Category Archives: Human Rights Violations United Nations

Clapper Breaks with Obama’s Threat Crisis Plank

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North Korea has restarted plutonium reactor: US

North Korea has restarted a plutonium reactor that could fuel a nuclear bomb and is seeking missile technology that could threaten the United States, Washington’s top spy said on Tuesday.

Intel Chief Breaks From Obama Narrative On Iran Deal

DailyCaller: The head of U.S. intelligence believes that Iran’s recent actions speak loudly to its intentions, particularly given the country’s recent provocations since the Iran nuclear deal came into effect.

Testifying to the Senate Committee on Armed Services Tuesday, director of national intelligence James Clapper gave a very somber description of what he sees as Iran’s intentions toward the U.S. now that last summer’s nuclear deal has commenced. In particular, his statements offered little assurance that Iran is acting as an honest actor with the U.S. and the other states involved in last year’s negotiations, or that the nuclear deal will stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

“Iran probably views JCPOA [Iran deal] as a means to remove sanctions while preserving nuclear capabilities, as well as the option to eventually expand its nuclear infrastructure,” said Clapper, who also noted that, so far, he sees no evidence that Iran is violating the nuclear deal.

Clapper’s statements stand in stark contrast with those made by President Barack Obama, who lauded the nuclear accord last summer, claiming it would not only stop all of Iran’s possible pathways to a nuclear weapon, but that “under its terms, Iran is never allowed to build a nuclear weapon.” More here.

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Clapper went into all specifics on the threat matrix both at home and globally. He did not leave anything behind, from cyber wars, space wars, weapons systems, human trafficking, terror organizations, economic instability, migrants, disinformation and drug cartels.

 STATEMENT FOR THE RECORD WORLDWIDE THREAT ASSESSMENT of the US INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY
February 9, 2016
INTRODUCTION
Chairman McCain, Vice Chairman Reed, Members of the Committee, thank you for the invitation to offer
the United States Intelligence Community’s 2016 assessment of threats to US national security. My statement reflects the collective insights of the Intelligence Community’s extraordinary men and women, whom I am privileged and honored to lead. We in the Intelligence Community are committed every day to provide the nuanced, multidisciplinary intelligence that policymakers, warfighters, and domestic law enforcement personnel need to protect American lives and America’s interests anywhere in the world.
 The order of the topics presented in this statement does not necessarily indicate the relative importance or magnitude of the threat in the view of the Intelligence Community. Information available as of February 3, 2016 was used in the preparation of this assessment.
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS
 
GLOBAL THREATS Cyber and Technology Terrorism Weapons of Mass Destruction and Proliferation Space and Counterspace
 
Counterintelligence Transnational Organized Crime
 
Economics and Natural Resources Human Security
 
REGIONAL THREATS East Asia
China Southeast Asia North Korea
Russia and Eurasia
Russia Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova The Caucasus and Central Asia
Europe
 
Key Partners The Balkans Turkey Middle East and North Africa 
Iraq Syria Libya  Yemen Iran  Lebanon Egypt Tunisia
 
South Asia
Afghanistan Bangladesh Pakistan and India
Sub-Saharan Africa  Central Africa Somalia South Sudan Sudan Nigeria
 
Latin America and Caribbean
 
Central America Cuba Venezuela Brazil
 

 

 

 

 

For Islamic State, Damascus is the Crown Jewel

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The city of Homs is over, the next threat is Aleppo. Aleppo is already surrounded and refugees have been fleeing due to Russian backed assaults. Russia is getting help from Lebanese Hezbollah fighters.

But as published in the most recent issue of Dabiq, the Islamic State magazine, the true apocalyptic mission is to take Damascus. The aim for Islamic State is to take Damascus in 2016.

NYT: GAZIANTEP, Turkey — A car bomb tore up a vegetable market and a police officers’ club in Damascus, the Syrian capital, on Tuesday, according to a witness and to regional news reports, striking an area that had been quiet for about two years under a local agreement between the Syrian government and insurgents.

