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Teaching Syria: news and resources round up
Syria was pushed back into the headlines this week, following a new report and comments from David Cameron. We pull together the news and resources that will help you explain the issues to your students
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Emily Drabble
Guardian Professional, Sunday 30 September 2012 08.00 BST
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Syria is back in the headlines with the focus on schools and how they are being used as torture centres. Photograph: Lo/AFP/Getty Images
A devastating report by Save the Children pushed Syria into the headlines again this week.
David Cameron cited Save the Children's report, which said schools were being used as torture centres, when he spoke to the UN general assembly on Wednesday. He told the general assembly that the blood of Syrian children is a "terrible stain" on the reputation of the United Nations.
So, here we pull together the news, multimedia, resources and links that will help you explain the issues to your students.
Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/teacher-network/2012/sep/30/news-resources-syria?newsfeed=true
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog".
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Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
Freed Alexandra 'Pippi' Bean set to leave Libya within hours
Gemma Jones, political reporter From: AAP, News Limited Network
September 30, 2012 3:42PM
Aid worker Alexandra Bean's passport has been returned to her and she is now free to leave Libya. Source: Supplied
AUSTRALIAN aid worker Alexandra 'Pippi' Bean is likely to fly out of Libya within hours, Foreign Minister Bob Carr says.
Ms Bean, 30, was stopped for questioning by Libyan authorities at Tripoli airport on Tuesday and her passport was seized after she refused to sign a statement written in Arabic.
She was in Libya working for the International Organisation for Migration.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) today said Ms Bean's passport had now been returned to her and she was free to leave.
"It's very good news and I'm relieved for her family," Senator Carr told Network Ten.
"Her passport's been given to her and our staff will be with her until she boards the plane.
"So that's a happy outcome and I thank the Libyan government."
Senator Carr said he expected Ms Bean to fly out within hours.
"I think they're waiting for a flight now," he said.
But her brother James says he won't breathe easy until his sister is actually on a plane out of Libya.
He said his sister won't be able to leave before late tonight, Australian time, and until the plane's in the air he won't be happy.
The news came after several meetings between Australian officials and Libyan authorities yesterday.
A Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesperson thanked the UK embassy for their help on the ground in Tripoli.
"We will continue to provide Ms Bean full consular assistance and support until she departs Libya," the spokesperson said.
Earlier, senior Australian diplomat Simon Harrison touched down in Libya to provide consular assistance to the detained aid worker.
Her family in Australia had demanded that Senator Carr and DFAT do more to assist Ms Bean, including a personal visit by the minister to Tripoli.
Her mother Kate was "livid" after Senator Carr said in an interview on Thursday that her daughter "doesn't require further assistance."
Mr Harrison, who is a senior Cairo-based Australian consular official, was been on the ground in Tripoli for several hours and had already met once with Ms Bean, a DFAT spokesperson said.
Consular staff in Canberra are also in regular touch with Ms Bean's family.
Opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Julie Bishop first suggested Britain, which has sufficient security in the wake of the murder of US Ambassador Chris Stevens, be called in.
"It is the messages that has been given to Alexandra's family that has been troubling. First they were told there was nobody there, then they were told somebody was going but they couldn't get a visa," Ms Bishop said.
"Then they said he can't leave Cairo to go to Tripoli, he hasn't got security, they had to get a security officer out of Australia. He couldn't go because he hasn't got a visa. You can imagine the family on the end of the phone. They are very distressed."
Senator Carr has said Ms Bean's case is different to lawyer Melinda Taylor, for whom he personally flew to Libya to help secure her release from where she was detained by militia.
"As in the Melinda Taylor case, it is standard practice for us to co-operate with the UK on consular cases in regions where Australia has no diplomatic representation," the DFAT spokesperson said on yesterday.
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog".
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Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
Hillary Clinton: Iran will do 'whatever it takes' to prop up Syrian 'crony'
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday that the US would send another $45 million in aid to Syrian rebels. But that pales in comparison to what Iran is doing to save President Assad.
