seize the country’s natural resources.
Under Biden, expect more bombing and regime change. Tony Blinken’s record speaks for itself
By George Szamuely | RT | November 24, 2020
A US foreign policy run by Antony J. Blinken and Jake Sullivan, the likely next secretary of state and national security adviser, will mean more global interventions and regime-change operations, Clinton and Obama style.
Blinken played a prominent foreign policy role in both the Bill Clinton and Barack Obama administrations, while Sullivan was part of the Obama one.
The Democrat-boosting media are, not surprisingly, excited by media-anointed President-elect Joe Biden’s choice of Blinken, his long-time national security adviser, as his secretary of state. Along with his pick of Jake Sullivan, another close aide, as his national security adviser, these appointments supposedly signal restoration of “internationalism” and “globalpartnerships” as guiding principles of US foreign policy.
Media fawns for fake ‘internationalism’
Blinken, a “defender of global alliances,” in the soothing words of the New York Times, will “help calm American diplomats and global leaders alike after four years of the Trump administration’s ricocheting strategies and nationalist swaggering.” To the Washington Post, Blinken’s appointment would be fulfillment of Biden’s “vows to reassemble global alliances and insert the United States into a more prominent position on the world stage.” The Guardian purred that the appointees are:
“… committed internationalists, in strong contrast to the Trump era, which saw a bonfire of foreign treaties and agreements, and abrasive relations with traditional allies under the banner of ‘America First’, which Biden said during the campaign had led to ‘America alone’.”
That’s the message then: The foreign policy professionals are back, and US allies can rest assured that the United States will once again treat them with courtesy and respect. Such talk is delusional, if not downright deceptive. Blinken’s outlook is that of a career US interventionist, as is that of Sullivan. The opinions of other countries are worth considering only if they coincide with the views of US policymakers. If they don’t coincide, then they can be discounted.
The war on Serbia
Never was this axiom as vividly illustrated as during the Clinton administration’s protracted war against the Serbs during the 1990s. The Clinton administration, of which Blinken was an important member, had facilitated the arrival into Bosnia of international jihadi terrorists, including one Osama bin Laden. No one among Washington’s supposedly closest allies was asked what he or she thought of this policy of introducing Islamic terrorism into Europe. Richard Holbrooke, former assistant secretary of state for European and Canadian affairs in the Clinton administration, subsequently boasted about the efficacy of this policy. For him, shipping mujahedin fighters into Bosnia brought to mind “Winston Churchill’s famous comments about why Britain made common cause with Stalin against Hitler… [It] was a legitimate decision for Churchill and he knew full well the consequences. Here at a much smaller scale, this was done.”
Subsequently, the Clinton administration helped arm and train the Kosovo Liberation Army. The hope was that a KLA terrorist campaign in Yugoslavia would provoke the Belgrade authorities into overreacting. The expected humanitarian disaster could then be used to launch a NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia. When Belgrade refused to take the bait, the Clinton administration – in which Blinken was at that time special assistant to President Clinton and senior director for European affairs at the National Security Council – had to invent a pretext for bombing. That was provided by the Yugoslav government’s refusal to sign a Kosovo peace package at Rambouillet, France. The Yugoslav government had been issued with an ultimatum: accept the US-drafted package or face NATO bombing. Included within this package was the notorious Appendix B, which gave NATO unrestricted rights to move anywhere it wished throughout the territory of Yugoslavia, and to enjoy total immunity from prosecution.
The Clinton administration had deceitfully kept from the US public the details of Appendix B, as well as the take-it-or-leave-it ultimatum it had issued at Rambouillet. Later, when NATO’s bombing triggered the entirely foreseeable refugee flow from Kosovo, the Clinton administration claimed – again deceitfully – that NATO had launched its bombing campaign in response to Serb attempts to drive out Kosovo’s Albanian population. The claim made no sense. The refugee flight from Kosovo took place only after the start of NATO’s attack; the flight couldn’t therefore have been the pretext for NATO’s bombing.
Blinken played an integral role in orchestrating NATO’s bombing campaign, and has continued to tout his role in NATO’s legerdemain. Revealingly, Blinken appears untroubled by the Clinton administration’s refusal to seek UN Security Council authorization for the use of force against Yugoslavia. He evidently shared Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s contempt for the legalistic concerns raised by UK Foreign Secretary Robin Cook. Told that international law experts were advising a UN Security Council resolution was necessary, Albright scoffed, “Get new lawyers!”
‘Protecting civilians’ in Libya
Blinken’s disdain for international institutions was very much in evidence during the Obama administration’s 2011 bombing of Libya. Blinken, at the time Biden’s national security adviser, was an enthusiastic advocate of the bombing campaign. There was a problem though. The bombing was undertaken ostensibly in order to save the residents of Benghazi who were supposedly under threat from the forces of President Muammar Gaddafi. However, Resolution 1973, which the US and NATO used to justify the attack, only instructed UN member states “to take all necessary measures… to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack.” It didn’t say that such “measures” should include bombing. Still less did the resolution authorize the US and NATO to use the bombing in order to topple Gaddafi. Yet, long after any conceivable threat to the residents of Benghazi had disappeared, NATO governments continued to justify their refusal to call a halt to the bombing by invoking the purported threat Gaddafi posed to Libya’s civilians. NATO didn’t let up on the bombing until the brutal execution of Gaddafi, a war crime in which NATO took an active part.
‘Doing too little’ in Syria
No sooner was Gaddafi overthrown and Libya thrown into chaos than the Obama administration shifted its attention to Syria, seeking there also to topple the legal government. The tools it deployed were familiar. Under Operation Timber Sycamore, the CIA was authorized to work with Arab intelligence services to arm and train rebels seeking to overthrow the government of President Bashar Assad. The weapons, needless to say, in no time found their way into the hands of the worst and most fanatical of the jihadi killers. Syria seemed to be on the brink of falling under the sway of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS). Strangely enough, Blinken’s only regret about his activities in Syria is that the Obama administration didn’t do more to ensure the overthrow of Assad.
