US enlists Britain's help to stop ship 'carrying Russian attack helicopters' to Syria

The US government has enlisted Britain's help in a bid to stop a ship suspected of carrying Russian attack helicopters and missiles to conflict-riven Syria, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal.

By Ruth Sherlock, in Washington, Roland Oliphant in Moscow and Colin Freeman

The MV Alaed, a Russian-operated cargo vessel, is currently thought to be sailing through the North Sea after allegedly picking up a consignment of munitions and MI25 helicopters - known as "flying tanks" - from the Russian Baltic port of Kaliningrad.

Washington, which last week condemned Moscow for continuing to arm the Syrian regime, has asked British officials to help stop the Alaed delivering its alleged cargo by using sanctions legislation to force its London-based insurer to withdraw its cover.

Under the terms of the current European Union arms embargo against Syria, imposed in May last year, there is a ban on the "transfer or export" of arms and any related "brokering" services such as insurance. Withdrawal of a ship's insurance cover would make it difficult for it legally to dock elsewhere and could force it to return the cargo to port.

The request to London from US officials comes after the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, disclosed on Tuesday that Moscow was in the process of shipping a batch of attack helicopters to Syria.

Dismissing Russian government claims that its weapons sales to Syria would not be used for internal repression, Mrs Clinton warned the shipment could "quite dramatically" escalate the conflict, which has already claimed an estimated 10,000 lives. Yesterday, the United Nations monitoring mission said it had suspended its work because of "intensifying" violence on either side, which was putting its teams of unarmed observers at risk.

The helicopters Mrs Clinton was referring to are believed to be part of a 36-strong consignment ordered by the Syrian government at the end of the Soviet era, some of which were transferred back to Russia recently for routine maintenance. They are understood to have been serviced by the state-owned helicopter manufacturer, Mil, at their premises at Factory 150 in Kaliningrad.

While the Kremlin, which has so far vetoed calls for a United Nations arms embargo against Syria, insists that Mil is merely honouring the terms of an existing business contract, critics point that such helicopters have helped spearhead President Bashar al-Assad's attempts to suppress the uprising against him. Last week it was reported that helicopters had repeatedly fired rockets at a hospital in a rebel enclave outside Aleppo in northern Syria.

Shipping records show that on Thursday - the most recent date for which data is available - the Alaed was off the north-west coast of Denmark, apparently heading south towards the entrance to the English Channel. It is insured by Standard P and I Club, which is managed by Charles Taylor and Co Ltd of London, whose offshore syndicate director, Robert Dorey, confirmed on Saturday that they were investigating claims that the ship was carrying arms.

"We were informed on Friday evening that the ship might be carrying weapons, in particular attack helicopters, missiles and non-specific munitions, and we are making inquiries to establish what their side of the story is," said Mr Dorey. "There are exclusion clauses in our cover, and for anyone involved in improper or unlawful trade, we can cancel cover. We are investigating whether or not to do so in this case."

Like most international cargo ships, the Alaed has a complex ownership and management structure. Its registered owner is Volcano Shipping on the island of Curacao in the Dutch Antilles, but it is listed as part of a fleet belonging to a Russian company, FEMCO, which was unavailable for comment last night. According to FEMCO's website, the ship's commercial management and chartering is carried out by United Nordic Shipping, a Danish company based in Copenhagen, but yesterday, United Nordic shipping said that the management agreement had never actually been finalised, and that FEMCO's website was wrong.

"To the best of our knowledge the vessel is managed and operated by FEMCO in Russia," said Soeren Andersen, United Nordic Shipping's managing director. "We have no knowledge of or involvement in the vessel's current charter or trading - a fact we have also satisfactorily accounted for to the Danish authorities."

A source close to United Nordic added: "The Danish authorities contacted us a few days ago to ask about the ship, and said it was related to possible shipments of weapons to Syria."

The claims about the Alaed's cargo will fuel the growing row over Russian involvement in supplying arms to Syria, which Moscow has long seen as a strategic partner because of the Russian naval base in the Syrian port city of Tartus.

Last week, The Sunday Telegraph disclosed how the Professor Katsman, a ship belonging to a firm owned by a Russian billionaire, Vladimir Lisin, docked in Syria with a suspected weapons cache on May 26, one day after the massacre of more than 100 people in the Syrian village of Houla.

