There are parasites. Some are rather harmless. When their host goes hungry they will also go hungry. Others are more demanding. Even a hungry host will not stop them from feasting:

At a time when sequestration is about to take a big bite out of the Pentagon budget, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) will be sending thousands of its citizen lobbyists to Capitol Hill next week to make sure Israel is exempted from any spending cuts.

…
The 13,000 expected AIPAC activists will be telling Congress not to touch Israel's $3-billion-plus annual security assistance and to vote for legislation declaring the Jewish state a "major strategic ally."

That is a designation not enjoyed by any other nation, JTA pointed out, noting it may be a step toward the goal of some conservatives of divorcing assistance to Israel from all other foreign aid spending.

AIPAC's annual policy conference begins Sunday and culminates Tuesday with personal visits by constituents to hundreds of members of the House and Senate.

This should be a good chance to highlight the issue of rather outrageous U.S. payments to the zionist state. Israel getting its subsidizes while local school lunch programs get cut might awake some citizens' critique. The attempt to automatically involve the U.S. in a war that Israel's hardliners would like to start should add to the outrage.

Just for the record. Three days ago I http://www.moonofalabama.org/2013/02/syria-kerry-does-more-of-the-same.html">wrote:

There are U.S. special forces on the Jordan boarder with Syria. They will likely have trained the insurgents on their new weapons.

Today the New York Times writes:

On Wednesday, senior administration officials said that a training mission for the rebels at a base in the region, which is already under way, represented the deepest American involvement yet in the Syrian conflict, though the size and scope of the mission is not clear, nor is its host country.

That training mission has been underway since the U.S. sent special forces to the Syrian border in Jordan more than five month ago. We can be sure that Jordan special forces and the Turkish army have also trained some of the insurgents since quite early in the conflict. The "color revolution" media training for the insurgency propaganda was started even before the insurgency and was done, like in other countries, by U.S. financed groups.

I do not believe that such training has much value. The U.S. mindset on which such training is based does not translate well into other societies. Just look at "U.S. trained" troops in Iraq or Afghanistan. If the going gets tough they always resort to their own ways of fighting. Less elegant and less wasteful but effective against U.S. style troops. It is more difficult for them to fight against troops from their own society.

There is a weird story making its rounds about a young Swedish-Lebanese man who was arrested in Cyprus while clandestinely monitoring Israeli tourists. The man claims to work for Hizbullah:

He admitted he has been a member of Hezbollah for the last four years, claiming he was working as a member of the political party and not what many call the ‘terrorist’ branch, and although a Muslim, he has never supported fanatical Islam.

According to his testimony, he used the code name Wael and would receive orders from another Hezbollah member called Ayman, although he admitted he had no idea what Ayman looked like as whenever they met he would have his face hidden.

Why would someone working for the political party of Hizbullah work clandestinely?

And how or why would the guy know that he was in contact with Hizbullah at all? Because some masked guy called Ayman told him so?

Like the false "Hizbullah bombed Israeli tourists in Bulgaria" fairy tale this story stinks.

But we might find out who is behind it when we analyze what this story, like the Bulgaria story, is used for:

At issue, analysts say, is not only Yaakoub’s guilt or innocence but also the broader question of whether Cyprus and other European Union countries will take a harsher attitude toward Hezbollah. While the United States designed the organization as a terrorist group, the E.U. continues to view it as a political party.

U.S. officials said they hope evidence linking the attack in Bulgaria and Yaakoub’s plotting to Hezbollah will persuade the Europeans to move against the group and restrict its movements and fundraising.

For the Americans, time is important. Current and former U.S. counterterrorism officials said Hezbollah’s ambitions and reach have expanded in the past two years, coinciding with tougher sanctions on Iran. At least a dozen plots linked to the group or Iran have been foiled, including botched bombing attempts in India, Thailand, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Kenya.

Despite the claim of "evidence linking the attack in Bulgaria" there is none. Despite pressure from the U.S. the Bulgarian authorities only claimed that the Hizbullah thesis is a "reasonable assumption."

