GENEVA — The United Nations Security Council should refer Syria to the International Criminal Court in The Hague to prosecute those responsible for war crimes and other abuses committed in nearly two years of conflict, Carla del Ponte, a United Nations human rights investigator, said on Monday.

“Now, really, it’s time — it’s time,” Ms. del Ponte said. “We are pressuring the international community to act because it’s time to act.”

Ms. del Ponte was speaking as the United Nations Human Rights Council commission investigating Syria, of which she is a member, said violence in Syria was worsening, “aggravated by increasing sectarianism” and radicalized by the increasing presence of foreign fighters. It said the conflict was also “becoming more militarized because of the proliferation of weapons and types of weapons used.”

The panel’s 131-page report detailing evidence of war crimes and other abuses in the six months to mid-January said, “The issue of accountability for those responsible for international crimes deserves to be raised in a more robust manner to counter the pervasive sense of impunity in the country.” The top United Nations human rights official, Navi Pillay, has also urged that Syria be referred to the International Criminal Court. Authority to make such a referral, however, lies exclusively with the Security Council or the country concerned.

“It’s incredible the Security Council doesn’t take a decision,” said Ms. del Ponte, the former chief prosecutor for international tribunals on the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. A referral must be made urgently, she said, “because crimes are continuing, and the number of victims is increasing day to day. Justice must be done.”

The report released on Monday is due to be discussed in the Human Rights Council in March, when member states look likely to extend the commission’s mandate. Diplomats in Geneva point out that the panel represents the only United Nations-mandated machinery shedding a spotlight on abuses, and that its reports provide the most comprehensive and factual account of how Syria’s conflict is being waged.

In their report on Monday, based on 445 interviews, the investigators said they found credible evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by both government and opposition forces in the six months to mid-January. The report cited accounts of massacres, summary executions, torture, attacks by armed groups on civilians, sexual violence and abuses against children.

Pro-government forces committed massacres in August in Daraya, where more than 100 people, including women and children, reportedly died, and in Harak in the Dara’a governorate, where witnesses said more than 500 civilians were killed.

Government forces involved in Harak included the Syrian Army as well as military and political intelligence units, the report said, noting that they may have been accompanied by members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. The panel said it was still investigating other reports of mass killings.

Drawing on the accounts of defectors and “insiders,” the report said government forces had deliberately targeted civilians to punish populations in areas seen as supportive of the opposition. Entire neighborhoods of Damascus have been shelled and destroyed by government forces, and bread lines in several towns have been targeted at times when the concentration of civilians would be at their highest.

“Indiscriminate and widespread shelling, the regular bombardment of cities, mass killing, indiscriminate firing on civilian targets, firing on civilian gatherings and a protracted campaign of shelling and sniping on civilian areas have characterized the conduct of the government,” the panel said.

Investigators also cited “credible admissions against their own interest” by witnesses of the mass killing of five members of one family whose execution was filmed and posted on the Internet. They said a member of the Free Syrian Army acknowledged that his brigade had captured and executed five Alawites, members of the Shiite Muslim minority that provides the bedrock of support for President Bashar al-Assad.

The panel expressed particular concern over “an increase in acts of unrestrained violence” associated with the proliferation of armed groups that appeared to serve no strategic purpose but to foment sectarian tensions and spread terror among the civilian population. The report warned that “this trend risks becoming a malignant feature of the conflict.”

It also said that foreign intervention had helped radicalize the conflict, “as it has favored Salafi armed groups such as the Al Nusra Front and even encouraged mainstream insurgents to join them owing to their superior logistical and operational capabilities.”

The report added that “regional and international actors hampered the prospects of a negotiated settlement owing to their divergent interests. The position of key international actors remains unchanged.”

However, panel members said Monday that their ability to report on activities of the opposition was seriously hampered by the Assad government’s persistent refusal to give its investigators access to Syria.

The panel said last year that it had already accumulated a “formidable and extraordinary body of evidence” against those responsible for war crimes, and it again said that it would provide the United Nations human rights office with the names of leaders who may be responsible for abuses, as well as the individuals and units that carried them out.

By Nick Cumming-bruce
New York Times

Likud Knesset candidate hopeful Feiglin wants to pay each PA Arab $ 500,000 to leave Israel.

