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Friday 05.17.2013
Controlling the Beginning Stages of Hyperinflation
by Manipulating the Precious Metals
By Steve St. Angelo, SRSrocco Report - GoldSeek.com
The tactic by the Fed and Central Banks is to inflate the stock markets while manipulating the price of gold and silver lower. This achieves two goals, 1) it reassures the public's faith by pumping up stock prices while the economic indicators continue to deteriorate and 2) it elevates the dollar while it destroys market sentiment in the precious metals.
So far, the strategy has worked. Some of the toughest gold and silver bugs are becoming extremely frustrated and downright bearish. You can't blame them as this is typical human psychology. Although, extremes and manipulations never last forever and at some point in time they reverse.
Gold's Long-Term Uptrend is still Intact!
By: David Chapman - GoldSeek.com
I thought I would show once again the long-term monthly chart of gold to demonstrate that despite the recent drop the long-term uptrend for gold remains intact. The current drop could either be a test of those lows or even a sudden thrust to new lows. There remains potential objectives down to $1,150 zone based on the long pattern that played out between September 2011 and April 2013. There is no law, however, that says those objectives must be achieved. A test of the lows or slight new lows is also within the realm of possibilities. Currently, as this is being written, silver and the gold stocks have reversed from down to up on the day after new lows for the current move down. This could be potentially bullish.
From Petrodollar To Petrogold:
The US Is Now Trying To Cut Off Iran's Access To Gold
by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
The US is moving to broaden its 'blockade' efforts of Iran to the movement of pure gold into the Islamic Republic. The US-led embargo of Iranian crude succeeded in slowing the flow of petrodollars into the nation but as Foreign Affairs committee chairman Edward Cohen remarked, there is "no question that there is gold going from Turkey to Iran." While the official line from US elite such as Bernanke remains that 'gold is not money' it appears that increasingly other nations would disagree, as Cohen admitted, "in large measure what we're seeing is private Iranian citizens buying gold as a protection against the falling value of Iran's currency." It would seem somewhat self-evident that the US is admitting, by attempting to embargo this gold flow, that outside the US, the Dollar is becoming increasingly irrelevant (seeChina's gold demand); and that for many countries the petrodollar no longer exists, having been replaced by 'Petrogold'.
Silver and the Dow
Hubert Moolman - SlverSeek.com
The Dow making new highs is likely to be very good news for silver investors, because nominal silver peaks tend to come after significant nominal peaks in the Dow. These stock market rallies are driven by the expansion of the money supply, causing a big increase in value of paper assets (including stocks) relative to real assets.
When the increase in credit or the money supply has run its course, and is unable to drive paper price higher; value then flees from paper assets to safe assets such as physical gold and silver, causing massive price increases.
State-Wrecked: The Corruption of Capitalism in America
By DAVID A. STOCKMAN - NYTimes.com
The Dow Jones and Standard & Poor's 500 indexes reached record highs on Thursday, having completely erased the losses since the stock market's last peak, in 2007. But instead of cheering, we should be very afraid.
Over the last 13 years, the stock market has twice crashed and touched off a recession: American households lost $5 trillion in the 2000 dot-com bust and more than $7 trillion in the 2007 housing crash. Sooner or later — within a few years, I predict — this latest Wall Street bubble, inflated by an egregious flood of phony money from the Federal Reserve rather than real economic gains, will explode, too.
'We're Going to Have a Crisis':
David Stockman's Stark Warning for America The onetime Reagan budget chief has gone from supply-side guru to prophet of doom -- and his new book predicts stormy times ahead for the U.S.
JOHN MERONEY - TheAtlantic.com
David Stockman, formerly a leading conservative Reaganite, now blames some of the economic program that he once supported for the 2008 meltdown and sluggish recovery. But liberal Democrats who may be excited about a Stockman defection will be sorely disappointed: His critique of the Obama economic program is just as strong as what he says about his erstwhile friends in the Republican Party.
Global Government Debt Is Already 80% Of Global GDP
GoldSilverWorlds.com
In his latest commentary, Michael Pento writes "there is a reason why the Fed and other central banks have been unable to achieve a healthy and viable economy even after five years of trying to manufacture one from a printing press. The truth is an economy that is soaked in debt just doesn't grow because it is always marked by at least one, if not all three, of the following growth-killing conditions; high interest rates, rampant inflation and onerous tax rates."
