Residents and members of Free Syrian Army walk among damaged buildings after a Syrian Air Force fighter jet loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad fired missiles at Houla, near Homs, November 6, 2012. Picture taken November 6, 2012. REUTERS/Misra Al-Misri/Shaam News Network/Handout

A man carries an injured boy after a Syrian Air Force fighter jet loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad fired missiles at Houla, near Homs, November 6, 2012. Picture taken November 6, 2012. REUTERS/Misra Al-Misri/Shaam News Network/Handout

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey will imminently lodge an official request with NATO asking the military alliance to deploy Patriot missiles along its border with Syria to guard against violence spilling over, a senior Turkish foreign ministryofficial said on Wednesday.

If approved, the deployment would represent a further deterioration in relations between Turkey and Syria - once close allies - and see more military hardware poured into a region where tensions are already high.

Britain also appeared to harden its stance on Syria on Wednesday when Foreign Secretary William Hague said he had ordered UK diplomats to talk directly to Syrian rebels.Britain's previous stance had been to engage only with political representatives of the opposition.

Syria's war, in which the opposition estimates 38,000 people have been killed, raises the specter of wider Middle East turbulence and poses one of the greatest foreign policy challenges for U.S. President Barack Obama as he starts his second term.

Analysts said Obama had been unable to make bold moves on Syria during the election period because of the risk that doing so would hurt his popularity. Britain and Turkey have joined U.S. calls for President Bashar al-Assad to step down.

Syrian rebels fired mortars at Assad's palace in Damascus on Wednesday but missed, an attack underlining the growing boldness of those fighting to end his family's 42-year rule and the rebel strategy of launching high-profile attacks against symbols of his rule.

A July bomb that killed four of Assad's top lieutenants was swiftly followed up with an advance into Damascus by rebels but they were then partially beaten back by Assad's forces.

Damascus residents told Reuters heavy-caliber shells apparently aimed at the palace had hit the nearby residential Mezze 86 district that is home to members of Assad's Alawite sect. State-run media said at least three people had been killed and seven wounded in what it described as a terrorist attack.

The violence has highlighted the sectarian dimension of a civil war that is deepening the rift between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims in the region - Assad's Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam.

Allegations of Syrian soldiers looting foreign aid surfaced on Wednesday after a medical aid group said troops had been seizing the supplies and reselling them or channeling them towards government loyalists, putting millions of lives at risk.

"When the regime attacks one of our medical facilities, whether it's a hospital or something else, they load up everything they can carry, and they burn the rest," said Tawfik Chamaa, a Geneva-based doctor and spokesman for the Union of Syrian Medical Relief Organizations (UOSSM).

DIRECT CONTACT WITH REBELS

"(The armed opposition) are playing an increasingly influential role within Syria as the conflict worsens," Hague said in a statement.

"I have therefore now authorized my officials to have direct contact with an even wider range of representatives including military figures in the armed opposition."

He said Britain would continue to only supply non-lethal support to the unarmed opposition, in compliance with a European Union arms embargo and British export licensing laws.

British officials would stress the importance of human rights and the rejection of "extremism and terrorism", and contact with the rebels would be limited to political dialogue, he said.

On a visit to a Jordanian refugee camp, British Prime Minister David Cameron said that efforts to halt the bloodshed so far had been fruitless.

"I am standing with the Syrian border just behind me and every night 500 refugees are fleeing the most appalling persecution and bloodshed to come to safety and frankly what we have done so far is not working," he said in Zaatari, a camp housing about 30,000 Syrian refugees in northern Jordan.

International and regional rivalries have complicated efforts to mediate a resolution to the conflict - Russia and China have vetoed three U.N. Security Council resolutions that would have put Assad under pressure.

The conflict has also started to suck in neighboring countries. Turkey has been responding in kind to mortar shells hitting its territory as a result of fighting between Syrian rebels and Syrian government forces.

A senior Turkish foreign ministry official told Reuters on Wednesday that the government would make an "imminent" request to NATO to protect its 910-km (560-mile) border with Syria with Patriot surface-to-air missiles.

The official said there was a potential missile threat to Turkey from Syria and Turkey had a right to take steps to counter such a threat. He gave no further details.

The United States and other Western powers say a resolution to the conflict has also been frustrated by divisions and in-fighting between Syrian opposition groups.

Syrian opposition groups will meet on Thursday to form a new 50-member civilian group that will later choose a temporary government for Syria and coordinate with the revolt's military wing.

