Israel conducts missile test in Mediterranean

Israel has said it carried out a missile test in the eastern Mediterranean this morning.

The Israeli Defence Ministry said the test was conducted about the same time that Russian radars detected the launch of two ballistic "objects" in the region.

There were no reports of missile strikes on Syria.

Syrian state sources said the missiles had fallen harmlessly into the sea, Russian news agencies reported.

Initial reports of the launch ruffled financial markets because the US is preparing for a possible military strike on Syria over what it says was a chemical weapons attack by government forces in their conflict with rebels trying to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad.

Russia opposes any outside military intervention in the Syrian civil war.

A Russian Defence Ministry official had earlier criticised the US for deploying warships in the Mediterranean close to Syria.

The Assad government denies responsibility for the deaths of hundreds of people in the alleged poison gas attack on 21 August.

UN says over two million refugees have fled Syria

More than two million refugees have now fled Syria's civil war, piling pressure on neighbouring host countries, the United Nations has said.

The tide of children, women and men crossing borders has risen almost ten-fold over the past 12 months, figures from the UN refugee agency UNHCR showed.

"Syria has become the great tragedy of this century - a disgraceful humanitarian calamity with suffering and displacement unparalleled in recent history," said UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres.

On average, almost 5,000 people take refuge with Syria's neighbours every day, according to the report.

"If the situation continues to deteriorate at this rate, the number of refugees will only grow, and some neighbouring countries could be brought to the point of collapse," said UNHCR envoy and Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie.

The number of people displaced inside Syria was holding steady at around 4.25 million, the report said.

Ministers from Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey - the four main hosts of Syrian refugees - are due to meet officials from the agency in Geneva tomorrow to work out ways to raise more international aid.

The UNHCR said last month its work had so far stopped the refugee crisis spiralling out of control.

But it added that "a far more substantial and coherent strategy" is needed than the $2.9 billion refugee aid effort already under way.

Syria's uprising against four decades of rule by the family of President Bashar al-Assad has turned into an increasingly sectarian civil war that has killed more than 100,000 people.

The UN deputy envoy to Syria has told the BBC that sectarianism is now so serious there is a risk of genocide in the country.

Mokhtar Lamani said the concern was not just about the humanitarian situation, which he said was "a catastrophe", but about the country's future and the rising sectarianism, which "is really scary".

Elsewhere, the Government announced a further €1m in humanitarian assistance for refugees fleeing from the crisis.

It said the funding would support the UN Refugee Agency and UNICEF in providing food, water, sanitation, protection and shelter to refugees.

Speaking earlier on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Minister for Defence Alan Shatter said the use of chemical weapons in Syria amounted to a war crime.

He also said he did not believe there would be a resolution to the crisis in the short-term.

Minister Shatter later reviewed the 115 Irish troops who are heading to the Golan Heights at Cathal Brugha Barracks in Dublin.

US Democrats fear involvement in conflict

US President Barack Obama's efforts to persuade the Congress to back his plan to attack Syria have met with some scepticism.

Some members of Mr Obama's own Democratic Party expressed concern the US would be dragged into a new Middle East conflict.

"There is a lot of scepticism," said Representative Jim Moran after taking part in a 70-minute phone briefing for Democratic politicians by Mr Obama's top national security aides.

They discussed the response to a chemical weapons attack that US officials say killed 1,429 people on the outskirts of Damascus on 21 August.

Mr Obama appeared to make some headway, however, with two influential Republican senators, John McCain and Lindsey Graham.

They came out of a White House meeting convinced that Mr Obama is willing to use air strikes not just to destroy Syrian chemical weapons capability, but also to bolster Syrian rebels.

Mr McCain, long an advocate of a more robust US approach to Syria, said failure to get behind strikes against President Assad's forces would be "catastrophic".

France has said it had evidence showing that Mr Assad's government had ordered chemical attacks and was determined to punish him.

The French government released a nine-page intelligence document that listed five points that suggested Mr Assad's fighters were behind the "massive and coordinated" chemical attack.

Mr Assad, in an interview with French newspaper Le Figaro, warned the French to steer clear of policies hostile to Syrians or else, "the state will be their enemy".

Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang

Israel conducts missile test in Mediterranean

Dengan url

http://newsdeadlineup.blogspot.com/2013/09/israel-conducts-missile-test-in.html

Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya

Israel conducts missile test in Mediterranean

namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link

Israel conducts missile test in Mediterranean

sebagai sumbernya