Watchman Newsletter

Syria, Hizballah are building a massive wall in eastern Lebanon

DEBKAfile (Link) (May 15, 2010)

Hizballah and Syria are building a massive fortified wall, running from Rashaya Al-Wadi on the western, Lebanese slopes of Mt. Hermon (85 kilometers southeast of Beirut) in the south, to the Lebanese Beqaa Valley town of Aita el-Foukhar, in the north, DEBKAfile's military sources reveal.

The structure, 22 kilometers long in parallel to the Lebanese-Syrian border promises to be one of the biggest fortified structures in the Middle East. It is designed as an obstacle against any Israeli tank forces heading through Lebanon toward the Syrian capital, Damascus. When it is finished, the barrier will isolate a key Lebanese border region - 14 kilometers wide and 22 kilometers long - from the rest of the country and place it under Hizballah-Syrian military control.

This region is inhabited most by Druzes and Christians.

The project became possible in the last year, after Lebanon's Druze leader, Walid Jumblatt, turned away from his pro-Western allegiance and threw in his lot with the pro-Syrian camp, lining up with Syrian president Bashar Assad and Hizballah's secretary Hassan Nasrallah and buying into the military alliance headed by Iran.

Behind the rising wall, Hizballah and Syria can freely smuggle weapons across concealed from outside surveillance, while deepening Syria's footprint in Lebanon.

Chavez orders money changer raids for FX crash

Reuters (Link) - Frank Jack Daniel (May 15, 2010)

Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez said on Friday authorities were set to raid money changers and close websites listing exchange rates, his latest bid to stop the crashing bolivar currency.

Venezuela’s foreign exchange market is already paralyzed after the government moved to end speculation and stem the fall of the bolivar with new rules some economists fear will cause economic turmoil.

Under a reform passed by legislators on Thursday, the central bank will oversee all transactions in the market where the bolivar is traded freely via securities.

Fitch Ratings said on Friday that Venezuela’s new laws governing foreign exchange trading could hurt growth prospects and stoke inflation, compromising the government’s ability to service its debt.

Chavez threatened to close all the country’s brokerages and financial trading houses after the bolivar lost 25 percent against the dollar this year.

‘Russia to sell Syria weapons’

The Jerusalem Post (Link) - AP (May 15, 2010)

Russia will supply Syria with warplanes, artillery systems and anti-aircraft missiles, Mikhail Dmitriyev, head of the Russian Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation told media Friday night.

Israeli officials reacted angrily to the news, Reuters reported.

“Syria at the present time cannot afford to pay for this sophisticated weaponry, indeed, it has hardly enough money to buy food for its citizens. One can only wonder what is the real reason behind this dubious deal,” an unnamed government official in Jerusalem told the news agency.

Israel and Russia have already been at odds in recent years over Moscow’s pledge to provide Iran, another Israeli enemy, with the advanced S-300 air defense system. Though the order was placed in 2007, none of the systems have been delivered, allegedly due to technical glitches, though many believe the delay stems from international opposition to the sale.

Google admits Wi-Fi data collection blunder

BBC (Link) - Maggie Shiels (May 15, 2010)

Google has admitted that for the past three years it has wrongly collected information people have sent over unencrypted Wi-Fi networks.

The issue came to light after German authorities asked to audit the data the company’s Street View cars gathered as they took photos viewed on Google maps.

Google said during a review it found it had “been mistakenly collecting samples of payload data from open networks.”

The admission will increase concerns about potential privacy breaches.

These snippets could include parts of an email, text or photograph or even the website someone may be viewing.

In a blogpost Google said as soon as it became aware of the problem it grounded its Street View cars from collecting Wi-Fi information and segregated the data on its network.

Thailand PM Abhisit in pledge to end Bangkok protest

BBC News (Link) (May 15, 2010)

Thailand’s PM Abhisit Vejjajiva has said troops will “push forward” with an operation to end an anti-government protest in the heart of Bangkok. He said military intervention was the only way to end the protest.

Clashes between troops and protesters killed six on Saturday, bringing the toll from three days of violence to 24.

