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Turkey announces sanctions against Syria
By Alice Fordham, Updated: Thursday, December 1, 5:05 AM
BEIRUT — Turkey announced wide-ranging sanctions against Syria on Wednesday in response to the Syrian government’s continuing military crackdown on protests.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu outlined measures including a freeze on Syrian assets in Turkey and a ban on transactions with the Syrian central bank, capping an eight-day stretch in which Turkish rhetoric against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad turned increasingly critical.
Protesters opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad face violent responses from security forces. The Arab League has passed a series of measures censuring Syria for its actions.
The sanctions by Turkey, one of Syria’s top trading partners, come as the Arab League and the European Union are enacting their own punitive measures — a triple blow that highlights the growing isolation of the Damascus government and that could significantly hurt Syria’s economy.
In Washington, the White House commended the Turkish government for imposing the sanctions, which it said will “undoubtedly increase the pressure on the Syrian regime.”
In a statement, National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor said that “the leadership shown by Turkey in response to the brutality and violation of the fundamental rights of the Syrian people will isolate the Assad regime and send a strong message to Assad and his circle that their actions are unacceptable and will not be tolerated.”
Syria’s trade and business sectors are already suffering from earlier sanctions and months of unrest. The country’s once-lucrative tourism industry is essentially ruined, and trade with the European Union is down significantly. Syria once sold 90 percent of its crude oil to E.U. countries.
On Thursday, the E.U. is set to impose the latest of several rounds of sanctions, directly affecting Syria’s oil industry and telecommunications sector and targeting a number of individuals, in addition to officials already listed.
The 22-nation Arab League announced its own sanction s last weekend. Although those restrictions are likely to be enforced inconsistently by Arab countries, they began to bite Wednesday, the Reuters news agency reported.
The Turkish sanctions could be politically difficult to implement in Turkey. A report by the International Crisis Group released in November noted that the country’s economic growth rate was set to decline to 2.2 percent next year, a slowdown that would be exacerbated by the loss of Syrian business.
Although Turkish officials made clear in the past that they reject a military solution to the Syrian problem, their rhetoric has sharpened recently. In a television interview broadcast Tuesday, Davutoglu said that if oppression continues, “Turkey remains ready for all possible scenarios.”
Ibrahim Saif, an economist with the Carnegie Middle East Center, said the sanctions will not be immediately devastating but will contribute to incremental pressure already being felt.
Though Turkey announced that it is “imposing sanctions officially,” he said, “in practice this was put in process a while ago by limiting trade, people and goods on the border, and a strong message to Turkish banks to stop trading with Syrian ones.”
Saif pointed out that Iraq, Syria’s biggest trading partner, and Lebanon, whose banking sector has billions of dollars’ worth of assets in Syria, are unlikely to halt their commercial activity yet. And he said Russia and China would probably veto any global economic measures proposed at the United Nations.
Over the past seven years, Turkey has become a huge trading partner of Syria’s, and the sudden loss of Turkish business is likely to deal a heavy blow to the Syrian business sector, particularly in the larger cities and in the northern part of the country along the Turkish border.
Since a free-trade agreement was signed between the two countries in 2004 as part of an economic liberalization program led by Assad, trade volume has increased from about $750 million annually to $2.2 billion last year, according to the Turkish Foreign Ministry.
A key bastion of support for Assad is Syria’s merchant class, which has benefited from his economic reforms and has enjoyed an improved quality of life in Damascus and in Aleppo.There, well-off residents have been insulated from high levels of rural poverty, which have worsened after years of drought.
If the E.U., Arab and Turkish sanctions weigh heavily on the Syrian business community, that support could quickly erode, analysts said.
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Syria tries to ward off sanctions by releasing hundreds of political prisoners
The Syrian authorities tried to ward off the threat of Arab League and Turkish sanctions by releasing hundreds of political prisoners they admitted were protesters and "did not have blood on their hands".
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu announces that his country has decided to impose sanctions on the Syrian regime Photo: AFP PHOTO / ADEM ALTAN
By Richard Spencer, Middle East Correspondent
6:17PM GMT 30 Nov 2011
The government gave no details of the release, which follows that of 1,700 prisoners in a deal with the Arab League earlier this month, but a judge separately freed nine human rights activists who had been jailed.
The move suggests that President Bashar al-Assad still has hopes of coming to terms with his neighbours while at the same time ending unrest in the country.
Although Turkey announced details of its own sanctions package yesterday, on top of those announced by the Arab League on Sunday, Syria's isolation is taking some time to bite.
The League has effectively postponed its own measures, saying they will not come into effect until Saturday. Despite a travel ban on senior officials, other transport links will be unaffected – the United Arab Emirates denied reports that Emirates and Etihad airlines, two of the region's most important carriers, were suspending flights to the country.
The Assad regime has responded to the unusually assertive posture of the League by staging new rallies of supporters and a propaganda offensive aimed at suggesting the West is financing and supplying a terrorist insurgency in Syria.
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.Turkey considers buffer zone on Syria border - 29 Nov 2011
One element of that backfired however when a video shown to a press conference by Walid Muallem, the foreign minister, and purporting to show atrocities by the armed opposition, was questioned by internet users and media in Lebanon.
At least two of the clips sewn together were found to have been film of incidents in Lebanon from previous years. In the first, a mutilated body is clearly that of an Egyptian man lynched in a well-known incident after being accused of rape.
In the second, a group of Lebanese men came forward to say they were the members of an "armed militia" filmed training. At least one was clearly identifiable from the "Syrian" film.
Turkey's sanctions will provide strong moral support to the opposition, and may have an effect on the business community which has so far failed to come out against Mr Assad. Individual businessmen as well as government officials will be targeted with a travel ban.
But it is hard to see whether any of the measures announced so far will have a crippling effect on Syria, which has long survived an underperforming economy. Turkey decided not to go ahead with a threatened block on electricity supplies to the north.
Neither the Arab League nor any other neighbour has put forward a plan for how Mr Assad might either stop the insurgency without standing down, which he refuses to do, or be forced out of office, other than by outside military intervention on a level which looks unlikely.
Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the Turkish head of another regional body, the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation, meeting in Saudi Arabia, called for the Syrian crisis to be solved without international or military intervention, but added: "We have exhausted all our mechanisms and powers in our attempt to bridge the gap and end bloodshed."
__________
What do you think ?
Các anh chị nghĩ thế nào, có ý kiến, nhận định gì qua bài viết "Syria tries to ward off sanctions by releasing hundreds of political prisoners" ?
Xin mời các anh chị đọc thêm bài viết "Syrian ministers face Arab travel ban"By HADEEL AL-SHALCHI, Associated Press – 3 hours ago tại link :
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g4JPmuYI5iYfBRoNR7xoFzJ-LUuA?docId=751daafe0e5549a892dee99abc155b39
Và dân tộc VN đã bị MẤT NƯỚC vào tay bè lũ phản quốc CƯỚP NƯỚC DIỆT CHỦNG BÁN NƯỚC Việt gian cộng sản VN nghĩ gì, học thêm bài học kinh nghiệm gì nữa qua tình hình Bắc Phi, Trung Đông, và cụ thể qua tinh hình Syria hiện nay qua bài viết "Syria tries to ward off sanctions by releasing hundreds of political prisoners" ???
Còn nữa, thằng côn đồ Việt gian BÁN NƯỚC GIẾT DÂN nguyễn tấn dũng vừa tung ra một trò hề rẻ tiền trơ trẽn bỉ ổi đê tiện nham nhở thô bỉ là đã có nhiều tên "trí đủ", "sĩ đặc" cò mồi trong và ngoài nước bưng bô tung hứng, thật không biết NHỤC là gì.
