MOSCOW, April 29 (RIA Novosti) - Moscow believes using the issue of the alleged deployment of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the Syrian conflict to attain geopolitical goals is unacceptable, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday.
“Perhaps there are some states that believe any methods are good as long as they can help overthrow the Syrian regime. However, the subject of the use of weapons of mass destruction is far too serious,” he said, commenting on US and UK statements last week to the effect that chemical weapons may have been used in Syria.
“I think it is unacceptable to use it, to speculate on it for geopolitical purposes.”
The White House said in a letter to lawmakers on Thursday that intelligence gathered by the United States, with the help of opposition forces in Syria, shows “with varying degrees of confidence that the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons on a small scale in Syria.” Damascus has denied using chemical weapons, but said the opposition might have used them.
US President Barack Obama has described the use of chemical weapons in the conflict a “red line” for potential American intervention, but held back from saying what the US might do about the latest disclosures. The White House letter said the attack very likely originated with Assad’s forces.
The US has been in contact with neighboring states including Israel, Jordan and Turkey over what measures to take to stop chemical weapons stockpiles in Syria falling into the hands of terrorist groups, the New York Times reported last November. Israel is concerned in particular that Lebanon's Hezbollah movement could get hold of chemical warheads that it could fire from rockets into Israel.
If Assad’s forces has indeed use chemical weapons, Washington has a chance to press Russia and China, as UN Security Council members which have previously blocked sanctions against Syria, to take action, said Bruce Riedel a former veteran Middle East analyst at the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Lavrov said last Tuesday that any reports of the alleged use of chemical weapons in the conflict must be carefully investigated to avoid a repetition of the “Iraqi scenario.”
In 2003, unconfirmed intelligence that former Iraqi dictaror Saddam Hussein’s regime possessed weapons of mass destruction were used as justification for a US-led invasion. That information later proved to be almost totally unfounded, according to weapons inspectors who searched for the weapons after that war.
In The forum part of the McCain Institute for International Leadership, a program formed by McCain as a way to debate foreign affairs. This year's theme for the Sedona Forum is "How can we promote freedom and democracy effectively?"
Rather than a discussion between McCain and Biden, the two sat on stage together with McCain posing questions to his former Democratic adversary on gun control and whether background checks are necessary, human rights abuses at the hands of the United States and the recent bombings at the Boston marathon.
McCain and Biden both said that despite their disagreements, they've never lost respect for one another.
On gun control, Biden said it's never been a simple issue, but that Congress has miscalculated how deeply the public feels about it and has failed to stand up to groups like the National Rifle Association, particularly after the shootings in Newtown. He said the public is looking to Congress to be mature enough to figure out a way to diminish the chance it will happen again.
"For the first time ever, you have people who are for gun safety, for increasing background checks," Biden said. "Two out of three of them say it will be a major determining factor in how I vote. That's the political dynamic that has changed. So I think we're going to get this anyway. I think this will pass before the year is out, within this Congress."
In responding to a question about the vulnerabilities of the United States when it comes to terrorist attacks, Biden said that the radical, lone wolves have been the most difficult to catch. But he said America shouldn't change its values, how it treats people abroad or people coming into the United States. Nor should America adopt policies that keep people from freely walking down the street without being frisked by police or carrying identification cards, he said.
"The moment we change any of those things, that's when they win," Biden said. "Because they don't see how you can have a society that is not ordered and regimented and wedded to an orthodoxy that is theirs. That's the point that bothers them most about us."
McCain followed up by saying that those who tortured U.S. prisoners, in violation of the Geneva convention, should be exposed and be held responsible to prevent repeated abuses.
Biden agreed with the man once held as a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War. He said the internal debate in Congress and at the White House is how things got to that point, but it's not yet resolved.
"I think the only way you excise the demons is you acknowledge what happened, straightforward," Biden said.
