Say what you will about that John Kerry but the man has swagger. Speaking at the UNSC yesterday the Secretary of State demanded that Syria and Russia immediately cease flying over North-Western Syria.
This would leave the United States, Australia, Britain, Denmark, Belgium, France and Saudi Arabia as the only countries allowed to operate anywhere in the Syrian skies.
Apparently this is the only thing that can “avoid escalation” and salvage the ceasefire deal he had worked out with Lavrov –- a deal that has been dead for days now.
At the same meeting the Russian Foreign Minister suggested an investigation into the destruction of a UN aid convoy in Aleeppo but Kerry angrily condemned Lavrov insisting the Russians should just come forth and admit it was them:
Kerry also replied scornfully to Lavrov’s description of the attack. “I don’t think we can let anybody here, if we’re going to deal with this situation, have their own set of facts about Syria,” he said.
“Twenty aid workers were killed in an outrageous, sustained, two-hour attack directed at a fully authorized humanitarian mission near Aleppo.”
Pentagon officials have said their “preliminary” conclusions are that the convoy was hit by a Russian airstrike. Those conclusions, he said, have been supported by some activists and other humanitarian groups.
“Yes, the coalition did hit people on Saturday,” Kerry said. “We did it. It was a terrible accident. Within moments of it happening, we acknowledged it. We didn’t put out a bunch of obfuscating facts.
We said, ‘Yeah, it’s a terrible thing, it happened.’ The Defense Department apologized, and we tried to find out how it happened.”
But the view from the air of “people running around with guns on the ground . . . is a different thing from trucks in a convoy, with big U.N. markings all over them,” Kerry said.
The White House has previously explained that Russians should be considered responsiblefor the damage to the UN convoy even if it turns out it was not they who attacked it.
According to The Washington Post Russian diplomats did not dignify Kerry’s proposal with a response.
North Korea vowed on Friday to further strengthen its nuclear weapons capability, in spite of U.N. condemnation and sanctions, and said it would never abandon its deterrence while it was threatened by nuclear-armed states.
In an address to the United Nations General Assembly, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho described his country's nuclear weapons as "a righteous self-defense measure" against "constant nuclear threats of the United States."
"Going nuclear-armed is the policy of our state," he said. "As long as there exists a nuclear-weapon state in hostile relations with the DPRK, our national security and peace on the Korean peninsula can be defended only with reliable nuclear deterrence," he said, using the acronym for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, North Korea's official name.
Ri said North Korea "will continue to take measures to strengthen its national nuclear armed forces in both quantity and quality."
Ri said the Korean peninsula was the world's "most dangerous hotspot, which can even ignite the outbreak of nuclear war," and the blame lay "squarely' with the United States.
He accused the United States and South Korea of conducting massive "nuclear war exercises" aimed at "decapitation" of the North Korean leadership and occupation of its capital Pyongyang, while a call last year by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to replace the 1953 Korean War armistice with a peace agreement had been ignored.
North Korea's nuclear and missiles tests have been condemned worldwide and have resulted in several rounds of U.N. sanctions, the most recent of which were adopted in March. Discussions are already under way on a possible new U.N. sanctions resolution after North Korea's fifth and largest nuclear test on Sept. 9.
Ri said that by imposing sanctions on North Korea, the U.N. Security Council was "playing the role of covering up the highhandeness and arbitrariness of the United States."
We have just received information that a certain Marine Corps INFANTRY BATTALIONcurrently stationed at Camp LeJeune, North Carolina has been placed in an ALERT STATUS. All leave has been cancelled for the unit, and all Marines have been ordered back to base immediately!
Camp Lejeune is located only a few hours away, by HUMVEE, from Charlotte, North Carolina. We are unable to confirm if this is related to the Insurrection in Charlotte. However, this is the closest location of US Military Troops to Charlotte. We will continue to bring your the latest news as it develops.
Also, we have learned that President Obama is planning to address the crisis in the next few days. We will update this article as information comes available.
Romania shaken by 5.6 quake, tremors felt in Ukraine
A moderately strong 5.6 earthquake hit Romania, 153 km to the North of the country’s capital, Bucharest. The earthquake was registered at 11:11pm GMT by the European Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC). The quake’s epicenter was measured roughly 94 km (58.5 miles) deep. The jolts centered near the village Palin, around 44 km (27 miles) from the town of Focsani, which has a population of 106,000. There were no reports of any casualties and damage immediately available. The tremor was, however, felt as far as Ukraine's Odessa, with witnesses saying their houses, beds and houseware shook. The earthquake happened at the most seismically active region of Romania, Vrancea County. The most devastating earthquake in this area took place in 1977. It claimed around 1,700 lives in Romania, Bulgaria and Moldova.
Deep 6.3 quake strikes off southern Philippines
A powerful but deep 6.3 magnitude earthquake hit 114.26 km (71 miles) off Philippine’s southernmost Mindanao Island, the US Geological Survey reported. It struck at 6:53am local time (10:53pm GMT) at a depth of 69 km (43 miles). No tsunami warning has immediately been released.
We are sad to report that 2 people have been killed and 5 injured due to the earthquake.
Most important Earthquake Data:
Magnitude : 4.8
Local Time (conversion only below land) : 2016-09-23 18:11:56
GMT/UTC Time : 2016-09-23 16:11:56
Depth (Hypocenter) : 10 km
Depth and Magnitude updates in the list below.
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