Lũ súc sinh buôn nòi bán giống giết dân BÁN NƯỚC Việt gian cộng sản VN quả thật có phúc.
TỦI NHỤC cho Tổ Tiên Việt đã có lũ cháu con khốn kiếp vọng ngọai, vong bản đội giặc lên đầu và nhận giặc làm cha này .
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog"
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Emergency meeting planned to address bloodshed in Syria
By the CNN Wire Staff
November 30, 2011 -
- Updated 0631 GMT (1431 HKT)
Arab League sanctions punish Syria
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
.The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation meets Wednesday to discuss Syria
.The organization, which meets in Saudi Arabia, is made up of 57 states
.It comes two days after the Syrian foreign minister decried Arab League sanctions
.The sanctions include cutting ties with the Syrian central bank and freezing government assets
(CNN) -- The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation will hold an emergency meeting in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday to discuss the Syrian government's crackdown on protesters calling for regime change there.
It will include foreign ministers from most of the 57 nations that make up the body, said Isam Shanti, the organization's spokesman.
The organization, which meets in Jeddah, is the collective voice of the Muslim world, according to the spokesman.
Shanti declined to provide more details on what is on the agenda for the meeting.
It comes two days after the Syrian foreign minister decried Arab League sanctions as targeting the nation's citizens.
"The intended victims are the Syrian people," Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem said from Damascus.
Foreign ministers from 19 Arab League countries this week voted to slap economic sanctions on the Syrian regime, including cutting ties with the nation's central bank, banning high-profile officials from visiting Arab countries and freezing government assets.
Iraq and Lebanon abstained from the voting, officials said.
The foreign minister accused the Arab League of trying to escalate the situation to a broader international level rather than following agreements reached with Syrian officials.
"If you think you can undermine the Syrian regime, you are deluded," he said.
Arab League Secretary-General Nabil el-Araby said a committee examining how to implement the sanctions will focus on protecting civilians while targeting the government.
Pro-regime protesters rallied in Syria to condemn the Arab League sanctions and support President Bashar al-Assad, according to Syrian state media.
The SANA news agency published photos of supporters waving flags in Damascus and reported similar pro-government demonstrations in other Syrian cities.
The uprising against al-Assad began in February with limited protests and widened in mid-March, when peaceful protests in Daraa were met with violent suppression. In the following months, protests have continued across the country, with protesters demanding al-Assad's ouster and democratic elections.
Earlier this month, the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights estimated that government forces had killed at least 3,500 people.
Syria's government has consistently blamed armed gangs for the violence and said security forces are protecting the people.
At least 16 people died in clashes nationwide on Tuesday, including three soldiers who defected, according to the Local Coordination Committees' activist network.
CNN is unable to independently confirm events occurring inside Syria because the government does not allow journalists free access to the country.
Journalist Mohamed Fadel Fahmy and CNN's Saad Abedine contributed to this report.
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Syria: Turkey raises prospect of buffer zone for first time
Turkey raised the prospect of a buffer zone inside Syria put in place by its own troops and those of other countries for the first time, as international tensions over the fighting inside the country worsened.
Syrians living in Turkey wave Turkish and Syrian flags as they protest against the government of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in Istanbul Photo: REUTERS/Murad Sezer
By Richard Spencer, Middle East Correspondent
6:45PM GMT 29 Nov 2011
4 Comments
Ahmet Davutoglu, the Turkish foreign minister, gave voice to contingency plans long thought to be under discussion in Ankara, but went further in adding that international action might be required.
"If the oppression continues, Turkey is ready for any scenario," he said in an interview on local television. "We hope that a military intervention will never be necessary. The Syrian regime has to find a way of making peace with its own people.
"If tens, hundreds of thousands of people start advancing towards the Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey borders, not only Turkey but the international community may be required to take some steps such as a buffer zone. We don't want that to happen but we must consider and work on that scenario."
Syria and its few remaining allies have issued aggressive warnings against foreign involvement in its uprising, which is now tipping into open civil war in some areas.
Russia, which has blocked United Nations sanctions and repeatedly accused western governments of making the situation worse, announced it was moving its only aircraft carrier group to the port of Tartus in northern Syria.
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.Syria: at least 256 children killed since start of protests - 28 Nov 2011
.Syria committed crimes against humanity, UN says - 28 Nov 2011
The Admiral Kuznetsov, which will be accompanied by an anti-submarine destroyer and a fleet of smaller ships along with fighter jets and anti-ship helicopters, would be bringing forward a port visit intended for "training" from next spring, Russian media said.
Both Russian and Syrian officials denied there was any connection to current unrest. But Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, issued an angry response to a joint statement by the US and EU on Monday demanding the Syrian government end violence against protesters.
"Right now, the most important thing is to stop acting by means of ultimatums and try to move toward political dialogue," Mr Lavrov said. He rejected calls for Russia to stop selling arms to Syria saying talk of an embargo was "disingenuous".
The Syrian crisis has put new energy into old allegiances in what had been shifting diplomatic territory in the region. Syria and Russia are old allies, but Syria, already close to Iran, had been moving closer to Turkey too until earlier this year.
But Turkey, a key Nato member, moved squarely against first Libya and then a second state in the vanguard of anti-Western rhetoric in the region, Syria.
It remains unclear what effect this will have in military terms – most western countries are desperate to avoid further intervention in the region. But Turkey and its western allies imposed a buffer zone for the Kurds in northern Iraq in the early nineties, as part of a series of defensive measures and embargoes that ultimately led to the 2003 invasion.
There is no sign of a let-up either inside Syria itself, the day after a damning United Nations report was published accusing the regime of President Bashir al-Assad of widespread abuses, including the torture and murder of children.
Three soldiers were killed and two more captured by insurgents in the north of the country, while an eight-year-old girl shot dead at a checkpoint near the city of Homs was among several people killed by the military.
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November 29, 2011
Pressure Mounts on Syria, Government Raids Continue
VOA News
Brazilian Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, who is mandated by the UN Human Rights Council to lead an international investigation of allegations of human rights abuses in Syria, gestures during a press conference at the UN headquarters in Geneva, November 28, 2011.
Syria is facing increased pressure from world powers to end its crackdown on dissent, but activists say violence in the country continues to escalate.
An activist with the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says that Syrian forces have publicly executed 22 activists in a Damascus suburb, Rankus, and arrested about 600 people. The opposition group says the suburb had been under siege since Sunday, when forces backed by tanks pushed into the region.
Meanwhile, the U.S. and Germany say the U.N. Security Council must respond to Syria's crackdown on anti-government protesters after U.N. investigators detailed grave rights abuses they say were ordered by the "highest levels" of President Bashar al-Assad's government.
On Monday, a U.N. commission investigating allegations of human rights violations in Syria accused government troops of "summary execution, arbitrary arrest, enforced disappearance, torture, sexual violence, as well as violations of children's rights."
The report said Syrian forces have killed 256 children and that "torture was applied equally to adults and children." The group's findings will now go to the Human Rights Council and the U.N. General Assembly, which will decide what to do next.
Turkey said Tuesday that it may shift its Middle East trade routes to go through Iraq - cutting out Syria as a transit country if unrest there worsens and embargoes against Damascus go into effect.
Turkey and Syria abolished visa requirements in 2009 and had planned to raise their trade volume.
Also, the EU says it plans to impose additional sanctions on Assad's embattled government. EU foreign ministers will vote Thursday on proposals to further restrict trade and economic dealings with Damascus.
The United Nations says more than 3,500 people have been killed since March in connection with the uprising.
Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.
Join the conversation on our social journalism site - Middle East Voices. Follow our Middle East reports on Twitter and discuss them on our Facebook page.
