Thursday September 5th 2013
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Leaders from the G20 group of nations are meeting in Russia amid sharp differences over the crisis in Syria.
US President Barack Obama is pushing for military action over Syria's alleged use of chemical weapons.
But Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that military action without UN approval would be "an aggression".
In his opening remarks in St Petersburg, Mr Putin stuck to the G20 agenda of economics, but said Syria should be discussed at a dinner later.
Danger for aid workers
Mr Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron and Chinese President Xi Jinping are among the leaders at the G20.
Mr Cameron, who lost a parliamentary vote on military intervention in Syria, told the BBC it was "the worst refugee crisis of this century".
He called for aid agencies to receive more funding and for pressure to be put "on both sides in the conflict to improve access so aid workers can get to those who most need help".
On Thursday the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said one of its surgeons, a Syrian working in Aleppo province, had been killed.
It gave no details of the circumstances but called for humanitarian workers to be protected.
Separately, Syrian rebels have launched an assault on the religiously mixed village of Maaloula, in western Syria, held by government forces.
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia -- The threat of missiles over the Mediterranean is weighing on world leaders meeting on the shores of the Baltic this week – and eclipsing economic battles that usually dominate when the Group of 20 leading world economies convenes.
Men at the forefront of the geopolitical standoff over Syria's civil war will be in the same room for meetings Thursday and Friday in St. Petersburg, Russia: President Barack Obama, Russian President Vladimir Putin, French President Francois Hollande, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Saudi Prince Saun Al Faisal al Saud, among others.
The world's unemployed and impoverished may get short shrift at this summit, though activist groups are pleading with leaders to join forces to tackle corruption and tax-avoiding corporations, in hopes that stabilizes and better distributes economic growth.
Here's a look at what to expect at this year's summit of the G-20, nations that represent two-thirds of the world's population, 85 percent of its GDP and its leading armies:
Moscow: Russia is sending three more ships to the eastern Mediterranean to bolster its fleet there as a US Senate panel will consider President Barack Obama's request for authority to conduct a military strike on Syria.
Russia is sending two destroyers, including the Nastoichivy, the flagship of the Baltic Fleet, and the Moskva missile cruiser to the region, Interfax reported, citing an unidentified Navy official. That follows last week's dispatch of a reconnaissance ship to the eastern Mediterranean, four days after the deployment of an anti-submarine ship and a missile cruiser to the area, which were reported by Interfax. Syria hosts Russia's only military facility outside the former Soviet Union, at the port of Tartus.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said during a Wednesday congressional hearing that Russia provided Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime with some of the chemical weapons used against civilians.
Speaking during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, Hagel was asked by Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) where the weapons came from.
“There’s no secret that the Assad regime has had chemical weapons, significant stockpiles of chemical weapons,” Hagel said.
Wilson asked if they come from a specific country.
"The Russians supply them, others are supplying them with those chemical weapons, they make some themselves," Hagel said.
Despite Delay, Syria Strike Can Still Hurt Assad
WASHINGTON, Sept 5 (Reuters) - It would hardly be a surprise to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad or his military if American missiles start hitting Syria soon.
With weeks to prepare for an attack, Assad might benefit in some ways from the delay in any strike caused by President Barack Obama's decision to seek approval from a divided U.S. Congress.
U.S. officials and defense experts say Assad's forces cannot take enough targets out of reach to blunt the U.S. military mission, especially since it is billed as having very limited objectives.
Obama is calling for a limited military strike in response to a chemical weapons attack on civilians blamed by the United States on Assad's forces.
Fixed targets, for example, cannot be protected no matter how much time elapses. "A building can't be moved, nor hid," one U.S. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Other fixed targets could include airfields, although not any storage facilities with chemical weapons in them.
Defense analyst Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank said if successful, hitting fixed targets would eliminate key assets to Assad that "can't easily be replaced, like command and control facilities, major headquarters."
"These are lasting targets," Cordesman said.
