VIDEO: How Red Cloud Defeated the US Army | Interview with Tom Clavin and Bob Drury

US rules out apologies to Afghanistan

The United States is not going to apologise for “mistakes” made during the 12-year war. The statement came amid claims by Afghan officials that the Obama administration offered to write the letter as part of an effort to keep a small number of US troops in Afghanistan well past the 2014 deadline to withdraw. "There is not a need for the United States to apologize to Afghanistan. Quite the contrary," said US National Security Advisor, Susan Rice. She also added that "no such letter has been drafted or delivered. That is not on the table." 

Des islamistes du Nord-Caucase créent un village russe en Syrie

Ce village a été capturé au printemps mais la nouvelle vient de filtrer. "Abou Khalif et Abou Banat sont deux wahhabites qui combattent en Syrie. En avril 2013 ils ont créé, dans un village pris par l'opposition, un "khalifat indépendant" où ils ont proclamé un gouvernement autonome et les normes de la charia", a déclaré la source.

Selon cet informateur, Abou Khalif serait en réalité Chamil Izmaïlov - un citoyen russe né en 1980 à Astrakhan. "En 2006 il a étudié dans une école d'Egypte et plus tard, à Alexandrie, il a créé avec son frère Arsen un centre de formation pour les ressortissants de pays de la CEI", explique la source. Et d’ajouter : "Cet établissement était principalement fréquenté par des islamistes radicaux, qui étaient appelés par les "instructeurs" du centre à combattre dans le Nord-Caucase russe".

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De la crise financière à la 3ème guerre mondiale .

« Des milliers de milliards de dollars de dettes seront restructurés et des millions d’épargnants prudents vont perdre des pourcentages importants de leur pouvoir d’achat réel exactement au pire moment de leur vie. 

Cette fois-ci encore, ce ne sera pas la fin du monde, mais le tissu social des nations dépensières sera étiré et dans certains cas il se déchirera. 



Il est triste de constater que bien trop souvent dans l’histoire économique, la guerre a toujours été la conclusion logique de la dynamique du chaos économique. Nous pensons que la guerre est une conséquence inévitable de la situation économique mondiale actuelle » écrit Kyle Bass, un investisseur américain qui parie sur l’effondrement des pays d’Europe, cité par le blog financier américain Zero Hedge.

Dans un email adressé aux adhérents de ses bulletins d’avis boursiers, Larry Edelson, un gourou de la bourse américaine, prophétise lui aussi la guerre. Il y explique qu’il a étudié depuis une trentaine d’années les « cycles de guerre », c’est-à-dire, les cycles qui prédisposent les sociétés à entrer dans le chaos et la haine, qui aboutissent à des guerres civiles et des guerres internationales.

    « Je ne suis probablement pas le premier à examiner ces modèles très distinctifs dans l’histoire. Il y en a eu d’autres avant moi, Raymond Wheeler en particulier, qui a publié la chronique qui fait le plus autorité en matière de guerre, et qui couvre une période de 2.600 années de données. Toutefois, très peu de personnes sont disposées à discuter de ce problème de nos jours. Et si je me base sur ce que je vois, les implications pourraient être absolument énormes pour 2013.»

Charles Nenner, un analyste de Goldman Sachs réputé pour la justesse de certaines de ses prévisions, parle quant à lui d’une guerre majeure qui devrait débuter au cours de cette année.

Quant à Jim Rogers, un autre investisseur américain influent, pense aussi qu’il pourrait y avoir une guerre mondiale.

    « Une poursuite des plans de sauvetage en Europe pourrait aboutir à déclencher une autre guerre mondiale », a-t-il affirmé.

    « Ajoutez de la dette, la situation empire, puis c’est l’effondrement. A ce moment-là, tout le monde recherchera un bouc émissaire. Les politiciens accusent les étrangers, et nous revoilà dans la seconde guerre mondiale, ou une guerre mondiale de toute façon » explique-t-il.