When debt levels increase to an extent that they are equal or greater than its GDP capital flows out of the private sector due to burdensome rollovers and interest payments on that debt. Penton continues: "In addition, rising tax rates act as a disincentive to increase productivity and whatever money that is taken from the private sector is always redeployed in an inefficient, GDP-destroying manner. Rising interest costs also discourage borrowing and lead to capital shortages. And finally, inflation destroys the purchasing power of the middle class by eroding the value of the currency and leaving consumers with an inability to make discretionary purchases."
A New Deal for Fragile States
By Erik Solheim - Project-Syndicate.org
PARIS – Today, roughly one-quarter of the world's population lives in conflict-affected and fragile states. Despite vast sums of money spent aiding such states over the last 50 years, armed conflict and violence continue to blight the lives of millions of people around the world. International and national partners must radically change the way they engage such states.
Rick Santelli: Europe Is Baking Rotten Cookies
BY FS STAFF - FinancialSense.com
In his usual colorful style, CNBC commentator Rick Santelli joins Jim on the Financial Sense Newshour to clear up the confusion on a number of hot-button issues.
First, he explains why austerity—without applying all the necessary ingredients, like reform—hasn't worked in Europe or elsewhere:
Austerity right now is maybe the nastiest word to utter in public ever. I am convinced that if you go into Europe now and say "I like austerity", they will lock you up and throw away the key. But the reasons they don't like it are just not correct. Austerity has been deemed a negative solution to getting debt and spending in economies under control, because what it is now equated to, as you somewhat pointed out, is raising taxes and cutting spending. But what actually happens is taxes are raised and there are very little spending cuts; but the magic ingredient of why austerity works is because what you should be doing in a country, like what the IMF has suggested, is you should be lowering taxes when you can—certainly not raising them—you should try to cut spending, but do it in a way that is commensurate with major reforms. Without all of those present it isn't the same animal. If I forget to put eggs or sugar or baking powder in my cookies—just one ingredient!—you don't have a cookie anymore, you have really rotten tasting raw dough.
The Importance of Doing Business
By Ana Palacio - Project-Syndicate.org
MADRID – This month, an independent review panel is expected to release its findings regarding the World Bank's Doing Business report. Speculation abounds that the panel might recommend outsourcing Doing Business, removing its rankings of countries for the ease of doing business in them, or even eliminating the report altogether.
This challenge is not a new one, as powerful World Bank shareholders have been trying to sink the project since its inception in 2002. Now China, the world's second-largest economy and increasingly influential within the Bank, is seeking to water down the report by eliminating, among other things, its country rankings. (This year, Doing Business ranked China 91st out of the 185 national economies it examined.)
Joe Biden on Creating a "New World Order"
by William F. Jasper - TheNewAmerican.com
Last Friday, on April 5, in his address to the 38th Annual Conference of the Export-Import Bank of the United States in Washington, D.C., Vice President Joe Biden (shown) asserted that "the affirmative task we have now is to actually create a new world order." (See his remarks in the video below.)
Whenever globalist-minded politicians, bankers, academics, and corporate executives start talking about a "new world order," sensible folks take alarm. That is because it has become obvious over the past few decades that in elite, globalist circles this phrase has been, and is, code for "global governance" and, eventually, world government. And, of course, as surely as night follows day, the "progressive" media hacks in the MSM and alternative media are always quick to ridicule anyone that points out this obvious fact.
Pope Blasts Global Financial System As 'Cult of Money'
VATICAN CITY (CBSDC/AP) – Pope Francis has denounced the global financial system, blasting the "cult of money" that he says is tyrannizing the poor and turning humans into expendable consumer goods.
In his first major speech on the subject, Francis demanded Wednesday that financial and political leaders reform the global financial system to make it more ethical and concerned for the common good. He said: "Money has to serve, not to rule!"
What Inflation Means to You:
Inside the Consumer Price Index
BY DOUG SHORT - FinancialSense.com
The Fed justified a previous round of quantitative easing "to promote a stronger pace of economic recovery and to help ensure that inflation, over time, is at levels consistent with its mandate" (full text). In effect, the Fed has been trying to increase inflation, operating at the macro level. But what does an increase in inflation mean at the micro level — specifically to your household?