By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
First Publish: 1/2/2013, 1:18 PM

Likud Knesset Member candidate Moshe Feiglin, indicted for trying to prostate himself on the Temple Mount, wants to pay each Palestinian Authority Arab $ 500,000 to leave Israel.

He unveiled the proposal at a “Sovereignty” conference sponsored by the Women in Green and which is discussing ideas for annexing Jewish area in Judea and Samaria as part of Israel and removing it from military control, as Israel did with the Golan Heights and areas in Jerusalem that were under the Jordanian occupation before the Six-Day War in 1967.

“The country pays 10% of its gross national product every year to maintain the ‘two-state solution’ and the Oslo Accords,” Feiglin said.

He explained the money is for the security fences and checkpoints, Iron Dome missile defense systems and guards whom he said are posted “at every café.”

Feiglin said the same money could be used to pay every PA Arab half a million dollars to leave Israel.

A long-time thorn in the side of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Feiglin is not alone in the Likud party in stating strong nationalist views.

Several Likud MKs told the conference they support annexing all or part of Judea and Samaria and abolishing the Oslo Accords, which as a matter of practicality have little meaning outside of diplomatic circles.

Reports, generally not disseminated by mainstream media, have shown that thousands of PA Arabs leave for other countries every year. Feiglin said a poll of Arabs in Judea, Samaria and Gaza “show that 80% in Gaza and 65% in Judea and Samaria want to immigrate” and that paying them to do so is the “perfect solution.”

LINK

Fri Dec 14, 2012 7:53AM GMT

Russia has once again reiterated its stance on Syria, highlighting that there is no alternative to political solution to end the Syrian crisis.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/12/14/277943/russia-urges-political-solution-in-syria/

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (file photo)

Fri Nov 23, 2012 4:3PM GMT

The Quartet needs…to work together with the Arab League representatives and work out solutions together…to restart Israeli-Palestinian talks.”

Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov

Moscow has called on the Arab League and the Middle East Quartet comprising Russia, the European Union (EU), UN, and US, to work together to end frequent Israeli aggressions against the Palestinians.

“The Quartet needs…to work together with the Arab League representatives and work out solutions together…to restart Israeli-Palestinian talks,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday.

Lavrov made the remarks after at least one Palestinian was killed and seven others were injured by Israeli fire in the southern Gaza Strip despite an Egypt-mediated ceasefire agreement between the two sides on Wednesday.

Over 160 Palestinians, including women and children, were killed and about 1,200 others were injured in the Israeli attacks on Gaza that were carried out during the eight-day period starting November 14.

In retaliation, the Palestinian resistance fighters fired rockets and missiles into Israeli cities, killing at least five Israelis.

The Russian minister had also on November 15 lashed out at the Middle East Quartet for its failure to establish peace in the region.

Israel frequently carries out airstrikes and other attacks on the Gaza Strip, saying the acts of aggression are being conducted for defensive purposes. However, in violation of international law, disproportionate force is always used and civilians are often killed and injured.

The attacks rage on while Israel keeps up its crippling blockade on Gaza, which it imposed on the enclave in 2007.

MAM/HMV/SS

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/11/23/274150/russia-urges-united-action-against-israel/

Wed Oct 3, 2012 9:9PM GMT

NATO has convened on cross-border attacks between Turkey and Syria, saying the western military alliance stands by Turkey and urging a cessation of aggressive acts against its member state.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/10/03/264822/nato-backs-turkey-in-mortar-attack-row/

Syria says investigating mortar attack on southeast Turkey

Wed Oct 3, 2012 9:30PM GMT

Syria says it is investigating the source of shells that hit southeastern Turkey on Wednesday, stressing its respect for the sovereignty of neighboring countries.