By Howard LaFranchi, Staff writer / September 28, 2012
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks during the Friends of Syrian People Ministerial meeting as Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby (l.) sits at the Waldorf Astoria in New York Friday. Shannon Stapleton/REUTERS
WASHINGTON According to the United States, a lack of coordination among the various rebel groups taking control of growing swaths of Syria is one of their principle weaknesses.
To help remedy that, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Friday announced an additional $15 million in communications equipment to enhance cooperation among Syria’s opposition players – from rebel fighters to the new “revolutionary councils" popping up to administer local services in liberated zones.
Secretary Clinton unveiled the new aid package at a New York meeting of countries working with the Syrian opposition. And she used the meeting to call attention to the threat she said Iran poses with its deepening involvement in the Syrian civil war.
RECOMMENDED: Why no safe zone in Syria, yet? Five complications
“Let’s be very frank here,” Clinton said. “The [Bashar al-Assad] regime’s most important lifeline is Iran.”
Adding that “there is no longer any doubt that Tehran will do whatever it takes to protect its proxy and crony in Damascus,” she urged Syria’s neighbors to take the necessary precautions to stop Iran from smuggling weapons and materiel into Syria through their air space or territory.
Clinton also announced $30 million in additional humanitarian aid for Syria’s beleaguered civilian population. Experts estimate that as many as 1.5 million Syrians may now be internally displaced, while soon as many as 700,000 will have left the country.
Friday’s meeting underscored how the major Western powers supporting the Syrian opposition continue to limit their aid to nonlethal military and humanitarian assistance, as well as some advisory help for civilians. By contrast, Iran and other outside players supporting President Assad are supplying him with arms and even boots on the ground.
Recently, commanders of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps bragged that they are on the ground in Syria, and US intelligence officials say Lebanon’s Hezbollah Shiite Muslim extremist organization is also operating inside Syria on Assad’s behalf, though it is not thought to be carrying out military operations there.
On the rebels’ side, countries aligned against Assad – including Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar – are said to be providing some arms, but not the heavier weaponry the rebels have been seeking.
Read more: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Foreign-Policy/2012/0928/Hillary-Clinton-Iran-will-do-whatever-it-takes-to-prop-up-Syrian-crony
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
30092012
___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
Libya attack: GOP goes after the White House, especially Susan Rice
Questions about how the Obama administration has handled the attack in Libya that killed the US ambassador on Sept. 11 have taken a harder political edge. Some Republicans say UN Ambassador Susan Rice should resign over faulty reporting of the attack.
By Brad Knickerbocker | Christian Science Monitor – 3 hrs ago .
As the presidential debates and the election approach, questions about how the Obama administration has handled the attack in Libya that killed the US ambassador on Sept. 11 have taken a harder political edge.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee says it’s a scandal worse than Watergate – that the American people “have flat-out been lied too,” as he put it on Fox News Friday.
Eric Fehrenstrom, a senior adviser to Mitt Romney’s campaign (also speaking on Fox News), says, “President Obama needs to be held accountable for his administration's attempts to mislead the American people about what happened in Benghazi.”
Rep. Peter King, chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, has called for the resignation of United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice.
Blasphemy riots: 6 examples around the world
The broader theme here (and in many other partisan and conservative blog comments) is that President Obama wasn’t just unaware of the threat in Libya and its violent outcome, but that he and his administration were purposely untruthful about what happened.
The headline on Karl Rove’s column in the Wall Street Journal this week was “Obama's Biggest Opponent Is the Truth.”
“Every day, it seems, he attempts to disqualify his opponent through deliberate and undeniable falsehoods,” Mr. Rove wrote. “This is only one side of a two-sided coin. The president can't tell the truth about his own record either.”
In predicting what he’ll be dealing with in his upcoming debates with Obama, Mr. Romney himself told “Good Morning America” earlier this month, "I think he's going to say a lot of things that aren't accurate."
