Barack Obama 'Not Optimistic' On Syria As Aleppo Pummelled

November 21, 2016

Damascus/Syria, Nov 21: US President Barack Obama said he is "not optimistic" about Syria's future, as the UN warned time is running out to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe in Aleppo which has been pounded by air strikes for nearly a week.

obamaGovernment forces launched a ferocious assault last Tuesday to recapture eastern Aleppo, killing 115 civilians so far. In fresh fighting on Sunday at least eight children died when rebel rocket fire hit their school in the government-controlled west.

Obama warned that Syria's second city was likely to fall, and that Russian and Iranian backing for Syrian leader Bashar al Assad had made the situation untenable for the opposition.

"I am not optimistic about the short-term prospects in Syria," he said Sunday at a summit of Pacific leaders in Lima.

"Once Russia and Iran made a decision to back Assad in a brutal air campaign... it was very hard to see a way in which even a trained and committed moderate opposition could hold its ground for long periods of time."

Obama earlier Sunday urged greater efforts to end the violence when he met Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.

But in Damascus, UN envoy Staffan de Mistura was rebuffed on a truce proposal that would allow the opposition to administer the city's rebel-held east.

"We are running out of time, we are running against time," de Mistura said after meeting Foreign Minister Walid Muallem.

Muallem said he had rejected the proposal, under which jihadist forces would leave and the government would recognise the opposition administration in the east which has been bombarded by air strikes, barrel bombs and artillery.

"How is it possible that the UN wants to reward terrorists?" he asked.

Aid agencies fear that instead of a humanitarian or a political initiative there will be "an acceleration of military activities" in eastern Aleppo and elsewhere, de Mistura told journalists.

"By Christmas... due to military intensification, you will have the virtual collapse of what is left in eastern Aleppo; you may have 200,000 people moving towards Turkey -- that would be a humanitarian catastrophe."

'War crimes'

On Sunday, rebels retaliated with a barrage of rockets into government-held western Aleppo, state media said, hitting a primary school and killing at least eight children.

Syrian television showed bloodied and weeping children being treated in hospital, and an AFP journalist saw pupils being rushed from the school after the attack.

But regime forces broke through into the city's northeastern area of Massaken Hanano, sparking fierce clashes, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

It also reported heavy fighting as the army sought to gain ground in two eastern neighbourhoods.

The Britain-based monitoring group said at least 19 civilians including five children were killed in the east on Sunday. That brought to 115 the number of civilians killed since the bombardment resumed.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon condemned the indiscriminate shelling, saying it had killed and maimed civilians, destroyed schools and left the city's east without functioning hospitals.

"The Secretary-General reminds all parties to the conflict that targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure is a war crime," his office said in a statement.

"Those responsible for these and other atrocities in Syria, whoever and wherever they are, must one day be brought to account."

On Monday the UN Security Council is scheduled to meet in New York to discuss humanitarian efforts in Syria. Last week it decided to extend for another year a probe into chemical attacks in the country and who is responsible.

The regime offensive on eastern Aleppo has forced hospitals and schools to close and destroyed facilities for hard-pressed rescue workers.

Shelling on Friday destroyed one of the last hospitals there and staff were also forced to evacuate the area's only children's hospital because of repeated attacks.

Russia, which intervened militarily last year, says it is not involved in the current assault on Aleppo, and is instead concentrating its firepower on opposition and jihadist forces in neighbouring Idlib province.

But Damascus and its allies have made clear they want rebels expelled from eastern Aleppo, which fell from regime control in mid-2012.

More than 250,000 people remain in eastern Aleppo, which has been sealed off since government forces surrounded it in mid-July. No aid has entered the east since then and the siege has created food and fuel shortages.

More than 300,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict began with anti-government protests in March 2011.

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News Network
July 14,2020

Brasilia, Jul 14: Brazil has reported new 20,286 coronavirus cases in last 24 hours taking the country's total to 1.8 million, Sputnik reported citing the health ministry.

The country's death toll has increased by 733 in the same period of time. The death toll from the infection has touched 72,833.

Over 1.1 million people have recovered from COVID-19 in Brazil since the start of the epidemic in the country, according to the health ministry.

Brazil has the second-highest coronavirus death toll, it is surpassed only by the United States.

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News Network
July 2,2020

Los Angeles, Jul 2: New daily coronavirus cases in the United States soared past 50,000 for the first time Wednesday, as the World Health Organization delivered a grave warning that the global pandemic is accelerating.

Restaurants, bars and beaches in the world's worst-hit nation closed from California to Florida, as states reeling from yet another surge in the deadly virus braced for Independence Day festivities.

Global infections have hit their highest level in the past week, WHO data showed, with chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus saying new cases topped "160,000 on every single day."

The grim milestone came as the European Union left the United States, Brazil and Russia off its final list of nations safe enough to allow residents to enter its borders.

