Japan considers bitcoin regulation and taxation
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In wake of MtGox closure, Japanese authorities look to regulate cryptocurrency, urging international co-operation. By Alex Hern
US President Barack Obama (R) listens while King Abdullah II of Jordan makes a statement for the press before a meeting at The Annenberg Retreat at Sunnylands February 14, 2014 in Rancho Mirage, California. (AFP Photo / Brendan Smialowski)
US President Barack Obama said he is mulling steps to put pressure on Syrian President Bashar Assad to kickstart the stalled Geneva peace conference. But Russia’s FM Sergey Lavrov says every attempt is being made to derail the peace process.
Obama’s comments were delivered while meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah in California on Friday to discuss a range of issues, including the current Syrian stalemate.
The US president said he does not expect the conflict to be resolved in the immediate future, though “immediate steps” will be taken to “help the humanitarian assistance there.”
“There will be some intermediate steps that we can take applying more pressure to the Assad regime and we are going to be continuing to work with all the parties concerned to try to move forward on a diplomatic solution,” Reuters cited Obama as saying.
Obama did not specify what steps he would consider, but US Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters on Friday that Obama had asked “all of us to think about various options that may or may not exist.”
Having pledged $ 1 billion in loans to help stabilize Jordan’s economy, the US believes that the country, which already currently has more than 600,000 Syrian war refugees, has a part to play in resolving the Syrian conflict.
“We have been ramping up our support to the moderate opposition and Jordan has its own strong role to play in relationship to the moderate opposition,” a senior Obama administration official told the agency following two hours of talks at the Sunnylands retreat.
Frustrated by what he views as Assad’s intransigence regarding a transition of power in the country, Obama has made it a clear a more assertive policy could be in the works.
Senior administration officials who briefed reporters about Obama’s talks with King Abdullah reiterated previous claims that all options remain on the table, short of putting boots on the ground.
One option is arming the Syrian rebels, something that Washington’s Gulf allies have been actively doing, though one official said such a move would only be enacted to help push the process toward a political solution.
AFP Photo / Mahmud Al-Halabi
According to one report last month, the US Congress has already authorized sending small arms, an assorted variety of rockets, and financial backing to moderate rebel forces.
American and European security officials told Reuters that the US will provide anti-tank rockets, but nothing as deadly as shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles (known as MANPADs), which can be used to bring down military or civilian aircraft.
The US has long opposed arming rebels with anti-aircraft missiles, fearing they could fall into the hands of extremists who would then use them against the West or commercial airlines. A senior Obama administration official told the Wall Street Journal on Friday that the US objection remains the same. “There hasn’t been a change internally on our view,” the official said.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia on Friday decided to start providing the opposition with Chinese Manpads and antitank guided missiles from Russia, WSJ reports, citing Western and Arab diplomats and opposition figures.
Although significant military hardware remains off the table for now, the US for its part has increased its financial support to the opposition, handing over millions of dollars to help pay rebel fighters, said rebel commanders who received some of the money. Washington would not comment on the payments.
On Friday, FM Lavrov said it was his impression that “systematic attempts” were being made to find any excuse to derail a political settlement in Syria.
“First, a political settlement was almost derailed over speculation regarding chemical weapons. Now that that problem is solved, I hope that everything will be done, just as the Syrian leadership has pledged,” Lavrov told a press conference following talks with his German counterpart, Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
‘When the chemical [weapons] issue is not being speculated over, then attempts are made to politicize the issue of the humanitarian crisis,” he said.
Lavrov said that when Russia and the US took the initiative to push ahead with the Geneva 2 peace conference, it was perfectly clear that there should be complete implementation of the June 2012 Geneva Communique, which, among other points, calls for a transitional governing body that could include members of the current government and the opposition.
But in pushing the Syrian opposition to participate in the Geneva 2 conference, there is now the impression that Western powers only did so for the sake of initiating regime change, he said.
“Certainly, we grow alarmed whenever the presidents of the United States and France once again say at a joint press conferences that the affair may go beyond negotiations,” Lavrov said.
