MFS - The Other News

                        Morning Posting.

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity in Indonesia 6.3 and Japan 5.4 ! More info here.

• Updated - Enviroment Pollution in The North sea - Official situation update Nr 7 : Energy giant Royal Dutch Shell said on Tuesday that about two barrels of oil a day are still spilling into the North Sea from its Gannet Alpha platform as it struggled to stem a second leak. "The primary leak in the flow line is pretty much dead," said Glen Cayley, technical director of the Anglo-Dutch oil company's exploration and production activities in Europe, six days after the leak began. "There is a small secondary leak created by that which is the small flow of two barrels a day which is proving a little difficult to get to and isolate."
  
  About 216 tonnes (1,300 barrels) of oil has leaked from the Gannet Alpha platform, 112 miles (180 kilometres) east of Aberdeen on the Scottish coast, Shell revealed on Monday -- making it the biggest in British waters in a decade. Cayley said the oil on the sea surface had been "much reduced" due to harsh weather conditions, which had broken up a slick that at one point was 30 kilometres in length to about two barrels. There was no question of it hitting the shore, he added. "The leak that we've stemmed was in the flow line, so job number one was to close in the wells and isolate the reservoir, which of course is the large volume from the leak," Cayley said. "We're confident that it's under control. The residual small leak is in an awkward position to get to. This is complex sub-sea infrastructure, and really getting into it amongst quite dense marine growth is proving a challenge."Source.
  

• Japan : For the most accurate info on the nuclear disaster go to : Paul Langley's Nuclear History Blog.Here.

• Exclusive: Layout of President Obama's Tragical Misery Tour Bus.(DougRoss).A three day golf practice tour, observe the unemployed while improving your game in the virtual Golf simulator?Read and see the full story here.

• Obama On Debt: "I Had A Deal That 'Would Have Solved This Problem' but Boehner Walked Away".(CNSNews).President Barack Obama told an audience on the first stop of his bus tour that his original deficit reduction plan could have solved the nation’s debt problem “tomorrow” but House Speaker John Boehner walked away from the deal.“The fact of the matter is that solving our debt and deficit problems simply requires all of us to share in a little bit of sacrifice, all of us to be willing to do a little bit more to get this country back on track and that’s not too much to ask,” Obama told a crowd in Cannon Falls, Minnesota on Monday.“Basically what we need to do is we need to cut about 4 trillion dollars over the next 10 years. Now that sounds like a big number, it is a big number but you know, if we were able to, as I proposed, cut about 2 trillion dollars in spending — if folks who could best afford it, millionaires and billionaires, were willing to eliminate some of the loopholes that they take advantage of in the tax code and do a little bit more and if we were willing to take on some of the long term costs that we have on health care — if we do those things, we could solve this problem tomorrow.”Obama continued, “I put a deal before the Speaker of the House John Boehner that would have solved this problem and he walked away because his belief was we can’t ask anything of millionaires and billionaires and big corporations in order to close our deficit.”Hmmmm.......How much taxes do the Obama's pay,considering his house in Chicago is even registred under someone else their names?Read the full story here.

• "Men in Black Busses".(MediaBistro).A White House Pool Report by WSJ‘s Laura Meckler involving a bus with black tinted windows caused some stir earlier today.She wrote: “Air Force One touched down in St. Paul at 10:30 a.m. CT. An all-black bus with dark tinted windows awaited Potus at the bottom of the stairs. Even from the outside, the bus is not like any normal bus. The windows are so dark (except for those next to the driver) that it does not appear to have any windows at all. There is nothing painted on it whatsoever.”West Wing Reports had this to say about it: “Standard talking points so far as President’s ‘economic bus tour’ (in a really scary looking all-black bus) gets underway in MN.”CBS News White House radio reporter Mark Knoller has more details on the bus. For one thing, it’s as mammoth as it is to accommodate the Secret Service. For another, the $1.1 million bus is part of a new fleet.We reached out to WhiteHouseDossier.com’s Keith Koffler about what effect he thinks the bus might have on ordinary Minnesotans. “It’s going to cause an accident,” Koffler said. “If I saw that thing, I’d drive right off the road, get out my car, and beg the Lord for mercy.” He continued, “I fully expect Obama to get off the bus and instead of kissing babies say to them, ‘Luke, I am your father.’”On a somewhat more serious note, he said, “It would seem, you know, not to exactly be in the populist spirit of a bus tour. It looks like it was designed by some of the best political consultants over at DARPA [Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency].”Read the full story here.

