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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
1/24/2012 5:42:30 PM
The Washington Times Online Edition
DE BORCHGRAVE: Stock market time bomb?

People leave the headquarters of Merrill Lynch & Co. in New York in this November 2007 file photo. Bank of America Corp. said early Monday it would acquire Merrill Lynch in an all-stock transaction worth about $50 billion.

By Arnaud de Borchgrave

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The Washington Times




Even the world’s most savvy stock-market giants (e.g., Warren E. Buffett) have warned over the past decade that derivatives are the fiscal equivalent of a weapon of mass destruction (WMD) - potentially lethal. And the consequences of such an explosion would make the recent global financial and economic crisis seem like penny ante. But generously lubricated lobbyists for the unrestricted, unsupervised derivatives markets tell congressional committees and government regulators to butt out.

While banks all over the world were imploding and some $50 trillion vanished in global stock markets, the derivatives market grew by an estimated 65 percent, according the Bank for International Settlements. BIS convenes the world’s 57 most powerful central bankers in Basel, Switzerland, for periodic secret meetings. Occasionally, they issue a cry of alarm. This time, derivatives had soared from $414.8 trillion at the end of 2006 to $683.7 trillion in mid-2008 - 18 months’ time.

The derivatives market is now estimated at $700 trillion (notional, or face, value, not market value). The world’s gross domestic product in 2009: $69.8 trillion; America’s, $14.2 trillion. The total market cap of all major global stock markets? A mere $30 trillion. And the total amount of dollar bills in circulation, most of them abroad: $830 billion (not trillion).

One of the Middle East’s most powerful bankers conceded recently that even after listening to experts explain the drill, he still does not understand derivatives and therefore doesn’t trust them and won’t have anything to do with them. And when that weapon of mass destruction explodes, he explained, “Our bank’s customers, from all over the world, will be saved from the disaster.”

What’s so difficult to understand about derivatives? Essentially, they are bets for or against the house - red or black at the roulette wheel. Or betting for or against the weather in situations in which the weather is critical (e.g., vineyards). Forwards, futures, options and swaps form the panoply of derivatives. Credit derivatives are based on loans, bonds or other forms of credit. Over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives are contracts that are traded and privately negotiated directly between two parties, outside of a regular exchange.

All of this is unregulated. What happens between two parties - notably hedge funds - is like what happens between two individuals who bet on the final score of a football or baseball game. Congressional committees have been warned time and again about “ticking time bombs” and “financial weapons of mass destruction” - to no avail, demonstrating that both the U.S. government and the U.S. Congress are dysfunctional. The need for constitutional reform comes up frequently in Washington think-tank discussions, only to end with the observation that Democrats and Republicans would never agree on anything that momentous.

On May 16, 2006, for example, Richard T. McCormack, vice chairman of Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch and former undersecretary of state for economic and agricultural affairs, told a Senate Banking hearing on derivatives and hedge funds in 2006, when the derivatives industry was in the $300 trillion range, “the increasing internationalization of finance and investment suggests the need for an ever-more-global approach to monitoring potentially dangerous problems.”

Derivatives played a key role in camouflaging the multibillion-dollar Enron scam in 2001. Similarly, the Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM) hedge fund debacle of 1998 almost slayed the global monetary system. Yet its trading losses was a mere $5 billion. But this derivative-driven collapse seriously threatened the soundness of financial markets.

When the Russian ruble suddenly nose-dived without warning, LTCM found itself exposed with more than $1 trillion in foreign-exchange derivatives. It couldn’t pay. The New York Federal Reserve Bank organized a consortium of companies (Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers) to buy out LTCM and cover its debts. LTCM shareholders were wiped out, but none of the creditors took losses. LTCM was a hedge fund with just 200 employees, but without the New York Fed’s intervention, it would have caused a crash felt around the world.