Source: RT
End the Lie – Independent News
UPDATE 1-Fed considers new limits on banks in physical commodity trade
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By Anna Louie Sussman and Emily Stephenson
NEW YORK/WASHINGTON Jan 14 (Reuters) – The U.S. Federal Reserve on Tuesday took a first formal step toward restricting the role of Wall Street banks in physical commodities markets, seeking feedback on ways to limit the “catastrophic” risks of dealing with oil tanks or power plants.
In a 6-0 vote, the Fed board agreed to publish a preliminary notice laying out its concerns and potential remedies, following months of growing public and political pressure to check banks’ decade-long expansion into the raw materials supply chain.
Facing a clearly uneasy regulator, some banks like JPMorgan Chase & Co are already quitting the business.
In a 19-page document that included two dozen questions, the Fed offered a host of reasons for imposing new restrictions in the interests of protecting the safety and soundness of the banking system, invoking incidents among which were BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster and last summer’s oil-train tragedy in Quebec.
“The recent catastrophes accent that the costs of preventing accidents are high and the costs and liability related to physical commodity activities can be difficult to limit and higher than expected,” the Fed said in the notice.
It is the Fed’s first detailed public discussion since it shocked the banking industry last July by announcing a “review” of its 2003 authorization that first allowed commercial banks such as Citigroup to handle physical commodities.
It comes just one day before a senior Fed director goes before a second Senate banking committee hearing on the matter.
Beyond the financial risks, the Fed is also seeking comment on potential conflicts of interest for banks, and the risks and benefits of additional capital requirements or other restrictions — measures that have been hinted at in the past.
The Fed said that new limits on all three means by which banks may deal in physical commodities were up for debate: the authority to trade raw materials as “complementary” to derivatives; the investment in commodity-related business as arm’s-length merchant banking deals; and the “grandfather” clause that has allowed Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs much wider latitude than their peers.
The “advance notice of proposed rulemaking,” which is an optional initial step in the sometimes years-long process of making new regulations, seeks comments until March 15.
The Fed also questioned several previously cited justifications for allowing banks to trade in physical commodities such as crude oil cargoes and copper pallets.
It said, for instance, that although most banks are not allowed to actually own infrastructure assets, those that lease storage tanks or own physical commodities held by third parties may nonetheless face a “sudden and severe” loss of public confidence if they are involved in a catastrophe.
They also said that several banks’ recent moves to sell all or parts of their physical trading operations “may suggest that the relationship between commodities derivatives and physical commodities markets … may not be as close as previously claimed or expected.”
Fed considers new limits on banks in physical commodity trade
http://s1.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20140114&t=2&i=829473282&w=580&fh=&fw=&ll=&pl=&r=CBREA0C1TC100
NEW YORK/WASHINGTON
U.S. Federal Reserve Vice Chair Janet Yellen testifies during a Senate Banking Committee confirmation hearing on her nomination to be the next chairman of the Federal Reserve, on Capitol Hill in Washington November 14, 2013.
Credit: Reuters/Jason Reed
NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Federal Reserve on Tuesday took a first formal step toward restricting the role of Wall Street banks in physical commodities markets, seeking feedback on ways to limit the “catastrophic” risks of dealing with oil tanks or power plants.
In a 6-0 vote, the Fed board agreed to publish a preliminary notice laying out its concerns and potential remedies, following months of growing public and political pressure to check banks’ decade-long expansion into the raw materials supply chain.
Facing a clearly uneasy regulator, some banks such as JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) are already quitting the commodity trade, a once-lucrative business that has reaped billions of dollars of revenue for Wall Street over the years but is now facing diminished margins and stiffer capital rules.
In a 19-page document that included two dozen questions, the Fed offered a host of reasons for imposing new restrictions in the interests of limiting potential conflicts of interest and protecting the safety and soundness of the banking system, invoking incidents including BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster and last summer’s oil-train tragedy in Quebec.
“The recent catastrophes accent that the costs of preventing accidents are high and the costs and liability related to physical commodity activities can be difficult to limit and higher than expected,” the Fed said in the notice.