• Insider: Obama Team to Incite Race Riots; Use White Guilt in 2012 Election,Divide et Impera.[divide and conquer; divide and rule] (SHTF).In politics and sociology, divide and rule (also known as divide and conquer) is a combination of political, military and economic strategy of gaining and maintaining power by breaking up larger concentrations of power into chunks that individually have less power than the one implementing the strategy. The concept refers to a strategy that breaks up existing power structures and prevents smaller power groups from linking up.Since riots and uprisings are now en vogue the world over and with signs that they will soon reach the shores of America, would it be that much of a stretch to suggest President Obama’s election campaign would be willing to incite race riots in the hopes of guilting white Americans into casting a vote for a President who is progressively losing popularity and support at an ever accelerating rate?The White House Insider, reportedly a disgruntled democrat operative deep inside the administration, tells all in a recent three part interview with the Ulsterman Report. While the claims sound particularly outrageous, plenty of Presidents past have taken extreme measures to secure their electability and preserve their image. The “Insider” has been uncanny in predicting events over the last 18 months, including the extension of the Bush tax cuts, the public outing of operation Gunrunner, the birth certificate issue going fully mainstream, Democrat party infighting between the President and members of Congress, and White House attrition resulting from discontent. For this reason we will, at the very least, bring this latest Insider report to our readers for digestion.**Adult content and expletives**

Ulsterman: How? What’s the plan? What’s going to be different from all the other campaigns?

Insider: You’ve already seen it. A taste of it. Race. The race card. Racism. Race-race-race. It’s all they fucking got to run on these days.

Ulsterman: Race? Hasn’t Obama played that one out already? It’s become a joke.

Insider: Played it out? No, not…you might think so but no…his people are going to raise the issue of race to a level this country hasn’t seen since the Civil Rights movement. White guilt got Barack Obama the nomination. White guilt got Barack Obama into the White House. At least it was a big part of it…they are not sure they can run on the economy by summer of 2012. Motivation is way down – the people on the ground. Many of them will be sitting this one out. The campaign conducted over five internals in the last few months. Each time the one issue that came back favorably for the president was the color of his skin. People are not comfortable…white people are not comfortable going against a person of color. At least not a whole lot of them. Those studies – those kinds of studies…they were first incorporated by the Hillary campaign back in 2007 and 2008. It scared the hell out of her – she was so afraid of being called a racist. So she attacked Obama on his lack of experience, she just touched on some of the Chicago garbage…but in the end, the race issue kept her from really engaging in all out political war. The Clinton machine was handcuffed. When Obama used race to get America to forgive the fact he spent some 20 years sitting in the church of a proven anti-American fascist fucking racist – what could they do? It was game over.

Insider: Yes. It’s in place and underway – being developed. Further developed. It’s gonna – gonna tie it in with the unions somehow. I don’t know exaclty how – just that’s included in it. It will be an all out campaign on race. The goal is to completely mobilize the Black vote while shaming an even greater number of white voters into not opposing a second Obama term. They are gonna get out the guilt vote man. The guilt vote!

Ulsterman: Obama…Democrats in general, already get the Black vote – most of it.

Insider: They want all of it. Every last one. Then bring in the Hispanic vote, tie them up in this race issue as well. Republicans want to toss you out. Obama wants to bring you in. They hate the color of Obama’s skin just like they hate the color of yours. Hey White America, you aren’t part of that group who hates non-whites are you? If not, you better get out and vote for Barack Obama.

Ulsterman: That sounds overly simplistic and insulting to voters. You really think something like that would actually work?

Insider: Hell yes-yes… it can work. It’s not gonna come so easy as it did in 2008, but that’s why they plan to ramp it up – the race issue.A politician, especially at the highest levels, will stop at nothing to maintain their power. President Obama is no different, and considering that mouthpieces in his administration have repeatedly referred to unsupportive segments of the electorate as terrorists and racists, is it any wonder they are considering this strategy?Does anyone expect the President to successfully run on the economy, health care, tax cuts, or budget reductions?It seems to us that his options are quite limited.This means that we can soon expect agents provocateurs to embed themselves into Republican and Democrat Party rallies and campaign events. There will be no shortage of media coverage, and we can fully expect a progressively-leaning media to inflame and incite such events (remember the spitting incident on the steps of Capitol Hill?).The argument that the next round of riots coming to America will be organized by our very own elected officials using pretexts such as race and class warfare is quite compelling considering the circumstances.Hmmmm.....I wonder what will be their "reichstag fire" moment?Flash mobs and unions ?Read the full story here.