Damascus extended condolences to Turkish people over the deadly cross-border attack that killed five people in Turkey’s southeastern town of Akcakale, and urged “states and governments” to act wisely and rationally.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/10/03/264826/syria-probing-shelling-of-turkish-town/

Turkey hits Syrian targets in retaliation for deadly shelling

Wed Oct 3, 2012 7:12PM GMT

A statement from Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s office says his country has struck targets in Syria in retaliation for a deadly cross-border mortar shelling earlier on Wednesday.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/10/03/264815/turkey-hits-syria-targets-in-titfortat/

Turkey strikes back at Syria after mortar kills five

By Seyhmus Cakan | Reuters – 45 mins agoEmailShare1PrintEnlarge GalleryMen walk on a road amid wreckage, after blasts ripped through Aleppo’s main Saadallah
Article: Syrian forces shell rebel strongholds in east Damascus: group
Mon, Oct 1, 2012
Article: Free Syrian Army rebel leaders move from Turkey to Syria
Sat, Sep 22, 2012
AKCAKALE, Turkey (Reuters) – Turkey’s military hit targets inside Syria on Wednesday in response to a mortar bomb fired from Syrian territory which killed five Turkish civilians.

In the most serious cross-border escalation of the 18-month uprising in Syria, Turkey hit back at what it called “the last straw” when a mortar hit a residential neighborhood of the border town of Akcakale.

NATO called an urgent meeting to discuss the matter.

“Our armed forces in the border region responded immediately to this abominable attack in line with their rules of engagement; targets were struck through artillery fire against places in Syria identified by radar,” Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s office said in a statement.

“Turkey will never leave unanswered such kinds of provocation by the Syrian regime against our national security.”

There were no immediate details of the Turkish strikes against Syria, nor was it clear who had fired the mortar into Turkish territory.

Residents of Akcakale gathered outside the local mayor’s office, afraid to return to their homes as the dull thud of distant artillery fire rumbled across the town.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had urged Turkey to keep all channels of communication open with Syria. He later issued a statement calling on “the Syria Government to respect fully the territorial integrity of its neighbors as well as to end the violence against the Syrian people.”

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed outrage at the mortar from Syria and said Washington would discuss with Ankara what the next steps should be, calling the spread of violence a “very, very dangerous situation”.

Washington sees Turkey as a pivotal player in backing Syria’s opposition and planning for the post-Assad era. But Ankara has found itself increasingly isolated and frustrated by a lack of international consensus on how to end the conflict.

Turkey’s military response contrasted with its relative restraint when Syria shot down a Turkish reconnaissance jet in June. Ankara increased its military presence along its 900-km (560-mile) border with Syria and called a meeting of NATO’s North Atlantic Council.

That meeting was only the second time in NATO’s 63-year history that members had convened under Article 4 of its charter which provides for consultations when a member state feels its territorial integrity, political independence or security is under threat.

The same article was invoked for the meeting of NATO ambassadors to be held in Brussels later on Wednesday.

Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said after the mortar attack: “This latest incident is the last straw. Turkey is a sovereign country. Its own soil has been attacked.”

“There must be a response to this under international law,” he said, according to Turkey’s Cihan news agency.

Some 30,000 people have been killed across Syria, activists say, in an uprising that has grown into a full-scale civil war with sectarian overtones and threatens to draw in regional Sunni Muslim and Shi’ite powers.

Violence inside Syria intensified on Wednesday with three suicide car bombs and a mortar barrage ripping through a government-controlled district of central Aleppo housing a military officers’ club, killing 48 people, according to activists.

(Additional reporting by Dominic Evans, Oliver Holmes and Laila Bassam in Beirut, Seda Sezer and Ece Toksabay in Istanbul, Jonathon Burch and Tulay Karadeniz in Ankara Writing by Nick Tattersall and Robin Pomeroyp; Editing by Michael Roddy)

@yahoonews on Twitter, become a fan on Facebook

http://news.yahoo.com/blasts-syrian-city-aleppo-kill-27-lebanese-hezbollah-083606024.html

Wed Sep 12, 2012 11:18am EDT

• Moscow says choose cheaper gas or adopting EU plan

• Relations between Russia, EU already strained over gas

• Russia’s Gazprom under investigation by EU

• Conflict likely to stir anxiety over gas supplies (Adds Putin, Novak quotes, background on gas transit)

SOCHI, Russia, Sept 12 (Reuters) – Russia told impoverished ex-Soviet Moldova on Wednesday to choose between low-priced gas from Russia and its pledge to adopt European energy liberalisation measures opposed by Moscow, which is girding for a conflict with Europe over gas.