The essence of the charge about Libya by Republicans is that the administration purposely tried to downplay the incident by asserting that the attack was spontaneous, prompted by riots tied to the anti-Islam YouTube video that set off protests in Egypt, Libya, and many other Muslim countries across North Africa and the Middle East.
In the days following the attack, Ambassador Rice (and others in the administration) left the impression that the attackers took advantage of the riot to quickly gather weapons and target the relatively defenseless consulate.
Only later did administration officials, including Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, acknowledge that “terrorists” – some with possible ties (or at least supported by) Al Qaeda – likely were involved.
In calling for Rice’s resignation, Rep. King told CNN Friday: “I believe that this was such a failure of foreign policy messaging and leadership, such a misstatement of facts as was known at the time … for her to go on all of those shows and in effect be our spokesman for the world and be misinforming the American people and our allies and countries around the world, to me, somebody has to pay the price for this.”
The response from Democrats in Congress and the administration is that officials in fact have been forthcoming as more intelligence became available regarding the attack on the US consulate that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other embassy personnel.
“I’m deeply disturbed by efforts to find the politics instead of finding the facts in this debate,” Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman John Kerry said in a statement. “I’m particularly troubled by calls for Ambassador Rice’s resignation. She is a remarkable public servant for whom the liberation of the Libyan people has been a personal issue and public mission.”
Also on Friday, the office of Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. issued a statement that sought both to defend the administration and also to deflect some of the criticism from the White House.
“In the immediate aftermath, there was information that led us to assess that the attack began spontaneously following protests earlier that day at our embassy in Cairo,” reads the statement, attributed to Shawn Turner, director of public affairs for the Director of National Intelligence.
“As we learned more about the attack, we revised our initial assessment to reflect new information indicating that it was a deliberate and organized terrorist attack carried out by extremists,” the statement continues. “It remains unclear if any group or person exercised overall command and control of the attack, and if extremist group leaders directed their members to participate. However, we do assess that some of those involved were linked to groups affiliated with, or sympathetic to Al Qaeda. We continue to make progress, but there remain many unanswered questions. As more information becomes available our analysis will continue to evolve and we will obtain a more complete understanding of the circumstances surrounding the terrorist attack.”
Gaining definitive information may take a while. Because of security concerns, FBI agents have yet to make their way to Benghazi from the Libyan capital of Tripoli.
Meanwhile, the political pummeling from the right continues.
Gov. Huckabee, now a Fox News host, says today’s situation is worse than President Nixon being forced from office and President Clinton being impeached in the Monica Lewinsky affair because “nobody was killed” in those earlier episodes.
Blasphemy riots: 6 examples around the world
Related stories
•In Pictures: Anger across the Muslim world
•White House pressured to tell more about Benghazi attack
•Benghazi attack: Why the White House changed its story
•Libya attack political fallout: Obama as Carter? Romney as Nixon?
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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 .
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Nguyễn Hoài Trang
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___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
Vatican in row over 'drunken tourist herds' destroying Sistine Chapel's majesty
Author Pietro Citati calls for limit on crowd numbers to preserve Michelangelo's art in Vatican City, Rome
Share 156
Email Tom Kington
The Observer, Saturday 29 September 2012 11.48 BST
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Article history
Millions surge throught the chapel every year to view Michelangelo’s famous frescoes, including The Last Judgement. Photograph: Alex Segre / Alamy/Alamy
A fierce row has broken out over the future of the Sistine Chapel, after one of Italy's most respected writers slammed it as an "unimaginable disaster" where tourists resemble "drunken herds".
Centred on the image of God reaching out to give life to Adam, the chapel ceiling is renowned as Michelangelo's masterpiece and offers a defining image of the Christian faith.
But as the crush of visitors grows year by year, this home to Michelangelo's majestic 16th-century frescoes often feels more like a packed, sweaty, and very noisy railway station.
Five million tourists surge through the chapel every year, craning their necks to get a glimpse of the scenes painted on the 130ft-long ceiling, flouting the ban on flash photography and ignoring pleas from guards to lower their voices.