• House GOP Bill Aims To Stop Obama From Working With Hollywood To Release Bin Laden Movie Before Elections.(FloorAction).A Republican lawmaker from Kansas wants to prevent the administration from helping Sony make a movie about the killing of Osama bin Laden.The Stop Subsidizing Hollywood Act introduced by Rep. Lynn Jenkins (R-Kan.) would stop the Obama administration from spending taxpayer money to share information about the killing of bin Laden with Sony Pictures, which is looking to release a film about that event in October 2012.Jenkins said the bill, introduced on Friday, is necessary because the government has no role to play in helping the movie industry at a time of fiscal crisis.“In an era of 9 percent unemployment, trillion-dollar deficits, credit downgrades, and record debt-ceiling extensions it is unconscionable that taxpayer dollars are being used to aid the Hollywood film industry in fact-checking and script research,” Jenkins said. “American families have been forced to go through their budgets line by line and look for ways to tighten their belts, and it is time the federal government does the same.”Her bill, H.R. 2819, would specifically prevent the sharing of information about the bin Laden killing to any outside entity, and also require that any aid given by the Defense Department to Sony be repaid by the film industry.Hmmmm.........."I did it my way"?Read the full story here.

• Chinese Rating Agency Chief: 'The Whole World Will Be in Danger'.(Spiegel).The head of state-owned Chinese rating agency Dagong, Guan Jianzhong, 57, speaks to SPIEGEL about China's economic model, why he believes the rating system used by the Big Three is a threat to the world and the twighlight of Western dominance.

SPIEGEL: You recently said that it would be a "catastrophe" if an American rating agency downgraded the United States' credit rating. Now that Standard and Poor's has taken that step, is the situation as bad as you imagined?

Guan: This rating on the US credit crisis has a significant influence on the world. China is the largest debt holder of the United States, and the downgrade will primarily damage the value of the US dollar assets and bonds held by China. Second, it will influence China's export of commodities to the United States in the future. More importantly, it will lead to the deterioration of global macroeconomics for both developed debtor economies and emerging creditors.

SPIEGEL: Will China invest less in US bonds from now on?

Guan: I personally think it's unsafe to invest in US bonds. It is too risky. But the Chinese government might have considerations other than just economic risk. In terms of pure investment, however, it is not a wise decision any longer.

SPIEGEL: Both the US and Europe are struggling with a massive debt crisis. Is this the end of Western dominance?

Guan: The EU and the United States both have this model of borrowing money to boost their economic development. But they borrow money from the future, they mortgage a virtual fortune that they may -- or may not -- earn for their creditworthiness and their current consumption. This has been their model since World War II, but this model ended in the financial crisis of 2008. Continuously creating demand for credit to enlarge capital and cash flow has used up their creditworthiness. This means the model of economic development in developed Western capitalist countries has ended. It leads to another question: Should the government keep borrowing money to support its citizens in consuming much more and maintain high social standards? I think the answer is no.

 SPIEGEL: Do you think China's model is better?

Guan: China is characterized by a real economy, unlike like the United States, which mainly depends on the financial industry. Though China's financial industry is developing, China relies on its real economy to create value and money. If we can draw some lessons from the Western experience, we should insist on letting real economy create value and money while discouraging the Chinese from borrowing too much money.

SPIEGEL: Your agency downgraded the United States before Standard and Poor's did so. Why?

Guan: We use a different rating system. When we evaluate sovereign creditworthiness for the United States, we consider the potential outlook of its economic development -- the driving force to boost its economy -- along with its revenue and expenditures. The US has poor performance in all three criteria. Besides, it needs to borrow a lot of money to keep running the country, and without improving the above three criteria, its ability to repay debts will worsen further.Read the full story here.

