In The News

Rebel Forces Report Massive Death Toll After Syrian Chemical Attack

[This story is important because it may serve as the stimulus for U.S. involvement in this civil war, which in turn could serve as a stimulus for greater Russian involvement, which could serve as the stimulus for.....well, you get the picture. Interestingly, and in an amazing coincidence, this comes just as UN chemical weapons inspectors were beginning a probe of chemical weapon use in sites around Syria]

Syrian activists close to the country’s opposition claimed hundreds of people were killed in a devastating “poison gas” attack by regime forces outside Damascus Wednesday.

The attack came as UN chemical weapons inspectors were beginning a probe of chemical weapon use in sites around Syria.

There were several differing reports on the numbers of dead. A Free Syrian Army source told Al Arabiya the death toll stood at 1,188, while the Local Coordination Committees said some 785 people were killed. A nurse at an emergency clinic in Douma told Reuters the death toll was at 213, and the head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 40 were confirmed dead and the death toll could reach over 200.

Rami Abdul-Rahman, the Syrian Observatory chief, said the activists in the area said “poisonous gas” was fired in rockets as well as from the air. He added that regime forces were on a wide offensive on the eastern and western rebel-held suburbs of Damascus.

Mohammed Saeed, an activist in the area, told The Associated Press via Skype that hundreds of dead and injured people were rushed to six makeshift hospitals in the eastern suburbs of Damascus.

Dubious Chemical Weapons Attack In Syria Coincides With UN Visit

Dubious claims that Bashar Al-Assad’s forces launched a massive chemical weapons attack near Damascus coincide with a team of UN investigators entering Syria and could provide the long awaited “red line” necessary to justify direct NATO military intervention.

“More than 200 people have been killed in an alleged chemical weapons attack near Damascus, reports Sky News. “Activists claim “toxic gas” was used by President Bashar al Assad’s forces during a bombardment of rebel-held areas outside the Syrian capital. It comes three days after a 20-strong team of UN weapons inspectors arrived in Damascus to investigate whether chemical weapons have been used in the conflict.”

The extent of the “evidence” behind such claims rests on a 22 second video that shows children being treated for apparent breathing difficulties.

The Assad government responded by slamming the reports as “false” and claiming they were aimed at distracting UN inspectors.

Charles Lister, an analyst at IHS Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Center, told the Jerusalem Post that the timing of such an attack raises eyebrows. “Logically, it would make little sense for the Syrian government to employ chemical agents at such a time, particularly given the relatively close proximity of the targeted towns (to the UN team),” he said.

As we have documented for well over a year, the inevitability of a chemical weapons attack has been consistently hyped by the media despite the fact that by engaging in such actions, the Assad regime would guarantee international condemnation and create a casus belli for its own destruction.

The fact that launching indiscriminate biological attacks makes absolutely no sense militarily for Assad means it’s far more likely that such attacks are being staged by rebels – many of whom are being led by bloodthirsty Al-Qaeda terrorists – with support from the likes of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey.

Indeed, the strongest evidence suggests that chemical weapons attacks are being launched by western-backed rebels, but such reports have received scant media attention in comparison to claims such as today’s.

Back in May, UN human rights investigator Carla del Ponte said that according to evidence her team had gathered, “The rebels have used chemical weapons, making use of sarin gas.”

Two months earlier, an audio recording emerged of a phone conversation between two members of the Free Syrian Army during which discussion centered around a plan to carry out a chemical weapons attack capable of impacting an area the size of one kilometer.

Video also emerged last year showing opposition rebels killing rabbits after dispersing an unidentified chemical weapon into a glass box.

Other major attacks initially blamed on the Syrian Army were later to proven to be the work of anti-Assad militants, such as the Houla massacre.

Japan Nuclear Agency Upgrades Fukushima Alert Level

Japan's nuclear agency has upgraded the severity level of a radioactive water leak at the Fukushima plant from one to three on an international scale.

Highly radioactive water was found to be leaking from a storage tank into the ground at the plant on Monday.

It was first classified as a level one incident on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (Ines).

But Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority proposes elevating it to level three on the seven-point scale.

Japanese reports say it is a provisional move that had to be confirmed with the IAEA, the UN's nuclear agency.

This week is the first time that Japan has declared an event on the Ines scale since the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

There have been leaks of water in the past but this one is being seen as the most serious to date, because of the volume - 300 tonnes of radioactive water, according to Tepco - and high levels of radioactivity in the water.

A puddle of the contaminated water was emitting 100 millisieverts an hour of radiation, Kyodo news agency said earlier this week.

Japanese Fishermen Face New Setback With Latest Fukushima Leak

Liberman: Turkish PM Erdogan Is Nazi Propagandist Goebbels' Successor

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's hateful and incitement filled words against Israel is reminiscent of Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels, Yisrael Beytenu MK Avigdor Liberman said Wednesday.

Liberman, currently the head of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee and former foreign minister, spurned the restraint demonstrated by the Prime Minister's Office and the Foreign Ministry toward Erdogan's charge Tuesday that  Israel was behind the downfall of deposed Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi.

"Everyone who heard Erdogan's words full of hate and incitement understand without a doubt that we are talking about the successor to Goebbels" the Dreyfus trial, and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, he said.

Al Jazeera America 'First Born Child' Of The Left's Marriage To Islam

The far left and its compliant mainstream media contingent reached out a hand to bring Al Jazeera all the way from Doha, Qatar headquarters into American front rooms—starting this afternoon.

Al Jazeera America begins broadcasting today.  The network once called ‘Osama bin Laden’s network’  is being sold to American masses as “14 hours of straight news everyday, hard-hitting documentaries, correspondences in oft-overlooked corners of the country.  And fewer commercials than any other news channel.” (New York Times, August 18, 2013)

Now that the Egyptian government closed Al Jazeera after 22 staffers quit in disgust over its pro-Muslim Brotherhood bias, you can safely count on Al Jazeera America’s first broadcast bucking up the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

“For the past three days, Egypt’s three state television channels have broadcast under a banner in English reading “Egypt fighting terrorism”. (AFP, Aug. 20, 2013)
“They report around the clock on the latest clashes between Morsi supporters andsecurity forces that have claimed nearly 900 lives since Wednesday.
“Between broadcasts, patriotic songs play over footage of the armed forces carrying out military exercises and showing kindness to civilians.
“A piece entitled “The Black History of the Brotherhood Organisation” purports to showthe group’s violent history.

“It includes archive footage of Brotherhood members, as well as the attempted murder of president Gamal Abdul Nasser and the assassination of president Anwar Sadat by Islamists.”

Who ever would have thought back in 2008 when the Mainstream Media jumped into the tank with Obama that Egypt would kick al Jazeera out of Cairo and the U. S. would welcome it with open arms?