Official: Syria moving chemical weapons components

 

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. and allied intelligence have detected Syrian movement of chemical weapons components in recent days, a senior U.S. defense official said Monday, as the Obama administration strongly warned the Assad regime against using them.

 

A senior defense official said intelligence officials have detected activity around more than one of Syria’s chemical weapons sites in the last week. The defense official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about intelligence matters.

 

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, in Prague for meetings with Czech officials, reiterated President Barack Obama’s declaration that Syrian action on chemical weapons was a “red line” for the United States that would prompt action.

 

“We have made our views very clear: This is a red line for the United States,” Clinton told reporters. “I’m not going to telegraph in any specifics what we would do in the event of credible evidence that the Assad regime has resorted to using chemical weapons against their own people. But suffice it to say, we are certainly planning to take action if that eventuality were to occur.”

 

Syria said Monday it would not use chemical weapons against its own people. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Syria “would not use chemical weapons – if there are any – against its own people under any circumstances.”

 

Syria has been careful never to confirm that it has any chemical weapons.

 

The use of chemical weapons would be a major escalation in Assad’s crackdown on his foes and would draw international condemnation. In addition to causing mass deaths and horrific injuries to survivors, the regime’s willingness to use them would alarm much of the region, particularly neighboring states, including Israel.

 

At the White House, press secretary Jay Carney said, “We are concerned that in an increasingly beleaguered regime, having found its escalation of violence through conventional means inadequate, might be considering the use of chemical weapons against the Syrian people. And as the president has said, any use or proliferation of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime would cross a red line for the United States. “

 

Administration officials would not detail what that response might be.

 

Although Syria is one of only seven nations that have not signed the Chemical Weapons Treaty, it is a party to the 1925 Geneva Protocol that bans the use of chemical weapons in war. That treaty was signed in the aftermath of World War I, when the effects of the use of mustard gas and other chemical agents outraged much of the world.

 

Clinton didn’t address the issue of the fresh activity at Syrian chemical weapons depots, but insisted that Washington would address any threat that arises.

 

An administration official said the trigger for U.S. action of some kind is the use of chemical weapons or movement with the intent to use or provide them to a terrorist group like Hezbollah. The U.S. is trying to determine whether the recent movement detected in Syria falls into any of those categories, the official said. The administration official was speaking on condition of anonymity this person was not authorized to speak publicly about the issue.

The senior defense official said the U.S. does not believe that any Syrian action beyond the movement of components is imminent.

 

An Israeli official said if there is real movement on chemical weapons, it would require a response. He didn’t say what that might be and spoke on condition of anonymity pending a formal government response to the reports of the latest activities.

Israeli officials have repeatedly expressed concerns that Syrian chemical weapons could slip into the hands of Hezbollah or other anti-Israel groups, or even be fired toward Israel in an act of desperation by Syria.

 

Syria is believed to have several hundred ballistic surface-to-surface missiles capable of carrying chemical warheads.

 

Its arsenal is a particular threat to the American allies, Turkey and Israel, and Obama singled out the threat posed by the unconventional weapons earlier this year as a potential cause for deeper U.S. involvement in Syria’s civil war. Up to now, the United States has opposed military intervention or providing arms support to Syria’s rebels for fear of further militarizing a conflict that activists say has killed more than 40,000 people since March 2011.

 

Clinton said that while the actions of President Bashar Assad’s government have been deplorable, chemical weapons would bring them to a new level.

 

“We once again issue a very strong warning to the Assad regime that their behavior is reprehensible, their actions against their own people have been tragic,” she said. “But there is no doubt that there’s a line between even the horrors that they’ve already inflicted on the Syrian people and moving to what would be an internationally condemned step of utilizing their chemical weapons.”

 

Activity has been detected before at Syrian weapons sites, believed to number several dozen.

 

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in late September the intelligence suggested the Syrian government had moved some of its chemical weapons in order to protect them. He said the U.S. believed that the main sites remained secure.

 

Asked Monday if they were still considered secure, Pentagon press secretary George Little declined to comment about any intelligence related to the weapons.

 

Senior lawmakers were notified last week that U.S. intelligence agencies had detected activity related to Syria’s chemical and biological weapons, said a U.S. intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door meetings. All congressional committees with an interest in Syria, from the intelligence to the armed services committees, are now being kept informed.

 

“I can’t comment on these reports but I have been very concerned for some time now about Syria’s stockpiles of chemical weapons and its stocks of advanced conventional weapons like shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles,” said House intelligence committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich. “We are not doing enough to prepare for the collapse of the Assad regime, and the dangerous vacuum it will create. Use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime would be an extremely serious escalation that would demand decisive action from the rest of the world,” he added.

 

Syria is believed to have one of the world’s largest chemical weapons programs, and the Assad regime has said it might use the weapons against external threats, though not against Syrians. The U.S. and Jordan share the same concern about Syria’s chemical and biological weapons – that they could fall into the wrong hands should the regime in Syria collapse and lose control of them.

Read more: Official: Syria moving chemical weapons components | Aiken Standard

Pray for PEACE of Jerusalem

EU discuss possibility of all 27 states writing to J'lem to express discontent, call in Israeli envoys for consultations.

EU mulls response to settlement building plans

 

 

 

BRUSSELS - European Union states struggled to agree on Tuesday on a common response to Israel's plans to expand settlements in the West Bank, highlighting the divisions within the bloc over how to tackle the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

At a meeting in Brussels, ambassadors responsible for security issues discussed the possibility of all 27 EU states writing to Jerusalem to express their displeasure or calling in Israeli ambassadors for consultations, as five EU countries have already done.

No formal decisions were taken during the meeting and the issue will be discussed further on Friday, EU diplomats told Reuters. But it remains possible that language censoring Israel could be included in a statement to be issued by EU foreign ministers after a meeting on December 10 in Brussels, they said.