The Islamic State, using its official media channels, claimed responsibility for the blast, which the witness said had wounded dozens in Masaken Barzeh, a neighborhood on the northern edge of the city. It was the first attack in Damascus itself to be claimed by the Islamic State, although the group said it was behind an assault last month on the Sayeda Zeinab shrine, on the outskirts of the capital, that left dozens dead.

The blast on Tuesday came amid government advances against insurgents in northern Syria, a signal that even as the leadership goes on the offensive in some parts of the country, government-controlled areas, including those believed to be secure, remain vulnerable.

According to the witness, a large explosion hit the officers’ club, which was frequented by government troops as well as by allied fighters from the Lebanese group Hezbollah. The witness also said the blast had blown out the windows of his home, 100 yards away.

The Islamic State said in a statement that the police officers’ club had been the target of the bombing. But the club is inside a market, adding to the likelihood that civilians could be killed or wounded.

No official death toll was immediately available, but the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group based in Britain that has extensive contacts inside Syria, said that eight police officers had been killed and about 20 had been wounded.

The blast was believed to be the most violent episode in the area since insurgents under the banner of the Free Syrian Army reached a truce there.

Under the deal, the insurgents maintain security in the neighborhood and they have, at times, set up checkpoints at the entrance to the district, next to ones controlled by security forces.

Unlike other local deals, which have been more lopsided — akin to surrenders after long sieges — the insurgents in Barzeh had real leverage. They were not besieged and were controlling a route that government forces needed to reach a military hospital. But the Islamic State is not a party to such deals, and it considers both the national government and the Free Syrian Army to be enemies.

The witness said he had seen dozens of security officers aiding the victims, some of whom were taken away in private cars.

Watch Out America, Venezuela a Failed State

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Venezuela Is About to Go Bust

Nagel/ForeignPolicy: Venezuela’s economy is facing a tsunami of bad news. The country is suffering from the world’s deepest recession, highest inflation rate, and highest credit risk — all problems aggravated by plunging oil prices. Despite all its troubles, though, until now Venezuela has kept making payments on its $100-billion-plus foreign debt.

That is about to end. In recent days a consensus has emerged among market analysts:

Venezuela will have to default. The only question is when.

Venezuela will have to default. The only question is when.

A Venezuela meltdown could rock financial markets, and people around the world will lose a lot of money. But we should all save our collective sympathy — both the government in Caracas and the investors who enabled it had it coming.

In the last few years, the Venezuelan government has been steadfast about staying in good graces with its lenders. It has paid arrears on its debt religiously, and has constantly asserted that it will continue paying.

But it has neglected to implement the reforms Venezuela would need to improve the fundamentals of its economy. Its commitment to socialist “populism” and the complicated internal dynamics within the governing coalition have paralyzed the government. It has repeatedly postponed important reforms like eliminating its absurd exchange rate controls (the country has at least four exchange rates) or raising the domestic price of gasoline (the cheapest in the world by far). Instead, the government has “adjusted” by shutting off imports, leaving store shelves all over the country barren.

This strategy now seems unsustainable. According to various estimates, in 2015 Venezuela imported about $32 billion worth of goods. This was a marked drop from the previous year. This year, given current oil prices and dwindling foreign reserves, if Venezuela were to pay off its obligations — at least $10 billion — and maintain government spending, it would have to import close to nothing. In a country that imports most of what it consumes, this would ensure mayhem. That is why all analysts predict default in the coming months.

The Economist has joined the chorus, saying that “the government has run out of dollars.” In the words of Harvard professor Ricardo Hausmann, this will be “the largest and messiest emerging market sovereign default since the Argentine crisis of 2001.”

One of the reasons the coming default will be so messy is the many instruments involved, all issued under widely varying conditions. Part of the stock of debt was issued by PDVSA, Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, which owns significant assets overseas (For example, Citgo is 100 percent owned by the Venezuelan government). Another part of the debt was issued by the national government directly, while another big chunk is owed to China, under secretive terms.

The Chinese issue looms large. China’s loans to Venezuela — close to about $18 billion, according to Barclay’s – consist of short-term financing payable via oil shipments. As the price of oil collapses, Venezuela needs to ship more oil to China in order to pay them back. Barclay’s estimates that right now this is close to 800,000 barrels per day, leaving little more than a million barrels per day Venezuela can sell for cash.

