World Affairs Overview

Assad says foreigners plotting to destroy Syria

Syria: President Bashar al-Assad said Sunday that his government faces a foreign plot to destroy Syria, and blamed “monsters” for the Houla massacre, in a rare televised speech delivered in parliament.

Assad’s accusations came as Arab leaders called on the UN to act to stop bloodshed in Syria and France raised the prospect of military action against Damascus under a UN mandate. “The international role in the Syrian events is now obvious,” Assad said in his first address to the assembly since a May 7 parliamentary election, adding the polls were the perfect response “to the criminal killers and those who finance them”. The embattled leader, who was greeted with warm applause from lawmakers, said actrocities like the May 25-26 massacre were committed by “monsters”.

AFP

‘Thunder’ will fall on Israel if it attacks - Iran

IRAN: Any attack by Israel on Iran will blow back on the Jewish state “like thunder,” Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on Sunday.

Khamenei also said that the international community’s suspicion that Iran was seeking nuclear weapons is based on a “lie”.

If the Israelis “make any misstep or wrong action, it will fall on their heads like thunder,” Khamenei said in a speech marking the 1989 death of his predecessor and founder of Iran’s Islamic republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Allegations that Iran was trying to develop atomic bombs were false, he also said.

AFP

Bangladesh student in trouble over Facebook post

BANGLADESH: A Bangladeshi student faces sedition charges after he allegedly posted comments on Facebook linking the nation’s premier with the disappearance of an opposition leader, police said Sunday.

Sohel Molla, alias Sohel Rana, was arrested last month after being beaten up by supporters of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at the Jatiya Kabi Kazi Nazrul Islam University at Trishal, 80 kilometres (50 miles) north of Dhaka.

“Some students became angry after they saw his remarks on Facebook where he said opposition leader Ilias Ali had no chance for freedom because he was caught by Sheikh Hasina,” Trishal police chief Firoz Talukdar told AFP.

AFP

Asia struggles to ward off impact of European crisis

CHINA: Weak manufacturing activity in China and dismal growth data from India have underscored Asia’s vulnerability to the European turmoil and sparked fresh calls for government intervention.

Asia was long considered a global bright spot, even a haven from Europe’s deepening crisis and the weak US recovery. But the continent is starting to feel the heat as overseas markets deteriorate.

World Trade Organization chief Pascal Lamy said on Thursday that the region was increasingly “interconnected with the rest of the planet and I don’t think this relative immunity will be forever”.

AFP

Pentagon chief visits former US base in Vietnam

VIETNAM: Defense Secretary Leon Panetta visited a major base used by US forces in the Vietnam War Sunday, as Washington seeks to deepen ties with its former enemy to counter a more assertive posture from China. Panetta is the most high-ranking US official to visit Cam Ranh Bay since the end of the Vietnam War in 1975.

The two countries signed a memorandum on defense cooperation last year and Panetta planned to discuss how to carry out the agreement during his two-day visit, officials said. “We’ve had a great trajectory with Vietnam over a number of years,” said a senior US defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“Seventeen years into normalisation of relations, we really have a robust relationship with the Vietnamese government as a whole and our mil-to-mil (military) relationship is really healthy as well,” the official said.

AFP