There have been running battles around the fortified camp where red-shirted protesters, who want the prime minister to resign, have been based since March.

In his first televised comments since the violence erupted on Thursday, Mr Abhisit said he was trying to restore normality to the city with minimal loss.

“What the government and the security agencies are doing at the moment is necessary,” he said. “We can’t allow a situation where people set up armed groups and overthrow the government because they don’t agree with it... We cannot retreat because what we’re doing is for the good of the majority of the people.”

The Russians Are Coming... To Damascus

The Bulletin (Link) - David Bedein (May 15, 2010)

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who visited the Syrian capital of Damascus, arrived with a sharp and clear Israeli message that was conveyed at the start of the week by Israeli President Shimon Peres: Israel wants peace, but is not willing to accept Hezbollah’s military buildup.

In the message that is being conveyed by the Russian president, Israel clarified that it had no intention of attacking Syria and was not interested in a regional conflagration. However, Syria must stop the attempts to transfer arms to Hezbollah. Israeli officials are concerned by what has been defined as Syrian President Bashar Assad’s failure to understand the severity with which Israel perceives the situation. “Assad is playing with fire and doesn’t understand that our patience is running out,” said a senior official in Jerusalem. “There are very dangerous arms here that are flowing freely to Lebanon, and Israel cannot accept this.”

On his visit to Moscow for a meeting with the Russian president, Mr. Peres sought to convey a clear message to Mr. Assad. “You can tell him that five prime ministers have agreed to give back the Golan Heights,” Mr. Peres said to Mr. Medvedev, “but we cannot give it back if [missile] batteries from Iran will immediately be stationed there, as happened after we withdrew from Lebanon and Gaza.” Mr. Peres told Mr. Medvedev that Mr. Assad would have to choose whether he was headed for war and missiles or to peace with Israel.

Germany as Eurozone Leader

Stratfor Global Intelligence (Link) (May 14, 2010)

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Thursday that the fate of the euro is the fate of Europe, and that the economic crisis facing the eurozone today is an opportunity to fix the underlying problems that have brought the Continent to the brink of economic collapse. Her comments echoed those of her mentor and predecessor as head of the conservative Christian Democratic Union, Helmut Kohl, the architect of German reunification. Kohl recently said in a widely publicized comment that the eurozone is a “guarantee of peace” in Europe.

The outpouring of support for the eurozone from Germany’s top political echelon may seem confusing considering the past four months of foot-dragging from Berlin. Germany’s stalling on the Greek bailout nearly threw the world into another September 2008-like crisis, with both the United States and Japan urging Berlin to act.

However, despite the fact that Germany needs the eurozone to remain relevant as a global player, as well as for its own economic benefit, the crisis had another dimension: domestic politics. Merkel hoped to win a key state election for her governing coalition on May 9, and acting tough on Greece — by talking about potentially kicking Athens out of the eurozone — had its own domestic logic. Investors took the tough talk on Greece as a sign of Berlin’s wavering support and punished Athens.

More woes for Greek economy

CTV News (Link) - Nicholas Paphitis (May 14, 2010)

Images of flaming buildings and riots in Athens during last week’s protests in debt-ridden Greece have taken an early toll on the country’s vital tourism industry, hotel owners said Thursday.

About 20,000 overnight stays at hotels in Athens and nearby resorts have been cancelled since May 5 riots that left three people dead, according to the local hoteliers’ association.

The setback reveals persisting challenges for Greece’s battered economy, despite a €110-billion ($138-billion) international rescue program that staved off bankruptcy. A painful austerity program taken to secure the aid is expected to keep the economy in recession until 2012, while unemployment has hit new records.

Greece has little heavy industry and a large trade deficit. But tourism accounts for an estimated 17 per cent of annual economic output and one in five jobs, and a significant drop could cost more jobs and slow the country’s way out of recession.

“There is clearly a significant fall in our clientele and the trend for cancellations is rising,” Yiannis Retsos, head of the Athens and Attica Hoteliers’ Association, told The Associated Press.