"Because of these reckless cuts, there are parents whose kids just got kicked out of Head Start programs scrambling for a solution. There are seniors who depend on programs like Meals on Wheels to live independently looking for help. There are military communities - families that have already sacrificed enough - coping under new strains. All because of these cuts."
"This week, the sequester hurt travelers, who were stuck for hours in airports and on planes, and rightly frustrated by it."
And, there's more pain on the horizon, Obama warned: "These cuts are scheduled to keep falling across other parts of the government that provide vital services for the American people."
Then, Obama declared that the only way to avoid more sequester pain is to pass his budget:
"There is only one way to truly fix the sequester: by replacing it before it causes further damage.
"A couple weeks ago, I put forward a budget that replaces the next several years of these dumb cuts with smarter cuts; reforms our tax code to close wasteful special interest loopholes; and invests in things like education, research, and manufacturing that will create new jobs right now."
Obama warned of the "pain felt by kids kicked off Head Start, or the 750,000 Americans projected to lose their jobs" due to the sequester.
Children and workers are being hurt and "That pain is real" - and more will follow if Congress doesn't pass his budget, Obama warned:
"The American people worked too hard, for too long, rebuilding from one economic crisis just to see your elected officials keep causing more."
Don Draper, Mad Men’s master advertiser likes to say “when you don’t like what they are saying, change the conversation.” When it comes to the current economic weakness, which was confirmed again today by the release of lower than expected GDP data, Washington would love do just that. Fortunately for them, they consistently outdo the master minds of Madison Avenue when it comes to misdirection. If the government doesn’t like what people are saying, they don’t bother just to change the conversation, they change the meaning of the words.
The latest example of this was revealed earlier this week when the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) announced new methods of calculating Gross Domestic Product (GDP) that will immediately make the economy “bigger’ than it used to be. The changes focus heavily on how money spent on research and development (R&D) and the production of “intangible” assets like movies, music, and television programs will be accounted for. Declaring such expenditures to be “investments” will immediately increase U.S. GDP by about three percent. Such an upgrade would immediately increase the theoretic size of the U.S economy and may well lead to the perception of faster growth. In reality these smoke and mirror alterations are no different from changes made to the inflation and unemployment yardsticks that for years have convinced Americans that the economy is better than it actually is.
Today’s data release confirms that the economic “recovery” is weaker than expected and remains heavily dependent on Federal support. Personal spending was indeed up 3.2%, the biggest jump in two years, but real earnings were down by 5.3%, the biggest fall since 2009. Not surprisingly the buying was made possible by a drop in the savings rate, which came in at just 2.6%, the lowest since the 4th quarter of 2007. No doubt, rising home prices and falling mortgage rates (made possible by Fed stimulus) allowed Americans to refinance their homes and to borrow and spend the money that they did not earn. With GDP continuing to disappoint, a statistical make-over couldn't come at a more convenient time.
In the simplest terms, GDP is calculated by combining a nation’s private spending, government spending, and investments (while adding trade surplus or subtracting trade deficits). Business spending on R&D, a portion of which comes in the form of salaries, has traditionally been considered an expense that does not explicitly add to GDP. But now, the United States will lead the rest of the world in redefining GDP. Washington has now declared that the $400 billion spent annually by U.S. businesses on R&D will count towards GDP. This equates to about 2.7% of our nearly $16 Trillion GDP. The argument goes that, for example, the GDP generated by iPhones has far exceeded the cost spent by Apple to develop the product. Therefore, Apple’s R&D is not an expense but an investment.
The BEA also argues that the cost of producing television shows, movies, and music should count as investments that add to GDP. Supporters of the change often hold up the blockbuster television comedy Seinfeld as an example. Given that the show’s billions in earnings far exceeded its initial costs, they argue that the production expenses should be considered “investments” (like R&D) and be added into GDP.
Economists who have staked their reputations on the efficacy of Keynesian growth strategies have argued that such changes will more accurately reflect the realities of our 21st century information economy. But their analysis ignores the failures so often associated with R&D and artistic productions. For every breakthrough iPhone there are dozens of ill-conceived gizmos that never get off the drawing board. For every Seinfeld, there are countless failures and bombs that leave nothing but losses.
