• by Beth Buczynski
• October 28, 2011

Syrian president issues stern warning Bashar al-Assad tells the West to mind its own business or risk an "earthquake" across the Middle East. Crackdown

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Western powers risk causing an "earthquake" across the Middle East if they intervene in Syria, President Bashar al-Assad said, after protesters called for foreign protection from a crackdown in which 3,000 people have been killed.

Assad's warning came ahead of Syrian government talks on Sunday with the Arab League aimed at starting a dialogue between the government and opposition and ending violence which has escalated across Syria in recent days.

Activists said Syrian forces killed more than 50 civilians in the last 48 hours and one activist group said suspected army deserters killed 30 soldiers in clashes in the city of Homs and in an ambush in the northern province of Idlib on Saturday.

Assad's suppression of the seven-month uprising has drawn criticism from the United Nations and Arab League. Western governments have called on him to step down and imposed sanctions on Syrian oil exports and state businesses.

Western countries "are going to ratchet up the pressure, definitely," Assad told Britain's Sunday Telegraph newspaper.

"But Syria is different in every respect from Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen. The history is different. The politics is different."

"Syria is the hub now in this region. It is the fault line, and if you play with the ground you will cause an earthquake."

WESTERN STANCE

NATO military intervention in Libya played a decisive role in toppling Muammar Gaddafi, the third Arab leader to be overthrown after the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt.

Western nations have shown no appetite to repeat their Libyan operation in Syria, but demonstrators are increasingly calling for a "no-fly zone" over their country.

"Do you want to see another Afghanistan, or tens of Afghanistans?" Assad said. "Any problem in Syria will burn the whole region. If the plan is to divide Syria, that is to divide the whole region."

Since the start of protests in March, Syrian authorities have blamed the violence on foreign-backed gunmen and religious extremists they say have killed 1,100 soldiers and police.

Syria has barred most international media, making it hard to verify accounts from activists and authorities.

But the resilience of the protesters, the determination of authorities to crush dissent and the emerging armed insurgency have combined to make Syria's turmoil one of the most intractable confrontations of this year's Arab uprisings.

Assad, whose father put down an armed Muslim Brotherhood uprising in the city of Hama in 1982, killing many thousands, said the latest crisis was part of the same conflict.

"We've been fighting the Muslim Brotherhood since the 1950s and we are still fighting with them," he said.

Authorities had made "many mistakes" in the early part of the uprising, but he said the situation had now improved and that he had started implementing reform within a week of the troubles erupting in mid-March.

"The pace of reform is not too slow. The vision needs to be mature. It would take only 15 seconds to sign a law, but if it doesn't fit your society, you'll have division," he said.

Assad's opponents say although he lifted emergency law and gave citizenship to thousands of stateless Kurds, his promises of reform ring hollow while security forces kill protesters and arrest thousands of people. They also say protests are driven by a desire for greater freedoms, not by an Islamist agenda.

Friday's shooting of demonstrators prompted Arab ministers to issue their strongest call yet on Assad to end the killing of civilians.

The Arab League's committee on the Syrian crisis sent an "urgent message to the Syrian government expressing its severe discontent over the continued killing of Syrian civilians."

A source at Syria's Foreign Ministry, quoted by state media, said the Arab League statement was "based on media lies" and urged the committee to "help restore stability in Syria instead of stirring sedition."

An Arab League ministerial group is due to meet Syrian officials on Sunday in Qatar to press for dialogue between the government and opposition.

Syria, a majority Sunni Muslim nation of 20 million people, is dominated by Assad's minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam.

Aware of potentially seismic geopolitical implications if Assad were to fall, leaders in the mostly Sunni Arab world have been cautious about criticising the Syrian president as they struggle with domestic challenges to their own rule.

Sunni ascendancy in Syria could affect Israel and shake up regional alliances. Assad strengthened ties with Shi'ite Iran while also upholding his father's policy of avoiding conflict with Israel on the occupied Golan Heights frontier.

Syria has barred most international media, making it hard to verify accounts from activists and authorities.

(Additional reporting by David Milliken in London; Editing by Ralph Gowling)

East Coast battered by rare storm Unseasonably early snow causes power outages from the Mid-Atlantic into New England. Treacherous conditions

BOSTON (Reuters) - A rare October snowstorm barreled up the East Coast on Saturday, cutting power to more than two million households, forcing cancellation of scores of airline flights and causing at least three deaths.

Slippery conditions on a roadway caused the crash and death of a man driving in Colchester, Connecticut, said Scott Devico, a spokesman for the Connecticut Department of Emergency Management.

In Temple, Pennsylvania, an 84-year-old man was killed when a snow-caked tree fell through his home, said a Muhlenberg Township Police Department dispatcher.

And a 20-year-old man was electrocuted in Springfield,Massachusetts when he stepped out of his vehicle and touched an electrified guard rail, a Springfield police spokesman said.

New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Massachusetts declared weather emergencies because of the storm.