Tea Party groups set to sue IRS over targeting
By Peter Schroeder and Erik Wasson - TheHill.com
Tea Party groups are preparing to sue the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) over the agency's improper targeting of conservative groups.
Jordan Sekulow, the executive director of the American Center for Law and Justice, said Thursday he was representing 17 groups that were lining up suits against the IRS, arguing that they suffered under the added scrutiny at the hands of the tax agency.
And the IRS has oversight of Obamacare? Soros Gave $6.1 Million to Groups Linked to Pressure
on IRS to Target Conservative Nonprofits
By Mike Ciandella - CNSNews.com
As IRS efforts targeting politically-conservative groups gained momentum, George Soros-funded liberal groups repeatedly called on the IRS to investigate conservative nonprofit organizations.
While the first reported instances of extra IRS scrutiny for conservative groups began in Cincinnati in March of 2010, the attacks began to pick up steam on a national level soon after Soros-funded groups began firing off letters to the IRS in October of that year - following the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling.
Conservatives link IRS mess to Obamacare
By GINGER GIBSON | Politico.com
Conservative lawmakers and tea party advocates Thursday sought to link the IRS scandal to efforts to repeal Obamacare, even acknowledging the potential of impeachment.
Rep. Michele Bachman (R-Minn.) made the leap from Benghazi to the IRS scandal to Obamacare, a progression she said was all related. At a packed press conference, she argued that the IRS will now be able to access individual's health records because they it tasked with overseeing compliance with the new law.
IRS Official in Charge During Tea Party Targeting
Now Runs Health Care Office
By John Parkinson - ABC News
The Internal Revenue Service official in charge of the tax-exempt organizations at the time when the unit targeted tea party groups now runs the IRS office responsible for the health care legislation.
Sarah Hall Ingram served as commissioner of the office responsible for tax-exempt organizations between 2009 and 2012. But Ingram has since left that part of the IRS and is now the director of the IRS' Affordable Care Act office, the IRS confirmed to ABC News today.
IRS tax exemption/Obamacare exec got $103,390 in bonuses
By Mark Tapscott - WashingtonExaminer.com
Sarah Hall Ingram, the IRS executive in charge of the tax exempt division in 2010 when it began targeting conservative Tea Party, evangelical and pro-Israel groups for harrassment, got more than $100,000 in bonuses between 2009 and 2012.
More recently, Ingram was promoted to serve as director of the tax agency's Obamacare program office, a position that put her in charge of the vast expansion of the IRS' regulatory power and staffing in connection with federal health care, ABC reported earlier today.
House set to vote on ObamaCare repeal
By Sam Baker - TheHill.com
The House will vote Thursday to repeal President Obama's healthcare law — a move Republicans hope will open the door to narrower votes to target specific parts of the law.
GOP leaders scheduled the vote in a concession to conservative freshmen, who were not yet in Congress for the House's previous 36 votes to repeal or defund all or part of the Affordable Care Act.
The 37th vote likely won't move Congress any closer to actually repealing the healthcare law.
4 Mistakes To Avoid When Enrolling In Medicare
By Diane J. Omdahl, Next Avenue Contributor - Forbes.com
For boomers who haven't crossed the Medicare road yet, that moment is likely coming: You must be enrolled in Medicare at age 65 and can actually sign up as early as three months before your 65th birthday, assuming you'reeligible for the federal health insurance program.
But my 30-plus years working in the health care industry has taught me that people often make costly errors when signing up, especially while choosing among Medicare Advantage plans. They're the alternative to traditional Medicare sold by private health insurers and also known as Medicare Part C. Nearly 1 in 4 people on Medicare have Advantage plans, rather than going with original Medicare.
From Brooklyn to California, Housing Bubble Threat Grows
By Prashant Gopal & Kathleen M. Howley - Bloomberg.com
Just a year since the U.S. housing market hit bottom after the biggest plunge in eight decades, signs of excess are re-emerging.
An open house for a five-bedroom brownstone in Brooklyn, New York, priced at $949,000 drew 300 visitors and brought in 50 offers. Three thousand miles away in Menlo Park, California, a one-story home listed for $2 million got six offers last month, including four from builders planning to tear it down to construct a bigger house. In south Florida, ground zero for the last building boom and bust, 3,300 new condominium units are under way, the most since 2007.