Turkey and Russia strengthen economic ties

Financial Times (Link) - Delphine Strauss (May 14, 2010)

This week’s deal for Russia to build and control Turkey’s first nuclear power plant is a big win for Moscow, which badly wants its state-owned industry to win a bigger share of growing international markets.

But it also marks a new phase in economic relations between rising powers whose mutual interests are centred on energy, but range far wider.

The two countries are driven together by geography: Turkey needs Russian supplies of oil and gas, while Moscow needs Ankara’s help to facilitate traffic from the Black Sea, and pipeline routes to Europe. But the partnership is strengthening thanks to the personal affinity of Vladimir Putin and Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan – two of a kind when it comes to authoritarian populism. It is also underpinned by Ankara’s new policy of balancing traditional western alliances with stronger relations to the east.

As the commentator Murat Yetkin points out, granting Russia majority ownership of a nuclear plant built on Turkish soil shows the degree of trust reached since the days when Turkey served as the west’s Cold War bulwark.

US to join group previously shunned for anti-Israel stances

The Jerusalem Post (Link) - AP (May 13, 2010)

The Obama administration is preparing to join an international advisory group that the United States generally has shunned due to fears it would adopt anti-Israeli and anti-Western positions, US officials said Wednesday.

The officials told The Associated Press the administration plans to announce as early as this week that it will begin a formal relationship with the Alliance of Civilizations. The 5-year-old, UN-backed organization aims to ease strains between societies and cultures, particularly the West and Islam.

The Bush administration boycotted the group when it was founded in 2005 over because it feared the group would become a forum for bashing Israel and the United States. Those concerns were magnified a year later when the alliance released a report that officials in Washington said unfairly blamed Israel and the United States for many of the world’s problems.

The decision to join grows out of Obama’s desire to broaden US participation in international groups and improve its standing among Muslims. The officials said they had consulted closely with Israel on the decision to join the alliance. Israel has no plans to join, diplomats said.

U.S. Membership in the UN Alliance of Civilizations

U.S. Department of State (Link) - Philip J. Crowley (May 13, 2010)

Recognizing the value of the Alliance of Civilizations as an important initiative seeking to improve understanding between cultures and peoples, the United States has joined the 119 member countries and international organizations in the Alliance’s Group of Friends.

The Alliance of Civilizations, a joint Spanish-Turkish initiative under the auspices of the United Nations, was created in 2005. It has as its goal improved understanding and cooperative relations among nations and peoples, and across the world’s many cultures, to help counter the forces that fuel polarization and extremism.

The goals and activities of the Alliance complement President Obama’s vision of active U.S. engagement with other nations and international organizations to advance American security interests and meet the global challenges of the 21st century. The United States looks forward to working with other friends of this voluntary initiative to further strengthen the innovative, inclusive and apolitical approach it has come to represent.

On May 28 and 29, the government of Brazil will host the next Alliance of Civilizations’ Forum in Rio de Janeiro. The United States will attend this Forum as our first event as Group of Friends members.

Nations in Distress with Perplexity

Bible Prophecy Today (Link) - Olive Tree Ministries - Jan Markell (May 13, 2010)

In Luke 21 there are several references to troubled times. In verse 25 it says nations will be in distress with perplexity suggesting that problems may be so grave, no one knows how to solve them. In verse 26, it refers to men’s hearts failing them from fear, especially when they see what may be coming upon them. In this context, the perfect storm is coming.

Rahm Emmanuel made the often-quoted statement that we should never let a crisis go to waste. Greece has a crisis. You may think that it is such a small nation that it isn’t worth exploring the deeper meaning. The real problem is contagion. Greece is just one of many socialist nations in Europe. Thus, Greece has been funding massive social programs and accumulating huge debt. Nations that could follow right behind Greece - and soon - include Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Great Britain, among others. All wobbly European nations are hoping the European Union will bail them out of trouble. They may try but the financial issues are so formidable that it will not work.

As Gary Bauer of American Values says, “Socialist policies have resulted in a Europe that has been far less than resilient to the economic crisis. Many of the over-spending, over-borrowing and over-expanding European Union governments are heading towards financial bankruptcy and utter collapse. And yet Obama and his allies still insist on remaking America in Europe’s crumbling image.”