Mr. McCormack pleaded with congressional banking experts to correct any structural or technical problems that could increase the likelihood of systemic risk in the event of future shock to the financial system, such as the Russian default (i.e., debacle) in 1998. No response.

On Feb. 28, 2006, when he was president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner outlined challenges to financial stability posed by derivatives. No response.

The 2007 U.S. subprime mortgage global disaster was also derivatives-driven - and provoked the biggest financial and economic disaster since the Great Depression.

Mr. McCormack, then a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, explained to the Banking Committee how Italy had secured entrance into the euro by purchasing exotic derivatives that “obscured the true financial condition of the country until after they were admitted” to the new European common currency. No reaction.

The same thing happened with Japan when some banks “purchased derivative instruments, which disguised the actual catastrophic state of their balance sheets at the time.” No action.

Today’s massive new derivatives bubble is driving the domestic and global economies, far outstripping the subprime-credit meltdown.

Hopefully not belatedly, Congress is considering legislation to curb the use of derivatives and other methods that artificially boost returns. But 13 members of Congress or their wives used derivatives to magnify their daily moves. And one measure proposed by Sen. Blanche Lincoln, Arkansas Democrat, would bar banks from trading in derivatives. This, in turn, would push almost $300 trillion beyond the reach of regulators. Derivatives would become still more opaque. Some say abolish derivatives trading in the U.S. and push it offshore.

The now-bloody Greek tragedy over its debt crisis is echoing through the Federal Reserve and the halls of Congress. Greece’s public debt exceeds 100 percent of its economy versus 90 percent (at $13 trillion) for the United States. If you add unfunded U.S. liabilities for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, the long-term shortfall is $62 trillion, or about $200,000 for each American. At least that’s the estimate of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation. And Peter Peterson himself says he’s now in the business of promoting awareness about public borrowing.

With probable trader error plunging the Dow Jones into a 1,000-point tailspin and back up in 16 minutes, economic and financial prognostication made astrology look respectable. Could Greece be a harbinger of ugly things to come for the rest of the world? Prominent investor Marc Faber, hedge fund manager Jim Chanos and Harvard’s Kenneth Rogoff told Bloomberg China’s economy will slow and possibly “crash” within a year as the nation’s property bubble is set to burst.

Arnaud de Borchgrave is editor-at-large of The Washington Times and of United Press International.

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"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
1/25/2012 10:17:24 AM
10 reasons the U.S. is no longer the land of the free

By Jonathan Turley [for The Washington Post], Published: January 13

Every year, the State Department issues reports on individual rights in other countries, monitoring the passage of restrictive laws and regulations around the world. Iran, for example, has been criticized for denying fair public trials and limiting privacy, while Russia has been taken to task for undermining due process. Other countries have been condemned for the use of secret evidence and torture.

Even as we pass judgment on countries we consider unfree, Americans remain confident that any definition of a free nation must include their own — the land of free. Yet, the laws and practices of the land should shake that confidence. In the decade since Sept. 11, 2001, this country has comprehensively reduced civil liberties in the name of an expanded security state. The most recent example of this was the National Defense Authorization Act, signed Dec. 31, which allows for the indefinite detention of citizens. At what point does the reduction of individual rights in our country change how we define ourselves?

While each new national security power Washington has embraced was controversial when enacted, they are often discussed in isolation. But they don’t operate in isolation. They form a mosaic of powers under which our country could be considered, at least in part, authoritarian. Americans often proclaim our nation as a symbol of freedom to the world while dismissing nations such as Cuba and China as categorically unfree. Yet, objectively, we may be only half right. Those countries do lack basic individual rights such as due process, placing them outside any reasonable definition of “free,” but the United States now has much more in common with such regimes than anyone may like to admit.

These countries also have constitutions that purport to guarantee freedoms and rights. But their governments have broad discretion in denying those rights and few real avenues for challenges by citizens — precisely the problem with the new laws in this country.

The list of powers acquired by the U.S. government since 9/11 puts us in rather troubling company.

