Obama fails to bring Russia and China on board at G20

LOS CABOS, Mexico/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Russia and China have not agreed to any plan for the removal of President Bashar al-Assad from power but do recognize the danger of an all-out civil war inSyria, U.S. President Barack Obama said on Tuesday as Assad's forces bombarded the city of Homs and clashed with rebels.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said Putin had shifted his view of Assad during talks with Obama and other world leaders at the Group of 20 summit in Los Cabos, Mexico, and that discussions were now focused on a transition of power in Syria.

But Putin immediately seemed to contradict that notion, telling reporters at the end of the summit: "We believe that nobody has the right to decide for other nations who should be brought to power, who should be removed from power."

Speaking at the summit, Obama said Assad has lost all legitimacy and that it was impossible to conceive of any solution to the violence in Syria that leaves him in power. Obama conceded he had failed to make a breakthrough with the leaders of Russia or China despite intensive talks.

"I wouldn't suggest that at this point the United States and the rest of the international community are aligned with Russia and China in their positions, but I do think they recognize the grave dangers of all-out civil war," he told reporters.

read more http://news.yahoo.com/obama-china-russia-not-signed-assads-removal-011318861.html

WW3 Watch! Britain stops Russian ship carrying attack helicopters for Syria

A Russian ship believed to be carrying helicopters and missiles for Syria has been effectively stopped in its tracks off the coast of Scotland after its insurance was cancelled at the behest of the British government.


The British marine insurer Standard Club said it had withdrawn cover from all the ships owned by Femco, a Russian cargo line, including the MV Alaed.

"We were made aware of the allegations that the Alaed was carrying munitions destined for Syria," the company said in a statement. "We have already informed the ship owner that their insurance cover ceased automatically in view of the nature of the voyage."


British security officials confirmed they had told Standard Club that providing insurance to the shipment was likely to be a breach of European Union sanctions against the Syrian regime.

They said they were continuing to monitor the ship, which has been the subject of a fierce international row since US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week revealed it was adding to the arsenal of weaponry available for Mr Assad to use against rebellious Syrian towns.

Russia prepared to send warships to Syria

MOSCOW, June 15 (Itar-Tass) —— A number of warships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet are prepared to go to Syria, the Russian General Staff told Itar-Tass on Friday.

“The Mediterranean Sea is a zone of the Black Sea Fleet responsibility. Hence, warships may go there in the case it is necessary to protect the Russian logistics base in Tartous, Syria,” it said.

“Several warships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, including large landing ships with marines aboard, are fully prepared to go on the voyage,” he said.


read more http://www.itar-tass.com/en/c32/448445.html

WAR DRUMS - US threatens Russia's "vital interests"

Secretary of the State Hillary Rodham Clinton said that Russia is putting its "vital interests" and relationships in the Middle East at risk if it does not act constructively on Syria, which, she said, is "spiraling towards civil war."

Clinton's warning came a day after she accused Russia of providing a shipment of attack helicopters to Syria—a claim that Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov denied. Lavrov, in turn, accused Washington of giving arms to rebels.

"The United States has provided no military support to the Syrian opposition," Clinton said Wednesday. "None."

The United States and United Nations are attempting to put pressure on Russia to help end the 15-month conflict that has left more than 13,000 Syrians dead.

On Tuesday, Clinton said that the conflict there could escalate without a regime change.

"We are concerned about the latest information we have that there are attack helicopters on the way from Russia to Syria," Clinton said Tuesday, echoing remarks she made last week calling for Syrian President Bashar Assad to be removed from power.

"We are watching this very carefully," Clinton said.

read more http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/secretary-state-hillary-clinton-warns-russia-over-syria-183214042.html

US lawmakers to Obama "Get tougher on Russia"

The State Department on Wednesday unequivocally rejected Russia's accusation that the U.S. is arming the Syrian opposition, saying American support comes strictly in the form of "nonlethal" aid. 

"We do NOT -- repeat NOT -- provide arms to anyone in Syria," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said in an email to FoxNews.com. 

The rapid-fire diplomatic battle between the two countries is quickly escalating as the U.S. tries to pressure Russia to pull back on its support for Syrian President Bashar Assad amid worsening violence inside Syria. Both U.N. and French officials are now describing that conflict as civil war.   

Russia and the U.S. are effectively accusing each other of contributing to the violence. 

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday accused Russia of providing attack helicopters to Assad's regime. 

On Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov defended his country's aid, saying Russia is not violating any international law. And, according to an account from Reuters, Lavrov said: "They (the United States) are providing arms and weapons to the Syrian opposition that can be used in fighting against the Damascus government." 

The State Department denied the charge. 

Toner told FoxNews.com that the U.S. has been "crystal clear on this point." He said the U.S. provides $52 million in emergency humanitarian assistance to the Syrian people through various nongovernmental organizations like the Red Cross.

Toner said the U.S. provides some nonlethal assistance, like communications and medical equipment. 

Clinton, in claiming that Russia was arming Assad, warned that the violence in the country could escalate "quite dramatically."

The latest reports out of Syria, according to state TV, say that Assad's forces have cleared out rebels from the Haffa region.

The developments have led some U.S. lawmakers to call on the Obama administration to get tougher on Russia. 

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/06/13/state-department-rejects-russia-accusation-arming-syrian-opposition/#ixzz1xh35jQmc

Russia test-fires intercontinental missile - could reach Israel

VIDEO - Russia test-fires intercontinental missile. Reports indicate seen as far as Israel. This is a breaking story. Stay tuned.

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Israel: Obama to blame for crisis in Syria

A distinguished former Israeli ambassador to the United States on Thursday accused the Obama administration of prime responsibility for the international community’s failure to stop the killings in Syria.

Itamar Rabinovich, who was also Israel’s chief negotiator under prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in abortive efforts at peacemaking with Syria in 1992-95, said that “it’s not Russia that’s preventing intervention. Russia is the pretext, the alibi” for the lack of substantive international action. “If someone wanted to ratchet up the pressure on Syria, they could,” he said.

Itamar Rabinovich (photo credit: Moshe Shai/Flash90)

The real block, he told Army Radio, is the US government. “The Obama administration is not looking for another major Middle East crisis before November.”

read more http://www.timesofisrael.com/us-to-blame-for-inadequate-international-response-on-syria-says-former-israeli-ambassador/

Russia teams up with modern Hitler to deal with Syria

Russia is seeking to enlist Iran in a bid to engineer a political transition in Syria, a move that drew a hostile U.S. reaction even as the Obama administration asks for more pressure on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The Russian move comes on the heels of reports on al Jazeera television, citing activists, of new massacres by Assad's forces. The reports said at least 140 Syrians were killed, some of them women and children, including 78 in Hama. Syria's state-run SANA news agency said the reports were "baseless" and that terrorists killed nine women and children outside of the city. Assad's father, the late President Hafez al-Assad, ordered the city leveled in February 1982 to crush a Sunni Muslim uprising, killing at least 10,000 people.

The possibility of recruiting Iran, one of Assad's main backers, to assist in efforts to end the violence and ease him out of power was floated as Kofi Annan, the architect of a failed United Nations April truce, prepared to address the UN today about ways to revive his peace plan or pursue next steps.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2012/06/07/bloomberg_articlesM57ROW6S972801-M58P8.DTL#ixzz1x88pDnVh

Rev 13:2 Watch! Dragon and Bear Connect

Russian trade with China has risen at least 40 percent year on year for the last two years and Russian officials say that a target to have $100 billion in bilateral trade by 2015 is likely to be reached ahead of time.

China's widening sphere of economic influence is already being felt on a local level in Russia, especially in areas close to the frontier, far from Moscow, where Chinese-made goods stock the shelves at local grocery stores and Russians make shopping trips to China for clothes and consumer goods.

The worry in Moscow, which forged an imperial dominion over sparsely populated Siberia in the 19th century, is that China's influence is now challenging Russian hegemony in its own lands.

"(Russia has) a neighbor that is becoming more and more powerful economically and its eastern territory is becoming increasingly focused on that powerhouse next door," said Trenin.

"Literally, they are becoming an appendage to China's growing industry."

read more http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/04/us-russia-china-east-idUSBRE85314M20120604

Russian Bear tests new missile, in warning over U.S. shield

 Russia tested a new long-range missile on Wednesday that should improve its ability to penetrate missile defense systems, the military said, in Moscow's latest warning to Washington over deployment of a missile shield in Europe.

Read more http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/23/us-russia-usa-missiles-idUSBRE84M1EU20120523

BEAST RISING - Russia's Putin says wants to build "Eurasian Union"

YAHOO NEWS

Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said he wants to bring ex-Soviet states into a "Eurasian Union" in an article which outlined his first foreign policy initiative as he prepares to return to the Kremlin as the country's next president.

Putin said the new union would build on an existing Customs Union with Belarus and Kazakhstan which from next year will remove all barriers to trade, capital and labor movement between the three countries.

"We are not going to stop there and are setting an ambitious goal -- to achieve an even higher integration level in the Eurasian Union," Putin wrote in an article which will be published in Izvestia newspaper on October 4.

Putin said last month he would run in the March 2012 presidential election and his current public approval ratings show that he is set to win.

Putin's initiative comes as Russia nears the end of its 18-year-old negotiations to join the World Trade Organization. In the article Putin made no secret of his skepticism about the global trade watchdog.

"The process of finding new post-crisis global development models is moving forward with difficulty. For example, the Doha round (of international trade talks) has practically stopped. There are objective difficulties inside the WTO," he wrote.

In 2009, Putin threw Russia's bid to join the WTO into disarray, saying Russia would instead form the Customs Union with Belarus and Kazakhstan. The new initiative will have to be explained to WTO members.

WRONG CROSSROADS

Putin, who once called the collapse of the USSR in 1991 "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century," said his new project would not resemble the Soviet Union.

"It would be naive to attempt to restore or copy something from the past. However, a stronger integration on a new political and economic basis and a new system of values is an imperative of our era," Putin wrote.

Russia's relationship with its ex-Soviet neighbors has been troubled by trade and political disputes and even armed conflicts such as the 2008 war with Georgia.

Putin said he saw the new union as a supra-national body which would coordinate "economic and currency policy" between its members. It would also be open to new members.

Putin said that the Customs Union would expand to take in Central Asian republics of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. He also made a veiled criticism of Ukraine which chose to stay outside the union citing its commitment to European integration.

Some of Russian's neighbors were unwilling to commit to integration because this appeared to contradict their decision to build ties with Europe.

But this was a wrong choice, he wrote. He argued that the Customs Union and in future the Eurasian Union would be the European Union's partner in talks over the creation of a common economic space, guaranteeing its members a stronger voice.

"Membership in the Eurasian Union, apart from direct economic benefits, will enable its members to integrate into Europe faster and from a much stronger position."

Putin wrote that he saw the way out of the global crisis through a regional integration, mentioning the European Union, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations as examples.

"These 'bricks' can assemble into a more stable global economy," Putin wrote.