Glenn Beck: Meet Maurice Strong

Canada Free Press (Link) - Judi McLeod (May 13, 2010) Video

Great job on shining the FOX flashlight on man-behind-the-curtain Maurice Strong last night. You asked for people to send you information on Strong.

While the entire cable network world, thanks largely to The One Thing, now knows that Strong is on the Chicago Carbon Credit Exchange board of directors, it gets worse, much worse.

It’s true that Strong explained that he had only fantasized the end of the world in his now famous interview with a Canadian reporter.  Unfortunately for the free world, the fantasy is Strong’s philosophy.

As recently as 2006, speaking from an air conditioned boardroom somewhere in Communist China, Maurice Strong—the same man who would deny air conditioning for you to save the environment—was hatching his latest anti-American initiative. 

“Having cashed in his Kyoto credits and having launched his ManyOne Internet project from afar, Strong is back on the international scene, ready or not.  With his latest comeback, the elusive Strong is stepping back into the limelight after his alleged links to the UN Oil-forFood scandal took him off the radar screen for more than a year.  This comeback sees Strong teaming up in the biz world with George Soros.  The deadly duo aims to flood the American market with cheap Chinese-made cars. (Strong & Soros in Business: A Partnership from Hell, CFP, June 15, 2006).

Netanyahu turns to Bible in tussle over Jerusalem

Yahoo! News (Link) - Reuters - Dan Williams (May 13, 2010)

Beset by questions about Jerusalem’s future in talks with the Palestinians, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reached for the Bible on Wednesday to stake out the Jewish state’s contested claim on the city.

Netanyahu told a parliamentary session commemorating Israel’s capture of East Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 war that “Jerusalem” and its alternative Hebrew name “Zion” appear 850 times in the Old Testament, Judaism’s core canon.

“As to how many times Jerusalem is mentioned in the holy scriptures of other faiths, I recommend you check,” he said.

Citing such ancestry, Israel calls all of Jerusalem its “eternal and indivisible” capital -- a designation not recognised abroad, where many powers support Arab claims to East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state.

The dispute is further inflamed by the fact East Jerusalem houses al-Aqsa mosque, Islam’s third-holiest shrine, on a plaza that Jews revere as the vestige of two biblical Jewish temples.

US faces same problems as Greece, says Bank of England

Telegraph UK (Link) - Edmund Conway (May 13, 2010)

Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England, fears that America shares many of the same fiscal problems currently haunting Europe. He also believes that European Union must become a federalised fiscal union (in other words with central power to tax and spend) if it is to survive. Just two of the nuggets from one of the most extraordinary press conferences I have been to at the Bank.

What with all the excitement yesterday over our new Government, I never had time to remark on the Inflation Report press conference. Most of our attention was on what King said about the Government’s fiscal plans (a ringing endorsement). But, as Jeremy Warner has written in today’s paper, it was as if King had suddenly been unleashed. Bear in mind King is usually one of the most guarded policymakers in both British and central banking circles. Not yesterday.

It isn’t often one has the opportunity to get such a blunt and straightforward insight into the thoughts of one of the world’s leading economic players. Most of this stuff usually stays behind closed doors, so it’s worth taking note of. And I suspect that while George Osborne will have been happy to hear his endorsement of the new Government’s policies, Barack Obama and the European leaders will have been far less pleased with his frank comments on their predicament.

The transcript and video are online at the Bank’s website, but below are the extended highlights, all emphasis mine. Well worth checking out.

‘Russia moving closer to Hezbollah too’

YNet News (Link) - Aviel Magnezi (May 13, 2010)

Experts analyze Moscow’s connection to radical Islam, say it is all part of much bigger plan.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev visited Syria this week and met with Hamas politburo Khaled Mashaal. On Wednesday, he even stated that Hamas should be included in the Middle East peace process, despite Israel’s firm stand against the Islamist movement.

Is Russia taking a pro-Islamic side in one of the most explosive regions in the world? A former Israeli ambassador to Russia explains that Moscow is seeking to increase its involvement, and hold, in the region. Terror organizations? It’s doesn’t really matter to them.