"We have agreed on a recommendation so it is not obligatory," one EU diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Divisions in Europe over the Palestinian-Israeli conflict were highlighted last week when the bloc's 27 governments failed to find a common position on the United Nations General Assembly vote on a de facto recognition of a of state of Palestine.

Fourteen European governments backed the Palestinians' successful bid for a status upgrade at the UN, but 12 abstained and one, the Czech Republic, voted against it.

The EU has repeatedly spoken out against Israeli settlements on land that the Palestinians want for their state, saying they hinder peace efforts and undermine the chances of creating a state of Palestine.

But some governments are wary of pushing the Israeli government too hard and hurting EU ambitions to build up its credentials as a power broker in the Middle East and bolster its voice on the diplomatic stage.

The EU is the biggest foreign aid donor to the Palestinians, providing them around 300 million euros ($393 million) a year from the EU budget. Individual governments add a similar amount in addition to that, with the funds spent on direct budget support, refugees and Palestinian institution-building.

EU officials argue that European support to Palestinian state-building efforts in the West Bank, and other policies, were an important ingredient of international efforts to solve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

But the EU's leverage with the Israelis is limited and its aid to the Palestinians far outweighed by Washington's economic and military support for Israel.

The United States has ratcheted up criticism of Israel over the new settlement plans, urging it to reconsider despite Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's refusal to back down. Washington has so far stopped short of threatening any concrete measures against the Jewish state.

http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=294644

Israel accuses US of backing European settlement backlash

Israel has accused its closest ally, the United States, of endorsing a concerted European backlash against its plans to expand settlements in east Jerusalem and the West Bank

 

Five European countries, including Britain, have registered formal protests with Israeli ambassadors over last week’s decision by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to build 3,000 settlers’ homes and develop an area of the West Bank that could render a Palestinian state unviable.

Along with Australia and Brazil, they were joined by Egypt, threatening to destabilise its fragile regional relations.

The Egyptian foreign minister said it had registered a “strong protest” with Israel’s Cairo ambassador over the proposals.

Despite the mounting international protest however, Mr Netanyahu’s office indicated there would be no backing down over its settlement plans.

An official in Mr Netanyahu’s office told the AFP news agency: “There will be no change in the decision that has been made.”
 

He spoke after Israel said that, in addition to last week’s announcement, it would also revisit plans to build 1,700 homes in Ramot Shlomo in east Jerusalem, and another 2,600 in Givat Hamatos.

 

The Ramot Shlomo development was shelved in 2010 after it provoked a row with the US.

 

 

Britain, France, Sweden, Spain and Denmark all summoned Israeli envoys on Tuesday to protest over the settlement plans, while Germany and the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-Moon, denounced it.

 

 

The newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, quoted unnamed Israeli diplomats as saying the outcry could not have occurred without the complicity of the Obama administration, which has profound differences with Mr Netanyahu over settlements.

 

“We would not be mistaken to say that Europe was acting with Washington’s encouragement,” the paper’s commentator, Shimon Shiffer wrote. “The White House authorised Europe to pounce on the Netanyahu government and to punish it.”

 

One Israeli official told the Daily Telegraph that while the US was unlikely to have ordered such a move, it may have signalled approval.

 

“It’s more likely that they [the Americans] have been informed and have not raised any objection, but also showed some understanding and maybe even more,” he said. “There’s probably an understanding between the US and the Europeans that this is the right thing to do at this point.”

 

The former US ambassador to Israel, Dan Kurtzer, accused Mr Netanyahu of unveiling plans to develop the previously off-limits E1 section of the West Bank to punish President Barack Obama for failing to endorse a previous American-Israeli understanding that many settlements would remain despite any future peace deal. “It wasn’t just retribution at the UN, it was retribution at the US as well,” he told the liberal Haaretz newspaper.

 

William Hague, the foreign secretary, dismissed the possibility of European Union sanctions against Israel but said other measures could be applied.

 

“If there is no reversal of the decision that has been announced, we will want to consider what further steps European countries should take,” he said.

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/9722259/Israel-accuses-US-of-backing-European-settlement-backlash.html

THE AMERICAN TRIBULATION

Can the greatest nation in history survive 4 more years of Obama?

 

 

Unthinkable. A cataclysmic disaster. The end of America as we know it.

That pretty much sums up how millions of Americans regard the re-election of Barack Obama. 

Already, the White House website displays petitions from all 50 states bearing the names of hundreds of thousands of distraught citizens demanding their state secede from the union. States likewise are targeting the Obama administration with a major nullification movement. Meanwhile, Republicans engage in media blame-fests, denouncing each other for their devastating failure Nov. 6, while liberal pundits – pretending to offer them helpful advice – counsel Republicans to abandon their core values and move further to the left to gain more voters.

But amidst all of this sound and fury, the big question remains: What do the tens of millions of Americans – those who see Obama’s re-election as the national catastrophe it really is – do now? With four more years of the Obama juggernaut, with government still spending amounts of money only physicists can comprehend, with an average of 68 new regulations being imposed on Americans every single day, with devastating economic meltdown imminent and the world daily becoming a far more dangerous place because of the U.S. president’s scandalous failure of leadership, what can and should right-thinking people do now?

This difficult question is dealt with forthrightly and comprehensively in the December issue of WND’s acclaimed Whistleblower magazine, titled “THE AMERICAN TRIBULATION: Can the greatest nation in history survive 4 more years of Obama?”

http://www.wnd.com/2012/12/the-american-tribulation/

BREAKING NEWS Bashar al-Assad Deploys Chemical Weapons across Syria!

Israel tracking Syria chemical weapons situation

 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday Israel is closely tracking developments relating to chemical weapons in Syria, whose regime has been warned against using them in the country’s uprising.

