Tag Archives: syria
FTSE Falls As Syria Unrest Drives Down Markets
27 Aug 2013 | 10:56 Nick Paler The FTSE 100 was off around 1% this morning while oil prices climbed, as unrest in the Middle East threatens to escalate. Returning after the long weekend, investors in the UK were quick to sell stocks after a rough Monday session overseas, amid comments from leading US politicians who said Syria will be held to account if it is found to have used chemical weapons against its own people. The UK’s blue chip index was off 60 points at 6,432 by mid-morning as a result, with stocks also impacted by rising oil prices. International Consolidated Airlines led the fallers, the stock down 3.4%, after the oil price ticked up 0.6% to $111.4 a barrel for Brent crude. European shares were more heavily impacted by Middle East tensions, with both the French CAC 40 and the German DAX off 1.5% and 1.6% respectively. Losses were piling up after falls in the US overnight, with the Dow and the S&P 500 both closing 0.4% lower. As political outrage at Syria threatens to morph into full-blown military intervention, gold prices picked up, with the precious metal climbing above $1,400 for the first time since June. Continue reading
UN inspectors reach Syria gas victims
UN inspectors reach Syria gas victims (Reuters) / 26 August 2013 UN chemical weapons inspectors in Syria met and took samples from victims of an apparent poison gas attack in a rebel-held suburb of Damascus on Monday after the UN team survived a gun attack on its convoy. A Syrian doctor told Reuters from the town of Mouadamiya that investigators from the United Nations had crossed the frontline from the centre of the capital, which remains under the control of President Bashar Al Assad’s forces. The UN said the shooting crippled one vehicle but mentioned no injuries. With Western powers considering military strikes, despite vocal opposition from Assad and his Russian and Iranian allies, any evidence to support rebel claims that government forces fired gas-laden rockets five days ago that killed hundreds of civilians will be a key element in arguments for peace or war. “I am with the team now,” the doctor who uses the name Abu Karam told Reuters by telephone from rebel-held Mouadamiya. “We are in the Rawda mosque and they are meeting with the wounded. Our medics and the inspectors are talking to the patients and taking samples from the victims now.” Another opposition activist said a large crowd was growing of people eager to air their grievances to the UN team. There was a plan for the experts also to take samples from corpses. Syrian state television blamed rebel “terrorists” for the shooting, which briefly halted the convoy but failed to stop the inspectors from crossing the front line. The opposition blamed it on pro-Assad militiamen. Any delay diminishes whatever evidence the experts might recover. With speculation mounting that Nato powers might fire cruise missiles to satisfy calls for action to protect Syrian civilians, US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel said any operation would be coordinated with allies. British Prime Minister David Cameron cut short a holiday to chair a top level security meeting. “The United States is looking at all options regarding the situation in Syria. We’re working with our allies and the international community,” Hagel told a news conference. “We are analysing the intelligence. And we will get the facts. And if there is any action taken, it will be in concert with the international community and within the framework of legal justification.” Hagel plans discussions with his British and French counterparts, a senior US official said. The French foreign minister said on Monday that Russian and Chinese vetoes in the UN Security Council may make it hard to get a UN agreement to satisfy international law. The UN said in a statement that gunmen shot at the first vehicle in the team’s six-car convoy, damaging it to the point that the team had to stop to find a replacement car. “The first vehicle of the Chemical Weapons Investigation Team was deliberately shot at multiple times by unidentified snipers in the buffer zone area,” it said. “It has to be stressed again that all sides need to extend their cooperation so that the team can safely carry out their important work.” The team of chemical weapons experts wearing blue UN body armour left a Damascus hotel where they have been based for over a week, accompanied by a car of Syrian security personnel, as well as an ambulance. At least two mortar bombs struck the area of central Damascus on Monday. Syrian state media said the mortar bombs were locally made and fired by “terrorists”. SANA state news agency said three people were wounded. Assad said accusations that his forces used chemical weapons were politically motivated and warned the United States against intervening in his country. “Would any state use chemicals or any other weapons