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Showing posts with label Syria. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Syria. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

DTN News - ISRAELI DEFENSE NEWS: Israeli Soldiers Patrols On Alert Near Golan Heights Due To Syria Unrest

DTN News - ISRAELI DEFENSE NEWS: Israeli Soldiers Patrols On Alert Near Golan Heights Due To Syria Unrest  

(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - July 24, 2012: Israeli soldiers patrols near the border between Israeli annexed Syrian Golan Heights to Syria near the village of Buqaataon July 24, 2012. With the Assad regime looking closer than ever to collapse, Israel has stepped up the rhetoric against Syria, warning it could take military action if any of its advanced weapons end up in the hands of Hezbollah.

Monday, July 23, 2012

DTN News - SYRIA UNREST: Syrian Military Tank Catches On Fire During Clashes In Aleppo

DTN News - SYRIA UNREST: Syrian Military Tank Catches On Fire During Clashes In Aleppo

(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - July 23, 2012: In this image made from amateur video released by the Ugarit News and accessed Monday, July 23, 2012, a Syrian military tank catches on fire during clashes with Syrian government troops in Aleppo, Syria. 

The Syrian regime acknowledged for the first time Monday that it possessed stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and said it will only use them in case of a foreign attack and never internally against its own citizens. Aleppo, Syria's biggest city with about 3 million residents, has been the focus of rebel assaults by a newly formed alliance of opposition forces called the Brigade of Unification.

(Read complete story on Defense-Technology News - Click on link undermentioned)

DTN News - SYRIA UNREST: Syria 'Will Not Use' Chemical Weapons On Its Own People

DTN News - SYRIA UNREST:  Syria 'Will Not Use' Chemical Weapons On Its Own People

(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - July 23, 2012:  Syria has said it will not use chemical weapons against its own people, but would do so against an external attack.

Acknowledging their existence for the first time, Damascus said the weapons, stored and secured by the armed forces, would never be used "inside Syria".

Rebels have told the BBC's Paul Wood in Syria that they are encouraged by the killing of four top security officials.

But the refugee crisis has deepened, and Iraq has announced it is opening its borders to help people flee.

An estimated 1.5 million people are homeless within Syria, according to the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, which says the number is rising.

(Read complete story on Defense-Technology News - Click on link undermentioned)

Friday, July 20, 2012

DTN News - SYRIA UNREST: Assad Forces Retake Midan And Border Crossing

DTN News - SYRIA UNREST: Assad Forces Retake Midan And Border Crossing 

(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - July 20, 2012: Syria's President Bashar al-Assad (C) stands with leaders of the army, including Fahad Jassim al-Freij (front L) and Daoud Rajha (front R) at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in a ceremony to mark the 38th anniversary of the 1973 October War with Israel, in Damascus in this October 6, 2011 file handout photo released to Reuters on July 18, 2012. Syria appointed General Fahad Jassim al-Freij as defence minister, state television said, to replace Daoud Rajha who was killed in a bomb attack on Wednesday. REUTERS

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

DTN News - SYRIA UNREST: In Fleeing Pilot, Hints Of Trouble For Syria’s Assad

DTN News - SYRIA UNREST: In Fleeing Pilot, Hints Of Trouble For Syria’s Assad

(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - July 18, 2012: To escape the government he served until it gave him an order he could not obey, Capt. Akhmed Trad, a pilot in Syria’s air force, needed a plan: how to spirit himself over a border quickly, and leave no family behind.

In hurried meetings between the pilot and his parents, and indirect conversations over cellphones, evading what they worried were monitored calls, the Trad family set a time and place for everyone to meet, and fled.

Now safely in Turkey, where he is providing information to the rebels and helping them plan attacks, Captain Trad represents one of the great challenges to the government of President Bashar al-Assad and his military.

The Syrian government hails from the Alawite minority. But much of its administration and its military ability depend on Sunni bureaucrats, soldiers and officers like Captain Trad, whose alienation has been growing and whose defections risk increasing as Syria’s internal war takes on deepening sectarian tones.