It is the Fed’s first detailed public discussion since it shocked the banking industry last July by announcing a “review” of its 2003 authorization that first allowed commercial banks such as Citigroup (C.N) to handle physical commodities.
It comes just one day before a senior Fed director goes before a second Senate banking committee hearing on the matter.
U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, who led the first such hearing last summer, said the measure was “overdue and insufficient”, warning that consumers and end-users risked paying higher commodity prices until new curbs are imposed.
CONFLICTS, RISKS AND CAPITAL
Beyond the financial risks, the Fed is also seeking comment on potential conflicts of interest for banks, and the risks and benefits of additional capital requirements or other restrictions – measures that have been hinted at in the past.
The Fed said that new limits on ways in which banks may deal in physical commodities were up for debate: the authority to trade raw materials as “complementary” to derivatives; the investment in commodity-related business as arm’s-length merchant banking deals; and the “grandfather” clause that has allowed Morgan Stanley (MS.N) and Goldman Sachs (GS.N) much wider latitude than their peers.
The “advance notice of proposed rulemaking,” which is an optional initial step in the sometimes years-long process of making new regulations, seeks comments until March 15.
The Fed also questioned several previously cited justifications for allowing banks to trade in physical commodities such as crude oil cargoes and copper pallets.
It said, for instance, that although most banks are not allowed to actually own infrastructure assets, those that lease storage tanks or own physical commodities held by third parties may nonetheless face a “sudden and severe” loss of public confidence if they are involved in a catastrophe.
They also said that several banks’ recent moves to sell all or parts of their physical trading operations “may suggest that the relationship between commodities derivatives and physical commodities markets … may not be as close as previously claimed or expected.”
(Reporting By Karey Van Hall and Emily Stephenson; Editing by Leslie Adler and Grant McCool)
Officials within the National Security Agency are considering whether to grant Edward Snowden amnesty and allow him back into the United States, in order to get back reams of classified information taken by the former agency contractor.
Rick Ledgett, the head of NSA’s Snowden task force, told CBS News that considering amnesty is “worth having a conversation about,” if a deal meant the return of the agency’s secrets.
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“I would need assurances that the remainder of the data could be secured, and my bar for those assurances would be very high,” Ledgett said in an interview with 60 Minutes, set to air on Sunday.
“It would be more than just an assertion on his part,” he added.
Administration and U.S. intelligence officials assert Snowden stole more than 1.5 million classified documents detailing specific NSA programs and operations, only a portion of which have been made public.
A possible amnesty deal would not only bring those documents back to the NSA, but also allow Snowden to return from Russia, where he is currently living in asylum, back to American shores.
Getting those classified documents back into American hands would effectively stop the political bleeding for the agency and White House, who have been in damage control since the initial Snowden leaks.
But NSA chief Gen. Keith Alexander said an amnesty deal for Snowden would send a dangerous precedent within the agency and the intelligence community writ large.
“I think people have to be held accountable for their actions. … Because what we don’t want is the next person to do the same thing, race off to Hong Kong and to Moscow with another set of data, knowing they can strike the same deal,” Alexander said in a separate interview with CBS.
“This is analogous to a hostage-taker taking 50 people hostage, shooting 10 and then say, ‘If you give me full amnesty, I’ll let the other 40 go.’ What do you do?” he added.
The damage done by the Snowden disclosures, which included details of the agency’s extensive electronic surveillance operations, have roiled Washington and its allies across the globe.
Tracking of email traffic and cellphone conversations of U.S. citizens at home and abroad set off a flurry of congressional hearings, aimed at reining in the agency’s operations.
Most recently, a White House-mandated oversight panel is preparing a slew of new restrictions and guidelines for NSA intelligence operations.
The report, expected to be delivered to President Obama this weekend, would make changes to the NSA’s controversial practice of collecting records on all U.S. phone calls. The New York Times wrote that the report would allow the bulk collection to continue under “broad new restraints.”