Assassination of U.S. citizens

President Obama has claimed, as President George W. Bush did before him, the right to order the killing of any citizen considered a terrorist or an abettor of terrorism. Last year, he approved the killing of U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaqi and another citizen under this claimed inherent authority. Last month, administration officials affirmed that power, stating that the president can order the assassination of any citizen whom he considers allied with terrorists. (Nations such as Nigeria, Iran and Syria have been routinely criticized for extrajudicial killings of enemies of the state.)

Indefinite detention

Under the law signed last month, terrorism suspects are to be held by the military; the president also has the authority to indefinitely detain citizens accused of terrorism. While the administration claims that this provision only codified existing law, experts widely contest this view, and the administration has opposed efforts to challenge such authority in federal courts. The government continues to claim the right to strip citizens of legal protections based on its sole discretion. (China recently codified a more limited detention law for its citizens, while countries such as Cambodia have been singled out by the United States for “prolonged detention.”)

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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
1/25/2012 4:31:29 PM

Huge Solar Eruption Sparks Strongest Radiation Storm in 7 Years

Date: 23 January 2012 Time: 11:47 AM ET

This SDO image (AIA 193) shows an M9-class solar flare erupting on the Sun's northeastern hemisphere at 03:49 UT on Jan. 23, 2012... just 4 days after a previous strong CME that sparked aurora around the world on the 22nd. More geomagnetic activity is expected for the 24th.
CREDIT: NASA/SDO and the AIA Consortium/Edited by J. Major

This story was updated on Jan. 24 at 12:42 p.m. EST.

Update: See the latest news and photos of the solar radiation storm in our new story here.

A powerful solar eruption is expected to blast a stream of charged particles toward Earth tomorrow (Jan. 24), as the strongest radiation storm since 2005 rages on the sun.

Early this morning (0359 GMT Jan. 23, which corresponds to late Sunday, Jan. 22 at 10:59 p.m. EST), NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory caught an extreme ultraviolet flash from a huge eruption on the sun , according to the skywatching website Spaceweather.com.

The solar flare spewed from sunspot 1402, a region of the sun that has become increasingly active lately. Several NASA satellites, including the Solar Dynamics Observatory, the Solar Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), and the Stereo spacecraft observed the massive sun storm.

A barrage of charged particles triggered by this morning's solar flare is expected to hit Earth tomorrow at around 9 a.m. EST (1400 GMT), according to experts at the Space Weather Prediction Center, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. [Video & photos of the huge solar flare]

According to NOAA, this is the strongest solar radiation storm since May 2005, and as a precaution, polar flights on Earth are expected to be re-routed within the next few hours, Kathy Sullivan, deputy administrator of NOAA, said today at the 92nd annual American Meteorological Society meeting in New Orleans, La.

Scientists call these electromagnetic bursts "coronal mass ejections" (CMEs), and they are closely studied because they can produce potentially harmful geomagnetic storms when the charged particles rain down Earth's magnetic field lines.

In addition to generating stronger than normal displays of Earth's auroras (also known as the northern and southern lights), geomagnetic storms aimed directly at our planet can also disrupt satellites in orbit, cause widespread communications interference and damage other electronic infrastructures.

"There is little doubt that the cloud is heading in the general direction of Earth," Spaceweather.com announced in an alert. "A preliminary inspection of SOHO/STEREO imagery suggests that the CME will deliver a strong glancing blow to Earth's magnetic field on Jan. 24-25 as it sails mostly north of our planet."

Sunday's solar flare was rated an M9-class eruption, which placed it just on the verge of being an X-class flare, the most powerful type of solar storm. M-class sun storms are powerful but mid-range, while C-class flares are weaker.

>>Watch video here

NASA routinely monitors space weather conditions to determine any potential hazards to the astronauts aboard the International Space Station. Based on the agency's assessment, the six spaceflyers currently living and working on the orbiting outpost are not in any danger, said NASA spokesman Kelly Humphries.