In an article in Corriere della Sera, Pietro Citati, a leading literary critic and biographer, has demanded that the Vatican limit access to the chapel, claiming it would save the frescoes from damage and restore some decorum to the consecrated site.
Describing a visit, Citati claimed that "in the universal confusion, no one saw anything" and "any form of contemplation was impossible". The answer, he said, was to reduce the number of visitors drastically.
"The church needs money for its various activities, but these monstrous conditions are not possible," said the writer, a close friend of the late novelist Italo Calvino.
The manager of the Vatican museums, which include the chapel, fought back on Friday in the pages of the Holy See's daily paper, L'Osservatore Romano.
"The days when only Russian grand dukes and English lords or [American art expert] Bernard Berenson could gain access to the great masterpieces are definitely over," wrote Antonio Paolucci. "We have entered the era of large-scale tourism, and millions want to enjoy our historical culture," he said. "Limiting numbers is unthinkable."
Michelangelo set to work on the chapel ceiling in 1508 after devising the perfect scaffolding for painting his biblical scenes 20 metres off the ground. The chapel, which also features works by Botticelli, Perugino and Pinturicchio, boasts 300 figures painted across 2,500 square metres and is dominated at one end by The Last Judgment, which Michelangelo filled with nude males reportedly inspired by his visits to Rome's brothels.
Today, the chapel is used during conclaves, when cardinals huddle to select the next pope, and when the pontiff baptises babies there once a year. At all other times, it fills with the 20,000 tourists and pilgrims who form a daily queue that snakes around the Vatican walls.
Paolucci said he had tripled the number of guards to handle the crowds, but last week one guard, who declined to be named, said the chapel was undermanned. "There are two of us against thousands; you'd need 10 guards."
"When it fills up, you can feel the heat rising. We even get pickpockets in here, just like at a street market," he added.
"It's often wall to wall or worse in here," said one tour guide.
Paolucci himself sounded the alarm bell two years ago after restorers gently scrubbed what he described as "unimaginable amounts" of dirt off the frescoes while working at night, after the last tourists had left. The air extraction system designed to suck out the humid breath, sweat, skin flakes, hair, dust and pollution wafting up towards the frescoes was almost 20 years old and urgently needed replacing, he said.
Air conditioning was also needed to reduce the body heat of visitors before they even entered the room, Paolucci said, promising to publish details of plans for a new, sophisticated system in the chapel by year end.
"They should start timed visits," said Cindy Rowlett, a pensioner from Ohio, as she jostled for space. "When they do timed visits at the Met in New York it is more intimate, while this doesn't feel very religious to me."
Paolucci said because the chapel was a place of prayer, timed visits were impossible. "This chapel is a compendium of theology, a catechism in images. Could you limit access to Lourdes?" he wrote. But Citati told the Observer: "Why can't you limit numbers at a holy place if it is at risk? We are condemning it to disaster."
Amid the throng in the chapel, Steve Ferrara, a tourist from Washington DC, said it was the noise that got to him. "This is one of the greatest creations of mankind, if people want to talk they should at least whisper out of respect."
After asking a group of tourists not to sit on the marble steps at the foot of The Last Judgment, the guard watched as his colleague clapped loudly and yelled "silence please" as the hubbub grew.
"Clapping is not exactly elegant," he said, "and after a few minutes people just start talking again."
***
Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/29/sistine-chapel-tourist-row
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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 .
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Nguyễn Hoài Trang
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___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
AP Interview: Italy to Assist Libya on Security
By MARIA SANMINIATELLI Associated Press
NEW YORK September 29, 2012 (AP)
Italy will expand its economic and social commitments in Libya even as the North African country continues to battle problems that range from unsecured borders to dangerous armed groups, Italy's foreign minister said Friday.
A former colonial ruler of Libya, Italy has decades-solid trade ties with Tripoli, including extensive gas and oil interests.
"We are encouraging Libyan authorities to urgently tackle the issue of safety," Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi told The Associated Press in an interview on Friday.
