Syria: Al-Qaeda's Battle for Control of Assad's Chemical Weapons Plant

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Photo Credit: Getty Images By Colin Freeman. Set amid the rolling plains outside Aleppo, the town of al-Safira looks just like another vicious battleground in Syria’s civil war. On one side are lightly-armed rebels, on the other are government troops, and in between is a hotly-contested no-man’s land of bombed-out homes and burned-out military vehicles.

The fight for al-Safira is no ordinary turf war, however, and the prize can be found behind the perimeter walls of the heavily-guarded military base on the edge of town. Inside what looks like a drab industrial estate is one of Syria’s main facilities for producing chemical weapons – and among its products is sarin, the lethal nerve gas that the regime is now feared to be deploying in its bid to cling to power.

Last week, Washington said for the first time that it had evidence of Sarin being used in “small” amounts during combat operations in Syria, a move that President Barack Obama has long warned is a “red line” that President Bashar al-Assad must not cross.

But as the West now ponders its response, the fear is not just that President Assad might start using his chemical arsenal in much greater quantities. Of equal concern is the prospect of it falling into even less benign hands – a risk that the stand-off at al Safira illustrates clearly.

For among the rebel lines in al-Safira flutters the black flag of the al-Nusra Brigade, the jihadist group that recently declared its allegiance to al-Qaeda. Known for their fighting prowess honed in Iraq, they are now taking the lead in nearly every frontline in the Syrian war, and earlier this month, pushed to within just over a mile of al-Safira, only to for the Syrian troops to regain the ground last week. Read more from this story HERE.

Report: The Israeli Air Force Flew Into Syria And Bombed A Chemical Weapons Plant

By Robert Johnson. The Free Syrian Army (FSA) reports that Israeli fighter jets slipped into Damascus over the weekend and bombed a chemical weapons depot outside the city.

Neither Damascus nor Jerusalem have yet confirmed the attack, according to UPI.

According to The Jewish Press (JP) “many” reports came in over the weekend confirming the mission. Sources told the JP Israeli jets arrived over Damascus early Saturday morning and circled Assad’s presidential compound before moving on to target the weapons site.

The Israeli jets reportedly received fire but returned to base unscathed.

The Lebanese Daily Star confirms heavy FSA fighting occurred near the plant, the Scientific Studies and Research Center, but troops lacked the resources to breach the heavily fortified site. Read more from this story HERE.

U.S. Gave Asylum to Accused Chechen Terror Leader Who Lived in Boston

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Photo Credit: WNDWith the help of President Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, a high-ranking Chechen separatist leader accused of terrorism by Russia was granted political asylum in the U.S. and lived for a period of time in Boston.

Ilyas Akhmadov, who also served as Chechnya’s foreign minister, insists he was falsely accused by the Kremlin.

He has been on Russia’s most-wanted list, charged with organizing terrorist training camps and armed insurgent actions. Despite Russian objections, Akhmadov now lives in Washington, D.C., after the U.S. said it could find no links to terror.

Akhmadov was once the deputy to the radical Chechen Islamist leader Shamil Basayev, who was killed in 2006 before being described by ABC News as “one of the most-wanted terrorists in the world.”

Also living in Boston is Chechen surgeon Khassan Baiev, a physician who was granted asylum after treating the wounded on both sides of the Chechnya conflict, including Basayev.

Read more from this story HERE.

American Pastor Now Moved to Solitary in Iran may be Suffering Organ Failure

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Photo Credit: ACLJThe American pastor jailed in Iran for his faith has been placed in solitary confinement and may now be suffering organ failure, according to family members in Iran who are increasingly alarmed at his deteriorating health.

Saeed Abedini, the 32-year-old Christian and American citizen who is serving an eight-year prison term in Iran, was put in solitary confinement following a “peaceful, silent protest” in an outside courtyard at Iran’s notoriously brutal Evin prison, according to family members. Conditions at the prison prompted Abedini and other prisoners to sign a petition decrying the lack of medical care and the threats and harsh treatment facing family members who come to visit.