With more than 52,000 new COVID-19 cases in the United States alone in the past 24 hours, according to a Johns Hopkins University tally, several US states imposed 14-day quarantines on visitors in the buildup to the long weekend's July 4 celebrations.

California suspended indoor dining at restaurants in Los Angeles and several counties, while New York scrapped plans to allow restaurants to seat customers inside from next week.

President Donald Trump reiterated his belief that the contagion will "at some point... sort of just disappear, I hope."

But the US leader who has yet to be seen in public wearing a face mask during the pandemic added he would have "no problem" doing so.

EU travel ban eased

The rollbacks came as the European Union reopened its borders to visitors from 15 countries.

The bloc hopes relaxing restrictions on countries from Algeria to Uruguay will breathe life into its tourism sector, choked by a ban on non-essential travel since mid-March.

Travelers from China, where the virus first emerged late last year, will be allowed to enter the EU only if Beijing reciprocates.

And Brazil -- which has suffered the most deaths globally for the last week, and is the second-worst affected country overall -- was excluded entirely.

It topped 60,000 total fatalities Wednesday, after suffering 1,000 deaths in just 24 hours.

However, with over 10 million known infections worldwide and more than 500,000 deaths, the pandemic is "not even close to being over", the WHO warned.

Data provided by the UN health agency for the seven days from June 25-July 1 showed the highest number of new daily cases ever recorded came on June 28, when over 189,500 new cases were registered worldwide.

'Dutch brothels reopen'

According to the United Nations, the coronavirus crisis could cost global tourism and related sectors from $1.2 to $3.3 trillion in lost revenue.

Greece, which has suffered fewer than 200 virus deaths, has seen its economy hit hard by lockdowns and travel restrictions -- all but ending its lucrative tourism season before it began.

Romanian Cojan Dragos was "the first tourist" in one Corfu hotel after driving there with his wife and daughter.

"We have the whole hotel just for us," he told news agency.

Separately, Spain and Portugal held a ceremony as they reopened their land border.

The Netherlands also confirmed the reopening Wednesday of another tourist draw -- its brothels and red-light districts.

"I'm totally booked," said sex worker Foxxy, adding that she had held a "little party" when she heard restrictions would be lifted.

Clusters spur new lockdowns

Russia did not make the EU's list of approved countries so its citizens will be absent from the bloc's tourist hot-spots.

The country, however, enjoyed a public holiday Wednesday as it voted in a referendum to approve constitutional changes allowing President Vladimir Putin to stay in power for another 16 years.

Putin was forced to postpone the vote in April as his government tackled an outbreak that has infected almost 650,000 people -- the third-highest in the world.

In other countries, clusters are still causing problems.

Parts of the Australian city of Melbourne suffered sharp rises in infections, spurring new stay-at-home measures.

The Palestinian Authority announced a five-day lockdown across the West Bank after a surge in confirmed cases.

And textile factories in the central British city of Leicester were suggested as the reason for a spike in infections that has prompted the reimposition of local restrictions.

Americas spike

In the United States, spikes across southern and western states are driving a surge in national infections.

Texas, which again smashed its daily COVID-19 record with over 8,000 new cases, joined Florida and California in closing some beaches for the upcoming holiday weekend.

Apple announced it would close another 30 US stores on Thursday, half of them in California.

A further 700 deaths nationwide took the US past 128,000 deaths in total.

The Pan American Health Organization warned that the death count in Latin America and the Caribbean could quadruple to more than 400,000 by October without stricter public health measures.

The US government announced this week it had bought 92 percent of all remdesivir production -- the first drug to be shown to be relatively effective in treating COVID-19.

Britain and Germany, however, said Wednesday they had sufficient stocks of the drug.

'Corona baby'

In Britain, some 1,500 acts from Ed Sheeran and Coldplay to Paul McCartney and The Rolling Stones urged the county's government to save the live music industry, which has been collapsing because of the coronavirus.

But while lockdown measures have been a disaster for many, some have welcomed the chance to spend more quality time with hard-working partners.

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News Network
June 3,2020

Washington, Jun 3: US President Donald Trump's administration on Tuesday announced investigations into foreign digital services taxes it says are aimed squarely at American tech firms.

Following a similar trade investigation against France last year, the US Trade Representative office now is looking into taxes in Britain and the European Union, as well as Indonesia, Turkey and India.

"President Trump is concerned that many of our trading partners are adopting tax schemes designed to unfairly target our companies," USTR Robert Lighthizer said in a statement.

"We are prepared to take all appropriate action to defend our businesses and workers against any such discrimination."

Washington opposes the efforts to tax revenues from online sales and advertising, saying they single out US tech giants like Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Netflix.

The US and France have agreed to negotiate till the end of the year over a digital services tax Paris approved in 2019, after USTR found them to be discriminating and threatened retaliatory duties of up to 100 percent on French imports such as champagne and camembert cheese.

Trump has embroiled the US in numerous trade disputes since taking office in 2017, including a months-long trade war with China that cooled with the signing of a partial deal in January.

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