PALESTINIAN INFIGHTING

Highlighting how Palestinian refugees have been drawn into the conflict, rebels killed 10 members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), which is loyal to Assad, in fighting near the Palestinian camp of Yarmouk in Damascus, opposition sources said.

Syrian rebels and pro-opposition Palestinians announced the formation of a new brigade last week to battle the PFLP-GC.

The Syrian foreign ministry said Syria would stand "with full determination against any attempt to drag the Palestinians into what is happening in Syria", the state news agency SANA reported, quoting a ministry official.

Air strikes and artillery barrages unleashed by the Syrian military in the last few weeks have wrecked whole districts of the capital, as well as parts of towns and cities elsewhere.

Yet, for all their firepower, Assad's forces seem no closer to crushing their lightly armed opponents, who in turn have so far proved unable to topple the Syrian leader.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based opposition watchdog, says it had the names of at least 38,000 people confirmed dead by friends and family. The death toll is going up every day, with a thousand or more killed in some weeks.

(Writing by Oliver Holmes; Additional reporting by Tom Miles in Geneva, Gulsen Solaker in Ankara and Adrian Croft in Brussels; Editing by Pravin Char and Andrew Osborn)

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Hours after U.S. President Barack Obama was re-elected, the United States backed a U.N. committee's call on Wednesday to renew debate over a draft international treaty to regulate the $70 billion global conventional arms trade.

U.N. delegates and gun control activists have complained that talks collapsed in July largely because Obama feared attacks from Republican rival Mitt Romney if his administration was seen as supporting the pact, a charge Washington denies.

The month-long talks at U.N. headquarters broke off after the United States - along with Russia and other major arms producers - said it had problems with the draft treaty and asked for more time.

But the U.N. General Assembly's disarmament committee moved quickly after Obama's win to approve a resolution calling for a new round of talks March 18-28. It passed with 157 votes in favor, none against and 18 abstentions.

U.N. diplomats said the vote had been expected before Tuesday's U.S. presidential election but was delayed due to Superstorm Sandy, which caused a three-day closure of the United Nations last week.

An official at the U.S. mission said Washington's objectives have not changed.

"We seek a treaty that contributes to international security by fighting illicit arms trafficking and proliferation, protects the sovereign right of states to conduct legitimate arms trade, and meets the concerns that we have been articulating throughout," the official said.

"We will not accept any treaty that infringes on the constitutional rights of our citizens to bear arms," he said.

U.S. officials have acknowledged privately that the treaty under discussion would have no effect on domestic gun sales and ownership because it would apply only to exports.

The main reason the arms trade talks are taking place at all is that the United States - the world's biggest arms trader accounting for more than 40 percent of global conventional arms transfers - reversed U.S. policy on the issue after Obama was first elected and decided in 2009 to support a treaty.

'MONTHS AWAY' FROM DEAL?

Countries that abstained included Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Sudan, Belarus, Cuba and Iran. China, a major arms producer that has traditionally abstained, voted in favor.

Among the top six arms-exporting nations, Russia cast the only abstention. Britain, France and Germany joined China and the United States in support of the resolution.

The measure now goes to the 193-nation General Assembly for a formal vote. It is expected to pass.

The resolution said countries are "determined to build on the progress made to date towards the adoption of a strong, balanced and effective Arms Trade Treaty."

Jeff Abramson, director of Control Arms, a coalition of advocacy groups, urged states to agree on stringent provisions.

"In Syria, we have seen the death toll rise well over 30,000, with weapons and ammunition pouring in the country for months now," he said. "We need a treaty that will set tough rules to control the arms trade, that will save lives and truly make the world a better place."

Brian Wood of Amnesty International said: "After today's resounding vote, if the larger arms trading countries show real political will in the negotiations, we're only months away from securing a new global deal that has the potential to stop weapons reaching those who seriously abuse human rights."

The treaty would require states to make respecting human rights a criterion for allowing arms exports.

Britain's U.N. mission said on its Twitter feed it hoped that the March negotiations would yield the final text of a treaty. Such a pact would then need to be ratified by the individual signatories before it could enter into force.

The National Rifle Association, the powerful U.S. interest group, strongly opposes the arms treaty and had endorsed Romney.

The United States has denied it sought to delay negotiations for political reasons, saying it had genuine problems with the draft as written.