The protest angered prison officials who retaliated by placing Abedini and nine others in solitary confinement.

“Saeed had previously told his family that when he was in solitary confinement in the past, that was the hardest time in his life. That every hour was like one year and that he was losing his memory and his health was deteriorating quickly,” said his wife, Naghmeh Abedini, who is at the family’s home in Idaho with their two young children.

“We believe that he is being beaten in solitary confinement. We have no way of finding out about his health. There will be no more visitations allowed and we will have no way of knowing how Saeed is doing,” she said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Rampant American Bribery in Afghanistan: CIA Pays Bags of Cash in Failed Effort to Buy Friends

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Photo Credit: APFor more than a decade, wads of American dollars packed into suitcases, backpacks and, on occasion, plastic shopping bags have been dropped off every month or so at the offices of Afghanistan’s president — courtesy of the Central Intelligence Agency.

All told, tens of millions of dollars have flowed from the C.I.A. to the office of President Hamid Karzai, according to current and former advisers to the Afghan leader.

“We called it ‘ghost money,’ ” said Khalil Roman, who served as Mr. Karzai’s deputy chief of staff from 2002 until 2005. “It came in secret, and it left in secret.”

The C.I.A., which declined to comment for this article, has long been known to support some relatives and close aides of Mr. Karzai. But the new accounts of off-the-books cash delivered directly to his office show payments on a vaster scale, and with a far greater impact on everyday governing.

Moreover, there is little evidence that the payments bought the influence the C.I.A. sought. Instead, some American officials said, the cash has fueled corruption and empowered warlords, undermining Washington’s exit strategy from Afghanistan.

Read more from this story HERE.

US to Subsidize Chinese Car Maker in California

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Photo Credit: APA Chinese car maker is setting up shop in the U.S., with small ambitions but a clear goal: Get the federal government to subsidize the sales of the company’s American-made electric buses.

BYD Co., 002594.SZ +3.06% an electric-car and battery maker that counts Warren Buffett among its investors, will open an electric-bus assembly facility in Lancaster, Calif., on Wednesday.

The company’s U.S. expansion won’t create many jobs yet. The new plant will employ a few dozen people at the outset, according to Stella Li, BYD senior vice president. “We are starting small,” she said.

But the benefits of BYD’s move will be immediate, allowing it to sell its buses to local transit companies at a huge discount—with the federal government picking up the rest of the tab.

BYD spokesman Micheal Austin said the company’s U.S. production facility meets “Buy America” procurement guidelines, enabling its customers to tap federal subsidies that cover up to 80% of the cost of the electric buses they buy. The availability of government aid was one of the main motivations behind BYD’s move to the U.S., he said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Israeli Minister: Nuclear Iran is Like 30 Nuclear North Koreas (+video)

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Photo Credit: YouTubeInternational Relations Minister Yuval Steinitz warned on Sunday that Iran having a nuclear weapon would be equal to “thirty nuclear North Koreas”.

“We have the right and the ability to defend ourselves,” he said in a speech at the Jerusalem Post Conference in New York. “The cooperation with the United States is very important but ultimately each country will make its own decisions on maintaining its security,” said Steinitz, stressing that “Israel can deal with any threat.”

80 years ago, said Steinitz, “only one person identified on time and warned the world against the rearmament of Nazi Germany. This was Winston Churchill, but people refused to listen. Some people even mocked him.”

Watch video here:

Read more from this story HERE.

Russia Told US that Boston Bomber and Mother Were Muslim 'Religious Extremists' – Apparently Not Enough for FBI

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Photo Credit: Vjeran PavicRussian authorities secretly recorded a telephone conversation in 2011 in which one of the Boston bombing suspects vaguely discussed jihad with his mother, officials said Saturday, days after the U.S. government finally received details about the call.

In another conversation, the mother of now-dead bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev was recorded talking to someone in southern Russia who is under FBI investigation in an unrelated case, officials said.