The report is expected to recommend that the president and other senior White House officials directly review the list of any foreign leaders under surveillance.
The panel will also call the creation of a public advocate to argue for privacy rights before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which provides legal oversight for the NSA and other U.S. espionage operations.
Spiegel Online
December 5, 2013
The European Central Bank wants to spur lending by banks in Southern Europe, but conventional methods have shown little success so far. On Thursday, ECB officials will consider monetary weapons that were previously considered taboo.
From Mario Drahgi’s perspective, the euro zone has already been split for some time. When the head of the powerful European Central Bank looks at the credit markets within the currency union, he sees two worlds. In one of those worlds, the one in which Germany primarily resides, companies and consumers are able to get credit more cheaply and easily than ever before. In the other, mainly Southern European world, it is extremely difficult for small and medium-sized businesses to get affordable loans. Fears are too high among banks that the debtors will default.
For Draghi and many of his colleagues on the ECB Governing Council, this dichotomy is a nightmare. They want to do everything in their power to make sure that companies in the debt-plagued countries also have access to affordable loans — and thus can bring new growth to the ailing economies.
This article was posted: Thursday, December 5, 2013 at 1:56 pm
Tags: economics
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UPDATE 2-Britain considers taxing foreign property investors as house prices soar
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* Move could help cool London’s red-hot housing market
* Overseas buyers currently exempt from capital gains tax
* Change likely to be announced in early Dec
* Bank of England says property market driving recovery
By Christina Fincher
LONDON, Oct 31 (Reuters) – Britain is considering slapping capital gains tax on foreign property investors, local media reported on Thursday, hours after data showed house prices rising at the fastest pace in over three years.
Such a move could ease fears of a housing bubble, particularly in London, where demand from cash-rich Russian oligarchs and Middle East investors among others has helped lift prices more than 10 percent in a year.
Some Britons feel they are being priced out of the housing market, although home owners generally welcome higher prices.
Sky News said Treasury officials had costed the measure ahead of finance minister George Osborne’s “Autumn Statement” on Britain’s finances on Dec. 4.
Spokesmen for the finance ministry and Prime Minister David Cameron said Sky’s story was speculation and declined to comment further.
Overseas investors have been big buyers of London property over the past few years, lured by Britain’s safe-haven status and the prospect of capital appreciation and attractive rental yields.
Estate agents Knight Frank calculate that foreign buyers account for 70 percent of all new-build property sales in prime central London.
Figures from the Nationwide earlier on Thursday showed house prices across the country rising at an annual rate of almost 6 percent – eight times faster than average incomes.
Britons have to pay capital gains tax – typically at 28 percent – if they make a profit when reselling any property that is not considered their primary residence. But foreign property investors have hitherto been exempt, unlike in many other European countries.
“Charging non-resident property owners capital gains tax on sales of second homes in the UK would bring the UK into line with what happens on most of mainland Europe,” said Ronnie Ludwig, partner at accountants Saffery Champness.
“This could adversely affect the market for foreign second home owners in the UK, particularly in the traditionally up-market areas.”
The plight of first-time homebuyers is moving up the political agenda ahead of an election due in 2015. The government has introduced measures to help less-well off homebuyers get mortgages but has had to fend off criticism that, by pushing up prices, its “Help to Buy” scheme simply makes matters worse.
Grainne Gilmore, Knight Frank’s head of UK residential research, said it was hard to gauge how demand would be affected without seeing the small print.
“Tax is not the primary reason why global property investors come to London, but a change of this sort would have an impact,” she said.
Property consultant Savills calculates the value of London property has risen by 140 billion pounds over the last five years to stand 14.2 percent above its 2007 peak.
It says 10 London boroughs – Westminster, Kensington & Chelsea, Wandsworth, Barnet, Camden, Richmond, Ealing, Bromley, Hammersmith & Fulham and Lambeth – now have an aggregate property value equivalent to the total value of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland combined.
Possible indicators of criminal weapons possession related to terrorism:
Large quantities of weapons are typically cached in a location such as an individual’s home, storage facility, or vehicle, but can be found attended by the individual (such as in luggage while traveling) or unattended (discarded or seemingly discarded) in a public area.
