Author Archives: News Sources

Syria: Victims of chemical weapons attacks running out of food

Fred Abrahams writes: One month after an attack with Sarin gas killed hundreds of people on the outskirts of Damascus, people in the affected areas are facing a humanitarian crisis, Syrian activists are warning.

The Syrian government, whose forces in all likelihood launched the chemical attack of August 21, is blocking the delivery of food and medical supplies.

As world leaders debate how to secure chemical weapons in Syria, they should demand that aid reaches the victims of chemical attacks, and others in need.

In the Western Ghouta town of Moadamiya, one of two areas where chemical weapons struck, an aid worker said the government has blocked food, milk and medicine for three months.

“We are prisoners in our city and homes,” the aid worker told Human Rights Watch by phone. He said residents were boiling tree leaves for soup with salt and olives. Starvation had claimed four children and two adults.

A report by the Syrian Violations Documentation Center (VDC) says conditions in Moadamiya have reached “catastrophic levels.”

An aid worker in Eastern Ghouta, also hit with chemical weapons, told Human Rights Watch the area is besieged and, “witnessing a shortage of every kind of food you can think of.” The painkiller paracetamol has jumped ten times in price, he said.

“The biggest fear we are all facing now is winter season,” the aid worker said. “I don’t know how we will survive the winter.” [Continue reading…]

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U.N. investigates more alleged chemical attacks in Syria

The New York Times reports: As the pace of efforts to scrutinize Syria’s chemical weapons stockpiles quickens, United Nations inspectors said on Friday that they were investigating reports that the weapons were used seven times in Syria, including three after an attack on Aug. 21 on the outskirts of Damascus, the Syrian capital, that set off an international crisis.

The disclosure, which came in a statement from the United Nations in Damascus that was quoted in news reports, came as the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the group in The Hague that oversees the international treaty banning them, planned a meeting late Friday to approve a separate schedule for inspections of chemical weapons storage and production sites. Syria applied to join the treaty this month.

A joint proposal by the United States and Russia to be put before the organization’s executive council on Friday calls for the completion of inspections and the destruction of “production and mixing/filling equipment” by November, according to a text on the organization’s Web site.

An official at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said that, if the meeting of the 41-nation Executive Council approves the plan to deploy inspectors in Syria at its meeting later on Friday, a first team of experts could leave for Syria on Monday and plan to arrive there on Tuesday.

The official, who declined to discuss the composition of the team, spoke on the condition of anonymity because the plan had not yet been approved.

In a breakthrough accord on Thursday, the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, which include the United States and Russia, the Syrian government’s most powerful ally, agreed on a resolution that would require Syria to give up its chemical weapons, although there would be no automatic penalties if the Syrians failed to comply. More than 100,000 people have died in Syria’s civil war, now in its third year. [Continue reading…]

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In Syria, NGOs make up for lack of investigative journalism

The New York Times reports: What to believe? That’s a key question in the diplomatic duel over Syria, as Russia continues to dispute evidence in a United Nations inspectors’ report that points to the Syrian government’s complicity in the Aug. 21 chemical attack on the Damascus suburb of Ghouta.

The Russians, who insist the attack was a “provocation” by Syrian rebels, dismiss the findings of the U.N. experts as “biased.” Instead they cite the report of a Lebanese-born nun who, from a hotel room in Geneva, did her own analysis of videos of the scene at Ghouta and declared them fake.

So goes another chapter in a continuing information war that has made reporting on the bloody, multisided conflict in Syria such a nightmare for journalists, and such a difficult story for their readers.

Not only has Syria become ever more dangerous for reporters — 16 foreign and 60 Syrian journalists are currently detained, kidnapped or missing in Syria, according to Reporters Without Borders — but fewer newspapers around the world have the budgets to send correspondents abroad, let alone to war zones.

Finding out the truth, and figuring out whom to believe, has become even more treacherous in a world awash in YouTube videos, tweets and rumors spread by the Internet. Sorting out the facts from the fake adds new burdens and risks to the business of gathering news.

Into this breach have stepped various human rights and other nongovernmental organizations now filling the gaps left by the these shifts and twists of the media world.

Six days before the publication of the U.N. report, Human Rights Watch released its own investigation of the Aug. 21 attack that also found evidence “strongly” suggesting that the government of President Bashar al-Assad was responsible.

Not for the first time, this kind of independent report made front-page news in the world’s newspapers, which, for the most part, were unable to confirm the facts on the ground with their own reporting.

“The NGOs are doing more and more of the investigative work that journalists don’t do — either because the media they work for is understaffed, underfunded or uninterested,” said Alfred de Montesquiou, a prize-winning war reporter for the French weekly magazine Paris Match. Reached on assignment in the Central African Republic, he cited both Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International for their work in Syria, breaking or confirming major stories, and identifying key players.

