Syria warns West against intervention

Syria: Russia's Lavrov Accuses US Of BlackmailThe Russian Foreign Minister claims the West is attempting to use a UN resolution over weapons to pave the way to military action.2:58pm UK, Sunday 22 September 2013 Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused America of blackmail
EmailRussia has accused the United States of trying to blackmail it during negotiations over what to do about Syria's chemical weapons.

Foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said the only reason the West was agreeing to discussions it has proposed was so it could draw up a UN resolution that would open the way to military action.

Mr Lavrov said: "Our American partners are beginning to blackmail us."

He claimed the US was threatening to stop work on implementing Syria's chemical disarmament deal unless Russia supports a Security Council resolution allowing military intervention.

"Right now Western partners are trying to unceremoniously push through a resolution under Chapter VII," he said, adding that, if they were successful, it would "move the (chemical weapons) convention aside to advance individual, personal or geopolitical, state ambitions."

He said resolution under Chapter VII - which authorised the use of force - contradict his agreement with US Secretary of State John Kerry.

Russia put forward a plan to bring Syria's chemical weapons under international control in response to calls for action to be taken.

Syria has agreed but the final plan is still to be worked out and is subject to a degree of ratification by the United Nations.

The call for action came after Syria's regime was accused of launching a chemical attack which killed hundreds of its own people on August 21. Syria and Russia claim it was rebels that carried out the outrage.

Under the plan, Syria has until 2014 to destroy its chemical weapons stockpile, but the US, Britain and France want the order underpinned by UN charter's Chapter VII.

Chapter VII allows for sanctions or even military intervention in the event that an order is not carried out.


Chemical weapons inspectors at work in Syria last month

Russia says that the Americans are using Chapter VII as a diplomatic ploy to gain extra control in the region.

Lavrov's comments came as a mortar round slammed into the compound of the Russian embassy in Damascus, the first such hit against the site.

The attack, which caused no injuries, was confirmed by an embassy source speaking to Syrian state news agency SANA, as well as the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights watchdog.

There had been hopes that a deal on chemical weapons could pave the way for peace talks to end the 30-month conflict which has killed more than 110,000 people and forced two million more to flee abroad.

But the plan has been greeted with scepticism by the Syrian opposition.

The Hague-based Organisation for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is overseeing the inventory and destruction of Syria's chemical weapons under the agreement.

The OPCW, which enforces the Chemical Weapons Convention that Syria has applied to join, postponed a meeting of its Executive Council due Sunday to discuss the practicalities of disposing of Syria's chemical weapons.

A UN report released last Monday said that sarin gas was used in the Syria attacks but did not apportion blame. It did provide details of the trajectories of the missiles that delivered the chemicals which suggested they could have been fired from Syria bases.

Assad's government and the rebels fighting to oust him have accused each other of being responsible.

Last Updated: 4:51PM 24/09/2013


Sky News US Team


Barack Obama has called on the UN security council to approve a resolution that ensures Syria upholds its chemical weapons commitments.


The president says a resolution must include consequences for President Bashar al Assad's regime if he does not meet demands to dismantle his chemical stockpile.

"If we cannot agree even on this, then it will show that the United Nations is incapable of enforcing the most basic of international laws," Mr Obama said in his address to the UN General Assembly.

"We believe that as a starting point the international community must enforce the ban on international weapons."

Mr Obama said failure to include such consequences would be "an insult to human reason and the legitimacy" of the UN.

The United States and Russia brokered an agreement for Syria to give up its chemical weapons following Mr Obama's call for military strikes against Syria for a chemical weapons attack last month on civilians outside Damascus.

But the countries remain at odds on what the possible consequences would be if Syria does not comply.

The Russians have challenged the Obama administration's claims of Assad culpability and Mr Assad has blamed rebel forces for the chemical weapons attack.

Mr Obama aggressively pushed back against those claims in his speech on Tuesday.

"It's an insult to human reason and to the legitimacy of this institution to suggest that anyone other than the regime carried out this attack," he said.

Mr Obama also said that while the international community has recognised the stakes involved in the more than two-year-old civil war, "our response has not matched the scale of the challenge".

He reiterated his demand that Mr Assad cannot continue to lead Syria, but said he would not use US military force to depose him.

"That is for the Syrian people to decide," Mr Obama said. "Nevertheless, a leader who slaughtered his citizens and gassed children to death cannot regain the legitimacy to lead a badly fractured country."