In an article last year that he co-authored with leading neocon publicist Robert Kagan, he argued that in Syria, the US made the “error of doing too little. Without bringing appropriate power to bear, no peace could be negotiated, much less imposed. Today we see the consequences, in hundreds of thousands of civilians dead, in millions of refugees who have destabilized Europe and in the growing influence of Russia, Iran and Hezbollah.”
In an interview earlier this year, Blinken made clear that regime-change in Syria was still on his agenda. He ruled out returning Syria’s oil fields to government control because the US needed leverage.
“That’s a point of leverage because the Syrian government would love to have dominion over those resources. We should not give that up for free.… And we should also use what leverage we have to insist that there be some kind of political transition that reflects the desires of the Syrian people.”
All the Russia tropes
Same old, same old is what we should also expect when it comes to Russia. Blinken repeats by rote all of the familiar Democratic Party talking points: Russia interfered in the 2016 elections, President Donald Trump is smitten with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump “took the word of Mr. Putin over our own intelligence community,” Russia put a bounty on the heads of US soldiers in Afghanistan, Russia invaded Ukraine. Blinken has advocated sending lethal weapons to Ukraine. “A President Biden would be in the business of confronting Mr. Putin for his aggressions, not embracing him,” Blinken has said. “Not trashing NATO, but strengthening its deterrence.”
A Blinken-run foreign policy will unquestionably mean abundant use of the familiar regime-change weapons in the US armory: bombs, cruise missiles, weapons shipments to jihadist and neo-Nazi groups to wage proxy wars, economic sanctions, fake “civil society” projects. As for the vaunted “international organizations” that Blinken supposedly champions, their role will be to sign off on US projects. If the organizations support US policy, including “regime change” operations, so much the better; if they don’t, they can safely be ignored. The “allies” who are now cheering the return of the “professionals” may soon have cause to regret their enthusiasm as the refugee flows from the Middle East return to 2015 levels in response to the Biden administration’s policy of relaunching the regime-change war in Syria. Should conflict with Russia escalate over Ukraine or the Baltics or the Caucasus, these “allies” may look back with nostalgia to the Trump era when the US largely preoccupied itself with its own national interests.
George Szamuely is a senior research fellow at Global Policy Institute (London) and author of Bombs for Peace: NATO’s Humanitarian War on Yugoslavia. Follow him on Twitter @GeorgeSzamuely
How the British government secretly funded Syrian cartoons and comic books as anti-Assad propaganda aimed at children
By Kit Klarenberg | RT | November 16, 2020
Leaked documents show how the Foreign & Commonwealth Office spent millions setting up a clandestine network to churn out pro-rebel material, much of it aimed at winning the hearts and minds of kids.
A swath of internal UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) files have exposed a number of covert ways in which London sought to both propagandize Syrian children and turn them into weapons, in a vast, long-running information warfare campaign at home and abroad.
The documents are just some of the bombshell papers released by hacktivist collective Anonymous, outlining a variety of cloak-and-dagger actions undertaken by the UK government against the Syrian state over many years.
The overriding objective behind them all was to destabilize the government of Bashar Assad, convince Syrians, Western citizens, foreign governments, and international bodies that the Free Syrian Army (FSA) was a legitimate alternative, and flood media the world over with pro-opposition propaganda.
Children figured prominently in a number of the plans, in more ways than one. ARK, a shadowy firm headed by veteran FCO operative Alistair Harris, was central to many of these covert efforts, which may have cost the FCO many millions in total.
Undermining government legitimacy
In one file, the company outlines pricing for runs of propaganda material including “public service announcement animations” (£4,570), “political cartoons” (£1,200), and “comic books (24 colored pages)” (£30,200).
A separate proposal submitted to the FCO by communications firm Albany details ways of offering clandestine support to “oppositionist grassroots media activism.” The company conducted numerous psyops in Syria – including managing the Syrian National Coalition’s communications during the 2014 Geneva II peace conference – and collaborated extensively with ARK in the process.
Creating “fictional material” such as radio dramas and “digital comic strips for internet deployment” was listed one of the key ways the firm would “bolster the values and reputation of the Syrian opposition,” and undermine the government’s “core narrative and legitimacy.”
Precisely which projects emerged from these pitches, if any, isn’t clear from the files themselves, but in May journalist Ian Cobain revealed Hentawi, a comic aimed at 9-to-15 year-old Syrians, was a clandestine creation of the FCO, and its founder Naji Jerf was an employee of a firm contracted by the department.
The files released by Anonymous indicate that the company in question was ARK, who provided Jerf’s CV – it reveals that from 2006 to 2007, he was Editor of a UAE-based magazine, Attfal Al Yaom (Children of Today).
Such experience undoubtedly assisted in the production of Hentawi, which featured very slick comic strips slyly extolling equality and democracy and other values, quizzes and games, and inspiring stories of athletes, celebrities and the like.
Cobain also exposed how FCO contractors produced animated films for Syrian children, such as Goal to Syria, about a young footballer who scores the winning goal in the 2027 Asia Cup final, leading the Syrian team to victory.
As the player prepares to attempt a deciding penalty, his mind flashes back to Aleppo in 2014. In the wake of a bombing raid, the White Helmets rush in an ambulance to rescue him from rubble – en-route they pass a local man who screams, “first they bombed us with chemicals, and now barrel bombs!”
After prising the boy free and carrying him to safety, a White Helmet shoots him the peace sign. Back in 2027, he shoots and scores, with the commentators praising the “lion of Damascus” for his heroic victory. As the screen fades to black, viewers are presented with text hailing the White Helmets’ achievements during the conflict, claiming the group “represent the humanity and spirit of the Syrian people.”
Other leaked FCO files make clear ARK played a pivotal role in constructing and promoting the White Helmets’ benevolent image worldwide, developing “an internationally-focused communications campaign to raise global awareness” of the group in order to “keep Syria in the news.” Goal to Syria was shown at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, and can thus be considered another example of this effort in practice, on top of the clip’s domestic purpose.
