United Nations, 22 January 2014
Nearly 50 Syrian women came together from within and outside Syria at a conference, facilitated by UN Women, from 11 to 13 January 2014 in Geneva, to appeal for peace, to call for a voice in the ongoing political negotations on their country.
Particularly during the ‘Geneva II’ Peace Talks that opened in Switzerland yesterday, and to draw the world’s attention to the continuing tragedy facing their people.
http://syrianfreepress.wordpress.com/2014/01/23/syrian-women-raise-their-voices/
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– Geneva 2, al-Moallem: “We are here representing the Syrian people, the Government & the State, the Army, the President Bashar al-Assad, the blood of our martyrs, the tears of our bereaved, the heartbreak & the anguish of families of kidnapped or missing, the cries of our children, the hopes of an entire generation destroyed, the courage of mothers and fathers, of families whose homes have been destroyed…”
http://syrianfreepress.wordpress.com/2014/01/22/geneva-2-al-moallem-we-are-here-representing-the-syrian-people-the-government-the-state-the-army-the-president-bashar-al-assad-the-blood-of-our-martyrs-the-tears-of-our-bereaved-the-he/
– Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov: “Iran exclusion from Geneva2 a mistake, pushed by those who want Assad out” ~ (+ 3 Videos)
http://syrianfreepress.wordpress.com/2014/01/22/lavrov-iran-exclusion-from-geneva-2-a-mistake-pushed-by-those-who-want-assad-out-video/
– Terrorists Continue Attacks on Syrian Christian Town
http://syrianfreepress.wordpress.com/2014/01/22/terrorists-continue-attacks-on-syrian-christian-town/
– President Bashar al-Assad’s interview with Agence France Presse ~ Interview du président Bachar al-Assad avec l’Agence France Presse ~ El presidente Bashar al-Assad entrevista con la Agencia Francesa de Prensa ~ Eng/Fra/Esp
http://syrianfreepress.wordpress.com/2014/01/21/president-bashar-al-assads-interview-with-agence-france-presse-interview-du-president-bachar-al-assad-avec-lagence-france-presse/
– Geneva-2 Conference on Syria, Video Speeches by Walid al-Muallem, Bashar al-Ja’afari, Sergey Lavrov, John Kerry, Ban Ki-moon, Ahmad Jarba ~ (Eng-Fra-Arab-Esp):
http://syrianfreepress.wordpress.com/2014/01/23/video-speeches-at-the-geneva-2-conference-on-syria-by-walid-al-muallem-bashar-al-jaafari-sergey-lavrov-john-kerry-ban-ki-moon-ahmad-jarba-eng-fra-arab-esp/
– Report from Libya-Jamahiriya: “Southern Libya Liberated by Green Resistance”
http://syrianfreepress.wordpress.com/2014/01/21/report-from-libya-jamahiriya-southern-libya-liberated-by-green-resistance-forces
Latest News Syria 
Women’s rights in Saudi Arabia that, with American and Israeli military support, is responsible for the war in Syria
Saudi Arabia’s oppression of women goes way beyond its ban on driving
October 28, 2013
For the second time in three years, dozens of Saudi women are getting behind the wheel to protest their country’s practice of forbidding driver’s licenses for women. The de facto ban on female drivers is Saudi Arabia’s best-known restriction against women, a symbol of the larger system of gender-based law that makes it one of the worst countries for women, according to the World Economic Forum’s annual report on gender rights.
Saudi Arabia’s restrictions on women go far, far beyond just driving, though. It’s part of a larger system of customs and laws that make women heavily reliant on men for their basic, day-to-day survival. This video, produced by Amnesty U.K. in 2011, a few months after Saudi women’s rights activists staged their last protest drive, helps explain just how it works to be a woman in Saudi Arabia. (Fair warning, the video has an offbeat sense of humor, which I wrote about here.)
If you couldn’t make it through the video, here’s the rundown: each Saudi woman has a “male guardian,” typically their father or brother or husband, who has the same sort of legal power over her that a parent has over a child. She needs his formal permission to travel, work, go to school or get medical treatment. She’s also dependent on him for everything: money, housing, and, because the driving ban means she needs a driver to go anywhere, even the ability to go to the store or visit a friend.