The president also announced that the United States will provide $339m in additional humanitarian aid to refugees and countries affected by the war, bringing the total American aid devoted to that crisis to nearly $1.4bn.

In his address to the UN, primarily focused on the Middle East, the president also said a "diplomatic path must be tested" regarding Iran's nuclear programme.

Mr Obama said he directed US Secretary of State John Kerry to pursue a possible nuclear weapons deal with Iran.

He said he has been encouraged by Iranian President Hasan Rouhani's more moderate course, but added Mr Rouhani's "conciliatory words will have to be matched by actions that are transparent and verifiable".

The West has long suspected that Iran is seeking a nuclear weapon. Tehran has consistently denied the charge.

It is still unclear if Mr Obama will meet with the Iranian president while at the United Nations.

The leaders of the two countries have not had face-to-face contact in more than 30 years.

US officials say no meeting is planned, although they have not ruled one out.

Mr Obama also used his UN address to press for continued efforts in reaching a resolution of the long conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis.

He said all sides must be willing to take risks in order to achieve Mideast peace, adding that Israel and its friends must be willing to accept a Palestinian state.

He also said Arab states must recognise that stability can only be achieved through a two-state solution with a secure Israel.

More follows...

27 September 2013 Last updated at 15:59 Share this pageEmail Print Share this page

ShareFacebookTwitter.UN probes new alleged chemical weapons attacks in Syria A UN team was in Syria in August, but pulled out amid threats of US military action
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UN inspectors are investigating seven alleged chemical weapons attacks in Syria - three of which happened after the 21 August Damascus incident that led to threats of US military action.

Little is known about the latest three alleged attacks, which the Syrian government asked the UN to investigate.

The 21 August attack left hundreds dead and the outcry led Syria to offer up its chemical weapons arsenal.

Inspectors are due in Syria next week - the UN will vote on the visit later.

In Syria itself the violence goes on. Activists said a car bomb killed at least 20 people near a mosque in Rankus, a town north of Damascus, just after Friday prayers.

Militants accused

In a statement, the UN said its current inspection team in Syria is investigating seven allegations of chemical weapons use this year.

The team, led by Ake Sellstrom, arrived in Syria for its second visit on 25 September and hopes to finish its work by Monday 30 September, the statement said.

It is working on a "comprehensive report" into the allegations that it hopes to have finished by late October.


The UN listed the alleged attacks, which all took place this year, as Khan al-Assal on 19 March; Sheikh Maqsoud on 13 April; Saraqeb on 29 April; Ghouta on 21 August; Bahhariya on 22 August; Jobar on 24 August and Ashrafieh Sahnaya on 25 August.

Syria has pushed for the investigation of the three post-21 August incidents.

Its envoy to the United Nations, Bashar Jaafari, accused "militants" of using chemical gas against the army in Bahhariya, Jobar and Ashrafieh Sahnaya.

Continue reading the main story
Analysis

Jonathan Marcus

BBC diplomatic correspondent

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The UN team investigating the seven alleged chemical attacks is entirely separate from the more comprehensive effort to rid Syria of chemical weapons agreed at the UN Security Council in New York.

This is a renewal of work by the team that was already in Syria last month that was diverted for the urgent investigation of the attacks in the Damascus suburbs on 21 August.

It has returned to investigate alleged attacks at seven separate incidents. Strikingly three of them are alleged to have taken place after the 21 August. These incidents, according to the UN "warrant further investigation".

The investigation of these three allegations comes at the request of Syria's ambassador to the UN who claims these were the work of rebel forces.

Russia has frequently charged that elements of the Syrian opposition have used chemical weapons - though so far no evidence has been found.

The UN itself investigated the 21 August attacks and its evidence points strongly to the use of Sarin-filled rockets by the Syrian regime.

It was the Ghouta incident of 21 August that sparked international outrage and the threat of military action from the US and its allies.

Since then Russia - an ally of Syria - has secured an agreement from Damascus to give up its chemical weapons stockpile.

'Unfettered access'

Earlier this month, the US and Russia asked the world's chemical weapons watchdog, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), to decide how to ensure the "complete elimination of all chemical weapons material and equipment" in Syria by the first half of 2014.

The OPCW has come up with a draft agreement for the inspections which will be voted on by the organisation's 41-nation executive council on Friday evening in The Hague.