He noted that Libya's weak security instability contributed to the killing of the U.S. ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, along with three other Americans in an attack on the U.S. consulate in the eastern city of Benghazi. And Libya's unsecured borders are a top priority that "must be resolved rapidly," Terzi said.
"We want to expand our partnership with this country, which is so important economically and politically," Terzi said.
He gave no details, but Italy's ties to Libya are strong.
Italy was Libya's colonial ruler in fascist times and went on to develop into Libya's largest trading partner as old resentments matured into mutually beneficial economic ties — worth €11 billion before trade was halted in February with the outbreak of civil war. Italy also is dependent on the Arab country's oil.
But Libya has suffered a big security vacuum following last year's killing of longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi and the collapse of his regime.
The void was quickly filled by local militia groups formed initially of rebel forces that fought Gadhafi's forces in an eight-month rebellion. Since then, they have grown in number and their ranks swelled with youths ready to take the law into their own hands.
"Italy is viewed by Libyans as their first point of reference in Europe," Terzi said. "We intend to increase our presence in every field."
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
30092012
___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
King calls for Rice resignation over Libya story, Kerry defends
Published September 29, 2012
FoxNews.com
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice, right, and U.S. Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., left (AP/Reuters)
A top Republican called Friday for U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice to resign over her "misleading" statements on the Libya terror attack -- escalating a brewing battle between lawmakers and the administration over the changing narrative.
Rep. Peter King, the New York Republican who heads the House Homeland Security Committee, told National Review that he thinks Rice should resign over the controversy. He was referring to her repeated claims during interviews on the Sunday after the attack that the strike was a “spontaneous” reaction to protests in Cairo over an anti-Islam film -- though officials now acknowledge it was a coordinated terror attack.
"She is America's foreign policy spokesman to the world," King said. "The fact is she gave out information which was either intentionally or unintentionally misleading and wrong, and there should be consequences for that. And I don’t see how she didn’t know how … that information was wrong.”
He called for a “full investigation.”
King’s statement, the first call by a top-ranking lawmaker for a resignation in connection with the controversy, triggered a swift response from Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who leapt to Rice’s defense. Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he was “deeply disturbed by efforts to find the politics instead of finding the facts in this debate.”
“Everyone who cares about the four fallen Americans in Benghazi would do well to take a deep breath about what happened and allow Secretary Clinton's proactive, independent investigation to proceed,” he said in a statement. “I’m particularly troubled by calls for Ambassador Rice’s resignation. She is a remarkable public servant for whom the liberation of the Libyan people has been a personal issue and a public mission. She's an enormously capable person who has represented us at the United Nations with strength and character.”
The State Department and the White House's National Security Council also have come to Rice's defense.
"During her appearances on the Sunday talk shows September 16, 2012, Ambassador Rice's comments were prefaced at every turn with a clear statement that an FBI investigation was underway that would provide the definitive accounting of the events that took place in Benghazi," State Department spokeswoman Erin Pelton said late Friday. "At every turn Ambassador Rice provided -- and said she was providing -- the best information and the best assessment that the administration had at the time, based on what was provided to (her) and other senior U.S. officials by the U.S. intelligence community."
King’s statement, though, was a sign he perhaps wasn’t satisfied by the claim by the nation's top intelligence official Friday that administration officials who initially said the attack was spontaneous did so based on intelligence officials' guidance.
The statement by Shawn Turner, spokesman for Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, was put out late Friday -- the statement appeared to take the blame for the confusion, and also marked a complete reversal from the administration’s initial claims about the origin of the strike. "As we learned more about the attack, we revised our initial assessment to reflect new information indicating that it was a deliberate and organized terrorist attack carried out by extremists," Turner said. "It remains unclear if any group or person exercised overall command and control of the attack, and if extremist group leaders directed their members to participate. However, we do assess that some of those involved were linked to groups affiliated with or sympathetic to Al Qaeda."
Turner, though, sought to explain that officials who discussed the attack as spontaneous did so based on intelligence community assessments.