It’s a role that these organizations are ready to assume, even as they defend their main purpose, which is to be advocates for victims not only of war but of injustice, abuse or discrimination around the world.

“We do feel that as journalism has ebbed, we have a responsibility to flow,” said Carroll Bogert, deputy executive director for external relations at Human Rights Watch headquarters in New York.

Human Rights Watch works in 90 countries with a staff of about 400 people based in 60 locations, many of them, not surprisingly, ex-journalists. Its budget, all privately raised, has shot up to a current $70 million from about $13 million in 1998 — when Ms. Bogert, a former foreign correspondent for Newsweek, joined.

With these resources, Human Rights Watch continues to turn out the kind of in-depth reports, each one exhaustively vetted by lawyers, editors and experts, that are increasingly hard to find in newspapers.

But there’s a difference.

“We don’t just stop at the water’s edge of journalism,” Ms. Bogert said. “We investigate, we expose and we push for change. We are advocates.”

That last role sets human rights researchers apart from journalists but not, Ms. Bogert insisted, at the expense of their credibility.

“We don’t go into the field with a narrative,” she said. “We go with open notebooks, and open minds.”

Some nongovernmental agencies have already evolved into journalistic-type multimedia, multiplatform operations, with videos, Twitter accounts, maps, graphs, satellite imagery and staff experts in areas from health to weapons. The New York Times credited forensic work by Human Rights Watch analysts in a pivotal story that traced the trajectory of rockets used in the Aug. 21 attack.

In Syria, where it has a long history chronicling complaints of human rights abuses by the government of Mr. Assad, Human Rights Watch has the same security concerns as journalists. That means it does much its work from afar, sifting through testimony, checking back with trusted sources and authenticating videos, many of which end up being discarded.

“The reason we have impact is that we have a trusted brand,” Ms. Bogert said. “What we publish has to meet rigorous standards.”

The news release used to be the classic way for NGOs to get out their message, but that, too, is changing. Human Rights Watch, for instance, has opened space on its Web site for “dispatches” written by its researchers, offering brief and quick reactions to news events. For instance, a critical response to the Op-Ed article in The New York Times this month by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia was posted on the Web site within nine hours, getting 40,000 hits. This past week, a detailed rebuttal of Russia’s position on the Ghouta attack, written by Ms. Bogert, ran in the Moscow newspaper Vedomosti.

“Is it journalism?” Ms. Bogert asked. “I don’t know, but it is information that people need, and that people are using.”

Ms. Bogert insisted that Human Rights Watch had no intention of taking the place of foreign correspondents who remain their essential partners. “We are not dancing on the grave of journalism,” she said, “but it is a fact that there are fewer traditional journalists working for established papers. That’s not good for us, that’s not good for them, but we are among those information providers who are filling the gap.”

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Saudi Arabia and the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood

Raphaël Lefèvre writes: The openly difficult relationship between Saudi Arabia and Muslim Brotherhood chapters across the region has become a salient feature of Middle East politics since the advent of the “Arab Spring.” This mutual mistrust has increased in the wake of the Kingdom’s recent support for the military takeover in Cairo and the generals’ subsequent repression of the Brotherhood there. But how is the Islamist organization affected by this dynamic in Syria, where the Muslim Brothers and the Saudis both battle against Bashar al-Assad?

The question has become ever more relevant since Saudi Arabia’s takeover of the “Syrian file” from the hands of the Qataris last May.[1] Yet the answer is steeped in ambiguities. On the one hand, the relationship between Riyadh and the Syrian Brotherhood suffers from political contradictions and a lack of genuine trust. On the other hand, the two actors know each other well and have a common short and medium-term interest: to see the Iran and Hezbollah-backed Syrian regime replaced by a new political system dominated by Sunnis. But the moving sands of Egypt might soon reach Syria too, and the consequences for the local Brotherhood branch there may one day be significant.

To understand the relationship between the Syrian Brotherhood and Saudi Arabia, often described by Syrian Brothers themselves as “complex,”[2] one first needs to look a few decades back. For it was after the Syrian Brotherhood’s rebellion in the late 1970s that both actors really started to know each other. Fleeing harsh repression in the early 1980s, tens of thousands of Muslim Brothers escaped Syria and took refuge in Jordan, Iraq, and, to a lesser extent, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. It is estimated that the number of Brothers residing in the Kingdom today is in the low thousands.