Possession of large amounts of weapons, ammunition, explosives, accelerants, or explosive precursor chemicals could indicate pre-operational terrorist attack planning or criminal activity.
For example, in preparation for conducting the July 2011 attacks in Norway, Anders Behring Breivik stockpiled approximately 12,000 pounds of precursors, weapons, and armor and hid them underground in remote, wooded locations.
Recent SAR incidents reported to the Nationwide SAR Initiative (NSI) shared space highlight the types of weapons discoveries that are suggestive of pre-operational activity and attack planning.
Although neither incident was linked to terrorist activity, they are cited as examples for awareness and training purposes.
During a traffic stop, police discovered 7 firearms (4 pistols, 1 shotgun, and 2 rifles), approximately 5,000 rounds of ammunition, 21 ammunition magazines, a 12-gauge ammunition belt with rounds, a pistol holster with magazine pouch, a punch knife, and other materials in the vehicle. The police arrested and charged the driver and passenger with weapons possession.
Constitutional activities should not be reported in a SAR or Information Sharing Environment (ISE) SAR absent articulable facts and circumstances that support the source agency’s suspicion that the behavior observed is not innocent, but rather reasonably indicative of criminal activity associated with terrorism, including evidence of pre operational planning related to terrorism. Race, ethnicity, national origin, or religious affiliation should not be considered as factors that create suspicion (although these factors may be used as specific suspect descriptions.
http://info.publicintelligence.net/DHS-FBI-Weapons.pdf
http://massprivatei.blogspot.com/2013/10/dhsfbi-considers-anyone-with-large.html
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas talks to reporters as he emerges from the Senate Chamber on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Sept 25, 2013, after his overnight crusade railing against the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as “Obamacare.” Cruz ended the marathon Senate speech opposing President Barack Obama’s health care law after talking for 21 hours, 19 minutes. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas talks to reporters as he emerges from the Senate Chamber on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Sept 25, 2013, after his overnight crusade railing against the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as “Obamacare.” Cruz ended the marathon Senate speech opposing President Barack Obama’s health care law after talking for 21 hours, 19 minutes. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nev., and other lawmakers meet with new mothers and their babies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2013, to criticize Republican efforts to kill the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as “Obamacare.” Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., said Democrats would defend President Obama’s health care law, adding, she would not return to a time when insurance companies denied benefits to women because being a pregnant was considered a preexisting condition. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Pressure is building on fractious House Republicans over legislation to prevent a partial government shutdown, as the Democratic-led Senate is expected to strip a tea party-backed plan to defund Obamacare from the bill.
As the Senate telegraphed its moves, House Republicans deliberated an array of imperfect options on both a temporary spending bill required to avert a shutdown and a separate measure to permit the government to borrow almost $ 1 trillion to keep paying its bills.
Lawmakers face a midnight Monday deadline to complete a stopgap spending bill to avoid a partial government shutdown that would keep hundreds of thousands of federal workers off the job, close national parks and generate damaging headlines for whichever side the public holds responsible.
The timeline is daunting since House GOP leaders appear all but certain to reject the Senate’s attempt at a simple, straightforward stopgap spending bill like those routinely passed since the 1995-96 government shutdowns that bruised Republicans and strengthened President Bill Clinton.
A 21-hour talkathon by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, whipped up the GOP’s tea party wing even as it complicated efforts by House GOP leaders to assemble rank-and-file support for a temporary spending measure.
Cruz wants to derail the spending bill to deny Democrats the ability to strip out the anti-Obamacare provision, a strategy that has put him at odds with other Republicans who say the move won’t work and fear it would spark a shutdown.
Many GOP senators, including the Senate’s top two Republicans, have said they’ll vote to advance the measure rather than filibuster it to death, a vote that promises to give Democrats controlling the chamber a procedural edge in a subsequent vote to kill the tea party’s effort to use the must-pass bill to derail Obamacare.