"In the immediate aftermath, there was information that led us to assess that the attack began spontaneously following protests earlier that day at our embassy in Cairo," he said. "We provided that initial assessment to Executive Branch officials and members of Congress, who used that information to discuss the attack publicly and provide updates as they became available. Throughout our investigation we continued to emphasize that information gathered was preliminary and evolving."
However, sources have told Fox News that intelligence officials knew within 24 hours the attack that left the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans dead was terrorism, and that they suspected it was tied to Al Qaeda.
It's unclear, then, why the intelligence community told Executive Branch officials it was spontaneous. In the midst of the changing story, King and other Republicans have complained that they were misled by the administration. They pointed to briefings as well as Rice’s Sunday show comments.
Meanwhile, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are raising questions about security at the compound in Benghazi. All members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee wrote to the State Department on Thursday asking for additional details about security at U.S. diplomatic posts and for a fuller explanation of the attacks on U.S. compounds in Libya, Egypt and Yemen.
National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor said, "Rice has done extraordinary work at the United Nations and for the American people. The president appreciates the work she does every day, and he is looking forward to her continued work.”
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/09/29/kerry-defends-rice-against-attacks/#ixzz27tjd39DQ
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
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Nguyễn Hoài Trang
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___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
Ancient souk burns as fighting rages in Syria's Aleppo
By Erika Solomon BEIRUT | Sat Sep 29, 2012 1:32pm EDT
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Hundreds of shops were burning in the ancient covered market in Aleppo on Saturday as fighting between rebels and state forces in Syria's largest city threatened to destroy a UNESCO world heritage site.
The uprising-turned-civil war that is now raging across Syria has killed more than 30,000 people, according to activist groups such as the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
But beyond the dramatic human cost, many of Syria's historic treasures have also fallen victim to an 18-month-old conflict that has reduced parts of some cities to ruins.
Rebels fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad announced a new offensive in Aleppo, Syria's commercial hub of 2.5 million people, on Thursday, but neither side has appeared to make significant gains.
In Aleppo, activists speaking via Skype said army snipers were making it difficult to approach the Souk al-Madina, the medieval market of vaulted stone alleyways and carved wooden facades in the Old City, once a major tourist attraction.
Videos uploaded to YouTube showed dark black clouds hanging over the city skyline.
Activists said the fire might have been started by shelling and gunfire on Friday and estimated that between 700 and 1,000 shops had been destroyed so far. The accounts were difficult to verify because of government restricts on foreign media.
Aleppo's Old City is one of several locations in Syria declared world heritage sites by UNESCO, the United Nations cultural agency, that are now at risk from the fighting.
UNESCO believes five of Syria's six heritage sites - which also include the ancient desert city of Palmyra, the Crac des Chevaliers crusader fortress and parts of old Damascus - have been affected.
The British-based Observatory for Human Rights, which has a network of activists across Syria, said Assad's forces and rebels blamed each other for the blaze.
NO ONE MAKING GAINS
Heavy clashes erupted outside several military sites in Aleppo on Saturday evening. Activists said rebels were battling government forces outside the Neirab military air base.
The Observatory said clashes outside a base used for artillery training had set a nearby building alight and killed three people.
Fighting was also reported outside Bab Antakya, a stone gateway to Aleppo's Old City, which sits on ancient trade routes and survived a parade of rulers throughout its construction between the 12th and 17th century.
Rebels said they had taken the gate, but some activists said the fighting continued and neither side was truly in control.
"No one is actually making gains here, it is just fighting and more fighting, and terrified people are fleeing," said an activist contacted by telephone who declined to be identified.
He said in some districts, bodies were lying in the streets and residents would not collect them, fearing snipers.
More than 40 people had been killed in fighting across Syria, according to the Observatory.
Syria's military deadlock is also reflected diplomatically, with foreign powers stalemated over how to act. Western states and Gulf Arab countries back the opposition but most seem reluctant to interfere, while Russia, China and Iran back Assad.
The revolt against four decades of Assad family, which began in March 2011 as peaceful protests, has become an armed insurgency, with rebels holding ground in Aleppo and rural towns of northern Syria.