Dr Lisin, a steel magnate who is also vice-president of the Russian Olympic Committee, now faces calls from British MPs to have his invitation to London 2012 withdrawn. Sources close the Games organisers have said, however, that accredited Olympic representatives of foreign countries enjoy an effective "diplomatic immunity" that would be revoked only in the most serious of circumstances.

On Saturday, Dr Lisin said that the accusations against him were "groundless" and said an internal investigation he ordered at his transport firm, Universal Cargo Logistics (UCL) had found no evidence that the cargo was dangerous or violated international law.

"The evidence I was presented with indicates that according to the documentation the company was not transporting arms for either side of the Syrian conflict," Dr Lisin said in emailed comments.

"To date, I have not received a single [piece of] evidence to the contrary. If at some point someone does bring such evidence to my attention, I shall be grateful and will take all the possible measures available to me."

UCL said that as part of its investigation it requested information on the Professor Katsman's cargo from the owner, which it named as another Russian company. The company told UCL that the containers the Professor Katsman delivered to Syria "was a general cargo of non-military purpose featuring electrical equipment and repair parts (rotor blades) in containers and wooden crates", he said.

Dr Lisin is reported to be one of Russia's richest men and is well-connected to the country's political elite. Victor Olersky, a former board member of Dr Lisin's shipping firm, North Western Shipping Company, is now a Russian deputy transport minister, while Dr Lisin himself has been photographed meeting both the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and the Russian prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev.

Dr Lisin also described calls to bar him from the Olympic Games as opportunistic "self promotion."

"I am against armed conflict in any region of the world, including Syria," he said. "Sadly, there are those who try to use the tragedy of the Syrian people for self-promotion... At the same time, I would like to ask those who consider themselves to be reasonable and responsible to refrain from groundless accusations that will do nothing more than aggravate the relations between people, businesses, and states.

"I have no doubt that the International Olympic Committee, the National Olympic Committee of the United Kingdom, and the Organising Committee of the 2012 Olympics will preserve the traditions of the Olympic movement that has always been above political gambling."

Meanwhile, Russia and the West are at further loggerheads over Moscow's plans to press ahead with a deal to supply President Assad's regime with state-of-the art attack jets.

In a move that US intelligence officials fear could plunge the Syrian conflict into even greater long-term bloodshed, the Kremlin is pushing on with an existing 2007 contract to provide two dozen Mig-29M2 fighter aircraft, estimated to be worth £250 million to the Russian defence industry.

While the aircraft may not be ready for delivery for many months, Washington fears if President Assad's regime is still intact it could use them to devastating effect against the country's rebel enclaves. They could also be used to hinder any Western plans for a no-fly zone, which some analysts believe may eventually prove the only way to provide Syria's rebel movement with a safe haven.

"Delivery of the Migs will helps prop Assad up and give him some credibility, which is not the message the US wants to see," said Washington-based national security analyst John Pike. "The Migs would make it more difficult to enforce a no fly zone, and would increase the amount of time that the Syrian air force could survive, although possibly only by a matter of a few days."

Rafif Jouejati, spokeswoman for the Free Syria Foundation, a US-based Syrian activist group, said: "Russian arms are flooding into Syria. If Assad gets these new and advanced Migs it will be terrible – a fearful thing."

She dismissed Russian claims that the aircraft were largely to provide strategic air defences against Syria's historic enemy, Israel. "It is preposterous to argue that Assad needs them as a defence against Israel with everything else that is happening right now."

She also claimed Mr Lisin ought to have ordered his shipping firms be more proactive in finding out what any ships heading to Syria contained.

"When your ship is taking a cargo to Syria – a country embroiled in civil war – it is your duty to know what that cargo contains. You can't hide behind a lack of knowledge when little children are being slaughtered."

The Kremlin has dismissed Western criticisms of its arms policy to Syria as hypocritical, saying that other governments are also fuelling the conflict by arming anti-Assad guerrillas. The Daily Telegraph disclosed yesterday that representatives of the main rebel group, the Free Syrian Army, had held meetings with US government officials to discuss getting them to authorise shipments of heavy weapons, including missiles.

