Russia 110811 Basic Political Developments
Europe warns Syria of UN steps, Russia wants reform
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Europe warns Syria of UN steps, Russia wants reformhttp://in.reuters.com/article/2011/08/11/idINIndia-58729020110811 6:40am IST By Louis Charbonneau UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - European members of the Security Council on Wednesday threatened Syria that it could face tougher U.N. action if it continued a bloody crackdown on protesters, while Russia urged Damascus to implement promised reforms as soon as possible. But veto powers Russia and China, backed by India, South Africa and Brazil, have vehemently opposed the idea of slapping U.N. sanctions on Damascus, which Western diplomats say would be the logical next step for Syria. Council diplomats said there were no signs that the five so-called "BRICS" nations have altered their positions despite the five-month-old crackdown by Syrian security forces on protesters in cities across the country. Envoys of Britain, France, Germany and Portugal spoke to reporters after a closed-door session of the 15-nation council convened to assess Syria's compliance with last week's call by the Security Council for "an immediate end to all violence." They said Damascus has ignored that demand. At Wednesday's meeting, U.N. deputy political affairs chief Oscar Fernandez-Taranco told council members that the violence had continued and the humanitarian situation remained dire, diplomats who attended the meeting told Reuters. He said that nearly 2,000 civilians had been killed since March, 188 since July 31 -- and 87 on Aug. 8 alone. Britain's Deputy U.N. Ambassador Philip Parham suggested to reporters that if Syrian President Bashar al-Assad continued to ignore calls from the Security Council for an end to the clampdown, Damascus could face U.N. sanctions. "If they continue ... along their current path and they fail to heed those calls, then we believe the council must look at taking further steps to keep up the pressure on the Syrian regime," Parham said. U.S. ENVOY RICE: ASSAD SHOULD GO Parham's counterparts from France, Germany and Portugal echoed his warning that further steps -- which is often diplomatic code for sanctions -- would have to be discussed. U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice told reporters earlier that "it would be much, much better for the people of Syria, and Syria would be better off, without Assad." She was echoing comments made last week by White House spokesman Jay Carney. Rice told the Security Council that the United States "is working together with its international partners to bring greater pressure to bear on the Syrian regime through further coordinated diplomatic and financial measures." "We are also working with our partners to stem the flow of the weapons and ammunition that Syrian security forces, under Assad's authority, continue to use against peaceful protesters," she said, according to the text of her remarks. The Security Council will take up Syria again next week. Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said Moscow had made clear to Damascus that it wants Assad's promised reforms implemented as swiftly as possible. "What we are telling them is that they need to have serious reforms as soon as possible, even though we do realize that it takes time, especially in a dramatic situation like this, you simply cannot carry out reforms overnight," he said. Asked if he thought new U.S. sanctions against Syria announced by Washington on Wednesday were helpful, Churkin said, "No." Syrian envoy Bashar Ja'afari blasted the Europeans, accusing them of misleading reporters about the situation. "They tried to manipulate the truth and to hide important facts and elements related to the so-called situation in Syria," he said, adding that the Europeans had deliberately ignored Assad's promises of reform and national dialogue. He also took aim at British Prime Minister David Cameron. "To hear the prime minister of England describing the riots and the rioters in England by using the term 'gangs', while they don't allow us to use the same term for the armed groups and the terrorist groups in my country," he said. "This is hypocrisy. This is arrogance." Parham dismissed Ja'afari's comparison between the riots in Britain and the violence in Syria as "absurd." (Editing by Paul Simao) Repr of far-abroad countries to watch CIS air defense exercisehttp://en.trend.az/news/politics/1916893.html [11.08.2011 10:59] Representatives of Algeria, India and Syria will watch for the first time the Comradeship-in-Arms 2011 exercise of the Air Forces and Air Defense Troops of the CIS member states, Colonel Vladimir Drik, the spokesman for the Air Force of the Russian Federation, told Itar-Tass on Wednesday. "The Comradeship-in-Arms 2011 joint exercise with live firing will be held from August to September 2011," he said. "Servicemen from Armenia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan will participate in the exercise. Representatives of Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Moldova and Uzbekistan will be present as observers. Representatives of far-abroad states Algeria, India and Syria will watch the active phase of the exercise," he said. "The aim of the upcoming exercise is to prepare and drill the functioning of groups of air defense forces of CIS member states in collective security areas in anti-terrorist operations and during armed conflicts," Drik noted. 05:28 11/08/2011ALL NEWS
http://www.itar-tass.com/en/c154/201968.html MOSCOW, August 11 (Itar-Tass) — The Russian Space Troops will receive two sophisticated Voronezh-DM radars in December 2011, to be incorporated in the system of early warning of missile launches. One of them will start operating in Armavir, and the other – in Kaliningrad, the Russian westernmost city. This radar will ensure Russian nuclear parity in case a Euro ABM is deployed, writes the Izvestia newspaper on Thursday. In 2012 a similar facility will be put into operation in the Irkutsk Region. The task of the advanced radars will be to detect missiles, blasted off from other countries. Using these radar stations, Russia will fully restore control over air space around its borders. “The commissioning of the Voronezh-DM radars is to restore integrity of radar control over air space. In some cases, we plug the present gaps, in others, we increase capacities of old stations,” the newspaper learnt at the Space Troops. In contrast to “Soviet predecessors” – the radars in Azerbaijan, Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan – the new radars will be stationed in the Russian territory. Besides, they consume 40 percent less energy and can see what is going on in the skies and outer-space at a distance of 4,500 kilometres. The first new-type radar Voronezh-DM was handed over for test operation in 2009 near St. Petersburg, in the village of Lekhtusi. It will be already combat-ready in December. Its operation set off the loss of a radar in Latvia. The Space Troops got the chance to see air space from the Morocco coast to Shpitsbergen as well as the US east coast. The next year witnesses the commissioning of the second radar in Armavir, “inspecting” South Europe up to the North Africa coast. Its capacities closed the gap that formed as a result of Moscow’s refusal to operate a station in Sevastopol. “The construction of the radar in the Kaliningrad Region, in the village of Pionerskoye covers the western sector which was guarded by stations in Mukachevo and Belarussian Baranovichi. The second station under construction in Armavir will supplement capacities of the Gabalinskaya radar in Azerbaijan. The next year will see the commissioning of a facility in the Irkutsk Region, which will “search” the space from China to the US western coast. Following this, “we can say that we fully restored the radar system of early warning of a missile attack,” the Space Troops emphasised. Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov who recently visited the Azerbaijan Gabalinskaya radar (“Daryal”), said that the military leadership does not intend to abandon the old Soviet stations, located in neighbour republics. “Everything remains as it is for the time being. We do not give up a single station and do not plan to,” Serdyukov said. According to Izvestia, Russia is not likely to stop with construction of the radar near Irkutsk. The Defence Ministry’s plans provide for complete replacement, under the state programme of armaments till 2020, of all Soviet long-distance radars with the new Voronezh-DM and construction of several new ones. It is planned to spend several billion roubles for their erection. The military say that the Arctic alone remains inaccessible.
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