• More Evidence: Slave Labor Not Cheap Enough; Walmart Has Ninth Straight Quarterly Decline in Sales.(SHTF).As if the lowest consumer sentiment in three decades wasn’t enough, the largest retailer in the world provides yet more evidence that the consumer in the United States is being unabatedly destroyed: …company comments about consumer spending showed the split between upper-income consumers who have jobs and are little affected by rising costs for food and other essentials, and lower-income shoppers who are struggling with stubbornly high unemployment and rising costs.“This is exactly what we continue to see quarter after quarter. There’s just significant bifurcation here,” Edward Jones retail analyst Matt Arnold said.Wal-Mart said same-store sales at its U.S. discount stores, by far its largest business, fell 0.9 percent in the second quarter, the ninth straight quarterly decline at domestic stores open at least a year.“They’re trading down to stretch their budgets, buying a lower-priced brand of detergent, moving from branded canned goods to private label, and purchasing half gallons of milk instead of gallons,” Wal-Mart Chief Executive Mike Duke said in a recorded message.Also, more shoppers are relying on government aid to help pay for food and other necessities, Walmart U.S. CEO Bill Simon said on the call.When the retailer selling the cheapest goods in the world manufactured by slave labor can’t boost sales growth, then you know there’s a problem. If anything, consumers should be shopping at Walmart in droves, putting competitors out of business. Even if consumers wanted to buy more (non-essential) goods, they couldn’t.Millions of jobs lost. Millions more left to lose. Credit for everything except college tuition is almost nonexistent. Wages and benefits are deteriorating. 401(k)’s and savings accounts have been tapped. The value of homes, the leading investment product of America’s middle class, have been wiped out. The country’s gross domestic product, the key measure of economic growth, has collapsed.We are on the brink of the next phase of this crisis, when the last of the easy money (for Main Street) runs out, is going to be nothing short of financial Armageddon, because the government will have no ammunition to counteract the next market collapse.Hmmmm.......Meanwhile the Social Media commander in Chief go's around blaming everything and everyone but himself.Read the full story here.

• CAIR Offended and Confused by Allen West’s Refusal to Submit.Fort Lauderdale (CBS4) – A South Florida Muslim group sent Congressman Allen West a letter asking him to disassociate himself from activists the group considers anti-Islamic.Congressman West did respond and the letter he sent back is raising some eyebrows.If it looks like the shortest letter you’ve ever seen from a member of congress, it probably is. How short? Try one word, in capital letters: “NUTS!”“I was shocked at first. I didn’t expect this from a congressman,” said Nezar Hamze, the executive director of CAIR Florida — the Council on American-Islamic Relations.“We stand up for the civil rights of the Muslim community. That’s what we do,” said Hamze.Hamze says he wrote to the Republican Congressman earlier this month with his concerns about the Congressman’s relationships with groups and people Hamze considers to be anti-Islamic.“When I first saw that, I wasn’t sure if he was calling me nuts, or he was calling my concerns nuts,” said Hamze.Constituents in West’s district 22 are just now reading the letter.“It doesn’t look too professional to me. It doesn’t look thought out,” said one constituent named Chuck.Simone Oliver, another district 22 constituent thinks it’s fine, but says it needs a little more.“Maybe another sentence, explaining,” she said.West has not fully explained his position, but in other letters to CAIR Florida, he has said he is neither anti-Islamic nor anti-Muslim.Then CBS4 News discovered that during World War II, General Anthony McAuliffe famously wrote a one-word letter to the Germans in response to a surrender ultimatum. The word used: “Nuts!”Hamze doesn’t think he’ll ever find out what Congressman West meant with the word because, he says, West has turned down all meetings with CAIR Florida.“[If I could say something to him now,] I’d tell him to grow up! To act like a congressman and engage in dialogue, and to stop the school boy insults,” said Hamze.West turned down an interview request from CBS4 News on Monday. As of Monday night, his office had not yet responded to requests for a statement on the matter.Hmmmmm........There's Strong and than there's "ARMY STRONG".Read and see the full story here.