This relatively sizeable presence initially posed challenges to Saudi rulers, who considered the Brotherhood’s goal of politicizing Islam a threat to the apolitical nature of their deeply conservative Wahhabi society. “The Saudi government believes that the implementation of the Brotherhood’s political project—calling for elections and the formation of parties—would mean the end of its own model, which depends on the control of a ruler who has all powers,” argued a leader of the Syrian Brotherhood who has family in the Gulf. The Kingdom therefore regulated the Syrian Brothers’ presence in Saudi Arabia by allowing them to carry out political activities in private but forbidding any politicization of Saudi society, with the promise of an uncompromising and harsh response as a deterrent. “We would be very cautious not to cross these lines,” recounted another Brother who was raised in Saudi Arabia. “There would be Syrian Brotherhood gatherings in houses or mosques but, to be discreet, we would only go and leave by a group of two or three individuals. We wouldn’t mix with members of other Brotherhood chapters, and we would almost never disclose our political affiliation in the presence of Saudi citizens.”

Thus, despite a sometimes heavy intelligence surveillance, the Kingdom nonetheless allowed the Syrian Brotherhood to operate underground. Saudi Arabia even became the place of residence for two leaders of the organization: Hassan al-Houeidi from Deir Ezzor, who lived in Medina, and Abdel Fatah Abu Ghuddah, a distinguished Islamic scholar from Aleppo who was based in Riyadh. This 30-year presence of an important share of the Syrian Brotherhood in the Kingdom helps explain why, short-term mutual interests aside, the Saudi rulers have for a long time tolerated the group more than its Egyptian counterpart. [Continue reading…]

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The influence of Syria’s foreign fighters gets overstated

Der Spiegel reports: Once just a small group, now there are several thousand foreign jihadist fighters present in Syria today. Though some rebel leaders say their presence does pose a danger, the impact of these groups is often exaggerated by the Western media.

The role of foreign jihadists linked to al-Qaida in Syria has been the subject of intense discussion in the Western media, among think tanks and inside governments. Yet despite the attention paid to the issue, the research behind the reports published is often thin.

There’s a good reason for this, too: Very few foreign journalists are still traveling within the areas of Syria that are no longer controlled by the regime of dictator Bashar Assad. Of course, other factors also influence the reporting. Right from the start, the regime described the insurgency in its propaganda as the action of “foreign terrorists,” and it has often used the Russian media in particular as a platform for spreading false accounts of events.

In early September, for example, the regime attributed an attack by diverse rebel groups on two checkpoints held by Christian militiamen in the western Syrian city of Malloula to al-Qaida. It claimed that the group had attacked and damaged churches and that it drove Christians into the streets and forced them to convert to Islam, with the threat of decapitation if they didn’t. This horrific version of the story made its way into reporting by American and British news agencies. Indeed, few reported that the nuns at Maaloula’s Tekla monastery had denied that such attacks had even taken place. [Continue reading…]

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FBI has been using drones since 2006, watchdog agency says

The Los Angeles Times reports: Operating with almost no public notice, the FBI has spent more than $3 million to operate a fleet of small drone aircraft in domestic investigations, according to a report released Thursday by a federal watchdog agency.

The unmanned surveillance planes have helped FBI agents storm barricaded buildings, track criminal suspects and examine crime scenes since 2006, longer than previously known, according to the 35-page inspector general’s audit of drones used by the Justice Department.

The FBI unmanned planes weigh less than 55 pounds each and are unarmed, the report said. The FBI declined requests to discuss its drone operations Thursday.

In June, Robert S. Mueller III, then director of the FBI, acknowledged the existence of the drone program for the first time during congressional testimony.

Mueller, who retired Sept. 4, said the bureau was in the “initial stages” of writing privacy policies so agencies flying the unmanned aircraft would avoid improper surveillance of Americans. “We’re exploring not only the use but also the necessary guidelines for that use,” he said.

But the auditors determined that the FBI had not addressed the danger of violating privacy rights, and recommended that the deputy attorney general’s office consider writing new guidelines to curb improper surveillance by law enforcement drones. [Continue reading…]

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Rouhani’s U.N. charm offensive

Barbara Slavin reports: In his speech to the UN General Assembly on Sept. 24, Rouhani protected his flank against domestic hard-liners by bemoaning efforts by unnamed nations to divide the world into a “superior us and inferior others,” to oppress the Palestinians and kill “innocent civilians” with drones. After a meandering start, however, the speech pivoted to promising that Iran would “act responsibly” and “seek to resolve problems, not create them.”

On Sept. 25, he addressed media executives in the morning and former US officials and proliferation experts in the evening — the latter a group of about 40 that included former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, former nuclear negotiators Robert Einhorn and Gary Samore and former Ambassadors Bill Luers, Frank Wisner and William Miller.

“He’s a serious fellow and demonstrated tremendous self-confidence,” Gary Sick, a White House National Security Council staffer during the 1979-81 hostage crisis, told Al-Monitor. Yet, Sick said that when he pressed Rouhani at the Sept. 25 dinner on whether Iran was ready to try again for a “grand bargain” similar to a proposal made in 2003 that the United States rebuffed, Rouhani answered, “‘We need to take this a step at a time,’ not in one leap,” Sick said.

