241 civilians killed in Syria by explosive war leftovers this year

 As many as 241 civilians have been killed in 2021 by landmines and other explosive materials left in previous war zones across Syria, a war monitor said Sunday.

As many as 241 civilians have been killed in 2021 by landmines and other explosive materials left in previous war zones across Syria, a war monitor said Sunday. The number includes 114 children and 19 women as a result of the explosions, most of which occurred in the first quarter, Xinhua news agency quoted the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights as saying.

The watchdog called on the concerned international organisations to help remove the war leftovers from Syria and to raise the awareness of the Syrians about the danger of such materials. State news agency SANA has reported many incidents in which civilians were killed by landmines, saying terror groups had planted them in areas they used to control during the 10-year-long Syrian war…

49 journalists murdered worldwide in 2019, lowest toll in 16 years: Report

Some 80 journalists a year have lost their lives on average over the last two decades, the report added

Forty-nine journalists were killed across the world in 2019, Reporters Without Borders said Tuesday, the lowest death toll in 16 years. The “historically low” number mostly died covering conflicts in Yemen, Syria and Afghanistan, the Paris-based watchdog said, which warned that “journalism remains a dangerous profession”. Some 80 journalists a year have lost their lives on average over the last two decades, said the organisation, which is known by its French initials RSF.

But its head Christophe Deloire warned that the number of journalists murdered in countries supposedly at peace was still alarmingly high, with 10 dying in Mexico alone. “Latin America, with a total of 14 reporters killed across the continent, has become as deadly as the Middle East,” he added. While he said that the fall in the number of fatalities in conflict zones was something to celebrate, “more and more journalists are being assassinated for their work in democratic countries, which is a real challenge to democracy.”

While fewer journalists are dying, more are ending up behind bars, according to RSF. Some 389 were locked up in 2019, up 12 per cent on last year. Nearly half were imprisoned in three countries — China, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which was blamed for the gruesome murder of columnist Jamal Khashoggi at its embassy in Istanbul last year. “China, which has intensified its repression of the (mostly Muslim) Uighur minority, alone holds a third of the journalists locked up in the world,” RSF said.

China to remove business restrictions on foreign banks, brokers: Report

China has stepped up efforts to open its financial sector amid a festering trade war with the United States, with increased access to its financial sector among a host of demands from Washington

International News: China will remove business restrictions on foreign banks, brokerages and fund management firms, a cabinet meeting chaired by premier Li Keqiang on Wednesday said, according to state television.

China has stepped up efforts to open its financial sector amid a festering trade war with the United States, with increased access to its financial sector among a host of demands from Washington. The country caught traders off-guard with a surprise injection into the financial system via loans to banks, ahead of data on Friday which is expected to show a further slowdown in the domestic economy.

The People’s Bank of China added 200 billion yuan ($28 billion) of one-year cash through the medium-term lending facility. It kept the interest rate steady. The economy has been under pressure amid a prolonged trade dispute with the US and a slowing domestic economy, prompting the central bank to ease monetary policy by lowering corporate borrowing costs and cutting banks’ reserve ratios this year. Data released this week showed that China’s factory deflation deepened and imports and exports fell last month…

Russia-backed Syrian forces step in after US declares full withdrawal

Much of the M4 lies on the southern edge of territory where Turkey aims to set up a “safe zone” inside Syria

Russia-backed Syrian forces wasted no time in taking advantage of an abrupt US retreat from Syria on Monday, deploying deep inside Kurdish-held territory south of the Turkish frontier less than 24 hours after Washington announced a full withdrawal.

Washington’s Kurdish former allies said they invited in the government troops as an “emergency measure” to help fend off an assault by Turkey, launched last week with “a green light” from President Donald Trump that the Kurds describe as a betrayal.

The Syrian government’s deployment on Monday is a major victory for President Bashar al-Assad and his principal ally Russia, who gained a military foothold across the biggest swathe of the country that had been beyond their grasp. Under their deal with the Kurds, government forces are poised to move into border areas from the town of Manbij in the west to Derik, 400 km (250 miles) to the east.