The fighting has crept closer to Syria's border zones, and some bullets and rockets have hit neighboring Lebanon, Iraq and Turkey. Ankara warned it would take action if its territory was again hit - a mortar bomb hit a town on its southeastern frontier on Friday.
GOVERNMENT VICTORY "CERTAIN"
An advisor to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said he was confident Syria's government would beat the rebels.
"The victory of the government of Syria against internal opponents, America, and their other Western and Arab supporters, is counted as a victory of the Islamic Republic of Iran," said Ali Akbar Velayati, according to state news agency IRNA.
"The victory of the Syrian government is certain.
Activists reported fresh clashes in the capital Damascus and its suburbs and said security forces were torching homes as helicopters buzzed overhead.
The bloodied bodies of at least 12 men were found in Damascus's northwestern suburb of Qudsaya. A video published by showed rows of men, some of them apparently shot, laid in a room whose walls were spattered with blood.
Some Damascus residents have accused government forces of summary executions in rebel districts.
"They can't arrest everyone, so they are using elimination tactics. They enter area that was held by rebels, look for people that are wanted and kill them all," one activist said.
Assad has long defended the fierce crackdown, arguing that he has been fighting Islamist militants funded from abroad.
Text messages attributed to the army were sent to all Syrian mobiles since Aleppo rebels announced their new offensive.
"To those who have implicated themselves against the state: Those who have offered you money have left you with two options: You will be killed fighting the state or it will kill you to get rid of you," one message read.
"The state is more merciful than you. Think and decide. The Syrian Army." (Editing by Kevin Liffey and Robin Pomeroy)
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Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog".
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conbenho
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Nguyễn Hoài Trang
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___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
Republicans accuse Obama of cover-up over death of Chris Stevens in Libya
Rudolf Giuliani leads Republican attack as confusion grows over circumstances of Chris Stevens' death in Benghazi
Chris McGreal
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 29 September 2012 14.31 BST
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US ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens was killed in Benghazi on 11 September. Photograph: Mahmud Turkia/AFP/Getty Images
The killing of the US ambassador to Libya is rapidly becoming election fodder, as Republicans seize on confusion over the circumstances of Chris Stevens' death in Benghazi three weeks ago and accuse the Obama administration of covering up an al-Qaeda connection.
US officials reiterated on on Friday that they regard the killing of Stevens and three other Americans working for the state department at the US consulate in Benghazi as an assault by terrorists who planned the attack. But a dearth of real information about the exact circumstances of the assault has left open the question of whether such planning was merely the work of a few hours, to take advantage of a spontaneous anti-US protest over a short internet video that prompted demonstrations across the Middle East by offended Muslims, or weeks and months, to mark the 11th anniversary of al-Qaeda's 9/11 attacks on the US.
Disagreement over that question is dividing along political lines.
Earlier this week, Republican senators wrote to the US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, demanding that she explain her statement, five days after the killings, that they were part of a spontaneous anti-US protest. Four senators signed the letter, including John McCain, which said Rice made "several troubling statements that are inconsistent with the facts and require explanation".
The former New York mayor Rudolf Giuliani, who sought the Republican nomination for the presidency in 2008, went further, accusing the White House of a cover-up.
Speaking to Fox News, Giuliani said: "This is a deliberate attempt to cover up the truth, from an administration that claimed it wanted to be the most transparent in history. And it's the worst kind of cover-up: the kind of cover-up that involves our national security. This is a cover-up that involves the slaughter of four Americans."
Rice's explanation of a spontaneous assault by a well-armed Libyan militia was maintained by the administration until 10 days ago when Matthew Olsen, director of the National Counterterrorism Centre, called the killings a terrorist attack.
Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, and the defence secretary, Leon Panetta, this week shifted away from the initial line. Clinton on Wednesday hinted that the al-Qaeda offshoot in North Africa may be tied up with the Benghazi assault.