On the morning of Sept. 26, Rouhani told a UN meeting on disarmament that Iran wanted a world without nuclear weapons and that Israel — which is believed to have at least 100 nuclear weapons — should join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as Iran did under the shah. Since Israel does not admit it has nuclear weapons, that appears to be quite a stretch.

At night, Rouhani massaged an audience of about 300 — think tankers with a sprinkling of journalists and a few unusual guests of the Iranian mission to the UN including sports promoter Don King. Rouhani began by saying that he was addressing the group as a “colleague,” because prior to becoming president, he headed the Center for Strategic Research, a government-affiliated think tank.

But his comments were mostly platitudes about avoiding a “lose-lose approach” to world problems, asserting Iran’s right to play “a major role at the global level,” and focusing on the future, or as he put it, turning the “turbulent past into a beacon lighting the path forward.”

Asked by Al-Monitor if he would permit the United States to open an interests section in Tehran to process visas for Iranians, he talked instead about the importance of encouraging more academic and other exchanges with the United States. “Initial steps would have to be taken by the people,” he said, without explaining how that could be facilitated.

On the Holocaust — an issue that came up in almost every meeting with Americans Rouhani held this week — he said that Iran condemned “the crimes by the Nazis in World War II.” He added, “Many people were killed including a group of Jewish people.” One might argue that 6 million people are hardly just a “group,” but Rouhani had already gone about as far as he apparently felt he could in trying to overcome memories of Ahmadinejad’s chronic Holocaust denial without upsetting his right flank at home.

Asked if Iran would support a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine, Rouhani repeated a formula first introduced by former reformist President Mohammad Khatami, by saying, “Whatever the people of Palestine accept, we shall accept as well.” But he did not give details, so it was not clear whether by “people of Palestine,” he also meant millions of Palestinian refugees living outside the West Bank and Gaza — a non-starter for Israel. [Continue reading…]

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President Obama’s remarks on his phone call with Iranian President Rouhani

Just now I spoke on the phone with President Rouhani of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The two of us discussed our ongoing efforts to reach an agreement over Iran’s nuclear program. I reiterated to President Rouhani what I said in New York. While there will surely be important obstacles to moving forward and success is by no means guaranteed, I believe we can reach a comprehensive solution.

I’ve directed Secretary Kerry to continue pursuing this diplomatic effort with the Iranian government. We had constructive discussions yesterday in New York with our partners, the European Union, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia and China, together with the Iranian foreign minister. Going forward, President Rouhani and I have directed our teams to continue working expeditiously, in cooperation with the P-5 plus one, to pursue an agreement. And throughout this process, we’ll stay in close touch with our friends and allies in the region, including Israel.

Now, we’re mindful of all the challenges ahead. The very fact that this was the first communication between an American and Iranian president since 1979 underscores the deep mistrust between our countries, but it also indicates the prospect of moving beyond that difficult history.

I do believe that there is a basis for resolution. Iran’s supreme leader has issued a fatwa against the development of nuclear weapons. President Rouhani has indicated that Iran will never develop nuclear weapons. I’ve made clear that we respect the right of the Iranian people to access peaceful nuclear energy in the context of Iran meeting its obligations.

So the test will be meaningful, transparent and verifiable actions, which can also bring relief from the comprehensive international sanctions that are currently in place.

Resolving this issue, obviously, could also serve as a major step forward in a new relationship between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect. It would also help facilitate a better relationship between Iran and the international community as well as others in the region, one that would help the Iranian people fulfill their extraordinary potential but also help us address other concerns that could bring greater peace and stability in the Middle East.

A path to a meaningful agreement will be difficult. And at this point both sides have significant concerns that will have to be overcome. But I believe we’ve got a responsibility to pursue diplomacy and that we have a unique opportunity to make progress with the new leadership in Tehran.

I also communicated to President Rouhani my deep respect for the Iranian people.

Now, as I said before, this comes on the same day that we can accomplish a major diplomatic breakthrough on Syria as the United Nations Security Council will vote on a resolution that would require the Assad regime to put its chemical weapons under international control so they can ultimately be destroyed. This binding resolution will ensure that the Assad regime must keep its commitments or face consequences. We’ll have to be vigilant about following through, but this could be a significant victory for the international community and demonstrate how strong diplomacy can allow us to secure our country and pursue a better world. [Washington Post]

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Obama speaks to president of Iran in first talk since 1979

The New York Times reports: The long-fractured relationship between the United States and Iran took a significant turn on Friday when President Obama and President Hassan Rouhani became the first leaders of their countries to speak since the rupture of the Tehran hostage crisis more than three decades ago.

