To draw Iran into nuclear talks, Obama avoids ousting Assad

DEBKAfile  Exclusive Report

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal did not hide his anger before marching out of the Friends of Syria conference attended by 70 nations in Tunis Friday, Feb. 24 after they fell in behind US plans for avoiding direct action against Syria’s Bashar Assad. Filmed sitting with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Saudi minister told a reporter that arming the Free Syrian Army was an “excellent idea” because they needed to defend themselves. Clinton remained frostily aloof on this obvious bone of contention.

As one of the world’s richest oil and financial powers, Saudi Arabia could buy and sell Iran several times over, and after seeing the ayatollahs get away with insulting America time and time again, the Saudi foreign minister did not pull his punches when he faced his US colleague. He was frank about Riyadh and the Obama administration being miles apart in their perceptions of current Middle East events; resentment over the US role in the overthrow of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak remains a constant irritant.

This dissonance came to the fore when Saudi al Faisal accused Washington of reducing Assad’s butchery of his opponents to the level of a humanitarian issue and so saving his regime
Riyadh is no happier with Moscow than it is with Washington. 

Saudi King Abdullah is reported by Middle East sources to have banged down the telephone on Russian President Dmitry Medvedev Wednesday, Feb. 22, when he called to invite the oil kingdom to align with Russia’s Syrian strategy against the West.

Tariq Alhomayed, the talented editor of the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat, who is regarded as having a direct line to the king, wrote later: “This was undoubtedly a historic and unusual telephone call.” He reported that Abdullah rejected out of hand Moscow’s proposal of a two-hour ceasefire in Homs, the Syrian city bombarded now for three weeks. He retorted that this would give Bashar Assad’s killing machine a 22-hour day carte blanche.

Alhomayed did not refer directly to the clash of wills between the Saudi foreign minister and the US secretary of state, except for a snide dig: “He [the Saudi king] is also the one who, during the Arab summit in Riyadh, first described the US army in Iraq as an army of occupation.”

Israel’s Binyamin Netanyahu’s is of one mind with Saudi rulers in his aversion to big power policies for handling the Assad regime: Washington though horrified by the Syrian ruler's violence is yet shy of taking the final steps for his removal, while Moscow showers arms and intelligence on the Syrian despot to preserve him from his enemies.

It may be said that the Saudis and Israelis share a distrust of President Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin, suspecting them both of keeping Bashar Assad in power to promote their divergent interests in Iran.

The Saudi king faults the “safe havens” plan under air force protection – the sum total of foreign intervention taking shape between Washington, Turkey, some European powers and Gulf emirates - because it excludes what he regards as the key component: Bombardment of the presidential palace in Damascus and the crushing of the Syrian army, the same treatment meted out to Muammar Qaddafi in Libya.

The Saudis therefore sees this plan as actually protecting Assad’s regime and not only his victims.
Underlying Obama’s restraint is his indefatigable quest for nuclear negotiations with Iran, which is impelling him to show Tehran he is even prepared to keep its ally Assad in power – albeit with clipped wings - for the sake of a negotiated nuclear accord.

The Saudis think the US president is dreaming if he reckons Iran’s rulers will be so grateful for Assad’s escape that they will be willing to give up their aspirations for a nuclear weapon.
They also think Obama misguided in aiming for Russian collaboration in making its political, military, technological and nuclear clout in Tehran available at some point for them to arrive together at agreed accommodations in both Syria and Iran.

Riyadh regards its case as proven beyond doubt by events of the past week.

Up until Monday, Feb. 20, Washington was bucked up by Iranian signposts apparently pointing to resumed talks with world powers on an eventual nuclear standstill and a freeze on uranium enrichment past five percent. Iranian emissaries in backdoor exchanges were forthcoming on US requests for gestures to confirm that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was serious about entering into diplomatic dialogue.

A rude awakening was not long coming.

Ten days ago, the Obama administration asked and received from Tehran final proof of goodwill, a promise that International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors would be allowed to view the Parchin military facility.

US National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, when he first met Israeli leaders in Jerusalem Thursday and Friday (Feb. 16-17), accordingly informed them that since Tehran had agreed to open this suspect site to UN inspection and nuclear negotiations were soon to begin, Israel had no cause to attack its nuclear facilities.

Tuesday, Feb. 21, the UN inspectors arrived in Tehran, certain they would be admitted to Parchin – only to run into their second Iranian refusal this month. Their visit was cut short by IAEA Vienna headquarters.

Every attempt by Washington to find out what had gone wrong drew a blank. Iranian officials withdrew into total hush and let the entire diplomatic edifice so painstakingly constructed by Washington start falling apart.