“Along with the international community, we are closely following developments in Syria related to its chemical weapons stockpiles,” Netanyahu said in a statement from his office.

U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday issued Syria’s embattled President Bashar al-Assad a blunt warning not to use chemical weapons against his own people, following U.S. warnings his forces were mixing deadly sarin gas.

“I heard President Obama’s important remarks on the subject and we see things the same way,” said Netanyahu. “We believe these weapons must not be used and must not fall into the hands of terrorist elements.”

Western powers on Tuesday warned there would be an immediate reaction to any use of chemical weapons as the NATO military alliance prepared to approve a Turkish request for Patriot missiles to protect its border with Syria.

Russia, the most powerful of the Assad regime’s allies, has dismissed fears of Damascus using chemical weapons and warned that deploying the missiles risked pouring more arms into the region.

Syria itself has insisted it would never such arms against its own people.

More than 41,000 people have been killed in the Syrian conflict, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The conflict erupted in March 2011 with peaceful democracy protests before transforming into an armed insurgency when the government began a bloody crackdown.

http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/12/05/253371.html



Root of conflict not settlements, but Israel’s very existence, Netanyahu says

Settlement expansion means two-state solution is over, Palestinians charge as international anger mounts

 

 

 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday dismissed criticism of Israel’s recent announcement of new settlement construction in the greater Jerusalem area, saying the root of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “is not the settlements, it is the very existence of the State of Israel and the desire to wipe it off the face of the Earth.”

 

Speaking at a forum on public diplomacy held in Jerusalem on Tuesday, Netanyahu said that “we must constantly repeat that the root of the conflict is the very existence of the State of Israel, the refusal to recognize the State of Israel in any borders whatsoever.”

 

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, in turn, instructed his subordinates to muster international support to halt “Israeli settlements in all of the Palestinian territories, particularly what is referred to as E1.”

 

“We can not be silent on the matter of settlements by any means,” he added. “We will pursue this endangering matter with great attention in the coming days for if Israel continues to build, it indicates that it is not interested in arriving at peace.”

 

Earlier on Tuesday, a senior Palestinian official warned that Israel’s latest settlement plans will destroy any lingering hopes of setting up a Palestinian state next to Israel, as international anger over the construction snowballed.

 

Israel announced the plans in response to last week’s UN recognition of a state of Palestine in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, lands Israel occupied in 1967, as a non-member observer at the General Assembly.

 

The plans include 3,000 more homes for Jews in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, as well as preparations for construction of an especially sensitive project near Jerusalem, known as E1.

 

Separately, Israel is moving forward with two major settlement projects in east Jerusalem. Israel would build more than 4,200 apartments in the two areas, Ramat Shlomo and Givat Hamatos.

The Ramat Shlomo project touched off a diplomatic crisis with the US in 2010 when the ministry gave it preliminary approval during a visit by Vice President Joe Biden.

 

Israeli settlement construction lies at the heart of a four-year breakdown in peace talks, and was a major factor behind the Palestinians’ U.N. statehood bid. Since 1967, half a million Israelis have settled in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.

 

The Palestinians say E1 and Givat Hamatos are particularly problematic because they would cut off east Jerusalem, the intended Palestinian capital, from the rest of the West Bank.

 

Saeb Erekat, in Ramallah in January. (photo credit: Issam Rimawi/Flash90)

 

Israel’s plans for E1 and Givat Hamatos “will leave us with no peace process,” Saeb Erekat, a senior aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, told The Associated Press.

 

He later told Israel TV that “it’s over” if these two settlements are built.

 

“Don’t talk about peace, don’t talk about a two-state solution … talk about a one-state reality between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean,” Erekat said, referring to the land that the international community hopes will one day accommodate both Israel and a Palestinian state.

 

British Foreign Secretary William Hague sounded a similar warning Tuesday, telling Britain’s parliament that Israel’s building plans would make a Palestinian state alongside Israel “almost inconceivable.”

 

Eight countries, Britain among them, summoned local Israeli ambassadors in protest since Monday, and Hague said there could be further diplomatic steps if building continues.

 

Some Palestinian officials have raised the possibility of asking the European Union to reconsider its trade agreements with Israel, but Hague said he did not think Europe is ready for economic sanctions against Israel.

 

Israel has rebuffed the international criticism, which put it at odds with some of its strongest foreign allies, including Australia.

 

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Tuesday that construction plans would move forward, particularly in east Jerusalem and nearby West Bank settlements. “Israel makes decisions according to its national interests, and not in order to punish, fight or confront,” he said.

 

The Palestinians, meanwhile, were debating their next moves in a meeting of senior officials chaired by Abbas at his government compound in the West Bank on Tuesday evening.

 

UN recognition could enable the Palestinians to gain access to the International Criminal Court and seek war crimes charges against Israel for construction of settlements on occupied lands.

 

Last week, before Israel’s announcement of the new settlement plans, Abbas said that he’s not turning to the ICC “unless we were attacked,” and Palestinian officials portrayed an appeal to the court as a step of last resort.

 

However, Abbas said Tuesday that “no one can keep quiet about the issue of settlement in E1,” adding that if Israel keeps building, “it definitely does not want to reach a peace agreement.”

 

Actual construction in E-1 would be years away even if the planning process is pushed ahead now.

 

The Palestinian representative to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, wrote to the UN chief and the heads of the Security Council and the General Assembly late Monday that Israel’s construction constitutes a war crime.

 

The letter made no mention of possible ICC action, which in any case would first require a series of steps by the Palestinians and the court.

 

A Palestinian case at the ICC could also expose Abbas’ main Palestinian rival, the Islamic militant Hamas, to possible war crimes charges for its indiscriminate rocket fire from Gaza on Israel.