Somebody think of the children
The same file listing Naji Jerf’s resumé indicates that ARK worked with civil society organizations “to develop products for children” in Syria, including “mobile cinema screenings.”
The company’s expansive network of freelancers in the country, which ARK itself extensively trained at quite some cost to the FCO, were said to “frequently cover such events.” These reports would then be fed to ARK’s “well-established contacts” at major news outlets including Al Jazeera, BBC, CNN, Guardian, New York Times, and Reuters, “further amplifying their effect.”
These outlets similarly “amplified” the impactful propaganda of other FCO contractors working in Syria. In July 2019, an image of two young Syrian girls trapped in rubble in Idlib attempting to haul their sister to safety as she dangled off the precipice of a dilapidated building, their father looking on in horror above, spread far and wide on social media.
The photo, snapped by a photographer for popular Syrian news service SY24, was reported the world over. Unbeknownst to readers, SY24 was created and funded by The Global Strategy Network (TGSN), founded by Richard Barrett, a former MI6 counter-terrorism director.
In a file submitted to the FCO, TGSN boasted of how “campaigns” it broadcast via SY24 generated “huge global coverage,” having been seen by “many hundreds of millions of people,” and “attracting comment as far as the UN Security Council.”
SY24 content was produced by a network of stringers TGSN both trained and provided with equipment, including “cameras and video editing software.” The firm drew particular attention to a team of female stringers it tutored, “who provide about 40 percent of all SY content,” and were part of “a broad ‘network of networks’” enabling TGSN “to drive stories into the mainstream.”
As with Albany and ARK, TGSN engaged in activities to propagandize Syria’s youth, offering to bring projectors to refugee camps and “rural areas” to screen material to young residents, including “prosocial cartoons for children, films chosen with regard to conflict sensitivity and gender, and popular football events to drive participation.”
The company also conspired with ARK on several surreptitious endeavors, including a campaign dubbed ‘Back to School.’ As its name implies, under its auspices young Syrians in opposition-occupied Idlib returned to school – the two FCO accomplices promised to ensure it was a major media event.
In conjunction with Idlib City Council, opposition commanders, and other elements on the ground, ARK and TGSN planned a comprehensive, “unified” communications campaign using “shared slogans, hashtags and branding.” Rebel fighters were to be engaged in order to “clear roads” and “enable children and teachers to get to schools,” all the while filmed by the pair’s voluminous stringer network, footage which would be “disseminated online and on broadcast channels.”
Junior war propagandists
It is in the context of such cynical, heartstring-tugging child exploitation by the FCO that the phenomenon of Bana Alabed gains an even more suspicious, sinister dimension.
In 2016, at the age of just seven, Bana briefly became a celebrated figure among advocates of Western military intervention in Syria, for tweets she allegedly posted documenting the siege of Aleppo.
Within days of her account being registered in September that year, she amassed a sizeable following, firing messages at Assad, Vladimir Putin, and Barack Obama, using hashtags such as #StandWithAleppo, #HolocaustAleppo, #MassacreInAleppo and #StopAleppoMassacre. She also gained a prominent media profile, was dubbed by more than one pundit the “Anne Frank” of the Syrian crisis, and was invited on to major news networks to denounce Assad and the Syrian Arab Army.
Nonetheless, critics were puzzled as to how such a young girl in a city subject to frequent power cuts could have acquired such an apparent mastery of the English language, and tweet so frequently. Concerns were also raised about the interventionist nature of some of the tweets ostensibly posted by Bana, including an apparent endorsement of the prospect of World War III.
Even mainstream journalists acknowledged her video statements were almost undoubtedly scripted, The New Yorker stating Bana was clearly “being coached… to communicate her thoughts in a language she is only beginning to learn.”
Bana went on to ink a lucrative deal with publishing giant Simon & Schuster, after signing up with talent and marketing agency The Blair Partnership, founded by Neil Blair, board member of the UK branch of the Abraham Fund, a group sponsored by Israeli bank Hapoalim, which finances the construction of Jewish-only settlements in the occupied West Bank.
Bana had largely disappeared by July the next year, when Syrian journalist Khaled Iskef visited the Alabeds’ abandoned home. He found it was situated round the corner from an al-Nusra headquarters, and less than 400 meters from Al-Qaeda’s Aleppo nerve-center. Inside, he discovered a notebook documenting her father Ghassan’s work with extremist elements, as a result of his position as military trainer for Islamic Sawfa Brigade.
During that period, he worked in the Shariah Council in the Aleppo state Eye Hospital, which was under the control of al-Nusra. The notebook indicated the Council passed decisions on imprisonment and assassination of captured civilians to the terorrist group.
Since-deleted social media posts reveal Bana’s grandfather Mohammed was an arms dealer and had a weapons maintenance shop in Sha’ar, at which he serviced killing apparatuses for terrorist factions, situated opposite a school-turned-base for al-Nusra.
Bana’s Twitter account frequently complained of her inability to go ‘back to school’ – in a perverse irony, Iskef found al-Nusra used a former school near her home as a headquarters.
Kit Klarenberg is an investigative journalist exploring the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions. Follow Kit on Twitter @KitKlarenberg
US Training Daesh Detainees for Recruitment Into Illegal Militant Groups in Syria, Russia Says
By Henry Batyaev – Sputnik – 11.11.2020
US instructors are training around 30 Daesh detainees from the Al-Hawl camp in Syria with the purpose of recruiting them to illegal armed formations, the head of the Russian-Syrian co-ordination centre for refugees return said on Wednesday.
The prisoners underwent a two-month course of special training under the guidance of US instructors, Mikhail Mizintsev said at the opening of the Damascus International Conference on the Return of Refugees.
“Those who benefit from this situation should understand the wisdom of the proverb: They that sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind”, Mizintsev warned.