In essence, the new methodology is an exercise in double accounting. For instance, suppose a company employs an accountant who works in the sales department, who is then transferred to the R&D department at the same salary. He still counts beans but now his salary will be billed to the R&D budget rather than sales. In the old methodology, the accountant’s impact on GDP would come only from the personal consumption that his salary allows. Going forward, he will add to GDP in two ways: from his personal consumption and his salary’s addition to his company’s R&D budget. The same formula would apply to a trucker who switches from a freight company to a movie production company (for the same salary). If he moves refrigerators, he only adds to GDP through his personal spending, but if he hauls movie lights, his contribution to GDP is doubled. It makes no difference if the movie bombs.
These double shots are different from traditional investments, which inject savings (or idle cash) back into the marketplace. Until money from personal or corporate savings is invested, it is not adding to GDP.
Another change that will artificially boost GDP concerns how government salaries will be counted. Unlike most private sector compensation, wages, salaries, and pension contributions paid to government workers are added directly to GDP. This distinction makes sense and eliminates potentially double accounting. Profits generated by private companies add to GDP when they are ultimately spent or invested by the company. Wages reduce profits, and therefore reduce GDP. But that reduction is cancelled out by the consumption of the employee receiving the wages. Governments do not generate profits, so salaries are the only way that public spending adds back to GDP.
The new system magnifies the GDP impact of government pensions, which are a principal component of public sector compensation. Going forward, the pensions will be calculated not from actual contributions, but from what governments have promised. Under the old system, if a state had a $10,000 pension obligation but only contributed $1,000, only the $1,000 would be added to GDP. Under the new system the entire $10,000 would be counted. So now governments can magically grow the economy simply by making promises they can’t keep.
The bottom line is that now certain private sector salaries (in R&D and entertainment) will be counted twice and public pension contributions will be counted even if they aren’t made. The economy will not actually be any larger or grow any faster, but the statistics will claim otherwise. With the stroke of a pen, our debt to GDP ratio will come down. Will this soothe the fears of our creditors? Will critics of big government take comfort that spending as a share of GDP may be lower? My guess is that the government is confident that its trick will work, and that distracting attention with a statistical illusion is the sole motivation for the change.
A similar type of hocus pocus has been successfully used to make inflation appear much smaller. A few months ago I produced a video showing how changes in methods used to calculate the Consumer Price Index (CPI) have resulted in a widening gap between increases in real prices and the CPI. The changes, that incorporate such concepts as hedonic adjustments and substation bias, were made to make the CPI more “accurate,” but have instead produced consistently lower results. Although I used a basket of 20 goods for that experiment, I gave particular attention to such things as newspaper and magazine prices and health insurance costs. But just recently I came across another data set that leads to the same conclusion.
Since the late 1980’s, The Economist Magazine has compiled something called the “Big Mac Index,”(BMI) a global survey of the cost of McDonald’s signature hamburger. Although the index is primarily used as a means to compare purchasing power parity around the globe, it also can be used to track the prices of Big Macs in the U.S. over many years.
From 1986 to 2003 the U.S. BMI rose roughly in line with the CPI. Although the burger occasionally rose faster or slower, over that 17 year period both indexes increased by about 68% (or about 4% per year). But from April 2003 to January 2013 the CPI Index is up just 25% percent (from 183.8 to 230.28 or about 2.5% per year) while the BMI is up 61% (from $2.71 to $4.37 or about 6.1% per year), or more than twice the rate of inflation.
What could possibly account for the difference? Has the Big Mac gotten bigger, better, tastier, or healthier? As an iconic product, McDonald’s has been reluctant to change a proven formula. If the Big Mac hasn’t changed, is it possible that our inflation yardstick has?
It has been estimated that if the government used the same methodology to measure inflation that it used during the 1980’s, we would be currently dealing with officialinflation that would be many times higher than today’s official 1.5%rate. The Big Mac appears to confirm this.