Marc Faber, un analyste en investissement suisse, estime qu’une guerre serait plus le fait des Américains. Selon lui, ils pourraient la provoquer pour détourner l’attention sur la mauvaise situation économique du pays. Il croit que le pétrole du Moyen-Orient pourrait fournir le prétexte d’un conflit pour les États-Unis, la Chine, mais aussi la Russie.
 

Zero Hedge / Le Journal du Siècle 

PALLYWOOD en Syrie : un mort se réveille et se marre !

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"The hasty response from the Turkish side, especially as the aircraft was on its way back and was not charged with any combat missions, is proof of the true intentions of Erdogan's government toward Syria, to increase tensions and escalate the situation on the border between the two countries,"

Source: RT

Russia: UN chem attack report doesn’t show whodunit

Russia’s UN representative says the newly unveiled report on the chemical attack of August 21 in Syria offers no “bulletproof data or conclusions” on who ordered it. The US and UK say the study confirms the regime was behind the attack.

“The report is diligent but very technical. It avoids categorical judgments and inferences, and it needs to be studied,” Vitaly Churkin told the Russian media at the UN headquarters in New York. 

“As people examine it, everyone can draw their own conclusion, but I hope that won’t be driven by political motives.” 

However US President Barack Obama's national security adviser, Susan Rice, said in a statement the technical evidence of high-grade sarin revealed in the report "reinforces our assessment that these attacks were carried out by the Syrian regime, as only they had the capability to mount an attack in this manner."

Earlier, Washington envoy to the UN Samantha Power said the study proved that “only the regime” had the capacity to carry out the attack on a Damascus suburb that the US claims took more than 1,400 lives. UK Foreign Secretary William Hague also said the findings were “fully consistent” with the previous British stance that Bashar Assad’s forces were responsible for the attack. 

Churkin said that suggestions the attack was a rebel provocation “cannot be shrugged off”. 

The 38-page report was compiled by a UN expert team, which inspected Damascus at the end of last month, and collected over 30 samples from victims and the environment. Its authors state that it found “clear and convincing evidence that surface-to-surface rockets containing the nerve agent sarin” were released on “a relatively large scale” during the August attack. The report doesn't blame either of the sides.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has labeled the incident a “war crime”. 

Churkin also told journalists “not to jump to conclusions” when questioned about whether Cyrillic alphabet markings, which were found on fragments of rockets reportedly used in the attack, proved that they were in possession of government forces. He said that UK and US assertions that rebels do not have the capacity to execute a large scale gas attack were “not grounded in reality”. 

Last week, Russia and the United States put forward a proposal that would see Syria hand over its chemical weapons to international observers. Syria has also applied to join the Chemical Weapons Convention - an international treaty that regulates the destruction of such weapons - next month.

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Disarming Syria brings Israel’s suspected WMD arsenals into focus

...........................Now the Syrian government is suggesting it may not decommission its chemical weapons stockpiles unless its neighbors do likewise. 

“The main danger of WMD is the Israeli nuclear arsenal,” said Bashar Jaafari, Syria's ambassador to the UN, last Thursday, stressing that Israel also possesses chemical weapons but “nobody is speaking about that.” 

Such statements put the Syrian chemical weapons crisis into a new perspective. The US administration has for decades refused to discuss Israeli arsenals that allegedly contain nuclear warheads. By bringing the issue to an international discussion, Damascus might put the Obama administration into an awkward position. 

There has already been a reaction from Washington, when the State Department spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki said that the US will never accept attempts to compare Syrian regime with “thriving democracy” of Israel which “doesn't brutally slaughter and gas its own people,” she said. 

Traditionally, Israeli officials never comment on accusations that the country possesses WMD, pointing out that Israel lives under constant threats from Middle East countries such as Iran, Lebanon and Syria. 

Israel signed the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), which came into force in 1997, but has never ratified it. It remains to be seen whether Tel Aviv will now ratify it, as well the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention. 