 

Hanan Ashrawi, a senior PLO official, said the Palestinians were encouraged by the recent diplomatic sanctions against Israel, but that the international community must go further.

 

Among other steps, she said the European Union should reconsider its association agreement with Israel that grants the Jewish state considerable trade benefits. She said the EU should also take harsher measures against products from Israeli settlements.

 

http://www.timesofisrael.com/settlement-expansion-means-two-state-solution-is-over-palestinians-charge/

Be willing to seek the truth!

Palestinians hurl 2 firebombs at IDF in W. Bank; none hurt

Palestinian assailants hurled two firebombs at an IDF post near al-Arub in the West Bank on Tuesday, according to the IDF Spokesman's Office.

There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries in the attack.

 

http://www.jpost.com/Headlines/Article.aspx?id=294635

Assad’s chemical weapons units head out of Damascus toward Aleppo

As NATO in Brussels gave the go-ahead Tuesday night, Dec. 4, for the deployment of Patriot surface-to-air missiles to protect Turkey against Syrian missiles, debkafile’s military and intelligence sources reported that convoys of the Syrian army’s chemical weapons units headed out of Damascus under cover of dark and turned north up the road to Aleppo. Their destination is not yet known.

The convoys were ferrying self-propelled cannons for firing shells loaded with poisonous sarin gas.

Syrian President Bashar Assad had evidently decided to ignore the warnings President Barack Obama issued Monday night that there would be consequences if he or anyone in Syria resorted to chemical warfare and each would be held accountable.

Our sources report that the Syrian ruler is aparently gambling dangerously on the Americans holding back from attacking the convoys as long as they deploy unconventional weapons, and would only react when they are used.

He is also taking advantage of the heavy winds, rain and cloud over this part of the eastern Mediterranean and counting on the weather to obstruct military operations against his chemical weapons units.

By the time the weather clears some time Thursday, the units will be in place in battle formation. Meanwhile, bombing the convoys in windy weather could cause the deadly gas to spread out of control in unpredictable directions. 

In Brussels, a NATO official announced that the alliance had agreed to augment Turkey’s air-defense capabilities by deploying Patriot missiles to Turkey.

Debkafile’s military sources report that by the time the missiles arrive, the Syrian chemical weapons units will almost certainly have reached their pre-planned positions. Furthermore, the Patriot air defense systems are not designed to counter artillery and would therefore be unable to stop shells loaded with poison gas.

debkafile reported earlier Tuesday, Dec. 4.

US forces in the region, Israel, Turkey and Jordan were all braced Monday night, Dec. 3 for action against Syria in case Syrian President Bashar Assad ordered his army’s chemical warfare units to go into action against rebel and civilian targets his own country.

None of the Middle East capitals are talking openly about this eventuality to avoiding causing panic.

However, oblique references to the peril and preparations for action came from US officials during Monday. White House spokesman Jay Carney said: “We have an increased concern about the possibility of the regime taking the desperate act of using its chemical weapons.” Such a move “would cross a red line for the United States.”

Without going into specifics, Carney added: “We think it is important to prepare for all scenarios. Contingency planning is the responsible thing to do.”

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Prague was slightly more specific: Syrian action on chemical weapons remains a “red line” for the Obama administration, she said, and “would prompt action from the United States.”

Regarding contingencies, debkafile’s military sources report that the American force in Jordan and Jordanian units, who have been training for two months in tactics against Syrian chemical warfare units, are on a high state of preparedness. So, too, are the three special US command centers set up in Turkey, Jordan and Israel for coordinating such operations.

An American official “with knowledge of the situation” told Wired Magazine that “engineers working for the Assad regime in Syria have begun combining the two chemical precursors needed to weaponize sarin gas.”

Anchored opposite the Syrian shore is the USS Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group with 2,500 Marines. Facing it is the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s naval task force which too has hundreds of marines on its decks.

debkafile’s sources quote high-ranking officers in the Israel Defense Forces’ Northern Command as saying: “The coming hours and days are extremely critical for Syria. The situation on our northern front could blow up any moment.” They did not elaborate.

Later Monday, as the United Nations regional humanitarian coordinator for Syria, Radhouane Nouicer announced the pullout of nonessential international staff “because of the security situation,” Secretary Clinton flew into Brussels from Prague to discuss with NATO foreign ministers the deployment of Patriot anti-missile batteries at 10 points on the Turkish-Syrian border - a massive number.

NATO sources took note of the Syrian Foreign Ministry’s reply to the spreading reports. He said that the government “would not use chemical weapons, if it had them, against its own people under any circumstances.”

This statement carried no promise about using such weapons against external forces, whether American, Turkish, Jordanian or Israeli.

In Istanbul, meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin told reporters at the end of his one-day visit: “What we are concerned about is Syria’s future. We don’t want the same mistakes to be repeated in the near future.” He went on to say: “We shall remember how some regimes supported the militants in Libya and how the situation ended with the killing of the American ambassador in Libya.”

This was meant by the Russian president as a warning to the US not to get involved in the Syrian crisis as it did in Libya.

 

http://www.debka.com/article/22583/Assad’s-chemical-weapons-units-head-out-of-Damascus-toward-Aleppo

Netanyahu: Israel stands with U.S., Syria must not be allowed chemical weapons

The White House and its allies are reportedly weighing military options to secure Syria's chemical and biological weapons, after U.S. intelligence reports show the Syrian regime may be readying those weapons and may be desperate enough to use them, U.S. officials have said.

 

 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday echoed U.S. warnings that Syria must not be allowed to use chemical weapons, and that such stockpiles must be stopped before they reach terrorist organizations. 

    

"Israel is following closely - along with the international community - the accumulation of chemical weapons in Syria," Netanyahu said. "We are at one with the United States: [President Bashar] Assad's regime must not be allowed to use these weapons, and chemical weapons must not reach terror elements." 