The U.S. and Israel want to frame Hizbullah to get the European Union to declare it a terrorist group.

Does anyone really believe that Hizbullah, which proved to be better than the Israeli army in the 2006 war, is so incompetent that it botches bombing attempts in at least six countries? Is Hizbullah so incompetent that it uses a masked man, who then openly claims to be Hizbullah, to control some incompetent naive?

No, this story does not pass the smell test.

When John Kerry on February 13 said this:

"We need to address the question of President Assad's calculation currently. I believe there are additional things that can be done to change his current perception"

He likely thought of this:

A surge of rebel advances in Syria is being fueled at least in part by an influx of heavy weaponry in a renewed effort by outside powers to arm moderates in the Free Syrian Army, according to Arab and rebel officials.

The new armaments, including anti-tank weapons and recoilless rifles, have been sent across the Jordanian border into the province of Daraa in recent weeks to counter the growing influence of Islamist extremist groups in the north of Syria by boosting more moderate groups fighting in the south, the officials say.

There are U.S. special forces on the Jordan boarder with Syria. They will likely have trained the insurgents on their new weapons. Israel is kept informed of these weapon transfers and will have a veto about what gets delivered.

The hope is that these weapons will not fall into the hands of the Nusra front and other Jihadi groups. But unless U.S. and other special forces are on the ground closely working with the insurgents that is still bound to happen. A helicopter shot down near Aleppo today and earlier videos showed the first complete SA-24 anti-air systems in the hand of some northern group. While Turkey makes of show of capturing some ammunition on its border with Syria the new stuff is still coming through and will easily fall into the hands of people who hate not only the Syrian government but also the "west".

The further weaponization of the conflict is the typical U.S. policy of more of the same. If something does not work, like sanctions on Iran or creating local "police" gangs in Afghanistan, repeat it again and again until everything fails.

There are foreign Jihadis from some 20 countries in Syria and they will not go away should the Assad government fall. The only way to get rid of them and to prevent another failed state is to help Assad to win the fight over them.

But such reasonable thought is not allowed in Washington DC. Instead we get the same stupid ideas of some corridor repeated in this or that form or unimaginative hand-wringing.

The Syrian government is ready to negotiate with anyone involved, even the armed groups. But those militants, freshly motivated by the new weapons, do not want to negotiate. The U.S. created exile opposition is childishly boycotting a conference with its supporters while demanding ever more money that it will then be unable to deliver to where it matters.

The new weapon delivery will not, as Kerry believes, change the Syrian government's "current perception". It will only reinforce it: Syria is under an external attack, it needs to fight back with all it has and with the majority support we still have, we will be able to win. The carnage will thereby continue until some outer circumstances change or sanity arrives in DC. As Washington is incapable of learning, the first is more likely to happen.

I hold the opinion that the United States is one of the most corrupt countries. As usual the problem starts at the top.

Giving or raising $500,000 or more puts donors on a national advisory board for Mr. Obama’s group and the privilege of attending quarterly meetings with the president, along with other meetings at the White House. Moreover, the new cash demands on Mr. Obama’s top donors and bundlers come as many of them are angling for appointments to administration jobs or ambassadorships.
Obama’s Backers Seek Big Donors to Press Agenda

It seems that The New Yorker and McClatchy have fallen for an information operation that has the aim to denigrate Hizbullah and to make the case that a fall of the Syrian government would induce the fall of Hizbullah.

The New Yorker piece by Dexter Filkins is headlined:
After Syria – If the Assad regime falls, can Hezbollah survive?

The McClatchy piece by David Enders:
Pro-Assad militia now key to Syrian government’s war strategy

Both pieces rely in their claims on a person with pseudonym Dani or Dany which is supposed to be a "Hizbullah fighter" or "Hizbullah commander" who claims to have fought in Syria. Both pieces appeared only a day apart. Both make the same claim, based on Dani/Dany, about Hizbullah fighting in Syria and its alleged dependency on Assad's survival.

