A delegation from the Arab League was to begin an observer mission this week in Syria. The opposition Syrian National Council claimed the head of the mission, Sudanese Gen. Muhammad Ahmad al-Dabi, is wanted on suspicion of committing crimes against humanity in Darfur, an allegation the International Criminal Court denies.

The U.N. Security Council is said to be reviewing a draft resolution offered by the Russian delegation. The United Nations estimates at least 5,000 people have been killed since an uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad began in March.

Russia had expressed concern that Security Council action could lead to a situation like the NATO-led operation in Libya and exacerbate the fighting.

With army defections on the rise, however, the United Nations warned that the prospects for civil war in Syria are growing.

The State Department updated its travel warning for Syria “to reflect reduced staffing at the U.S. Embassy in Damascus and a possible reduction in consular services.”

Syrian efforts to attribute the current civil unrest to external influences have led to an increase in anti-foreigner sentiment,” the warning read.

Damascus maintains the violence is the work of domestic terrorists and foreign interventionists.

Washington recently sent Robert Ford, its ambassador to Syria, back to Damascus. He had complained of harassment during earlier efforts to witness the unrest first hand.
upi

In a statement carried by the Saudi Press Agency (SPA), Assistant Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Khalid bin Saud bin Khalid urged Saudi citizens who are currently in Syria to leave it immediately in order to ensure their safety, advising Saudis not to travel there for the time being.
bna

The British embassy now advises its nationals to avoid travel to Lebanon’s eastern and southern borders with Syria following incursions by Syrian troops into the country.

“We advise against all but essential travel to anywhere within five kilometres (three miles) of the border with Syria,” reads the travel warning updated on Wednesday.

“There have been a number of incidents where Syrian troops have crossed into Lebanon at various points on the border,” it adds. “These incursions have been unpredictable and violent.”

Embassies including those of the United States, Australia, Britain, Canada and France have also warned of the risk of abduction in Lebanon after seven Estonian nationals were kidnapped at gunpoint in the Bekaa Valley in March.

The Estonians were released unharmed in July and some of their abductors were killed in a police raid last month.

The U.S., Canadian and Australian embassies also cite in their warnings the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, a UN-backed court which has charged four Hezbollah operatives with the 2005 assassination of ex-premier Rafiq Hariri.

“U.S. citizens in Lebanon should monitor ongoing political developments, particularly in relation to the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, as Lebanese political leaders have warned publicly that the tribunal’s findings could spark civil unrest,” reads a travel advisory issued by the U.S. embassy on Thursday.

France now also includes in its list of areas to avoid the popular city of Sidon in the south after UN peacekeeping troops were the target of a roadside bomb there in July as well as the northern port city of Tripoli.

vancouversun

Officials said a “debris field,” made up mostly of mortar that had fallen during the quake, had been found at the base and that more substantial pieces of stone had fallen loose inside the monument.

The Park Service posted a video on its Web site taken from a security camera in the observation deck near the top during the quake. It shows debris falling from the ceiling, the entire structure shaking violently, and terrified visitors falling and running for safety.

Mall superintendent Bob Vogel said there were no injuries.

In addition, officials said, the elevator was damaged, possibly by its counterweights, and would need to be repaired. Vogel said the elevator was only partly functional.

Another Park Service official said the elevator could reach only the 250-foot level of the 555-foot-tall monument.

The Park Service had preliminarily said the quake caused some cracks in the stone, which resulted in water leaks when Hurricane Irene came through Washington a few days after the quake.

A team of engineers planned to start a block-by-block inspection of the exterior Tuesday while suspended by ropes. An inspection of the interior is finished, Vogel said.

He said the worst damage happened in the pyramidium, the pyramid-shaped top of the structure, where cracks up to 11 / 4 inches wide developed in the mortar and stone. “Daylight is visible at a number of the vertical joints where mortar is missing,” he said.

As a result, a substantial amount of water has been getting into the monument, which could cause more damage.

It is the extent of damage to the exterior that must now be assessed, he said.

The engineers, from Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates’ “difficult access team,” are specially trained and equipped to rappel down the four sides of the monument. They will examine each of the marble exterior stones for damage.

Officials said the rappelling operation, in which engineers are harnessed in small seats hung from ropes, would last about five days. They hoped to have a more in-depth assessment of the monument by next month.

To assist the engineering team, the Park Service has brought in Brandon Latham, a mountaineering and rope-rigging ranger, from Denali National Park in Alaska.