"Now with a larger safe haven and increased freedom to manoeuvre, terrorists are seeking to extend their reach and their networks in multiple directions," Clinton told a meeting of international leaders at the UN which discussed the crisis in North Africa, including the seizure of northern Mali by armed Islamist forces. "And they are working with other violent extremists to undermine the democratic transitions under way in North Africa, as we tragically saw in Benghazi."
Administration officials were careful to say afterwards that Clinton was not claiming firm evidence of a link. Olsen was similarly cautious in speaking to senators this week.
"The picture that is emerging is one where a number of different individuals were involved, so it's not necessarily an either/or proposition," he said.
Officials say that while there is some evidence that individual members of the local militia responsible for the attack, Ansar al-Shariah, may have been in touch with extremist elements in other countries, no hard information has so far emerged of a direct foreign or al-Qaeda link to the attack in Benghazi.
The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Martin Dempsey, on Thursday said there "was a thread of intelligence reporting that groups in the environment in eastern Libya were seeking to coalesce but there wasn't anything specific". He added that there was no intelligence indicating a looming attack.
Officials say US intelligence picked up a call by a member of al-Qaeda in North Africa celebrating the attack, but that is not hard evidence of a link.
Panetta said on Thursday that there was some preplanning involved in the assault.
"As we determined the details of what took place [in Benghazi], and how that attack took place it became clear that there were terrorists who had planned that attack," he said.
But whether that was over the proceeding hours, when the militia realised it could take advantage of the existing protest outside the consulate, or over the previous days and weeks remains a question investigators are struggling to answer. At present, the Americans are unable even to establish how large the protest was and how long it went on.
Administration officials continue to maintain that if there was preplanning, it was not long term. But some Republicans argue that there is already evidence, circumstantial and otherwise, of a plot. For a start, they say it is no coincidence that the assault on the Benghazi consulate was on 11 September.
The discovery in the wrecked consulate, by CNN, of Stevens' diary has also fed claims that the White House is underplaying a broader terrorist connection. Stevens wrote that he feared he was an al-Qaeda hit list and was alarmed by his lack of security after earlier attacks on US and British targets in Benghazi and amid what he described as a growing al-Qaeda presence in Libya.
The state department's furious reaction to CNN's reporting of Stevens' fears – calling the use of non-personal information from the diary without the family's approval "disgusting" – suggested alarm in the administration at the potential damage to its denials of a conspiracy and that it will be open to criticism that it did not provide sufficient protection to the Benghazi consulate.
There are also questions about the circumstances of Stevens death and whether Libyan militias knew he was at the consulate. However, given the large footprint American diplomats make as they move around the Middle East, it would not have been difficult to discern that an important US official had arrived in Benghazi.
Giuliani said the White House was reluctant to admit al-Qaeda involvement because it wants to dismiss that threat following last year's killing of Osama Bin Laden.
"I think it's because they have this narrative that they defeated al-Qaeda," he said. "They never say the words 'Islamic fundamentalist terrorism'. They want to wish it away. The president was moving on to Asia – he was going to declare this a great victory for himself and unfortunately, this terrible act of terror intervened in their very convenient narrative."
Libya's president, Mohamed Magariaf, has also made the link by blaming "al-Qaeda elements" hiding in his country for the death of Stevens and three other Americans working for the state department.
"It was a preplanned act of terrorism directed against American citizens," Magariaf said this week.
But claims of an al-Qaeda connection has been met with scepticism by others in Libya who say it is feasible for well armed militiamen to have taken advantage of the protests outside the US consulate to launch a substantial attack.
The likelihood of a definitive explanation any time soon looks dim.
The Obama administration has said an FBI investigation will establish the facts. But the New York Times on Friday reported that the FBI team remains in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, over 400 miles away, because of fears for its safety.
Meanwhile the crime scene of the killings in Benghazi has been picked over by Libyans, who are assumed to have compromised what ever evidence there was that would have been of use to investigators.
One US law enforcement official in Tripoli told the New York Times that they may never make it to Benghazi.
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
30092012
___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