Related Articles
UN Commission: Syrian Forces Committed 'Crimes Against Humanity'
European Union will impose more sanctions on embattled government of Syrian President al-Assad over its crackdown on protesters
.Arab League Sanctions Could Hurt Syria's Regional Standing, Economic Agenda
.Syria Ignores Arab League Deadline, Risks Sanctions.
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog"
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Egypt elections and Arab Spring: live
Live rolling coverage from around the Middle East as Egyptians vote in the second day of the election since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak.
Image 1 of 6
Egyptians stand in line at a polling station as they wait to cast their votes during the parliamentary elections in Cairo November 29, 2011 Photo: REUTERS
By Barney Henderson and Andy Bloxham
8:30AM GMT 29 Nov 2011
442 Comments
• Egyptians vote in historic first elections since fall of Mubarak
• Protesters in Tahrir Square boycot the vote
• Turkey says it could bypass Syria with Iraq trade route
• UN probe finds Syria guilty of crimes against humanity
Latest
10.05 Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov urging an end to "ultimatums" against its Middle East ally Syria:
Right now, the most important thing is to stop acting by means of ultimatums and try to move toward political dialogue.
The periodic proposals that we hear on imposing a complete arms embargo on Syria - I would say that they are fairly disingenuous.
We are going to view another embargo, this one against Syria, based on the experience that we gained from the Libyan example.
09.30 Islamist poll winner summoned by Morocco king to form government
09.15 Zeinab Saad, 50, who brought her young daughter to a polling station in Cairo, said:
I am voting for this country's sake. We want a new beginning.
Its a great thing to feel like your vote matters.
08.59 Russia opposes the imposition of an arms embargo on Syria and believes the international community should stop threatening Damascus with ultimatums, local news agencies quoted Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as saying today.
The U.N. Human Rights Council said on Monday that Syrian military and security forces had committed crimes against humanity including murder, torture and rape, and called for an arms embargo on Syria.
Russia teamed up with China last month to veto a Western-backed U.N. Security Council resolution condemning President Bashar al-Assad's government for violence the United Nations says has killed more than 3,500 people.
08.22 Our Middle East correspondents Adrian Blomfield and Richard Spencer report on the first day of voting from Cairo:
The lines of patient voters stretching along the banks of the Nile were a stark contrast to what passed for elections in the long years of Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s toppled dictator.
Gender-segregated but calm and cheerful, they testified to the enthusiasm with which people embraced the country’s first credible parliamentary elections for more than half a century So high was the turn-out that election officials were forced to extend polling for two hours last night as millions seized the chance to cast their ballots.
There was no denying it was a momentous occasion, but the day - which passed peacefully, and without major incident — if anything seemed to lack the sense of history it demanded.
07.56 Here is David Blair's piece from this morning's Telegraph on the UN report that found that at least 256 children have been killed in Syria:
The most authoritative inquiry into Syria's violence has uncovered "gross human rights violations" amounting to "crimes against humanity".
Geoffrey Robertson QC, a human rights lawyer, said the British Government should respond by urging Syria's referral to the International Criminal Court by the UN Security Council.
"That would be the next logical step short of armed intervention," he added. "It would send a chill up Assad's spine."
07.45 Egyptian polling stations opened for a second day this morning after a mostly smooth start and large turnout in the first election since the fall of Hosni Mubarak.
Up to 40 million voters are being asked to choose a new parliament, in a three stage process that will end in January.
Monday's voting took place the main cities of Cairo and Alexandria and other areas. Despite some administrative delays, the day ended without major incident, the election commission said.
Polling booths closed on Monday at the extended time of 9:00 pm (1900 GMT) to enable thousands who waited for hours in long queues to cast their ballots.
The run-up to the vote was marred by protests and deadly clashes that had threatened to derail the whole process.
07.30 (09.30 Cairo) Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of the second day of the Egyptian election and reaction to a UN report that found Syria guilty of crimes against humanity.
Previous Arab Spring live coverage:
• Egypt elections and Arab Spring: Nov 28
• Egypt protests and Arab Spring: Nov 25
• Egypt protests and Arab Spring: Nov 24
• Egypt protests and Arab Spring: Nov 22
• Egypt protests and Arab Spring: Nov 21
• Libya: October 21 as it happened
• Libya: September 9 as it happened
• Libya: September 8 as it happened
• Libya: September 7 as it happened
• Libya: September 6 as it happened
• Libya: September 5 as it happened
• Libya: September 2 as it happened
• Libya: September 1 as it happened
• Libya: August 31 as it happened
• Libya: August 30 as it happened
• Libya, August 29 as it happened
• Libya, August 28 as it happened
• Libya, August 27 as it happened
• Libya, August 26 as it happened
• Libya, August 25 as it happened
• Libya, August 24 as it happened
• Libya, August 23: fall of Gaddafi's Tripoli compound
• Libya, August 22: endgame for Gaddafi
• Libya, August 21: fall of Tripoli
• Egypt: the resignation of Mubarak
***
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28 November 2011 Last updated at 16:28 GMT
Syria security forces 'commit crimes against humanity'
Paulo Pinheiro: "Torture, sexual violence and ill treatment were inflicted on civilians"
Syria's security forces have committed systematic "crimes against humanity" in their crackdown on anti-government protesters, a UN report says.
The study by an independent panel says civilians - including children - have been murdered, tortured and sexually assaulted.
Syria says it is fighting armed gangs. More than 3,500 people have reportedly died in the violence since March.
Meanwhile, Syria condemned the Arab League's imposition of sanctions.
At a news conference, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Mouallem described the league's move on Sunday as a declaration of "economic war" on Damascus, and said the country had already withdrawn 95% of its assets from Arab countries
The sanctions include an asset freeze and an embargo on investments.
Syria's state TV showed footage of a huge rally in Damascus of supporters of President Bashar al-Assad, who denounced the sanctions.
In the latest violence, at least 23 people were killed across Syria on Sunday, activists say.
The claims cannot be independently verified as most foreign media are banned from entering Syria.
***
Human Rights Council findings
Security forces guilty of systematic human rights violations
Soldiers were ordered to "shoot to kill" unarmed demonstrators
Pattern of summary executions, arbitrary arrests, and enforced disappearances
Extensive practice of torture indicate state-sanctioned policy
Men and boys sexually abused at military facilities
At least two children killed as a result of torture by security forces
'Shoot-to-kill'
The three-member UN commission released its 39-page report at a news conference in Geneva on Monday.
"The commission is gravely concerned that crimes against humanity have been committed in different locations" in Syria, the document says.
The panel says it interviewed 223 victims, witnesses, and army defectors to investigate human rights violations from the end of September until mid-November 2011.
However, the investigation team members say they were denied entry into Syria itself.
The report contains allegations of abuse, summary executions and sexual violence against civilians detained during protests.
Some of those interviewed told of "shoot-to-kill" orders to crush demonstrators.
One army defector recounted how he had shot into the air instead and was later arrested, beaten and tortured.
The report also accuses the security forces of killing at least 256 children during the unrest.
"The sheer scale and consistent pattern of attacks by military and security forces on civilians and civilian neighbourhoods and the widespread destruction of property could only be possible with the approval or complicity of the state," the document says.
The commission - which was set up by the UN Human Rights Council - urges the Syrian government to end the violence immediately and punish those responsible.
Syria has so far not co-operated with any UN requests, the BBC's Imogen Foulkes in Geneva reports.
***
Army defector's testimony
"On Friday 12 August, we received orders to go to the Omar al Khattab Mosque, in Duma (Damascus governorate), where about 150 people had gathered.