In a hurriedly arranged telephone call, Mr. Obama reached Mr. Rouhani as the Iranian leader was headed to the airport to leave New York after a whirlwind news media and diplomatic blitz. The two agreed to accelerate talks aimed at defusing the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program and afterward expressed optimism at the prospect of a rapprochement that would transform the Middle East.

“Resolving this issue, obviously, could also serve as a major step forward in a new relationship between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran, one based on mutual interests and mutual respect,” Mr. Obama, referring to Tehran’s nuclear program, told reporters at the White House after the 15-minute phone call. “It would also help facilitate a better relationship between Iran and the international community, as well as others in the region.”

On Twitter after the call, Mr. Rouhani wrote, “In regards to nuclear issue, with political will, there is a way to rapidly solve the matter.” He added that he told Mr. Obama, “We’re hopeful about what we will see from” the United States and other major powers “in coming weeks and months.”

The conversation was the first between Iranian and American leaders since 1979 when President Jimmy Carter spoke by telephone with Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi shortly before the shah left the country, according to Iran experts. [Continue reading…]

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Syria: ‘Not Anymore: A Story of Revolution’

In an interview with Vice magazine, filmmaker Matthew VanDyke was asked:

What do you have to say to those in the journalist community who are angered about you switching between being a journalist and being a freedom fighter when it suits you? You know, the Committee to Protect Journalists lobbying for your release [while he was held prisoner for six months by Gaddafi’s forces in Libya] under the asumption you were a freelance journalist, then you returning to fight as soon as your release had been secured.

Please don’t call me a journalist. People still do that, even though I’m not. And the journalist community isn’t irritated. There were, like, ten people who were irritated to bicker and bitch and a lot of them have their own reasons for doing it. The fact is that I’ve been balefully accused for two years now and it causes me such immense emotional distress. These people try to destroy me.

The reason they still call me a journalist is that they are looking for a one-worder that fits in a headline. My family argued with journalists not to call me a journalist when I was missing, and they still did it. When I escaped prison and found out that I was a journalist, it was news to me. I’m not unbiased, not impartial like journalists should be. I don’t report news. When I was in Syria, partly because of my actions in Libya, I had access to things that I would see in the news weeks later, but I did not report on them.

Why did you actively choose not to be a journalist?

Because I don’t cross lines—don’t mix things. I don’t think journalists should be pro-revolution; journalists should show up, report the news and not take a side. I’m so determined not to cross lines that I take financial hardship for it, I risk my life for it. I was wearing a uniform while I was making that film—sometimes with a Free Syrian Army flag on my arm—to make it clear that I’m not a journalist. The consequence of that could have been that, if I’d have been captured, I would have been tortured to death.

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In Syria, FSA is a failed brand while militias increasingly gain civilian leadership

Syria Deeply reports, “In January 2012, Syria Conflict Monitor (SCM)’s five-person team began cataloguing the thousands of Free Syrian Army (FSA) videos used for recruitment purposes that were being downloaded to the Internet.”

These are the three key things revealed in SCM’s latest data:

Since the beginning of 2013, nearly one in three videos Syria-wide has invoked Islamic rhetoric as justification for the fight against the regime.

“The nationwide declines in FSA affiliation among armed groups coincides with noticeable increases in the appearance of Islamist and religious rhetoric across Syria,” SCM said.

“In addition to the aforementioned failures of any alternative galvanizing force or concept, the consistent tactical, financial and symbolic success of religiously motivated armed groups is undeniably driving a growing number of armed groups to adopt similar rhetoric and shifting the tone of the conflict. It must be reiterated that these categories are not monolithic. Groups employing Islamist rhetoric or religious symbols may differ greatly from one another. Additionally, there may be a sizable number of groups that subscribe to political-religious ideologies that do not introduce such rhetoric or symbols into their formation videos for a variety of reasons.”

Since 2012, slightly less than one-fifth of groups publishing information videos on YouTube declare affiliation with the U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army.

“Affiliating with or invoking the FSA brand in unit formation videos has significantly declined since 2012. The FSA label, with few exceptions, does not reflect real command and control or unit integration into a larger fighting group known as the FSA,” SCM said.

“Instead, the FSA label was traditionally invoked as a symbol of national solidarity with other fighting units. Based on the significant decline in FSA branding among formation videos, it is reasonable to conclude that the FSA label is no longer a symbol of unity between armed opposition groups. The FSA label in the context of formation is now likely a reminder of repeated failed attempts by figures outside of Syria to unite the armed opposition nationwide under the banner of the FSA.”

Within armed groups, there is a significant trend from military to civilian leadership.