“Russia doesn’t view it as taking sides. That’s too harsh. It’s taking the middle. It wants to assume the role of the Middle East mediator,” says former Ambassador Zvi Magen.

“It believes it already has us. We are ready to talk, and now the question is who will bring the others. The Russians seek to do it before the Americans, and for this Russia needs the Syrians and both parts of the Palestinians – including Hamas.”

Magen says the Russians are looking for Palestinian unity, in order to bring all sides to the negotiating table, “which they want to place in Russia as part of a Middle East conference attended by all parties – all the Palestinians, the Syrians and even Hezbollah.”

Hugo Chávez's Venezuela: Feeling the Heat

The Economist (Link) - Judi McLeod (May 13, 2010)

From Parque Central station in Caracas a cable car silently speeds workers, residents and schoolchildren up the hill to Hornos de Cal and then down again to San Agustín, connecting these areas of self-built slum housing to the city’s metro system. The bright-red cars bear the names of Venezuelan states or of uplifting notions, such as “social duty” or “socialist morality”. Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s leftist president, opened the metrocable in January, proclaiming: “A socialist revolution has the essential aim of giving to all men and women the greatest possible happiness.”

The metrocable, of just 1.8km, took three years to build and cost $318m—over ten times as much as a longer line opened in Medellín, in Colombia, in 2004. But the local leaders of communal councils—the grassroots groups that Mr Chávez conceives as the driving force of his “Bolivarian revolution”—are indeed happy. “I never thought we would have such a big project in my community,” said María Eugenia Ramírez. “I thought it was just a dream.” Ms Ramírez now has a paid job informing passengers how the system works.

The metrocable is not the only improvement Mr Chávez has brought to San Agustín. Near Hornos de Cal station there is a primary health post, staffed by Cuban doctors, though it is open only in the morning, and a second-tier health clinic, complete with an intensive-care unit. Some of the shacks on the hillsides have had a recent coat of paint, in the regulation colours of another government project (red, yellow, blue or pink). Others were knocked down to make way for the lavish metrocable stations. Their residents were rehoused in new blocks of flats built by Misión Hábitat, yet another government scheme.

The Upside-Down World

The Trumpet (Link) - Joel Hilliker (May 12, 2010)

A couple weeks ago, a street-corner preacher in Britain mentioned to a passing shopper that the Bible calls homosexuality a sin. The comment got him thrown in jail.

An atheist homosexual policeman contended that since Dale McAlpine’s remark was loud enough to be overheard, he had broken the Public Order Act—a law passed in 1986 to control violent rioters and football hoodlums. Police carted McAlpine off, and he spent seven hours in a cell for causing “harassment, alarm or distress.”

It was quite the crackdown, considering what happened elsewhere on Britain’s streets at about the same time. After an Israeli official gave a lecture at the University of Manchester, she was attacked by pro-Palestinian protesters. Police responded to this provocation by escorting the official from the premises in a police car. The protesters climbed onto the hood of the vehicle and tried to break the windshield. They were not prosecuted. Apparently in Britain, this is “protected speech.”

Welcome to the Upside-Down World. It’s a world where truth is trashed and lies are lauded. Where the honorable are despised and the depraved are empowered.

This disorienting phenomenon comes under the microscope in Melanie Phillips’s new book, The World Turned Upside Down. “Society seems to be in the grip of a mass derangement,” she writes. “[S]elf-designated ‘victim groups’ have turned right and wrong, victim and aggressor inside out.”

Nobody wants war, but Israel-Lebanon border is heating up

Haaretz (Link) - Amos Harel (May 12, 2010)

After several welcome weeks of calm, chatter about the northern border and the eastern front has resumed.

A synopsis of the declarations of the past 48 hours: The prime minister accused Iran of trying to provoke war between Syria and Israel; the minister for strategic affairs reiterated that a military option exists against Iran’s nuclear program; Iran’s parliamentary speaker threatened a “final and decisive war” against Israel; Lebanon’s prime minister expressed support for Hezbollah’s right to have Scud missiles in its arsenal; Syria’s president warned of “the demise of the peace process;” and Russia’s president, visiting Damascus, said he fears a catastrophe in the region.