Syrian state media reported that troops had already entered Tel Tamer, a town on the strategically important M4 highway that runs east-west around 30 km south of the frontier with Turkey. State TV later showed residents welcoming Syrian forces into the town of Ain Issa, which lies on another part of the highway, hundreds of km (miles) away. An SDF media official said he could not confirm these deployments…

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Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, not Salman, is the most powerful Arab ruler

Prince Mohammed bin Zayed grew the UAE’s power by following America’s lead. He now has an increasingly bellicose agenda of his own. And US President Donald Trump seems to be following him

Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, the 29-year-old commander of the almost negligible air force of the United Arab Emirates, had come to Washington shopping for weapons. In 1991, in the months after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, the young prince wanted to buy so much military hardware to protect his own oil-rich monarchy — from Hellfire missiles to Apache helicopters to F-16 jets — that Congress worried he might destabilise the region.

But the Pentagon, trying to cultivate accommodating allies in the Gulf, had identified Prince Mohammed as a promising partner. The favorite son of the semi-literate Bedouin who founded the United Arab Emirates, Prince Mohammedwas a serious-minded, British-trained helicopter pilot who had persuaded his father to transfer $4 billion into the United States Treasury to help pay for the 1991 war in Iraq. Richard A Clarke, then an assistant secretary of state, reassured lawmakers that the young prince would never become “an aggressor.” “The UAE is not now and never will be a threat to stability or peace in the region,” Clarke said in congressional testimony. “That is very hard to imagine. Indeed, the UAE is a force for peace.”

Thirty years later, Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, now 58, crown prince of Abu Dhabi and de facto ruler of the United Arab Emirates, is arguably the most powerful leader in the Arab world. He is also among the most influential foreign voices in Washington, urging the United States to adopt his increasingly bellicose approach to the region. Prince Mohammed is almost unknown to the American public and his tiny country has fewer citizens than Rhode Island. But he may be the richest man in the world. He controls sovereign wealth funds worth $1.3 trillion, more than any other country.

His influence operation in Washington is legendary (Clarke got rich on his payroll). His military is the Arab world’s most potent, equipped through its work with the United States to conduct high-tech surveillance and combat operations far beyond its borders.

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War is ending in Syria; how has it fared in dealing with underlying issues?

Airstrikes and chemical weapons, one hopes, will no longer be the daily fare of future violations in Syria

BS: The Syrian government has won the war. Refugees are beginning to return. The creation of a constitutional committee will bring peace to Syria. Syria is safe.Some of these statements are true, some are exaggerated, and others may never become real.

What all these statements have in common is the desire for a signal that the war is over, that the world can finally move on from the devastating and brutal violence that has marked the lives of millions of Syrians for the past eight years. Although active hostilities have decreased, very little progress has been made on the underlying causes of the conflict, many of which lie in massive and systematic human rights abuses.|Click Here For International News

Over the past year, human rights organizations documented how the Syrian-Russian military alliance has retaken population centers held by major anti-government forces following attacks that involved indiscriminate airstrikes and prohibited weapons. There was a huge diplomatic and humanitarian effort to protect civilians and prevent massive displacement in Idlib, which should remain an immediate priority. And Raqqa, which had been the headquarters of the Islamic State, is attempting to recover from the devastating impact of the U.S.-led coalition’s battle to retake it…Read Full Story

Syria attack: France, UK back US military move; Trump takes u-turn; updates

Mike Pompeo said that 'a couple hundred Russians' were killed during US airstrikes on Syria

Seven US military aircraft have conducted reconnaissance missions near the coast of Syria, where Russia's Hmeymim airbase and Tartus naval base are located, Moscow's military flight monitoring centre tweeted on Friday. Six US Navy P-8A Poseidon patrol aircraft departed from an airbase on the Italian island of Sicilia, and an EP-3E Aries II reconnaissance aircraft flew from the base on the Greek island of Crete, Xinhua news agency reported. The escalation of tension around Syria comes against the backdrop of reports on the latest chemical weapons use in Eastern Ghouta's Douma which killed 74 people including children.

US President Donald Trump on Thursday took a step back on comments he made about a possible attack on Syria, saying an attack could take place "very soon or not so soon at all". He has now also argued that he never signaled the timing of retaliation for a suspected chemical weapons attack, that he had suggested was imminent a day earlier. Trump's latest comment came in a tweet after warning Russia to "get ready" for a missile attack on its ally Syria. Despite that warning, Trump tweeted: "Never said when an attack on Syria would take place."

Worries about a confrontation between Russia, Syria's big ally, and the West have been running high since Trump said on Wednesday that missiles "will be coming" in response to the attack in the Syrian town of Douma on April 7, and lambasted Moscow for standing by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Trump on Wednesday had vowed to punish not only President Bashar al-Assad of Syria for the attack, but also Syria’s Russian and Iranian allies. A Russian official said that any American missiles fired at Syria would be shot down, and Trump responded in a tweet that Russia should “get ready” for missiles that would be “nice and new and ‘smart.’”

