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Aid trucks hit by air strikes as Syria says ceasefire

Children walk near damaged buildings in rebel-held Ain Tarma, eastern Damascus suburb of Ghouta, Syria September 17, 2016

By Tom Perry and John Davison

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Air raids hit aid trucks near the city of Aleppo on Monday, a monitoring group reported, as the Syrian military declared that a week-long ceasefire was over.

The attacks were carried out by either Syrian or Russian aircraft, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, adding that there had been 35 strikes in and around Aleppo since the truce ended.

The Observatory said the aid trucks had made a delivery organized by an international organization to an area west of Aleppo. The United Nations and Red Cross said they were investigating the reports.

A local resident told Reuters by phone that the trucks were hit by around five missile strikes while parked in a center belonging to the Syrian Red Crescent in the town of Urm al-Kubra, near Aleppo. The head of the center and several others were badly injured.

The monitoring group said it was not clear if the jets were Syrian or Russian. Moscow supports President Bashar al-Assad with its air force. The Syrian military could not immediately be reached for comment.

The air strikes appeared particularly heavy in insurgent-held areas west of Aleppo, near the rebel stronghold of Idlib province. And in eastern Aleppo, a resident reached by Reuters said there had been dozens of blasts.

“It started with an hour of extremely fierce bombing,” said Besher Hawi, the former spokesman for the opposition’s Aleppo city council. “Now I can hear the sound of helicopters overhead. The last two were barrel bombs,” he said, the sound of an explosion audible in the background.

Abu al-Baraa al-Hamawi, a rebel commander, said the most intense bombardments had taken in place in areas west of Aleppo, the same area where the aid convoy was hit. “The regime and Russians are taking revenge on all the areas,” he said.

The raids came as what is likely to be the final attempt by the U.S. administration of President Barack Obama to find a negotiated solution to the five year old civil war appeared close to collapse.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said it was too early to call the ceasefire finished, and the United Nations said that only Washington and Moscow could declare it over, as they were the ones who had originally agreed it.

Washington said it was working to extend the truce but called on Russia to first clarify the Syrian army’s statement that it was over.

Russian and U.S. officials met in Geneva on Monday to try to extend the truce, and the International Syria Support Group – the countries backing the Syria peace process – was scheduled to meet on Tuesday in New York to assess the agreement.

But both the Syrian army and the rebels spoke of returning to the battlefield.

Syria’s army said the seven day truce period had ended. It accused “terrorist groups”, a term the government uses for all insurgents, of exploiting the calm to rearm while violating the ceasefire 300 times, and vowed to “continue fulfilling its national duties in fighting terrorism in order to bring back security and stability”.

Asked about the army’s statement, Kerry told reporters in New York that the seven days of calm and aid deliveries envisaged in the truce had not yet taken place.

“It would be good if they didn’t talk first to the press but if they talked to the people who are actually negotiating this,” Kerry said. “We just began today to see real movement of humanitarian goods, and let’s see where we are. We’re happy to have a conversation with them.”

Aid was delivered to the besieged town of Talbiseh in Homs province on Monday, the Red Cross said, for the first time since July. The convoy brought in food, water and hygiene supplies for up to 84,000 people, it said.

But most aid shipments envisioned under the truce have yet to go in, especially a convoy destined for rebel-held eastern parts of Aleppo, where some 275,000 civilians are believed trapped without access to food or medical supplies.

“I am pained and disappointed that a United Nations convoy has yet to cross into Syria from Turkey, and safely reach eastern Aleppo,” the U.N. Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs Stephen O’Brien said in a statement.

The United Nations said it had received government approval to reach nearly all the besieged and hard-to-reach areas where it sought to bring aid, but access to many areas was still constrained by fighting, insecurity and administrative delays.

Already widely violated since it took effect, the ceasefire came under added strain at the weekend when Russia said jets from the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State killed more than 60 Syrian soldiers in eastern Syria.

Assad called that incident “flagrant aggression”. Washington has called it a mistake.

KERRY’S GAMBLE

The ceasefire is the second negotiated by Washington and Moscow since Russia joined the war. But while it led to a significant reduction in fighting at the outset, violence has increased in recent days and aid has mostly failed to arrive.

Plans to evacuate several hundred rebels from the last opposition-held district of Homs city have also overshadowed the agreement, with rebels saying it would amount to the government declaring the ceasefire over. The Homs governor said the plan had been postponed from Monday to Tuesday.

An end to the truce could doom any chance of the Obama administration negotiating a Syria breakthrough before it leaves office in January. Kerry overcame scepticism of other administration officials to hammer out the deal, gambling on cooperation with Russia despite the deepest mistrust in decades between the Cold War-era superpower foes.

Washington and Moscow back opposite sides in the war between Assad’s government and the insurgents, while both oppose the Islamic State jihadist group. Russia joined the war a year ago on Assad’s side, tipping it firmly in his favor.

The politburo chief of one prominent Aleppo rebel group, Fastaqim, said the agreement had “practically failed and has ended”, adding that it remained to be seen if anything could be done “in theory” to save it.

Zakaria Malahifji, speaking to Reuters from the Turkish city of Gaziantep, also indicated rebel groups were preparing for combat: “I imagine in the near future there will be action by the factions”.

Monitors reported clashes in and around Aleppo on Monday. The government blamed some of the violence on what it said was an insurgent assault, but another rebel official denied they had yet launched new attacks.