“Some of these states don't recognize Israel's right to exist and blatantly call to annihilate it...These threats cannot be ignored by Israel, in the assessment of possible ratification of the convention,” the WDSJ reported Israeli government spokesman Jonathan Peled as saying. 

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Dramatic report: Inside the battle for Syria's ancient Christian village (VIDEO)

VIDEO: Syrie : l'enjeu du gaz pour le Qatar

3 minutes pour comprendre - Syrie : le gaz dans la bataille

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QztgjFSPwfA

VIDEO: 'Clear from rebel exchanges they were behind chem attack' - ex-hostage

syr

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“It’s too early to tell whether this offer will succeed, and any agreement must verify that the Assad regime keeps its commitments, but this initiative has the potential to remove the threat of chemical weapons without the use of force, particularly because Russia is one of Assad’s strongest allies,” Obama said.

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VIDEO: 'US neocon fanatics will target Syria no matter what Assad does'

VIDEO: Help Kickstart World War III!

Intl experts have strong proof images of chemical victims fabricated – Moscow

Footage and photos of the alleged chemical attack in Syria, which the US cites as the reason for a planned military intervention, had been fabricated in advance, speakers told a UN human rights conference in Geneva.

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Members of the conference were presented accounts of international experts, Syrian public figures and Russian news reporters covering the Syrian conflict, which back Russia’s opposition to the US plans, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. 

The speakers argued that the suspected sarin gas attack near Damascus on August 21 was likely a provocation of the rebel forces and that a military action against the President Bashar Assad government will likely result in civilian casualties and a humanitarian catastrophe affecting the entire region. 

The possible attack by US military without a UN Security Council mandate would violate international law and should be prevented by the United Nations, some of the speakers said.

Evidence for the Russian case, including numerous eyewitness reports and results of investigations of the chemical weapon incident by activists, was handed over to a UN commission of experts probing the Syrian crisis, the ministry said.

The Obama administration voiced an intention to use military force in Syria after reports of mass deaths in Eastern Houla, a neighborhood of Damascus, which killed more than 1,400 people according to US estimates. Washington says the deaths was due to a chemical weapons attack of the Syrian army on rebel forces and says it plans to use force to prevent such incidents in the future.

Russia is convinced that the chemical incident was a provocation by rebel forces, which staged a false flag attack to drag the US into the conflict and capitalize on the damage that the Syrian army is likely to sustain in the American intervention.

An increasing number of reports is backing Russia’s position, with local witnesses, US and British formerintelligence professionals and Europeans recently released from rebel captivity all speaking for a provocation scenario.

In the latest development this week a possible way to de-escalate the tension was voiced, which would involve the Assad government handing over control of his chemical arsenal to the international community. The plan was backed by Russia and China, while Syria said it will review it.

Mixed signals over the plan came from the US. The US State Department initially said Secretary of State John Kerry, who initially voiced a possible disarmament, saw it as a rhetorical move and didn’t expect Bashar Assad to actually disarm. But later President Obama said such a move from Damascus would make him put the military action plan on pause.

Meanwhile RT learned that Syrian rebels might be planning a chemical weapons attack in Israel from. The possible attack would be carried out from the territory supposedly controlled by the Syrian government and would trigger another round of escalation, leaving little hope of defusing the tension.

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RT sources: Syrian rebels plan chem attack on Israel from Assad-controlled territories

A chemical attack may be launched on Israel by Syrian rebels from government-controlled territories as a "major provocation," multiple sources told RT.

Follow RT's LIVE UPDATES for the latest on Syria 

The report comes as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrovproposed that Syria puts its chemical weapons arsenal under international control for subsequent destruction in order to prevent a possible military strike against the war-torn country.

Moscow also urged Syrian authorities to join the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. The offer has already been passed over to Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem, who met Lavrov in Moscow for talks on Monday. 

“We don’t know if Syria will accept the offer, but if imposing international control over chemical weapons stored in the country can help to avoid military strikes, we are immediately going to start working with Damascus,” Lavrov said. 