The Angry Arab has been mocking that source:

Ha ha. Meet "Dani", the Hizbullah fighter
Let me tell you this. Any man in Hizbullah who uses the pseudonym "dani" is certainly not in Hizbullah.

Nick Noe
deconstructs the pieces:

I mean come on, NO ONE in Hizbullah, both reporters say, will talk to them, and they BOTH find a miracle dany (a christian cover name in any case mind you!) and BELIEVE HIM, DONT EVEN RAISE THE difficulty of verifying his identity with readers…. And then this Dany, FOR BOTH, says “the truth” to these American reporters…and it is slightly rich in “admissions” of guilt and snippets of off-putting extremity which make dany’s party look BAD.

…
MOST EMBARRASSING is for the New Yorker – how in the world do they allow a piece where the ENTIRE narrative of hizbullah from hizbullah is carried by a fake name dany, who claims a series of obvious errors (see below), and provides several anchors for his identity that are frankly laughable (theme park access, a dude in the south with a hizbullah flag in his drawer, living near the Hizbullah “area” where a lot of anti hizbullah people also live and have easy access and having a village on the border with Israel where many christian and sunnis also live and some of which – including shiite families – collaborated during the 22 years of Israeli occupation of the area)?

It is simply not believable that any Hizbullah fighter would run around and talk openly to various U.S. reporters about Hizbullah's actions and aims. The organization, secretive for very sensible reasons, simply does not allow such to happen.

It is sad that McClatchy's Enders, who is usually one of the better Middle East reporters, would fall for this dude. Why the New Yorker ever hired Dexter Filkins (and seemingly fired its fact-checkers) is something I never understood. The obvious question now is who send Dani/Dany to those gullible reporters. The fascist Lebanese Force? The Israelis? The CIA?

A member of the UN independent panel investigating human rights violations in Syria, Karen Abuzayd, said what we have asserted here all along.

A majority of the people of Syria stand behind their president Bashar al Assad.

Thanks to J. Bradley for a comment that pointed to Monday's CBC Radio Show As It Happens.

Starting at 2:00 minutes into the first part of the show Karen Koning AbuZayd, a former U.S. diplomat, is interviewed about the latest UN Human Rights Council report (pdf) about the situation in Syria.

At 5:35 min into the audio with regard to a question about a possible indictment of Assad a comparison is made to Milosovic and Serbia. There Karen Abuzayd, who was involved with Bosnia, says:

"… Milosovic had a lot of his population strongly behind him, throughout, until the end, until now I would say, and the same goes for President Assad – there's quite a number of the population, maybe as many as half, if not more, who stand behind him."

That determination certainly runs counter to the "western" propaganda campaign. Why should Assad, as the "west" demands, go when the majority of the Syrian population is supporting him?

PS:
And lets keep in mind, as Noirette reminds us, that the court found no evidence linking Milosovic to genocide and war crimes committed in the Bosnian War. His indictment was just another propaganda act. Just like an indictment of Bashar Assad, which the Russians will prevent anyway, would be solely to support the ongoing disinformation campaign.

Throughout the last two years U.S. airplanes landed several times in North Korea without the United States informing its allies about their missions. This and other interesting intelligence news around Japan, North and South Korea was recently published in a series headlined "Left In The Dark" by the Japanese paper Asahi Shimbun. One would think that in a strongly partisan atmosphere such news would be politically explosive. Yet, to my knowledge, no major U.S. media has picked up on these stories.

First published on February 15 one piece asserts that the U.S. is withholding evidence of the recent North Korean nuclear test from its Japanese allies:

"There must be many secrets between the United States and North Korea that Japan does not know about," a Japanese government source said.

Among the data that the United States withholds is assessments of the outcome of North Korea's nuclear tests.

…
When North Korea conducted its first nuclear test in 2006, Japan, the United States and South Korea learned from spies that the test site was at Punggyeri.