Dan Gach, 35, one of the rappelling engineers, said each engineer will take one side. He said the team has a detailed description of each stone, which was compiled during the 1999 rehabilitation project.

He said the engineers have drawings of each of the marble exterior stones so they can compare its 1999 condition with the present one. Each stone is numbered.

The engineers also have small hammers they can use to test the soundness of the stones, he said.

“You can tap it lightly, and the stone density will make a definitive sound,” he said. When you tap a weak spot, “that area will just sound dead.”

The team will use strong, specially coated nylon rope, and a supervisor will use a meter to monitor the wind velocity, he said. Winds of 25 mph are considered unsafe for the team.

Vogel said the team will climb out the windows near the top of the monument, maneuver with ropes up to the peak and then work its way down. The climbers will remove any loose material they find if they can do so safely and by hand, Vogel said.

Weatherization of the open cracks will take place after that, he said.

“So when is the monument going to reopen?” Vogel said. “Unfortunately, we cannot answer that question.” He said that once the extent of the damage is learned, the Park Service can develop a timeline for repairs and reopening.

The Park Service has spent a little more than $200,000 on the inspection. It is not known how much the repairs will cost.

The monument has been closed since the earthquake struck. Bill Line, a Park Service spokesman, said the quake caused only minor damage to the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials.

“The good news: The monument is structurally sound and is not going anywhere,” Vogel said during a news briefing Monday on the Mall across 15th Street from the towering obelisk.

After the earthquake, some damage was linked to the soft mortar inserted between stones during a renovation that began in 1999.

That mortar was designed to crumble, to give the structure flexibility, the Park Service has said.

Repairs were made on some cracks after Hurricane Irene, and puddles were found inside the monument. Experts wondered where there were more, undetected cracks.

The puddles were discovered in stairwells above the 400-foot level.

Meanwhile, Washington National Cathedral is using a new construction crane to resume repairs of earthquake damage to its central tower, spokesman Richard Weinberg said Monday. The massive cathedral in Northwest Washington also has been closed since the earthquake.

A crane brought in for earthquake-related repairs toppled over Sept. 7, injuring its operator and damaging buildings days before the cathedral was set to reopen.

The cathedral was not damaged in the incident, but the building has not been able to reopen, Weinberg said. Two cranes were brought in to help remove the toppled one, and one crane stayed to resume the repairs, he said.

WP

“Once Google bought ITA, everybody knew they were going to do something,” said Edward Woo, an analyst at equity research firm Wedbush. “It’s a competitive marketplace, they’ll have to stay one step ahead of Google.”

Woo wasn’t impressed with the beta test, which directs users to airline Web sites. He said it could be another year before Google makes a dent in the $165 billion online travel booking business. But eventually, Google will cut into the revenue of the big three travel sites — Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz, Woo said.

“On the other hand, business continues to grow steadily,” he said. “There may be enough room for everybody.”

ITA develops algorithms that power travel Web sites such as Orbitz and Kayak, which has an office in Concord. The U.S. Department of Justice approved Google’s $700 million acquisition of ITA in April.

“We’re confident in our ability to compete, and we believe our flight search technology is superior,” said Kayak chief marketing officer Robert Birge in a statement. “We recognize Google is a formidable competitor, but they haven’t been successful in every vertical they’ve entered.”

Brittany Loughlin, chief operating officer of Gtrot, a “social travel” start-up that moved from Cambridge to Chicago in January, called Google Flight Search, with which Gtrot doesn’t compete, “smart and intuitive.”

“They’ll capture a lot of travel intent,” she said. “If they offer targeted ads in the big, empty space to the right of the results — travel ads on AdWords have been so expensive because it’s so dense — that could be a great opportunity for Gtrot.”
Boston herald

Visitors to one of the capital’s most iconic monuments — the Washington Monument — are out of luck: The 5.8-magnitude earthquake that was centered in Virginia on Tuesday and rocked the East Coast from the Carolinas on up to Boston and beyond also caused lasting damage to the world’s tallest obelisk.

The National Park Service reported finding cracks in the stones atop the structure, which is also the world’s tallest stone monument. Standing at just over 555 feet, it’s considered a must-see for visitors to the nation’s capital as well as an immediately recognizable landmark that is visible far and wide. On a normal day, a lucky few ticketholders could take the 70-second ride to an observation deck, which is located at 500 feet.

