Ето, вече няколко години предупреждаваме, не, крещим, че досегашната парадигма, осигурявала потенциал за икономическо развитие, обективно вече е приключила и че светът, и държавите трябва да скъсат с днешните модели и активно да търсят нови форми за обществено-политическо устройство за своите народи.

Разбираемо е, че днешните политически елити няма просто ей-така да се откажат от властовите си позиции и с цената на много страдание, и кръв ще отстояват до последно правото си да водят към безпътица милиони заблудени избиратели, гласуващи под строй в името на измислените в западните централи системи от „демократични ценности“.

Изключително е тежко да осъзнаваш какви конкретни мъки предстоят на любимото Отечество, ако бъдат предприети едни или други дилетантски стъпки в икономическата му политика, без да имаш абсолютно никакви лостове за промяна на положението и за облекчаване участта на сънародниците си!

Споделял съм с Вас, че бая време бях един от активните членове на ГЕРБ, в периода, когато партията беше в опозиция, с тайната надежда, че този път можем да се опитаме да си върнем България!

За мое страшно съжаление и разочарование, патриотите в организацията бяха изхвърлени зад борда, а на тяхно място бяха привлечени национални предатели и мижитурки, като един Дянков, например, отглеждани и подготвяни десетилетия, за момента, в който ще вдигнат сатъра над последните остатъци от някога мощното българско стопанство!

Сега ни е лесно да казваме, че през годините сме били прави, прогнозирайки бъдещия ход на икономическата криза! Факт е и никой не може да отрече, че това, което твърдим и обосноваваме в момента е било наша позиция и преди година, две, четири и т.н., докато тези, на който сте доверили съдбата си, вече няколко години непрекъснато се въртят като фурнаджийски лопати и постоянно Ви обясняват, че кризата аха-аха ще свърши, че скоро всичко ще си дойде по старите места, че отново ще има мед и масло за всички!

Но, не приятели! И този път не сте избрали правилните хора! И това ще Ви тежи все повече оттук насетне! Тук проблемът е многопластов!

Защото дори ако високопоставеният чиновник или политик интуитивно разбира посоката на движение в икономиката, той, все едно, не може да оцени техните мащаби и последствия! Това не е заради някаква вродена глупост – самостоятелно процесът няма как да бъде извършен! Просто физически времето за това не стига!

Да не говорим, че днешното експертно обкръжение на политиците е съставено изключително от икономиксисти, които елементарно не владеят езика, с който кризисните процеси могат да бъдат обяснени и тълкувани! Представете си, че един глухоням попада в ситуация да алармира за случила се катастрофа!

Затова, да бъдем благосклонни, когато четем новини като тази (http://news.finance.ua/ru/~/5/2012/12/16/293136), в която се съобщава, че някакъв си експерт-икономиксист едва сега е сколасал да измисли „отговор“ по въпрос за кризата, зададен му от английската кралица през вече далечната 2008 г.

Така че, по понятни причини политическата класа вече не вярва на пишман-експертите икономиксисти! И това вече е първа стъпка в правилното направление! Все още, обаче, остава големият проблем, че текущите процеси, волю или неволю, трябва да бъдат обяснявани и оценявани с вече компрометирания мейнстримски език и съответните му методи и подходи. В резултат от тази колизия се получават твърде интересни неща.

Така например, неотдавна паричните власти в САЩ и Великобритания съгласуваха съвместен план, който определя реда и процедурата по евентуалния банкрут на най-големите световни банки. Естествено, че той е разработен на базата на натрупания опит по обстоятелствата от краха на една от водещите инвестиционни банки „Лемън Брадърс“ през есента на 2008 г.

„Процедурата предполага, че основните загуби при банкрут на финансовия институт, имащ системно глобално значение, ще бъдат понесени от неговите кредитори и акционери. При това, властите са решени да следят, банките да разполагат с достатъчно собствени средства, за да са в състояние да изпълнят задълженията си пред обикновените граждани“ – отбелязват коментаторите.