British MPs are calling for Rosoboronexport, the Kremlin-owned arms export firm that has a monopoly on Russian arms exports, to be banned from exhibiting at the trade section of next month's Farnborough Airshow. Last week, Rosoboronexport had a stall at the Eurosatory 2012 arms exhibition in Paris, where videos of Russian attack helicopters were on display. Igor Sevastyanov, the company's deputy CEO, said: "No-one can ever accuse Russia of violating the rules of armaments trade set by the international community.

"The contract (with Syria) was signed long ago and we supply armaments that are self-defence rather than attack weapons."

On Monday Caroline Lucas, the Green Party MP for Brighton, raised the issue of Rosoboronexport's attendance at Farnborough with the Foreign Secretary, William Hague, in Parliament. She said: "It is deeply alarming that while the Russian state-owned company Rosoboronexport continues to sell weapons to the Syrian government – despite appalling state-sponsored atrocities in the country – it will nevertheless be allowed to exhibit its wares on UK soil at Farnborough International Airshow.

"The Foreign Secretary has assured me in Parliament that he will look into the matter, but with the air show only a few weeks away, I would urge him to act now to prevent Rosoboronexport from entering altogether."

She added: "By taking measures to ban Rosoboronexport from Farnborough and revoke Mr Lisin's invitation to the Olympics, the United Kingdom can lead by example in showing that it is prepared to take a moral stand against all of those foreign companies accused of involvement in the sale of weapons to deadly and undemocratic regimes."

An FCO spokesman said that Mr Hague was still considering the matter, but added: "Farnborough International Air Show is a commercial event run by Farnborough International Ltd. The British Government plays no part in deciding which companies are invited to the event."

Asked about the Alaed last night, a spokesman for the Foreign Office said it was “urgently looking into any possible breaches of the EU arms embargo on Syria.”

“We are aware of reports that a ship carrying a consignment of refurbished Russian-made attack helicopters is heading to Syria and that it is travelling in international waters near the UK,” the spokesman added. “The Foreign Secretary made clear to Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov when they met on 14 June that all defence shipments to Syria must stop. We are working closely with international partners to ensure that we are doing all we can to stop the Syrian regime’s ability to slaughter civilians being reinforced through assistance from other countries.”

Rodney King, key L.A. riots figure, dead at 47

Rodney King, whose beating by Los Angeles police helped spark the 1992 L.A. riots, died Sunday at his home in Rialto. He was 47.

King became a symbol for police brutality and the troubled relations between the LAPD and minority residents. He was eventually awarded a $3.8-million settlement, but the money and fame brought him little solace. He had repeated run-ins with the law and as of April said he was broke.

"I sometimes feel like I'm caught in a vise. Some people feel like I'm some kind of hero," he told The Times earlier this year. "Others hate me. They say I deserved it. Other people, I can hear them mocking me for when I called for an end to the destruction, like I'm a fool for believing in peace."

King’s fiancée called 911 about 5:25 a.m. and said she had found King at the bottom of his pool, Sgt. Paul Stella told The Times. Officers pulled him from the pool and began CPR until paramedics arrived and took King to Arrowhead Regional Medical Center in Colton. King was pronounced dead at the hospital at 6:11 a.m., Stella said.

Preliminary information indicated King drowned and there were no immediate signs of foul play, Stella said. An autopsy will be conducted.

During a public appearance for a memoir published earlier this year, King seemed in good spirits and said he was trying to turn a corner in his life. The book's title is "The Riot Within: My Journey From Rebellion to Redemption."

King had long struggled with drugs and alcohol. He called himself a recovering addict but had not stopped drinking, and possessed a doctor's clearance for medical marijuana. King last year appeared on VH1’s "Celebrity Rehab," trying to tackle his fight with alcoholism.

King was drunk and unarmed when he was pulled over for speeding by Los Angeles Police Department officers and beaten.

The incident was captured on video by a civilian bystander, and the recording became an instant international sensation. Four of the officers were tried for excessive force. Their acquittal on April 29, 1992, touched off one of the worst urban riots in U.S. history.