It’s one thing for women to depend on men to go anywhere, putting their movement under male veto power. But it’s quite another when they also must have a man’s approval to travel abroad, get a job or do just about anything that involves being outside of the home. It consigns women to second-class-citizenship, which is unfortunately common in a number of countries, but goes a step further in Saudi Arabia. Saudi women have many of their most basic rights reduced to probationary privileges, granted only if the man who is assigned as their “guardian” feels like granting them. And because women are typically forbidden to interact with men who are not family members, they’ve got little to no recourse beyond that guardian. The almost complete lack of political rights doesn’t help, either.
Read more at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/10/28/saudi-arabias-oppression-of-women-goes-way-beyond-its-ban-on-driving/
Israel, The United States, Saudi Arabia and the war on Syria
June 20, 2013 – ‘Syrian Rebels: We’ve Received Heavy Weapons from Saudis’: The first delivery of heavy weapons has arrived on Syria’s front lines following President Barack Obama’s decision to put Western military might behind the official opposition, rebels told the British Daily Telegraph. More have now arrived, confirming reports that the White House has lifted an unofficial embargo on its Gulf allies sending heavy weapons to the rebels. “We now have supplies from Saudi Arabia,” a rebel source said. “We have been told more weapons are on their way, even higher-end missiles.” European Union foreign ministers agreed at the end of May to lift an arms embargo in order to supply weapons to Syrian rebels, but British Foreign Secretary William Hague said at the time that “no immediate decision” would be made on sending arms to the rebels. ”Terrorists will return to Europe with fighting experience and extremist ideologies,” President Assad told the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/169117#.Up9x2MTuK5U
November 7, 2013 – Saudi Arabia to spend millions to train new rebel force – Syrian, Arab and western sources say the intensifying Saudi effort is focused on Jaysh al-Islam (the Army of Islam or JAI), created in late September by a union of 43 Syrian groups. Diplomats and experts warned that there are serious doubts about its prospects as well as fears of “blowback” by extremists returning from Syria. The Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, is also pressing the US to drop its objections to supplying anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles to the JAI. Jordan is being urged to allow its territory to be used as a supply route into neighbouring Syria. (The Guardian)
November 10, 2013 – ‘The CIA is Leading Massive Arms Deliveries to Rebels in Syria, Saudi Arabia is Training Terrorists’: http://www.globalresearch.ca/cia-is-leading-massive-arms-deliveries-to-rebels-in-syria-saudi-arabia-training-terrorists/5357531
November 30, 2013 – Terror Actions in Syria – Saudi Colonel Captured by Syrian Army: http://www.aydinlikdaily.com/Saudi-Colonel-Captured-by-Syrian-Army-144518+…Graphic Video……Saudi lieutenant colonel killed in Syria Warning – Item 18+…Graphic Video……Saudi lieutenant colonel killed in Syria might contain content that is not suitable for all ages. By clicking on CONTINUE you confirm that you are 18 years and over.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=bed_1373652652
December 6, 2013 – Pentagon approves $1.1 billion Raytheon missile sale to Saudi Arabia:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/06/us-raytheon-saudi-missiles-idUSBRE9B50SF20131206
December 12, 2013 – ‘No one is expecting a tank invasion of Saudi Arabia anytime soon, but the kingdom just put in a huge order for U.S.-made anti-tank missiles’:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/12/12/why_is_saudi_arabia_buying_15000_us_anti_tank_missiles_for_a_land_war_it_will_ne#sthash.otwdA4hc.dpbs
December 17, 2013 – Saudi Arabia Will Go It Alone “Saudi Arabia has global responsibilities and we will act to fulfill these responsibilities, with or without the support of our Western partners”
In 2010, the US made the largest arms sale in its history, selling $60 billion’s worth of jets and attack helicopters to the Arab kingdom. Saudi Arabia is also a major exporter of oil to the US, though its highly unlikely OPEC would support a slow down or boycott over the kingdom’s political gripes with the US. Israeli personnel in recent days were in Saudi Arabia to inspect bases that could be used as a staging ground to launch attacks against Iran, according to informed Egyptian intelligence officials…
http://www.presstv.com/detail/2013/11/17/335123/israel-s-arabia-united-against-iran/
Syrian women raise their voices: UN-sponsored and subtly manipulative
‘Syria: UN-sponsored conference demands full voice for women in seeking to end crisis’
13 January 2014 – The voice of Syrian women must be heard in all efforts to resolve the civil war that is tearing their country apart, a United Nations-sponsored conference declared today, stressing that women’s participation is vital in shaping a peaceful future for the strife-wracked Middle Eastern nation.