"We are expecting the snow to continue to fall from New York Citythrough Maine. By tomorrow morning it should be pretty much wrapped up across most areas," said AccuWeather.com senior meteorologist Alan Reppert.

Snow was falling across most of Pennsylvania well into Massachusetts after blanketing parts of Virginia, West Virginia and Maryland earlier in the day, Reppert said.

The unseasonably early storm broke a snow record that had stood since 1925 for New York's Central Park, AccuWeather.com said. New York City was expected to end up with three to six inches of snow from the storm.

"Are we allowed to curse?" said Philadelphia area resident Marjory Levitt. She had discovered that an expensive pair of boots were not waterproof when she ventured out to the supermarket.

Widespread power outages caused by snow, ice and falling trees were reported from the Mid-Atlantic into New England, leaving some two million customers in the dark.

Major delays were reported at Philadelphia International Airport and at New York area airports. At least 1,000 flights had been canceled and Teterboro Airport in New Jersey closed for a period of time, according to flight tracking service FlightAware.com.

In Connecticut, Governor Dannel Malloy ordered non-emergency vehicles off the Wilbur Cross and Merritt Parkways due to dangerous driving conditions.

The snow posed traffic and parking problems for some 100,000 college football fans attending a game between Penn State and the University of Illinois in State College, Pennsylvania. Snow plows had to clear the field before the game.

In New York City, several hundred people camped in a park in the city's financial district to protest against economic inequality hunkered down in their tents from the wind, rain, sleet and snow.

They desperately tried to stay warm just a day after the fire department, citing safety hazards, confiscated generators that had been powering heat, computers and a kitchen.

For some, the big flakes and accumulation caused excitement, instead of headaches.

"There's almost like an electric buzz when the first snow falls," said Anna Weltz, communication director for Seven Springs Mountain Resort, located about 60 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.

By early afternoon, six inches of snow was already on the ground at the family ski resort, where phones were ringing off the hook with people asking about opening day.

"And it's still coming down," said Weltz. "What a sight."

The storm caused massive power outages including 606,388 customers reported by Connecticut Light and Power; 214,000 by PPL Electric Utilities in Pennsylvania; 341,000 without power from PSE&G in New Jersey; more than 300,000 by First Energy in Pennsylvania and New Jersey; more than 77,000 by Con Edison in New York and more than 66,000 by Allegheny Power in Maryland, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Another 205,890 customers of National Grid in Massachusetts and New York were without power and 17,467 customers reported by The United Illuminating Company in Connecticut.

"It's a strong storm for October," said AccuWeather.com senior meteorologist Paul Walker. "We don't usually see storms this deep and this strong."

While October snow is not unprecedented, this storm could be record-setting in terms of snow totals.

Cities along the East Coast including Boston and New York City, typically see their first measurable snowfalls late November into mid-December, according to The Weather Channel.

(Additional reporting by Eric Johnson in Chicago; Ben Schmitt in Pittsburgh, Dave Warner in Philadelphia and Michelle Nichols in New York; Editing by Greg McCune)

• by Kristina Chew
• October 29, 2011

I haven’t heard much about global warming as having something to do with the freak storm that has been dumping snow and sleet up and down the Northeast. But New Jersey has been having some strange weather: In a four-month span, the state has seen record-breaking heat, an earthquake and Hurricane Irene. Now, as of Saturday, October 29, we and New York have seen the snowiest day ever in October since records have been kept in the 1800′s. Around 11:30 am the snow started falling, with a foot piling up in some areas and almost five inches in my town.

People have been calling the storm a “Halloween blizzard,” with echoes of the 1991 one in the Twin Cities. We lived in Minnesota from 1998 – 2000, and, when Halloween came and we stood in line to trick or treat the governor’s house, many mentioned that blizzard which left mounds of the white stuff in its wake. We haven’t gotten quite that much snow here in the pre-Halloween storm of 2011 but it’s been bad enough. Over a million people have lost power and utility companies are working round the clock. There’s been plenty of accidents as cars have spun out on slippery roads.

Most of all, trees, many bedecked with brightly colored leaves, have lost branches or simply come crashing down trunk and all under the weight of the snow. All afternoon and evening, we’ve heard cracks, thuds and a sound like firecrackers popping as tree branches have come down, one on a utility line a few feet from the end of my driveway. As Adrian Benepe, commissioner of New York City’s Department of Parks and Recreation, commented:

What made the storm particularly threatening, according to Mr. Benepe were the confluence of three factors, heavy snow, high wind gusts, and, “what is really abnormal is trees that are almost in full leaf.”

With more than 2.5 million trees occupying the 5,000 properties within the city parks departments’ jurisdiction, there had been roughly 800 calls logged into the city’s 311 system, by evening, about fallen trees or limbs from across the five boroughs, though about half came from Staten Island.

Benape said that people were advised to stay out of all parks which cannot be closed as their entrances do not allow for such. One women was hit by a falling tree branch in Central Park and treated for minor injuries.

Here’s what Zuccotti Park looked like, with protesters enduring the storm under tarps, tents and umbrellas.