Тази програма обхваща 16 от най-могъщите американски и британски банки, чиято работа носи глобален характер и предполага, че в случай на фалит нейното ръководство ще бъде отстранявано, като едновременно с това най-важните направления за работа на финансовото учреждение ще бъдат поддържани. Ще продължат, освен това, да функционират и тези дъщерни структури, които са съхранили устойчивостта си.

И накрая, този план за действие предполага държавна намеса по стабилизация на ситуацията в случаи, когато банковият крах заплашва да предизвика системна криза и да излезе извън пределите на отделната страна.

Като цяло, всичко изглежда съвсем нормално и благопристойно. Но ако си припомним 2008 г., не можем да не отбележим, че тогава се разтресоха всички банки (и някои доста значими застрахователни компании), а конкретно „Лемън Брадърс“ беше оставен да фалира. За спасение на всички удавници беше необходима емисия, равна на колосалните парични вливания от около 1% на месец от щатския БВП.

Икономиксистката наука така и не намери разумно обяснение защо всички банки едновременно се разклатиха, така че и сега властите неявно приемат, че евентуална бъдеща банкова криза ще засегне само някои отделни институции. Или, поне, на това се надяват!

Действителността, обаче, ще бъде твърде различна и ударът ще трябва да бъде понесен от цялата финансова система, тъй като анализът на структурата по американската икономика говори за това, че днешните размери на финасовия сектор в пъти превишават мащабите, които могат да бъдат понесени от реалната икономика.

На подобни възражения монетаристите отговарят, че печалбите могат да се генерират и във финансовата система, но това от макроикономическа гледна точка не е съвсем така: при финансистите може да се появи само междинна печалба, докато крайното търсене е ограничено от възможностите на държавата и домакинствата, а отчитайки, че данъците в крайна сметка се поемат от потребителите, всичко се решава именно от частното търсене.

Но точно темата за ограничеността на частното търсене е табу за днешните икономиксисти (т.н. субективни идеалисти), заради което на официално равнище е невъзможно да се даде що-годе адекватно описание на кризисните процеси. В резултат на този дефект, както виждаме, сериозно страдат и паричните власти в по-голяма част от страните по света.

Те вече добре разбират накъде духа вятърът, разработват се напълно осмислени, за определени обстоятелства, схеми, но съвсем не се разбира, че мащабът на реалните събития ще бъде много по-голям от този, който се предполага в рамките на тези прогнозни разработки.

И когато настъпи моментът, в който ще се изясни, че тези теоретични планове трябва да се въплъщават в живота, най-вероятно ще се окаже, че ресурси за подобни операции просто липсват: ще наложи да се спасява не една банка в отделно взета страна, а всички големи банки във всички крупни световни икономики…

А дотогава някои сред нас ще продължат да боготворят разни шарлатани, благодарение на което последните още дълго ще могат да градят щастието си върху костите на мнозинството от народа ни!

http://networkedblogs.com/Gj8po

Министерството на задържаните в израелските затвори заявява също, че след последната агресия в Газа, както и обновяването на статута на Палестина в ООН, израелските войници са засилили техните нападения, особено срещу младежи и деца в Западния бряг.

95% от отвлечените деца са били нападнати, бити и малтретирани по време на задържането им, като повечето са извлечени от домовете им между 2 и 4 сутринта, когато се състоят военни нападения и претърсвания.

Докладите сочат, че на децата са слагани белезници и са им завързвани очите, а родителите им са били нападани, когато са опитвали да защитят децата.  Много от децата са отвеждани в различни и неизвестни посоки. Правозащитни организации осъждат действията на израелските власти, които прилагат насилие и побой върху малолетни.

Според свидетелства разпитите спират, когато децата издават имена на свои роднини и приятели, търсени от властите за съпротивителна дейност. Според данни на палестинските власти отвлечените деца са подлагани на няколко разпита, докато седят на малки столове с вързани очи и ръце зад гърба. Често са били карани да седят прави по време на дъжд или високи температури. Използвани са електрошокове, гореща вода, като най-известния случай е на Насер Ариф Джарадат, на 16 години, задържан в южната част на Западния бряг.

Насер е отвлечен на 2 февруари 2010 година и отведен във военния лагер “Етцион” , където е принуден да седи под дъжда и студа по няколко часа на ден, многократно пребиван и накрая отвеждат в стаята за разпити, където с помощта на електрошок са изтръгвани самопризнания.

Повечето от отвлечените деца са били отвеждани за разпит в специални центрове в незаконните израелски заселнически селища като Кирият Арба, Маалех Адумим, Дан Шомрон, както и в няколко други населени места. Червеният кръст, който също се грижи за палестинските деца, не е бил информиран за местонахождението на отвлечените.

 Към декември 2012 г. палестинските деца, подложени на разпит или в очакване на съдебен процес са 140, а общо 200 са задържани в момента, включително 32, които са под 16-годишна възраст.

Подобно на задържани възрастни, държаните от Израел палестински деца са лишени от техните основни и международно гарантирани права, като на семействата им или адвокатите не е предоставяна информация за здравословното им състояние или моментното им местоположение.

Най-често отвлечените деца са третирани като “потенциални терористи” или “доказани терористи” и затова са използвани всякакви методи за извличане на информация, включително лишаване от сън, изтезания, лишаване от посещения, вода, храна, сексуален тормоз. В повечето пъти е казвано, че мъчението ще спре, ако се съгласят да сътрудничат.

Важно е да се отбележи, че Израел прилага военен закон, известен като Военна заповед 132, който позволява на армията на отвлича и разпитва палестински деца, които са над 12-годишна възраст.

guardian.co.uk

Amid plastic bags snagged on gorse bushes, rusting hulks of cars in a breakers yard and a few shabby trailers, traces of a biblical landscape are still to be found on a hillside between the ancient cities of Jerusalem and Bethlehem. A couple of donkeys are tethered to a gnarled olive tree; nearby, sheep and goats bleat as they huddle against the chill December air.

But this terrain will soon be covered in concrete after the authorisation last week of the construction of more than 2,600 homes in Givat Hamatos, the first new Israeli settlement to be built since 1997.

It lies between two existing settlements: Gilo, home to 40,000 people, sits atop one hill; to its east, on another hill, stands Har Homa, whose population is around 20,000, with further expansion in the pipeline. Both are largely built on Bethlehem land.

Givat Hamatos will form a strategic link between these twin towns, further impeding access between Bethlehem and the intended capital of Palestine, East Jerusalem, just six miles away.

Israel considers these and other settlements across the Green Line to be legitimate suburbs of Jerusalem, which it claims as the unified, indivisible capital of the Jewish state. Prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and official bodies have announced a spate of expansion plans in recent weeks.

In the birthplace of Jesus, the impact of Israeli settlements and their growth has been devastating. In a Christmas message, the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said Bethlehem was enduring a “choking reality”.

He added: “For the first time in 2,000 years of Christianity in our homeland, the Holy Cities of Bethlehem and Jerusalem have been completely separated by Israeli settlements, racist walls and checkpoints.”

Bethlehem is now surrounded by 22 settlements, including Nokdim, where the hardline former Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman lives, and Neve Daniel, home to public diplomacy minister Yuli Edelstein.

The city is further hemmed in by the vast concrete and steel separation barrier, bypasses connecting settlements with Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and Israeli military zones. With little room to expand, it is now more densely populated than Gaza, according to one Palestinian official.

In Beit Sahour – the site on the eastern edge of Bethlehem where, according to Christian tradition, angels announced the birth of Jesus to shepherds in a field – William Sahouri is feeling the squeeze. Ten years ago, he moved into a housing project designated for young Christian families, which overlooks fields and hills where sheep once grazed.

Now most of that land is on the other side of the separation barrier, inaccessible to Palestinians. Har Homa – which, like all settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, is illegal under international law – is rapidly spreading down the hill. Cranes are at work on new apartment blocks; bulldozers are flattening land for new roads and buildings.

In contrast, Sahouri’s home, along with others in the neighbourhood, is under an Israeli demolition order. It was issued in 2002 soon after the apartments were built without a permit, which is almost impossible to get in areas of the West Bank under full Israeli military control. After protests, the order was frozen but not lifted.

“It’s like sitting on a bomb,” says Sahouri, who estimates his family’s presence in the area stretches back more than 300 years. “We don’t know when it will be blown. At any moment they could come with bulldozers and heavy machinery and everything will be gone.”

But, he adds, gesturing across to Har Homa, “the Israelis can build 1,000 homes in three months. In 10 years, they build a city, while we have to build stone by stone.”

Residents of Beit Sahour – whose 15,000 population is 80% Christian – say settlers have targeted another nearby spot. A former Israeli military base at Ush Ghurab is visited almost weekly by hardliners from settlements deep in the West Bank, who have repainted the abandoned buildings, planted trees and raised Israeli flags. The site is now known as Shdema to the settlers, who hold regular meetings and activities on the hilltop.

Local Palestinians fear that the visitors will begin to sleep at the former base, then expand the site with additional caravans, followed by the provision of services – electricity, water, roads – and eventually permanent homes. This is a familiar pattern of how radical settlements, unauthorised by the Israeli state, take shape.

“This area is being highly targeted,” says local Palestinian activist George Rishmawi. “Experience tells us this is how settlements start – with the actions of fanatics.”

On the other side of Bethlehem, another mainly Christian community is also facing a battle, this one against the planned route of the separation barrier. Under present proposals it will cut off 58 families, plus a monastery and convent, from their land. The monks and nuns of Cremisan have joined forces with residents to fight a legal battle over the route, which will be decided in the Israeli courts early next year.

“The wall will confiscate nearly all our land,” says Samira Qaisieh, whose house on the edge of Beit Jala was built by her husband’s family almost a century ago. Its vine-covered terrace looks across the valley to Gilo, the Israeli settlement, built on land she says was owned by her grandfather. “Israel says it is doing all this in the name of security. But really they just want a land without [Palestinian] people.”

Qaisieh is thinking of leaving unless the barrier is re-routed. “There is no work here. If we lose our land, what is there to stay for? What is the future for my children?”

About two-thirds of the 400-mile West Bank barrier is complete; 85% of its route runs inside the West Bank, swallowing almost 8.5% of Palestinian land. In 2004, the International Court of Justice ruled it was illegal and that construction must stop.

The wall already snakes around most of Bethlehem, its 8m-high concrete slabs casting a deep shadow, both literally and metaphorically. At the Christmas Tree restaurant, where there are almost no takers for the “Quick Lunches” on offer, business has slowed to a standstill since the wall blocked what was once the main Jerusalem-Bethlehem road. Scores of shops along the closed-off artery have shut down altogether.

A few hundred metres along from the empty restaurant, a long steel-caged corridor leading through multiple turnstiles to a checkpoint is the main exit from the city for Palestinians wishing to go to Jerusalem. The Israel Defence Forces issues thousands of extra permits to Christian Palestinians to allow them to visit holy sites in Jerusalem over Christmas, but the lack of routine access has had a dire impact on businesses and employment rates.

Bethlehem has one of the highest rates of unemployment of all West Bank cities, at 18%, says Vera Baboun, who was elected as its first female mayor in October. “We are a strangulated city, with no room for expansion due to the settlements and the wall.”

In a booklet to mark Christmas 2012, Kairos Palestine, a Christian alliance, says: “Land confiscation, as well as the influx of Israeli settlers, suggest that there will be no future for Palestinians (Christian or Muslim) in [this] area. In this sense, the prospect of a clear ‘solution’ grows darker every day.”

Over recent decades Christians have left Bethlehem in their thousands, and now are a minority in a city they once dominated. In 2008 Christians accounted for 28% of Bethlehem city’s population of about 25,000. The daily grind of living under occupation, with few opportunities, little hope and the violence of the Palestinian uprising 10 years ago are cited as the chief reasons for departure. But in the past few years the flood of emigrants has slowed. “We are here, and we will remain here, to help our new state become a reality,” says Nora Carmi of Kairos.

In Beit Jala, parish priest Father Ibrahim Shomali, who leads open-air prayers under olive trees at sunset every Friday to protest at the planned route of the barrier around the Cremisan monastery, fears its construction could lead to a fresh wave of Christian departures. “People are leaving,” he says wearily. “But some of us will stay, to pray and resist.”

Haaretz

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Israel is getting ready for the downfall of President Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria, and the implications this will have for the regime’s chemical weapons cache.

Speaking at the weekly cabinet meeting, the prime minister said that Israel “is following dramatic developments in Syria, cooperating with the U.S. and the international community, and taking the necessary steps to prepare for the possibility of radical changes to the regime with all the consequences these may hold for networks of sensitive weapons.”

The most reliable evidence of Assad’s deteriorating position has been the firing of Scud missiles at rebel strongholds in Syria’s north. NATO’s Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmusen said Friday that the Syrian military has continued to fire Scud-type missiles against anti-government forces, describing the move as an act of desperation of a regime nearing its end. The Scud is the regime’s penultimate resource, superseded only by the use of chemical and biological weapons against the opposition forces – which have not been tried because of the stern warnings issued by the international community. The Syrian army has already tried attacks by fighter planes, fuel-air explosives, artillery barrages and tank fire.

U.S. intelligence says the regime may be readying chemical weapons and could be desperate enough to use them. Both Israel and the U.S. have also expressed concerns they could fall into militant hands if the regime crumbles.

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavarov also said on Friday the Syrian government has pulled its chemical weapons together to one or two locations from several arsenals across the country to keep them safe amid the rebel onslaught.

“According to the information we have, as well as the data of the U.S. and European special services, the government is doing everything to secure it,” he said.

On Sunday, Syria’s rebels said they had seized a government military camp near Damascus, building on its current offensive into the capital.

Doha-based broadcaster Al Jazeera quoted the rebel Syrian Free Army as saying that its fighters had captured the camp in the area of Ras al-Ein, in the outskirts of Damascus, after fierce clashes with government troops.

Rebels and troops loyal to President Bashar Assad were also fighting in the suburban Damascus towns of Darya and Arabeen, reported the opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Opposition forces have been fighting government forces in and around Damascus for weeks, raising the possibility that Assad could lose his hold on the capital.

At least 130 people were killed Saturday across Syria, including 42 in and around Damascus, added the Britain-based watchdog.

News from Syria is difficult to verify as authorities have barred most foreign media from the country since a pro-democracy uprising started in March last year.

english.al-akhbar.com

The Syrian opposition groups that have taken control of Aleppo’s countryside are deploying a religious police force to enforce new laws, such as barring women from driving and making prayer compulsory.

Aleppo – The battle for Aleppo does not get the kind of media attention it did during the early days of the opposition’s offensive to take the city. Neither the regime nor the opposition has been able to make much headway in the past several months. 

Residents of the embattled city, whose main concerns revolve around security and survival, were shocked to hear that opposition groups who control the Aleppan countryside are deploying a vice-and-virtue police to enforce a deeply conservative interpretation of Islamic law.

The opposition insists that the new force is the revolution’s version of a civilian police squad, whose primary purpose is to fight crime, particularly those committed by undisciplined members of the armed factions. In fact, there are those who support its creation for this very reason.

One local resident, for example, argued that “there were a number of transgressions committed by some Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters, and this police force will punish those involved – their door is open to whoever wants to lodge a complaint. We shouldn’t judge them before we’ve tried them.”

Then, rumors began to circulate that such a formation was patrolling the streets of the town of al-Bab in Aleppo’s countryside and herding people into mosques during prayer time and preventing women from driving cars. The opposition quickly denied the news.

They insisted that the picture of a religious police office circulating on the Internet was taken in Saudi Arabia and attributed to the opposition to tarnish its reputation. Regime loyalists responded by taking several pictures of the office from different angles to establish its location.

Then, rumors began to circulate that such a formation was herding people into mosques during prayer time and preventing women from driving cars.

The following day, the so-called Revolutionary Military Council in Aleppo issued a statement banning women from driving. The group also released several video clips showing men of various Arab nationalities patrolling the streets and forcing people to pray.

Another video posted on YouTube by opposition activists shows a prominent member of the Saudi virtue police, Abdallah al-Hattel, in a pickup truck in the suburbs of Aleppo calling on people to attend to their prayers.

These developments sparked the anger of many of Aleppo’s women. “This revolution for freedom is driving us further into the arms of the Syrian army and the regime’s approach to social and individual freedoms,” Mais al-Omar declared.

“What we lacked were political freedoms,” she continued, “but instead they decided to take away our social and individual freedoms. All the masks have now fallen and we can see their true nature and the extremist ideas they advocate.”

Secular opposition activists were shocked by the news, with some suggesting that the whole affair was fabricated by the regime.

One activist told Al-Akhbar that if the reports are true, then “it is a crime against the Syrian woman who has been flying planes for many years now and has entered many fields that were once exclusively male, like joining the army and becoming judges.”

Others in the opposition camp belittled the importance of such a development, saying that the decision to form the police force “was taken by an unelected group that does not represent the Syrian revolution, which is seeking to take advantage of the chaos caused by the stubborn regime.”

Another regime opponent, Safa Maarawi, condemned the religious police, but nevertheless blamed the regime for “repressing the secularists and building thousands of mosques. Its first response to the revolution was to throw secularists in jail, thus opening the way for the Islamists, which it then exploited to scare people.”

There were, however, opposition voices who openly supported the virtue-and-vice squad, arguing that “it is part-and-parcel of the freedom revolution, which means that the conservative Muslim majority has the right to impose its views on society, as long as it is the majority.”

The university student, who said he was forced to take up arms to defend peaceful protesters, conceded that “Syrian society will find it difficult at first, as was the case with our Saudi brothers a century ago, but they will eventually discover that their purpose is to apply Islam and justice.”

FSA supporter Salem, for his part, maintained that “the regime’s media is blowing the matter out of proportion, for it is a secondary and minor development compared to the much larger civil and peaceful revolutionary movement,” pointing out that no one should be disturbed by members of this police force, for “they suffered terribly at the hands of the regime and are known for their high religious values.”

Samer Othman also defended the creation of such a force, noting that their primary role is “to pursue criminals, thieves, and those who drink alcohol – the focus on preventing women from driving is merely to cover up all these positive aspects.”

thenational.ae

Bashar Al Assad will not quit even under pressure from allies in Moscow and Beijing, the Russian foreign minister said yesterday.

“Assad is not going anywhere, no matter what anyone tells him, be it China or Russia,” Sergei Lavrov said.

Mr Lavrov said Arab states had asked Russia to convey offers of safe passage to the Syrian president in an effort to persuade him to leave.

“And we replied: ‘Why do we have to do it? If you have these plans, go to him directly yourselves’,” Mr Lavrov said.

Russia, the regime’s main arms supplier, has used its United Nations Security Council veto on resolutions critical of Mr Al Assad because they amount to outside efforts at regime change.

Mr Lavrov said even guarantees of safe passage were unlikely to stop the war.

“Western intelligence services have serious fears and forecasts that the toppling of Assad would not resolve the problem, that fighting would move to a new stage,” he said.

Intensive fighting has reached the suburbs of Damascus and, in truth, the battle lines have long been drawn, with neither side expecting to be offered any quarter by their opponents, despite various stillborn attempts by UN envoys to broker a negotiated solution.

That both sides believe they are locked in a fight to the end is unambiguously spelt in graffiti on walls in the capital’s outer reaches. Regime loyalists write: “Assad or no one”, while rebels write: “Bashar, don’t leave, we’re coming for you”.

More than 44,000 people have been killed since the uprising began in March 2011, a majority of them civilians, according to human rights organisations. Artillery, air strikes, ballistic missiles, tanks, car bombs and knives have all been used in a struggle that UN investigators said this week was increasingly marred by atrocities and sectarianism.

No day passes without fatalities, and yesterday was no different, with 86 people reported killed by the evening, although numbers are impossible to confirm.

A car bomb exploded in Qaboun, a restive eastern district of Damascus, killing at least five people, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Qaboun encapsulates many of the complexities of the Syrian crisis, and is widely considered one of the more dangerous areas of the capital.

Key military bases are there, but so too are densely populated residential areas. Its population is a mix of Alawites and Sunni Muslims, regime security officers and ordinary civilians, staunch Assad loyalists and those seeking his overthrow – with a significant number of Palestinian refugees thrown in, caught between the two sides.

Parts of Qaboun are in regime hands, but other areas are essentially held by the rebel Free Syrian Army, which, residents say, conducts regular operations in the area as it attempts to open a gateway into the heart of Damascus.

Sana, the official news agency, said troops had repelled an attack yesterday on a military facility in Shabaa, on the eastern edge of Damascus, in which the army unit’s commanding officer was killed.

It also said Haidar Al Smoudi, a cameraman with the state-run Syrian TV, was killed by gunmen in Damascus on Friday.

Despite the failure of diplomatic efforts to even stem, let alone halt, the bloodshed, the UN peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi is expected to hold talks with Mr Al Assad in Damascus soon, although no date has been specified. Russia has also invited Mr Brahimi to Moscow for discussions.

A major international concern over the deepening Syria crisis has been chemical weapons stockpiles. Damascus has not formally acknowledged having such an arsenal, but Russia, which has military advisers in Syria, has sought to allay concerns they might be used by the regime or seized by rebels as they gain territory.

Mr Lavrov said Mr Al Assad’s chemical weapons were currently “under control”, although he criticised the western backers of Syria’s opposition forjeopardising safeguards and making it more likely chemical arms would be taken by Islamist militants.

bbc.co.uk

Syria has acted to consolidate its chemical weapons into “one or two” places to prevent rebels capturing them, Russia’s foreign minister says.

Sergei Lavrov said the weapons had previously been “scattered” across the country and they were “under control” for the time being.

Mr Lavrov also said President Bashar al-Assad had no plans to leave Syria.

Rebels have been fighting the Assad government for 21 months. Activists say some 44,000 people have been killed.

Meanwhile in Syria on Saturday, activists said a car bomb had exploded in an eastern district of the capital, Damascus, killing at least five people.

‘Not going anywhere’

Mr Lavrov told journalists on a flight returning to Moscow from an EU-Russia summit in Brussels: “According to the information we have, as well as the data of the US and European special services, the [Syrian] government is doing everything to secure [its chemical stockpiles].

“The Syrian government has concentrated the stockpiles in one or two centres, unlike the past when they were scattered across the country.”

The US fears Syria may be tempted to use the weapons if its situation becomes more desperate.

Mike Rogers, the chairman of the US House Committee on Intelligence, told the BBC a regional plan was needed to secure the weapons “immediately”.

“If not, we’re going to have a very major destabilising event in the region,” Mr Rogers said.

US President Barack Obama warned President Assad this month he would face “consequences” if chemical weapons were turned on the Syrian people, saying it would be “totally unacceptable”.

The US has said this would be a “red line” that might trigger military intervention.

Mr Lavrov said he believed Western powers had no appetite to intervene.

“I have the feeling that they are praying for Russia and China to continue blocking permission for external intervention. Because if there is such a decision, they will have to act, and no-one is ready to act.”

Mr Lavrov said he believed neither side could win the civil war, and that President Assad was not going to leave.

“Assad is not going anywhere, no matter what anyone says, be it China or Russia,” Mr Lavrov said.

He said some regional powers had asked Moscow to mediate for Mr Assad to leave.

Mr Lavrov said he told them: “Why do we have to do it? If you have these plans, go to him yourselves.”

Inside Syria, the UK-based opposition activist group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said a car bomb had exploded in the eastern Damascus district of Qaboun, killing at least five people and injuring dozens.

It also reported that rebel forces had warned two predominantly Christian towns they could come under attack.

The rebels said the towns of Mahrada and Sqailbiyeh in Hama province were being used by government forces to launch attacks.

The Observatory also said there were clashes between rebels and government forces in the south of the capital, in the Hajar al-Aswad district.

The Observatory says more than 44,000 people have been killed in the past 21 months of unrest, including nearly 31,000 civilians.