"It felt like I was an inch from death," he said, describing what it was like to be struck by batons, stung by Tasers.

A jury acquitted the four police officers in the beating of King, unleashing an onslaught of pent-up anger. There were 54 riot-related deaths and nearly $1 billion in property damage as the seams of the city blew apart.
In an interview with The Times this year, King confided that he was at peace with what happened to him.

"I would change a few things, but not that much," he said. "Yes, I would go through that night, yes I would. I said once that I wouldn't, but that's not true. It changed things. It made the world a better place."

King lived in Southern California much of his life.

When he was 2, King's family moved from Sacramento to Altadena.
King's parents cleaned offices and homes for a living. His father, Ronald, known in the neighborhood as "Kingfish," died in his early 40s from pneumonia.

In junior high school, King said he began drinking. In 1989, he pleaded guilty to robbing a market in Monterey Park; the owner accused King of attacking him with a tire iron. King was given a two-year sentence.

Two years later, the videotaped beating occurred.

King said he was shocked to see the destruction of the riots that followed the not-guilty verdicts.

"I couldn't believe what I was seeing," he says. "Mayhem, people everywhere ... looting, burning. Gunshots. I turned back and went home. I looked at all of that and I thought to the way I was raised, with good morals from my mother, even though I didn't always follow them.

"I said to myself, 'That is not who I am, all this hate. I am not that guy. This does not represent me or my family, killing people over this. No, sir, that is not the way I was raised by my mother.' I began to realize that I had to say something to the people, had to try to get them to stop."

So, on the third day of the rioting, he pleaded on television: "People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along? Can we get along?"

During the first decade after the riots, King started an unsuccessful hip-hop recording company.

Over the last 20 years, he had had repeated contact with law enforcement. He long ago stopped keeping track of his arrests for crimes such as driving under the influence and domestic assault. "Eleven times?" he said earlier this year. "Twelve?"

"For a long time, sure, I was letting the pressure of being Rodney King get to me. It ain't easy. Even now, I walk into a place wondering what people are thinking. Do they know who I am? What do they think about what happened? Do they blame me for the all those people who died?"

WATCH VIDEO

Secret U.S. space plane prepares to land

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif., June 15 (UPI) - A U.S. Air Force space plane in orbit for more than a year will come back to Earth this weekend, say officials who remained mum on the mission's purpose.

The robotic X-37B, after 15 months in space, is set to land Saturday at California's Vandenberg Air Force Base, although weather and other factors could change that, officials said.

"We continue to monitor weather and technical conditions day by day to ensure conditions are safe for landing," Vandenberg spokesman Jeremy Eggers told SPACE.com. "At this time, the next available opportunity is Saturday, dependent upon weather and technical conditions. The landing window extends through June 18."

The unmanned X-37B looks like a much-shrunken version of NASA's now-retired space shuttle; two X-37Bs could fit into the payload bay of one of the shuttles now on their way to museums.

The space plane, by comparison, has a payload bay the size of a pickup truck bed.

The Boeing-built X-37B, powered by a solar array that lets it remain in orbit for long periods, is designed to land itself on a runway without the aid of a human controller.

Pentagon makes June gay pride month

Officials say US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta wants to honor the contributions of gay service members

By Pauline Jelinek

WASHINGTON (AP) — Last summer, gays in the military dared not admit their sexual orientation. This summer, the Pentagon will salute them, marking June as gay pride month just as it has marked other celebrations honoring racial or ethnic groups.

In the latest remarkable sign of change since the military repealed the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, the Defense Department will soon hold its first event to recognize gay and lesbian troops. It comes nine months after repeal of the policy that had banned gay troops from serving openly and forced more than 13,500 service members out of the armed forces.

Details are still being worked out, but officials say Defense Secretary Leon Panetta wants to honor the contributions of gay service members.

“Now that we’ve repealed ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ he feels it’s important to find a way this month to recognize the service and professionalism of gay and lesbian troops,” said Navy Capt. John Kirby, a spokesman.

This month’s event will follow a long tradition in the Pentagon of recognizing diversity in America’s armed forces. Hallway displays and activities, for example, have marked Black History Month and Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month.