Wednesday evening, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., unveiled his version of the stopgap spending bill, which would keep the government running through Nov. 15. It also contains, for now, the anti-Obamacare provision sought by Republicans. He set in motion a key vote on Friday that promises to expose the divide between Cruz and more pragmatic Republicans. Senate passage of the spending bill — stripped of the Obamacare provision — was expected no later than Saturday.
“Any senator who votes with Majority Leader Harry Reid and the Democrats … has made the decision to allow Obamacare to be funded,” Cruz told reporters after his marathon speech ended Wednesday at noon. Cruz himself has predicted that is exactly what the Senate will do, and he’s already called on House Republicans to reject the bill when it comes back to them.
The simplest thing for Republicans to do would be to accept the Senate bill and send it to the White House for Obama’s signature, a prospect that’s unappealing to Republicans because it would make them look like they’re surrendering. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, originally preferred a plan to deliver to Obama a stopgap funding bill without the Obamacare provisions.
Now, GOP leaders are exploring adding face-saving options — like the repeal of a tax on medical devices, which many Democrats also oppose — to the stopgap spending bill. There’s also sentiment to take away the health insurance subsidy awarded lawmakers now that they’ll be required to purchase health care on Obamacare exchanges.
The House is expected to approve a measure this week allowing the Treasury to borrow freely for another year, although that legislation, too, would include a provision to carry out the Republican campaign against Obamacare. While no final decisions have been made, party officials said a one-year delay was likely to be added, rather than the full-fledged defunding that is part of the spending bill awaiting action in the Senate.
The GOP’s demands on the debt limit involves far less dramatic spending cuts than Republicans demanded from Obama in a debt showdown two years. Then, Republicans extracted $ 2.1 trillion in cuts over a decade for a similar increase in the borrowing cap. Now, GOP leaders are mulling a 14-month borrowing increase that would increase the debt ceiling by almost $ 1 trillion but are considering only modest cuts, like an increase in the contribution federal workers make to their pensions.
Shutdown-averting stopgap spending bills traditionally have been steered clear of these kinds of battles for fear of a politically damaging shutdown. But with the new health care law poised to enroll millions of people into Obamacare starting Oct. 1, there’s a new urgency among opponents to pull out all the stops to try to derail it.
Health and Human Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told reporters this week that consumers will have an average of 53 plans to choose from, and her department estimated the average monthly individual premium for a benchmark policy known as the “second-lowest cost silver plan” would range from a low of $ 192 in Minnesota to a high of $ 516 in Wyoming. Tax credits will bring down the cost for many.
Republicans counter that the legislation is causing employers to defer hiring new workers, lay off existing ones and reduce the hours of others to hold down costs as they try to ease the impact of the bill’s taxes and other requirements.
“Obamacare is destroying jobs,” Cruz said. “It is driving up health care costs. It is killing health benefits. It is shattering the economy.”
BEIRUT (AP) — U.N. experts who collected samples from last week’s alleged chemical weapons strike outside Damascus left Syria for the Netherlands on Saturday, hours after President Barack Obama said he is weighing “limited and narrow” action against the Syrian regime his administration blames for the attack.
In Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin urged Obama not to rush into a decision. The Russian leader said he was convinced the attack was a provocation carried out by those who want to draw the U.S. into the conflict, but that Washington should show any evidence to the contrary to the United Nations inspectors and the U.N. Security Council.
“If there is evidence it should be presented,” Putin said. “If it is not presented, that means it does not exist.”
Russia is one of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s staunchest allies. Putin’s comments were his first on the crisis since the suspected chemical weapons attack on rebel-held suburbs of Damascus on Aug. 21.
The U.N. inspectors spent three days this week touring stricken areas near Damascus and a fourth day interviewing patients at a government-run military hospital. They wrapped up their investigation Friday and left Syria on Saturday, via Lebanon.
Later Saturday, the team was en route to the Dutch city of Rotterdam aboard a German government-chartered plane, the German Foreign Ministry said.
