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Starved Syria civilians flee besieged Damascus suburb

People walk from the rebel-held suburb of Moadamiya to government-held territory, helped by aid workers 29 October 2013 Last updated at 17:59 Thousands of Syrian civilians have finally been allowed to leave the besieged Damascus suburb of Moadamiya. The BBC’s Lyse Doucet, who was at the scene, describes a tide of desperate people leaving the area, which has been closed off since March. Supplies in Moadamiya had been running desperately short, and residents had pleaded to be saved from starvation. The exodus of civilians has been made possible by an apparent relaxation of a blockade by government forces. The Syrian army had previously said that rebel-held areas of Damascus such as Moadamiya could surrender or starve. At least three of Damascus’s suburbs – Yarmouk, Eastern Ghouta and Moadamiya – have been besieged by government forces for several months. Analysis A tide of people fled Moadamiya today – some on […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Central Bank falls victim to Libya's rampant crime, anarchy

TRIPOLI (Reuters) – Gunmen rob millions from Libya’s central bank. Boatloads of protesters storm an oil terminal like pirates. Tribesmen block a port – and contradict the prime minister when he tells the nation it will reopen soon. Libyans have become accustomed to chaos in a country flooded with weaponry where militias and tribes call the shots, two years after NATO bombing helped rebels topple Muammar Gaddafi. But the daylight robbery of $55 million from a Central Bank van suggested that Prime Minister Ali Zeidan’s cabinet is losing the struggle to provide security and build state institutions. Ten gunmen intercepted the van on Monday when it left the airport in Sirte, a former Gaddafi stronghold, snatching the cash flown in from Tripoli for the local central bank branch. "The security situation is very bad in Sirte. When I heard about the robbery, I thought I was reading a detective […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Central Bank falls victim to Libya’s rampant crime, anarchy

TRIPOLI (Reuters) – Gunmen rob millions from Libya’s central bank. Boatloads of protesters storm an oil terminal like pirates. Tribesmen block a port – and contradict the prime minister when he tells the nation it will reopen soon. Libyans have become accustomed to chaos in a country flooded with weaponry where militias and tribes call the shots, two years after NATO bombing helped rebels topple Muammar Gaddafi. But the daylight robbery of $55 million from a Central Bank van suggested that Prime Minister Ali Zeidan’s cabinet is losing the struggle to provide security and build state institutions. Ten gunmen intercepted the van on Monday when it left the airport in Sirte, a former Gaddafi stronghold, snatching the cash flown in from Tripoli for the local central bank branch. "The security situation is very bad in Sirte. When I heard about the robbery, I thought I was reading a detective […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Mexican Cartel Retaliates Against Civilians

MEXICO CITY—Crime groups launched coordinated attacks on a regional electricity grid that left hundreds of thousands of people without electricity and several dead in a rare case of civilians being deliberately targeted in Mexico’s drug war. The attacks in Mexico’s southern Michoacán state on Sunday morning left some 420,000 residents, about 10% of the state’s population, without electricity, authorities said. The outages also happened in Morelia city, where an international film festival attended by the directors Quentin Tarantino and Alfonso Cuarón was under way. On Monday, as electricity mostly returned, the government didn’t specify how exactly the attacks shut down the system, only that armed men fired bullets and threw Molotov cocktails at electricity stations throughout the state, leaving 11 towns and cities without power. Officials confirmed that five people were killed in attacks, but didn’t say how or why. A resident and local media reports said a crime […]

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Inspectors Visit All but 2 of Syria’s Declared Chemical Sites

GENEVA — International inspectors have completed verification of Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal at 21 of the 23 sites identified by the government, but they have been unable to visit the other two because they are in contested areas in Syria’s civil war, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said in a statement on Monday. The organization said Sunday that inspectors would complete destruction of equipment for mixing chemicals and filling weapons by the start of November, an important milestone. But no details are yet available on what kind of facilities are in the two sites inspectors have been unable to visit or the chances for gaining access to them, raising the prospect that Syria will miss some deadlines. Despite this hurdle, a senior State Department official said Monday that the disarmament process was generally on track and that there “was reason to be optimistic.” Among the positive […]

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Report: Syria on target to destroy chemical arms | Al Jazeera America

