US Trying To Re-Impose the Baath Party In Iraq - 24Jan10 - English
An Iraqi lawmaker has said that the US is trying to re-instate the Ba'ath Party of the deposed and now executed Iraqi Dictator Saddam Hussein. He...
An Iraqi lawmaker has said that the US is trying to re-instate the Ba'ath Party of the deposed and now executed Iraqi Dictator Saddam Hussein. He says that the visit by Jo Biden the US Vice President to Iraq in the last few days and their lobbying to allow the 500 ex-Ba'athists to be allowed to stand in the country's upcoming elections is evidence of this strategy by Washington. Report. Recorded on January 24, 2010 @ 1500GMT
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Syria President offers more freedoms after forces kill 37 - 24Mar2011 -...
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/24/us-syria-idUSTRE72N2MC20110324.
President Bashar al-Assad made an unprecedented pledge of greater...
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/24/us-syria-idUSTRE72N2MC20110324.
President Bashar al-Assad made an unprecedented pledge of greater freedom and more prosperity to Syrians Thursday as anger mounted following a crackdown on protesters that left at least 37 dead.
As an aide to Assad in Damascus read out a list of decrees, which included a possible end to 48 years of emergency rule, a human rights group said a leading pro-democracy activist, Mazen Darwish, had been arrested.
In the southern city of Deraa, a hospital official said at least 37 people had been killed there Wednesday when security forces opened fire on demonstrators inspired by uprisings across the Arab world that have shaken authoritarian leaders.
Announcing the sort of concessions that would have seemed almost unimaginable three months ago in Syria, Assad adviser Bouthaina Shaaban told a news conference the president had not himself ordered his forces to fire on protesters:
"I was a witness to the instructions of His Excellency that live ammunition should not be fired -- even if the police, security forces or officers of the status were being killed."
Assad, she said, would draft laws to provide for media freedoms and allow political movements other than the Baath party, which has ruled for half a century.
Assad, who succeed his late father Hafez al-Assed in 2000, had, Shaaban said, decreed the drafting of a law for political parties "to be presented for public debate" and would strive above all to raise living standards across the country.
She said another decree would look at "ending with great urgency the emergency law, along with issuing legislation that assures the security of the nation and its citizens."
DERAA KILLINGS
Security forces opened fire on hundreds of youths on the outskirts of Deraa Wednesday, witnesses said, after nearly a week of protests in which seven civilians had already died.
The main hospital in Deraa, in southern Syria near the Jordanian border, had received the bodies of at least 37 protesters killed Wednesday, a hospital official said.
Around 20,000 people marched Thursday in the funerals for nine of those killed, chanting freedom slogans and denying official accounts that infiltrators and "armed gangs" were behind the killings and violence in Deraa.
"Traitors do not kill their own people," they chanted. "God, Syria, Freedom. The blood of martyrs is not spilled in vain!"
As Syrian soldiers armed with automatic rifles roamed the streets of the southern city, residents emptied shops of basic goods and said they feared Assad's government was intent on crushing the revolt by force.
Assad, a close ally of Iran, key player in neighboring Lebanon and supporter of militant groups opposed to Israel, had earlier dismissed demands for reform in Syria, a country of 20 million people run by the Baath Party since a 1963 coup. Assad's father took personal in 1970.
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Top UK Legal Adviser Says Iraq War Illegal According To International...
A top legal adviser to the British Government has said that the Iraq War was illegal according to International Law. Recorded January 26, 2010 at...
A top legal adviser to the British Government has said that the Iraq War was illegal according to International Law. Recorded January 26, 2010 at 2100GMT
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Iraq Says: US Continues To Interefere In Electoral Process US Wants...
Iraq has said that the US is continuing to interfere in the Iraqi Electoral Process in an attempt to ensure that the Ba'athis are returned to...
Iraq has said that the US is continuing to interfere in the Iraqi Electoral Process in an attempt to ensure that the Ba'athis are returned to power. Special Report. Recorded February 14, 2010 at 2100GMT
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[26 May 2012] West policies doomed to fail in Syria - English
NATO-supported politicians in Syria are isolated since the national election. Meanwhile the UN has about-turned to announce the presence of...
NATO-supported politicians in Syria are isolated since the national election. Meanwhile the UN has about-turned to announce the presence of al-Qaeda inside Syria.
Press TV has interviewed Webster Griffin Tarpley, author and historian from Washington about the admission by UN and US heads that al-Qaeda is attempting to destabilize Syria from inside the country after so long refusing to admit its presence and surmises on why the announcement would be made at this point in time. What follows is an approximate transcript of the interview.