A default will send ripples beyond Wall Street. Many people have been buying high-risk, high-return Venezuelan debt for years — from pension funds in far-off countries to small banks in developing ones. Most stand to lose their shirts. Yet the signs that this was unsustainable were there for all to see.

For years, Venezuela has had a massive budget deficit, sustained only by exorbitant oil prices. For years, analysts have been warning that the Venezuelan government would rather chew nails that allow the private sector to grow. And yes, a lot of that borrowed money was used to help establish a narco-military kleptocracy.

It is impossible to untangle the ethical implications of all of this. Lending Venezuela money is what business ethics professors talk about when they question “winning at someone else’s expense.” Losing money from investing in Venezuela is akin to losing it from, say, funding a company that engages in morally reprehensible acts. (Insert the name of your favorite evil corporate villain here).

Investors in companies with “tainted profits” from, say, engaging in child labor or violating human rights should not get the world’s sympathy, nor should they be bailed out. Similarly, investors in Venezuelan debt have only their hubris to blame.

In a few months, once the rubble of the Bolivarian revolution is cleared, the discussion will turn to how Venezuela can be helped. It would be smart to remember that aid should come to the Venezuelan people first. As the scarcity of food and medicine grows,

Venezuela may become the first petro-state to face a humanitarian disaster.

Venezuela may become the first petro-state to face a humanitarian disaster.

If and when a responsible government in Caracas asks for foreign assistance, solving this urgent issue should be at the top of the agenda. Conditions on financial assistance should privilege the interests of Venezuelans caught in the debacle above the interests of angry hedge fun managers or international bankers.

In other words, the Venezuelan people should come first. The folks who enabled this catastrophe? They can wait.

 

UN Report: Extermination Camps, Syria

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Syrian victim of torture

UN panel documents ‘extermination’ of detainees in Syria

GENEVA —International investigators say several thousands of detainees have been executed, beaten to death or otherwise left to die during Syria’s civil war, in policies that appear to amount to extermination under international law.

The U.N.-backed Commission of Inquiry on Syria presented a 25-page report Monday on killings of detainees by President Bashar Assad’s government. It also cites execution policies by radical groups like the Islamic State and al-Qaida-affiliated Nusra Front.

The report is drawn from 621 interviews conducted between March 2011 and November 2015. Investigators say they are short of enough evidence to provide more specific estimates of killings of those detained.

The report seeks “targeted sanctions” against unspecified individuals or groups responsible for such crimes. The investigators lamented inaction by the U.N. Security Council about possibly launching criminal probes.

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VoA: The U.N. report accused Damascus of starving the detainees or leaving them to die with untreated wounds and disease. It said Assad’s government has “engaged in the multiple commissions of crimes, amounting to a systematic and widespread attack against a civilian population.”

The report covered the period from March 2011 to November 2015 — the first 4½ years of the ongoing Syrian civil war.

Investigators

The U.N. investigators said they believed that “high-ranking officers” and other government officials knew of the deaths and of bodies being buried in mass graves.

The special inquiry into the Syrian treatment of its civilian population called for the U.N. Security Council to impose “targeted sanctions” against Syrian civilian and military officials complicit in the deaths and torture, but did not name them.

The investigators called for referral of the cases against the suspected war criminals to prosecutors at the International Criminal Court at The Hague in the Netherlands. Their names are being kept in a U.N. safe in Geneva.

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BBC: Their report describes the situation of detainees as an “urgent and large-scale crisis of human rights protection”.

Survivors’ accounts “paint a terrifying picture of the magnitude of the violations taking place,” it said.

The civil war in Syria has claimed an estimated 250,000 lives so far.

About 4.6 million people have fled Syria, while another 13.5 million are said to be in need of humanitarian assistance inside the country.

Extract from February 2016 report for UN Human Rights Council

Main detention facilities controlled by the General Intelligence Directorate include Interior Security branch 251 and Investigations branch 285 located in Kafr Soussa, west of central Damascus.