The opposition High Negotiations Committee spokesman Riad Nassan Agha said the government side had never committed to the truce: “Air raids by Russian and Syrian warplanes, which haven’t stopped, suggest the truce never started in the first place.”

(Additional reporting by Nikolaj Skydsgaard in Copenhagen, John Davison, Lisa Barrington and Ellen Francis in Beirut, Lesley Wroughton in New York, Stephanie Nebehay and Tom Miles in Geneva; Writing by Tom Perry and Peter Graff; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Pro Putin party wins landslide victory in Russian Election

Russian President Vladimir Putin greets Prime Minister and Chairman of the United Russia party Dmitry Medvedev during a visit to the party's campaign headquarters following a parliamentary election in Russia.

By Andrew Osborn and Dmitry Solovyov

MOSCOW, Russia, Sept 19 (Reuters) – Vladimir Putin won even greater supremacy over Russia’s political system after the ruling United Russia party took three quarters of the seats in parliament in a weekend election, paving the way for him to run for a fourth term as president.

With most votes counted, the party, founded by Putin almost 16 years ago after he first became president, was on track to win 76 percent of the seats in Russia’s Duma, the lower house of parliament, up from just over half in 2011.

That would be its biggest ever majority. Putin’s spokesman called it “an impressive vote of confidence” in the Russian leader and dismissed critics who noted a sharp fall in turnout.

Liberal opposition parties failed to win any seats. Dmitry Gudkov, the only liberal opposition politician to hold a seat before, said he had been beaten by a United Russia candidate.

“The question now is…how to live with a one-party parliament,” Gudkov said.

European election monitors said the vote was marred by numerous procedural irregularities and restrictions on basic rights. Russian officials said there was no evidence of widespread fraud.

Near complete results showed turnout was only around 48 percent, down from 60 percent in 2011, suggesting apathy among some Russians – particularly in Moscow and St. Petersburg – and a softening of enthusiasm for the ruling elite.

Putin, speaking to United Russia campaign staff a few minutes after polling stations closed on Sunday night, said the win showed voters still trusted the leadership despite an economic slowdown made worse by Western sanctions over Ukraine.

“We can say with certainty that the party has achieved a very good result; it’s won,” Putin said at the United Russia headquarters, where he arrived together with his ally, Dmitry Medvedev, who is prime minister and the party’s leader.

Alluding to the spluttering economy, which is forecast to shrink this year by at least 0.3 percent, Putin said: “We know that life is hard for people, there are lots of problems, lots of unresolved problems. Nevertheless, we have this result.”

Putin’s aides are likely to use the result as a springboard for his own re-election campaign in 2018, though he has not yet confirmed whether he will seek another term.

 

Members of local election commission count unused ballots at polling station following parliamentary election in Moscow

Members of a local election commission count unused ballots at a polling station following a parliamentary election in Moscow, Russia, September 18, 2016. REUTERS/Maxim Zmeyev

 

“OVERWHELMING MAJORITY”

United Russia won 343 seats of the total of 450 in the Duma, the Central Election Commission said, after 93 percent of ballots had been counted.

That is up from 238 seats in the last parliamentary election, in 2011, and is enough to allow United Russia to unilaterally change the constitution, though Putin can run again under the existing one as he was prime minister between his second and third terms.

Other parties trailed far behind.

According to the near complete official vote count, the Communists were on track to come second with 42 seats, the populist LDPR party third with 41, and the left-of-centre Just Russia party fourth with 21 seats. All three tend to vote with United Russia on crunch issues and avoid direct criticism.

Among voting irregularities witnessed by Reuters were several people voting twice in one polling station in the Mordovia region of central Russia. Official results in another area showed a turnout double that recorded on the spot.

After the last election, in 2011, anger at ballot-rigging prompted large protests in Moscow and the Kremlin will be keen to avoid any repeat of that.

Ilkka Kanerva, a Finnish parliamentarian and special coordinator for the elections from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said the OSCE had noted some improvements, including greater transparency when it came to administration.

But he said the overall picture was beset by problems. “Legal restrictions on basic rights continue to be a problem. If Russia is to live up to its democratic commitments, greater space is needed for debate and civic engagement,” he said.

TURNOUT DOWN

Election officials said on Monday that turnout was nearly 48 percent, substantially lower than the 60 percent turnout at the last parliamentary election across Russia’s 11 times zones, which stretch from the Pacific Ocean to the Baltic Sea.

Commenting on the turnout, Putin, at the United Russia campaign HQ, said it was “not as high as we saw in previous election campaigns, but it is high.”

His spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the “overwhelming majority” of voters had come out for Putin in “an impressive vote of confidence”. It would be wrong to call the turnout low, he said, adding that it was higher than in most European countries.

The return of an old voting system, under which half, rather than all, deputies were drawn from party lists with the other half decided by people voting for individuals, boosted United Russia’s seats. Near final results showed it won 140 seats under the list system and 203 seats from the constituency system.

REFLECTED GLORY

United Russia benefits from its association with 63-year-old Putin, who, after 17 years in power as either president or prime minister, consistently wins an approval rating of around 80 percent in opinion polls.

Most voters do not see any viable alternative to Putin and his allies and they fear a return to the chaos and instability of the 1990s, the period immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union, if his rule ends.

Many voters are also persuaded by the Kremlin narrative, frequently repeated on state TV, of the West using sanctions to try to wreck the economy in revenge for Moscow’s seizure of Crimea, the Ukrainian region it annexed in 2014.

Putin has said it is too early to say if he will run in 2018. If he did and won, he would be in power until 2024, longer than Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, the longest-serving Soviet leader aside from Joseph Stalin.