"We opened fire. A number of people were killed. I tried to aim high. Later, I realised that security forces had been taking pictures of us. I was pictured firing in the air. I was interrogated.
"I was accused of being a secret agent. Members of the Republican Guard beat me every hour for two days, and they tortured me with electroshocks."
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Syria: France says 'days are numbered' for Bashar al-Assad's regime
French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said on Monday that time was running out for the regime in Syria after the Arab League agreed sweeping sanctions against Damascus over its deadly crackdown on protesters.
French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe Photo: AFP
10:00AM GMT 28 Nov 2011
The Telegraph
"Its days are numbered, that is obvious. It is totally isolated today," Juppe told France Info radio, while acknowledging that efforts to try to stem the bloodshed in Syria were moving slowly.
"Things are going slowly unfortunately ... but they are advancing since the Arab League, which carries considerable political weight, has just decided on some sanctions which will isolate the Syrian regime a bit more."
He also voiced hope that the idea of humanitarian corridors had not been ruled out for Syria, where well over 3,500 people have been killed since protests erupted in March.
Last week, Juppe said France would ask its EU partners to consider setting up protected escape routes for Syrian civilians fleeing the regime of Bashar al-Assad but later said such a move would have to either be agreed by Damascus or come under an international mandate.
"We have done this in other situations and it is the only way in the short term to ease the plight of the population," he said on Monday.
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The United Nations said at the weekend that international help was needed to feed 1.5 million people in crisis-torn Syria, but that humanitarian corridors were not yet justified.
Meanwhile, Russia will send a flotilla of warships led by its only aircraft carrier to its naval base in Syria for a port call next year amid tensions with the West over the Syrian crisis, a report said on Monday.
The ships, headed by the Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier, will dock at the little-utilised Russian base in the Syrian port of Tartus in spring 2012, the Izvestia daily said, quoting the Russian navy.
The Tartus base, a strategic asset for Moscow dating back to Soviet times, is rarely used by Russian vessels and currently no Russian ship is based there although civilian and military personnel are present.
A naval spokesman confirmed the plan to send the ships but insisted it had nothing to do with the deadly violence in Syria between forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and the opposition.
"The call of the Russian ships in Tartus should not be seen as a gesture towards what is going on in Syria," the spokesman told the paper, adding the Admiral Kuznetsov would also visit Beirut, Genoa and Cyprus.
"This was planned already in 2010 when there were no such events there. There has been active preparation and there is no need to cancel this," added the spokesman.
Russia and the West have become deeply split over the situation in Syria, with Moscow insisting that sanctions and pressure against the Assad regime is not the way to solve the crisis.
Izvestia said the Admiral Kuznetsov – Russia's only operational aircraft carrier – would head down from the Russian Far North in December, keeping west of Europe and heading into the Mediterranean through the Strait of Gibraltar. It would also carry around a dozen aircraft.
It said the Admiral Kuznetsov would not be able to dock in Tartus itself due to the size of the vessel but anchor outside and be supplied by the smaller ships accompanying it. The ship has visited Tartus before in 1995 and 2007.
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Arab sanctions tighten noose on Syria's Assad
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis
AMMAN | Mon Nov 28, 2011 3:04am GMT
AMMAN (Reuters) - The Arab League approved unprecedented economic sanctions against Syria, isolating President Bashar al-Assad's government over its eight-month crackdown on protests against his rule.
Britain said the sanctions could help enlist support at the United Nations for action against Damascus, which launched the crackdown against protesters calling for Assad's removal soon after the uprising began eight months ago.
The United Nations says Syrian security forces have killed more than 3,500 people in the crackdown.
Anti-Assad activists said there was no respite and security forces had killed at least 24 civilians Sunday, many in a town north of Damascus that has become a focus for the protests. Others were killed in raids on towns in the province of Homs.
"The indications are not positive ... the sanctions are still economic but if there is no movement on the part of Syria then we have a responsibility as human beings to stop the killings," Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, Qatar's prime minister and foreign minister, told reporters.
"Power is not worth anything when a ruler kills his people," he said after 19 of the League's 22 members approved the decision to immediately enforce the sanctions at a meeting in Cairo Sunday.
The sanctions include a travel ban on top Syrian officials, a freeze on assets related to Assad's government and are aimed at halting dealings with Syria's central bank and investment in the country, Sheikh Hamad said.
He added that Turkey, which attended the meeting, would also honour some of the measures, which will be another blow to the Syrian economy already reeling from sanctions imposed by the European Union and United States.
Arab nations wanted to avoid a repeat of what happened in Libya, where a U.N. Security Council resolution led to NATO air strikes. Sheikh Hamad warned other Arab states that the West could intervene if it felt the league was not "serious."
British Foreign Secretary William Hague said the "unprecedented decision to impose sanctions demonstrates that the regime's repeated failure to deliver on its promises will not be ignored and that those who perpetrate these appalling abuses will be held to account."
Hague said Britain hoped the move would help break what he called United Nations silence "on the ongoing brutality taking place in Syria" after Russia and China thwarted Western efforts to pass a U.N. Security Council resolution on Syria.
"To that end we welcome the commitment by the Arab League to engage with the U.N. Secretary General at the earliest opportunity to gain the U.N.'s support to address the situation in Syria," he said.
Britain has repeatedly ruled out a military attack on Syria.
Assad, who inherited power from his father in 2000, said in an interview this month that he would continue the crackdown and blamed the unrest on outside pressure to "subjugate Syria."
Many Arab leaders have become increasingly concerned by a series of "Arab Spring" revolts that have toppled the rulers of Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.
MERCHANT CLASS
A Western diplomat said Assad could for now count on support from China and Russia at the United Nations but that the two countries may change position if Assad heightens the crackdown and if the Arab League campaigns for international intervention.
China and Russia have oil concessions in Syria. Moscow also has a mostly disused naval base in the country and military advisers to the Syrian army.
"The sanctions are likely to lose Assad support among those in Syria who have been waiting to see whether he will be able to turn things around, such as merchants who could now see their businesses take more hits," the diplomat said.
The president of the Union of Arab Banks, a division of the Arab League, said Sunday the sanctions would hit Syria's central bank, which has "big deposits" in the region, especially the Gulf.
Arab ministers were spurred to action by worsening violence in Syria and by the Assad government's failure to meet a deadline to let in Arab monitors and take other steps to end its crackdown on the uprising.
Syrian official media quoted an undated letter by Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem to the Arab League as saying Damascus viewed the plan for monitors as interference in its affairs.
The League has been galvanised by pressure from Gulf Arabs, already angry at Syria's alliance with regional rival Iran, by the political changes brought about by Arab uprisings, and by the scale of the Syrian bloodshed.
Along with peaceful protests, some of Assad's opponents are fighting back. Army defectors have loosely grouped under the Syrian Free Army and more insurgent attacks on loyalist troops have been reported in the last several weeks.
Officials blame the violence on armed groups targeting civilians and its security forces and say 1,100 security force members have been killed.
(Additional reporting by Yasmine Saleh in Cairo; editing by Elizabeth Piper)
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Analysis: Syria's neighbors may soften sanctions blow
Turkish, Syrian, Lebanese and Saudi Arabian flags flutter atop a car driving past Lebanese policeman and army soldiers during a mass rally organized by the Future Movement in the northern city of Tripoli, November 27, 2011.
Credit: Reuters/ Omar Ibrahim
By Dominic Evans and Suleiman Al-Khalidi
BEIRUT/AMMAN | Sun Nov 27, 2011 3:39pm EST
BEIRUT/AMMAN (Reuters) - Arab states have landed a hefty blow on Syria's crisis-hit economy by stopping deals with its central bank and halting investment, but unease among Syria's neighbors about the impact of sanctions on their own economies may weaken the impact.