The Syrian Foreign Ministry has welcomed Moscow's initiative, “based on the Syrian’s government care about the lives of our people and security of our country,” Muallem said later on Monday.  

Meanwhile, US National Security Adviser Susan Rice made a statement saying that Damascus' alleged "use of chemical weapons against its own people" posed a threat to US national security. “The use of chemical weapons also directly threatens our closest ally in the region, Israel,” she said, speaking at the New America Foundation in Washington. 

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Syria welcomes Russia’s offer to put its chemical weapons under intl control

Damascus welcomes Russia’s call to hand control over its chemical weapons to the international community, the Syrian foreign minister said responding to Sergey Lavrov's statement after the two met in Moscow.

Follow RT's LIVE UPDATES for the latest on Syria 

“The Syrian Arab Republic welcomes Russia’s initiative, based on the Syrian’s government care about the lives of our people and security of our country,” Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem said in response to the statement by his Russian counterpart. 

“We are calling on the Syrian authorities not only agree on putting chemical weapons storage facilities under international control, but also for its further destruction and then joining the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons,” Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said earlier. 

The UN chief has called for measures to provide for the safe storage and destruction of the Syrian chemical weapons arsenal. 

“I am sure that the international community will take quick measures to make sure that these chemical weapons reserves are stored in a safe place and are to be destroyed,” Ban Ki-moon said.

Britain has responded to the Russia-Syria dialogue, saying that the chemical weapons handover idea for Syria must not be used as a “distraction tactic”.

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White House: Evidence against Assad not ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ but passes ‘common-sense test’

he White House says it has no “irrefutable” evidence that Syrian President Bashar Assad was behind the August gas attack in a Damascus suburb, but that a “strong common-sense test irrespective of the intelligence” suggests the government is responsible.

"We've seen the video proof of the outcome of those attacks,” White House Chief of Staff Dennis McDonough told CNN, speaking of multiple clips which show victims of the suspected sarin attack in a Damascus suburb on August 21.

“All of that leads to a quite strong common-sense test irrespective of the intelligence that suggests that the regime carried this out. Now do we have a picture or do we have irrefutable beyond-a-reasonable-doubt evidence? This is not a court of law and intelligence does not work that way,” he said.

McDonough made appearances on leading US talk shows in an effort to garner support for proposed military action against Syria ahead of next week’s congressional vote. However, most lawmakers seem to be opposed to a US-led strike.

In an interview with NBC, the chief of staff stressed that “nobody is rebutting the intelligence; nobody doubts the intelligence.”

The US says it has intercepted conversations involving Syrian officials during which they take responsibility for the attack. However, Washington has not made those conversations public.

The Obama administration has also referred to its satellite and signals intelligence, as well as military communications, as proof that the regime was preparing to use poisonous gas just days before the alleged attack took place.

Yet the administration has refused to let the public see the evidence allegedly connecting Assad to the crime - even though ample amounts of satellite imagery was released earlier by the US in order to demonstrate the consequences of the attacks. 

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VIDEO: Jihaddists re-take historic Syrian Christian village as stand-off continues

Islamist Nusra Front forces have re-captured Syria’s oldest Christian community from government troops in a night of fighting. The small village of Maaloula, once a peaceful spiritual place, became a battlefield on Wednesday.

The rebels captured the symbolically important village after forcing out government troops, who had previously pushed the insurgents to the mountainous outskirts of the village, reports AFP citing local sources.

"The rebels are inside Maaloula, all of Maaloula. The government troops have pulled out of Maaloula," a resident told the agency by phone.

The London-based pro-rebel Syrian Observatory for Human Rights group reported that the opposition received reinforcements, which helped them take control. The battle left at least 17 rebels dead and more than 100 wounded, the Observatory said. There were no immediate casualty reports from the government forces.

RT’s crew traveled to the site only to find themselves in a crossfire between government forces and rebels. 

“It’s hard to believe that what used to be one of the most significant shrines of the Christian community all over the world is a battlefield now,” Maria Finoshina reported from outside the village............

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