Liberal opposition politicians, the only group openly critical of Putin, failed to get over the five percent threshold needed for party representation in the Duma, near final results showed. They also failed to break through in constituency races.

(Additional reporting by Dmitry Solovyov and Polina Devitt in Moscow, Jack Stubbs, Olga Sichkar and Svetlana Burmistrova in Ufa, Andrei Kuzmin in Velikiye Luki, Gleb Stolyarov, Alex Winning and Vladimir Soldatkin in Saransk, Anton Zverev in the Tula Region, Anastasia Teterevleva in the Moscow Region, Maria Tsvetkova, Kira Zavalyova, Denis Pinchuk and Oksana Kobzeva; Writing by Christian Lowe and Andrew Osborn; Editing by Philippa
Fletcher)

Aid for Syria stuck with rising violence undermining truce

Civil Defence members with blood on their shirts stand after double airstrikes on the rebel held Bab al-Nairab neighborhood of Aleppo.

By Lisa Barrington and Osman Orsal

BEIRUT/CILVEGOZU, Turkey (Reuters) – Aid for the divided Syrian city of Aleppo was stuck on the Turkish border on the fifth day of a fragile ceasefire on Friday with rival factions arguing over how the supplies are to be delivered and violence increasingly undermining the truce.

The provision of aid to what was Syria’s largest city before the war is a critical test of the ceasefire, brokered by the United States and Russia a week ago with the aim of reviving talks on ending the conflict.

Humanitarian access to Aleppo hinges on control of the main road into the besieged rebel-held part of the city, divided between the government and rebels who have been battling to topple President Bashar al-Assad for more than five years. The Castello Road has become a major frontline in the war.

Russia said the Syrian army had begun to withdraw from the road on Thursday, but insurgent groups in Aleppo said they had seen no such move and would not pull back from their own positions around the road until it did so.

“By today this morning nothing had happened on the Castello Road … There is nothing new in Aleppo,” Zakaria Malahifji, of the Aleppo-based rebel group Fastaqim, told Reuters by phone.

The Kremlin said it was using its influence to try to ensure the Syrian army fully implemented the ceasefire and that it hoped the United States would use its own influence with rebel groups too.

“In general, we can still state that the (ceasefire) process is moving forward, despite some setbacks,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call.

U.N. FRUSTRATION

Hundreds of protesters from the Shi’ite Muslim villages of Nubul and al Zahra – which lie in government-held territory – were meanwhile heading towards the Castello Road with the aim of blocking it and obstructing the passage of aid trucks, an organization that monitors the war said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said they had come out to prevent aid entering rebel-held eastern Aleppo until there were guarantees that supplies would also be sent to the besieged Shi’ite villages of Kefraya and al-Foua which have been surrounded by insurgents since April 2015.

The United Nations, which says it asked the Syrian government for permission to reach all besieged areas, has voiced increasing frustration in recent days at the failure of the Syrian government to allow access.

“In order to actually initiate the actual movement of these convoys (to besieged areas) we need the facilitation letters. They have not come,” Jens Laerke, spokesman for the U.N. Office of Humanitarian Affairs, told a briefing in Geneva.

“It’s highly frustrating … and of course we urge the authorities and everyone with influence over those authorities to push for these letters to materialize as soon as possible.”

Two convoys of aid have been waiting since early on Tuesday in no-man’s land at the Turkish border for permission to travel into Syria. A U.N. spokesman said the first convoy of trucks was carrying flour for more than 150,000 people, while the second was carrying food rations for 35,000 people for a month.

About 300,000 people are thought to be living in eastern Aleppo, while more than one million live in the government-controlled western half of the city.

 

Smoke rises over a damaged site as Civil Defence members try to put out a fire after an airstrike on al-Jalaa street in the rebel held city of Idlib, Syria

Smoke rises over a damaged site as Civil Defence members try to put out a fire after an airstrike on al-Jalaa street in the rebel held city of Idlib, Syria. REUTERS/Ammar Abdullah

TRUCE VIOLATIONS

The government and rebels have accused each other of violating the ceasefire, although the U.S. State Department said on Thursday it was largely holding and that both Washington and Moscow believed it was worth continuing.

The United States and Russia have backed opposing sides in the war, which has killed hundreds of thousands of people, forced 11 million from their homes, and created the world’s worst refugee crisis since World War Two.

After three days which saw a significant decrease in violence and no deaths, the first civilians since the start of the truce were killed on Thursday.

Three more died and 13 were injured in air strikes in rebel-held Idlib province on Friday, the Observatory said. A number of shells were also fired by insurgents into besieged al-Foua and Kefraya.

A building belonging to the Syrian Civil Defense, a rescue organization also known as the “White Helmets” was also hit in overnight air strikes, the group and the Observatory said.

Violent clashes and shells hit areas east of the Syrian capital Damascus on Friday. Residents in the city center were woken up by a large explosion, a witness said, and shells fell on the eastern gate of Damascus’s central Old City area.

The Britain-based Observatory said the violence stemmed from clashes between insurgents and Syrian government forces and their allies in the Jobar district on the eastern outskirts of the capital amid a government effort to advance in the area.

The Syrian military said rebels had attacked military positions east of the city.

Washington hopes the ceasefire will pave the way to a resumption of political talks. But a similar agreement unraveled earlier this year, and Russia’s intervention a year ago in support of Assad has given it critical leverage over the diplomatic process.

