Syria and neighbours .....news for October 31 and last few days

From CNN:
Syria has met first chemical weapons destruction deadline,  OPCW says.  Syria has destroyed all its declared chemical weapons mixing, filling and production facilities, and all of the chemical weapons at inspected sites have been placed under seal, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said Thursday.....

From BusinessInsider:
CONFIRMED: Israel Launched Strikes On Syrian Missile Sites,   Damascus....
....The Lebanese government news agency reported that six Israeli aircraft flew through Lebanese airspace along the coast north of Beirut on Wednesday....
......"During the night, we noticed much aircraft activity," an eyewitness told a Lebanese Al-Mustaqbal news outlet. "At a certain point, we were woken up by the sound of blasts and we saw a large fire and many explosions at the agricultural institute. Military and security forces arrived at the scene, put out the flames, and closed off the entire area for kilometers."......

From WorldAffairs:
...Saudi-Backed Salafists Returning To Iran’s Border? The Iranian government and the Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps in particular are paying a price with the lives of Iranian soldiers inside Iranian territory for their support of Bashar al-Assad in Syria.
This seems to be the gist of the statement from Jaish al-Adl (the army of justice) that was issued after it claimed responsibility for the deadly Sept. 26 attack in the town of Saravan in Iran. The attack left 14 Iranian border guards dead. Five others were wounded.....

From Reuters:
....Etihad Airways, a carrier based in the United Arab Emirates, has suspended flights to Libya's capital for security reasons, the airline said on Thursday.
"Our assessment of the existing situation at Tripoli airport does not provide the level of assurance we require to ensure safe operation of our flights," the Abu Dhabi-based airline said in a statement....

From YahooNews:
...Suicide bombers hit Iraq security as attacks kill 35. Three suicide bombings killed 14 Iraqi security force members overnight, officials said Wednesday, the deadliest in a series of attacks that left 35 people dead in two days.
The attacks come as Iraq witnesses its worst violence since 2008, a surge in unrest that has killed more than 5,400 people this year that has persisted despite authorities having carried out a swathe of operations and implemented tightened security measures.
Since the beginning of 2013, AFP has recorded just 16 days in which there were no deaths from violence in Iraq, the most recent of which was May 24........ 

From TimeMag:
Zakaria: The Saudis Are Mad? Tough!   Why we shouldn't care that the world's most irresponsible country is displeased at the U.S. Saudi Arabia's objections to the Obama Administration's policies toward Syria and Iran are not framed by humanitarian concerns for the people of those countries. They are rooted in a pervasive anti-Shi'ite ideology. Riyadh has long treated all other versions and sects of Islam as heresy and condoned the oppression of those groups. A 2009 report from Human Rights Watch details the ways in which the Saudi government, clerics, religious police and schools systematically discriminate against the local Shi'ite population, including arrests, beatings and, on occasion, the use of live ammunition. (And not just the Shi'ites. In March 2012, Saudi Arabia's Grand Mufti issued a fatwa declaring that it was "necessary to destroy all the churches in the Arabian Peninsula.")...........

From AlJazeera:
.... Headscarves make a comeback in Turkish parliament.  Four Turkish MPs wore headscarves to parliament on Thursday, one month after Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) lifted a 90-year-old ban on public employees wearing headscarves to work. The ban is still in place for the judiciary, police, and military.
Turkey's opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) accused the AKP lawmakers of "exploiting religion" and trying to undermine Turkey's history of secularism. 
The last time an MP donned a headscarf in parliament was in 1999, when Merve Kavakci was booed out of her swearing-in ceremony for wearing a headscarf.  
AKP MP Mustafa Kemal Serbetcioglu tweeted the below image of MPs Sevde Bayazit Kacar and Nurcan Dalbudak in parliament on Thursday.

From AtlanticCouncil:
Russian troops stationed in Armenia could openly side   with it in case of a renewed Armenian-Azerbaijani war for Nagorno-Karabakh, according to their top commander, Colonel Andrey Ruzinsky. 

“If Azerbaijan decides to restore jurisdiction over Nagorno-Karabakh by force the [Russian] military base may join in the armed conflict in accordance with the Russian Federation’s obligations within the framework of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO),” Ruzinksy told the Russian Defense Ministry’s “Krasnaya Zvezda” newspaper in a recent interview.....