(Read complete story on Defense-Technology News - Click on link undermentioned)

DTN News - SYRIA UNREST: Syrian Troops Fighting Against Syrian Rebels In Damascus

DTN News  - SYRIA UNREST: Syrian Troops Fighting Against Syrian Rebels In Damascus

(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - July 18, 2012: Syrian official news agency SANA purports to show Syrian troops fighting against Syrian rebels in the Al-Midan area of Damascus, Syria on Wednesday, July 18, 2012. 

A bomb ripped through a high-level security meeting Wednesday in Damascus, killing three top regime officials, including President Bashar Assad's brother-in-law, in the harshest blow to Syria's ruling family dynasty and the rebels' boldest attack in the country's civil war. 
(Photo - AP)

Friday, June 29, 2012

DTN News - SYRIA UNREST: Russia Halts Plans To Supply S-300 Missile System To Syria - Reports


DTN News - SYRIA UNREST: Russia Halts Plans To Supply S-300 Missile System To Syria - Reports


(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - June 29, 2012: Russia’s main weapons producer has allegedly suspended its contract with Syria to supply S-300 long-range missile systems. Russia’s ‘Vedomosti’ daily published the report, citing unnamed sources within the military-industrial complex.


The very fact of the contract’s existence was not known until it was revealed in an annual report made only last week and published online by the makers of the S-300 systems, Almaz-Antey.


The report states that the company’s largest contracts are with Algeria (which is paying $39 million for a long-range missile defense system), and Syria, which signed a contract for the same system for $105 million.


The report also says that deliveries on the Syrian contract are expected to be made between 2012 and 2013. But ‘Vedomosti’ claims two separate sources, who chose to remain anonymous, have said deliveries have been put on the back-burner “after a direct order from above.”


(Read complete story on Defense-Technology News - Click on link undermentioned)


http://defense-technologynews.blogspot.ca/2012/06/dtn-news-syria-unrest-russia-halts.html



Friday, June 22, 2012

DTN News - MID EAST HOT SPOTS: Syria Shot Down Turkish F-4 Phantom Fighter Jet

DTN News - MID EAST HOT SPOTS: Syria Shot Down Turkish F-4 Phantom Fighter Jet 

(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - June 22, 2012:  Turkey has said it believes that one of its fighter jets has been shot down by Syrian security forces.

The F-4 Phantom disappeared over the Mediterranean, south-west of Hatay province, not far from Syria's coast.

PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan said initially that "the other side have expressed regret" but later was unable to confirm what had happened.

After an emergency security meeting, his office said it was understood that Syria had brought the plane down.

In a statement, it said a search for the two crew members was under way involving Turkish and Syrian coast guard ships. Once all the circumstances were established, it added that Turkey would respond decisively

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

URGENT: NATO preparing genocide in Syria: desinformation campaign first step

URGENT







NATO preparing vast disinformation campaign


by Thierry Meyssan



Member States of NATO and the GCC are preparing a coup d’état and a sectarian genocide in Syria. If you want to prevent these crimes, you should act now: circulate this article on the Internet and alert your elected officials.



VOLTAIRE NETWORK | DAMASCUS (SYRIA) | 11 JUNE 2012





In a few days, perhaps as early as Friday, June 15, at noon, the Syrians wanting to watch their national TV stations will see them replaced on their screens by TV programs created by the CIA. Studio-shot images will show massacres that are blamed on the Syrian Government, people demonstrating, ministers and generals resigning from their posts, President Al-Assad fleeing, the rebels gathering in the big city centers, and a new government installing itself in the presidential palace.



This operation of disinformation, directly managed from Washington by Ben Rhodes, the US deputy national security adviser for strategic communication, aims at demoralizing the Syrians in order to pave the way for a coup d’etat. NATO, discontent about the double veto of Russia and China, will thus succeed in conquering Syria without attacking the country illegally. Whichever judgment you might have formed on the actual events in Syria, a coup d’etat will end all hopes of democratization.