The United States and Russia will brief United Nations Security Council members behind closed doors on Friday, diplomats said, on the deal the pair agreed to try and put Syria’s peace process back on track.

Russia is pushing for the U.N. Security Council to adopt a draft resolution next week endorsing the deal.

Assad, appears as uncompromising as ever. He vowed again this week to win back the entire country, which has been splintered into areas controlled by the state, a constellation of rebel factions, Islamic State jihadists, and Kurdish militia fighters.

(Additional reporting by Ellen Francis in Beirut, Tom Miles in Geneva, Dmitry Solovyov in Moscow and Michelle Nicols; Writing by Nick Tattersall, editing by Peter Millership)

Top diplomats from U.S., Japan, South Korea to meet on North Korea

Ryoo Yong-gyu, Earthquake and Volcano Monitoring Division Director, points at where seismic waves observed in South Korea came from, during a media briefing at Korea Meteorological Administration in Seoul

By Tony Munroe and Ben Blanchard

SEOUL/BEIJING, Sept 14 (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will meet with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts in New York on Sunday to discuss responses to North Korea’s latest nuclear test, South Korea’s foreign ministry said on Wednesday.

The three countries are pushing for tough new U.N. Security Council sanctions on North Korea after the isolated country on Friday conducted its fifth and largest nuclear test.

The blast was in defiance of U.N. sanctions that were tightened in March.

China, the North’s chief ally, backed the March resolution but is more resistant to harsh new sanctions this time after the United States and South Korea decided to deploy a sophisticated anti-missile system in the South, which China adamantly opposes.

South Korea said Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se and his counterparts Kerry and Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida will meet during the annual U.N. General Assembly to discuss putting further pressure on North Korea.

The United States wants China to do more, with U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter last week singling out the role he said China should play in curbing its neighbor.

TESTING TIMES

North Korea has been testing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles at an unprecedented rate this year under young leader Kim Jong Un.

On Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi spoke with South Korea’s Yun by phone, expressing Beijing’s opposition to the North’s latest nuclear test but also reiterating opposition to the planned deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THADD) anti-missile system in the South, China’s foreign ministry said.

China is North Korea’s most important diplomatic and trade partner and refuses to cut the country off completely, fearing it could collapse.

Beijing’s official People’s Daily newspaper on Wednesday called the United States a troublemaker and said it has no right to lecture China about taking responsibility for reining in North Korea as tensions on the peninsula are a direct result of U.S. actions.

In a commentary, the ruling Communist Party’s official paper said the United States was pretending it had nothing to do with the North Korea issue and was putting the blame on others.

“People have reason to doubt whether Washington is willing to make the effort to push the North Korea issue in the direction of a resolution,” the paper said.

China and Russia have pushed for a resumption of six party talks on denuclearization in North Korea. The talks, which also involve Japan, South Korea and the United States, have been on hold since 2008.

Washington has said it is willing to negotiate with the North if it the country commits to denuclearization, which Pyongyang has refused to do.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will seek Cuba’s help in responding to North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs during a rare visit to Havana next week, a spokesman said.

Syria ceasefire deal in balance as Aleppo aid stalls

Demonstration against forces with Assad

By Tom Perry and Tom Miles

BEIRUT/GENEVA (Reuters) – Syrian government forces and rebels had yet to withdraw from a road needed to deliver aid to the city of Aleppo on Thursday, threatening the most serious international peacemaking effort in months as the sides accused each other of violating a truce.

The aid delivery to rebel-held eastern Aleppo, which is blockaded by government forces, is an important test of a U.S.-Russian deal that has brought about a significant reduction in violence since a ceasefire took effect on Monday.

The U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura said the United States and Russia were expected to manage the disengagement of forces from the road, but also criticized Damascus for failing to provide permits needed to make aid deliveries to other areas.

France, which backs the opposition, became the first U.S. ally to publicly question the deal with Moscow, urging Washington to share details of the agreement and saying that without aid for Aleppo, it was not credible.

Control of the Castello Road is divided between the government and rebels who have been battling to topple President Bashar al-Assad for more than five years. It has been a major frontline in the war.

Russia, whose air force helped the Syrian government to blockade opposition-held Aleppo this summer, said on Wednesday it was preparing for the Syrian army and rebel fighters to begin a staged withdrawal from the road.

But on Thursday morning, both Syrian government and rebel forces were still manning their positions. An official in an Aleppo-based Syrian rebel group said international parties had told him aid was now due to be delivered on Friday.

“Today the withdrawal is supposed to happen, with aid entering tomorrow. This is what is supposed to happen, but there is nothing to give hope,” Zakaria Malahifji, of the Aleppo-based rebel group Fastaqim, told Reuters.

Malahifji said rebels were ready to withdraw but worried the government would exploit any such move to stage an advance.

“If the regime withdraws 500 meters, east and west (of the road) … then the guys will be able to withdraw a bit,” Malahifji said. “But the regime is not responding. The guys can see its positions in front of them.”

There was no comment from state media or the army about the proposed withdrawal.

U.N. WAITS FOR PERMITS

The U.N. humanitarian adviser Jan Egeland said both the rebels and the government were responsible for delaying aid deliveries into Aleppo.

“The reason we’re not in eastern Aleppo has again been a combination of very difficult and detailed discussions around security monitoring and passage of roadblocks, which is both opposition and government,” he said.

In other areas, de Mistura was categorical about blaming the Syrian government, saying it had not yet provided the proper permits. The Syrian government has said all aid deliveries must be conducted in coordination with it.