From GuardianUK  (video at link)
 Two filmmakers spent almost a decade reporting the greatest taboo subject in Kurdish society: female genital mutilation. Nabaz Ahmed and Shara Amin persuaded people to talk about the effects of FGM and the film they made helped get the practice outlawed in 2011. And in the last few years the number of girls being mutilated in Kurdistan has fallen by over 60%. The story of their decade-long fight against FGM has been made into a documentary by the Guardian and BBC Arabic....

From Bloomberg:
...Iraqi Kurds May Build Direct Oil-Export Pipe  in 18 Months. Iraqi Kurdistan plans to build a million-barrel-a-day oil pipeline to Turkey’s Ceyhan port in as little as 18 months, providing an export link that totally bypasses Iraq’s existing network.
“Between 18 months to two years from now the new pipeline from our region to Ceyhan will be ready,” Ashti Hawrami, the Kurdish Regional Government’s natural resources minister, told reporters at an energy conference in Istanbul today....

From CNN:
Gunmen seize truck carrying more than $50 million in cash in Libya.  Security forces in Libya are searching for heavily armed men who seized a truck carrying more than $50 million in cash in the city of Sirte, the state news agency LANA reported Tuesday.
The group of 10 men intercepted the truck, which was carrying 53 million Libyan dinars (about $43 million) and another 12 million dinars (around $10 million) in euros and U.S. dollars Monday evening........

From FirstPost:
 ...Qatar Holding has built small stakes in Bank of America(BAC.N) and Samsung Electronics, two sources familiar with the matter said, as the wealth fund continues on its strategy of picking minority stakes in large global companies. The fund, one of the world’s most prolific investors, has a stake worth about $1 billion in Bank of America, while its Samsung stake is worth between $200-$300 million, the sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity as the investments have not been publicly disclosed.....

From InvestigativeProject:
Turkey Plays Host to Embattled MB Officials. As if further evidence of Turkey's Islamist agenda is needed, the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Watch points to a recent article saying Turkey has become the focal point for Brotherhood deliberations and meetings following Egypt's crackdown on the movement.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan stepped up to challenge "the foreign legitimacy" of Egypt's interim government after the army ousted President Mohamed Morsi in July, writes Mohammad Abdel Kader of the Al Arabiya Institute for Studies. The intervention followed weeks of protests which drew tens of millions of Egyptians angered by Morsi's emphasis on consolidating Islamist power at the expense of Egypt's crumbling economy and infrastructure.
There are reports that Turkey supplied the Egyptian Brotherhood with weapons, Abdel Kader writes, and he notes that a Turkish intelligence officer was arrested in Egypt.
Brotherhood officials from throughout the world met in Turkey at least twice since July and discussed strategies for coping with their failures in Egypt. They also discussed the effect the purge in Egypt would have on Brotherhood franchises in Tunisia, Sudan, Jordan and Algeria, Abdel Kader writes......

From WeaselZippers:
 Mohamed Elibiary Compares Egypt’s Morsi To Nelson Mandela.
If you have comments about this please direct them to the Dept Of Homeland Security Comment line at 202-282-8495........

From YahooNews:
Syria war stirs decades-old tensions in Tripoli.   In the impoverished Bab al-Tebbaneh and Jabal Mohsen neighbourhoods of Lebanon's second city Tripoli, the war in neighbouring Syria has aggravated decades-old sectarian and political tensions.
Regional and local powers have taken advantage of the situation, arming poor fighters in the neighbourhoods to fight a proxy war over Syria.
Jabal Mohsen, where most of the population belongs to President Bashar al-Assad's Alawite sect, has long backed the Damascus regime.
Majority-Sunni Bab el-Tebbaneh, however, supports the rebels who have been fighting to overthrow Assad for the past 31 months.
But sectarian fighting in the two districts started long before: since 2008, there have been 18 rounds of fighting, killing more than 200 and wounding 3,000 others.
The most recent clashes between the two, fought across the aptly-named Syria Street that divides them, started on October 21, killing 14 people........