Russia has repeatedly called on the United States to disband hundreds of refugee camps on the territories outside Syrian government control, including the biggest ones such as al-Rukban and al-Hawl.
The Al-Hawl camp is located in the north of Syria controlled by the Arab-Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). According to various estimates, the camp is home to 65,000-70,000 refugees, mostly women and children from the families of Daesh militants.
Syria and Russia have repeatedly expressed concerns over the plight of those living in the camp located in the area occupied by US-backed forces.
EU refuses to attend international conference on Syrian refugees
Press TV | November 11, 2020
The European Union (EU) has refused to attend an international conference aimed at putting an end to the suffering of Syrian refugees and facilitating their return to their homeland.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell announced on Tuesday that the EU representatives would not take part in the International Conference on the Return of Syrian Refugees, which is set to commence with the participation of several countries in the Syrian capital of Damascus on Wednesday.
“A number of EU member states’ foreign ministers and the High Representative have received an invitation to a conference on the theme of refugee returns, on 11-12 November, in Damascus. The EU and its member states will not attend this conference,” Borrell said in a statement.
Syria’s official news agency SANA reported that the two-day conference is to address the current situation in Syria, review conditions for the return of refugees and the obstacles hindering their return, and also aims to set the appropriate conditions for their return.
The conference will also discuss the humanitarian aid, rebuilding the infrastructure, and the cooperation between the scientific and educational organizations in Syria in the post-war stage.
In his statement, Borrell censured the conference as “premature” and said the first priority should be to make it safe for the Syrian refugees to go back to the conflict-ravaged country.
The EU official said the 27-member bloc believes that “the priority at present is real action to create conditions for safe, voluntary, dignified and sustainable return of refugees and internally displaced persons to their areas of origin.”
Insisting that no Syrian refugee should be forced to go back, Borrell said, “Conditions inside Syria at present do not lend themselves to the promotion of large-scale voluntary return.”
China, Russia, Iran, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan and Oman are among the countries that will participate. The United Nations will participate as an observer.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said in a video conference with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Monday that the return of Syrian refugees is a priority.
Assad underlined that “the largest part of the refugees” is willing to return to their homeland after the Syrian government set things right for their return.
The Syrian leader also stated that the biggest obstacle facing the return of refugees is the Western sanctions imposed on Syria, both on its government and people.
Putin, for his part, said Moscow would continue efforts to encourage a political solution to the crisis in Syria and that it preserves the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Arab country.
Some 5.6 million Syrians have been forced to flee abroad as refugees, mostly to the neighboring countries of Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq.
Moreover, one million Syrian children have been born as refugees ever since the foreign-backed militancy began in their country back in March 2011.
Iran ready to play leading role in Syria reconstruction/ Shalamcheh-Basra-Latakia railway; The most important economic joint project
Mideast Discourse | November 6, 2020
Steven Sahiounie, a Syrian-American journalist, believes that while Western and European sanctions prevent the import of replacement parts needed by Syria in infrastructure projects, the ability of Iranian industrial engineers to build what is needed could be a vital path around and behind Western sanctions.
Sahiounie tells the Bazaar in an exclusive interview that the prospects for continuing bilateral relations between Iran and Syria are good.
“They both share the same dedication to peaceful relations with countries in the Middle East region while holding firmly to the ideal of resistance to the occupation of Palestine, and demanding that the rights of the Palestinian people be restored without delay”, he said.
Steven Sahiounie is an award-winning journalist, and chief editor of MidEastDiscourse. He has appeared on RT, PressTV, Syrian News, as well as international TV and radio programs. As a Syrian-American journalist and political commentator, he is often sought out concerning currents events facing Syria and the region.
Following is the text of the interview:
Bazaar: How do you predict the prospects for bilateral relations between Iran and Syria?
Sahiounie: The prospects for continuing bilateral relations between Iran and Syria are good. They both share the same dedication to peaceful relations with countries in the Middle East region while holding firmly to the ideal of resistance to the occupation of Palestine, and demanding that the rights of the Palestinian people be restored without delay.
Bazaar: What are the current economic relations and volume of trade between Iran and Syria?
Sahiounie: The trade officials of both Syria and Iran have worked toward establishing industrial and economic free trade zones jointly, with an emphasis on the private sector.
Iran and Syria are slated to boost bilateral trade volume from $500 million to $1 billion within the next year.
Bazaar: What is the major part of Syrian exports?
Sahiounie: The top exports of Syria are Pure Olive Oil, Spice Seeds, Other Nuts, Apples, Pears, and Calcium Phosphates.
Syria shipped an estimated $462 million worth of goods around the globe in 2019. That amount reflects a -46% decrease since 2015 and a -36.2% drop from 2018 to 2019.
The US-NATO attack on Syria beginning in 2011 has devastated lives, the infrastructure, and the economy. The continuing sanctions by the US and EU are designed to keep the war against the Syrian people going, even though the battlefields are silent, except for Idlib, which is under the military occupation of Al Qaeda.
The data from 2010 shows that 81.1% of products exported from Syria were bought by importers in Iraq, Italy, Germany, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, France, Lebanon, Jordan, United States, Netherlands, Egypt, and Spain. Due to the US-EU sanctions against Syria and the Arab monarchies of the Persian Gulf region boycotts, the markets for Syrian goods were closed due to political ideology. Iraq, Lebanon, and Jordan have maintained some trade with Syria in defiance of the western bullies.
The Syrian government is working with a comprehensive plan for agricultural development and expansion of agricultural and food industries to enhance the Syrian economy in the face of the sanctions and the unfair siege on the livelihood of the Syrian people.
Bazaar: What is the most important economic project of the two countries at this present?
Sahiounie: The project to build a railroad connecting Iran’s Shalamcheh border crossing, to the Iraqi port of Basra, and finally to reach Syria’s Mediterranean port city of Latakia is the most important economic project between Syria and Iran.