“Women have a critical role to play in creating the foundations for a sustainable peace and a pluralistic Syria based on democracy and respect for human rights,” UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka said at the end of a two-day conference of Syrian women convened in Geneva by her organization together with the Government of the Netherlands.
“UN Women will continue to be a strong partner for Syrian women to support their collective voice and peace initiatives in the political process.”
In its Outcome Statement the conference, attended by some 50 women from inside and outside Syria, called on all parties to reach agreement for a free, pluralistic and democratic Syria that respects human rights, including the rights and equality between men and women, with decision-makers obligated to respect women’s right to full political participation in all matters shaping their country’s future.
“We have come together to prepare this set of demands and priorities based on our first-hand experience of the suffering of the Syrian people, which has become intolerable,” the Statement says, calling for an immediate cessation of armed violence, the release of arbitrarily detained women and men, lifting all military sieges to allow humanitarian and medical aid to reach all affected regions, and an end to gender-based violence and the recruitment of child soldiers.
Demanding the start of “the democratic transition process to end tyranny in all its forms and lay the foundations for a pluralistic, civil and democratic State,” it rejects any political solution based on ethnicity, confessionalism, religion or military balance on the ground and urges the UN to press the international community and the negotiating parties to guarantee the effective participation of women on all negotiating teams and committees in a proportion of no less than 30 per cent.
“The meaningful participation of women [must be ensured] in the entire political process, including in the formation of the transitional governing body, the constitutional drafting committee, the drafting of the election law, mechanisms of transitional justice, the local administration and local committees for civil peace,” it stresses.
The conference comes ahead of Wednesday’s humanitarian pledging conference for Syria, set to open in Kuwait City and be chaired by UN Secretary-General Ban ki-moon, and 10 days before the expected start of renewed political talks in Geneva seeking to end a civil war that has become progressively more horrific, killing well over 100,000 people and driving more than 8 million others from their homes, since conflict erupted almost three years ago between the Government and various groups seeking the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad.
The outcome of the UN Women-sponsored event calls for the appointment of a Syrian gender advisor to the mediation team and establish communication channels to enable joint action and coordination with women’s and civil society organizations.
UN Women, the Organization’s entity dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women worldwide, saw the conference as part of its long-term efforts to support Syrian women and civil society’s active participation in the peace process and create space to hear and advance women’s voices.
“These women worked day and night to identify solutions to bring back security, rights and dignity to the suffering Syrian people”, Ms. Mlambo-Ngcuka said of the conference participants.
“We cannot remain silent regarding events in Syria, such as daily death, massive destruction, starvation, displacement of hundreds of thousands of families (in Syria and abroad), and the spread of terror, violence, ongoing detentions, acts of kidnapping, destruction of infrastructure and the spread of disease, particularly among children,” said Sabah Alhallak, speaking on behalf of her fellow attendees.
UN-Arab League Joint Special Representative for Syria Lakhdar Brahimi, who will play a principal role in the political talks later this month, joined the women during the opening session.
“This meeting conveys to both parties that will sit together at the negotiating table the importance of listening to the voices of Syrian women and incorporating women as a key player in the efforts leading to a peaceful resolution of the Syrian crisis,” he said.
Photo: UN Women:
UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka and UN-Arab League Joint Special Representative for Syria Lakhdar Brahimi with participants of the conference. Photo: UN Women
UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka and UN-Arab League Joint Special Representative for Syria Lakhdar Brahimi with participants of the conference.
https://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp/http%3Cspan%20class='pullme'%3EIt%20has%20become%20increasingly%20clear%20that%20disasters%20are%20setting%20back%20efforts%20in%20development%20%E2%80%93%20they%20can%20cripple%20the%20economy,%20destroy%20infrastructure,%20and%20plunge%20more%20people%20into%20poverty%3C/span%3E:/www.unisdr.org/www.iaea.org/story.asp?NewsID=46916&Cr=Syria&Cr1=