The text will then be incorporated into a UN Security Council resolution - which has been agreed by both the US and Russia - that will be voted on in New York some hours afterwards.

The OPCW's text calls for inspections of Syria's chemical arsenal to begin by Tuesday. An advance team will probably arrive on Monday.

Syria is instructed to provide "immediate and unfettered" access to OPCW's inspectors. If it does not, a meeting of the executive council will be called within 24 hours.

The text also authorises the OPCW to inspect "any other site identified by a State Party as having been involved in the Syrian chemical weapons programme, unless deemed unwarranted by the director general".

The OPCW usually only inspects sites that have been declared by states which have acceded to the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).

The draft agreement calls for urgent funding to hire inspectors and technical experts to destroy an estimated 1,000 tonnes of chemical agents and precursor chemicals, including the blister agent sulphur mustard, and the nerve agents sarin and VX.
More on This Story

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10357537/Charity-millions-going-to-Syrian-terror-groups.html


apparently the Government is considering allowing the Refugees stranded in Calais to come to Britain....why won't the French offer help to them????

REBELS ARE FIGHTING IN HAMA AND DAMASCUS,IN ONE CASE TRYING TO CAPTURE AN AIR FORCE BASE.

Badboy wrote:REBELS ARE FIGHTING IN HAMA AND DAMASCUS,IN ONE CASE TRYING TO CAPTURE AN AIR FORCE BASE.

It looks as though nothing will be resolved Badboy until the Country is uninhabitable, the UN is powerless, and the USA and Russia are hardly friends.!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10392547/Polio-cases-in-Syria-spark-alarm-over-rise-in-diseases-including-flesh-eating-parasites-due-to-civil-war.html

This is dreadful , Syria is being destroyed as are their People yet the rest of the World seems powerless to do anything.

http://news.sky.com/story/1157861/syria-ministers-meet-ahead-of-peace-talks

There are 3 comments, I go along with No.3

IT IS CLAIMED A TOP LEADER OF NUSRA FRONT WAS KILLED NEAR LATAKIA IN AN AMBUSH WHICH KILLED 40 REBELS ON AN AMMUNITION RUN.

Tim Marshall

Foreign Affairs Editor

More from Tim | Follow Tim on Twitter
Sky News Foreign Affairs Editor Tim Marshall

Confounding the sceptics, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has met its first serious deadline a day early.

When it set out on its nine-month Syria mission in September, many people (this writer among them) were sceptical about the chances of the OPCW succeeding in ridding the country of all chemical weapons production facilities and stockpiles.

However, co-operation by the Syrian government and hard work by the OPCW teams has resulted in the first deadline being met. The government has provided a degree of security, it has delivered an inventory, and has opened its doors.

This has resulted in the production and mixing facilities of the chemical weapons programme being destroyed, giving the inspectors a solid platform to work from for the far more ambitious second deadline of overseeing the destruction of all the stockpiles by next summer.

Those stockpiles present a greater danger to the inspection teams.

The inventory provided by the Syrian government says there are more than 1,000 tons of chemicals and some of the material is already in missile warheads which contain explosives.

Moving these chemicals is a far more complex operation than destroying the equipment used to make them.

UN vehicles are parked in front of the Four Seasons hotel, where a team of OPCW experts are staying, in downtown Damascus
The UN-backed OPCW is overseeing the destruction of Syria's weapons

It is still unclear if the weapons will be destroyed inside Syria or moved abroad. Either option is difficult.

If they are destroyed inside Syria then special facilities will have to be either built, or transported into the country.

If they are to be taken abroad it can only be to a country both willing and experienced in this specialist work.

The weapons can either be incinerated at very high temperatures which destroy the chemical's toxicity, or the chemicals can be watered down by mixing them with less harmful chemicals and waters.

Burying the chemicals underground or dumping them into the sea are banned under the Chemical Weapons Convention.

The OPCW, recently winners of the Nobel Peace Prize, have had another major success, but its staff will know the hardest months are ahead of them

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Syrian polio outbreak could spread to Europe

A polio outbreak in Syria threatens to spread into Europe, according to experts





Syrian polio outbreak could spread to Europe

A doctor gives a polio vaccine to a Syrian child at a health care centre in Damascus Photo: YOUSSEF BADAWI/EPA







Richard Gray
By Richard Gray, Science Correspondent

11:30PM GMT 07 Nov 2013



Comments4 Comments





An outbreak of polio that has been confirmed in children in Syria could lead to the disease spreading into Europe, public health officials have warned.