At their meeting in Cairo on Sunday, Arab League foreign ministers also agreed to freeze assets related to President Bashar al-Assad's government and impose a travel ban on top Syrian officials in response to Assad's crackdown on eight months of protests.
Syria's economy is already expected to contract up to 6 percent this year. The unrest has halted tourism -- a major source of foreign revenue -- hit foreign investment and trade and started eating into the country's foreign reserves.
European Union sanctions on Syrian crude oil, announced in September, have all but wiped out exports worth up to $400 million a month, at least until Syria finds other customers for its oil.
Sunday's announcement by the Arab League fell short of a full trade embargo on Syria, and ministers have made clear they sought to avoid measures which would hurt ordinary Syrians.
"But boycotting the Central Bank of Syria, which used to offer credit notes (for trade), would make imports and exports very difficult for Syrian traders," said Chris Phillips of the Economic Intelligence Unit.
However he added it was difficult to see Lebanon or Iraq implementing sanctions.
Lebanon, which has close political and business ties with Syria, voted against them, as did Iraq. Baghdad had said before the meeting that it would not impose sanctions.
"Iraq has reservations about this decision. For us, this decision ... will harm the interests of our country and our people as we have a large community in Syria," Iraqi Deputy Foreign Minister Labeed Abbawi said.
Lebanon has sent mixed messages about whether it would participate in sanctions. Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour said last week Beirut would not take steps against Syria, but Prime Minister Najib Mikati said on Thursday his government would implement Arab League decisions, whatever its misgivings.
Bankers in Jordan and Lebanon said it would take time to assess the impact of Sunday's decision, as details were sketchy and states might implement the measures differently.
"The picture is not clear but it could really make doing business with Syria very difficult," said one Jordanian banker.
A leading Lebanese banker declined to comment on Sunday until he had discussed the implications with other banks.
Several Lebanese banks have units in Syria, set up in recent years after Assad lifted restrictions on private banking operations. Most of the larger Syrian private banks have already been hit by sharp falls in customer deposits.
SAUDI BANK PULLS OUT
In a sign of the tumbling regional confidence over Syria, a Saudi bank said on Saturday it planned to sell its stakes in two Syrian and Lebanese banks because financial risks no longer allowed it to continue as a partner there.
Banque Saudi Fransi said it will sell its 27 percent stake in Bemo Saudi Fransi Syria and its 10 percent share in Bemo Lebanon.
While the bank said its decision was a financial one, Gulf states have taken the lead in acting against Assad, in contrast to some of Syria's Arab neighbors.
Phillips said 25 percent of Syria's exports go to Iraq, while RBS economist Raza Agha said 30 percent of Lebanon's exports head for Syria -- the only country with which Lebanon has an open land border -- illustrating how intertwined their economic fates are.
"Lebanon is very hostile to closing down that avenue (to Syria)," Phillips said. "Iraq certainly benefits from the relationship and they aren't keen to implement anything."
A banker in Jordan whose bank also operates in Syria also suggested some countries might drag their feet.
"If every country starts saying it has special considerations then I expect the move will be more symbolic than practical. Countries will try to find a way out of it," he said.
"It will be a step by step approach, but will no doubt have a negative impact on both the Syrian and Jordanian economies."
Jordan's King Abdullah is the only Arab leader so far to have called for Assad to step down and a Jordanian official said economic losses were a price the had to be paid for increasing the pressure on Assad.
"Of course there will be economic pain in the sort term and some Jordanian importers and exporters will suffer because of the cut of ties with Syria," he said. "But political considerations outweigh the economic losses."
Turkey, which is Syria's largest trading partner with bilateral trade worth $2.5 billion last year, also attended Sunday's Arab League meeting, and Foreign Minister Ahmed Davutoglu said Ankara would act in unison with Arabs.
Ankara has said it is weighing new transport routes to other Middle East markets that would bypass Syria. But an official said last week it had decided against cutting electricity supplies to Syria because of the impact it would have on ordinary Syrians.
(Writing by Dominic Evans; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
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Saif Gaddafi: a monster of our own making
With Muammar Gaddafi’s son likely to face trial in Libya, we look at the shameful roles that British academics and politicians played in giving him respectability.
'The Engineer’: the captured Saif al-Islam Gaddafi in disguise as a jihadi rebel Photo: Ismail Zitouni/Reuters
By Michael Burleigh
7:30AM GMT 26 Nov 2011
140 Comments
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi’s fingers may have been his undoing. At the height of the uprising that toppled the Gaddafi family kleptocracy, Saif used his forefinger to warn the “jihadist rats” that they faced retribution from his lunatic father.
Isolated since last week in a Zintan prison cell, Saif’s thumb and two fingers are heavily bandaged, after the onset of gangrene. This followed injuries sustained in what he called a “Crusader Nato” airstrike on his escape convoy for, with the aid of a dense beard and a turban, Saif had recently taken to impersonating a rebel jihadi. But others claim that Saif’s vengeful captors took the first opportunity to slice off the wagging fingers with a commando knife.
There will probably be one final incarnation of Engineer Saif – as he was portentously addressed by Tony Blair – when he faces the trial of his life in a country that still has the death penalty. For the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has pronounced himself satisfied that Saif, who threatened to engulf the rebels in “rivers of blood” while brandishing a machinegun, will get a fair trial in Libya.
Inevitably, this will be followed avidly by the world’s media, which has no doubt already begun its search for a phrase to match “the banality of evil” coined during the Eichmann trial. In Saif’s case, words like “hollow man” or “spoiled playboy thug” come to mind.
Although the nature of Saif’s character may be clear, many prominent figures in Britain eagerly accepted, and in large part created, a delusional simulacrum of him: Saif the modernising reformer, a latterday Edward VIII in what was not a hereditary monarchy.
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This is merely a modernised version of the delusions many elite Britons maintained towards “noble” Bedouins in the days of Empire, for weren’t they simply autocratic squires in flowing robes? Class always trumped race.
Ignoring Saif’s vulgar interest in pet lions and high-class call girls, his Western admirers lapped up his almost parodic capacity to walk their walk and talk their talk.
For having become bored of engineering – which he studied in Tripoli in the early 1990s – Saif decided to dabble in business (an MBA was awarded by an outfit in Vienna for an unintelligible thesis written in 2000) and the vacuous nostrums of “globalisation”.
He alighted upon the London School of Economics, mainly because one of its recent directors, Lord (Anthony) Giddens, had already pronounced upon the moral health of the Gaddafi regime after it had renounced support for terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.
Bringing Gaddafi père in from the cold in 2004 was the career highlight of the senior MI6 personality Sir Mark Allen, a romantic Arabist who went on to advise BP while dabbling in academia – including the LSE’s own grandly named Ideas centre. Allen was reportedly at the heart of the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the convicted Lockerbie bomber, following which BP was awarded contracts. The future chairman of the LSE’s governors was BP’s chairman at the time.
The greedy machinations at a leading British university are perhaps the least surprising aspect of Saif’s saga. The LSE has been accused of easing the rules to accommodate people with sub-standard English for years, as long as, like Saif, they could pay its exorbitant foreign fees. It is basically a finishing school for rich Eurotrash.
The guru behind New Labour’s market socialist “Third Way”, Giddens gave a major part of the game away when he boasted that Muammar Gaddafi had talked with him for three hours, rather than the 30 minutes usually reserved for world leaders. Saif’s mentor at LSE, as he worked on a PhD thesis The Role of Civil Society in the Democratization of Global Governance, was Prof David Held, with whom Giddens had founded the highly lucrative Polity Press. The allegedly “collective” authorship of this thesis is the subject of a University of London investigation. Upon its conclusion, Lord Woolf’s separate inquiry into the LSE’s dealings with the Gaddafis may or may not be made public.