About 300,000 people are thought to be living in eastern Aleppo, while more than one million live in the government-controlled western half of the city.

Two convoys of aid for Aleppo have been waiting in no-man’s land to proceed to Aleppo after crossing the Turkish border.

If a green light was given, a spokesman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the first 20 trucks would move to Aleppo and if they reached the city safely, the second convoy would then also leave. The two convoys were carrying enough food for 80,000 people for a month, he said.

The United States and Russia have backed opposing sides in the Syrian war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people, forced 11 million from their homes, and created the world’s worst refugee crisis since the World War Two.

Aleppo, Syria’s biggest city before the war, has been a focal point of the conflict this year. Government forces backed by militias from Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon have recently achieved their long-held objective of encircling the rebel-held east.

MOSCOW CRITICIZES WASHINGTON

Russia’s intervention a year ago in support of Assad has given it critical leverage over the diplomatic process.

Its ally, Assad, appears as uncompromising as ever. He vowed again on Monday to win back the entire country, which has been splintered into areas controlled by the state, an array of rebel factions, the Islamic State group, and the Kurdish YPG militia.

Washington hopes the pact will pave the way to a resumption of political talks. But a similar agreement unraveled earlier this year, and this one also faces enormous challenges.

Under the agreement, nationalist rebels fighting under the banner of the Free Syrian Army are supposed to disengage from a group that was known as the Nusra Front until it broke ties with al Qaeda in July and changed its name to Jabhat Fateh al-Sham.

A Syrian military source said this was not happening. “I believe they want to obstruct the main demand of the Syrian state and leadership, and of Russia – the separation of Nusra from the rest of the organizations, and it appears that this will not happen,” the source said.

Jabhat Fateh al-Sham has played a vital role in recent fighting around Aleppo. FSA groups are suspicious of the group, which has crushed several nationalist factions. But they have also criticized its exclusion from the ceasefire agreement.

The United States and Russia are due to start coordinating military strikes against the former Nusra Front and Islamic State if all goes to plan under the deal.

But Russia said on Thursday the United States was using “a verbal smokescreen” to hide its reluctance to fulfill its part of the agreement, including separating what it called moderate opposition units from terrorist groups.

The defense ministry said only government forces were observing the truce and opposition units “controlled by the U.S.” had stepped up shelling of civilian residential areas.

Rebels say Damascus has carried out numerous violations.

While the general lines of the agreement have been made public, other parts have yet to be revealed, raising concerns among U.S. allies such as France, which is part of the coalition attacking Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault called on the United States to share details of the deal saying that the information was crucial to ensure Islamist militants and not mainstream rebels were being targeted on the ground.

(Additonal reporting by John Irish in Paris and Maria Kiselyova in Moscow; Writing by Tom Perry, editing by Peter Millership)

Democratic Party says it was hacked again, blames Russians

nternet LAN cables are pictured in this photo illustration taken in Sydney June 23, 2011. Australia cleared a key hurdle on Thursday in setting up a $38 billion high-speed broadband system after phone operator Telstra agreed to rent out its network for the nation's biggest infrastructure project in decades.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The head of the Democratic National Committee said on Tuesday the organization had been hacked by Russian state-sponsored agents who were trying to influence the U.S. presidential election, after a similar leak in July roiled the party.

A link to the documents was posted on WikiLeaks’ Twitter account and attributed to alleged hacker Guccifer 2.0. The release came during a presentation on Tuesday from a person speaking on behalf of Guccifer 2.0 at a London cyber security conference, Politico reported.

Reuters could not immediately access the documents.

“There’s one person who stands to benefit from these criminal acts, and that’s (Republican presidential nominee) Donald Trump,” DNC interim Chair Donna Brazile said in a statement.

“Not only has Trump embraced (Russian President Vladimir)Putin, he publicly encouraged further Russian espionage to help his campaign,” she said.

Trump in July invited Russia to dig up emails from Clinton’s time as secretary of state, prompting Democrats to accuse him of urging foreigners to spy on Americans. He later said he was speaking sarcastically.

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz resigned as DNC chair on the eve of July’s Democratic National Convention after WikiLeaks published an earlier trove of hacked DNC emails that showed party officials favoring eventual nominee Hillary Clinton over U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders during the party’s nominating contests. Three other senior officials also stepped down from the DNC after the leak.

“We have been anticipating that an additional batch of documents stolen by Russian agents would be released,” said Brazile, who took over from Wasserman Schultz on an interim basis.

Democratic Party sources said the party and Clinton’s presidential campaign were deeply concerned about possible publication by WikiLeaks or other hackers of a new torrent of potentially embarrassing party information ahead of the Nov. 8 election.

(Reporting by Eric Beech and Mark Hosenball; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Syria truce largely hold, aid preperations underway

Boys walk near a damaged building on the first day of Eid al-Adha celebrations in the rebel held Douma neighbourhood of Damascus

By Lisa Barrington

BEIRUT (Reuters) – A nationwide ceasefire brokered by the United States and Russia was mostly holding across Syria on Tuesday and efforts to deliver badly needed aid to besieged areas including the northern city of Aleppo got cautiously underway.

Syrian state media said armed groups had violated the truce in a number of locations in Aleppo city and in the west Homs countryside on at least seven occasions on Tuesday. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said pro-government forces had shelled near two villages in the south Aleppo countryside and a neighborhood on the outskirts of Damascus.

But there were no reports of deaths or injuries.