The Arab League has officially asked the satellite operators Arabsat and Nilesat to stop broadcasting Syrian media, either public or private (Syria TV, Al-Ekbariya, Ad-Dounia, Cham TV, etc.) A precedent already exists because the Arab League had managed to censure Libyan TV in order to keep the leaders of the Jamahiriya from communicating with their people. There is no Hertz network in Syria, where TV works exclusively with satellites. The cut, however, will not leave the screens black.



Actually, this public decision is only the tip of the iceberg. According to our information several international meetings were organized during the past week to coordinate the disinformation campaign. The first two were technical meetings, held in Doha (Qatar); the third was a political meeting and took place in Riyad (Saudi Arabia).



The first meeting assembled PSYOP officers, embedded in the satellite TV channels of Al-Arabiya, Al-Jazeera, BBC, CNN, Fox, France 24, Future TV and MTV. It is known that since 1998, the officers of the US Army Psychological Operations Unit (PSYOP) have been incorporated in CNN. Since then this practice has been extended by NATO to other strategic media as well.



They fabricated false information in advance, on the basis of a “story-telling” script devised by Ben Rhodes’s team at the White House. A procedure of reciprocal validation was installed, with each media quoting the lies of the other media to render them plausible for TV spectators. The participants also decided not only to requisition the TV channels of the CIA for Syria and Lebanon (Barada, Future TV, MTV, Orient News, Syria Chaab, Syria Alghad) but also about 40 religious Wahhabi TV channels to call for confessional massacres to the cry of “Christians to Beyrouth, Alawites into the grave!.”



The second meeting was held for engineers and technicians to fabricate fictitious images, mixing one part in an outdoor studio, the other part with computer generated images. During the past weeks, studios in Saudi Arabia have been set up to build replicas of the two presidential palaces in Syria and the main squares of Damascus, Aleppo and Homs. Studios of this type already exist in Doha (Qatar), but they are not sufficient.



The third meeting was held by General James B. Smith, the US ambassador, a representative of the UK, prince Bandar Bin Sultan (whom former U.S. president George Bush named his adopted son so that the U.S. press called him “Bandar Bush”). In this meeting the media actions were coordinated with those of the Free "Syrian" Army, in which prince Bandar’s mercenaries play a decisive role.



The operation had been in the making for several months, but the U.S. National Security Council decided to accelerate the action after the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, notified the White House that he would oppose by all means, even by force, any illegal NATO military intervention in Syria.



The operation has a double intent: the first is to spread false information, the second aims at censuring all possible responses.



The hampering of TV satellites for military purposes is not new. Under pressure from Israel, the USA and the EU blocked Lebanese, Palestinian, Iraqi, Libyan and Iranian TV channels, one after the other. However, no satellite channels from other parts of the world were censured.



The broadcast of false news is also not new, but four significant steps have been taken in the art of propaganda during the last decade.

• In 1994, a pop music station named “Free Radio of the Thousand Hills” (RTML) gave the signal for genocide in Rwanda with the cry, “Kill the cockroaches!”

• In 2001, NATO used the media to impose an interpretation of the 9/11 attacks and to justify its own aggression against Afghanistan and Iraq. At that time already, it was Ben Rhodes who had been commissioned by the Bush administration to concoct the Kean/Hamilton Commission report on the attacks.

• In 2002, the CIA used five TV channels (Televen, Globovision, ValeTV and CMT) to make the public in Venezuela believe that phantom demonstrators had captured the elected president, Hugo Chávez, forcing him to resign. In reality he was the victim of a military coup d’etat.

• In 2011, France 24 served as information ministry for the Libyan CNT, according to a signed contract. During the battle of Tripoli, NATO produced fake studio films, then transmitted them via Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya, showing phantom images of Libyan rebels on the central square of the capital city, while in reality they were still far away. As a consequence, the inhabitants of Tripoli were persuaded that the war was lost and gave up all resistance.



Nowadays the media do not only support a war, they produce it themselves.