BEIRUT -- Syrian government troops battled al-Qaida-linked rebels over a regime-held Christian village in western Syria for the second day Thursday, as world leaders gathered in Russia for an economic summit expected to be overshadowed by the prospect of U.S.-led strikes against the Damascus regime.
Residents of Maaloula said the militants entered the village late Wednesday. Rami Abdul-Rahman, the director of the Britain-based Observatory for Human Rights, said the fighters included members of the of al-Qaida affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra group.
Despite heavy army presence in the village, Abdul-Rahman said the rebels patrolled its streets on foot and in vehicles, briefly surrounding a church and a mosque before leaving early Thursday.
The rebels launched the assault on the ancient Christian village of Maaloula – which is on a UNESCO list of tentative world heritage sites – on Wednesday after an al-Nusra fighter blew himself up at a regime checkpoint at the entrance to the mountain village. The village, about 40 miles (60 kilometers) northeast of Damascus, is home to 3,300 residents, some of whom still speak a version of Aramaic, the ancient language of biblical times believed to have been spoken by Jesus.
Heavy clashes between President Bashar Assad's troops and Nusra Front fighters persisted in surrounding mountains Thursday, according to the Observatory, which collects information from a network of anti-regime activists.
Speaking by phone from a convent in the village, a nun told The Associated Press that the rebels left a mountaintop hotel Thursday after capturing it a day earlier. The nun said the frightened residents expect the Islamic militants to return to the Safir hotel and resume shelling of the community below.
A car bomb targeted the convoy of Egypt’s interior minister Thursday in the first assassination attempt since former President Mohammed Morsi’s ouster, but the official survived the blast.
The attack against Mohammed Ibrahim, who is in charge of the police force, signaled the arrival in the capital of the sort of insurgency-style attacks that have been escalating in the Sinai Peninsula.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the car bomb explosion, which went off in the late morning as Ibrahim's convoy passed through Nasr City, an eastern district of Cairo.
Ibrahim survived the attack, but at least 22 people were wounded, including two policemen and a child seriously.
Osama al-Sahir, head of security in Cairo, told the state-run Al-Ahram newspaper that the driver of the car was killed in the explosion.
On Monday, a post at Al Jazeera reported that Shadi Hamid, director of research at the Brookings Doha Center, issued a tweet saying an Egyptian newspaper is claiming that Barack Obama is a "full-on" member of the Muslim Brotherhood.
"If you missed it, 'liberal' Egyptian newspaper has front page headline claiming Obama as full-on member of Muslim Brotherhood international," he tweeted.
"Newspaper also claims that son of MB leader threatened Obama w- release of 'papers' revealing his MB membership," he added in a separate tweet.
A post at the conservative Fire Andrea Mitchell says the claim is too far-fetched to be believable.
"Sorry, just don’t buy it. If this were true, then release the damn ‘papers’ already. I’m sure the whole world would want to know. I just don’t believe it and wouldn’t until I see proof," the blog said.
On March 22nd, shortly after assuming the post of President of the People’s Republic of China, Xi Jinping headed off to Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Observers were watching the two leaders closely, looking to divine whether or not they could overcome past divisions to achieve a new level of cooperation in bilateral ties. What came out of the two leaders’ meeting and what does it augur for the future of Sino-Russian relations?
Three major areas appear to have been the focus: managing expectations about the relationship; expanding bilateral trade in energy and arms; and cooperation on international security affairs. Drawing on press reports from China and Russia we have attempted to determine how much progress was actually made on these issues at the summit.
Framing the relationship between Beijing and Moscow is an issue with both domestic and international implications for both countries. Domestically, Beijing’s leaders want to convey to their people that China’s rise is accepted and respected by major world powers. Similarly Russia, whose relations with major Western powers has deteriorated since the re-election of President Putin, appreciates the respect that comes from Xi Jinping’s selection of Moscow for his first visit abroad as China’s new leader.
