Gazette -091713

Tuesday September 17th 2013

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France and Russia admit Syria rift

Russia and France's foreign ministers have disagreed over who is to blame for the chemical weapons attack in Syria.

After talks in Moscow, France's Laurent Fabius said the UN's report into the August incident left no doubt that the Syrian government was responsible.
But Russia's Sergei Lavrov said Moscow had "serious grounds" to believe the attack had been a provocation by rebel forces.
Mr Fabius is pressing Russia to support a Security Council resolution on Syria.
"When you look at the amount of sarin gas used, the vectors, the techniques behind such an attack, as well as other aspects, it seems to leave no doubt that the regime [of President Bashar al-Assad] is behind it," Mr Fabius said at a news conference in Moscow, referring to the much-anticipated UN report which was released on Monday.
Mr Lavrov said no decision on military intervention should be made before all the evidence had been considered.
"We want objective professional assessment of the events of 21 of August. We have serious grounds to believe this was a provocation... But the truth needs to be established and this will be a test of the future work of the Security Council."
He added that some of Russia's questions on the origins of the attack remained unanswered by the report, including whether the weapons were produced in a factory or home-made.

As world watches Syria, Egypt launches major campaign against jihadists in Sinai 

While the eyes of the world are on Syria, Egypt's military is routing jihadists from the vast and lawless Sinai Peninsula -- and, according to some regional observers, showing the U.S. how to conduct a war on terrorists.
Under orders from Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the military leader governing Egypt since the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohammed Morsi was ousted, the Egyptian military is stepping up the fight against the growing coalition of Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda and other radical Muslims gathering in the massive desert peninsula. Although the jihadist activity in the Sinai could be as big a threat to regional stability as the civil war in Syria, Sisi's effort to confront terrorism at his doorstep comes without endorsement from the Obama administration, which has denounced the military takeover in Egypt.
"I am more than sure that the Muslim Brotherhood and its leadership in Egypt were actually encouraged by the Americans -- and not just in Egypt," Mordechai Kedar, a highly respected analyst of Islamic groups, and a former Israeli military intelligence officer, told FoxNews.com. "The State Department sympathized with the Muslim Brotherhood because they wanted Islamists to love America. They will do anything in order to look nice in the eyes of these Islamists."

Turkey Downs Syrian Helicopter

ISTANBUL — A Turkish fighter jet shot down a Syrian military helicopter on Monday after it entered Turkish airspace and ignored repeated warnings to leave, an official said.
The helicopter strayed 2 kilometers (more than 1 mile) into Turkish airspace, but crashed inside Syria after being hit by missiles fired from the jet, Turkey's deputy prime minister, Bulent Arinc, told reporters in Ankara.
Arinc said he did not have any information on the fate of the Syrian pilots, but Rami Abdul-Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said rebel fighters captured one of the pilots, while the fate of the other one was unclear.
The incident is bound to ramp up tension on an already volatile border. Turkey has been at odds with the Syrian government since early in the country's civil war and has backed the Syrian rebels, while advocating international intervention in the conflict.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, speaking in Paris after meetings about Syria with his counterparts from other countries, said Monday's encounter should send a message. "Nobody will dare to violate Turkey's borders in any way again," he said, according to Anatolia, the Turkish state-run news agency. "The necessary measures have been taken."
Arinc noted that the Turkish military had put its forces on a higher state of alert and changed the rules for engaging with the Syrian military along the border because of "`constant harassment fire from the other side."
He also noted that a Turkish jet was shot down by Syrian anti-aircraft over the Mediterranean in June 2012. Turkey says it was hit in international airspace, but Syria insisted it was flying low inside Syrian airspace.

Russia's Nuclear Submarine Tomsk On Fire Near Vladivostok 

A Russian nuclear-powered submarine undergoing repairs at a Far East shipyard caught fire on Monday, but its reactor had long been shut off and posed no danger of radiation leaks, officials said.
The submarine Tomsk was being repaired at a shipyard near the city of Vladivostok when the fire broke out, the defence ministry said in a statement cited by Russian news agencies.
"Radiation in the area of the emergency incident onboard the Tomsk is normal, the reactor had been out of operation since the submarine began undergoing repairs in 2011," a source in the Far East fleet told RIA Novosti.
The fire was put out and all staff evacuated, with no injuries, said the defence ministry statement.
"According to preliminary data, the reason for the fire was violation of welding procedures," it said.
The submarine was being repaired in the Bolshoi Kamen shipyard near the port of Vladivostok.
In late 2011 a massive fire broke out on another nuclear submarine in Murmansk while it was under repairs, injuring nine people. Reports later said that the vessel was armed with long-range missiles.