    

The White House and its allies are weighing military options to secure Syria's chemical and biological weapons, after U.S. intelligence reports show the Syrian regime may be readying those weapons and may be desperate enough to use them, U.S. officials said Monday. 

    

U.S. President Barack Obama, in a speech at the National Defense University on Monday, pointedly warned Syrian President Bashar Assad not to use the weapons. 

    

"Today I want to make it absolutely clear to Assad and those under his command: The world is watching," Obama said. "The use of chemical weapons is and would be totally unacceptable. And if you make the tragic mistake of using these weapons, there will be consequences and you will be held accountable." 

    

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, in Prague for meetings with Czech officials, said she wouldn't outline any specifics: "But suffice it to say, we are certainly planning to take action if that eventuality were to occur," Clinton said. 

    

Meanwhile, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen warned Assad on Tuesday that any use of chemical weapons in his fight against encroaching rebel forces would be met with an immediate international response. 

    

NNATO gave the go-ahead onTuesday to stationing Patriot surface-to-air missiles in Turkey to protect the country from any spillover of the civil war in neighboring Syria. The move was intended to beef up Turkey's air defenses and calm Turkey's fears that it could come under missile attack, possibly with chemical weapons, from Syrian forces, diplomats said. 

    

International concern over Syria's intentions has been heightened by reports that its chemical weapons have been moved and could be prepared for use, particularly against rebels forces. 

    

"The possible use of chemical weapons would be completely unacceptable for the whole international community and if anybody resorts to these terrible weapons would expect an immediate reaction from the international community," Rasmussen told reporters at the start of a meeting of alliance foreign ministers in Brussels. 

    

The Foreign Ministry in Damascus said it would never use the weapons against Syrians. 

    

Western military experts say Syria has four suspected chemical weapons sites, and it can develop and produce chemical weapons agents including mustard gas and sarin, and possibly also VX nerve agent. The CIA has estimated that Syria possesses several hundred liters of chemical weapons and produces hundreds of tons of agents annually.

 

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/netanyahu-israel-stands-with-u-s-syria-must-not-be-allowed-chemical-weapons.premium-1.482410

Damascus warned on chemical weapons

 

 

Western powers have warned Damascus there will be an immediate reaction to any use of chemical weapons as NATO prepares to approve a Turkish request for missiles to protect its border with Syria.

'The possible use of chemical weapons would be completely unacceptable to the whole international community and I would expect an immediate reaction from the international community,' NATO head Anders Fogh Rasmussen said.

Syria's chemical weapons stockpiles were 'a matter of great concern,' Rasmussen said, adding: 'This is also the reason why it is a matter of urgency to ensure effective defence and protection of our ally Turkey.'

Turkey's request for US-made surface-to-air Patriot missiles on its border is worrying Russia, but both NATO and Ankara insist they would be purely defensive.

US President Barack Obama on Monday issued a new warning to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad not to use chemical weapons against his own people, as the conflict approaches the 21-month mark with more than 41,000 people killed.

'I want to make it absolutely clear to Assad and those under his command, the world is watching, the use of chemical weapons is and would be totally unacceptable,' Obama said.

'If you make the tragic mistake of using these weapons, there will be consequences and you will be held accountable.'

France, with traditional interests in the region, made a similar point.
'The leaders in Damascus must know the international community is watching them and will react' if chemical weapons are used, French foreign ministry spokesman Vincent Floreani said.

The Syrian government, fighting to prevent the capital Damascus from falling to rebel forces, on Monday reiterated it would never resort to chemical weapons.

Saudi Arabia meanwhile urged the international community to take a unified position on Syria after the rebel groups formed a coalition last month.

'We see in forming the new Syrian coalition an important positive step towards uniting the opposition under one banner,' Prince Saud al-Faisal said.

'We hope to see a similar step towards uniting the positions and views of the international community in dealing with the Syrian issue,' the foreign minister added.

Saudi Arabia has openly called for arming the Syrian rebels.

On the ground on Tuesday, the Syrian army blasted a string of rebel zones on the eastern and southwestern outskirts of Damascus.

Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said 'the army is trying at all costs to keep the rebels out of Damascus.

'The rebels are pushing hard to enter into the city but they have not been able to make the advance they are hoping for,' he added.

Pro-regime daily Al-Watan reported that the army is 'making progress in all directions in Damascus province, chiefly in villages along the road linking the capital to the international airport.'

Syrian state television meanwhile reported that a rebel attack on a school near Damascus on Tuesday killed nine students and their teacher.

In the face of deteriorating security, the United Nations on Monday suspended operations in Syria and said it would pull out non-essential staff, while the European Union reduced its activities in Damascus to a minimum.

Against this backdrop, Syria and Turkey's request for help to boost its defence was dominating the two-day NATO meeting in Brussels, which was to dedicate some time also to strained ties with Moscow.

Military sources in Turkey have said NATO is considering the deployment of up to six Patriot batteries and some 300-400 foreign troops to operate them.

The Patriot, designed mainly to bring down missiles but effective also against aircraft, would likely be supplied by Germany, The Netherlands or the United States.



http://www.skynews.com.au/world/article.aspx?id=823220

OK EGYPT! When you get your government under control then maybe someone cares what the hell you have to say! Until then KISS OFF!

Ireland,Egypt the latest to summon Israeli ambassador over settlement plan

 

 

Ireland, Finland and Egypt on Tuesday became the latest countries to summon Israel's ambassadors to their states for discussions on Israeli settlement expansion plans.