For in 2009 the LSE Council accepted a donation of £1.5 million from the Gaddafi International Charity and Development Fund, chaired by Saif and with Held on the board of trustees. Warnings from the resident “holy fool” Prof Fred Halliday – who would go off to tend a bar in Barcelona in his retirement – were considered and ignored. LSE Enterprise also accepted £2.2 million to train Libyan civil servants, part of a bonanza that rained on several other British universities and the SAS, who trained elite Libyan troops.
A podgy little man who has since decamped to Durham University, Held played host when in May 2010 his “friend” Saif delivered the Ralph Miliband lecture. This celebrates the obscurantist tenured Marxist radical sociologist who fathered Labour leader Ed and brother David.
Looking directly at Saif, Held praised his respect for “human rights” and his belief in “dialogue, debate and peaceful negotiations”. Saif smiled modestly at this fustian guff, before delivering a talk which duly recycled Held’s own academic vacuities back to him.
That December, the LSE hosted the Brother Leader himself, beamed into Houghton Street by video link from Tripoli. Gaddafi called the Lockerbie bombing a “fabrication and creation” of Thatcher and Reagan, which did not deter his young academic hostess from presenting him with an LSE stamped baseball cap to mark this great occasion. Her words could have been scripted by seniors too cowardly to appear themselves.
Academics have always leached upon power. They were attracted to the Nazis and Soviets like moths to a flame, because such regimes dealt in implementing big, bold schemes – such as wiping out populations. No wonder they are tantalised by ideas like “global governance”.
But Saif al-Islam Gaddafi was also taken up by people who are much more worldly operators than such ambitious academic pimps as Giddens and Held. Even Princes Charles and Andrew were co-opted in a “meet and greet” role as Saif toured our little Ruritania.
Tony Blair continues to regard his “deal in the desert” with Gaddafi as a high point of his foreign policy. How convenient that the former PM’s lucrative portfolio of careers after he left office enabled him to continue meeting the Colonel. Was he wearing his Quartet peace-broking hat? Or the £2 million a year one he wears for JP Morgan? Was he checking that “mad dog” was still defanged, or did the talks revolve around Russian aluminium investments and the development of luxury tourist resorts?
And what did the likes of Peter Mandelson, Nathaniel Rothschild or Oleg Deripaska discuss with Saif, when they entertained him on a shoot or aboard Deripaska’s yacht off Corfu? For sure, Saif was just another extremely wealthy man – Libya’s Investment Authority was worth £65 billion and had Jacob Rothschild on its board – but there was also the frisson of ruthlessness attached to the family name. How revealing that some compared Saif with Michael Corleone in the Godfather trilogy: the modernising don reluctantly dragged back into murder and mayhem.
For the most depressing thing about Saif’s squalid story is what it reveals about everyday corruption in a country that loves to moralise its way through the world, dispensing praise and censure to all and sundry.
In reality, Britain’s elites have become everyone’s pliable whore, whether Russian oligarchs or Middle Eastern autocrats. If Saif gets a trial, then we should all hope that a harsh light is shone on his elite British friends, for you can bet that not much will be revealed by the inquiries of the likes of Lord Woolf.
And before anyone imagines that this tale is restricted to New Labour, let’s not forget that Tory grandee Charles Powell is the chairman of Magna Holdings, which built Gaddafi Towers in Tripoli. The name will have changed by now, but the pathologies in Britain it reveals haven’t.
***
Showing 1-25 of 142 comments
Benjaminus Carmonius
5 minutes ago
Interesting article. But I don't get it... The author is having a dig at so many people although his main target is Saif. What is he saying exactly. "A monster of our own making". OK so Saif is a "monster", but what is the definition of monster ? so he dabbled in business, did a degree at LSE and wrote a thesis about globalisation that the author thought was quite poor... He also met Tony Blair and talked about business deals. I still don't get it... Tony is being criticised here because he did peaceful deals with Libya rather than bomb Libya into submission? But then that makes Saif a monster but Tony is not a monster, just a slightly bad guy who made a mistake. Its all very confusing: academic establishments are rotten because they allowed him to get a degree, but he's a monster because he actually got a degree. Saif was a teenager when Lockerbie happened. He certainly didn't do it, maybe he genuinely also believed that his father hadn't done it too, after all there was a lack of evidence there at the time...
OK, finally it makes sense. The author is saying that "a monster of our own making" but what he means is "a monster of my own making" because he wrote an article about him calling him a monster, therefore he has MADE him into a monster. Or maybe it's because he didn't betray his family and turn against his monster father. Are we trying to promote treason and disloyalty as a Western virtue by insisting that people like Said should turn against their side during a civil war? It takes courage to fight against NATO and to be loyal to their side - he could have easily surrendered and betrayed his companions, but he didn't, he put up a fight. Surely Saif is a prisoner of war and should be protected by the Geneva Convention rather than be subjected to this unknown person Burgley's type of hype ?
Dputamadre
33 minutes ago
1/2 Repeated Comment. ( with Fixed Links)
Why Media Celebrat Libya-Cruelty as Human Rights/ Freedom and Democracy? ... Cruelty Rights is the new Fashion?
Emblematic of the most GROTESQUE Collective Praxis! WATCH at the end!
http://f-se.blogspot.com/2011/...
Other ex. Of The Praxis of That Glorifided Benghazi poor ppl! Pls Wath what MEDIA HIDED FROM US!
http://f-se.blogspot.com/2011/...
~ Documentary ( french) But You can watch & compare with London riots and loots. In Libya they Just LOOT LIVES not Goodies!
http://f-se.blogspot.com/2011/...
- Other Documentary ( french) Watch How Paeceful were Benghazy PPL - Compare with Lndon riots & Loots! CRUELTY is their Peace-Praxis! PLS WATCH Bcs Media just Show Gaddafi Houses decorations.
http://f-se.blogspot.com/2011/...
UNDERSTAND WHY Muammar Gaddafi Had a Holy-Death! Muammar Gaddafi had Luck! Watch what Holy-Glorifided rebels did with Soldiers and civilians.
http://f-se.blogspot.com/2011/...
http://f-se.blogspot.com/2011/...
WHERE WAS MEDIA REPORTING THIS? I Tell You Writing SPAM & LIEs! PROMOTING CRUELTY as Human Praxis!
Benghazy ppl Expelled Black PPL in 11 of November. Planet earth get 1 more refugee camp! Where was Media and renowned Journalists? Pls!Stop this Criminls! This Criminal Triangle: MEDIA+ NTC + NATO! WE ARE HUMANNS.
As the nobel Prize of Literature, Jose Saramago wrote " Who don't Punish Cruelty colaboret with It" Pls Top this Media criminlas! We Humans are able to do Better. SAIF al ISLAM is a GOOD MAN!
See What NATO DID To PROTECT All This:
http://f-se.blogspot.com/2011/...
PS.: Saif al-Islam don't need any favor of anyone to be respected! Saif is a Good Man. So Shut Up the Lies & Spam campagn! Write about what really matter! a Humanity of Citizens, stop to sponsor that "Unhumnity of-Consumers
YvesLaPointe
Today 07:40 AM
"The greedy machinations at a leading British university are perhaps the least
surprising aspect of Saif’s saga. The LSE has been accused of easing the
rules to accommodate people with sub-standard English for years, as long as,
like Saif, they could pay its exorbitant foreign fees. It is basically a
finishing school for rich Eurotrash".