The United States dispatches intelligence agents to North Korea posing as tourists, for example. The agents may hold multiple passports.

The piece then demonstrates severe mistrust in the U.S. about Japan's nuclear ambitions:

Cont. reading: Withheld Intelligence Shows Mistrust Between Allies

Found nothing to write about. Or nothing I feel I should write about. Whatever. This is the result.

The U.S. is not serious in regards to negotiations with Iran. Negotiations require offers and demands from both sides that can be weighted and exhcanged against each other. But while the U.S. has skyhight demands, which would restrict Iranian sovereignty, it offers nothing substantial.

For the next negotiation round on February 26 in Almaty, Kazakhstan, the U.S. has issued a new demand, the complete shut down of Iran's enrichment plant in its underground facility at Fordow. Of all places relevant to Iran's nuclear program, which is as U.S. intelligence agencies have confirmed solely for civilian purpose, Fordow would be the most difficult to destroy during an attack on Iran. Why, if not for preparation of such an attack, would the U.S. demand that that place be shut down?

The U.S. has also made a new "offer" to Iran. In exchange for shutting down Fordow and other places the U.S. offers not the lifting of UN sanction, not the lifting of unilateral U.S. or EU sanctions, not the lifting of restriction of financial transactions with Iran. No, none of that. If its new demand would be followed by Iran the U.S. would lift unilateral sanctions it introduced, through threats to third parties, just days ago:

Cont. reading: Obama Designed Iran Negotiations To Fail

News & views …

Ben Zygier was an Austalian/Israeli Mossad agent. He was imprisoned and suicided in Israel probably over fears that he would blow the whistle about illegal foreign passport use shortly after Mossad agents misused foreign passports during while assassinating Mahmoud al Mabhouh in Dubai. A relation between Dubai and and the Zygier case was my first assumption and still seems likely. There are many other possibilities though. And there are several oddities with the whole story. Here is one.

According to this report:

Zygier was arrested in Israel in February 2010. Australian newspapers have reported that Israel informed Australia’s secret service of the arrest on Feb. 24, 2010, eight days after Dubai police revealed that Mossad agents had used foreign passports …

The official version of Zygier’s death – that he hanged himself in his cell on Dec. 15, 2010 – is being greeted with widespread skepticism as details about his life become known.

…
He died six days after his 34th birthday, and only four days after the birth of his second daughter.

Zygier was arrested before February 24 2010. Zygier's daughter was born on December 11 2010. There are 290 days between February 24 2010 and December 11 2010.
Zygier's daughter was thereby born at least 290 days after he was imprisoned.

Pregnancy is considered "at term" when gestation has lasted […] between 259 and 294 days since the first day of the last menstrual period (LMP). In an otherwise uncomplicated pregnancy, obstetricians usually prefer to induce labour at some stage between 41 and 42 weeks (287-294 days) since LMP. Fertilization in humans typically occurs a consistent period (14 days) from the onset of the LMP. Pregnancy is thereby "at term" between 245 and 280 days since fertilization. Zygier's last chance to sleep with his wife was very likely before his arrest, 290 days before his second daughter was born. Her LMP was two weeks earlier. His daughter then was born 304 days or 43-44 weeks after his wife's LMP, two weeks later than a doctor would usually allow.

Either:

• Zygier's wife gave birth at a very, very late term due to an incompetent obstetrician or
• Ben Zygier isn't his second daughter's father and his wife had a different man a few days after Zygier's arrest* or
• the reported story and dates are not the real ones.

If it is the last point what is the real story?

(*There are other possibilities here like artificial insemination but I consider those very unlikely.)

UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon had a diplomatic disastrous interview with the Washington Post.

The piece about it is mostly a write up and not a transcript. We must thereby assume that the Washington Post, not always knows for accuracy, might have edited some of the quotes out of context. Still it is incredible that the UN Secretary General would allow such to be published:

The United Nations must be decisive and swift in judging whether diplomacy can resolve world concerns about Iran’s nuclear program, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Thursday, or invite the risk that Iran, like North Korea, will use talks as a cover to build a bomb.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Ban said he wants to accelerate diplomatic talks with Iran and give them new urgency.