This procedure violates the principles of International Law, first of all Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights relating to the fact of receiving and imparting information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” Above all, the procedure violates the United Nations General Assembly resolution, adopted after the end of World War II, to prevent further wars. Resolutions 110, 381 and 819 forbid “to set obstacles to free exchange of information and ideas” (like cutting off Syrian TV channels) and “all propaganda provoking or encouraging threats to peace, breaking peace, and all acts of aggression”. By law, war propaganda is a crime against peace, the worst of crimes, because it facilitates war crimes and genocide.



Source: Voltaire Organization.








Thierry Meyssan
Thierry Meyssan is a French intellectual, founder and chairman of Voltaire Network and the Axis for Peace Conference. His columns specializing in international relations feature in daily newspapers and weekly magazines in Arabic, Spanish and Russian. His last two books published in English :9/11 the Big Lie andPentagate



Update: 16th June, 2012



"United Nations observers in Syria have suspended their mission, saying the conflict has shifted in the past ten days, becoming too dangerous for them to monitor."



The beginning of Thierry's article:

"In a few days, perhaps as early as Friday, June 15, at noon, the Syrians wanting to watch their national TV ..."




Monday, May 7, 2012

DTN News - SYRIA UNREST: UN Monitors Speaks With Syrian Soldiers During Visit To Syrian Military Outpost In Village Of Ain Hawr In Rif of Damascus

DTN News - SYRIA UNREST: UN Monitors Speaks With Syrian Soldiers During Visit To Syrian Military Outpost In Village Of Ain Hawr In Rif of Damascus

(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - May 7, 2012: UN monitors speaks with Syrian soldiers as they climb on top of an army tank during a visit to a Syrian military outpost in the village of Ain Hawr in the Rif of Damascus on May 6, 2012. 

Three people died in violence overnight in Damascus province, one of them shot dead by regime troops and the other two killed in a blast, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. (Photo - Getty)

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

DTN News - SYRIA UNREST: UN Moroccan Military Monitors Arrived In Damascus To Oversee Syria Ceasefire Between Assad's Government Forces And Opposition Activists

DTN News - SYRIA UNREST: UN Moroccan Military Monitors Arrived In Damascus To Oversee Syria Ceasefire Between Assad's Government Forces And Opposition Activists

(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - April 18, 2012: UN monitors who arrived in Syria earlier this week walking through the lobby of a Damascus hotel on April 17, 2012. 

Moroccan advance team leader Colonel Ahmed Himmiche (front -L) acknowledged that a hard-won UN military observer mission to oversee a Syria ceasefire will be 'difficult.' (Photo - Getty)

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

DTN News - IRAN DEFENSE NEWS: Iran Can Be A Stabilizing Factor For Mid East, Iraq And Afghanistan - Ahmadinejad Willing To Cooperate With Arab Neighbours On Gulf Security

DTN News - IRAN DEFENSE NEWS: Iran Can Be A Stabilizing Factor For Mid East, Iraq And Afghanistan - Ahmadinejad Willing To Cooperate With Arab Neighbours On Gulf Security

(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - April 17, 2012: The UN-Arab League special envoy to Syria, Kofi Annan involving Tehran and talks with senior Iranian official about unrest in Syria and hopeful on the outcome. Annan stated "Iran, given its special relations with Syria, can be part of the solution" if it helps the Assad regime to stand down.

Iran is strategically situated along the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway through which a major portion of global oil flows. Any changes or halt in oil flows can create havoc globally. 

Secondly, Iran has long borders with Iraq and Afghanistan., both the countries are facing
sectarian violence and internal insurgency with al Qaeda connections. Over the years, Afghanistan has seen NATO, ISAF and US security forces compromising from 42 countries are involved in bringing peace and stability in the land lock country. It is imperative Iran should be with coalition partners in both countries for betterment of the region.