Syria, Russia and Iran have denied the use of chemical weapons, accusing the rebels and rescue workers of concocting the story to gain sympathy as their defeat loomed.

Top 10 developments on Syria attack, Donald Trump and Russia reaction

1. Trump says Syria attack 'very soon or not so soon at all': President Donald Trump said Thursday that a US missile strike on Syria may not be imminent. "Never said when an attack on Syria would take place. Could be very soon or not so soon at all! In any event, the United States, under my Administration, has done a great job of ridding the region of ISIS. Where is our 'Thank you America?'" Trump said on Twitter.

Never said when an attack on Syria would take place. Could be very soon or not so soon at all! In any event, the United States, under my Administration, has done a great job of ridding the region of ISIS. Where is our “Thank you America?”

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 12, 2018

2. US airstrikes in February killed ‘a couple hundred Russians’, says Mike Pompeo: CIA Director Mike Pompeo said on Thursday that “a couple hundred Russians” were killed during US airstrikes on Syria earlier this year. Pompeo was speaking to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during his confirmation hearing to become secretary of state when he revealed details about the February 7 attack on Russian mercenaries. Pompeo told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, “a couple hundred Russians were killed.”

3. UNSC must prevent Syria spiralling out of control, says UN: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has appealed to the five permanent members of the Security Council to break the current deadlock on reported use of chemical weapons in Syria and prevent the situation spiralling out of control in the war-torn country. "I have also been closely following developments in the Security Council and regret that the Council has so far been unable to reach agreement on this issue, Guterres said in a statement. "Let us not forget that, ultimately, our efforts must be about ending the terrible suffering of the Syrian people," he added. Guterres said that he called the ambassadors of the five permanent Council members China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States on Wednesday to reiterate his "deep concern about the risks of the current impasse" and stressed the need to "avoid the situation spiraling out of control."

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What Saudi purge and Prince Salman's game of thrones means for West Asia politics

The purge of the princes, unprecedented in recent Saudi politics, is clearly aimed as clearing the way for Prince Mohammed bin Salman to ascend the throne

 

Saturday, November 4, was an extraordinary day: it witnessed three developments which, taken together, suggest a major escalation in the armed conflict in West Asia is in the offing, even as the region is already groaning under the violence of bloody wars in Syria, Yemen and Iraq, in which half a million people have been killed and several million have been displaced.

Saudi Arabia is at the heart of all these developments. First, in a dramatic coup within the royal family, engineered by Prince Salman and his son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, 11 princes have been detained, along with four sitting ministers and several former ministers and officials.

Three developments

Prince Miteb bin Abdullah, the commander of the National Guard, the country’s powerful domestic security force, has been summarily dismissed, so that force has now also come under the control of the crown prince. The instrument used to effect these changes is the anti-corruption committee set up by the king on Saturday, with the crown prince as its chairman.

The second development was the sudden announcement in Riyadh by the Lebanese prime minister, Saad Hariri, that he was resigning. Hariri had taken charge only in December 2016 after entering into a power-sharing agreement with President Michel Aoun. In his public remarks, Hariri said that Iran had planted “disorder and destruction” in his country and had made Hezbollah a “state within a state” in Lebanon.....READ MORE

US Prez Donald Trump to sign new travel ban order today: What to expect

Revised order expected to remove Iraq from the list of countries whose citizens face a travel ban

 

#COMPANIES | President Donald Trump is preparing to sign a revised executive order temporarily barring the entry of people from certain Muslim-majority countries and halting the nation's refugee programme.

A White House official says plans to roll out the order are on track for today. The official insisted on anonymity in order to discuss the order ahead of the official announcement.

The new order has been in the works since shortly after a federal court blocked Trump's initial effort, but the administration has repeatedly pushed back the signing as it has worked to better coordinate with the agencies that it will need to implement the ban.

Trump administration officials have said the new order aims to overcome the legal challenges to the first. Its goal will be the same: keep would-be terrorists out of the United States while the government reviews the vetting system for refugees and visa applicants from certain parts of the world.

Trump original orders temporarily blocked citizens of Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Syria and Libya from coming to the United States and put on hold the US refugee programme.

The revised order is expected to remove Iraq from the list of countries whose citizens face a temporary US travel ban for 90 days. That follows pressure from the Pentagon and State Department, which had urged the White House to reconsider, given Iraq's key role in fighting the Islamic State group.

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