“First of all, we propose that Moldova denounce the protocol on entering the Europe energy community agreement. This is a precondition for us to discuss the issue of gas price cuts and the relief of debt, which at the moment amounts to $ 4.1 billion,” Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak told reporters.

He was speaking before Russian President Vladimir Putin met Moldavian Prime Minister Vlad Filat in the Russian resort of Sochi.

Novak made no reference to the 20 billion cubic metres (bcm)of gas transiting each year through Moldova to Europe, which imports about 150 bcm from Russia annually.

But an ultimatum issued to a transit country is likely to raise alarm in Europe.

Supplies to Europe via Moldova were briefly interrupted in January 2006 in a pricing dispute – a minor disruption compared with the loss of European gas supplies that resulted from pricing conflicts with neighbouring Ukraine, which handles a much larger volume.

Last year, Moldova – a poor country of 3.5 million people – paid $ 1 billion for 3.1 billion cubic metres of Russian gas, far less than European customers.

Novak said that the country is asking for a 30 percent discount in current talks. Moldova has in the past accumulated obligations on gas supplied to the ethnic Russian enclave of Transdniestr, which receives heavy support from Moscow.

Putin suggested Russia could help the struggling economy, heavily dependent on agricultural exports, with investment cash from companies such as gas export monopoly Gazprom and a bigger Russian market for Moldova’s wine.

Gazprom already owns half of Moldova’s gas transit pipelines, which carry Russian gas to the Baltic states.

Relations between Russia and the European Union took a downturn when the European Commission launched a probe into Gazprom’s pricing and supply practices in Europe.

The EU has said Gazprom is suspected of abusing its dominant market position in key markets, imposing unfair prices on consumers in its oil-linked long term contracts and hindering the free flow of gas.

The Kremlin has thrown its weight behind Gazprom, and issued a decree which could effectively block European regulators from obtaining necessary information from the company during the probe.

Novak, a former finance ministry official who took the energy brief in the Russian government after Putin’s return to Kremlin in May, said Russia was not satisfied with Moldova’s decision to join Europe’s energy pact.

Moldova is due in 2015 to adopt the EU’s so-called Third Energy Package, which imposes limits on the ownership of EU pipeline infrastructure by gas suppliers and calls for the “unbundling” of over-concentrated ownership.

“Of course, it won’t do for us,” Novak said of Moldova’s participation in the pact, under which Russia could be forced to sell off parts of its pipeline network in the EU, which has sought to liberalise the gas and power markets in recent years.

In Lithuania, seen by Gazprom as a test case for the rest of Europe, the Russian gas company has protested that a requirement to divest pipeline assets is a forced sale that is tantamount to expropriation.

Lithuania is among the countries where Gazprom is under investigation, European officials have said. (Reporting by Denis Dyomkin and Gleb Bryanski; Writing by Vladimir Soldatkin; Editing by Melissa Akin and David Cowell)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/12/russia-moldova-gas-idUSL5E8KCC3F20120912

As violence against Christian minorities continues in Mosul, Iraq, Carl Moeller of Open Doors USA worries that the U.S. has turned its focus away from these persecuted Christians, as the U.S. no longer has a military presence in the Middle Eastern country.

Moeller, president/CEO of human rights watchdog Open Doors USA, calls the continued violence against Christians in Mosul a “religicide,” saying in a recent statement: “Christians in cities like Baghdad and Mosul are gripped by terrorism. They are fleeing in droves. [On August 16] it was reported that at least 20 people died in blasts and shootings across the country.”

The violence began in 2003, when U.S. military forces overthrew Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. The subsequent U.S. occupation of Iraq resulted in immense violence between Christians, the minority in the country, and Muslims.

As a result, 50,000 Christians have emigrated from Mosul since 2003, moving to nearby Middle Eastern countries such as Syria, Turkey, and Jordan.

Moeller told The Christian Post that the violence in Mosul has been a “huge human rights crisis for several years now.”

“With the spotlight currently on Syria, Nigeria and Afghanistan and the pullout of U.S. troops from Iraq last December, Iraq has been placed on the back-burner. But we as Christians in the West must continue to pray for our brothers and sisters in Iraq, who face extinction if we don’t pray and advocate for them,” Moeller said.