But Obama the eternal optimist has not given up. He is treating Tehran’s latest spell of intransigence as no more than a hiccup symptomatic of the run-up to parliamentary elections on March 2, after which Khamenei will revert to the track leading to negotiations.

This approach is what put Saudi backs up. They accuse the US and Russia through their different polices of granting the Syrian ruler a license to keep on massacring his people, regardless of any safe havens or “no kill” zones the West may be planning.

Netanyahu is likewise opposed to the Obama administration’s interconnected policies on Syria and Iran. His White House meeting with Obama on March 5 is not expected to put this dispute to rest.

'Voice of God' to scare church roof raiders

Hundreds of churches are to have “voice of God” alarms fitted to their roofs deter thieves from stripping off lead and copper.

By John Bingham, Religious Affairs Editor

Special movement sensors are to be hidden in spires and finials triggering a booming voice to take intruders by surprise warning that they have been detected and that security guards are on their way.

The initiative, backed by the Church of England, the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Home Office, comes after the rate of metal thefts reached “catastrophic” proportions in some dioceses with an average of seven churches targeted every day.

An insurance company has donated £500,000 to pay for hi-tech alarms to be fitted in 100 churches in England, Scotland and Wales judged to be most at risk.

But organisers hope that hundreds of other parishes will raise funds themselves to fit the devices – adapting the traditional church roof appeal model to cope with the metal theft crisis.

The soaring cost of metal during the global economic crisis has helped fuel a surge in metal thefts, triggering chaos on the rail network when copper signalling cables are taken.

Last year an irreplaceable Barbara Hepworth sculpture was stolen from Dulwich Park in south London.

But churches in particular have been viewed as a soft option by thieves, often poorly guarded and situated in all of the most crime-ridden areas of the country.

Last year alone the insurance firm Ecclesiastical – which provides cover for 96 per cent of Anglican churches – received 2,600 claims for metal thefts, the highest ever in a single year.

The Church of England, which alone is responsible for almost half of all grade one listed buildings in Britain, has admitted the task of maintaining its buildings is becoming impossible.

Metal theft is now being viewed as a treated as a serious threat to Britain’s national heritage.

A security campaign called “Hands of Our Church Roofs” is being backed, in traditional style by an actress and a bishop: Liz Hurley and the Bishop of London, the Rt Revd Richard Chartres.

The bishop said said: “Since the metal vandals have descended in such hordes over recent years our duty of maintenance has become nearly impossible.

“New Government legislation will undoubtedly help, but we all need to remain vigilant and try to get a step ahead of these well-organised raiders.”

Miss Hurley said: “Beautiful old churches are at the heart of so many of our communities and I find it truly shocking that anyone would steal lead from a church roof. I heartily endorse the campaign to have alarms fitted.”

North America could be hit with decades-long 'megadrought': scientist

By Emma Graney, Postmedia News

When a drought hit North America in the 1930s, creating a giant dust bowl and crippling agriculture from Saskatchewan to Oklahoma, it entered history as the Dirty Thirties.

But University of Regina paleoclimatologist Jeannine-Marie St. Jacques says that decade-long drought is nowhere near as bad as it can get.

St. Jacques and her colleagues have been studying tree ring data and, at the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference in Vancouver over the weekend, she explained the reality of droughts.

"What we're seeing in the climate records is these megadroughts, and they don't last a decade—they last 20 years, 30 years, maybe 60 years, and they'll be semi-continental in expanse," she told the Regina Leader-Post by phone from Vancouver.

"So it's like what we saw in the Dirty Thirties, but imagine the Dirty Thirties going on for 30 years. That's what scares those of us who are in the community studying this data pool."

Tree rings provide the perfect historical record for researchers like St. Jacques, because trees are so sensitive to rain fall.

"If it's a good, wet year then trees have a thick growth band, but if it's a bad year, then there's only a thin band," she said. "By taking core samples we can get a record in parts of North America going back 2,000 years.

"Everyone was aware of droughts that hit very hard in their area, but it wasn't until recently when thousands of people pooled their data . . . and we all looked around at each other and said, 'Oh my God.'"

The big concern, she said, is that there's no reason a megadrought won't hit the continent again.

"When Europeans settled North America . . . we know from tree ring records that it was a very wet period, and so people's sense of what's normal is probably not correct," St. Jacques said.

"We're certainly very scared in the community, because there's no reason why these things shouldn't come back."

Two human cultures decimated by megadroughts were the Four Corner region — the area where Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah meet — and Cahokia, in the central Mississippi Valley.

It was one of the first and certainly one of the largest centres in the area, with more than 20,000 people at its peak in 1075.