Before the repeal, gay troops could serve but couldn’t reveal their orientation. If they did, they would be discharged. At the same time, a commanding officer was prohibited from asking a service member is he or she was gay.

Although some feared repeal of the ban on serving openly would cause problems in the ranks, officials and gay advocacy groups say no big issues have materialized — aside from what advocacy groups criticize as slow implementation of some changes, such as benefit entitlements to troops in same-sex marriages.

Basic changes have come rapidly since repeal — the biggest that gay and lesbian soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines no longer have to hide their sexuality in order to serve. They can put photos on their office desk without fear of being outed, attend social events with their partners and openly join advocacy groups looking out for their interests.

OutServe, a once-clandestine professional association for gay service members, has nearly doubled in size to more than 5,500 members. It held its first national convention of gay service members in Las Vegas last fall, then a conference on family issues this year in Washington.

At West Point, the alumni gay advocacy group Knights Out was able to hold the first installment in March of what is intended to be an annual dinner in recognition of gay and lesbian graduates and Army cadets. Gay students at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis were able to take same-sex dates to the academy’s Ring Dance for third-year midshipmen.

Panetta said last month that military leaders had concluded that repeal had not affected morale or readiness. A report to Panetta with assessments from the individual military service branches said that as of May 1 they had seen no ill effects.

“I don’t think it’s just moving along smoothly, I think it’s accelerating faster than we even thought the military would as far as progress goes,” said Air Force 1st Lt. Josh Seefried, a finance officer and co-director of OutServe.

He said acceptance has been broad among straight service members and has put a spotlight on unequal treatment that gays continue to receive in some areas. “We are seeing such tremendous progress in how much the military is accepting us, but not only that — in how much the rank and file is now understanding the inequality that’s existing right now,” he said.

That’s a reference to the fact that same-sex couples aren’t afforded spousal health care, assignments to the same location when they transfer to another job, and other benefits. There was no immediate change to eligibility standards for military benefits in September. All service members already were entitled to certain things, such as designating a partner as one’s life insurance beneficiary or as designated caregiver in the Wounded Warrior program.

As for other benefits still not approved, the department began a review after repeal with an eye toward possibly extending eligibility, consistent with the federal Defense of Marriage Act and other applicable laws, to the same-sex partners of military personnel.

“The department is carefully and deliberately reviewing the benefits from a policy, fiscal, legal, and feasibility perspective,” Eileen Lainez, a Pentagon spokeswoman said Thursday.

Gay marriage has been perhaps the most difficult issue.

Though chaplains on bases in some states are allowed to hold what the Pentagon officials call “private services” — they don’t use the words wedding or marriage — such unions do not garner marriages benefits because the Defense of Marriage Act says marriage is between a man and a woman.

The policy known as “don’t ask, don’t tell” was in force for 18 years, and its repeal was a slow and deliberate process.

President Barack Obama on Dec. 22, 2010, signed legislation repealing it. Framing the issue as a matter of civil rights long denied, Obama said that “we are a nation that welcomes the service of every patriot … a nation that believes that all men and women are created equal.”

The military then did an assessment for several months to certify that the forces were prepared to implement it in a way that would not hurt military readiness. And it held training for its 2.25 million-person force to inform everyone of the coming change and what was expected

Mysterious Bones May Belong to John the Baptist



Bones claimed to be of John the Baptist that were analysed by the research team. Clockwise from top left, the
knucklebone, ulna, part of cranial bone and molar (together) and rib.

 By Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer

A small handful of bones found in an ancient church in Bulgaria may belong to John the Baptist, the biblical figure said to have baptized Jesus.

There's no way to be sure, of course, as there are no confirmed pieces of John the Baptist to compare to the fragments of bone. But the sarcophagus holding the bones was found near a second box bearing the name of St. John and his feast date (also called a holy day) of June 24. Now, new radiocarbon dating of the collagen in one of the bones pegs its age to the early first century, consistent with the New Testament and Jewish histories of John the Baptist's life.

"We got some dates that are very interesting indeed," study researcher Thomas Higham of the University of Oxford told LiveScience. "They suggest that the human bone is all from the same person, it's from a male, and it has a very high likelihood of an origin in the Near East," or Middle East where John the Baptist would have lived.