For the first time beginning in the period of January to April 2013, a majority of videos in which declarations of leadership were made on camera were led by civilians.

“As the total number of fighting groups has increased, so too has the trend towards civilian control,” the group said. “This may reflect the insufficient number of available defected military officers to command opposition units and/or the growing aptitude of civilians to command units after two years of fighting.”

It said that civilian command of armed opposition units “carries important implications for armed group behavior … civilian command may blur the distinction between civilian and military structures on the ground, with many individuals assuming roles in local civilian governance structures in addition to armed units.”

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Rouhani recognized the holocaust, within his limitations

The Jewish Iranian-Israeli commentator, Meir Javedanfar, writes: At last, Rouhani mentioned the holocaust.

In his recent interview with Christianne Amanpour he stated:

“I am not a historian and when it comes to speaking of the dimensions of the Holocaust it is the historians that should reflect,”.

Note the word “dimensions”. He is saying the holocaust did happen, but he is leaving it to the historians to decide its full extent.

Now we could say he is disputing the numbers. Thats a valid argument.

Yet, he did go on to say:

“Whatever criminality they committed against the Jews we condemn”.

So he is not saying that six millions were not killed. He is saying whatever the numbers, which could be six million or less, was a crime.

The next frustrating question is: why doesn’t he just put an end to this discussion by saying “Yes, six million were killed in the holocaust”. Because now others could say that by leaving out the exact numbers he is still disputing the holocaust.

The answer, which much like the question is also frustrating is that Rouhani works for a holocaust denier, called Ayatollah Khamenei. In Rouhani’s case what happens in Vegas doesn’t stay in Vegas. In Iran the supreme leader and his allies are listening to and analyzing every word he utters at the UN.

Vegas is nice, but you always have to go back home to face the music. Rouhani did not want to gamble too much while he was away, as he has a boss to go back to in Tehran.

Which is also why in my opinion he refused to meet with the Americans, even though Obama was reportedly ready to do this.

To conclude, in my opinion, within the limitations that Rouhani faces from Khamenei & Co at home, and based on my understanding of nuances of double talk which is quite prevalent in Iranian politics, Rouhani recognized that the holocaust happened. On this question, he pushed the envelope as far as it could go, without endangering his position with Khamenei, who to him is far more important than Netanyahu or Obama.

However not everyone in the world is interested in understanding his limitations, or the nuances of Iranian political parlance. There are many people who lost their loved ones in the terrible tragedy that is the holocaust, and to them, the full, open recognition of that tragedy is far more important than the limitation which Rouhani faces. So the discussions are likely to continue.

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Climate change will hit poor countries hardest, study shows

The Guardian reports: Low-income countries will remain on the frontline of human-induced climate change over the next century, experiencing gradual sea-level rises, stronger cyclones, warmer days and nights, more unpredictable rains, and larger and longer heatwaves, according to the most thorough assessment of the issue yet.

The last major UN assessment, in 2007, predicted runaway temperature rises of 6C or more by the end of the century. That is now thought unlikely by scientists, but average land and sea temperatures are expected to continue rising throughout this century, possibly reaching 4C above present levels – enough to devastate crops and make life in many cities unbearably hot.

As temperatures climb and oceans warm, tropical and subtropical regions will face sharp changes in annual rainfall, says the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, released on Thursday in Stockholm before online publication on 30 September.

East Africa can expect to experience increased short rains, while west Africa should expect heavier monsoons. Burma, Bangladesh and India can expect stronger cyclones; elsewhere in southern Asia, heavier summer rains are anticipated. Indonesia may receive less rainfall between July and October, but the coastal regions around the south China Sea and Gulf of Thailand can expect increased rainfall extremes when cyclones hit land. [Continue reading…]

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Why has geoengineering been legitimised by the IPCC?

Jack Stilgoe writes: Today marked an important punctuation mark in story of humanity’s attempts to get to grips with climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published its summary for policymakers (pdf here). Climate sceptic journalists and interest groups will be making the most of the tiniest surprises and variations in the climate scientists’ new representation of the state of their art. But the evidence is largely unsurprising. For all the talk of a ‘hiatus’ in warming, the IPCC continue to fly their one big fact: more greenhouse gases means more warming.

The big surprise comes in the final paragraph, with a mention of geoengineering. In the scientific world, a final paragraph is often the place to put caveats and suggestions for further research. In the political world, a final paragraph is a coda, a big finish, the place for a triumphant, standing-ovation-inducing summary. The IPCC tries to straddle both worlds. The addition of the word ‘geoengineering’ to the most important report on climate change for six years, counts as a big surprise.