The problem is that this desperate search for funding has brought foreign students with a minimal grasp of English to all universities, not just the LSE, so it is wrong to single out one institution when the whole lot turn a blind eye to people who in the end rely on other people to write their theses (you can buy these services on numerous websites that offer theses, dissertations, report and essay writing). The university sector has been desperate for money since 1981 and can't survive without foreign students, if it imposed high standards of English courses would have to close, university income would fall, which with the potential loss of UK students declining to enrol because of the cost of fees, will deliver the Conservative Party's dream which is to shut down a third of England's universities. As for research centres funded from abroad, shut them down because of the political caracter of their backers and you will accelerate the decline even more.
______ Olie
Today 08:03 AM
Im terribly sorry, but all I could think of was the name "Pol Pot" while I glanced at your introduction that called for a degree of caution to be exercised regarding Universities swirling the plug hole. (and this all done via the power of Internet).
Why should the English people, who, walk the walk and talk the talk care about bourgeoisie toyboxes being locked tight? Recommended by 0 person
silvaticus
Today 07:27 AM
New Labour’s market socialist “Third Way” was not socialist at all, it was the economics of fascism
ineluctable2u
Today 07:24 AM
I don't think I have read anything quite so strong in a broadsheet. The thesis : our elites are ineffably corrupt and as a result created this monster because they were blinded by their own self-interest that he could buy- is apparently correct- as in, right on the money ( sorry) ...
Not sure about some of the personal swipes at people like Miliband who had absolutely no part in this kind of behaviour. I wonder if this Burleigh could have landed himself in hot water over this. If this respected academic were my father, he would have.
Furthermore, some of the people he draws into this are not necessarily corrupt at all but he has decided they are without providing any evidence whatsoever. The politicians are self-evident and we know of their apparent malfeasance and definite moral judgement failure, but others like Powell, for example, what exactly is he guilty of? He was commissioned to build a building , and...?
tilak
Today 06:37 AM
The LSE is run by nasty little men of no discernible merit who utter phrases about academic staff like 'just a face, one goes, another comes'! Giddens was the worst, slimy is too kind a description, but a masterful performer, spewing endless vacuities that impressed semi-literates like Blair and Brown. And the late Fred Halliday was no saint either, eagerly golfing with Arab ambassadors and thoroughly cheesed off for not being allowed to head a petro-dollar funded Arab 'research' unit! Anti-semitism was barely below the surface and vicious Islamist students and their hate sentiments tolerated because of donations by Jew-baiting Arab potentates for grand auditoriums, etc
oldfashioned
Today 05:22 AM
The cynic in me wonders whether he'll live long enough to be brought to trial. Accidents do happen
maximumrider
Today 04:02 AM
words fail me. i attended the London School of Economics in the 1980's. It turns my stomach to know that the school, along with some of it's professors, made whores of themselves for a dictator and his evil son.
why should the investigation be kept secret? why is it that when the elite commit crimes, a massive cover up always manifest itself? what is hidden, is always revealed at some point.
it's not just the university that whored after this family. so did prince charles. you would think he would know better, but charles will whore himself out to for a freebie. he's no different than his former sister n law in that regard-he loves obtaining for free what he can easily pay for.
cr
Today 03:00 AM
Mr Burleigh,
The purpose and the integrity of the Fourth Estate lives in your words.
This article deserves world attention, for its honesty, research and cold hard truth.
Pity it will disappear too soon; an inconvenient truth
W_Smith
Today 01:39 AM
Well said, Michael Burleigh.
"..Britain's elite have become everyone's pliable whores.."
That's it in a nutshell.
We have young men dying in Afghanistan while both right and left wing politicians kow-tow to every credit card carrying Arab muslim who flys into London to party
______YvesLaPointe
Today 07:43 AM
I wonder how many Chinese students who could barely say hello are walking around Shanghai with a PhD in maths from Cambridge? You single out the Arabs yet fewer Arabs are coming here for education than was true in the 1970s and 1980s; its a business, not education
____________ seethru
Today 09:44 AM
Your ignorance beggars belief. This article has nothing to do with Chinese students or Cambridge University, yet you deem fit to libel both the students and an internationally respected institution. Are you suggesting it is easy is for them to cheat and buy a PhD in Mathematics from the university with rudimentary command of English?
Universities in the UK should be flattered that a lot of wealthy Chinese are sending their children, at great expense, for their higher education. The parents see this as an investment, not for their children to live a life of Riley in UK.
____________ YvesLaPointe
Today 02:03 PM
Such naivete -I have direct experience of foreign students whose abilities in their own language are outstanding, but whose level of writing in English is equivalent to an eight year old. The point I was making is that the LSE is not unique in needing foreign students money, and not unique in admitting students whose English, frankly, isn't good enough for degrees. The purchase of written work is done through various websites which you can find, I know of at least three in the UK. You can even sign up and do paid work for them, if you feel like writing someone's essays or drafting their PhD. Its all about money
Olie
Today 01:38 AM
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” Eleanor Roosevelt
islamictruth
Today 12:09 AM
At last, a journalist who has dares speak the truth: Britain's foreign policy has been driven since the 1930s by notions that islam and arabic are in some way "mystical" and lovely. Courageous. Please keep up your accurate and informative articles.
robnorthlondon
Today 12:05 AM
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-1...
4 March 2011
'BBC News - LSE director Sir Howard Davies resigns over Libya links',
" LSE director Sir Howard Davies resigns over Libya links "
Sometimes even the BBC gets it right.
Andrew Nichols
Yesterday 11:26 PM
monster...Nazis .... yadda yadda!
Where was this commentary a year or two back when Libya was being feted so much and his academic honours handed out, when his dad was torturing rendered the rendered enemies of Britain and Uncle Sam in TWOT ? Oh that's right he was flavour of the month then and we didnt need to know of all the bad stuff....nothing to see here!...please move on....!
Now after we have put the other guys in power the Gadhaffis are deemed to be the bad guys again and we must all fall in line...
Any wonder why an incresing number of us find your coverage of Middle east stuff such hypocritical twaddle?
Free press? Yep - Free to print what the establishment need us to hear!
Iris Arum
Yesterday 11:08 PM
Instead of looking at the "shameful" role of British politicians in giving Saif Gaddafi "respectability", as if the world would care about the "moral standards" set by Tony Blair's emulators anyway, look instead into the mass murder, the dozens of thousands of innocent Libyan civilians, bombed and shattered on decision of these same virtuous politicians.
waverley
Yesterday 10:35 PM
It's refreshing to read something which discusses real issues & poses serious questions which should be of concern to all of us. What we can be sure of is that the Establishment will not join the debate nor will it give us the facts as they know it. Nor I suspect will they turn up at his trial as character witnesses.
davetweedle
Yesterday 10:25 PM
The Telegraph editor recommends this propaganda?
Did I access it via his News section?
April the First retimed for some reason
bruce_l
Yesterday 09:46 PM
Poor Saif. He is like Jesus. Nothing has change since that time. Innocent man will be executed again. The similar fate. The similar charges.
This world will never be better and we wil be not better too
______tomkyle
Today 07:13 AM
You need to change your medication or if this is really just your ignorance manifest- read about the true story of Libya and Saif al-Islam's involvement.
______ cufflink
Yesterday 10:45 PM
@bruce_I. I assume you are being ironic? If not you are a fool. A real idiot. And I'm not religious.
____________ bruce_l
Yesterday 11:15 PM
Medice, cura te ipsum
_______________
What do you think ?
Các anh chị nghĩ thế nào, có ý kiến phê bình gì qua bài viết " Saif Gaddafi: a monster of our own making" và 25 Ý kiến phê bình từ "142 Comments" của đọc giả ?