(Editing by Xavier Briand)

A riot police officer was engulfed in flames after a petrol bomb was thrown by protesters outside parliament. Photograph: Dimitri Messinis/AP

Anger in Athens as Greek Austerity Measures Passed

Petrol bombs thrown and teargas and water cannons used during protests as draconian cuts pass narrowly

By Larry Elliott , The Guardian, – November 7, 2012

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/07/greece-austerity-protests-violence

It came after a night of rain, tear gas and clashes. But after four months of tortuous negotiations and a rancorous parliamentary debate, the Greek parliament finally announced late on Wednesday night that it had passed the most draconian package yet of austerity measures needed to keep Europe’s weakest economy afloat.

Following heady scenes inside and outside the 300-seat house, 153 MPs supported the €13.5bn (£10.8bn) package in a vote that will be remembered as perhaps the most electrifying in the history of the three-year Greek debt crisis.

Approval of the spending cuts, tax rises and labour reforms was given with a weakened majority – seven rebels voted against the measures – but on trade markets around the world there were signs of relief. Mandarins in Brussels said the ballot would pave the way to the release of €31.5bn in EU and IMF sponsored rescue funds – desperately needed to keep bankruptcy at bay.

“Greece today has taken a big, decisive and optimistic step. A step towards recovery,” said prime minister Antonis Samaras after the cliffhanger vote. “I am very pleased,” he told reporters before emphasising that the “next step” was passage of the 2013 budget in a vote on Sunday.

With Greece’s future within the eurozone resting on the result, the conservative leader had implored wavering lawmakers to back the legislation as 100,000 protesters braved sporadic downpours to scream “Fight! They’re drinking our blood” and other anti-austerity slogans.

“The issue is to keep the country in the euro,” Samaras told the assembled deputies shortly after violence broke out when a tiny minority tore down a barricade in an attempt to storm the parliament.

“These are the very last painful measures,” said the leader, whose fragile coalition had faced its greatest test with the vote. “If further fiscal adjustment is needed it will come from clamping down on tax evasion and cutting public expenditure.”

As street battles raged, authorities used water cannon to disperse demonstrators throwing petrol bombs at police while loud booms and the piercing blasts of stun grenades rang out.

The small Democratic Left party, a junior partner in the tripartite alliance, abstained from supporting the bill.

Dissent in the socialist Pasok party was such that six of its 33 MPS also refused to put their names to the deficit-reducing measures, with defectors arguing they would drive the country into even deeper recession. An MP in Samaras’s New Democracy party also abstained. The seven deputies were expelled from their respective parties within minutes of the roll-call.

With the Greek economy on course to contract for a sixth straight year and more than a quarter of the country’s labour force out of work, Alexis Tsipras, who heads the radical left main opposition Syriza party, lambasted the government for “leading Greek people to catastrophe and chaos”.

He said the “absurd” measures would worsen the country’s economic death spiral. “Very soon you will be back in this parliament again listening to the programme policies of a new government,” he railed, denouncing Samaras for promoting policies he opposed in opposition.

On the streets, Greeks reacted with a mixture of fury and malaise with many openly questioning the prime minister’s assertion that the measures would be the last to be imposed on a nation that has seen wages and pensions decreased five times in the past three years.

“Until now Greeks have been asleep. We haven’t really reacted at all,” said Kostas Mitas, a 48-year-old tradesman whose views were on display in a T-shirt that proclaimed “**** off Troika” in an allusion to the country’s international creditors. “But Greeks are unpredictable and I’m afraid that they might wake up suddenly. For the moment these measures are just hypothetical but when they start to be felt we could see a lot of violence.”

The vote came on the second day of a 48-hour general strike, with unionists vowing yet more industrial action in the days and months ahead. “These policies are clearly not working. All they have done is impoverish Greeks and this country and instead of going down our debt is simply going up,” said Ilias Iliopoulos at the civil servants’ union, Adedy.

“People are going hungry, more than two million are unemployed. This government isn’t going to last long, of that you can be sure,” he added. “These measures may have become law but they won’t be able to enforce them.”

But analysts begged to differ. Fears of Greece slipping over the edge were so strong that the coalition would survive, they said.

“Everyone knows that elections would be a catastrophe and nobody wants them, not even the main opposition,” said professor Dimitris Keridis, who teaches political science at Athens’ Panteion University. “Even if there is a lot of dissatisfaction within the government, this simple fact is Samaras’s biggest asset.”