Now, however, visitors will have to make do with a distant look. The monument itself will remain closed indefinitely, although “the Washington Monument grounds have been reopened, except for an area about 100 feet outside of the plaza,” according to a National Park Service statement posted on its website.

The extent of damage and how to repair it remain in question. “The NPS will have structural engineers evaluate the cracks on Wednesday to determine the best way to repair the Monument before it is reopened,” the park service said.

The earthquake caused the temporary closure of several other memorials and monuments pending a check for damage and to ensure visitor safety. Among those that were closed and have since reopened to the public: the Lincoln Memorial, Jefferson Memorial and the Old Post Office Tower.

The quake also damaged the National Cathedral, although it remains structurally sound. Several spires and decorative elements on the architecturally significant edifice were either damaged or snapped off. Authorities are examining the building to determine how repairs should proceed.

LAT

In a statement, Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario said he had ordered the Philippine Embassy in Damascus to “intensify efforts to reach out to Filipinos and convince them that now is the time to consider leaving Syria.”

President Aquino told Palace reporters that Del Rosario was looking “very intensely” at developments in Syria and that a “quick response team” was in the area attempting to get vehicles to move Filipinos out of the troubled zones.

Mr. Aquino said that because most of the Filipinos in Syria were domestic helpers, “the assumption is that they don’t possess the ability as readily as professionals to take care of themselves.”

In February, the Philippines evacuated workers in Libya, but less than half of an estimated 26,000 returned. Many chose to remain in the north African country engulfed in violence, saying they had no jobs to look forward to in their homeland.

Hundreds of Filipinos were similarly affected by recent disturbances in Yemen and scores were extricated from tsunami-hit areas in Japan in March.

Level 3

In Syria on Tuesday, tanks opened fire on poor Sunni districts in Latakia on the fourth day of a military assault on the northern port city aimed at crushing protests against President Bashar al-Assad that has left at least 34 civilians dead, news agencies reported.

Major news agencies are reporting events in Syria from either Amman in Jordan or Beirut in Lebanon, underscoring the dangers of on-the-spot coverage for their reporters.

“In view of the escalating violence in Syria, the DFA will be raising Alert Level 3 for the entire country of Syria effective today. Under Alert Level 3 (voluntary repatriation), all Filipinos working and residing in Syria are enjoined to leave Syria and the Philippine government will provide for the repatriation cost,” Del Rosario said.

The crisis category is a notch lower than Alert Level 4, which requires forced or mandatory evacuation of all Filipinos from the affected country.

Many undocumented

Of the 17,000 Filipinos in Syria, more than 15,000 are women, according to the DFA. Although the Commission on Filipinos Overseas claimed that about 3,000 were “irregular” or undocumented aliens in Syria, labor officials said that up to 90 percent of Filipinos there were illegal workers.

Migrante International, a nongovernment group promoting the interests of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), warned of “another Libya” and called on the DFA and its embassy in Syria to give “concrete and solid directives” to Filipinos on how to leave the strife-torn country.

“It is is not enough for the DFA to just raise the alert level and give a blanket directive for ‘voluntary repatriation.’ What should our OFWs do? Who should they call? Where should they go? It’s the same for their families here, who could they go to for assistance or assurance that their relatives are safe? It’s beginning to look like Libya once again,” Migrante chair Garry Martinez said in a statement.

The Philippine Embassy and consulate are located in the Syrian capital, Damascus, which he said is hundreds of kilometers away from Latakia, Homs and Daraa that are worst affected by the uprising.

“The government is supposed to take care of those who want to leave but what are the officials of the consulate and embassy doing? Will they just wait for our countrymen to arrive when they are already caught in the middle of this unrest?” Martinez said.

Clear directives

The Migrante chair said that there should also be clear directives for undocumented OFWs in that country. Of the 17,000 OFWs in Syria, “only hundreds” are registered with the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration, Martinez added.

Carlos Cao, head of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration, announced that following the DFA’s alert directive, the agency had banned the deployment of workers to Syria.

“We were hoping that the situation would subside but apparently that has not happened,” Cao said.

Although the unrest has been going on in Syria for months, no OFW has come forward to ask for repatriation, said DFA spokesperson Raul Hernandez. “No one wants to be repatriated back to the Philippines. Maybe, they still feel safe there.”

An unidentified Filipino interviewed on GMA News TV last night said she had called the Philippine Embassy for assistance but was told that aid for trapped Filipinos was still being organized following the DFA call for voluntary repatriation.

The woman told GMA News TV that many Filipinos were being prevented by their employers from leaving.