The Russian military, which sent reconnaissance equipment to detect and suppress attempts at violations, said the ceasefire had largely been observed in Aleppo.

Around 20 trucks carrying aid crossed into northern Syria from the Turkish border town of Cilvegozu, some 40 km (25 miles) west of Aleppo, a Reuters witness said, although with security a concern it was not clear how far into Syria they would go. A Turkish official said they were mostly carrying food and flour.

The Syrian government said it would reject any aid deliveries to Aleppo not coordinated through itself and the United Nations, particularly from Turkey, Syrian state media reported.

The U.N. said its trucks had not yet entered Syria and that it was still awaiting confirmation that the ceasefire was holding before sending in its own convoy.

“We are waiting for this cessation of hostilities to actually deliver the assurances and the peace before trucks can start moving from Turkey. As I speak, that has not been the case,” Jens Laerke, spokesman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said in Geneva.

“We need to enter an environment where we are not in mortal danger as humanitarian organizations delivering aid,” he said.

The ceasefire is the second attempt this year by the United States and Russia to halt the Syrian war. Russia is a major backer of President Bashar al-Assad, while the United States supports some of the rebel groups fighting to topple him.

Some air attacks and shelling were reported in the first hours of the truce on Monday evening, but that appeared to die down and the Observatory, which monitors the war, said it had not recorded a single civilian death from fighting in the 15 hours since the ceasefire came into effect at 7 p.m. (1600 GMT).

Turkey said on Monday that, in conjunction with the United Nations, it aimed to send more than 30 trucks loaded with food, children’s clothes and toys to besieged parts of Aleppo within hours of the truce taking effect.

The United Nations said on Friday the Syrian government had effectively stopped aid convoys this month and Aleppo was almost running out of fuel.

The head of the city council for opposition-held Aleppo expressed concern that planned deliveries would be conducted according to Russian wishes and would not meet the needs of an estimated 300,000 people living there.

Brita Hagi Hassan told Reuters the rebel-held part of the city, which has been fully encircled by pro-government forces for more than a week, was in dire need of fuel, flour, wheat, baby milk, and medicines.

The council wanted to a role in overseeing the deliveries, he added, rejecting any presence of government forces on the road expected to be used to make the deliveries.

“We need 60 tonnes of flour each day,” he said.

POSITION OF STRENGTH

More than 301,000 Syrians have been documented as killed since the start of the conflict in 2011, the Observatory said in its latest assessment on Tuesday, although it estimates the actual death toll at around 430,000, in line with the U.N.’s estimate. Some 11 million people have been made homeless in the world’s worst refugee crisis.

U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura was monitoring the ceasefire very closely, a spokeswoman said, but she declined to comment on how it was being observed so far.

Israel said its aircraft attacked a Syrian army position after a stray mortar bomb struck the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, a now-routine Israeli response to the occasional spillover from the war. It denied a Syrian claim that a warplane and drone were shot down.

The truce does not cover the jihadist groups Islamic State or Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, a group formerly called the Nusra Front which was al Qaeda’s Syria branch until it changed its name in July. It initial aims include allowing humanitarian access and joint U.S.-Russian targeting of such groups.

The agreement comes at a time when Assad’s position on the battlefield is at its strongest since the earliest months of the war, thanks to Russian and Iranian military support.

The RIA news agency quoted Russia’s foreign ministry on Tuesday as saying Moscow and Tehran had no differences over the ceasefire deal.

Hours before the truce took effect, an emboldened Assad vowed to take back all of Syria. In a gesture loaded with symbolism, state television showed him visiting Daraya, a Damascus suburb long held by rebels but recaptured last month after fighters surrendered in the face of a crushing siege.

Fighting had raged on several key fronts before the truce, including Aleppo and the southern province of Quneitra on Monday, the first day of the Eid al-Adha Muslim holiday.

The Observatory said at least 31 were killed by air strikes on rebel-held Idlib province and eastern Damascus, and by the bombardment of villages in the northern Homs countryside and rocket attacks in the city of Aleppo before the truce.

(Additional reporting by Tom Miles in Geneva, Yesim Dikmen in Istanbul, Tom Perry in Beirut, Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem, Maria Kiselyova and Vladimir Soldatkin in Moscow, Orhan Coskun in Ankara; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Syria ceasefire approaches with Assad emboldened, opposition wary

A girl fills a container with water on the first day of Eid al-Adha celebrations in the rebel held Douma neighbourhood of Damascus, Syria September

By Tom Perry

BEIRUT (Reuters) – An emboldened President Bashar al-Assad vowed on Monday to take back all of Syria, hours before the start of a Russian and American-backed ceasefire, which Assad’s opponents described as stacked in his favor.

In a gesture loaded with symbolism, state television showed Assad visiting Daraya, a Damascus suburb long held by rebels but recaptured last month after fighters there surrendered in the face of a crushing siege. The Syrian leader performed Muslim holiday prayers alongside other officials in a bare hall in a Daraya mosque.

“The Syrian state is determined to recover every area from the terrorists,” Assad said in an interview broadcast by state media, flanked by his delegation at an otherwise deserted road junction.

He made no mention of the ceasefire agreement, but said the army would continue its work “without hesitation, regardless of any internal or external circumstances”.

The ceasefire is due to take effect at sundown, and includes improved humanitarian aid access and joint U.S. and Russian targeting of hardline Islamists. But it faces big challenges, including how to separate nationalist rebels from the jihadists.

The rebels say the deal benefits Assad, who appears stronger than at any point since the early days of the war, with military support from Russia and Iran.