Press TV: How surprising is it to you to see UN Chief Ban Ki Moon expressing concern about the situation in Syria? And what does Ban Ki Moon's breaking of his own silence mean to the UN Security Council?
Tarpley: In the case of Ban Ki Moon we must always suspect ulterior motives i.e. an evil intent. And in these circles that Ban Ki Moon speaks for, that is to say NATO and imperialism in general, the new line is no longer to deny the presence of al-Qaeda in Syria, but to begin to cite al-Qaeda as yet another reason why an invasion and bombing will be necessary that is to say, if this terrible situation goes on any longer that al-Qaeda might get the upper hand.
We heard Hilry Clinton in a rare moment of candor in the past week also conceding the presence of al-Qaeda in Syria.
However, we need to point out that the reason al-Qaeda is there is because these NATO heads of government, heads of state and other officials have brought al-Qaeda into the picture.
Al-Qaeda is what it always was, the CIA Arab Legion and in particular some of the most experienced al-Qaeda operatives were brought from Tripoli in Libya all the way to southern Turkey to Iskandaron and other places in kind of an airlift by NATO some months ago.
So much so that when Ambassador Jafari of Syria showed his CD at the UN - he said that the Syrian government has these confessions of foreign fighters including Turkish and Libyan foreign fighters and I think we can assume that's the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which is therefore al-Qaeda.
So, Ban Ki Moon is just as morally bankrupt as he always was, it's just that he has had to change his mode of attack.
The entire situation of this resistance is of course desperate. As a result of the Syrian election a couple of weeks ago when more than half of the possible voters voted under the worst possible conditions, the Syrian National Council is breaking apart and the leader (Berhan) Ghalioun has now resigned, he's out.
So, there is no coherent opposition so now they're less worried about trying to pretend that there's a political opposition and more with let's get on with the invasion.
Press TV: Just imagine if those armed gangs who claim to be the saviors of the Syrian people, yet kill civilians and use the human population as a human shield according to reports - just imagine if they came to power, I mean, what kind of a government would we see? Isn't it paradoxical?
Tarpley: This is of course the essence of the imperialist policy, it is partition, mini-states, micro-states and failed states. It's more or less what you see in Libya.
We notice that the Western media have been much less interested in showing us the wonders of democracy, the singing tomorrows of the National Transitional Council in Libya because that country of course is tragically breaking up and you've got terrorist gangs and the beginnings of a separation of different parts of the country.
This is what they would like to bring to Syria using NATO bombing, invasion… and the shock troops i.e. the people NATO has on the ground at the moment are these al-Qaeda types supplemented of course by mercenaries from France, turkey and other countries.
The specific emphasis we have right now though is to try to cut a corridor - and it won't be a humanitarian corridor, it will be a terror corridor - starting with Tripoli to northern Lebanon and this Kleyate airport, which NATO would like to seize.
That's why we've had an increase in terrorist assassinations in that area; we've had the kidnapping of the pilgrims… This is a thrust to try to get a corridor from the Mediterranean into Syria through Tripoli and the Kleyate airport.
Press TV: What lies ahead for Syria in the long term especially in terms of the Assad government? How long can the Assad government resist and maintain its power?
Tarpley: I think the Assad government politically is better off in the last two weeks than it was before because they've successfully carried out a national election, a multi-party election; the Constitution has been changed so that the Baath Party no longer has a monopoly of power.
I think anybody who is sincerely interested in democratic reforms has participated in that election; some of them did get elected. The people who have been boycotting it have isolated themselves - they're now exposed as either al-Qaeda or fellow travelers with al-Qaeda.
So it seems to me the NATO political situation has gotten desperate and the only way out of that is to try to escalate the military side. But there once again they risk the collision with Russia, China and others who are not going to allow them to do that at least under the UN cover.
One of the places to look for a possible resolution for this is the Bilderberg-er meeting here in Washington SC at the end of next week, would typically be a place where a solution to that dilemma might emerge and therefore bears very, very careful watching.
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[DOCUMENTARY] A Day In Homs, Syria - Arabic sub English
Press TV Documentary.
An investigative documentary on how the events unfold in the Syrian city of Homs.
This investigation is in Arabic with...
Press TV Documentary.
An investigative documentary on how the events unfold in the Syrian city of Homs.
This investigation is in Arabic with English subtitles.
Broadcast - July 2012
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