Since 2011, it is clearly visible to USA and rest of the world that Pakistan is not a stable coalition partner to fight against terrorism in Afghanistan. 
Abbottabad raid episode; Ten years of doomed bids to capture the Al Qaeda leader haunted the operation. Countless searches in the mountains and caves of Tora Bora in Afghanistan had come to nothing, with the vast American military and CIA risking becoming a laughing stock for their failure to catch one frail old man with kidney problems. And serious doubts remained. Would the world’s most wanted man really choose to hide out in the heart of an army garrison town which is home to 400,000 people, and just half a mile from the Kakul Military Academy described as Pakistan’s equivalent of Sandhurst? The nation’s most senior army chiefs would virtually pass his door to attend events there, and the town is home to many retired members of Pakistan’s military and intelligence services – supposedly the West’s allies in the hunt for Bin Laden. On the other hand, several other Al Qaeda leaders had recently been found hiding in similarly built-up areas, in the Pakistani cities of Quetta, Karachi, Faisalabad and Rawalpindi.

It seems Pakistan were forced into the group by Bush administration's ultimatum as US official allegedly threatened to bomb Pakistan ‘back to stone age’ if it did not completely support US. The helm of Islamabad mostly were self vested in benefiting their interest ahead of the country, The present head of state Zardari is known for his deeds and is on a billionaire list, inclusive of another top ex-prime minister Nawaz Sharif. The Army has always supported jihadi elements in conjunction with Kashmir factor and proxy war.

It is high time Iran should be included in Afghanistan and Iraq to create peace and harmony in the region.

Today, April 17 2012 Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad delivers a speech alongside military commanders during the Army Day parade in Tehran. Iran will respond with force to any threats to its territorial integrity, Ahmadinejad said, adding that it would prefer to cooperate with its Arab neighbours to maintain security in the Gulf.

Obama administration should initiate the first step by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit to Tehran, cooperate and resolve pending issues on nuclear factor and respect Iran being a mature nation with credit of 5,000 years history. Iran would appreciate the gesture.


Saturday, January 7, 2012

Bella Ciao Syria


On Thursday I went to my Labour Party ward meeting. Afterwards I was speaking to a longstanding member who I hadn't realised was originally from Syria. He spoke about his distress about the massacres and slaughter that is happening in his homeland. Every day he receives emails and graphic videos with shocking images and news. At my request he sent me information and a link to a Google News Group on Syria.

I clicked on its Youtube links and was pretty horrified at what I saw. Dozens of different amateur videos showing countless people being shot, dying and dead in large pools of blood. Crying relatives and friends risking their own lives to pick up up bodies and the wounded being shot at themselves. Shaky Pictures of unidentified gunmen with telescopic rifles on the roof tops of tower blocks. Tanks firing at crowds of fleeing and unarmed civilians. Warning: this link is very, very graphic. Mainstream media just cannot show these pictures. Simply and utterly dreadful. Words (for once) fail me.

Hat-tip for Youtube video above to TheTollundWoman (not graphic)

Saturday, October 22, 2011

#Uint11 The Arab Spring - Update on the Middle East and North Africa

Sat pm: Last presentation was by Nick Crook, UNISON International Officer, followed by a film on Labour Rights in Egypt.

Nick reported that this is a new area of work for UNISON.  We use to work on Palestine and Iraq (and to a lesser extent Iran).  No real mandate  before Conference this year. 
It is called the  “Arab Spring” but also involves North Africa. Events are ongoing. Not only in Libya (Gaddifi was killed only 2 days before) but in Syria and Egypt things are still very much a process. The Army remains in control in Egypt.

A key factor has been social and economic conditions. The role of trade unions has been a core theme. There were marked differences in the region beforehand with regard to unions.  Some such as Tunisia had powerful free trade unions, others such as in Egypt, Syria and Libra they were  government controlled unions while in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, unions were banned. Less widely reported is the protests in Jordon, Algeria and Morocco.  In Morocco the protests forced the King to announce that there will be a  constitutional monarchy. While in Bahrain there was military intervention by Saudi. 3000 trade unionists lost their jobs while several hundred were imprisoned.  Contrast the British Government response to what has happened in Libya and Bahrain. Kuwait also has a crack down on trade union protest. On May day 2011 77 national trade unions across region did sign a "democracy declaration".

The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) have a new web site (which I can't find?) and Labourstart also has lots of good information and campaigns.  Unfortunately there has been splits in Egypt trade unions which have put UNISON in a difficult position with regard to who to support.
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