Former detainees described inhuman conditions of detention resulting in frequent custodial deaths.

Officers were observed giving orders to subordinates on methods of torture to be used on detainees.

Corpses were transported by other prisoners through the corridors, sometimes to be kept in the toilets, before being removed from the branch.

Evidence obtained indicates that the superiors of the facilities were regularly informed of the deaths of detainees under their control. Prisoners were transferred to military hospitals before they were buried in mass graves.

Both government and rebel sides are accused of violence against people they detain, the investigators say, but the vast majority are being held by government agencies.

A pattern of arrests since March 2011 targeted Syrian civilians thought to be loyal to the opposition, or simply insufficiently loyal to the government.

Senior government figures clearly knew about and approved of the abuse, says the report entitled Out of Sight: Out of Mind: Deaths in Detention in the Syrian Arab Republic.

Most deaths in detention were documented as occurring in locations controlled by the Syrian intelligence services.

“Government officials intentionally maintained such poor conditions of detention for prisoners as to have been life-threatening, and were aware that mass deaths of detainees would result,” UN human rights investigator Sergio Pinheiro said in a statement.

“These actions, in pursuance of a state policy, amount to extermination as a crime against humanity.”

Torture ‘routine’

The report also accused opposition forces of killing captured Syrian soldiers.

Both so-called Islamic State militants and another group, al-Nusra Front, had committed crimes against humanity and war crimes.

IS, the report said, was known to illegally hold a large, unknown number of detainees for extended periods in multiple locations.

It had set up detention centres in which torture and execution are “routine”.

Detainees were frequently executed after unauthorised courts issued a death sentence.

Extract from February 2016 report for UN Human Rights Council

In 2014 Syrian authorities informed a woman from Rif Damascus that her husband and two of her sons were dead, all known to have been held in a detention facility controlled by the Military Security.

The family obtained death certificates from Tishreen military hospital, stating that the cause of death of all the three victims was heart attack.

A third son remains unaccounted for.

Will Kerry Give Mahmoud Abbas a P5+1 Deal?

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ToI: Former Palestinian peace negotiator Nabil Shaath said in an interview earlier this month that he often asks Westerners whether Arabs have to “hijack your planes and destroy your airports again” to make the world take notice of the Palestinian cause

In a February 1 interview with the Palestinian Authority’s Awdha TV, translated by MEMRI, Shaath slammed American efforts at Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking.

Asked about a French proposal for an international peace conference, Shaath replied, “Well, anything is better than American control of the negotiations. Anything. The US has never been a reliable honest broker. Never. It is the strategic ally of Israel. Period. Therefore any discussion of a different formula is a positive thing.”

But, he added, “an international conference is not what is needed. What is needed is a smaller framework. Today, at the African Union summit, President [Mahmoud] Abbas reiterated that we want something similar to the 5+1 framework” of six world powers who negotiated the nuclear deal with Iran.

“Like it or not, the US will be part of it. But we want France, Germany, Britain, the EU, Russia, China, Brazil, India. From the Arab countries we want Egypt at least. We want a small international framework.”

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Shaath then turned to what he described as Western apathy toward suffering in the Middle East.

“If the Syrian problem had not been exported to Europe through the refugees on the one hand and terrorism on the other, the Europeans would not have cared even if the entire Syrian people had died,” he charged.

“But when all of a sudden there were four million Syrian refugees in Europe, 1.2 million of them in Germany alone, and when this was accompanied by Islamic State operations in France and elsewhere, all these countries began to fear that IS might have infiltrated through the refugees. And this started a debate about racial transformation in Europe with the entrance of non-white, non-European, non-Anglo-Saxon races, like the Syrian refugees, the Africans and others. This is what made the Syrian problem the most pressing from their perspective.”

He added: “I always say to these people, after I tell them about Syria and IS: ‘Do we have to hijack your planes and destroy your airports again to make you care about our cause? Are you waiting for us to cut off your oil supply? You always wait for things to reach boiling point and explode, causing you harm, before you intervene to end the crimes and violations.’”  

Shaath served as the PA’s first foreign minister, and has served as a top peace negotiator and