The project has been on the drawing board for years and is now in the beginning stages. The mammoth railroad line will be linked to the New Silk Road, also known as China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which in turn is also linked to the Russian railroad system. Once completed, western sanctions on Syria and Iran will be thwarted.
Bazaar: What is the most important tool to protect the continuation of bilateral economic relations?
Sahiounie: The most important tool for Iran and Syria to use to protect their continuing bilateral economic relations is in supporting the two countries’ private sectors, both in trade and industry, for the benefit of investment opportunities in the free zones. The bartering system of exchanging goods and services without the use of currency is another tool that can be effective.
Bazaar: The trade between the two countries is set to reach $ 1 billion by next year. What are the plans for expanding bilateral trade? What ?is your opinion?
Sahiounie: Plans to expand bilateral trade include mechanisms to enhance commercial exchange and develop cooperation in the field of research laboratories and medical equipment and infrastructure projects, development, and investment.
The agreement is known as “long-term strategic economic cooperation”, which includes industrial, trade, and agricultural cooperation. Education, housing, public works, railroads, and investments are covered in other agreements.
An important banking agreement between Iran and Syria has been reached, which sends a message to the international community about the depth of Syrian-Iranian cooperation and will benefit Iranian companies wishing to invest in Syria and participate in reconstruction.
Syria and Iran signed several agreements worth $142.5 million, involving Iranian companies involved in the restoration of more than 2,000 MegaWatts of power production capacity, and additional projects by the dozens in the oil and agricultural sectors.
Bazaar: What is your opinion about the impact of Caesar’s law and resulting US sanctions on Iran-Syria trade?
Sahiounie: The impact of Caesar’s sanctions is psychological. To instill fear into the minds of all Syrian people, as well as all countries which would conduct business with Syria.
Layer, after layer of sanctions, has been applied to Syria, to destroy the Syrian government, and installing a US puppet to be the ultimate ‘yes-man’ to Washington.
As Syria and the entire world grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic, the imposition of such inhumane sanctions has increased the suffering of the Syrian people. Instead of coming to the aid of people inside Syria with medical supplies to cope with the pandemic, the sanctions prevent medical companies abroad from doing business with merchants in Syria in the medical supplies industry, for fear of being tracked down and fined by the US Treasury Department.
Horror stories have been heard of companies in Europe who sent medicines and supplies to Syria, only to be tracked down in their own offices in Europe by US authorities enforcing the sanctions against anyone who would dare to throw a lifeline to anyone in Syria.
Bazaar: What is your assessment about Iran’s role in Syria`s reconstruction?
Sahiounie: Since 2017, Iranian companies have participated in rebuilding expos in Syria, and in 2019, the Syrian–Iranian Joint Chamber of Commerce held its first meeting. Iran is poised to play a leading role in the reconstruction of Syria. Projects include residential buildings, power stations, agriculture, telecommunications, oil, and mining.
In 2018, Iran signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Syria to construct 200,000 housing units near Damascus alongside other large projects. Iranian companies are participating in several major projects in Syria’s energy industry, including a gas-fired power plant project in Aleppo. Iran’s largest energy construction company, MAPNA Group, is engaged in the construction of the 540-MegaWatt combined-cycle power plant in Latakia.
Over 95 percent of the power plant equipment and much of the equipment in the Iranian electricity and water industry are domestically manufactured and can repair steam, natural gas, combined-cycle, incineration, and turbines of generators, as well as make strategic parts for power plants.
While the US-EU sanctions prevent Syria from importing much-needed replacement parts for infrastructure projects, the ability of the Iranian industrial engineers to manufacture what is needed can be a vital path around and behind the back of the western sanctions.
Sorry, Google and World Bank, but Middle Eastern Crops Keep Thriving
By H. Sterling Burnett | ClimateRealism | November 4, 2020
Google News today is promoting articles (see the Google-promoted PhysOrg article here, for example) about a speculative World Bank “study” claiming climate change is threatening crop production in the Middle East. The World Bank study is full of speculation but short on facts. Real-world data show crop yields per acre and total crop production are consistently and dramatically rising in each of the Middle East countries examined by the World Bank study.
In its study, titled “Water in the Balance,” the World Bank says, “[w]hile information about water scarcity at present and in the future is available there is little knowledge of what this increasing scarcity means for Middle Eastern … food security. Agriculture will suffer because of climate change and water scarcity….”
In particular the World Bank asserts water scarcity caused by climate change will reduce farm production in Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey. The available evidence strongly suggests that will not happen.
Had the study’s authors examined real-world data concerning crop production in the Middle Eastern countries, they would have found, even amidst substantial strife in the region, crop yields and overall production have increased dramatically. More food is being produced even as thousands of acres of agricultural lands have been abandoned during regional conflicts.
Data from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization show during the period of modest warming since 1989:
- Cereal crop production in Iraq increased 91 percent, even as the acreage being harvested fell 5 percent.
- Cereal crop production in Iran increased 187 percent, while the acreage harvested increased by just 2.6 percent.
- Cereal Crop production in Jordan increased 15 percent, even as the acreage harvested declined 30 percent.
- Cereal Crop production in Lebanon increased 115 percent, while acreage harvested increased 30 percent.
- Cereal Crop production in Syria increased 22 percent, even as acreage harvested declined 66 percent.
- Cereal Crop production in Turkey increased 46 percent, even though acreage harvested declined 19 percent.
It is clearly good news – and not a climate crisis – that Middle Eastern countries have increased crop production despite the fact that many of them have been embroiled in internal political strife, outright civil warfare, and external conflicts. That good news is ignored in the World Bank’s doom-and-gloom report.
Global warming lengthens growing seasons, reduces frost events, and makes more land suitable for crop production. Also, carbon dioxide is an aerial fertilizer for plant life. In addition, crops also use water more efficiently under conditions of higher carbon dioxide, losing less water to transpiration. The latter fact should have allayed the World Bank’s concern about climate change induced water shortages leading to crop failure.