• Obama’s Problem is Not Communication.(CommentaryMagazine).By Peter Wehner.According to E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post, “a new Obama — or, in many ways, the old Obama of 2008 — is about to reappear.”Into a phone booth Mr. Obama enters and out comes the Man of Steel.According to Dionne, “The president’s speech last Thursday in Holland, Mich., was the first sign that the competitive Obama is reemerging. His target, like Harry Truman​’s in 1948, was an obstructionist Republican Congress. He condemned ‘the refusal of some folks in Congress to put the country ahead of party’ and urged that it ‘start passing some bills that we all know will help our economy right now.’” (Set aside the fact that if a Republican had uttered these same words about Democrats, Dionne would be livid, saying that the GOP president was acting in a disgraceful manner by accusing his opponents of being “unpatriotic.”)“With Obama,” Dionne goes on, “there is always the danger of a relapse into the passive, we’re-all-reasonable-people style. The fighting Obama has briefly appeared before, only to go back into hibernation. This time, the evidence suggests he’ll stick with it — and, in truth, he has no other choice.”Dionne is among the fiercely loyal Obama supporters who believe that the president’s problems mostly have to do with communications, with optics, with theatrics. Mr. Obama, you see, needs to be more of a fighter, more of an attack dog, more of a political assassin. If he does that, the New Obama – who is really the Old Obama – will rise from the ashes.Here’s a political rule of thumb: when the supporters of a politician start reaching for the Harry Truman model of comebacks, you know they’re in trouble.But what we are witnessing are the desperate, angry and increasingly unappealing words of a desperate, angry, and increasingly unappealing politician. Those who are waiting for Superman will be waiting in vain.Read the full story here.

• Turkey (Erdogan) seeks US (Obama) action on Greek Cyprus' gas drilling in Med.(TodaysZaman).Turkey has contacted the US administration on Greek Cypriot plans to begin drilling for gas in the eastern Mediterranean, urging the US authorities to act “responsibly” in the row, a news report said on Monday.Greek Cyprus recently announced that it would begin drilling for oil and gas off the island's southern coast on Oct. 1. It earlier licensed American Noble Energy to explore an 800,000-acre area bordering Israeli waters where massive gas fields were found under the seabed.Turkey objects to Greek Cypriot hydrocarbon drilling in the eastern Mediterranean, saying this is in violation of the rights and interests of the Turkish Cypriots, who run their own state in the north of the island. Earlier this month, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu warned the Greek Cypriot government against drilling hydrocarbons in the Mediterranean, saying Ankara will show the “appropriate reaction” if Greek Cyprus moves ahead with exploration plans.Ankara now seeks US action in the dispute as well, according to private NTV television station. It said Ankara wants the US administration to warn the American companies against taking part in the Greek Cypriot initiative to explore gas and oil deposits in the Mediterranean. NTV also said Turkey seeks to bring the issue to the attention of the UN Security Council, contacting members of the 15-nation body on the dispute.Hmmmm......"I will stand with my Muslim Brothers" against Israel?Read the full story here.

• Dark times ahead for the Kurdish people in Turkey?PM says push has come to shove on PKK, vows new tactics after Ramadan.(TodaysZaman).In an open challenge to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has recently stepped up its acts of violence despite the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Sunday that push has come to shove for Turkey, indicating that the country will enter a new era in the fight against terror after Ramadan.Speaking during a meeting held in Ankara to celebrate his Justice and Development Party's (AK Party) 10th anniversary, Erdoğan lashed out at the PKK for killing Turkish soldiers even during Ramadan. “I am saying it frankly. The cost of this will be heavy for them. Those who fail to distance themselves from the separatist terrorist organization in this country are also abetting this crime. They are also doomed to pay the price for that,” the prime minister said referring to the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), which has so far failed to deny links with the PKK.“We are maintaining our patience because of our respect for Ramadan. But, everyone should know that the beginning of peace will be more different after this month of peace and solidarity,” Erdoğan added.The prime minister also criticized the BDP-affiliated Democratic Society Congress (DTK) for recently announcing democratic autonomy for Turkey's Kurds. “If they are saying democracy, if they are saying laws, everyone should know that nobody can perform surgery on any province in this country by creating illegal parliaments. Local autonomy or that kind of autonomy. Come off it!” Erdoğan said.  Erdoğan said all local governments in Turkey are already autonomous, underscoring that no kind of autonomy can be discussed in Turkey other than the autonomy of local governments. “We have no such thing in our book,” Erdoğan said.The DTK, which was founded last year after the Constitutional Court shut down the Democratic Society Party (DTP) for “separatist tendencies,” announced “democratic autonomy” for the Kurdish-dominated provinces of Turkey's east and southeast in what was widely seen as a highly provocative statement in July. The DTK's declaration came at a time when PKK members killed 13 soldiers and wounded seven others in an ambush in Diyarbakır, escalating already high-running tensions. The DTK is holding regular meetings in Diyarbakır to, according to what they say, find a solution to the Kurdish issue.Erdoğan's remarks met with a strong reaction from the BDP on Monday, with the party's parliamentary group deputy chairman accusing him of declaring war. Noting that Erdoğan's remarks that “push has come to shove” cannot be words used in politics, BDP's Hasip Kaplan said these remarks in legal terms are “a call for a massacre.”“He could have said that he would seek ways to reach a compromise to the very end and that the process of making a new constitution would be a good chance for a solution. But instead he declared war,” Kaplan said.“Every step from this point onwards will bring us to either a solution or deadlock, either disunion or union. Those who hold responsibility should be more careful. The pains we experience hurt us all. Politicians should, of course, do something to prevent these pains,” he added.On the other hand, the BDP group’s deputy head, Hasip Kaplan, sent a Twitter message in response to Erdoğan’s harsh statements, saying that “Every step taken after this will take the country to a solution or non-solution or unity or break away. People who are in positions of responsibility should be careful.”Hmmmm......Sounds like The Kurds are heading for a solution 'a L'Armenien'.Read the full story here.