Inquirer

A vendor waits for tourists in the old souk of the capital Damascus on April 30, 2011.

The wave of protests and the brutal government response, which human rights activists say has killed more than 850 people, are all but invisible in the center of Damascus. More striking here is the emptiness of streets lined with stores selling pottery, jewelry and carpets. Salesmen sit idly playing backgammon and have time to drink tea and complain that their businesses have been ruined by the “problems.”

The death of tourism is the most visible sign of major economic damage from the protests and crackdowns, damage that could eventually undermine the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

The economic instability is forcing the government to increase its deficit to fund promised concessions, though such fiscal problems are unlikely on their own to bring down a regime that has survived hard times and diplomatic isolation before. However, economic damage could prove decisive in spurring new sectors of society to join opposition movements.

One Western diplomat said a collapse in financial markets could push the merchant classes in Damascus and Aleppo to join the protesters. Thus far, they have remained largely on the side of the government, perhaps because instability is bad for business. “But if the economy collapses and they don’t have a market to sell to, that could change things quite dramatically and quickly,” the diplomat said.

In recent years, Syria has capitalized on its long history and scenic cities to build a thriving tourist industry. About 12 percent of the Syrian economy last year was generated by foreign visitors, a vital source of revenue as oil reserves, never abundant, dried up.

But after protests spread from the southern town of Deraa to areas around Damascus, the coast and Homs, most embassies warned their citizens to leave. Hotel owners now say they have fired waiters and cleaners, while many shopkeepers are thinking of closing.

Other businesses have also been badly affected by the instability, said a banker in Lebanon who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Internationally funded projects, including two power projects by a Qatari company, have been put on hold, and manufacturing and trade have declined sharply.

Syria had aimed to attract more than $50 billion in foreign investment during the next five years, and had hoped that foreign projects would employ its growing population, as the government’s oil revenue dwindled and it was forced to cut state jobs.

But U.S. and European Union sanctions against the president and the elite, many related to Assad, will discourage foreign investment, and the Institute of International Finance now predicts that the Syrian economy will shrink by 3 percent this year.

Syria has long been economically insular; it does not have a credit rating and cannot borrow on the international debt markets. But despite plummeting income, the government has introduced a program of economic concessions after pressure from an angry population.

During the past five years, life has improved for some, but the divide between rich and poor has widened. Business restrictions have been lifted and trade agreements signed; private banks have opened, offering mortgages and loans; and there has been an influx of consumer goods, such as cars, from China — opportunities eagerly seized on by the urban middle classes.

But the removal of subsidies and a flood of goods from outside the country has made life harder for the poor, as prices have risen and factories have shut down. Drought devastated farming, and hundreds of thousands have fled the countryside and now live in slums on the edges of cities.

Syria also ranks even lower than notoriously graft-ridden Egypt on Transparency International’s scale of corruption. Whole sectors — including telecommunications, transport and insurance — are dominated by Rami Makhlouf, Assad’s cousin, whose corrupt network of patronage is reviled by protesters and ordinary Syrians alike.

It is these poor and disgruntled people who made up much of the protest movement, said one Western diplomat in Damascus, and the government has now cut the price of fuel, increased the salaries of government employees and promised more jobs to discourage further demonstrations.

But in the long run, the regime cannot afford the concessions, experts say.

Joshua Landis, an associate professor of Middle Eastern studies at the University of Oklahoma, said it is “hard to imagine that serious economic difficulties will not appear — cracks in the foundations of this very poor state.”

WP

Delegates explore a prototype of an advance security screening system developed by IATA on Tuesday June 7, 2011 in Singapore during the Executive Briefing on Aviation in a Dangerous World at The Air Transport Association (IATA) 67th Annual General Meeting and World Air Transport Summit held in the city-state over 3-days. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

The International Air Transport Association unveiled a mock-up Tuesday in Singapore of what it dubbed the “Checkpoint of the Future,” where passengers separated by security risk would walk through one of three high-tech, 20-foot-long (6.1-meters-long) tunnels that can quickly scan shoes and carry-on luggage and check for liquids and explosives.

“Passengers should be able to get from curb to boarding gate with dignity,” IATA Director General Giovanni Bisignani said. “That means without stopping, stripping or unpacking, and certainly not groping.”

Airlines are seeking ways to win back passengers put off by long and irritating airport security measures who have opted to travel instead by train, boat or car. IATA said Monday it expects the industry’s profit this year to plummet to $4 billion from $18 billion last year.