Earlier in the day, Brazil and Australia joined Spain, France, Britain, Sweden and Denmark in calling in Israeli ambassadors over the announcement, which lay out plans for 3,000 new homes in the West Bank and east Jerusalem and steps up planning in the controversial E1 corridor.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu decided to expand settlement building in east Jerusalem and the West Bank after the United Nations' de facto recognition of statehood statehood last week, and has brushed off international criticism of the move.

The land Israel plans to build on is seen as essential for a contiguous Palestinian state as envisaged by the internationally backed two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

As country after country summoned their Israeli ambassadors in protest of settlement building plans, British Foreign Secretary William Hague clarified Tuesday that European sanctions against Israel were not an option.

However, he told parliament that he was in talks with other European foreign ministers about formulating "incentives and disincentives" to support US efforts to bring Israel and the Palestinians back to the negotiating table.

"I don't think there is enthusiasm around the European Union ... about economic sanctions in Europe on Israel. I don't believe there would be anywhere near a consensus nor is that our approach. We continue to try to bring both sides back to negotiations," Hague said.

"Nevertheless, if there is no reversal of the decision that has been announced, we will want to consider what further steps European countries should take," he said.

Netanyahu pushed back on Monday against intense international pressure to reconsider the plans for, saying no one should expect Israel to sit on its hands in light of Palestinian unilateral steps at the UN.

The Prime Minister’s Office issued a statement saying Israel would “continue to stand up for its vital interests even in the face of international pressure.”

The official said there would be no change in the decision made Friday.

“The Palestinian unilateral moves at the UN are a blatant and fundamental violation of agreements to which the international community was a guarantor,” the official said. “No one should be surprised that Israel is not sitting with its arms folded in response to the unilateral Palestinian steps.”

The source added that Israel would take further steps if the Palestinians went ahead with more unilateral moves of their own.

The plans, however, triggered what one Israeli source described as the worst diplomatic crisis Israel has faced in the last 20 years.

White House spokesman Jay Carney told a briefing that the US urged Israel to “reconsider these unilateral decisions and exercise restraint, as these actions are counterproductive and make it harder to resume direct negotiations to achieve a two-state solution. We reiterate our long-standing opposition to Israeli settlement activity and east Jerusalem construction.”

http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=294608

Cops to Congress: We need logs of Americans' text messages

State and local law enforcement groups want wireless providers to store detailed information about your SMS messages for at least two years -- in case they're needed for future criminal investigations.

 

AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint, and other wireless providers would be required to record and store information about Americans' private text messages for at least two years, according to a proposal that police have submitted to the U.S. Congress.

 

CNET has learned a constellation of law enforcement groups has asked the U.S. Senate to require that wireless companies retain that information, warning that the lack of a current federal requirement "can hinder law enforcement investigations."

 

They want an SMS retention requirement to be "considered" during congressional discussions over updating a 1986 privacy law for the cloud computing era -- a move that could complicate debate over the measure and erode support for it among civil libertarians.

 

As the popularity of text messages has exploded in recent years, so has their use in criminal investigations and civil lawsuits. They have been introduced as evidence in armed robbery, cocaine distribution, and wire fraud prosecutions. In one 2009 case in Michigan, wireless provider SkyTel turned over the contents of 626,638 SMS messages, a figure described by a federal judge as "staggering."

 

Chuck DeWitt, a spokesman for the Major Cities Chiefs Police Association, which represents the 63 largest U.S. police forces including New York City, Los Angeles, Miami, and Chicago, said "all such records should be retained for two years." Some providers, like Verizon, retain the contents of SMS messages for a brief period of time, while others like T-Mobile do not store them at all.

 

Along with the police association, other law enforcement groups making the request to the Senate include the National District Attorneys' Association, the National Sheriffs' Association, and the Association of State Criminal Investigative Agencies, DeWitt said.

 

"This issue is not addressed in the current proposal before the committee and yet it will become even more important in the future," the groups warn.

 

That's a reference to the Senate Judiciary committee, which approved sweeping amendments to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act last week. Unlike earlier drafts, the latest one veers in a very privacy-protective direction by requiring police to obtain a warrant to read the contents of e-mail messages; the SMS push by law enforcement appears to be a way to make sure it includes one of their priorities too.

 

It wasn't immediately clear whether the law enforcement proposal is to store the contents of SMS messages, or only the metadata such as the sender and receiver phone numbers associated with the messages. Either way, it's a heap of data: Forrester Research reports that more than 2 trillion SMS messages were sent in the U.S. last year, over 6 billion SMS messages a day.

 

The current policies of wireless providers have been highlighted in some recent cases. During a criminal prosecution of a man for suspected murder of a 6-year old boy, for example, police in Cranston, R.I., tried to obtain copies of a customer's text messages from T-Mobile and Verizon. Superior Court Judge Judith Savage said that, although she was "not unfamiliar with cell phones and text messaging," she "was stunned" to learn that providers had such different policies.

 

While the SMS retention proposal opens a new front in Capitol Hill politicking over surveillance, the principle of mandatory data retention is hardly new. The Justice Department has publicly called for new laws requiring Internet service providers to record data about their customers, and a House of Representatives panel approved such a requirement last summer.

 

"We would oppose any mandatory data retention mandate as part of ECPA reform," says Christopher Calabrese, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. That proposal is "a different kettle of fish -- it doesn't belong in this discussion," he says.

 

An internal Justice Department document (PDF) that the ACLU obtained through the Freedom of Information Act shows that, as of 2010, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint did not store the contents of text messages. Verizon did for up to five days, a change from its earlier no-logs-at-all position, and Virgin Mobile kept them for 90 days. The carriers generally kept metadata such as the phone numbers associated with the text for 90 days to 18 months; AT&T was an outlier, keeping it for as long as seven years, according to the chart.