of mass destruction in a place where its own forces are concentrated? That would go against elementary logic. So accusations of this kind are entirely political,” he told the Russian newspaper Izvestia in an interview. “Failure awaits the United States as in all previous wars it has unleashed, starting with Vietnam and up to the present day.” In Beijing, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China supported an independent and objective investigation by UN experts into allegations of the use of chemical weapons in Syria, and urged a cautious response and a political resolution to the crisis. The experts’ mandate is to find out whether chemical weapons were used, not to assign blame, but the evidence they collect, for example about the missile used, can provide a strong indication about the identity of the party responsible. Continue reading
Deadly blasts in Lebanon: 42 killed, over 500 wounded
Deadly blasts in Lebanon: 42 killed, over 500 wounded (Reuters) / 24 August 2013 Twin explosions hit two mosques in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli on Friday, killing at least 42 people and wounding hundreds, intensifying the sectarian strife that has spilled over from the civil war in neighbouring Syria. Rescuers carry a body outside one of two mosque hit by explosions in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli on Friday. — Reuters The apparently coordinated blasts — the biggest and deadliest in Tripoli since the end of Lebanon’s own civil war — struck as locals were finishing Juma prayers. Lebanese officials appealed for calm. The explosions in Tripoli, 70km from Beirut came a week after a huge car bomb killed at least 24 people in a part of the capital Beirut that is controlled by militant movement Hezbollah. A recent resurgence of sectarian violence in Lebanon has been stoked by the conflagration in Syria, where President Bashar Al Assad is fighting a rebellion. Both Hezbollah and radical groups in Lebanon have sent fighters over the border to support opposing sides in Syria. Medical and security sources said the death toll from Friday’s blasts in Tripoli had risen to 42 by late afternoon. Hundreds more were wounded, they said. Earlier, the Lebanese Red Cross said more than 500 people were wounded. The first explosion hit the Taqwa Mosque and killed at least 14 people there, according to ac-counts earlier in the day. Further deaths were reported from a second blast outside Al Salam Mosque, which the Interior Ministry said was hit by a car laden with 100kg of explosives. A Reuters reporter at the scene said the crater from the blast was about four metres wide and 2.5 metres deep and the floors of the mosque were covered in blood. A 50-metre stretch of the road was charred black and the twisted remains of cars littered the area. “We were just bowing down to pray for the second time and the bomb went off. The air cleared, and I looked around me and saw bodies,” said Samir Jadool, 39. Lebanon’s Red Cross said more than 500 people were wounded in the two explosions. Television footage showed people running through the streets, some of them carrying bloodied victims. Near the Taqwa Mosque blast site, angry men toting AK-47 assault rifles took to the streets and fired in the air while other men threw rocks at Lebanese soldiers nearby. Video obtained by local news channel LBC showed the moment of the explosion at Al Salam mosque. The blast ripped through a wall of the mosque, showering clouds of dust on people sitting on prayer mats and sending dozens running out of the building. Lebanese officials called for calm as tensions rose in Tripoli, a Mediterranean port that has seen some of the worst Syria crossover violence. Former internal security chief Ashraf Rifi, whose home was damaged by the second blast, warned that Lebanon was facing a gathering storm of violence. “We are still in the beginning of the storm and we must remain aware and try to protect this nation,” he said, speaking outside his home. “This storm has become a huge, grave danger.” Witnesses at the scene of the blasts said anger was rising among locals, who were shouting out accusations that Assad’s government or Hezbollah were behind the attack. Hezbollah released a statement condemning the Tripoli blasts and expressing solidarity with the victims, saying they were targets of efforts to fan more violence in Lebanon. “We consider this the completion of an effort to plunge Lebanon into chaos and destruction,” the statement said. People gather outside the mosque on the site of a powerful explosion in Tripoli. — AFP Hezbollah’s political opponents called on the group to withdraw its forces from Syria in response to Friday’s attack. Lebanese Defence Minister Fayez Ghosn warned against being dragged into deeper sectarian bloodshed. “We are calling for calm and vigilance, because the aim of this (blasts) is to stoke strife between sects,” he told LBC. Continue reading
