South Ossetian man holds his dead son.
...The President of South Ossetia, Eduard Kokoity, click here) was quoted as saying about 1,400 people had been killed as a result of "Georgian aggression".
"About 1,400 died, we will check these figures, but the order of the numbers is around this. We have this on the basis of reports from relatives," he told Russia's Interfax news agency.
The crisis, the first to confront the Russian President since he took office in May, has flared in a region emerging as a key energy transit route, and where Russia and the West are vying for influence.
I disagree with President Obama on his position regarding Georgian sovereignty to reclaim the territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. His position reflects that of NATO and it does not uphold the integrity of Human Rights.
President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin should bring their evidence before the United Nations to secure the independence of these two former Georgian provinces.
Basically, due to the dependency on Russian gas and the fear that Russia would go futher into Georgia, NATO has decided to make Russia 'the bad guy.' It is NOT and neither are the Russian soldiers that acted as peacekeepers or the Russian people.
Over 1000 people dead in South Ossetia at the hand of a maniac and ego inflated Georgian President. Those people had no way of attacking the Georgian authority or protect themselves. They were helpless and they were slaughtered !
...Georgia can win only if it is backed by the United States and its other allies. And even with such support, its victory will mean heavy losses, and entail lengthy guerilla warfare. (click here)
President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed documents on nuclear-arms reduction before their joint news conference at the Kremlin in Moscow Monday.
Jim Young/Reuters
US, Russia deal would cut nukes to post-cold-war lows (click here)
Obama and Russian President Medvedev on Monday outlined reductions in strategic warheads and launch vehicles.
By Howard LaFranchi
Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
from the July 6, 2009 edition
Yet despite the upbeat tone at the first of two days of summit talks in Moscow, the two leaders offered few specifics on how the looming stumbling blocks to a new era of cooperation will be overcome. Those issues include American plans for a missile-defense system in Eastern Europe and US-supported expansion of NATO to Ukraine and Georgia....
Russian countryside.
...Pledging to reverse a "sense of drift" (click title to entry - thank you) in Washington's relations with Moscow, the US president said he hoped a new nuclear arms reduction treaty to replace the Start-1 pact, which expires this December, would be ready by the end of the year. "We must lead by example and that is what we are doing here today," he said in Moscow....
A "sense of drift" is a nice way of saying the past administration and the Republican Party in DC didn't give a damn about starting a nuclear holocaust.
President Medvedev and President Obama should be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. They are making history. Two young Presidents in the two Superpowers are signing an agreement to make the world safer AND to 'lead by example.' That is remarkable. Simply remarkable. Considering where the relationship between Russia and the USA existed before this NEW administration came into office in DC with a Democratic majority in the House and Senate, it is a remarkable accomplishment.
I thank them both, but, especially President Medvedev. He is showing trust toward the USA again. I can't thank him enough.
With this initiative there hangs in the balance a safe Middle East. Iran is still a wild card. There is no other way of putting it.
The USA stance today, according to Vice President Biden, is one that backs the Israeli policy regarding Iran. That has been the policy of the USA. I defy anyone to say differently. Israel has always maintained vigilance and always gave itself permission to defend their borders.
It is Iran that has openly declared Israel as an enemy by denying the Holocaust and chronically acting in Anti-Semetic tones. I have stated before there are limited choices with Iran as so many nations of the region hang in the balance. North Korea is slightly different in that both China and Russia disapprove of the North Korean nuclear program and maintain their own vigilance over an unpredictable nuclear nation.
Biden says Israel has the right to attack Iran (click here)
The U.S. wouldn't interfere with a sovereign nation's actions, he says, even as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff says such an attack would be destabilizing.
Associated Press
July 6, 2009
Washington -- Vice President Joe Biden signaled that the Obama administration would not stand in the way if Israel chose to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, even as the top U.S. military officer said any attack on Iran would be destabilizing.Biden's remarks suggested a tougher U.S. stance against Iran's nuclear ambitions, but administration officials denied that. Instead, White House officials said, his televised remarks Sunday simply reflected the U.S. view that Israel had a right to defend itself and make its own decisions on national security.