"The flight surgeons have reviewed the space weather forecasts for the flare and determined that there are no expected adverse effects or actions required to protect the on-orbit crew," Humphries told SPACE.com in an email.

Last week, a separate sunspot group unleashed several M-class flares, and SDO scientists said these types of flares are occurring almost daily as the sun's rotation slowly turns the region toward Earth.

The sun's activity waxes and wanes on an 11-year cycle. Currently, our planet's nearest star is in the midst of Solar Cycle 24, and activity is expected to ramp up toward solar maximum in 2013.

Editor's note: If you snap an amazing northern lights photo, or other skywatching image, and would like to share it for a possible story or gallery, please contact managing editor Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com.

OurAmazingPlanet staff writer Brett Israel (@btisrael) contributed to this report from New Orleans, La.Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
1/27/2012 9:53:30 PM

This report is not exactly revealing, as we have long know how dirty big pharma will behave as far as their interests are concerned. But the facts dennounced here are so criminal in their nature (and what a long way down you have gone of late, my dear "Opinion Leaders"!)... that I just had to post it

Patients May Die When Doctors Moonlight as Big Pharma's "Key Opinion Leaders"









Written by Kathleen Sharp, Truthout

As the crimson sun slipped into the gray Pacific Ocean, a multibillion-dollar drug deal took shape. A group of board-certified doctors greeted each other in a private room at a luxury hotel in California. The oncologists were big buyers of an anti-anemia drug called Procrit, sold by Ortho Biotech, a Johnson & Johnson (J&J) division. That Friday evening, the company toasted its top clients and their wives with bottles of Beaujolais, porterhouse steaks and free weekend accommodations.

The event could have been just another “grin and grip” affair, but there was a catch: J&J wanted to pump the sales of its biotech drug to beat its rival Amgen and its anti-anemia drugs. “The idea,” as J&J drug rep Dean McClellan later explained, “was to get the docs to increase their Procrit dosage to 40,000 units.”

There was just one problem. Regulators had approved a weekly drug dose of 30,000 units, and J&J was prohibited by the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDAC) from marketing its drugs in unapproved ways. But the doctors could prescribe in any “off-label” manner they wanted. So, McClellan, a star rep and medical consigliere, led a “discussion” about high-dose experiments. Taking his cue, one physician explained how he routinely injected patients with 40,000 units of Procrit. Another oncologist pumped his people with 10,000 units for ten consecutive days – triple the approved amount. “That seems a little extreme,” said McClellan, frowning.

“Oh no,” the doctor said. “I haven’t seen any side effects so far.”

A few months later, Procrit sales hit the $1 billion mark, beating Amgen by a hair. The resort trip had certainly helped. But it was just one part of an expansive, long-running off-label marketing campaign, according to sales documents. Slowly but surely, oncologists around the country began administering so many high Procrit doses that, in time, the off-label therapy became the “community standard.”

There were problems since insurers don’t always reimburse doctors for off-label use. In fact, when Medicare refused to pay the Arizona Cancer Center, a huge client, for its high-dose Procrit injections, an Ortho manager ghost wrote a letter on behalf of its chief oncologist Daniel von Hoff. After a few more company calls – ipso presto! – the center began receiving more than $1 million in Medicare payments for the illegal therapy. As McClellan claimed in a whistleblowing suit, the cancer market grew so saturated with high doses, that six years later the Food and Drug Administration finally approved them.

The decision might have been defensible had the 40,000-unit regime had been proven to be safe and effective. But independent research later revealed that cancer patients died sooner than expected, and company trials found an alarming number of dialysis patients suffered strokes and heart attacks. Meta-studies showed that 17 percent of patients died from the drug, and stories told of blood counts so high, patients actually spit up blood and choked on their own tumors. Turns out there was little scientific evidence that Procrit, and its cousins Epogen and Aranesp, actually helped people at any dosage.

