2013
UN experts said that people should eat more insects. Could we get used to that, especially, if it became fashionable? Here’s how Sergei Yolkin sees it.
14 May 2013
RIA-Novosti
On Tuesday, US Secretary of State John Kerry said that Russia and the USA would set up an international conference on Syria by the end of this month. He’s optimistic that it’d involve both the Syrian government and opposition forces. At a meeting with Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov, Kerry said that the conference would aim at facilitating a solution to the Syrian crisis through political dialogue. Lavrov added that the Syrian government assured Russia that it’s ready to participate in the conference, saying, “But, of course, so far, these are just words that have yet to be transformed into actions”. He went to say that the Syrian opposition hasn’t commented on the proposal. So far, opponents of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have refused to sit down for talks with the régime in the past, saying that Assad’s removal is a non-negotiable issue. Lavrov pointed up that the conference would be a follow-up to last year’s international meeting in Genève that drafted a peace roadmap for Syria.
The communiqué passed in Genève by the UN Action Group on Syria, which includes Syria’s neighbours and the permanent members of the UN Security Council, proposed to start with the creation of a transitional government drawn both from the opposition and Assad’s administration. Both Kerry and Lavrov stressed that Russia and the USA support the Genève roadmap, seeing political dialogue as the only solution for Syria. Kerry said that the alternative is increasing violence, a humanitarian crisis, and the country’s disintegration.
Moscow and Washington have clashed over Syria in the past; the USA put the responsibility for the civil war on Assad’s régime, whilst Russia insisted that the opposition should share the blame for the conflict. Russia blocked several UN Security Council resolutions on Syria, saying that they were biased in favour of the opposition. The USA supported the Syrian opposition, providing the motley coalition of forces (which includes many radical Islamists) with non-lethal military equipment. Recently, a bill filed with the US Senate proposed the supply of weapons to the Syrian insurgents. Kerry said the bill’s fate depended on the American inquiry in progress into reports that the rebels used chemical weapons, but added the matter may become a moot point if the government and the opposition begin dialogue. More than 70,000 have died in the two-year-long present conflict in Syria, according to the latest UN estimates.
8 May 2013
RIA-Novosti
http://en.rian.ru/world/20130508/181018883/Russia-US-Want-Talks-Between-Syrian-Govt-Opposition.html
Editor’s Note:
Let’s not put too fine a face on this. The USA has woken up to the fact that Islamist radicals would benefit from the toppling of Assad. Besides that, Russia and China are adamant… NO MORE BOMBS! To put the kybosh on the idea of “intervention”, it’s unaffordable (there ain’t nuttin’ in Motha Hubbard’s cupboard, kids… Bush wasted it all on the adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan) and it’d destabilise the entire region (the Gulf States are most jittery on that score, and they’re American allies). Look carefully at:
Recently, a bill filed with the US Senate proposed the supply of weapons to the Syrian insurgents. Kerry said the bill’s fate depended on the American inquiry in progress into reports that the rebels used chemical weapons, but added the matter may become a moot point if the government and the opposition begin dialogue.
That is, Kerry’s given the US government a face-saving fig-leaf. The opposition will refuse to sit down with Assad… then, the USA will piously (and hypocritically) withdraw its former offer of arms. “They won’t sit down for peace talks… they’re terrorists intent on mayhem”. Let’s not be coy, the Boston bombing incident makes it politically impossible for any American régime to cooperate with any group that even looks like it might have Islamic militants within it. Any road, most of Obama’s rhetoric on Syria was election-year hogwash, not meant to be taken seriously by mature adults. Reflect on this… Wet Willy would’ve gotten the USA involved in a very sticky wicket just to placate the Religious Right troglodytes in the GOP. God IS in His Heaven… the Old Master does it again (just like when he defused the claptrap over Iran)… hey, anybody who still chain-smokes, backs Spartak, plays the guitar, goes white-water rafting, and cusses when he wants to can’t be all bad.
BMD
There’s no sign that the abductors of two Orthodox bishops kidnapped four days ago near Aleppo have released them, despite numerous reports about their liberation. A source, anonymous for security reasons, told AsiaNews, “Nothing; there’s nothing; only unreliable reports. We can talk about their release only when the two bishops are in front of us and can talk to us”. On Monday, gunmen abducted Bishop Youhanna Ibrahim of the Syriac Orthodox Diocese of Aleppo, and archbishop Boulos Yazigi of the Greek Orthodox diocese of the same city, in Kafr Dael, 10 kilometres (@6.25 miles) from Aleppo, on the Turkish border. The kidnapers killed their driver, a Syriac Orthodox deacon. According to information from the Orthodox Church, the two prelates were negotiating the release of two priests, Fr Michel Kayyal (Armenian Catholic) and Fr Maher Mahfouz (Greek Orthodox), seized in February and still in the hands of kidnappers, even though a ransom was paid for their release.