"(Cahokia) rose, flourished, it was growing and had major cultural impacts throughout the Mississippi Valley and Midwest, but then they got caught by one of these megadroughts," St. Jacques said.

"Agriculture collapsed. You just can't go on when something like this hits."

While it would be nice to predict when a megadrought is going to occur, St. Jacques says that's just not possible.

"It's certainly a very lively area of research, everyone's very curious why they happen, but we see evidence of these droughts throughout the past 2,000 years in North America and we don't see why it's going to change," she said.

"They could get worse under global warming, for all we know. And that's just it — we don't know."

St. Jacques said her research into megadroughts has hammered home the role politics plays in being prepared.

"You can't cope with these things, or prepare for them, on an individual level," she said.

"You're either going to have to get people out or get aid in, and you need a functioning political system to do that.

"The important thing is to educate people that their sense of a 10-year drought being the worst they could experience, that's false. It could well be multi-decadal, and that's why it's important to keep political and social systems functioning and taking care of everybody."

Citrus fruits may reduce stroke risk in women

by CBC News

Increased consumption of flavonoid-rich foods such as certain citrus fruits may help reduce the risk of stroke in women, suggests a study by European and U.S. scientists.

For the study, published Thursday in Stroke, a journal of the American Heart Association, researchers analyzed the flavonoid intake of 69,622 women from the U.S.-based Nurses’ Health Study, which has followed nurses since 1976 to assess risk factors for cardiovascular disease and cancer.

"What our study was showing that specifically that these flavanones present almost exclusively in citrus fruits seem to be associated with a reduction in risk of stroke," Aedín Cassidy, the study's lead author and professor of nutrition at Norwich Medical School in the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom, told CBC News.

The total flavonoid intake of the 69,622 women was calculated after they completed food intake questionnaires collected every four years using a U.S. Department of Agriculture database. During 14 years of followup surveys beginning in 1990, 1,803 incidents of strokes were confirmed from the women.

The research found that women who ate high amounts of citrus products, which contain a specific class of flavonoid called flavanones, had a 19 per cent lower risk of ischemic (blood clot-related) stroke than women who didn't consume as much.

Women with the lowest intake of flavonoids took in about 150 milligrams a day or less, compared to more than 470 mg a day by women consuming the highest level.
A piece of citrus fruit normally contains 45 to 50 mg of flavanones.

While previous studies have shown increased consumption of flavonoid-rich fruits and vegetables (preferably five servings a day) may help protect against stroke, researchers conducting the study released Thursday found most of the antioxidant-rich products consumed by the women with lower stroke risk were oranges, grapefruit and their juices.

The women with higher total flavonoid intake also tended to:

* Smoke less.
* Exercise more.
* Have greater intakes of fibre, folate, fruits and vegetables.
* Have lower intakes of caffeine and alcohol.

Cassidy said flavonoids are thought to provide protection against stroke through several mechanisms, including improving blood vessel function and having an anti-inflammatory effect.

The researchers warn that further studies, which may include randomized trials of citrus-based foods, are needed to confirm their findings.

Other researchers in the study, supported with grants from the U.S. National Institutes of Health, are from the United States and Italy. A couple of the researchers have received funding from pharmaceutical companies to conduct studies on flavonoid-rich foods in the past.

WHITNEY GRAVE ROBBERS

By Aaron Tinney

ARMED guards are protecting Whitney Houston’s grave from bling-hunting robbers.

Fears that ghouls will plunder her resting place were triggered after it was revealed she was buried wearing up to £300,000 of jewels and designer clothes.

The singer, who died a fortnight ago in her LA hotel room after a drugs and booze binge, lies in a gold-lined coffin worth tens of thousands of pounds.

She is draped in a purple gown and also wears a diamond brooch and earrings and a pair of glittering gold slippers.

But the treasure-filled casket has caused alarm among the star’s family and friends.

And now minders have been ordered to watch over her grave-side at Fairview Cemetery in Newark, New Jersey.

A source said last night: “There is a very genuine fear that her coffin will be targeted by grave robbers.

“It would be hard for them to actually dig her casket up, but that won’t stop psychotic fans or people who think it could make them money.

“The fact she was buried with such valuable jewellery is just an invitation to sickos.

“It’s ironic that Whitney, who was most famous for The Bodyguard movie when she was alive, has to have bodyguards even in death.”

Armed security men around Whitney’s final resting place have already turned away busloads of fans who have made “pilgrimages” to her grave.

The ghoul alert is the second trauma that Whitney’s family have faced over the past 48 hours.

They are still reeling after shocking photos of her body lying in an open coffin were published in the US magazine National Enquirer.