Obama Victory Spells Trouble For Israel’s Netanyahu

sage: I had a very strong train of thought while reading this article: Israel has been known to be the “foot in the door” for the cabal in the Middle East; it is the strongarm for the military industrial complex and, as such, the scapegoat for anything that goes wrong. Netanyahu has been in containment yet shows no sign of turning to the Light. In fact, his public backing of dark-nominated Mitt Romney seems to point in the other direction. His use of Iran’s nuclear program as an excuse to foster dissent with Obama has been negated by Iran’s announcement to attend the nuclear talks.

Now that Obama is back in office, the Light agenda is about to take off. Could Netanyahu be seeing the Divine Plan on its way and dreading the confrontation?

By Jeffrey Heller, Reuters – November 7, 2012

http://tinyurl.com/anx4d7k

(Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces an even more awkward time with Washington and re-energized critics at home who accused him on Wednesday of backing the loser in the U.S. presidential election.

With Iran topping his conservative agenda, Netanyahu will have to contend with a strengthened second-term Democratic president after four years of frosty dealings with Barack Obama and a rift over how to curb Tehran’s nuclear program.

Facing his own re-election battle in January, polls give Netanyahu little chance of losing but perceptions that he has mishandled Israel’s main ally have been seized on by opponents.

“I will continue to work with President Obama to ensure the interests that are vital for the security of Israel’s citizens,” Netanyahu said in a short, congratulatory statement hailing what he called strong strategic relations with Washington.

But in remarks underscoring a rift with the United States over possible Israeli military action against Iran, Netanyahu said in an interview broadcast on Israel’s Channel 2 this week: “If there is no other way to stop Iran, Israel is ready to act.”

Relations between Netanyahu and Obama hit a new low two months ago after the Israeli leader said nations which failed to set “red lines” for Iran – which denies seeking atomic arms – did not have the “moral right” to stop Israel from attacking.

Such comments, along with financial backing for Republican candidate Mitt Romney from a U.S. casino magnate who is also one of Netanyahu’s biggest supporters, were seized upon by critics as evidence the Israeli leader was trying to undermine Obama.

Netanyahu denied he was interfering in U.S. politics.

But former Israeli ambassador to Washington, Sallai Meridor, suggested that Obama would not easily forget that Netanyahu had created a perception that Israel wanted Romney to defeat him.

Obama is “very strategic, very disciplined”, Meridor said during a panel discussion on the U.S. election at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.

“But I don’t think we can just assume that what happened between them over past four years will have just evaporated,” he said. “When people fight for their political life and have the perception that their partner is trying to undermine their chances, it’s not going to disappear.”

One of the Israeli prime minister’s own leading coalition allies, Eli Yishai of the religious Shas party, said simply: “It’s not a very good morning for Netanyahu.”

Peace Talks

For the Palestinians, Obama’s win over Romney – who offended them by suggesting during a visit to Israel in July that cultural differences accounted for the weakness of their economy compared with Israel’s – stirred little emotion.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said in a statement he hopes Obama “continues his efforts to achieve peace in the Middle East”. U.S.-backed peace talks with Israel collapsed in 2010 over Israeli settlement building.

At the forum in Tel Aviv, Dan Shapiro, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, said it would be unrealistic to think Obama would choose to ignore the Palestinian issue in his second term.

“It always finds its way back onto the agenda. You can’t expect this to go away or remain on the back-burner,” he said, without offering a prediction of what Obama might do.

In the West Bank city of Ramallah, unemployed Narmeen Taha, 37, voiced hope that freedom from re-election pressure might make Obama readier to take the Palestinians’ side: “Maybe Obama, now that he doesn’t have to worry about re-election, will exert more pressure on Israel than during his first term.

“But I also don’t think we’ll see a sudden turnaround.”

Obama’s victory could complicate Netanyahu’s run in Israel’s January 22 national ballot, which opinion polls show he will win.

Former premier Ehud Olmert, who accuses Netanyahu of harming Israel’s “most vital interests”, was more likely to announce his candidacy now that Obama was returned to office, analysts said.

Olmert unsuccessfully pursued peace with the Palestinians before resigning in 2008 over corruption allegations. Should he run, Olmert is widely expected to seek to unite centrist and left-wing parties into a new bloc trumpeting slogans warning of four more years of acrimony between Netanyahu and Obama.

“Netanyahu bet on the wrong president and got us into hot water with Obama,” the opposition Kadima party said on Facebook.

In his message to Obama, however, Netanyahu adopted a phrase used lately by the president’s own supporters to describe strategic relations with Washington as “stronger than ever”.