…
“We should not give much more time to the Iranians, and we should not waste time,” Ban said. “We have seen what happened with the DPRK.”

Ban Ki Moon will know the repeatedly confirmed united opinion of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies that Iran does not have a nuclear weapon program. How can he then, as the head of the organization which is tasked keep the world at peace, talk such a nonsense?

The U.N. Security Council must “show a firm, decisive and effective, quick response,” Ban said, that makes plain to Iran that the rest of the world is not convinced that it is not seeking nuclear weapons.

What is that? A call for war against Iran for weapons of mass destruction that do not exist?

Has Ban Ki Moon additional brain defects?

The WaPo commentators to that piece are not amused:
"SharpDiamond" wrote:

It seems the UN secretary general Mr "Moon" has stopped taking his meds. What is WHO doing?

"justnfree" concludes:

I guess that shows how neutral UN is. Any word about Israeli nuclear arsenal?

The former Indian ambassador K.P. Fabian remarks:

The UN SG is talking through his hat.

He wants to ensure that the forthcoming talks will be fruitless by threatening and abusing Iran.

Why not start bombing?

Sad that UN SG is advocating war!

Ambassador K P Fabian

I hope that Ban Ki Moon will hear likewise from other diplomats, especially from Sergej Lavrov and his Chinese colleague.

Apropos Lavrov – here is a one hour interview (in English) with the Russian foreign minister about Syria by the German public TV station ARD. (If you do want to listen to the full hour skip to the last 8 or 10 minutes.) (Edit with thanks to Parviziyi: English transcript) Lavrov shows that he has, unlike Ban Ki Moon, the knowledge of details, the thoughtfulness and strategic perspective any real diplomat should have.

The paranoid David Albright of ISIS, the Institute of Scary Iran Stories (formerly the Institute of Scary Iraq Stories), has issued a new report.

The report alleges that one of 70 million Iranians once made an inquiry to buy magnets that DO NOT FIT for Iran's uranium enrichment centrifuges.

The Washington Post's Joby Warrick, one of Albright's favorite stenographers, took notes:

Iran recently sought to acquire tens of thousands of highly specialized magnets used in centrifuge machines, according to experts and diplomats, a sign that the country may be planning a major expansion of its nuclear program that could shorten the path to an atomic weapons capability.

Purchase orders obtained by nuclear researchers show an attempt by Iranian agents to buy 100,000 of the ring-shaped magnets — which are banned from export to Iran under U.N. resolutions — from China about a year ago, those familiar with the effort said. It is unclear whether the attempt succeeded.
…
The specific dimensions spelled out in the order form match precisely — to a fraction of a millimeter — those of the powerful magnets used in the IR-1, a machine that spins at supersonic speeds to purify uranium gas into an enriched form that can be used in nuclear power plants.
…
With two magnets needed per machine, the order technically could supply Iran with enough material for 50,000 new gas centrifuges, although some of the magnets would probably have been reserved for repairs and spare parts, said David Albright, ISIS president and a former IAEA inspector.
…
The magnets are made of an unusual alloy known as barium strontium ferrite and were ordered from a Chinese vendor in late 2011.

The lines set in bold are simply lies which Albright planted with Warrick:

• Barium strontium ferrite magnets are of NOT "unusual alloy"
• The magnets in question are NOT "highly specialized magnets"
• The dimensions of the magnets do NOT "match precisely — to a fraction of a millimeter — those of the powerful magnets used in the IR-1"
• There was NO "purchase order" only an inquiry aka a request for a quote made by who-knows

Barium strontium ferrite magnets are standardized parts used in many industrial products:

Cont. reading: Iran Buys Magnets That DO NOT FIT Its Centrifuges

This "news analysis" on North Korea's latest nuke test in the New York Times is rather a lightly disguised threat to China. Starve North Korea or we will disable your strategic nuclear deterrence.