The experts took blood and urine samples from victims as well as soil samples from the affected areas for examination in laboratories in Europe. The U.N. has said it will try to expedite its final report. U.N. disarmament chief Angela Kane is to brief Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon later Saturday on the investigation.
With the inspectors now out of Syria, the looming confrontation between the U.S. and Assad’s regime moves one step closer to coming to a head. Most observers viewed U.S. military action as unlikely while the U.N. team was still inside Syria, but the Obama administration has made clear that it is confident in its assessment and could act before the U.N. releases the results of its probe.
Obama has said that if he opts for a military strike, any operation would be limited in scope and only aimed at punishing Assad for his alleged use of chemical weapons.
But U.S. action carries the potential to trigger retaliation by the Syrian regime or its proxies against U.S. allies in the region, such as Jordan, Turkey and Israel. That would be dangerous new turn for the Syrian civil war, which has already killed more than 100,000 people, forced nearly 2 million to flee and inflamed tensions across the Middle East.
While Obama long has been wary of U.S. military involvement in the conflict, the administration on Friday forcefully made its case for action. It accused the Assad regime of carrying out what it says was a chemical attack on Aug. 21 that killed at least 1,429 people — far more than previous estimates — including more than 400 children.
However, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, one of the main groups monitoring casualties in Syria, said Saturday it has only been able to confirm 502 deaths, identifying victims by name.
Its list is based on interviews with hospital officials and activists in the affected areas, said Rami Abdel-Rahman, the head of the Observatory.
The Britain-based group, which draws its information from a network of anti-regime activists in Syria, urged the Obama administration to release the information its far higher death toll is based on.
With France as his only major public ally, Obama told reporters he has a strong preference for multilateral action.
“Frankly, part of the challenge we end up with here is a lot of people think something should be done but nobody wants to do it,” he said.
The U.S. already has warships in place in the eastern Mediterranean Sea near Syria’s coastal waters. The vessels are armed with cruise missiles, long a first-line weapon of choice for presidents because they can strike distant targets without need of air cover or troops on the ground.
The Syrian government dismissed the administration’s claims as “flagrant lies” akin to faulty Bush administration assertions before the Iraq invasion that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. A Foreign Ministry statement read on state television late Friday said that “under the pretext of protecting the Syrian people, they are making a case for an aggression that will kill hundreds of innocent Syrian civilians.”
In Damascus, residents braced themselves in anticipation of strikes.
“We are anticipating it starting tonight, since the inspectors have left, but we don’t really know,” said Nour, who lives on the outskirts of Damascus.
“Just in case, we stocked up on some water and food. Our building has a basement that we can use as a shelter. The building supervisor started preparing it a couple of days ago, he cleaned it and we put some pillows, blankets, water and a first aid kit with basic medications,” said the 23-year-old pharmacy student. She gave only her first name for security reasons.
Syrian state TV on Saturday morning broadcast footage of Syrian soldiers training, fighter jets soaring in the sky and tanks firing at unseen targets, all to the backdrop of martial music. The potential U.S. military strike dominated the station’s morning talk shows.
Obama met with his national security aides at the White House on Friday and then with diplomats from Baltic countries, saying he has not yet made a final decision on punitive strikes.
But the administration did nothing to discourage the predictions that action was imminent. That impression was heightened both by sharply worded remarks from Secretary of State John Kerry and the release of an unclassified intelligence assessment that cited “high confidence” that the Syrian government carried out the attack.
In addition to the dead, the assessment reported that about 3,600 patients “displaying symptoms consistent with nerve agent exposure” were seen at Damascus-area hospitals after the attack.
In his remarks, Kerry added that “a senior regime official who knew about the attack confirmed that chemical weapons were used by the regime, reviewed the impact and actually was afraid they would be discovered.”
The U.S. assessment did not explain its unexpectedly large count of 1,429 deaths, far in excess of an estimate from Doctors Without Borders from earlier this week that put the toll at 355. Not surprisingly — given the nature of the disclosure — it also did not say expressly how the United States knew what one Syrian official had allegedly said to another.