 

A review of court cases by CNET suggests that Justice Department document is out of date. While Sprint is listed as as not storing text message contents, the judge in Rhode Island noted that the company turned over "preserved text messages." And in an unrelated Connecticut case last year, a state judge noted that Sprint provided law enforcement with "text messages involving the phone numbers."

 

An e-mail message from a detective in the Baltimore County Police Department, leaked by Antisec and reproduced in a Wired article last year, says that Verizon keeps "text message content on their servers for 3-5 days." And: "Sprint stores their text message content going back 12 days and Nextel content for 7 days. AT&T/Cingular do not preserve content at all. Us Cellular: 3-5 days Boost Mobile LLC: 7 days"

 

Sprint and Verizon referred calls last week toCTIA - The Wireless Association, which declined to comment. So did the Justice Department. T-Mobile and AT&T representatives did not respond to a request for comment.

 

Katie Frey, a spokeswoman for U.S. Cellular, said:

Due to the volume of text messages sent by our customers every day, text messages are stored in our systems for approximately three to five days. The content of text messages can only be disclosed subject to a lawful request. We comply with every lawful request from authorities.

We have a dedicated team of associates who are available 24 hours a day, every day of the year, to handle requests for information in emergency situations. Law enforcement must be able to show that it's an emergency and complete an Exigent Circumstance Form prior to receiving data. If a situation is not an emergency, law enforcement must submit a lawful request to receive the data.

Over the past five years, U.S. Cellular has received more than 103,000 requests in the form of subpoenas, court orders, search warrants and letters regarding customers' phone accounts and usage.

Hanni Fakhoury, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said he would be skeptical of the need for a law mandating that text messaging data be retained.

 

"These data retention policies serve one purpose: to require companies to keep databases on their customers so law enforcement can fish for evidence," he said. "And this would seem to be done against the wishes of the providers, presumably, since...some of the providers don't keep SMS messages at all."

 

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57556704-38/cops-to-congress-we-need-logs-of-americans-text-messages/

 

 



Change on veterans’ gun rights lights fire

 

A major defense-spending bill hit an unexpected bump on its journey through the U.S. Senate over an amendment on veterans’ gun rights, which devolved into a heated floor debate and foreshadows a potential battle over Democrats’ vows to tweak the filibuster rules in the clubby, traditionally collegial body.

Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican, wants veterans who have been deemed “mentally incompetent” to have their cases adjudicated by a judge — rather than the Department of Veterans Affairs, as happens currently — and argued that veterans who simply cannot support themselves financially are needlessly given the label and, as such, cannot buy or possess firearms.

“We’re not asking for anything big,” Mr. Coburn said Thursday evening on the Senate floor. “We’re just saying that if you’re going to take away the Second Amendment rights … they ought to have it adjudicated, rather than mandated by someone who’s unqualified to state that they should lose their rights.”

The late-night tussle served to pick at the scab of the ongoing debate over Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s bid to reform the chamber’s filibuster rules to place limits on the minority party’s ability to hold up debate on legislation, however.

Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, objected to Mr. Coburn’s proposal once he found out it was part of a package of amendments to the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act the body was to vote on.

“I love our veterans; I vote for them all the time, they defend us,” Mr. Schumer said. “But if you are mentally ill, whether you’re a veteran or not, just like if you’re a felon, if you’re a veteran or not, and you have been judged to be mentally infirm, you should not have a gun.”

After a similar plea from Sen. Barbara Boxer, California Democrat, and a warning from Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, that the move could embolden Democrats’ push for filibuster reforms, Mr. Coburn eventually backed off.

“There’s more here, frankly, than just a refusal to allow an amendment,” Mr. McCain said. “That is going to mean that it’s more likely that we have this showdown, which we think — many of us think — would be devastating to this institution and the way that it’s done business for a couple of hundred years.”

The quarrel over the broader bill and the filibuster continued on the Senate floor Monday when Mr. McCain dinged Sen. Rand Paul, Kentucky Republican, when he alluded to Mr. Paul’s previous threats to filibuster the bill if there was not a vote on an amendment to ensure a trial to American citizens accused of terrorism. That provision was approved by the Senate last week.

The measure that sparked last week’s late-night imbroglio is also part of a still-pending sportsman’s bill that the Senate declined to vote on last week. Similar legislation has been proposed in past years, and a bill introduced by Sen. Richard Burr, North Carolina Republican, and Sen. Jim Webb, Virginia Democrat, passed the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs unanimously in September.

The debate on the measure should not be about gun control, but about veterans’ mental health, said Tom Tarantino, senior legislative associate for Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.

“If even one person will not go to seek the help they need and they fall through the cracks because we failed to remove the mental health stigma as much as possible, then we’ve failed,” he said.

“Right now, what happened is someone pulled the thread of politics in something that should not political. And that thread’s starting to unravel.”
But Brian Malte with the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence said simply that if Mr. Coburn’s amendment passes, more than 100,000 people deemed medically incompetent would immediately be able to purchase guns. He also noted that the declaration is not absolute.

“There is due process,” Mr. Malte said. “Gun possession is allowed if competency is restored. It’s up to the professionals to make that determination.”

The 1993 Brady Bill established a five-day waiting period for handgun purchases, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ enforcement regulations declared that those deemed mentally defective could not purchase or possess a firearm.

The Department of Veterans Affairs forwards the names of those labeled mentally incompetent to the FBI for inclusion in a national federal database, barring them from purchasing or carrying firearms.

Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/dec/3/change-on-veterans-gun-rights-lights-fire/#ixzz2E6vDYqaO


(ISRAEL) J'lem rejects UN resolution to open nuke program to probe!

Israel dismissed on Tuesday a resolution passed overwhelmingly in the UN General Assembly calling on it to open its nuclear program to inspection as a "meaningless mechanical vote" void of meaning.