• Turkish Red Crescent chief resigns from his post.(HurriyetDaily).Turkish Red Crescent Director General Tekin Küçükali’s surprise resignation Monday caused controversy as his decision came amid an ongoing campaign for Somalia in which his institution is playing a key role. According to unconfirmed reports, his resignation was demanded by the government last week especially after he pledged full assistance to the opposition leader in visiting Somalia.“I have realized that my entire body is tired following the recent busy work schedule and that it is now time for me to rest,” said Küçükali in his statement posted on the official web site of the Red Crescent early Monday. Tekinali served for the organization for seven years.“I learned his resignation this morning. It is a surprise for us too,” Muzaffer Komit, secretary-general of the Red Crescent, told the Anatolia news agency. “His mobile phone has been off since Friday. We cannot reach him.”According to reports, Küçükali held an unannounced meeting with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Istanbul on Friday. There is no information whether his resignation was linked to the meeting.“All decisions are being taken unanimously in the organization. We are deciding on thousands of issues and it’s normal for us to disagree on a few of them. But we had no any disagreements in the last two-three months,” Komit said.There are three speculations about his resignation. The first could be his generous assistance promise to Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, head of the Republican People’s Party, or CHP, who asked for help for his visit to famine-hit Somalia slated for early September. While Kılıçdaroğlu complained about the Foreign Ministry’s attitude regarding his request, he appreciated Tekinali for granting help to the CHP brass in their trip to Somalia.The second could be Erdoğan’s dissatisfaction with the Red Crescent’s performance in collecting donations for Somalia, while the third could be the government’s preference to give more a bigger chance to other humanitarian aid organizations, such as the Humanitarian Relief Foundation, or IHH, which is thought to be close to the ruling party. However, there was no statement from officials late Monday to confirm any of the speculation.From training leaders for earthquakes to helping mothers and babies in poverty and even revolutionizing the blood donation process, the Turkish Red Crescent has proven thousands of times that they are at the service of those in need, added Küçükali. In accordance with the Red Crescent regulations, the general directorate’s administrative board convened Monday to set the date for the extraordinary convention when a new director general would be elected within two months.Hmmmmm........Not only Generals retire........Erdogan.....IHH.Read the full story here.

• Video - Syrian Opposition Leader Riad Seif Recounts His Experiences in Prison and Says: 'Dialogue Cannot Take Place between a Hangman and His Victim'.(Memri).Read and see the full story here.