The inspectors have “confirmed the functional destruction of the production and mixing and filling capabilities at all the sites” inspected so far, Ban said. The U.N. leader stressed that the deadline should be met “a mere” 34 days after the 15-nation Security Council ordered the destruction of all of Syria’s chemical weapons. “In all of these activities the government of the Syrian Arab Republic has extended consistent, constructive cooperation,” Ban said. There are 22 OPCW experts and about 50 UN staff supervising the destruction program so far, the U.N. report said. The report said security “remains difficult and unpredictable” for the inspectors because of the 31-month-old war which the U.N. says has left well over 100,000 dead. Ban added the inspectors would go to the last sites “as soon as conditions permit.” The report did not say if the unsafe sites were in government or opposition territory. And the […]

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Report: Syria on target to destroy chemical arms | Al Jazeera America

The inspectors have “confirmed the functional destruction of the production and mixing and filling capabilities at all the sites” inspected so far, Ban said. The U.N. leader stressed that the deadline should be met “a mere” 34 days after the 15-nation Security Council ordered the destruction of all of Syria’s chemical weapons. “In all of these activities the government of the Syrian Arab Republic has extended consistent, constructive cooperation,” Ban said. There are 22 OPCW experts and about 50 UN staff supervising the destruction program so far, the U.N. report said. The report said security “remains difficult and unpredictable” for the inspectors because of the 31-month-old war which the U.N. says has left well over 100,000 dead. Ban added the inspectors would go to the last sites “as soon as conditions permit.” The report did not say if the unsafe sites were in government or opposition territory. And the […]

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Car bombs kill scores in Baghdad, in sign of crisis in Iraq

epa03916249 A Balinese man walks among the blazing coconut husks during a sacred ritual called ‘Mesabatan Api’ or fire fight at a temple in Tuban, Bali, Indonesia, 19 October 2013. During the ritual Balinese Hindu men took the blazing coconut husks barehanded, swinging and throwing them each other. Balinese believe that fire can destroy evil, and the ritual is aimed to get rid of the negative forces. EPA/MADE NAGI The latest attacks occurred just three days before Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is scheduled to arrive in Washington for meetings at the White House and on Capitol Hill. At the top of his agenda is a request for more American help in the fight against the al-Qaeda afiliate, whose scope has grown to encompass both Iraq and Syria. “We need to increase the depth and width of our cooperation, to be more agile and reflect the seriousness of the […]

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Syria Meets Deadline for Submitting Destruction Plan for Chemical Weapons

GENEVA — Syria submitted a formal declaration of its chemical weapons program and its plans for destroying its arsenal three days ahead of the deadline, the international chemical weapons watchdog said Sunday. The watchdog, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons , which has been charged with monitoring and destroying Syria’s chemical weapons program, said that it had received the Syrian submission on Thursday and that the agency’s Executive Council would review the declaration’s “general plan of destruction” by Nov. 15. It was not immediately clear, however, whether the declaration’s listing of chemical weapons sites was exhaustive, an important test of President Bashar al-Assad’s willingness to cooperate with the program to eliminate Syria’s chemical weapons infrastructure and arsenal. Saying that such declarations are confidential, the chemical weapons agency declined to disclose or discuss the contents of the Syrian document. American officials said in September that Syria’s chemical weapons […]

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Wave of Car Bombs Kills Dozens in Baghdad

BAGHDAD — Ten car bombs struck Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, on Sunday morning, all exploding within 40 minutes. Forty-one civilians were killed and more than 100 others were wounded, according to security and medical officials. Ambulances rushed to hospitals and security forces tightened measures around checkpoints to search each passing car, creating a traffic jam. Most of the bombings targeted public markets and bus stations. In Huriya, a neighborhood in the northwestern part of Baghdad, 5 people were killed and 12 were wounded when a bomb exploded in a parked car near a public market. In Abu Dshir in southern Baghdad, another bomb in a parked car went off near a public market, killing 6 civilians and wounding 13 others. Other car bombs struck the districts of Saba al-Bor, Mashtal, Baladiyat, Ur, Sha’ab, Bayaa and Nahrawan, where two bombs exploded. “I don’t remember how I stopped […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple