US “ready” to strike Syria: Hagel
US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel says the US military is ready to act on Syria.
“We have moved assets in place to be able to fulfill and comply with whatever option the president wishes to take,” Hagel told the BBC.
“I think it’s pretty clear that chemical weapons were used against people in Syria,” he said.
“I think the intelligence will conclude that it wasn’t the rebels who used it, and there’ll probably be pretty good intelligence to show is that the Syria government was responsible. But we’ll wait and determine what the facts and the intelligence bear out.”
John Kerry…
“What we saw in Syria last week should shock the conscience of the world. It defies any code of morality,” Mr Kerry said at a news conference on Monday.
“Make no mistake, President Obama believes there must be accountability for those who would use the world’s most heinous weapons against the world’s most vulnerable people.”
President Assad
Syrian President Bashar Assad told Russia’s Izvestia newspaper that claims of his government using chemical weapons made by Western countries are “an insult to common sense” and “nonsense.”
“The statements made by the politicians in the USA and in other Western countries represent an insult to common sense and neglect of the public opinion of citizens in those countries. It’s nonsense: first, they bring charges, and then they collect evidence. And it’s one of the most powerful countries that does it – the US. They accused us on Wednesday, and in only two days the American leadership announces they started to collect the evidence.… They accuse our army of using chemical weapons in the area that’s reportedly controlled by the terrorists. In fact, there is no precise front line between the army and the insurgents in that area. And how can a government use chemical weapons – or any other weapons of mass destruction – in the area where government troops are concentrated? This is against elementary logic,” said Assad.
Vladimir Putin
President Putin has told the British PM that Russia did not have any evidence whether a chemical weapons attack had occurred or who was responsible, according to an official statement.
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Other Disasters/ Significant Events
Afghanistan
At least 43 people, including a dozen civilians, were killed in Afghanistan over the last 24 hours, authorities said on Tuesday.
The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) has documented 1,319 civilian deaths and 2,533 injuries—a total of 3,852 civilian casualties—in the first half of 2013.
The total represents an increase of 14 per cent in deaths and 28 per cent in injuries over the same period in 2012, said UNAMA.
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Swollen Heilong river triggers widespread, persistent floods in NE China
Original caption: The aerial photo taken on Aug. 26, 2013 shows houses [and vast tracts of crops and farmland] inundated by floods along the Tongjiang-Fuyuan river section of the Heilong River in northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province. The Heilong River has swelled since mid-August, with some sections of its middle and lower reaches seeing their worst floods in history.(Xinhua/Ma Ling). More images…
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TS FERNAND leaves at least 13 people dead in E. Mexico
At least 13 people were killed Monday after landslides triggered by torrential rains from tropical storm FERNAND destroyed or damaged more than 100 homes in the eastern Mexican state of Veracruz, officials said.
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Fire Earth 