Nuclear Test Poses Big Challenge to China’s New Leader

It starts:

BEIJING — The nuclear test by North Korea on Tuesday, in defiance of warnings by China, leaves the new Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, with a choice: Does he upset North Korea just a bit by agreeing to stepped up United Nations sanctions, or does he rattle the regime by pulling the plug on infusions of Chinese oil and investments that keep North Korea afloat?

Notice how this sets up a rather infantile false choice. China could also just ignore the test and do nothing. China could also chose to do some other stuff. It could embrace North Korea by delivering more energy to it. It could ensure North Korea that it would defend it with all its might should there be any attack on it thereby rendering the North Korean nuclear program unnecessary. There are many possibilities besides punish small and punish big.

The piece continues by framing this as a China U.S. relation issue:

Cont. reading: China Will Not Help To “Punish” North Korea

This is likely to become an interesting issue:

Prime Minister's Office calls emergency meeting with heads of Israeli media outlets

Purpose of unusual meeting is to request editors' cooperation in preventing publication of affair which could prove embarrassing to government agency.

The Prime Minister's Office called on Tuesday an emergency meeting of the Israeli Editors Committee, an informal forum comprised of the editors and owners of major Israeli media outlets, to ask its members to cooperate with the government and withhold publication of information pertaining to an incident that is very embarrassing to a certain government agency.

The "incident" is revolving around a "Prisoner X" of whom any news has been censored in Israel for nearly three years. Several articles in Israeli media about him were vanished by the censors. But as the Australian ABCnews has now shown (video, 28min) new details on the case this attempt of continued censorship is just silly. Haaretz is helpfully pointing its readers to the original story:

Evidence has been unearthed that strongly suggests Israel's infamous Prisoner X, who was jailed under extraordinary circumstances in 2010, was an Australian national from Melbourne.

Investigations by the ABC's Foreign Correspondent program have revealed Ben Zygier, who used the name Ben Alon in Israel, was found hanged in a high-security cell at a prison near Tel Aviv in late 2010.

His body was flown to Melbourne for burial a week later.

The death goes part of the way to explain the existence in Israel of a so-called Prisoner X, widely speculated in local and international media as an inmate whose presence has been acknowledged by neither the jail system nor the government.

The case is regarded as one of the most sensitive secrets of Israel's intelligence community, with the government going to extraordinary lengths to stifle media coverage and gag attempts by human rights organisations to expose the situation.

The Prisoner X cell is a jail within a jail at Ayalon Prison in the city of Ramla. It was built for the assassin of Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin.

The ABC understands Mr Zygier became its occupant in early 2010. His incarceration was so secret that it is claimed not even guards knew his identity.

The Australian security services may think that Mr Zygier was a Mossad agent.

On January 19 2010 Mossad operatives assassinated the Hamas commander Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh in a hotel in Dubai. The police in Dubai acted astonishingly fast using videos and stills from various security cameras (part 1, 2, 3) to stitch together the evidence and to identify the Mossad agents involved. The agents involved used passports from various countries including Australian passports though none with the name of Ben Zygier or Ben Alon.

In December 2010 his always wrong "source" told Richard Silverstein that Prisoner X was a Iranian Revolutionary Guard General abducted by Mossad.

If Ben Zygier (photo) was indeed involved with Mossad and ended up as "Prisoner X" he must have done something very extraordinary. Did he blow the whistle about the Dubai assassination? One wonders when we will learn what he did.

The catholic pope announced his resignation:

Pope Benedict XVI on Monday announced he will resign on February 28, a Vatican spokesman told AFP, which will make him the first pope to do so in centuries.

The last pope to resign voluntarily was Pope Celestine V in 1294.He did not want to be pope in the first place. Celestine V gave his reasons as:

the desire for humility, for a purer life, for a stainless conscience, the deficiencies of his own physical strength, his ignorance, the perverseness of the people, his longing for the tranquility of his former life.

Benedict XVI said:

After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry.

A new pope is usually elected when the old one is dead and often not to his (assumed) liking. His resignation will allow Benedict to influence the election of his successor. That may be the real reason behind this surprizing step.

The Supreme Guidance Council of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood convened immediately and is thought to suggest the upcoming head of Al-Azhar, Abdul Rahman al-Bar, as its papal candidate. Vatican aids thought it unlikely that al-Bar would gather enough support in the Vatican to make it into the final selection.

The election of a pope is always a highly political process. Various states will try to push their favorite candidates and agendas. The ideal candidate though will not be considered. That would be a tall black African woman, married and with children.

In August 2012 another IAEA report on Iran came out. Then this blog was the first to point out that, according to that report, Iran had reduced its stock of 20% enriched Uranium by converting some of it into fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor. Other media, when first reporting on that IAEA report, did not mention it. It didn't fit their scare intend.

We concluded:

We can reasonably assume that Iran is doing this decrease on purpose and will in future convert any newly produced UF6 into fuel plates. This will keep its stock of UF6 at a level below what is needed to make a quick run towards a nuclear device.

Reuters is now reporting that Iran is exactly doing that:

Iran appears to have resumed converting small amounts of highly enriched uranium into reactor fuel, diplomats say, a process which if expanded could buy time for negotiations between Washington and Tehran on its disputed nuclear program.

Iran is thereby avoiding the "red-line" Netanyahoo had try to draw. It can do so endlessly while developing its other capabilities. The "red line" has thereby now become a shield under which Iran can do whatever it wants while avoiding the (small) risk of an Israeli attack.

If he were not a hypocrite Peter Horrocks, the director of BBC World Service, would opine:

PRESS TV audiences in United States and Europe are experiencing disruption to their PRESS TV services. That is because there is heavy political interference with satellite providers PRESS TV uses in the United States and Europe to broadcast the English PRESS TV signal.

Satellite technicians have traced that interference and it is coming from the United States. There has been interference in Europe since October, but this is the heaviest yet.

It seems to be part of a pattern of behaviour by American authorities to limit the reporting of the aftermath of their wars. However, the availability of witness material from the United States is enabling international news organisations to be able to report the story. Viewers of PRESS TV have been in touch (in English), sending videos, stills and providing personal accounts.

It is important that what is happening in the United States is reported to the world, but it is even more vital that citizens in the United States know what is happening. That is the role of the recently-launched PRESS TV which is fulfilling a crucial role in being a free and impartial source of information for many Americans.

Any attempt to block this channel is wrong and against international treaties on satellite communication. Whoever is attempting the blocking should stop it now.

This is another reminder that "freedom of the press" is nothing but the right of 200 rich people to have their opinions published.

Haaretz propagandizes:

Assad regime calls for dialogue with Syrian opposition, for first time since conflict began

For first time since 22-month conflict began, the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad says it is willing to negotiate, so long as talks are approached without preconditions and that arms are put down.

…
The Syrian regime said late Friday that it was ready to hold dialogue with the Syrian opposition to end the 22-month conflict in the war-torn country, so long as the negotiations are approached without preconditions.

…
This is the first time an official of Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime has expressed a commitment to engaging in conversations with the opposition, both within and outside the country, including the Syrian National Council umbrella group that unites the majority of opposition groups in Syria.

Do those Haartez writers really think that their readers have such a short memory?

• Jun 20, 2011 – Syria’s Assad offers dialogue, rejects ‘chaos’
• Mar 9, 2012 – Syria: opposition rejects call for dialogue
• Sep 21, 2012 – Assad says rebels will not win, calls for dialogue
• Oct 2 2012 – Rebels reject Syrian calls for dialogue
• Jan 6 2013 – Syria's Assad calls for national dialogue to end conflict
• Jan 7 2013 – Assad's call for talks dismissed as 'a waste of time' by Syrian opposition