Doctors fear the disease, which has been confirmed in at least 10 Syrian children, could be reintroduced to areas where it has been eradicated for decades.


They warn that refugees fleeing the fighting in Syria move into countries in Europe could bring the virus with them, allowing the infection to spread.


Many European states, including the UK, now use a form of the vaccine that uses dead virus, known as Inactivated Polio Vaccine (IPV), rather than the Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV), which contains a live virus.


However, writing in the health journal The Lancet, public health experts said that IPV is less effective at preventing infection but can prevent symptoms from occurring.


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It is generally used in countries where polio has not been present for several decades as it has lower risk of causing the paralysis associated with polio compared with OPV.

They warn that countries where immunisation rates have been low could be particularly at risk – such as in Austria, Bosnia and Ukraine.

The UN is now attempting to get Syrian refugees vaccinated against the disease in an attempt to control the spread.

Before the war, figures from 2011 show that 95% of children in Syria were vaccinated. However, these are now more than half a million who have not been immunised.

Health charities and the UN have appealed to the Syrian government and rebel forces to adhere to “vaccination ceasefires” to allow children to be vaccinated.

However, Professor Martin Eichner, a clinical epidemiologist at the University of Tubingen, in Germany, and lead author of the Lancet paper, said: “Vaccinating only Syrian refugees – as has been recommended by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control – must be judged as insufficient.

“More comprehensive measures should be taken into consideration.

“In regions with low vaccination coverage, particularly those with low coverage of inactivated polio vaccine, 1 herd immunity might be insufficient to prevent sustained transmission.”

The paper points out that only one in every 200 unvaccinated people infected with the polio virus will develop symptoms, meaning it can spread undetected.

The authors warns the disease could be transmitted silently in Europe for up to a year before the first cases with symptoms occur.

It also calls for routine screening of sewage for the polio virus in European countries after it was identified in the sewage system in Israel earlier this year.

They warned that tourists and travellers in the region also risk spreading the disease.

Polio can generally cause flu like symptoms in those infected but in some cases can enter the nervous system and destroy the nerve cells.

This can lead to permanent paralysis leave victims with difficulties speaking, swallowing and even breathing.

It mainly affects children under the age of three years old and until the middle of the 20th century affected hundreds of thousands of victims.

Following an eradication programme started in 1988 it has been stamped out in many parts of the world.

However a high level of vaccination is required to ensure population immunity and to prevent the virus from gaining a foothold.

In the UK all children are vaccinated against the disease at the age of two to four months before being given boosters while at school.

Dr Benjamin Neuman, a virologist at Univeristy of Reading, said: “Where war goes, pestilence, famine and death often follow.

"Each new baby who is born is at risk of polio until vaccinated, and conflict inevitably disrupts local vaccination efforts.

"The Syrian outbreak puts Europe at risk because of the way we give vaccines.

"Until the virus is completely extinct, it is essential that we continue to vaccinate our children.”

Apparently rich Syrians are fleeing Syria in droves.....another Middle East Country in chaos.

THERE IS GOING TO TO BE A BIG BATTLE FOR ALEPPO SUPPOSEDLY

Badboy wrote:THERE IS GOING TO TO BE A BIG BATTLE FOR ALEPPO SUPPOSEDLY

Hi Badboy, the West should have let sleeping dogs lie, Assan will never relinquish power and he has two strong allies, Saudi Arabia and Russia.An
ancient City, beautiful has been smashed to smithereens, over a million refugees spread around makeshift camps , no home, and the host Countries wnt them to return to their own Country which will take years to rebuild.

IT IS BEING SAID POLIO IS A BIG RISK IN SYRIA AND COULD SPREAD TO EUROPE.

Badboy wrote:IT IS BEING SAID POLIO IS A BIG RISK IN SYRIA AND COULD SPREAD TO EUROPE.

yes Badboy, I read that. Also the Refugee camps are at risk and with the disaster in the Phillipines World aid is stretched.

THE REBEL EXECUTED IN ALEPPO WAS A REBEL COMMANDER,NOW HIS REBEL FACTION IS OFFERING AN AWARD FOR THE TWO REBELS WHO EXECUTED HIM.
SOUNDS GOOD!

Badboy, this is the Leader, will this affect the Rebels or will another Leader take control?



By Richard Spencer, Middle East correspondent

4:45PM GMT 18 Nov 2013

Comments8 Comments





The Syrian regime has claimed a major scalp with the killing of one of the rebels' most prominent and charismatic leaders, a former seed merchant who briefly managed to unite Islamists and non-Islamists under the same flag of opposition to President Bashar al-Assad.


Rebel online forums were inundated with tributes to Abdulqader al-Saleh, known to his followers as Hajji Marea, who died in hospital in Turkey from wounds sustained in a Syrian air force bombing raid last week.


Mr Saleh's popularity derived in part from a reputation for indestructibility – he had survived numerous raids and shootings, was nearly killed at least twice and had been repeatedly announced dead by pro-regime media.


He was also a unifying figure for Islamist and non-Islamist opposition forces, a deputy leader of the western-backed Syrian Military Council whose death was publicly mourned by militant groups alongside which he fought in Aleppo and northern Syria.


Mr Saleh was one of three founders of the Tawhid Brigade, which spearheaded the rebel attack that seized half of Aleppo in July last year. It recruited from what were once Muslim Brotherhood heartlands of opposition to the Assad regime, and fitted the western powers's idea of "moderate Islamist groups" that they wanted to ally with secular activists into a coherent force.


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He was hit in a bombing raid with two of its other senior figures. A second died at the scene, while the third, Abdulaziz al-Salameh, was injured but survived and is expected to take over as the brigade's leader.

Mr Salameh read out the brigade's tribute in a video posted on YouTube. "I congratulate the Islamic nation on its martyr," he said.

"Our martyrs are in Paradise and his killers in hell."

The Tawhid was the biggest brigade in Aleppo province and its whirlwind success in seizing much of Syria's second city brought it national fame and international attention. In part this was due to Mr Saleh's ease with both the gun and the television camera, taking journalists to the front lines where he often took up position himself despite the advice of his lieutenants.

He also deployed his sense of humour to dramatic effect. In an interview with The Daily Telegraph after William Hague, the foreign secretary, promised that Britain would send the opposition communication equipment but not arms, he wielded his mobile phone sarcastically in the air to point out that he already had communications equipment.

"It's like coming up to a man who is dying and offering him sunglasses. He will have sunglasses but he will still die," he said.

In part his rise was due to less widely reported aspects of his life.

He had benefited from two shifts in Syrian policy after Mr Assad succeeded his father in 2000, and eventually turned them against him.

He used economic reforms and a rapprochement with nearby Turkey to build a successful seed business, whose profits he later ploughed into revolution. He was also a religious missionary and travelled widely abroad, including to the strife-ridden Russian region of Dagestan, at a time when Mr Assad was encouraging radical Islamism as part of his backing for anti-American forces in the Middle East.

His move into Aleppo was a sign of his tactical ability but in the long run may have backfired. Many residents were angry that the presence of rebel fighters made civilians a target for the air force – particularly because of Tawhid's use of schools and other public buildings as headquarters.

In one raid clearly aimed at him, witnessed by The Daily Telegraph, bombs fell just 30 yards from his main base, a primary school, killing at least nine people from two families, including women and children.

His men also carried out a well-publicised execution in the schoolyard of four men accused of cooperating with the regime despite a non-aggression pact, though he later shunned such killings.

However, the area he liberated in northern Syria became a magnet for foreign jihadists, who began to eclipse Tawhid's dominance in the rebel ranks and now run much of the region. His death is another blow to those who still hope for a "middle path" between the regime and al-Qaeda-linked jihadists.

One Tawhid fighter, speaking from Aleppo on Monday night, insisted his men were not discouraged. "We are still optimistic," Ahmed al-Emam said.

"We will not stop, because Hajji Marea taught us to focus on one thing, the downfall of the regime."

REBELS HAVE TAKEN AN OILFIELD IN EASTERN SYRIA.
SAW ALJEZEERA,REBELS SAID TO BE SHOOTING DOWN ABOUT 14 AIRCRAFT A WEEK.

http://news.sky.com/story/1172753/syria-largest-oil-field-captured-by-rebels

70 rebels and Soldiers killed.

http://news.sky.com/story/1173976/syria-video-of-children-fleeing-shelling

Seems there is no end in sight for this War, in the meantime 10 million Refugees are living in Tents .