Study Finds no Trace of Fracking Fluid
in Arkansas Drinking Water
By. Tim Lucas - OilPrice.com
Samples from drinking water wells show no evidence of groundwater contamination from shale gas production in Arkansas.
"Our results show no discernible impairment of groundwater quality in areas associated with natural gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing in this region," says Avner Vengosh, professor of geochemistry and water quality at Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment.
EU Raids BP and Shell Over Price-Fixing Concerns
By Robert M Cutler - OilPrice.com
Following on the Libor and Euribor interest rate fixing scandals, the European Commission (EC, the executive arm of the EU) has just on Tuesday this week raided the offices of major energy companies BP and Royal Dutch Shell over allegations of price-fixing. The offices of StatOil in Norway, not an EU member, were also subject to "unannounced inspections" there.
Price-fixing in this sector could inflate not only the price of gasoline at the pump and airline tickets but anything made from petroleum derivatives. These include such common materials used in everyday consumer products as plastics and wax.
New App Lets You Boycott Koch Brothers,
Monsanto And More By Scanning Your Shopping Cart
By Clare O'Connor, Forbes Staff
In her keynote speech at last year's annual Netroots Nation gathering, Darcy Burner pitched a seemingly simple idea to the thousands of bloggers and web developers in the audience. The former Microsoft MSFT +0.72% programmer and congressional candidate proposed a smartphone app allowing shoppers to swipe barcodes to check whether conservative billionaire industrialistsCharles and David Koch were behind a product on the shelves.
Burner figured the average supermarket shopper had no idea that buying Brawny paper towels, Angel Soft toilet paper or Dixie cups meant contributing cash to Koch Industries through its subsidiary Georgia-Pacific. Similarly, purchasing a pair of yoga pants containing Lycra or a Stainmaster carpet meant indirectly handing the Kochs your money (Koch Industries bought Invista, one of the world's largest fiber and textiles companies, in 2004 from DuPont).
Wal-Mart: A Business Slump At The World's Largest Retailer
By Abram Brown, Forbes Staff
Wal-Mart's quarterly profit narrowly disappointed, as fewer shoppers came to U.S. stores. The world's largest retailer also offered a profit forecast that failed to meet expectations.
The Bentonville, Ark.-based company chalked up the lackluster first-quarter figures to delayed tax refunds and crummy weather. "Frankly," says CEO Mike Duke," we had a more difficult quarter than expected when we announced our guidance in February," when the company forecast $1.11 to $1.16 a share in first-quarter earnings. Even then observers felt the numbers were weak.
Google gets downright nosy Larry Page wants to see your medical records The Google co-founder also wants an area tech companies can experiment without worrying about restrictive laws.
By Martyn Williams - Computerworld.com
IDG News Service - A day after breaking an almost year-long silence on a medical condition that had affected the way he speaks, Google co-founder Larry Page said Wednesday that people should be more open about their medical histories.
"I just disclosed yesterday my voice issues, I got so many thoughtful emails from people and advice," he said answering an audience question at the Google I/O developer event in San Francisco. Page said he had originally thought his own medical information should be very private, but the response he got from his blog post caused a rethink.
"Big Brother" is big business?
CBS News - 60 Minutes
The odds are you are not just a face in the crowd any longer. Even if your picture isn't plastered all over social networking and photo-sharing sites, facial recognition technology in public places is making it harder if not impossible to remain anonymous. Lesley Stahl reports on the new ways this technology is being used that even has one of its inventors calling it too intrusive. Her 60 Minutes report will be broadcast Sunday, May 19 at 7 p.m. ET/PT.
Professor Alessandro Acquisti of Carnegie Mellon, who researches how technology impacts privacy, stunned Stahl with an experiment. He photographed random students on the campus and in short order, not only identified several of them, but in a number of cases found their personal information, including social security numbers, just using a facial recognition program he downloaded for free. Acquisti says smart-phones will make "facial searches" as common as Google searches in the future. And nearly everybody can be subject to such prying, even those who are careful about their Internet use.
Obama Administration Secretly
Obtains Phone Records of AP Journalists
BY KIM ZETTER - Wired.com
The Department of Justice secretly obtained phone records for reporters and editors who work for the Associated Press news agency, including records for the home phones and cell phones of individual journalists, according to the AP, in what the agency characterized as "serious interference with AP's constitutional rights to gather and report the news."