The benefits of more atmospheric carbon dioxide and a modestly warming world have resulted in 17 percent more food being available per person today than there was 30 years ago, even as the number of people has grown by billions. Indeed, the last 20 years have seen the largest decline in hunger, malnutrition, and starvation in human history.
Sorry, World Bank, Google, and PhysOrg, but that does not equate to a climate crisis.
H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D. is managing editor of Environment & Climate News and a research fellow for environment and energy policy at The Heartland Institute. Burnett worked at the National Center for Policy Analysis for 18 years, most recently as a senior fellow in charge of NCPA’s environmental policy program. He has held various positions in professional and public policy organizations, including serving as a member of the Environment and Natural Resources Task Force in the Texas Comptroller’s e-Texas commission.
Under US Commands, SDF Seizes Civilian Houses in Hasakah, Northeastern Syria
Houses in al-Hasakah city, specifically in “al-Barad al-Alee” street inside the security square in the city, taken on October 26, 2017. Photo credit: STJ
By Khaled Iskef | American Herald Tribune | November 2, 2020
SDF members stormed a residential complex in the “Al-Nashwa Al-Sharia” neighborhood of Hasakah city and seized houses there by force after expelling its residents at gunpoint.
Local sources said that “SDF” members, after threatening the residents and demanding they evacuate the houses, stormed the residential complex and seized a number of Syrian governmental buildings which are the General Company for Water Projects and the General Company for Roads and Bridges.
Twenty families of government employees were displaced, who have lived in the neighborhood for decades and found themselves without shelter under the SDF threat to use weapons against their families if they refrain from evacuating. The sources pointed out that the targeted housing complex oversees the government buildings which US forces have captured and taken as their bases since residents of the complex can watch the transfer of weapons and ammunition in addition to US forces’ operations in the region.
“SDF” members also stormed the housing association dwellings of officers, non-commissioned officers, and members of the Syrian Army in the “Al-Omran” neighborhood in Hasakah city, and told the residents to evacuate within 48 hours. The dwellings contain 100 houses that belong to the retired officers and non-commissioned officers and their inheritors who have bought the houses within years, but SDF targeted them as well in the implementation of US orders.
Leaked papers: UK ran secret training & PR op for Syrian militants costing millions, despite knowing risks
By Kit Klarenberg | RT | October 27, 2020
A swath of what appear to be secret Foreign & Commonwealth Office documents outline a multimillion-pound British effort to train rebel fighters in Syria via private companies, knowing but brushing off the risk of jihadist hijack.
The documents released by the hacktivist collective Anonymous appear to expose a variety of covert actions undertaken by the UK government against the Syrian state over many years.
The overriding objective behind them all, the papers suggest, was to destabilise the government of Bashar Assad, convince Syrians, Western citizens, foreign governments, and international bodies that the Free Syrian Army (FSA) was a legitimate alternative, and flood media the world over with pro-opposition propaganda.
The dimensions of the assorted information warfare operations implied in the papers, some of which have been detailed by the Grayzone Project, were vast. In a representative example, “social enterprise” firm ARK, founded by veteran Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) operative Alistair Harris, “rebranded” the Syrian Military Council, “softening the Free Syrian Army’s image” in order to “distinguish it from extremist armed opposition groups and establish the image of a functioning, inclusive, disciplined and professional military body.”
Training ‘credible and effective’ militants
At least one cog in this cloak and dagger connivance was overtly militant in nature. From August 2016, a consortium of private contractors ran a programme for the FCO, through which “training, equipment, and other forms of support” was provided to the FSA’s ‘Southern Front’ coalition, to “foster a negotiated political transition, support moderate structures and groups in opposition held areas of Syria, counter violent extremism and prevent the establishment of a terrorist safe-haven.”
Under its clandestine auspices, up to 600 belligerents were trained every year the operation ran, an indeterminate total – the endeavour was dubbed MAO B-FOR (Moderate Armed Opposition Border Force Capability Project), and forecast to cost the FCO £15,767,599.
B-FOR’s ‘statement of requirements’ document sets out in succinct detail Whitehall’s objectives in pursuing the project.
“The aim… is to generate pressure on the Assad regime and on extremists, in the south the country… If MAO border groups are better able to secure and maintain control of specific areas of responsibility across liberated near-border communities along Syria’s southern border with Jordan… the MAO will demonstrate its tangible value to the local and international community as an effective security actor… This will reinforce perceptions that there is a credible and effective moderate opposition able to provide support for an alternative pathway to political transition,” the project tender states.
In practical terms, fighters in “international borders under MAO control” and “areas bordering MAO control under the control of another entity or under no control” – the Jordan-Syria border being the FCO’s “current priority area” – were intended to be “better able to control their AOR [areas of responsibility] through effective use of relevant tactics, operations, equipment, infrastructure, and ability to react to a changing tactical situation.”
To this end, the UK government provided a “dedicated training site” in Jordan “at no cost” to project contractors. The site is situated 45 minutes from the Jordanian capital, Amman, according to an annotated Google Earth snapshot found among the leaked papers. The 600-acre expanse comprised “accommodation, ablution, dining, classrooms, driving track, outside rural environment areas, and open space for equipment storage solutions.” In particular, trainees were to be tutored in the effective use of AK-47s, PK machine guns, and pistols, with 175 fighters able to be accommodated on-site at a time, four weeks the maximum period they could be tutored there continuously.
Contractors were also asked to ensure the project took into account, among other things, Whitehall’s “policy toward gender” – a reflection, just like the tender’s references to “reinforcing perceptions,” of B-FOR’s strong psychological component.
‘Kill, Burn and Loot’
In response, global advisory firm Adam Smith International (ASI) apparently submitted an extensive proposal to the department, offering to head a consortium of contractors, comprised of Pilgrims Group, Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR), Oakas, and GlenGulf.
We have reached out to the companies for comment.