In an interview on ABC's "This Week," Biden also said the U.S. offer to negotiate with Tehran on its nuclear program still stood. Some thought the administration's approach might change in light of the Iranian government's harsh crackdown on protesters after the June 12 presidential election. Opponents of the ruling authorities contend the vote was rigged in favor of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad....
The Arab News (Saudia Arabia)
Biden gives Israel OK for Iran attack (click here)Associated Press
...The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says it prefers to see Iran’s nuclear program stopped through diplomacy but has not ruled out a military strike. “If the Netanyahu government decides to take a course of action different than the one being pursued now, that is their sovereign right to do that. That is not our choice,” Biden said....
The Jordan Times
The way out (click here)
Political tension is escalating in Iran by the day, with conservative followers of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad trading accusations and blame for the current state of affairs in the country with reformers, headed by the defeated presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi.
Some of these charges reached a new pitch when a pro-Khamenei newspaper accused Mousavi of being a US agent responsible for the crimes committed during demonstrations against the results of the presidential elections, viewed by many as fraudulent, rigged in favour of the incumbent Iranian president.
Such charges will do the country no good. If the crackdown on the reformists might temporarily silence them, the political wounds will still fester and deepen unless the two sides find a formula to reconcile.
Many Iranians feel that the recent elections robbed them of a victory; they cannot be silenced by the force of guns, arbitrary arrests or intimidation....
Jordan free of swine flu for now, but remains vigilant (click here)
By Khetam Malkawi
AMMAN - The last patient previously diagnosed with H1N1 (swine) influenza was discharged from hospital on Monday after fully recovering, with no new cases reported, Health Ministry officials announced yesterday....
The Gulf News (United Arab Emerits)
...The Saudi official was commenting on press reports (click here) claiming the Israeli intelligence service had assured Premier Benjamin Netanyahu that Riyadh would turn a blind eye to Israeli jets flying over the kingdom during ay future raid on Iran.
Israel has also denied these reports.
Moreover, Kuwait parliament speaker Jaseem Al Khorafi said his country would never allow Israeli planes to use its airspace.
"I am surprised at such a question that comes as if it were an accomplished fact," Khorafi was quoted as saying by Kuwait official news agency (KUNA). "Has the Israeli press become a source from which we may get information?" he added.
Biden, in what was described as a giving Israel a green light to eliminate the Iranian's "nuclear threat" by military force, said in an interview with ABC television on Sunday that the US "cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do."
However, US military commanders gave different positions.
Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, warned that any strike against Iran would be "unintended consequences" and would be "very destabilising".
Meanwhile, press reports noted that Israel, in a major shift of policy, sent one of its three Dolphin-class submarines through the Suez Canal to the Red Sea.
Israeli defence officials described the naval drill as a show of strategic reach in the face of Iran....
Last update - 09:07 05/07/2009
U.S., Saudis push Syria over IDF withdrawal from Shaba Farms (click here)
By Zvi Bar'el
Saudi Arabia and the United States are pressing Syria to demarcate its border with Lebanon, in order to allow for the beginning of an Israeli withdrawal from the disputed Shaba Farms area, straddling the border between Lebanon and the Golan Heights.
These moves come amid warming relations between Damascus and Washington. This past weekend Syrian President Bashar Assad issued an unofficial invitation to his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama to visit the Syrian capital.
Marking the Syrian-Lebanese border would neutralize the Israeli claim that Shaba Farms was previously Syrian territory, and that a withdrawal must be carried out only in the course of negotiations with Damascus. The United Nations also defines the area as Syrian territory, and did not call on Israel to pull back from it during its 2000 withdrawal from southern Lebanon....
Jerusalem Post
Jul 7, 2009 16:52
Updated Jul 7, 2009 19:30
'The problem is that there's no real Israeli partner for peace'
Syria has said it is willing to resume indirect peace talks mediated by Turkey as long as they focus on a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights.
But Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has said he is not willing to cede the territory.
"What Syria is proposing for peace is not conditions but rather they are rights that cannot be negotiated or abandoned," Syria's official news agency SANA quoted Assad as saying. "The problem is that there is no real Israeli partner to make peace." ...
continued (see below)...