The records, covering all of April and May 2012, were seized by the DoJ earlier this year and covered more than 20 separate phone lines. The records listed outgoing calls for both the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, as well as the general phone lines for AP bureaus in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and a main number used by AP reporters in the House of Representatives.
Lawmakers Introduce Bill
Requiring
Court Order to Seize Phone Records
BY KIM ZETTER - Wired.com
In the wake of the AP scandal, in which federal investigators obtained the phone records of journalists using only a subpoena, four lawmakers have introduced legislation in the House that would prevent federal agencies from seizing any phone records without a court order.
Currently, the Telephone Records Act allows the feds to demand phone records from service providers by using only an administrative subpoena to obtain basic subscriber information. Basic subscriber information can include a customer's name, address, credit card number, and phone records.
Goodbye, Lotus 1-2-3 Summary: IBM is shutting the doors on Lotus 1-2-3, the software program that made the IBM PC and Microsoft household names.
By Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols - ZDNet.com
The first killer app was VisiCalc. This early spreadsheet turned the Apple II from a hobbyist toy to a business computer. VisiCalc came with room for improvement, though. In addition, a new architecture and operating system, the Intel-based IBM PC and MS-DOS, also needed a spreadsheet to be taken seriously. That spreadsheet, released in early 1983, would be Lotus 1-2-3, and it would change the world. It became the PC's killer app, and the world would never be the same.
On May 14, IBM quietly announced the end of the road for 1-2-3, along with Lotus Organizer and the Lotus SmartSuite office suite. Lotus 1-2-3's day is done.
Ammo shortage - cops turn to citizens Police Chief Asks Citizens for Ammo,
Gets 1,500 Round Loan Amid Strong Response
By Gregory Gwyn-Williams, Jr. - CNSNews.com
As the "Great Ammunition Shortage" continues, police departments across the country are struggling to supply their arsenals. One police chief turned to the community for help, and citizens stepped up.
In Proctor, Minnesota, police chief Walter Wobig says that his suppliers have told him he'll have to wait "months" for the 1,000 rounds he's requested.
Steyn warns of 'serious secession movements'
if drift toward socialism not reversed [VIDEO]
By Jeff Poor - DailyCaller.com
Radio host Dennis Miller and National Review columnist Mark Steyn considered Thursday the possible outcomes if the United States continues down the path of socialism.
If socialism became the prevailing governing philosophy, Miller speculated, escaping it wouldn't require a move to the Australian outback. Instead he suggested heading for the state of Texas, because it would be the first place to push back against it.
10 Amazing Charts That Demonstrate The Slow,
Agonizing Death Of The American Worker
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomiccollapseBlog.com
The middle class American worker is in danger of becoming an endangered species. The politicians are not telling you the truth, and the mainstream media is certainly not telling you the truth, but the reality is that there is nothing but bad news on the horizon for workers in the United States. In the old days, when the big corporations that dominate our society did well, that also meant good things for American workers since those corporations would need more of us to work for them. But in the emerging one world economic system that our economy is being merged into, those corporations have other choices now. For instance, the big corporations can now choose to limit the number of "expensive" American workers that they employ by shipping millions of jobs to the other side of the world. And from their perspective, it makes perfect sense. They can make much bigger profits by hiring people on the other side of the planet to work for them for less than a dollar an hour. If they can get good production out of those people, then why should they hire Americans for ten to twenty times as much, plus have to give those Americans health insurance and other benefits? Another major factor in the slow, agonizing death of the American worker is technology. We live during a period when technology is advancing at a pace that is almost unimaginable at the same time that it is steadily becoming cheaper and cheaper. That means that it is going to become easier and easier for companies to replace workers with robots and computers.
NASA's planet-hunting telescope is spinning out of control Space glitch could end Kepler mission to find Earth-like planets
By Sharon Gaudin - Computerworld.com
Computerworld - NASA's Kepler space telescope is in trouble.
The telescope, launched in 2009 in search of Earth-like planets, has lost the use of one of the four wheels that control its orientation in space. Kepler, for the second time this month, has gone into safe mode, NASA reported Wednesday afternoon.
With NASA no longer able to manipulate the telescope's positioning, ground engineers also are having a hard time communicating with it since the communications link comes and goes as the spacecraft spins uncontrollably.
KFC chicken smuggled through Gaza tunnels Local delivery company brings meals to Gazans; al-Yamama advertises on Facebook, receiving tens of orders a week.