Cracks appear between US and Russia over Syrian chemical weapons deal

The first divisions have appeared in the Geneva agreement on Syrian chemical disarmament as Russia dismissed calls for a swift UN resolution threatening punitive measures against Damascus.
The spat focused on the timing of a resolution under chapter 7 of the UN charter, which includes enforcement measures such as the possible use of military action to bolster a security council decision.
The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said calls for an immediate chapter 7 resolution showed a "lack of understanding" of Saturday's Geneva agreement with the US about the process of declaring, inspecting and dismantling Syria's chemical weapons.
Any resolution this week cannot include chapter 7, Lavrov insisted. "I am certain that despite the statements we are hearing from certain European capitals, the American side will firmly adhere to what was agreed," the Russian foreign minister said.
He was reacting to reports from a meeting in Paris between the US secretary of state, John Kerry, the French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, and the UK foreign secretary, William Hague, who declared themselves united behind a tough UN resolution to put the Geneva agreement into practice.
"We want concrete, verifiable acts and all options must stay on the table if these are not done," Fabius said.
Hague added: "A resolution, in our view, should create a binding commitment for the regime to give up its chemical weapons within a specific time frame and to credibly, reliably and promptly place them under international control for destruction. 

China refuses to blame Assad for Syria gas attack
  
BEIJING: China on Tuesday refused to say whether a United Nations report into a sarin gas attack in Syria showed that government forces had used the banned weapons.

The United Nations on Monday revealed details of the attack, which the United States, Britain and France said showed that President Bashar al-Assad's forces had carried it out. Russia said that further investigation was needed.

Foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said at a regular briefing that Beijing would have a "serious look," at the report, but did not say whether China thought that government forces were responsible when asked.

"The relevant investigation should be carried out by the UN investigation team on an impartial, professional and independent basis," he said.

China has repeatedly said that it opposes armed intervention by foreign powers in Syria.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon condemned the use of chemical weapons in Syria as a "war crime" after UN experts said they had gathered evidence that surface-to-surface rockets took sarin gas into the opposition-held Damascus suburb of Ghouta on August 21. 

In Bangladesh, death penalty for Islamist leader sparks riots

NEW DELHI -- The Bangladesh Supreme Court on Tuesday handed down the death penalty to an opposition leader with the country's main Islamist party, who was convicted of committing mass murder during the 1971 war of independence with Pakistan.
As word of the verdict against Abdul Quader Molla of Jamaat-e-Islami spread, Islamist protesters in the capital of Dhaka and in the port city of Chittagong marched, exploded homemade bombs, torched vehicles and threw stones at police.
A few hours later, a Jamaat statement called a two-day nationwide strike starting Wednesday, decrying the “government conspiracy to kill our leaders.”
Tuesday’s decision goes beyond the lifetime-imprisonment punishment handed down against Quader Molla by a Bangladesh war crimes tribunal in February.

Rohani Prepared to Shut Down Nuclear Site

International sanctions are taking their toll on Iran's economy, and it now appears that new President Hassan Rohani could thus be willing to make concessions in the country's long-running standoff with the West over its nuclear program.

Nothing -- not even Syria's arsenal of chemical weapons -- is a source of such deep concern for the West and Israel as Iran's nuclear facilities, such as Natanz, Isfahan and Fordo. The installation at Fordo, not far from the holy city of Qom, is viewed as a particularly grave threat. 

Researchers working underground there are using 696 centrifuges to enrich uranium to 20 percent. Afterwards, it only takes a relatively small step to create the material required to build nuclear bombs. Fordo, which didn't go into operation until late 2011, is reportedly the most modern plant in the Iranian nuclear program which -- despite all denials from Tehran -- the world believes is designed to give the Islamic Republic the ultimate weapon. What's more, Fordo is believed to be virtually indestructible. Even bunker-buster bombs would hardly be powerful enough to disable the facility -- the enrichment cascades lie 70 meters (230 feet) under the surface.


Arrests In Killing Of Afghan Policewoman

LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan -- Five men have been arrested in Afghanistan for their involvement in the killing of a top female police officer.

A spokesman for the regional police in Afghanistan's southern province of Helmand told reporters on September 17 that the five are suspects in the murder of Lieutenant Nigar. No other details were given.

Nigar, who used only one name, died in hospital early on September 16, shortly after she was shot by gunmen on a motorcycle near police headquarters in Lashkar Gah, Helmand's provincial capital. She was buried later the same day.

Nigar had worked seven years as a criminal investigator in Lashkar Gah.

She became the highest-ranking female police officer in Helmand Province after her predecessor, also a woman, was murdered in July.   

Mexico storm ‘double whammy’ kills 41

Forty-one people have died and tens of thousands forced to evacuate their homes in a rare “double whammy” as two powerful storms converged from the Pacific and the Gulf to pummel Mexico.
Tropical Depression Ingrid battered Mexico’s northern Gulf coast while the remnants of Tropical Storm Manuel lashed the Pacific coast, inundating the popular beach resort of Acapulco.
Even as the storms weakened, they continued to unleash torrential rain, killing more than three dozen people.