The conversations are significant because, had they been revealed earlier, they might have been enough evidence for the FBI to initiate a more thorough investigation of the Tsarnaev family.

As it was, Russian authorities told the FBI only that they had concerns that Tamerlan and his mother were religious extremists. With no additional information, the FBI conducted a limited inquiry and closed the case in June 2011.

Two years later, authorities say Tamerlan and his brother, Dzhohkar, detonated two homemade bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three and injuring more than 260. Tamerlan was killed in a police shootout and Dzhohkar is under arrest.

Read more from this story HERE.

First Strike: China Omission of No-First-Use Nuclear Doctrine in Defense White Paper Signals Policy Shift

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Photo Credit: APChina omitted a reference to its no-first-use strategic nuclear weapons doctrine in a recently published government white paper, indicating Beijing shifted the policy as part of its large-scale nuclear arms buildup.

The omission, along with recent comments by a senior Chinese military officer, is raising new concerns among Pentagon officials about China’s nearly opaque strategic arms buildup.

Chinese Maj. Gen. Yao Yunzhu, a senior researcher at China’s Academy of Military Science, revealed earlier this month that China is considering expanding its growing nuclear arsenal in response to U.S. missile defense deployments and upgrades.

“The current development, especially the deployment of missile-defense systems in East Asia would be, in Chinese eyes, would be a very, very disturbing factor having implications for the calculation of China’s nuclear and strategic arsenal,” she told a conference April 8 at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The statement was initially viewed as the general seeking to exploit U.S. concerns about China’s nuclear buildup as a way to force the Pentagon to scale back missile defenses, which China regards as undermining its large missile force.

Read more from this story HERE.

Sequester Madness: Obama Admin. Reportedly Spending Millions to Set Up Labor Unions in Foreign Countries

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Photo Credit: Reuters Senate Republicans say the Labor Department appears to be spending millions in taxpayer dollars to establish labor unions and promote collective bargaining in foreign countries and are asking top Obama administration officials for a full audit.

The request was sent by Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, the leading Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, and Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander, the top Republican on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

“At a time when our federal budget is deteriorating rapidly … it is troubling to us that the department appears to be spending millions of dollars of taxpayer funds to establish labor unions and promote collective bargaining in foreign countries,” they said in a letter to acting Labor Secretary Seth Harris.

The purported activities were conducted by the agency’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs.

The bureau for the past several years has purportedly made numerous awards — worth millions of dollars — to the United Nations, the Solidarity Center and other similar groups, “whose stated objective is to help establish labor unions in foreign countries,” the senators said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Greece Starts Firing Civil Servants for First Time in a Century

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Photo Credit: John KolesidisPushed by its European creditors amid its crippling economic crisis, Greece began this week to do something it hasn’t done in more than 100 years: fire public-sector workers en masse.

Following weeks of tough negotiations with its lenders – the “troika” of the International Monetary Fund, the European Union, and the European Central Bank – the Greek government started laying off public-sector workers in an effort to implement the austerity that the troika has demanded. The first two civil servants were let go on Wednesday under a new law that speeds up the process – one, a policeman, for stealing debit cards, and the other for 110 days of unexcused absence.

The mass layoffs were announced last week in a televised address by the Greek prime minister himself, Antonis Samaras. Despite the massive unemployment in Greece, the goal of the government has become the laying off of 180,000 civil servants by 2015. “This is not a human sacrifice,” said Prime Minister Samaras. “It’s an upgrading of the public sector and it’s one demand of Greek society.”

Samaras though, promised new positions to be created: “An equal number [of employees] will be hired on merit,” he added.

A century without layoffs

Civil servants’ jobs have been protected by a law that dates back to the 1880s, which became enshrined in the century-old Greek constitution. Until that provision became law, each newly elected government would sack the civil servants hired by the previous government to replace them with their own party members, creating civil unrest and a dysfunctional state.

Read more from this story HERE.