• Outrage after Palestinian camp attacked in Syria as civilian death toll mounts.(AlArabiya).Syria came under sharp Arab and international condemnation on Tuesday after activists said gunboats pounded Latakia port, forcing thousands of Palestinians to flee a refugee camp, as rights groups said that civilian death toll there has mounted to 34.As activists reported new deaths at the camp, the Palestinians condemned Syria over the violence and the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) reported that more than 5,000 refugees had fled the Ramel camp in southern Latakia under fire, according to AFP.The United States, however, said it was unable to confirm the reports of the Syrian navy shelling Latakia, in what would amount to an escalating bid to crush pro-democracy protests.Palestine Liberation Organization secretary general Yasser Abd Rabbo said the attack on Ramel was “part of the crimes against humanity” targeting Palestinians and Syrians alike. Jordan, adding its voice to a chorus of Arab condemnation of the Syrian crackdown on dissent, urged Damascus to “immediately” stop the violence and “listen to reason,” state-run Petra news agency reported.US President Barack Obama said his Syrian counterpart Bashar Al Assad has lost his legitimacy and his people “will be better off without him,” the White House spokesman said, according to AFP.Unlike most Syrian cities, which are mainly Sunni, Latakia has a large Alawite population, partly because President Assad and his father before him encouraged Alawites to move from their nearby mountain region by offering them cheap land and jobs in the public sector and security apparatus. Latakia port has played a key role in the Assad family’s domination of the economy, with Bashar Al Assad’s late uncle Jamil having been in virtual control of the facility, and a new generation of family members and their friends taking over.Chris Gunness, a spokesman for UNRWA which helps Palestinian refugees, said “between 5,000 and 10,000 people have fled” Ramel. “We need to get in there and find out what the hell is going on.”“We have called on the Syrian government to give us expeditious and unhindered access for humanitarian workers,” Mr. Gunness added.The PLO’s Abd Rabbo told AFP: “We strongly condemn the operations of the Syrian forces in raiding and shelling the Palestinian Ramel Camp in Latakia and the displacement of the population.”The attack on Ramel is considered “to be part of the crimes against humanity that have been directed at the Palestinian people and their Syrian brothers who are also the victims of this ongoing bloody campaign,” he said.Syria's neighbors Jordan and Turkey called for an immediate end to the violence.Jordanian Prime Minister Maaruf Bakhit telephoned his Syrian counterpart Adel Safar and told him “Syria should listen to reason and start implementing reforms,” the state news agency Petra reported from Amman.“World anger and rejection of the bloodshed in Syria are growing,” he said.Hmmmm......Latest "Syria's Assad 'losing last shreds of legitimacy:' Britain".Read the full story here.

• Belarus asks Russia for help against US 'aggression'.(HurriyetDaily).Belarus on Monday called the latest sanctions imposed by the United States targeting manufacturing an "act of aggression" and turned to its neighbor Russia for help."The US sanctions are an act of aggression against the Belarusian people, a blow to the economy of our country and all sectors tied to cooperation with Russia," Belarusian Prime Minister Mikhail Myasnikovich said at a meeting with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.The United States imposed sanctions on August 11 which target four state-controlled manufacturers in the Belneftekhim conglomerate, one of Belarus' top exporters.They have been pursued because of a crackdown in Belarus on protestors and activists opposed to the regime of President Alexander Lukashenko, many of whom have been sentenced to years of jail time."To a certain extent, this is a challenge to the allied state," Myasnikovich said. "Russia has always supported Belarus, and a unified position will make our relationship even stronger.""A friend in need is a friend indeed," Myasnikovich said.Russia and Belarus are members of a customs union and also a so-called "unified state" that brings their cabinets together for joint meetings. Putin earlier this month unexpectedly called for the unification of the two states.Putin promised that Belarus will be able to buy gas at a lower coefficient starting next year, but added that "it is direct help but not a gift" to Belarus.As Russian companies "widen their opportunities" in Belarus, they are ready to give something in return, the Russian premier said."I am sure that [sanctions] can never be effective, usually they have exactly the opposite effect to what those imposing them want," Putin said.Belarus is battling an economic crisis and is facing pressure from the West to free political prisoners and reform its outdated economy.This summer Belarus has agreed to privatize $7.5 billion in state assets in the next three years to meet the terms of a Russian-backed assistance package, under which it is due to receive $3 billion in loans over three years.Hmmmm.......Another opportunity for Russia to absorb more Belorussian companies?Read the full story here.

• Basij Commander in Iran: The Americans Dare Not Leave Their Bases in Iraq.(Memri).In response to a statement by United States Forces-Iraq spokesman Major General Jeffery Buchanan, who said that the U.S. military is prepared to defend Kurdistan from an Iranian attack, Iranian Basij commander Mohammad-Reza Naqdi said that the Americans do not dare leave their bases in Iraq for fear of their lives.Naqdi added that following the Iranian attack, the Kurds in Iraqi Kurdistan understood that they should side with Iran.Read the full story here.