Buried beneath the Syrian crisis coverage, the Mainstream Media ignores a shocking FOIA report that states conclusively that the United States had trained resources on hand to assist and defend Americans under attack during the Benghazi Massacre – as well as evidence of the White House stonewalling CBS investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson. The fact that the Obama White House “let them die” leads to the logical assumption then, that it in fact “wanted them dead.”
Congress took the first formal step toward approving military action in Syria on Wednesday, with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s 10-7 vote to send its resolution to the full chamber.
But whether or not the resolution winds up passing in the Senate, the real hurdle remains in the GOP-controlled House. And things on that front are looking progressively dimmer for the Obama administration.
Over the last two days, scores of members — most of them Republicans, but many of them Democrats — have expressed their opposition to the use of force in Syria.
According to The Fix’s handy-dandy whip count, the ranks of the opposition more than doubled from 34 on Tuesday morning to 85 by Thursday morning.
Senate leadership will ultimately need to muster 60 votes to pass the resolution authorizing the use of force in Syria, as the measure will be treated like any other resolution and will also be subject to a potential filibuster.
Some reports have speculated that under the War Powers Act, the Syria war resolution could be brought to the Senate floor under special circumstances with only limited debate and requiring only a simple majority to pass. But Senate leadership has decided to treat the Syria war authorization, approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee 10–7 Wednesday afternoon, like any other joint resolution. This means that it will be subject to a cloture motion, which requires 60 votes to pass, except in the unlikely event that all 100 senators give unanimous consent to move directly to a final vote.
“This joint resolution will be treated like any other joint resolution,” a Senate Democratic leadership aide tells The Daily Beast. “That means we’ll have to move to proceed to the measure, and without consent it could face a 60-vote cloture vote on the motion to proceed.”
President Obama arrived in Russia today to find the already failing relations with his host in even worse condition. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s threat to provide his Syrian allies with a missile shield in the event of U.S. airstrikes further complicates Obama’s flagging effort to win international support for an attack on Damascus. As the Guardian reports, Putin’s warning that an attack without UN backing would provoke military aid from Russia may drive away the handful of international partners for Obama’s proposed attack.
[Watch Fox: Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., appears in the noon ET hour]
Liar’s poker in St. Petersburg - Russian President Vladimir Putin’s claim that the main combat unit of the Syrian rebels is part of Al Qaeda adds a further chill to U.S.-Russia relations. Putin said Secretary of State John Kerry “lies openly” about Al Qaeda’s role among U.S.-backed rebels in Syria. Putin’s comments came after Kerry’s testy exchange with Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., over the role of terrorist groups in the rebellion. Kerry claimed that Al Qaeda-allied groups were a small fraction of the force. State Department officials dismissed Putin’s charge.
[House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rep. Mike McCaul, R-Texas, told reporters he was “stunned” by Kerry’s claim.]
6 reasons to approve the stalled project.
The biggest mystery about the Keystone XL pipeline is why its final stage hasn't already been approved by the Obama administration.
There are six things most people don't know that make the mystery deeper:
- From following the contentious Keystone pipeline debate, you can be forgiven if you think that the fight is over whether to build it. That's not quite right. The Keystone system has already been transporting oil sands from Canada to U.S. refineries in the Midwest for three years — with no major leaks. The Keystone XL project that has received so much attention is the last phase of a larger project. Phase 1 has been operating since 2010, carrying oil from Alberta across three Canadian provinces and six states to refineries in Illinois. Phase 2 expanded the system from Steele City, Neb., to Cushing, Okla., a major U.S. oil refining and storing hub. It went operational two years ago, again with no major problems. Phase 3, under construction, extends the pipeline from Oklahoma to the Gulf Coast refineries in Texas. President Obama even gave a speech in Cushing in March 2012 — during his re-election bid — praising the pipeline extension as good for the economy. Phase 4, the Keystone XL, would build another extension to the pipeline system from Alberta, crossing only three states (Montana, South Dakota then Nebraska). click here for 6 reasons:
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