Currently, Christians in Syria are suffering persecution as the country endures one of the most gruesome civil wars in history.

The irony in this, according to Moeller, is that several of the Christians living in Syria initially fled Iraq to escape violence, but have found themselves in even more dire straits as they struggle to stay alive during Syria’s civil war.

“Many people don’t realize that the Christians from Iraq who fled to Syria are caught in that violence too,” Moeller told CP.

Recent reports indicate that violence against Christians in Mosul is escalating.

In 2008, terrorists killed 40 Christians and forced 10,000 Christians to flee their homes in the Mosul area, according to the watchdog.

In May 2012, news agencies reported that 20 Christian families living in Mosul had received threatening letters urging them to move out of the area.

As Open Doors reports, the current number of Christians remaining in Iraq is an estimated 345,000, but the organization says that number is decreasing every month.

Iraq sits at the No. 9 ranking on the Open Doors’ 2012 World Watch List, which ranks countries based on their level of persecution of Christians.

“We just need to remember from time to time that somebody’s got to do something. We have state department officials who are reluctant to address issues because the U.S. Army isn’t there,” Moeller told CP regarding the continued violence in Mosul.

Moeller concluded by saying that “Open Doors is committed to providing the basic needs of the community that are necessary, including food, clothing, shelter, spiritual help, Bibles, and materials,” but what people need most is trauma counseling for the “unspeakable violence against their families and their homes.”

By Katherine Weber
Christian Post

As violence against Christian minorities continues in Mosul, Iraq, Carl Moeller of Open Doors USA worries that the U.S. has turned its focus away from these persecuted Christians, as the U.S. no longer has a military presence in the Middle Eastern country.

Moeller, president/CEO of human rights watchdog Open Doors USA, calls the continued violence against Christians in Mosul a “religicide,” saying in a recent statement: “Christians in cities like Baghdad and Mosul are gripped by terrorism. They are fleeing in droves. [On August 16] it was reported that at least 20 people died in blasts and shootings across the country.”

The violence began in 2003, when U.S. military forces overthrew Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. The subsequent U.S. occupation of Iraq resulted in immense violence between Christians, the minority in the country, and Muslims.

As a result, 50,000 Christians have emigrated from Mosul since 2003, moving to nearby Middle Eastern countries such as Syria, Turkey, and Jordan.

Moeller told The Christian Post that the violence in Mosul has been a “huge human rights crisis for several years now.”

“With the spotlight currently on Syria, Nigeria and Afghanistan and the pullout of U.S. troops from Iraq last December, Iraq has been placed on the back-burner. But we as Christians in the West must continue to pray for our brothers and sisters in Iraq, who face extinction if we don’t pray and advocate for them,” Moeller said.

Currently, Christians in Syria are suffering persecution as the country endures one of the most gruesome civil wars in history.

The irony in this, according to Moeller, is that several of the Christians living in Syria initially fled Iraq to escape violence, but have found themselves in even more dire straits as they struggle to stay alive during Syria’s civil war.

“Many people don’t realize that the Christians from Iraq who fled to Syria are caught in that violence too,” Moeller told CP.

Recent reports indicate that violence against Christians in Mosul is escalating.

In 2008, terrorists killed 40 Christians and forced 10,000 Christians to flee their homes in the Mosul area, according to the watchdog.

In May 2012, news agencies reported that 20 Christian families living in Mosul had received threatening letters urging them to move out of the area.

As Open Doors reports, the current number of Christians remaining in Iraq is an estimated 345,000, but the organization says that number is decreasing every month.

Iraq sits at the No. 9 ranking on the Open Doors’ 2012 World Watch List, which ranks countries based on their level of persecution of Christians.

“We just need to remember from time to time that somebody’s got to do something. We have state department officials who are reluctant to address issues because the U.S. Army isn’t there,” Moeller told CP regarding the continued violence in Mosul.

Moeller concluded by saying that “Open Doors is committed to providing the basic needs of the community that are necessary, including food, clothing, shelter, spiritual help, Bibles, and materials,” but what people need most is trauma counseling for the “unspeakable violence against their families and their homes.”

By Katherine Weber
Christian Post