Mindful of public opinion, Kerry urged Americans to read the four-page assessment for themselves. He referred to Iraq — when Bush administration assurances that weapons of mass destruction were present proved false, and a U.S. invasion led to a long, deadly war. Kerry said this time it will be different, and that “we will not repeat that moment.”
Citing an imperative to act, the secretary of state said “it is directly related to our credibility and whether countries still believe the United States when it says something. They are watching to see if Syria can get away with it because then maybe they, too, can put the world at greater risk.”
While Obama was having trouble enlisting foreign support, French President Francois Hollande was an exception. The two men spoke by phone, then Hollande issued a statement saying they had “agreed that the international community cannot tolerate the use of chemical weapons, that it must hold the Syrian regime responsible and send a strong message to denounce the use of (such) arms.”
Obama long has been wary of U.S. military involvement in Syria’s civil war, as he has been with tumultuous events elsewhere during the so-called Arab Spring. In the case of Syria, his reluctance stems in part from recognition that while Assad has ties to Iran and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, the rebels seeking to topple him have connections with al-Qaida-linked groups.
Still, Obama declared more than a year ago that the use of chemical weapons would amount to a “red line” that Assad should not cross. Obama approved the shipment of small weapons and ammunition to the Syrian rebels after an earlier reported chemical weapons attack, although there is no sign the equipment has arrived.
___
Associated Press writers Yasmine Saker and Karin Laub in Beirut, and Geir Mouslon in Berlin contributed to this report.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
The amount of economic illiteracy in France is simply staggering. Please consider French minister hits at Amazon ‘dumping’.
France’s culture minister has attacked Amazon, the online retailer, for deliberately undercutting traditional rivals to create a “quasi-monopoly”, in the latest assault by the socialist government on internet companies.“Today, everyone has had enough of Amazon which, through dumping practices, smashes prices to penetrate markets to then raise prices again once they are in a situation of quasi-monopoly,” said Aurélie Filippetti, the culture minister.
Calling Amazon a “destroyer of bookshops”, she added that she was considering a ban on free postage offers and ending the current regime of allowable 5 per cent discounts on books.
Ms Filippetti was speaking in Bordeaux where the government announced a €9m joint plan with French publishers to support independent booksellers. “This is an unprecedented effort in favour of the book and reading because without independent bookshops there will be fewer publishers and authors, less choice for the reader and fewer social networks in towns,” she said.
What’s the Goal?
If the goal is to get people to read books, logic would dictate the cheaper the price the better. Kindle, Nook, and other eBook readers come to mind.
What good would banning free shipping do? Amazon could easily up shipping charges and lower the price of the book and get the same result. Of course, France would then want to dictate the price of books as well, all in the name of “preserving culture.”
It’s easy to spot the problem. France does not need and cannot afford a culture minister whose obvious goal is to stop the spread of technology and preserve culture as she sees fit.
But France is France. So when does this fool announce a tax on Kindle or campaign to bring back the horse and buggy?
Prepare for Economic Collapse in France
Government spending is already 56% of GDP. Hollande has threatened to take over steel, auto makers, and other industries to preserve jobs. Every month, France becomes less and less competitive. It is no wonder French unemployment soared. And unemployment will continue to rise.
Economic idiocy in France has even led to an open feud between French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. For details, please see Simmering Feud Between France and Germany Erupts Into Verbal Warfare; France Tells Brussels to Shove It
Prepare for an economic collapse in France, because it is on the way. And Germany cannot possibly carry the European economy on its own. That is yet another reason IMF Growth Estimate for Germany is Still Too Optimistic.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis
Ryan Gosling — Lord Have Mercy!. Eva Mendes To Rachel McAdams: Keep Your Paws Off Ryan Gosling!. Ryan Gosling To ‘Take A Break’ From Acting?! NOOOOOO!!!
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Ryan Gosling — Lord Have Mercy!. Eva Mendes To Rachel McAdams: Keep Your Paws Off Ryan Gosling!. Ryan Gosling To ‘Take A Break’ From Acting?! NOOOOOO!!!
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