The capture of Daraya, a few kilometers (miles) from Damascus, followed years of siege and bombardment and has helped the government secure important areas to the southwest of the capital near an air base.

Backed by Russian air power and Iranian-backed militias, the army has also completely encircled the rebel-held half of Aleppo, Syria’s largest city before the war, which has been divided into government and opposition-held zones for years.

In the footage of his visit to Daraya, Assad, 51, appeared to be driving his own vehicle, a silver SUV, as he arrived at the mosque. He smiled and waved as he entered.

FIGHTING CONTINUES

Russia’s intervention in the Syrian war a year ago has tilted it in Assad’s favor, after rebel advances had posed a growing threat to his rule. It has also given Russia decisive leverage over international diplomacy that has thus far failed to make any progress towards a political settlement.

The Russia-U.S. deal is the second attempt to bring about a ceasefire this year, after an agreement concluded in February collapsed as each side blamed the other for violations.

Washington, which supports some rebel factions, has been seeking to refocus the fighting in Syria on the Islamic State group, which still controls swathes of the country and has not been included in any ceasefires.

Fighting raged on several key frontlines on Monday, including Aleppo and the southern province of Quneitra.

The commander of a Free Syrian Army (FSA) group in northern Syria said government warplanes had been bombing “like crazy” on Monday, hitting one of his bases.

“They are using their planes to hit everywhere – Aleppo, Idlib, the rural areas,” Hassan Haj Ali, commander of the Suqour al-Jabal group, told Reuters.

The Syrian war has killed hundreds of thousands of people and forced 11 million people from their homes in the world’s worst refugee crisis. The new truce has official support from countries on both sides, including both Iran, Assad’s ally, and Turkey, a major sponsor of the insurgency against him.

TRICKY

Under the agreement, Russian-backed government forces and opposition groups, which are supported by the United States and Gulf States, would halt fighting for a while as a confidence building measure.

During this time, opposition fighters will have the chance to separate from militant groups in areas such as Aleppo.

But distinguishing rebels protected by the ceasefire from jihadists who are excluded from it is tricky, particularly with regards to a group formerly called the Nusra Front, which was al Qaeda’s Syria branch until it changed its name in July.

The group, which now calls itself Jabhet Fateh al-Sham, is playing a vital role in the battle for Aleppo allied with other rebel factions, but is still outside the ceasefire.

The United States has said the deal includes agreement that the government will not fly combat missions in an agreed area on the pretext of hunting fighters from the former Nusra Front. However, the opposition says a loophole would allow the government to continue air strikes for up to nine days after the ceasefire takes effect.

Nationalist rebel groups, including factions backed by Assad’s foreign enemies, wrote to Washington on Sunday to express deep concerns over the truce. The letter, seen by Reuters, said the opposition groups would “cooperate positively” with a ceasefire but believed the terms favored Assad.

It said the ceasefire shared the flaw that allowed the government to scupper the previous truce: a lack of guarantees, monitoring mechanisms or sanctions against violators.

It also said Jabhet Fateh al-Sham should be included in the truce, as the group had not carried out attacks outside Syria despite its previous ties to al Qaeda. Jabhet Fatah al-Sham said the deal aimed to weaken the “effective” anti-Assad forces, and to “bury” the revolution.

A source in the opposition told Reuters the powerful Islamist group Ahrar al-Sham, which fights in close coordination with Jabhet Fatah al-Sham, would back the cessation of hostilities in an announcement later on Monday.

The government has made no comment on the agreement, but Syrian state media quoted what it called private sources as saying the government had given its approval.

The previous cessation of hostilities agreement resulted in a U.N.-led attempt to launch peace talks in Geneva. But these broke down before getting started in earnest.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said a new round of talks between the Syrian government and opposition may be held in early October, the RIA news agency said.

“I think that probably at the very beginning of October (U.N. Syria envoy Staffan) de Mistura should invite all the parties,” Bogdanov was quoted as saying.

(Additional reporting by Mohamed el Sherif in Cairo, Dmitry Solovyov in Moscow, Tom Miles in Geneva; writing by Tom Perry; editing by Peter Graff)

U.N. says U.S.-Russia talks on Syria crucial as aid stops rolling in

UN bigwigs

By Tom Miles

GENEVA (Reuters) – The Syrian government has effectively stopped aid convoys this month and the besieged city of Aleppo is close to running out of fuel, making U.S.-Russian peace talks in Geneva on Friday even more urgent, the United Nations said.

“Convoys are not rolling at the moment in Syria,” the U.N. humanitarian chief told reporters in Geneva, although an air bridge to the Kurdish-controlled northeastern city of Hasaka has continued operating, and there have been a handful of evacuations from the besieged towns of Foua and Madaya.

Syria’s government vets U.N. aid plans on a monthly basis, and its late and partial approval of the program for this month meant no aid had yet gone in, Stephen O’Brien said.

“We are on Sept 9, and the supplies under the September plan have not yet started.”

As he spoke U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov were meeting nearby for a third time in as many weeks to clinch a nationwide ceasefire deal.

U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura, with de O’Brien, said the talks were “addressing complex, delicate and difficult issues. “The conclusions could make, lets’s be frank, a major difference,” he said.

Helping around 250,000 people besieged in eastern Aleppo, where a battle for control has escalated in the past month, was becoming urgent, he said.

“There is a growing concern about eastern Aleppo: the issue about food, the issue about the possibility that within perhaps the next few days it will turn out to be dark because there is no fuel, problems of water.”