Last summer, regulators announced that the drugs should be avoided entirely by most patients. “It turns out many people are better off taking placebos,” said Dennis Cotter, president of Medical Technology and Practice Patterns, a nonprofit research institute.

What this illustrates is that drug companies can create entire cultures of over-prescribers for untested, even fatal indications, and that doctors can be easily corrupted. In light of a flurry of recent federal settlements for off-label marketing crimes, it also underlines how you, dear taxpayer, foot the bill for reckless marketing.

In the case of Procrit, the J&J unit formed advisory committees made up of academic physicians and clinical oncologists. These key opinion leaders (KOLs) were paid honoraria of at least $1,000 for every speech they delivered touting off-label use. McClellan selected some pliant clients to be the featured speakers. “Some guys wanted to give three or four speeches a weekend so they can get three or four thousand dollars,” he said. A few actually did. Many talks were delivered at company “conferences” organized for other doctors, who earned hourly credits toward their annual continuing medical education (CME) units, required by state licensing boards. As if that wasn’t enough, Ortho also paid physicians for their rooms, meals and transportation.

Ortho eventually assembled boards of KOLs who specialized in every type of cancer. According to sales documents, the goal was “to build thought leader endorsement [sic] to establish Procrit as standard of care,” not just for approved indications such as AIDs and chemotherapy, but for cancer-related fatigue, depression, and other off-label indications.



"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
1/27/2012 10:02:36 PM

Women, children killed in violence-torn Syria city

By ZEINA KARAM | Associated Press

REUTERS - Children chant slogans and wave Syrian independence flags during a protest against Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in Khalidieh, near Homs January 26, 2012. Picture taken January 26, 2012. REUTERS/more

BEIRUT (AP) — Fresh violence erupted Friday in the besieged Syrian city of Homs, a day after armed forces loyal to President Bashar Assad barraged residential buildings with mortars and machine-gun fire, killing at least 30 people including a family of women and children, activists said Friday.

The violence began Thursday, but important details were only emerging a day later. Video posted online by activists showed the bodies of five small children, five women of varying ages and a man, all bloodied and piled on beds in what appeared to be an apartment after a building was hit in the Karm el-Zaytoun neighborhood of the city. A narrator said an entire family had been "slaughtered."

The video could not be independently verified.

On Friday, heavy gunfire again hammered the city, which has seen some of the heaviest violence of the 10-month-old uprising against Assad's rule. Activists said at least 11 people were killed across the country, four of them in Homs.

Elsewhere, a car bomb exploded Friday at a checkpoint outside the northern city of Idlib, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, citing witnesses on the ground. The number of casualties was not immediately clear.

A "fierce military campaign" was also under way in the Hamadiyeh district of Hama since the early hours of Friday, according to the Observatory and other activists. They said the sound of heavy machine-gun fire and loud explosions reverberated across the area.

The head of Arab League observers in Syria said in a statement that violence in the country has spiked over the past few days. Sudanese Gen. Mohammed Ahmed al-Dabi said the cities of Homs, Hama and Idlib have all witnessed a "very high escalation" in violence since Tuesday.

In an attempt to stop the bloodshed in Syria, the U.N. Security Council was to hold a closed-door meeting Friday to discuss the crisis, a step toward a possible resolution against the Damascus regime, diplomats said. The U.N. says at least 5,400 people have been killed in the government crackdown since March, and the turmoil has intensified as dissident soldiers have joined the ranks of the anti-Assad protesters and carried out attacks on regime forces.

Details of Thursday's wave of killings in Homs were emerging from an array of residents and activists on Friday, though they said they were having difficulty because of continuing gunfire.

"There has been a terrifying massacre," Rami Abdul-Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told the AP on Friday, calling for an independent investigation.

Thursday started with a spate of sectarian kidnappings and killings between the city's population of Sunnis and Allawites, a Shiite sect to which Assad belongs and which is the backbone of his regime, said Mohammad Saleh, a centrist opposition figure and resident of Homs.