A conflagration in the north sometime in the near future could result from one of three developments: escalation between Israel and Iran over the latter’s nuclear program; Hezbollah’s efforts to exact revenge for the 2008 killing of senior operative Imad Mughniyeh; or an Israeli attack on an arms convoy from Syria to Hezbollah.

But developments on the Iranian front depend on the results of the American initiative to impose stricter sanctions, which is expected to be discussed at the Security Council only next month. And all attempts by Hezbollah to strike at Israeli targets abroad have so far failed.

All Roads Lead to Heaven? — Kathleen Parker Does Theology

AlbertMohler.com (Link) - Albert Mohler (May 12, 2010)

What catches the attention of a columnist for The Washington Post? A recent column by Kathleen Parker indicates that theology has become a focus of national attention. Kathleen Parker used her column in The Washington Post to take on Franklin Graham and his belief that belief in Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation.

Parker began her column with the fact that Franklin Graham prayed outside the Pentagon last Thursday, rather than inside, having been disinvited by the Pentagon as the speaker for its scheduled National Day of Prayer service. Graham, you will remember, was disinvited because of statements he made about Islam — statements directly referenced by the Army spokesman as “not appropriate.”

Those statements made clear reference to the Gospel of Jesus Christ as the only message of salvation, to Christ as the only Savior, and to Islam as an evil belief system that pulls millions away from faith in Christ and delivers no hope of salvation. In a later interview, Graham made his point about the uniqueness of the Christian Gospel, adding Hinduism as another example of a false religion.

All this was too much for Kathleen Parker, who asked: “Oh well, it doesn’t matter where one prays, right? All prayers lead to heaven. Or do they?”

Netanyahu: We will never divide Jerusalem

YNet News (Link) - Ronen Medzini (May 12, 2010)

The state ceremony marking 43 years since the reunification of Jerusalem was held Wednesday on Jerusalem’s Ammunition Hill, as international voices are increasingly calling for territorial concessions to be made in the capital. “We will never divide Jerusalem,” declared Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“Jerusalem Day is the day on which the city of Jerusalem started to breath easy, to spread its wings for the good of all its residents, Jews and Arabs alike,” said Netanyahu.

“Israel instated freedom of worship for all religions and free access to holy sites to members of all religions. We will never let Jerusalem again be a divided, gloomy, and halved city. We will continue to build and be built in Jerusalem. We will continue to plan, develop, and produce,” the prime minister said.

U.S. posts 19th straight monthly budget deficit

Reuters (Link) - Glenn Somerville (May 12, 2010)

The United States posted an $82.69 billion deficit in April, nearly four times the $20.91 billion shortfall registered in April 2009 and the largest on record for that month, the Treasury Department said on Wednesday.

It was more than twice the $40-billion deficit that Wall Street economists surveyed by Reuters had forecast and was striking since April marks the filing deadline for individual income taxes that are the main source of government revenue.

Department officials said that in prior years, there was a surplus during April in 43 out of the past 56 years.

The government has now posted 19 consecutive monthly budget deficits, the longest string of shortfalls on record.

For the first seven months of fiscal 2010, which ends September 30, the cumulative budget deficit totals $799.68 billion, down slightly from $802.3 billion in the comparable period of fiscal 2009.

Time for Greece to Play by the EU’s Rules

The Washington Post (Link) - Anne Applebaum (May 11, 2010)

For the time being, the markets have been pacified. For the moment, the riots in Athens have subsided. Only “hundreds” of demonstrators came out over the weekend, fewer than the rioters who killed three people during a violent petrol bomb attack on a bank last week. But this temporary truce in Greece has been bought at a high price -- by which I don’t just mean that it was expensive.