U.S. Transportation Security Administration chief John Pistole said he thinks IATA’s security system, which it hopes to implement within five years, is a great idea.

“It’s something that’s long overdue,” Pistole said at IATA’s annual conference. “We’re not at the checkpoint of the future yet but we’re working toward that. I think eventually we will see something similar.”

The TSA has been working for the last six months on developing a system that could differentiate passengers by security risk to cut down on needless checks, Pistole said.

“One size does not fit all,” Pistole said.

The TSA will likely start a pilot program this year in some airports that allows frequent flyers or other travelers with clean records to receive minimal checks, he said.

In the IATA prototype, passengers would be categorized based on the results of a government risk assessment that is put into a chip in a passenger’s passport or other identification. An eye scan would then match the passenger to the passport.

Low-risk passengers would walk through a tunnel with their carry-on luggage in just a few minutes — much quicker than the current average security screening of 35 minutes, IATA said. High-risk passengers would be directed to walk through the tunnel that performs a full body scan while searching for items like explosives.

“We must amalgamate intelligence based on passenger information and new technology,” Bisignani said. “That means moving from a system that looks for bad objects, to one that can find bad people.”

Former Cathay Pacific Chief Executive Tony Tyler replaces Bisignani as IATA’s leader next month. Geneva-based IATA represents about 230 airlines that account for more than 90 percent global air traffic.

One obstacle to the proposed system is that governments could be reluctant to share passenger background information, said Ron Noble, secretary-general of Interpol, the France-based international police agency.

“Most countries don’t want other countries to have data of their citizens,” Noble said.

Airline executives were also concerned about whether the new system would rely too much on technology at the expense of human observation.

“Only technology is not the solution,” said Elyezer Shkedy, chief executive of El Al Israel Airlines. “You must always change your way of defending. Otherwise, terrorists will find your weak points.”

AP

Trouble erupted after a Beirut-bound Middle East Airlines plane, with 230 passengers aboard, had to abort a 5pm take-off on Thursday, having already missed its original 1pm departure slot.

With the Airbus A330 not given another slot until around 7.30pm, disgruntled passengers argued with crew, raided the galleys and started ‘pushing and shoving’, name-calling and engaging in ‘fisticuffs’, said witnesses.

A Lebanese woman passenger was said to have suffered ‘heart palpitations’, and a male passenger needed to be given oxygen.

Up to eight police officers boarded the plane at 5.50pm but there were no arrests after the fracas and flight ME 202 eventually took off for Lebanon, apparently with all passengers still onboard.
Speaking from Beirut, one London-based businessman explained how trouble broke out, saying: ‘The atmosphere was very tense and a middle-aged man told the crew member he was an idiot.

‘And that was when the pushing and shoving began. The captain came out once and I told him he had failed in his duty, to which he replied I should fly the plane.’

Another passenger, legal translator Jordan Lancaster, 45, compared the chaos to Lord Of The Flies, the novel about a group of schoolboys who descend into savagery when a plane crash leaves them marooned on an island.

Giving the Daily Mail an account of the unrest as it unfolded, she said: ‘People are hysterical. The crew have given up trying to explain the situation to people, and it has ended up in fisticuffs. Several men are also arguing with the captain. This guy in his 50s is so worked up he is being given oxygen.’

As Miss Lancaster gave her account from the cabin over the phone, a male cabin crew member was heard over the intercom system telling passengers: ‘If any of our crew have been rude to you, we apologize for that. We need passengers to hold their horses and calm down.’

Another passenger described the situation as ‘a mutiny’.

The airline said it did not disembark the passengers because it was hopeful of getting a take-off slot and did not want to miss it.

The plane had been taxiing along the runway at 5pm with a view to taking off when the control tower told the plane that it could not because of bad weather en route.

Middle East Airlines’ UK and Ireland manager Naima Kassir said the flight took off at around 8pm and arrived in Beirut five hours later without further incident, adding: ‘Some passengers were in transit from Canada and must have been tired. They got abusive and intimidated the crew.’

A Scotland Yard spokesman said: ‘We were called at 5.50pm to a Middle East Airlines flight at Heathrow Terminal 3 following reports of a disturbance. There were no arrests.’

Heathrow airport operator BAA said that altogether about 50 departures and 29 arrivals were called off because of high winds and thunderstorms. A spokesman said the schedule was expected to be ‘running fine’ today.

The Daily Mail