There was also a string of attacks by gunmen on army checkpoints, Saleh said. Checkpoints are a frequent target of dissident troops who have joined the opposition.

The violence culminated with the evening killing of the family, Saleh said, adding that the full details of what happened were not yet clear.

The Observatory said 29 people were killed, including eight children, when a building came under heavy mortar and machine gun fire. Some residents spoke of another massacre that took place when shabiha — armed regime loyalists — stormed the district, slaughtering residents in an apartment, including children.

"It's racial cleansing," said one Sunni resident of Karm el-Zaytoun, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. "They are killing people because of their sect," he said.

Some residents said kidnappers were holding Alawites in the building hit by mortars and gunfire in Karm el-Zaytoun, but the reports could not be confirmed.

Thursday's death toll in Homs was at least 35, said the Observatory and the Local Coordination Committees, an umbrella group of activists. Both groups cite a network of activists on the ground in Syria for their death tolls. The reports could not be independently confirmed.

Syria tightly controls access to trouble spots and generally allows journalists to report only on escorted trips, which slows the flow of information.

The Syrian uprising began last March with largely peaceful anti-government protests, but it has grown increasingly violent in recent months.

It has also seen outbreaks of bloody tit-for-tat sectarian killings. Syria has a volatile religious divide, making civil unrest one of the most dire scenarios. The Assad regime and the leadership of its military and security forces are dominated by the Alawite minority, but the country is overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim.

Also Friday, Iran's official IRNA news agency said gunmen in Syria have kidnapped 11 Iranian pilgrims traveling by road from Turkey to Damascus.

Iranian pilgrims routinely visit Syria — Iran's closest ally in the Arab world — to pay homage to Shiite holy shrines. Last month, 7 Iranian engineers building a power plant in central Syria were kidnapped. They have not yet been released.

The Free Syrian Army — a group of army defectors — released a video on its Facebook page claiming responsibility for the kidnapping and saying the Iranians were taking part in the suppression of the Syrian people. The leader of the group could not be reached for comment.

In Switzerland, U.N. rights chief Navi Pillay said the "fragmentation within the country" was making it harder for the U.N. to update its death toll in Syria.

"Some areas are completely closed, such as parts of Homs, we are unable to verify much of the information that's coming to us. We are watching the figures, working closely with civil society organizations, and sifting through all the information that's coming to us," she said at the Davos Forum.

But she expressed "great concern that the killings are continuing and in my view it's the authorities who are killing civilians, and so it would all stop if an order comes from the top to stop the killings."

Assad's regime claims terrorists acting out a foreign conspiracy are behind the uprising, not protesters seeking change, and that thousands of security forces have been killed.

International pressure on Damascus to end the bloodshed so far has produced few results.

The Arab League has sent observers to the country, but the mission has been widely criticized for failing to stop the violence. Gulf states led by Saudi Arabia pulled out of the mission Tuesday, asking the Security Council to intervene because the Syrian government has not halted its crackdown.

The U.N. Security Council has been unable to agree on a resolution since violence began in March because of strong opposition from Russia and China.

A senior Russian diplomat said Moscow will oppose a new U.N. draft resolution on Syria because it fails to take the Kremlin's concerns into account.

Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov was quoted by the ITAR-Tass news agency as saying Friday that the draft worked out by the West and some Arab states fails to exclude the possibility of outside military interference.

In Cairo, Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby told reporters that he and the prime minister of Qatar would leave for New York on Saturday to seek U.N. support for the latest Arab plan to end Syria's crisis. The plans calls for a two-month transition to a unity government, with Assad giving his vice president full powers to work with the proposed government.

Syria has rejected the proposal, saying it violates its sovereignty.

Bassma Kodmani, a spokeswoman for the opposition Syrian National Council, said the Arab initiative was a move in the right direction and urged Security Council members to shoulder their "moral and political responsibilities" in bringing emergency assistance to the Syrian people.


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