The resolution, which calls on Israel to join the Non-Proliferation Treaty and immediately open up its nuclear facilities to inspection, was formulated 10 years ago and is brought to the General Assembly, and passed overwhelmingly year after year, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor.

The General Assembly has lost all its credibility regarding Israel with these types of routine votes that are ensured passage by an automatic majority and which single out Israel, he said.

The resolution came just days after Israel suffered a stinging loss in the UN when the General Assembly upgraded the status of the Palestinians to that of a non-member observer state. Palmor said the two votes were not connected, and the UN vote on the NPT takes place every year in December.

The resolution passed by a vote of 174 to six, with six abstentions. Along with Israel, the US, Canada. Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and Palau voted against.

While the US voted against the resolution, it voted for two paragraphs that were taken out for a separate vote and called for universal adherence to the NPT and for all countries who are not party to the treaty to join it at the earliest date.

Israel is not a party to the NPT. It's official policy is that it will "not be the first country to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East," and that it supports a nuclear free Middle East following the attainment of peace.

http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=294601

Egypt's Mursi leaves palace as police battle protesters

 

 

(Reuters) - Egyptian police battled thousands of protesters outside President Mohamed Mursi's palace in Cairo on Tuesday, prompting the Islamist leader to leave the building, two presidential sources said.

 

Police fired teargas at demonstrators angered by Mursi's drive to hold a referendum on a new constitution on December 15. Some broke through police lines around his palace and protested next to the perimeter wall.

Several thousand people had gathered nearby in what they dubbed "last warning" protests against Mursi, who infuriated opponents with a November 22 decree that expanded his powers. "The people want the downfall of the regime," the crowd chanted.

"The president left the palace," a presidential source, who declined to be named, told Reuters. A security source at the presidency also said the president had left the building.

Mursi ignited a storm of unrest in his bid to prevent a judiciary still packed with appointees of ousted predecessor Hosni Mubarak from derailing a troubled political transition.

Riot police at the palace faced off against activists chanting "leave, leave" and holding Egyptian flags with "no to the constitution" written on them. Protesters had assembled near mosques in northern Cairo before marching towards the palace.

"Our marches are against tyranny and the void constitutional decree and we won't retract our position until our demands are met," said Hussein Abdel Ghany, a spokesman for an opposition coalition of liberal, leftist and other disparate factions.

Despite the latest protests, there has been only a limited response to opposition calls for a mass campaign of civil disobedience in the Arab world's most populous country and cultural hub, where many people yearn for a return to stability.

A few hundred protesters gathered earlier near Mursi's house in a suburb east of Cairo, chanting slogans against his decree and against the Muslim Brotherhood, from which the president emerged to win a free election in June. Police closed the road to stop them from coming any closer, a security official said.

Opposition groups have accused Mursi of making a dictatorial power grab to push through a constitution drafted by an assembly dominated by Islamists, with a referendum planned for December 15.

Egypt's most widely read independent newspapers did not publish on Tuesday in protest at Mursi's "dictatorship". Banks closed early to let staff go home safely in case of trouble.

Abdelrahman Mansour in Cairo's Tahrir Square, the cradle of the anti-Mubarak revolt, said: "The presidency believes the opposition is too weak and toothless. Today is the day we show them the opposition is a force to be reckoned with."

After winning post-Mubarak elections and pushing the Egyptian military out of the political driving seat it held for decades, the Islamists sense their moment has come to shape the future of Egypt, a longtime U.S. ally whose 1979 peace treaty with Israel is a cornerstone of Washington's Middle East policy.

The Muslim Brotherhood and its allies, who staged a huge pro-Mursi demonstration on Saturday, are confident that enough members of the judiciary will be available to oversee the mid-December referendum, despite calls by some judges for a boycott.

Cairo stocks closed up 3.5 percent on Tuesday as investors took heart at what they saw as prospects for a return to stability in a country whose divisions have only widened since a mass uprising toppled Mubarak on February 11, 2011.

Mohamed Radwan, at Pharos Securities brokerage, said the Supreme Judicial Council's agreement to supervise the referendum had generated confidence that the vote would happen "despite all the noise and demonstrations that might take place until then".

"NO WAY PERFECT"

Prime Minister Hisham Kandil, a technocrat with Islamist sympathies, said in an interview with CNN: "We certainly hope that things will quiet down after the referendum is completed."

He said the constitution was "in no way a perfect text" that everyone had agreed to, but that a "majority consensus" favored moving forward with the referendum in 11 days' time.

The Muslim Brotherhood, now tasting power via the ballot box for the first time in eight decades of struggle, wants to safeguard its gains and appears ready to override street protests by what it regards as an unrepresentative minority.

It is also determined to stop the courts, which have already dissolved the Islamist-led elected lower house of parliament, from further obstructing their blueprint for change.

Mohamed ElBaradei, coordinator of an opposition National Salvation Front, has said Mursi must rescind his decree, drop plans for the referendum and agree on a new, more representative constituent assembly to draft a democratic constitution.

In an opinion piece published in the Financial Times, he accused Mursi and the Brotherhood of believing that "with a few strokes of a pen, they can slide (Egypt) back into a coma".

ElBaradei, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who once headed the U.N. nuclear watchdog, wrote: "If they continue to try, they risk an eruption into violence and chaos that will destroy the fabric of Egyptian society."

Despite charges that they are anti-Islamist and politically motivated, judges say they are following legal codes in their rulings. Experts say some political changes rushed through in the past two years have been on shaky legal ground.

A Western diplomat said the Islamists were counting on a popular desire for restored normality and economic stability.

"All the messages from the Muslim Brotherhood are that a vote for the constitution is one for stability and a vote against is one for uncertainty," he said, adding that the cost of the strategy was a "breakdown in consensus politics".

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/04/us-egypt-politics-idUSBRE8B30GP20121204