By JPOST.COM STAFF
A local Egyptian delivery company has been smuggling KFC meals through the underground tunnels across the Egypt-Gaza border, the Christian Science Monitor (CSM) reported Wednesday.
The al-Yamama company has advertised its fast-foodsmuggling service on Facebook. According to the CSM, the company gets tens of orders a week for KFC meals. Their Facebook page is filled with thanks and recommendations from satisfied Gazan customers, as well as advertisements for potential smugglers looking for delivery work.
New Documents Reveal How a 1980s Nuclear War Scare
Became a Full-Blown Crisis
BY ROBERT BECKHUSEN - Wired.com
During 10 days in November 1983, the United States and the Soviet Union nearly started a nuclear war. Newly declassified documents from the CIA, NSA, KGB, and senior officials in both countries reveal just how close we came to mutually assured destruction — over a military exercise.
That exercise, Able Archer 83, simulated the transition by NATO from a conventional war to a nuclear war, culminating in the simulated release of warheads against the Soviet Union. NATO changed its readiness condition during Able Archer to DEFCON 1, the highest level. The Soviets interpreted the simulation as a ruse to conceal a first strike and readied their nukes. At this period in history, and especially during the exercise, a single false alarm or miscalculation could have brought Armageddon.
Russian Pacific Fleet Warships Enter Mediterranean
For First Time In Decades, To Park In Cyprus
by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
Earlier we reported that the US has now officially landed a Marine force in Israel as well as an assault ship, in a visit that the US Navy promptly assured "is not associated with, nor a reaction to, any world events." It seems we were not the only ones who read this justification somewhat skeptically: so did Russia. And in a historic event, the Russian Pacific fleet, for the first time in decades, crossed the Suez Canal and entered the Mediterranean, direction Cyprus' port of Limasol (hi Cyprus - Russia will be arriving shortly) in what is now the loudest implied warning to the US and Israel amassing military units across Syria's border that Russia will not stand idly by as Syria is used by the Israeli "Defense" Forces for target practice. "The task force has successfully passed through the Suez Channel and entered the Mediterranean. It is the first time in decades that Pacific Fleet warships enter this region," Capt. First Rank Roman Martov said. This is what is also known as dropping hints, loud and clear.
Russia Refuses to Back Off Syria Missile Sale
BY: Washington Free Beacon Staff
Russian President Vladimir Putin refused to back out of a contract to supply surface-air S-300 missiles, part of a sophisticated air defense system, to the Syrian Army in a Tuesday meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Tower reports:
During the meeting with Putin, Netanyahu also clarified Israel's position versus Syria. He explained that Israel would continue to obstruct by all means available — including continued air attacks — Syria's efforts to ship long-range missiles to Hezbollah.
Two-Faced Russia building up missile defenses
while seeking to limit U.S. defenses
BY: Bill Gertz - FreeBeacon.com
Russia is engaged in a major buildup of both nuclear and conventional missile defense systems at the same time Moscow is seeking legal limits on U.S. missile defenses, according to U.S. officials.
The Russian military is developing and deploying an array of new and modernized anti-missile interceptors that are part of a strategic doctrine that calls for defending against what Moscow believes to be an increasing threat posed by offensive ballistic missiles, said U.S. officials with access to intelligence reports.
Obama stays cautious on Syria
after talks as Turkey presses for urgency President and Turkish prime minister skate over differences on Syria as two put focus on agreement that Assad must go
By Ewen MacAskill in Washington - Guardian.co.uk
Barack Obama and Turkish prime minister Recep Erdogan skated over major differences on how to deal with the Syrian crisis after a lengthy meeting at the White House on Thursday.
Obama, at a joint press conference in the Rose Garden, said there was "no magic formula" for resolving the conflict. He pinned hopes on an international conference proposed for Geneva next month that would bring together the Assad government and the rebels, in spite of widespread scepticism about the chances of it bringing about an end to the conflict.
UN: 3 peacekeepers abducted between Israel-Syria
AP - WashingtonExaminer.com
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Armed men broke into a U.N. outpost in a buffer zone separating Israel and Syria and abducted three U.N military observers, the U.N. peacekeeping chief said Thursday.
Herve Ladsous told a group of reporters that the unarmed observers were held by the Syrian men for about five hours and released unharmed Wednesday morning.
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