In terms of project roles, ASI – which according to the proposal had been operating in Syria since early 2013, and boasted “well over” 100 field staff in the country – was to provide “strategic stakeholder engagement, project management, project leadership positions, conflict research and analysis and monitoring and evaluation functions.” Pilgrims Group – said to have “supported a large number of media organisations operating in Ukraine” – was tasked with “training delivery, initial military skills assessment, training programme design.”
KBR – which has reaped untold millions from a variety of US conflicts, been embroiled in numerous high-profile scandals, and was reportedly nicknamed “Kill, Burn & Loot” by US marines during the Iraq War – had responsibility for “manning procurement and logistics functions,” including providing the facility’s “quartermaster, storemen and a liaison officer at the key port of entry for imported goods.” Oakas was to offer “bespoke training for MAO command elements (‘battle staffs’) on decision making and planning,” and GlenGulf the “provision of training to officers and commanders on human intelligence gathering and management.”
Excerpt from alleged ASI document
Accompanying project staff CVs reveal many individuals involved in B-FOR were senior UK military veterans, who all received sizeable three-figure per diem fees for their participation. For instance, its ranks included a former senior British military advisor to US Central Command, experience ASI claims granted him “in-depth knowledge” of the Syrian “context.”
US-backed rebel front collapses
Part of that context at the time would’ve been the virtual collapse of Southern Front as a serious fighting force. Formed in February 2014 at the behest of the US Military Operations Command (MOC) in Jordan, the Front was a coalition of 50-60 rebel groups. As ASI’s proposal notes, its constituent factions were “given various types of support from the MOC,” including “small arms, artillery, anti-tank guided missiles, ammunition, vehicles, communications equipment, and uniforms,” the Command also paying fighters’ salaries.
Washington’s largesse was fundamental in the Front scoring a series of victories over government forces throughout 2014 and the first half of the next year. In the process, it became the largest rebel umbrella organization in southern Syria, comprising 25-30,000 fighters, and challenging the political and military dominance of Salafist Al-Nusra, the region’s then-largest jihadist group. The mainstream media widely promoted the Front as Western leaders’ best hope of achieving a “moderate” Syrian “revolution” – despite many of its units frequently cooperating and collaborating with Al-Nusra.
However, an over-ambitious attempt by the Front to wrest the city of Deraa’s northern and eastern districts from government control in June 2015 ended in embarrassing failure. The cataclysm led to almost total cessation of MOC support, which in turn meant the Front lost much of its operational capabilities and many of its fighters, who defected in droves to other rebel groups offering salaries. Saudi Arabia subsequently stepped in to provide weapons and fresh funding to the ailing force – B-FOR represented London’s illicit contribution to keeping it functional, and ASI’s proposal makes clear the consortium well-understood the many risks attached to the project.
Risks known, responsibility offloaded
A lengthy section of ASI’s proposal – ‘oversight and management of threats and risks’ – details some of these myriad hazards, along with their likelihood and impact. It was considered highly probable, for instance, groups such as Al-Nusra and ISIS would interfere in the program, “due to perceptions of an ‘international political agenda’” – as a result, extremists “may seek to prevent trainees from joining or inhibit them from fulfilling their functions once trained via kidnap, assault and theft of equipment.”
The possibility that the consortium’s curated fighters may choose or be forced to join other, non-border force Southern Front operations, in turn “[leading] to a weakening of the border capability and perception of UK support to active military operations,” was rated as “medium.” Border force trainees collaborating with extremist actors and/or committing human rights abuses, in the process compromising “the legal and reputational viability of the programme,” was likewise considered of “medium” likelihood and impact.
ASI’s proposed method of dealing with these and other dangers was almost invariably to simply “transfer” responsibility for “owning and managing” the problem to the FCO itself, even suggesting the UK government must simply “tolerate” failings such as the loss of equipment “to a reasonable degree.”
It seems the FCO either acquiesced to shouldering the inherent burdens, or was intensely relaxed about such issues, for the consortium was duly awarded the B-FOR contract, judging by other papers found in the leak.
Non-Disclosure Agreements signed June 10, 2016 by the firms involved indicate they were obliged to adhere to the stringent confidentiality requirements of the 1911 and 1989 Official Secrets Acts, forbidding them from “disseminating any information related to the project to any third party.” Meticulous instructions for disposing of ‘secret’, ‘restricted’, and ‘confidential’ FCO communications were also included.
‘Jihadis You Pay For’
It’s uncertain how many years, or perhaps months, B-FOR endured. Its ‘statement of requirements’ forecast the project would “cover a period until 31st March 2019 with a clause for a breakpoint at the end of each financial year.”
However, in February 2017, a report by Parliament’s international development committee found ASI staff had submitted fake testimonials from aid recipients to a House of Commons inquiry into its activities, set up in response to allegations the firm had been seeking improper financial benefit from UK aid spending.
In response, DfID blocked the company from bidding on future government contracts, and the next month, ASI’s three founding executives resigned. Even more damningly, in December that year, a BBC Panorama documentary (Jihadis You Pay For) exposed how FCO cash ASI distributed in Syria had ended up in extremists’ pockets.
The investigation focused on the FCO’s Access to Justice and Community Security (AJACS) program, under which ASI funded and trained the Free Syria Police, an unarmed civilian force set up to re-establish law and order in opposition-controlled areas.
It found ASI had identified links between several FSP stations and sharia courts run by Al-Nusra and not ended its funding of the stations, or compelled them to sever all connections with the courts – FSP officers in theoretical receipt of FCO funds via ASI had also been present when women were stoned to death. Troublingly, ASI’s B-FOR pitch states its “experience and knowledge” of running AJACS will be “leveraged” to ensure optimal delivery of the border project.
Whether B-FOR was quietly shelved or simply handed over to other contractors in response to these damaging exposures is unknown. In any event, in July 2018, the Front was comprehensively crushed by pro-government forces, its surrendering fighters either agreeing to reconciliation deals or fleeing to Idlib.