Opposition groups say Russia, which co-sponsors the U.N. peace process, is part of the problem and not the solution, because it has provided strong air support for fighters loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

“We ask any party which has influence on any of the warring parties to ensure that they recognize that the demand for humanitarian access is paramount and rises above all the other vested interests,” O’Brien said.

(Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

North Korea conducts fifth and largest nuclear test, drawing broad condemnation

South Korean emergency meeting

* Test seen as North’s most powerful yet

* Japan protests, sends jets to monitor for radiation

* China begins emergency radiation testing

* South accuses North of “maniacal recklessness”

* UN Security Council to hold closed-door meeting Friday –
dips

(Adds UN, CTBTO estimate, further condemnations)

By Ju-min Park and Jack Kim

SEOUL, Sept 9 (Reuters) – North Korea conducted its fifth
and biggest nuclear test on Friday and said it had mastered the
ability to mount a warhead on a ballistic missile, ratcheting up
a threat that its rivals and the United Nations have been
powerless to contain.

The blast, on the 68th anniversary of North Korea’s
founding, was more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima,
according to some estimates, and drew condemnation from the
United States as well as China, Pyongyang’s main ally.

Diplomats said the United Nations Security Council would
discuss the test at a closed-door meeting on Friday, at the
request of the United States, Japan and South Korea.

Under 32-year-old dictator Kim Jong Un, North Korea has
accelerated the development of its nuclear and missile
programmes, despite U.N. sanctions that were tightened in March
and have further isolated the impoverished country.

South Korean President Park Geun-hye, in Laos after a summit
of Asian leaders, said Kim was showing “maniacal recklessness”
in completely ignoring the world’s call to abandon his pursuit
of nuclear weapons.

U.S. President Barack Obama, aboard Air Force One on his way
home from Laos, said the test would be met with “serious
consequences”, and held talks with Park and with Japanese Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe, the White House said.

China said it was resolutely opposed to the test and urged
Pyongyang to stop taking any actions that would worsen the
situation. It said it would lodge a protest with the North
Korean embassy in Beijing.

There were further robust condemnations from Russia, the
European Union, NATO, Germany and Britain.

North Korea, which labels the South and the United States as
its main enemies, said its “scientists and technicians carried
out a nuclear explosion test for the judgment of the power of a
nuclear warhead,” according to its official KCNA news agency.

It said the test proved North Korea was capable of mounting
a nuclear warhead on a medium-range ballistic missile, which it
last tested on Monday when Obama and other world leaders were
gathered in China for a G20 summit.

Pyongyang’s claims of being able to miniaturise a nuclear
warhead have never been independently verified.

Its continued testing in defiance of sanctions presents a
challenge to Obama in the final months of his presidency and
could become a factor in the U.S. presidential election in
November, and a headache to be inherited by whoever wins.

“Sanctions have already been imposed on almost everything
possible, so the policy is at an impasse,” said Tadashi Kimiya,
a University of Tokyo professor specialising in Korean issues.

“In reality, the means by which the United States, South
Korea and Japan can put pressure on North Korea have reached
their limits,” he said.

UNPRECEDENTED RATE

North Korea has been testing different types of missiles at
an unprecedented rate this year, and the capability to mount a
nuclear warhead on a missile is especially worrisome for its
neighbours South Korea and Japan.

“The standardisation of the nuclear warhead will enable the
DPRK to produce at will and as many as it wants a variety of
smaller, lighter and diversified nuclear warheads of higher
strike power,” KCNA said, referring to the country’s formal
name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

It was not clear whether Pyongyang had notified Beijing or
Moscow of its planned nuclear test. Senior officials from
Pyongyang were in both capitals this week.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said she
had no information to provide when asked if China had advance
warning of the test, and would not be drawn on whether China
would support tougher sanctions against its neighbour.

Although Beijing has criticised North Korea’s nuclear and
missile tests, it has repeatedly expressed anger since the
United States and South Korea decided in July to deploy the
Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system
in the South.

China calls THAAD a threat to its own security and will do
nothing to bring North Korea back to the negotiating table on
its nuclear programme.

Preliminary data collected by the Vienna-based Comprehensive
Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), which monitors
nuclear tests around the world, indicates the magnitude – around
5 – of the seismic event detected in North Korea on Friday was
greater than a previous one in January.

Jeffrey Lewis of the California-based Middlebury Institute
of International Studies said the highest estimates of seismic
magnitude suggested this was North Korea’s most powerful nuclear
test so far.

He said the seismic magnitude and surface level indicated a
blast with a 20- to 30-kilotonne yield. Such a yield would make
this test larger than the nuclear bomb dropped by the United
States on the Japanese city of Hiroshima in World War Two.

“That’s the largest DPRK test to date, 20-30kt, at least.
Not a happy day,” Lewis told Reuters.

South Korea’s military put the force of the blast at 10
kilotonnes, which would still be the North’s most powerful
nuclear blast to date.

“The important thing is, that five tests in, they now have a
lot of nuclear test experience. They aren’t a backwards state
any more,” Lewis said.

(Reporting by Jack Kim, Ju-min Park, James Pearson, Se Young
Lee, Nataly Pak, and Yun Hwan Chae in SEOUL; Additional
reporting by Ben Blanchard in BEIJING, Kaori Kaneko and Linda
Sieg in TOKYO, Kirsti Knolle in VIENNA and Eric Beech and
Michelle Nichols in WASHINGTON; Writing by Tony Munroe; Editing
by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Ian Geoghegan)