Các anh chị có suy nghĩ, nhận định gì qua câu "mở đầu" của bài viết : "With Muammar Gaddafi’s son likely to face trial in Libya, we look at the shameful roles that British academics and politicians played in giving him respectability." ? , tại sao tác giả Michael Burleigh cho đó là "the shameful roles" ?
Và qua bài viết " Saif Gaddafi: a monster of our own making" trên cũng như những Ý kiến phê bình, những người dân VN BỊ MẤT NƯỚC vào tay bè lũ phản quốc CƯỚP NƯỚC DIỆT CHỦNG BÁN NƯỚC Việt gian thổ phỉ đảng cộng sản VN học thêm bài học kinh nghiệm gì nữa cho Công Cuộc Tranh Đấu LẬT ĐỔ bè lũ cầm quyền thú vật ĐỘC tài bạo ác cộng sản VN , GIÀNH lại Quyền làm chủ đất nước VN cho dân tộc VN và xây dựng Một nước VN Tự Do Dân Chủ để vươn lên cùng thế giới ??? .
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog"
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
28112011
___________
CSVN là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
Arab League set to vote on sanctions against Syria
The Arab League is set to vote Sunday on sweeping sanctions against Syria, which could include halting co-operation with the nation's central bank and stopping flights to the country.
Demonstrators protest against Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in Hula, near Homs earlier this month Photo: REUTERS
9:31AM GMT 27 Nov 2011
The Telegraph
The 22-nation body will vote on the recommendations at the group's headquarters in Cairo.
If the Arab League were to go ahead with the move, it would be a huge blow for a regime that considers itself a powerhouse of Arab nationalism.
Syria is facing mounting international pressure to end the bloody crackdown on the uprising against President Bashar Assad, which the U.N. says has killed more than 3,500 people. The European Union and the United States have imposed several rounds of sanctions against Assad and his regime, including a ban on the import of Syrian oil.
The state-owned Al-Thawra newspaper ran a front-page headline Sunday saying the Arab League is calling for "economic and commercial sanctions targeting the Syrian people."
The measure is "unprecedented and contradicts the rules of Arab co-operation," the paper said.
Related Articles
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Libya’s offers weapons to Syrian rebels - 25 Nov 2011
Syria: 11 security force members killed by army defectors in Homs - 24 Nov 2011
Syria: France to propose humanitarian corridor - 23 Nov 2011
Since the revolt began, the regime has blamed armed gangs acting out a foreign conspiracy for the bloodshed.
It is not clear whether Arab sanctions would succeed in pressuring the Syrian regime into putting an end to the violence that has claimed the lives of dozens of Syrians, week after week. Many fear the violence is pushing the country toward civil war.
Until recently, most of the bloodshed was caused by security forces firing on mainly peaceful protests. But there have been growing reports of army defectors and armed civilians fighting Assad's forces – a development that some say plays into the regime's hands by giving government troops a pretext to crack down with overwhelming force.
On Sunday, activists reported fierce clashes in the flashpoint city of Homs, in central Syria, pitting soldiers against army defectors.
Many of the attacks against Syrian security forces are believed to be carried out by a group of army defectors known as the Free Syrian Army.
The Arab League's recommendations for sanctions specified that the Arab bloc will assist Syria with emergency aid through the help of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent, working with local civilian groups to deliver goods.
Syrian neighbours Iraq and Lebanon already have expressed reservations about the sanctions.
Syria is a geographical and political keystone in the heart of the Middle East, bordering five countries with whom it shares religious and ethnic minorities and, in Israel's case, a fragile truce. Its web of allegiances extends to Lebanon's powerful Hizbollah movement and Iran's Shiite theocracy.
Also Sunday, Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh acknowledged that 100 Syrian military and police deserters have taken refuge in the kingdom throughout the uprising. It was the first official public confirmation that Jordan hosts Syrian defectors.
In September, officials said privately that Jordan had received 60 Syrian army and police deserters, who ranged in rank from corporal to colonel.
Judeh told The Associated Press that the Syrian soldiers and policemen, whom he claimed were conscripts rather than officers, had arrived in batches over the last eight months.
Many Syrians fleeing President Bashar Assad's crackdown have also sought refuge in neighbouring Turkey.
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog"
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
27112011
___________
CSVN là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
Syria buries pilots as Arab sanctions loom
CBC News Posted: Nov 27, 2011 1:17 AM ET
Last Updated: Nov 27, 2011 1:22 AM ET
Relatives of one of the six elite pilots who the Syrian military said were killed in an ambush on Thursday mourn his death during a funeral procession on Saturday. (Bassem Tellaw/Associated Press)
Related Links
Arab League discusses Syria sanctions
SPECIAL REPORT: Trouble in Syria
MAP: Crackdown in Syria Syria will find out Sunday whether it will be hit with a raft of sanctions from the Arab League over the the Assad government's handling of months of bloody street protests.
If the Arab League were to go ahead with the move, it would be a huge blow for a regime that considers itself a powerhouse of Arab nationalism.
Syria buried 22 members of the armed forces Saturday, including six elite pilots, as the government reinforced its message that the eight-month-old revolt against President Bashar Assad is the work of terrorists and foreign agents, not patriotic Syrians seeking reform.
But with no sign of violence abating, an Arab League committee agreed Saturday on a draft of recommended sanctions against Syria, including halting co-operation with the nation's central bank and stopping flights to the country. The 22-nation body will vote on the recommendations Sunday in Cairo.
Syria is facing mounting international pressure to end the bloody crackdown on the uprising against Assad's rule that the United Nations says has killed more than 3,500 people. The European Union and the United States have imposed several rounds of sanctions against Assad and his regime, including a ban on the import of Syrian oil.
"U.S. and European sanctions are one thing, but coming from the Arab brothers and sisters, it is psychologically and realistically much more damaging," said Nikolaos van Dam, a former diplomat and Middle East scholar.
Still, there is widely held skepticism the Arab sanctions would succeed in pressuring the Syrian regime into putting an end to the violence that has claimed the lives of dozens of Syrians, week after week. Many fear the violence is pushing the country toward civil war.
Until recently, most of the bloodshed was caused by security forces firing on mainly peaceful protests. But there have been growing reports of army defectors and armed civilians fighting Assad's forces, a development that some say plays into the regime's hands by giving government troops a pretext to crack down with overwhelming force.
Fierce clashes
Activists said fierce clashes took place Friday and Saturday between the Syrian military and army defectors, who have grown increasingly bold in attacking troops and security targets.
At least 13 civilians were killed Saturday, 12 of them in the flashpoint Homs province, activist groups said. The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 10 soldiers were killed in overnight clashes with defectors in the country's east.
Since the revolt began, the regime has blamed armed gangs acting out a foreign conspiracy for the bloodshed. In a bid to reinforce that message, the Syrian Information Ministry took Syrian journalists to Homs for the funeral of 17 members of the armed forces killed recently in various attacks, including the six pilots and four technical officers who were killed in Thursday's ambush.
Syria has barred foreign journalists and prevented independent reporting, making escorted trips the only official way to cover events within the country.
***
Abduction alleged
An Egypt-based Syrian opponent of Assad's regime said Saturday his pregnant wife, 25, was abducted by Syrian intelligence agents in Cairo, then released and left unconscious on a street in the Egyptian capital. The Syrian Embassy in Egypt strongly denied the claim.
Thaer al-Nashef said he received an anonymous text message saying the abduction was meant to teach him "not to insult your masters again."
Al-Nashef worked as a correspondent for Syria's SANA state news agency until 2006, when he became a regime opponent. He has lived in Egypt since 2007 and has been a vocal critic of the regime, appearing often on Egyptian TV stations to discuss the uprising.
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog"
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
27112011
___________
CSVN là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