Brazil to snub Obama over spying revelations

President Rousseff is under pressure to cancel Brazil’s first state visit to Washington in almost two decades amid rising anger over reports that the US was spying on her and Petrobras, the country’s petrol giant .
Brazilian officials are also seeking Russian help to organise a meeting with Edward Snowden, the renegade US National Security Agency contractor who has been granted temporary asylum in Moscow, to discover exactly what intelligence was gathered on Brazil’s largest company.
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Audit finds Navy security at risk, on heels of shooting

On the heels of the deadly mass shooting at the Washington Navy Yard, a forthcoming internal government report is expected to find that Navy facilities are cutting corners on security in order to cut costs -- leading a Republican congressman to decry "serious security flaws" in the system. 
The shooter at the Navy Yard was a former Navy reservist who since leaving the military had been working as a defense contractor. 
Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, chairman of a House Armed Services subcommittee, revealed late Monday that a forthcoming inspector general report will address security procedures at Navy installations. Though that report has not yet been released, Fox News confirms that it determines the Navy is not taking enough security precautions when it comes to outside contractors. 
The audit was expected to look at the Navy Installations Command, which is part of the Washington Navy Yard, among other locations. The details of the audit were first reported by Time. 
Turner wrote to the Department of Defense inspector general on Monday calling for an "immediate briefing" on the findings. 
"Given the disturbing events of today, I am highly concerned that the access control systems at our nation's military installations have serious security flaws," he wrote. 

House Republicans Accuse Benghazi Board Of Insufficient Investigation

WASHINGTON -- House Republicans are strongly criticizing the review board that investigated last year's Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi, Libya.
Monday's report from House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa faults the Accountability Review Board for questioning senior State Department officials insufficiently or not at all. It claims the reviewers had conflicts of interest.
Issa's committee will hear from the board's chairman and vice chairman this week. Both were top officials in Republican governments. Thomas Pickering was President George H.W. Bush's U.N. ambassador; Adm. Mike Mullen was Joint Chiefs chairman under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
State Department spokesman Douglas Frantz called the Benghazi review "thorough and transparent." He said facts were being twisted to "advance a political agenda."
Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans died in the attack.

White House Firecrackers Incident Leads To Arrest

WASHINGTON -- The Secret Service has arrested a man for tossing firecrackers over a fence at the White House.
A federal law enforcement official says the shoeless man was immediately arrested Monday. An Associated Press photographer heard what sounded like two gunshots outside the White House. Three uniformed Secret Service officers arrested a middle-aged man. The man was white, with dark hair, a blue shirt and white shorts. His white shoes lay on the ground near where the officer tackled him.

A term filled with unpredictable calamities

President Obama hoped to seize control of the news cycle Monday. Instead, events overtook him and his message again.

As reports broke of a deadly shooting rampage at the Navy Yard, three miles from the White House, the president was forced to alter his script. Over the past three weeks, his muddled response to reports of chemical weapons use in Syria has distracted the administration from looming fights with Congress over the budget and debt ceiling.
This time, Obama was forced to rewrite prepared remarks at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, where he was set to talk about the five-year anniversary of the stock market collapse and frame the fiscal debates ahead.
“We still don’t know all the facts, but we do know that several people have been shot and some have been killed,” Obama said solemnly, a collection of small-business owners standing awkwardly behind him on stage.
They had been invited to the White House to serve as symbolic reminders of the impact of economic policy on ordinary Americans as the president launched a week of events intended as a pivot away from Syria.

Embattled Syria Expert Was Never in Ph.D. Program

Elizabeth O’Bagy, the Syria researcher at the center of a week-long controversy surrounding her academic credentials and her work with the Syrian opposition, admitted for the first time to The Daily Beast she was never enrolled in a Ph.D. program despite representations she made to the press and multiple organizations for whom she worked.

O’Bagy, whose work on the Syrian opposition was hailed by Secretary of State John Kerry and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), was fired from her job as the lead Syria researcher at the Institute for the Study of War on Sept. 10  after it was revealed that she misled her bosses by telling them she had completed a dissertation defense for a Georgetown Ph.D. Subsequently, questions arose as to whether or not O’Bagy was ever enrolled in the joint MA/Ph.D. program that she claimed in her official biography.

O’Bagy confirmed to The Daily Beast that she was only enrolled in a master’s program at Georgetown and had applied to join the joint MA/Ph.D. program but was never accepted.

“I would like to deeply apologize to every person with whom I have worked, who has read and depended upon my research, and to the general public,” O’Bagy said in a statement to The Daily Beast. “While I have made many mistakes and showed extremely poor judgment, I most particularly regret my public misrepresentation of my educational status and not immediately disclosing that I had not been awarded a doctorate in May, 2013.”
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