It’s also unknown how many fighters trained via the program went on to join jihadist groups, and how much equipment was “lost” over the course of its operation, ending up in the hands of extremists and used to slaughter and maim innocent civilians. The companies running the operation, much less the UK government, certainly weren’t keeping count.
Kit Klarenberg is an investigative journalist exploring the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions. Follow Kit on Twitter @KitKlarenberg
Syria: Six Million Displaced People Have Returned Home
teleSUR – October 23, 2020
On Thursday, Syrian authorities announced that six million displaced people had returned home to different parts of the country.
The Minister of Municipal Administration and Environment, Hussein Makhlouf, said to the People´s Assembly that one million refugees had returned to Syria, and 5 million internally displaced people were back at their homes.
The official said that this achievement was possible after the rehabilitation of infrastructure and roads, collecting and disposing of 4 million cubic meters of waste and debris from them.
Moreover, the authorities reported that they had repaired more than 19,000 houses while supporting waste recycling projects to secure 18,000 job positions.
As the country tries to overcome aggression and sanctions from the U.S. and the European Union, the government plans to create more homes and announces that 11 new artisanal zones were established in Tartous, Quneitra, Homs, and Hama provinces. Also, with China’s support is has imported transportation, including buses and 708 vehicles for the cleaning sector.
Reporter Serena Shim remembered six years after suspicious death near Turkey
Press TV | October 18, 2020
Six years after her suspicious death, Press TV reporter Serena Shim is remembered as one of the first journalists to have exposed the involvement of the US-led Western countries and their regional allies in igniting the foreign-sponsored terrorism in Syria, a daring act of investigative journalism for which she paid with her life.
The investigative reporter died in October 2014 while covering the ongoing siege by the Daesh Takfiri group of the Syrian-Kurdish border city of Kobani for Iran’s Press TV. She was the lone fatality following a suspicious car crash in Turkey’s Sanliurfa province.
She was reporting firsthand on the presence of Daesh and other al Qaeda-affiliated militant groups operating freely along the Turkey-Syria border. She revealed the weapons transfers and the trucks being driven into Syria by the terrorists themselves.
Shim had gathered evidence of militant training camps operating near the Turkey-Syria border.
She was, in her own words, one of the first, if not the first, on the ground to report on “Takfiri militants going in through the Turkish border”. These include not only Daesh but also terrorists from the so-called Free Syrian Army.
As Shim’s sister Fatmeh Shim stated in 2015, “She caught them bringing high-ranked Daesh members into Syria from Turkey into camps, which are supposed to be Syrian refugee camps.”
Shim said trucks belonging to some international aid agencies were being used to funnel terrorists’ arms into Syria, and stated this in her last interview, just one day before being killed.
On October 19, 2014, Shim, along with her camerawoman, was returning to their hotel after preparing a report near Kobani south of the Turkish border, where a heated battle was taking place between Daesh and the city’s defendants.
Early reports claimed that Shim died at the scene while later accounts suggested that she passed away due to heart failure after being transferred to hospital nearly 30 minutes later. Shim’s camerawoman, who had been transported to a different hospital, survived the incident.
Turkish authorities blamed Shim’s camerawoman, who had been driving the vehicle, for the crash. No further inquiry was reported to have been carried out by Ankara.
Many doubts, however, linger regarding the official testimony provided by the Turkish officials.
Today’s Zaman reported that prosecutors were seeking six years in prison for the operator of the concrete mixer instead, accusing the driver of causing “death through negligence.” The trial, allegedly set for March 2015, never occurred.
Six years following her unfortunate death, no further information has been released regarding the fatal accident.
Observers have pointed out that “car accidents” have been a “commonplace method” used by the Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MIT) to get rid of people it doesn’t like.
Although all signs point to foul play, until now the US government has neither conducted nor demanded an inquiry into the events of the alleged car accident which Turkish officials say was the cause of Shim’s death.
Two weeks after the incident, the US State Department issued a brief statement regarding Shim, who was an American citizen of Lebanese origin, saying that it “does not conduct investigations into deaths overseas.”
The journalist’s tragic death came only two days after Shim had spoken out live on Press TV about being targeted by the MIT, who had accused her of being a “spy” while the journalist covered the latest developments in Turkey and Syria.
“I am a bit worried, because as you know and as the viewers know, Turkey has been labeled by Reporters Without Borders as the largest prison for journalists, so I am a bit frightened what they might use against me.”
Shim explained that she had been targeted for her investigative reports regarding Ankara’s direct support for terrorist groups, such as Daesh in Syria, whose evidence had been largely concealed at the time.
“We were some of the first people on the ground, if not the first people on the ground, to get that story of those Takfiri militants going in through the Turkish border — the Bab al-Hawa border — being sent in. I’ve got images of them in World Food Program trucks. It was very apparent that they were Takfiri militants by their beards and by the clothes that they wore. And they were going in there with NGO trucks,” she said.
The 29-year-old reporter had been described by her colleagues as an aspiring journalist with much potential. The young journalist had spent years working in various dangerous conflict zones such as Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Ukraine.
The Turkish government has been accused of supporting various terrorist groups seeking to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad since the onset of the foreign-backed terrorism nine years ago.
Over the past four years, the Turkish military has staged at least two unauthorized incursions into northern Syria to push back against Kurdish militants, whom Ankara says seek to overthrow the Turkish government.
The aggression prompted the areas’ Kurdish population to ask the Syrian government for protection against the Turkish forces.
Ankara, which backs Syria’s anti-government militants, currently has hundreds of Turkish troops in the northwest of the Arab country.
In recent years, Western terrorists within the ranks of Daesh in Syria and Iraq have been seeking their countries’ help to secure their return to their motherlands as the Takfiri group continues to suffer heavy losses in the two Arab countries.
Some of the Daesh terrorists have contacted diplomatic missions in Turkey while others have secretly sought their governments’ help in leaving dwindling Daesh-held territory.
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The myth of oil as a dwindling resource
By Bruce Everett | August 18, 2008
… Natural resources are limited by definition, but how limited? … continue
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