But now the government appears ready to distort the figures even further. With little resistance from the media or the public, the Obama Administration and Congressional Republicans seem ready to switch the inflation measurements used for Social Security away from the CPI in favor of the even more attenuated “Chain Weighted CPI.” This index, which is consistently lower than the CPI, looks to incorporate changes in spending patterns when consumers switch to more affordable products (in other words, it measures the cost of survival, not the cost of living). And while many admit that this is a manipulation, no one really seems to care.
Similarly clumsy tricks have been used to make our unemployment problem appear less severe. Over the years new methods have been introduced to factor out those who have “dropped out” of the labor force or to count part-time or temporary workers as employed.
All this takes us right back to Don Draper. If you can’t change the conversation, change the words. If that doesn’t work, just change the dictionaries.
Syrian Prime Minister Wael al-Halqi has survived a car bomb attack in the capital, Damascus, state media say.
The blast in the capital's western Mezzeh district targeted Mr Halqi's convoy, state TV said, reportedly causing a number of casualties.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based activist group, said Mr Halqi's bodyguard had been killed, AFP news agency reported.
It is unclear whether the blast was a suicide bombing or a planted device.
State television carried a brief interview with Mr Halqi, saying that it was filmed after the attack.
He appears assured but somewhat shaken in the interview, in which he talks about a meeting he has just attended on the economy. "I was walking in the street when suddenly there was a very powerful explosion and I saw a car burning and people running," a witness told AFP.
State TV said the blast happened at a busy intersection, near a public garden and a school. The upmarket neighbourhood is home to government buildings, the residences of several political figures and a military airport vital to the regime's defences.
An unnamed Syrian official said the explosion was caused by a bomb placed underneath a parked car in the area, the Associated Press news agency reported.
An earlier report said it had been a suicide attack.
Footage from the scene showed the charred remains of several vehicles, and a badly damaged bus. Debris and glass were strewn around a wide area, where onlookers had gathered.
A picture that activists said was of the site just after the attack showed a large plume of black smoke rising into the air near a road and a high-rise building.
Syrian forces and rebels have been fighting around Damascus for months but with neither side gaining the upper hand.
The attack is the latest bombing inside government-controlled areas of the capital.
In December a suicide bombing struck the interior ministry. State media said top officials had escaped unhurt, but it later emerged that the interior minister himself had been badly injured.
So far there has been no claim of responsibility for Monday's attack. Similar bombings in the past have been linked to the jihadist al-Nusra Front, one of the most prominent rebel groups fighting the regime.
Mr Halqi, a senior member of the ruling Baath party, became prime minister last year after Riad Hijab defected to Jordan. He was previously health minister.
More than 70,000 people have been killed since fighting between Syrian forces and rebels erupted in March 2011.
The Iranian Army Ground Forces’ second-in-command says the country will unveil new domestically developed weapons and equipment during the upcoming military exercises in central Iran.
“A number of armored personnel carriers, weapons, sniper rifles, anti-aircraft batteries and missile launchers will be unveiled in Beit-ul-Muqaddas exercises of the Army Ground Forces,” Brigadier General Kioumars Heidari said on Friday.
He added that the Iranian Ground Forces are armed with the state-of-the-art equipment which will be used for the first time in Beit-ul-Muqaddas military exercises to be conducted in the central Isfahan Province on May 24.
The general stated that the drills would also provide an opportunity for exercising “asymmetric warfare” which Iran has adopted in response to new threats.
Over the past few years, Iran has held several military exercises to enhance the defense capabilities of its armed forces and to test modern military tactics and equipment.
In March, the Iranian Army’s Ground Forces launched a three-day drill, codenamed Khatam al-Anbia, in the southwestern province of Khuzestan, during which new indigenous missiles were test-fired.
The Islamic Republic has repeatedly assured other nations, especially its neighbors, that its military might poses no threat to other countries, stating that its defense doctrine is based on deterrence.