Damascus pinned the kidnapping of the two bishops on “terrorist groups”. Some sources blamed Chechen jihadists for the abduction. Instead, the Free Syrian Army (FSA), the main armed opposition force, accused Syrian troops. Whatever happened, what’s certain is that their abductors kidnapped the two bishops in a rebel-held area, so, opposition officials said that they’d do what they could to ensure their release. Our source told AsiaNews, “However, the release is taking its time, and this is worrisome”. As time goes by, fears are growing that something went wrong. Our source said, “The more time goes by, the worse it gets”. Some fear that the abduction might be a way to force the Church and Christians to take sides. So far, only the UN and the Vatican continue to call for political talks as the only way to end the civil war.
On Wednesday, as he mentioned the two kidnapped bishops, Pope Francisco Bergoglio called “for an end to the bloodshed”, for the delivery of “necessary humanitarian assistance to the population”, and for a quick “political solution to the crisis”. In a joint public statement, the Syriac and Greek Orthodox Patriarchates of Antioch, to which the two kidnapped bishops belong, emphasised that the two prelates were “messengers of peace”, as demonstrated by their “religious, social, and national work”. On this basis, the Patriarchates called on all Churches in the world to reject “all kinds of violence hitting people living in the East”. Similarly, they called on “our partners in citizenship, from all Islamic confessions, to stand hand-in-hand and work together, to repudiate human exploitation and the dehumanisation of man, to not use people as a shield in battle or as a means for monetary or political bribery”. The abduction of the two bishops came at a time when Western governments are increasingly convinced that they must arm the Syrian rebels and the CIA is certain that the Assad régime used nerve gas, a conclusion that could push the USA towards military intervention in Syria.
26 April 2013
AsiaNews
Editor’s Note:
That’s where it stands now… nobody knows nothing, no way, no how… nobody knows a bloody thing. However, the longer that it drags on is not to the good. As the AsiaNews source said, “The more time goes by, the worse it gets”. Light a candle for Bishops Youhanna and Boulos at Liturgy on Sunday and have your priest pray for them… that’s all that any of us can do at present. As I said, the total amount of verified intel on these guys is ZIPPO… don’t build castles in the air.
BMD
Theme: Rubric. Blog at WordPress.com.
RF Gosduma Ratifies Child Abuse Convention
Tags: Child abuse, Child pornography, Child Welfare, children, Children and Youth, children's rights, Convention on the Rights of the Child, Council of Europe, Internet Crimes Against Children, Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children Child Prostitution and Child Pornography, paedophilia, Pedophilia, political commentary, politics, Prostitution of children, Russia, Russian, Sexual exploitation and abuse in humanitarian response, UN, UN General Assembly, United Nations, United Nations General Assembly, United States, USA
______________________________
On Friday, The RF Gosduma approved Russia’s accession to the Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse. The convention opened for signing in 2007, and it came into force on 1 July 2010. Russia signed the convention in 2012. To date, 46 states have signed and 26 states have ratified the convention, which sets out international standards for protecting children against sexual exploitation and abuse. The Gosduma also ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution, and Child Pornography. The UN General Assembly adopted the protocol on 25 May 2000. Russia signed the protocol in 2012. According to the protocol, the signatory countries must stipulate criminal, civil, or administrative penalties for selling children for sexual exploitation, organ transfers for profit, or forced labour, as well as for improperly inducing consent, as an intermediary, to a child’s adoption in violation of the applicable international legal instruments on adoption. These offenses include offering, obtaining, procuring, or providing a child for child prostitution and producing, distributing, disseminating, importing, exporting, offering, selling, or possessing child pornography.
26 April 2013
RIA-Novosti
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20130426/180862132/Duma-Ratifies-Child-Abuse-Convention.html
Editor’s Note:
The USA added the following caveat to the Protocol upon its ratification of the instrument in 2002:
That is, the Bush Administration and the Republican Party stated baldly that the ratification of the Protocol added NO additional protection for American children. Sexual predators have “rights”, dontcha know! That’s what “freedom” means for the GOP… along with predatory buccaneer crapitalism, toothless labour laws, mind-boggling greed, and the lightest of tax burdens upon the rich. If you vote for such, that’s what you vote for, full stop. It puts a new face on the posturing moralisers (especially, the smarmy self-righteous Evangelicals), doesn’t it? None dare call it evil… especially, not the well-paid and bovine American news media…
BMD