There are many reasons to be worried about geoengineering. The idea is old. Countless inventions have been proposed as a technological fix to climate change. But scientists have only recently taken it seriously. Their previous reticence was largely due to a concern that talking about easy solutions to climate change would wobble the consensus on the need for emissions cut that had been painstakingly built over decades. Geoengineering was taboo – too seductive, too dangerous and too uncertain. It is now moving towards the mainstream of climate science. As the number of geoengineering studies published shoots up, it is now acceptable to discuss it in polite scientific company.

There is an argument that the taboo has already been broken and that, like sex education, it therefore has to be discussed. Those of us interested in geoengineering were expecting it to appear in one or two of the main reports when they are published in the coming months. To bring it up front is to give it premature legitimacy. [Continue reading…]

Clive Hamilton writes: Momentum is gathering to respond to global warming using geoengineering instead of, or in addition to, carbon abatement policies. Last week Russia proposed adding support for research into methods such as sulphate aerosol spraying and ocean iron fertilization to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Summary for Policy Makers, a move that would have given geoengineering – efforts to alter the Earth’s natural systems to slow or reverse global warming – a powerful stamp of legitimacy.

Russia’s move failed, but it only means a delay of six months because the third part of the IPCC’s report, due out in April, will for the first time carry an assessment of climate engineering as a policy response.

A network of geoengineering researchers, some with links to entrepreneurs and large corporations, is pushing ahead and taking out patents. And research programs are now underway in the United States, China, Germany, Britain and Russia. [Continue reading…]

Note to commenters: Geoengineering is a serious issue not to be confused with crackpot conspiracy theories about chemtrails. Spare me any comments on the latter.

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Climate panel says upper limit on emissions is nearing

The New York Times reports: For the first time, the world’s top climate scientists on Friday formally embraced an upper limit on greenhouse gases while warning that it is likely to be exceeded within decades if emissions continue at a brisk pace, underscoring the profound challenge humanity faces in bringing global warming under control.

A panel of experts appointed by the United Nations, unveiling its latest assessment of climate research, reinforced its earlier conclusions that global warming is real, that it is caused primarily if not exclusively by human emissions, and that it is likely to get substantially worse unless efforts to limit those emissions are rapidly accelerated.

“Human influence has been detected in warming of the atmosphere and the ocean, in changes in the global water cycle, in reductions in snow and ice, in global mean sea level rise, and in changes in some climate extremes,” the report said. “It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century.”

Going well beyond its four previous analyses of the emissions problem, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change endorsed a “carbon budget” for humanity — an upper limit on the amount of the primary greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, that can be emitted from industrial activities and forest destruction.

To stand the best chance of keeping the planetary warming below an internationally agreed target of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit above preindustrial levels and thus avoiding the most dangerous effects of climate change, the panel found, only about 1 trillion tons of carbon can be burned and the resulting gas spewed into the atmosphere.

Just over half that amount has already been emitted since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, and at current rates of energy consumption, the trillionth ton will be released around 2040, according to calculations by Myles R. Allen, a scientist at the University of Oxford and one of the authors of the new report. More than 3 trillion tons of carbon are still left in the ground as fossil fuels. [Continue reading…]

The Guardian notes some of the key points from the IPCC report:

• Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide are now at levels “unprecedented in at least the last 800,000 years.”

• Since the 1950’s it’s “extremely likely” that human activities have been the dominant cause of the temperature rise.

• Concentrations of CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have increased to levels that are unprecedented in at least 800,000 years. The burning of fossil fuels is the main reason behind a 40% increase in C02 concentrations since the industrial revolution.

• Global temperatures are likely to rise by 0.3C to 4.8C, by the end of the century depending on how much governments control carbon emissions.

• Sea levels are expected to rise a further 26-82cm by the end of the century.

• The oceans have acidified as they have absorbed about a third of the carbon dioxide emitted.

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Qatar’s World Cup ‘slaves’

The Guardian reports: Dozens of Nepalese migrant labourers have died in Qatar in recent weeks and thousands more are enduring appalling labour abuses, a Guardian investigation has found, raising serious questions about Qatar’s preparations to host the 2022 World Cup.

This summer, Nepalese workers died at a rate of almost one a day in Qatar, many of them young men who had sudden heart attacks. The investigation found evidence to suggest that thousands of Nepalese, who make up the single largest group of labourers in Qatar, face exploitation and abuses that amount to modern-day slavery, as defined by the International Labour Organisation, during a building binge paving the way for 2022.

According to documents obtained from the Nepalese embassy in Doha, at least 44 workers died between 4 June and 8 August. More than half died of heart attacks, heart failure or workplace accidents.

The investigation also reveals:

• Evidence of forced labour on a huge World Cup infrastructure project.

• Some Nepalese men have alleged that they have not been paid for months and have had their salaries retained to stop them running away.

• Some workers on other sites say employers routinely confiscate passports and refuse to issue ID cards, in effect reducing them to the status of illegal aliens.