In front of me as I write is a draft version of the Council of the European Union’s most recent “decision” on Greece. It isn’t a classified document: Bits of it have been in the newspapers; the Greek parliament has already voted to pass some provisions; and a similar, though less comprehensive, decision was published last February. Yet while it’s not secret, no one is talking much about its political significance either. For this is no ordinary piece of Euro-bureaucracy: This is the kind of thing a surrendering field marshal signs in a railway car in the forest at the end of a bloody war.

Europe and the International Monetary Fund will spend billions of euros to rescue Greece. And in exchange, Greece will not merely agree to reduce its vast public deficit but will adopt, by June, no fewer than 17 specific legal and budgetary changes. Among other things, the council declares that Greece “shall” reduce the “Easter, summer and Christmas bonuses” of civil servants and pensioners; increase taxes on fuel, tobacco and alcohol; reduce the operating costs of local government; and pass a law to simplify the rules for new business start-ups.

Medvedev in Syria for first time

The Jerusalem Post (Link) - AP (May 11, 2010)

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was expected to hand over a message from Israel to Syria during a visit to Damascus beginning late Monday, as part of a flurry of diplomatic efforts to defuse tensions between the two countries.

The visit is Medvedev’s first to Syria, which was once one of the former Soviet Union’s closest allies in the Middle East. He and Syrian President Bashar Assad are also expected to discuss Iran’s nuclear program, military cooperation and developing economic relations.

The office of President Shimon Peres announced Sunday that Medvedev had agreed to deliver a message to Assad. Peres and Medvedev met in Moscow recently during the annual commemoration ceremony marking the end of World War II.

Peres said Israel wants peace with Syria but that it must stop alleged weapons transfers to Hizbullah in Lebanon. Peres recently accused Syria of transferring Scud missiles to Hezbollah, a claim Damascus denies.

Europe fixes debt with more debt

Financial Post (Link) - Terence Corcoran (May 10, 2010)

Anybody remember the last G20 Summit? Hard to forget. It’s only been what? - six months since the event, held in Pittsburgh last September. The words of our leaders, triumphant and self-congratulatory, still ring out today. Boasting of having launched “the largest and most coordinated fiscal and monetary stimulus ever undertaken,” the G20 looked back at the London Summit, where Gordon Brown, now former PM of Britain, orchestrated a rousing session around the theme of spend, spend, spend to get the world out of economic crisis. “At that time [in London], our countries agreed to do everything necessary to ensure recovery, to repair our financial systems and to maintain the global flow of capital. It worked.”

Monday, the subprime government debt crisis, the direct product of the above-mentioned summits and other meetings of the world’s economic and political leaders, produced another threat. The European Union, its members sliding into stimulus debt and losing market confidence, would again do “whatever is necessary” to end the crisis, restore confidence and protect the euro.

Whatever is necessary turns out to be more of the same. The amazing European and IMF economic stimulus machines will tackle their debt crisis with a new strategy: More debt! Already racked with rising deficits and debt loads that are in dangerous territory, the EU plans to fix the problem with US$1-trillion loan packages. And if the debt doesn’t work, they’ll crank up monetary policy and have the European Central Bank buy up government bonds and private bonds of banks that are lending money to the governments. That spells inflation, although the ECB said it would be taking countermeasures to “sterilize” or neutralize the inflationary impact of its bond plan.

Ashton highlights External Action Service in Europe Day message

The Sophia Echo (Link) - Clive Leviev-Sawyer (May 9, 2010)

Europe Day has become the symbol of a new beginning, of a free and successful way of peaceful co-operation between sovereign nations, based on shared values and common interests such as peace, solidarity, democracy, welfare of people and the rule of law, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said in a message celebrating May 9.

“On the occasion of Europe Day 2010 I would like to underline that that Europe wants to work even more closely with its partners around the world,” Ashton said.

“Only together will we be able to create policies and initiatives to tackle the challenges the world is facing in the 21st century,” she said.

“We have to find effective answers to a wide range of risks and threats: the fragility of states, terrorism, organised crime as well as the wider issues that affect our citizens: energy, climate change and the competition for natural resources, pandemics, illegal migration and human trafficking, financial and economic issues, trade, health and demography.”

Europeans were united in the way they perceive foreign policy and the external action, according to Ashton.