• Some labourers say they have been denied access to free drinking water in the desert heat.

• About 30 Nepalese sought refuge at their embassy in Doha to escape the brutal conditions of their employment.

The allegations suggest a chain of exploitation leading from poor Nepalese villages to Qatari leaders. The overall picture is of one of the richest nations exploiting one of the poorest to get ready for the world’s most popular sporting tournament. [Continue reading…]

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What Iran’s president said, is said to have said and says he said

Robert Mackey writes: In an interview with Charlie Rose of CBS News broadcast on Thursday, Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, rejected accusations that he had not clearly acknowledged the historical reality of the Holocaust in remarks to CNN earlier this week.

According to the simultaneous translation of Mr. Rouhani’s remarks from Persian into English, he replied:

In principle, we and I condemn the massacre carried out by the Nazis in World War II. I’ll also add that many groups were killed by the Nazis in the course of the war, Jews in specific, but there were also Christians, there were Muslims. So in principle, I’ll tell you that my government, I condemn massacre — the killing of people or any group. I’ll tell you that when an innocent person is killed, we never go about asking or inquiring whether they were Jewish or Christian or Muslim. That’s not our way or our creed. We simply say that we condemn any killing, any massacre, and therefore we condemn the massacre of the Jewish people by the Nazis, as we also condemn the other massacres that took place in the course of the war.

“Why would I want to deny it?” Mr. Rouhani asked rhetorically. “Given that we live in the Middle East,” he added, “we feel the impact of what took place in World War II today in our region.”

The president argued — as his predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had in far more inflammatory language — that the Palestinian people had been forced to pay for the crimes of the Nazis when the state of Israel was established as a Jewish homeland in the Middle East after the German genocide in Europe. “We think that it’s time to really separate that event from what’s happening to a group of people now in the Middle East who’ve lost their homes, who have been discriminated against, who have gone through some of the worst kinds of torture that no one — even the Jewish people — would want to see.”

While Mr. Rouhani made broadly similar remarks in his response to a question about his predecessor’s Holocaust denial from CNN’s Christiane Amanpour a day earlier, a conservative Iranian news agency — known for its, at times, comically staunch support of Mr. Ahmadinejad — injected a note of uncertainty by pointing out that the simultaneous translation in that broadcast was inexact. [Continue reading…]

M.J. Rosenberg — who lost relatives in the Holocaust — writes: It’s starting again. The “bomb Iran” crowd are again complaining that President Rouhani is a Holocaust denier like his deranged predecessor.

As Ha’aretz reports, Prime Minister Netanyahu is worried that Rouhani might totally abandon “denial” and leave him with no propaganda points to use for his war-mongering. Top Israeli journalist Chemi Shalev writes that the Holocaust is Netanyahu’s “only ace in the hole” to use against Rouhani who is clearly moving toward compromise on the nuclear issue. Meanwhile Netanyahu looks like the warmonger he is.

I wish Rouhani would just drop the ugly and offensive quibbling about the Holocaust. All he needs to do is speak the truth: the Holocaust happened; 6,000,000 Jews were killed along with millions of others; and the mass killing constituted a crime against humanity.

Period. End of controversy. Friends of both truth and peace celebrate: the war lobby gnashes its teeth.

But Rouhani resists that kind of formulation, although he does condemn the Holocaust.

So what?

If Rouhani is prepared to negotiate over nuclear weapons, why do we care what he says about the Holocaust (it would be different if he acknowledged it and endorsed it). The government of Turkey, our NATO ally, denies the Armenian genocide and Turkey perpetrated it. Japan, our closest friend in Asia, still denies the Rape of Nanking and all the other war crimes Japan committed in China in the 1930′s. Congress forced the Smithsonian Institute to eviscerate its exhibit on the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki for hinting that there might have been alternatives to using nuclear weapons. There are dozens of more examples, and (unlike Iran’s) these denials all come from the nations that committed the crimes. [Continue reading…]

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U.S. judge allows lawsuit accusing Google of wiretapping emails

Reuters reports: A federal judge on Thursday refused to dismiss most of a lawsuit against Google Inc over allegations the company improperly scanned the content of customers’ emails in order to place ads.

U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California ruled that the proposed class action lawsuit against Google can proceed. She rejected Google’s argument that its users had consented to having their email read for the purposes of targeted advertising.

“We’re disappointed in this decision and are considering our options,” Google spokesman Matt Kallman said in an email.

Litigation brought by nine plaintiffs, some Gmail users, some not, was consolidated before Koh earlier this year. The plaintiffs maintain Google violated several laws, including federal anti-wiretapping statutes by systematically crossing the “creepy line” to read private email messages in order to profit, according to court documents.

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