The Jim Bakker Show

Philippine defense chief says Duterte may be ‘misinformed’ on U.S. alliance

MANILA (Reuters) – The Philippine defense minister sought to patch up cracks in a military alliance with the United States on Wednesday, saying President Rodrigo Duterte, who has appeared intent on scrapping joint programs, might be misinformed about their value.

Referring to recent strongly worded comments by Duterte, in which he has declared that the Philippines military gained little from U.S. security ties, Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said the armed forces were still weak and the country got a lot out of the U.S. relationship.

“That’s why I said the president was misinformed, because I think the information he is getting is incomplete,” Lorenzana told reporters, a day after the launch of the latest round of PHIBLEX military exercises involving troops from both sides.

“Maybe, the defense ministry and the armed forces were remiss in providing him the correct information. This, we will address in the coming days.”

The United States has been on the receiving end of a torrent of hostility from Duterte, who was angered by U.S. expressions of concern over his war on drugs.

On Tuesday, Duterte said U.S. President Barack Obama should “go to hell” and that in his time, he might “break up” with Washington, with which Manila has had a security treaty since 1951.

Last week, he also caused a stir when he said the PHIBLEX exercises would be “the last one” and on Sunday said a U.S.-Philippines Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement would be reviewed.

That deal includes setting up storage facilities for maritime security, humanitarian and disaster response operations and grants U.S. troops some access to Philippine bases.

Lorenzana said the ongoing exercises gave Philippine troops exposure to new guns, technology and body armor and training in warfare tactics, marksmanship and quick responses to natural disasters.

“According to him, only the American troops are benefiting from those exercises,” he said, referring to his president.

“But based on what we gathered from the GHQ (general headquarters) and army, there are (benefits).”

U.S. officials have played down Duterte’s remarks, focusing instead on the decades-long alliance which they have sought to bolster in recent years in response to China’s moves to enforce its claims over the South China Sea.

The White House said on Tuesday the United States had not received any formal communications from Duterte’s government about changing the relationship.

(Reporting by Martin Petty; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Hurricane Matthew hammers Haiti and Cuba, bears down on U.S.

By Makini Brice and Sarah Marsh

LES CAYES, Haiti/GUANTANAMO, Cuba (Reuters) – Hurricane Matthew, the fiercest Caribbean storm in almost a decade, hit Cuba and Haiti with winds of well over 100 miles-per-hour on Tuesday, pummeling towns, farmland and resorts and forcing hundreds of thousands of people to take cover.

Dubbed by the U.N. the worst humanitarian crisis to hit Haiti since a devastating 2010 earthquake, the Category Four hurricane unleashed torrential rain on the island of Hispaniola that Haiti shares with the Dominican Republic.

As it barreled towards the United States, the eye of the storm had moved off the northeastern coast of Cuba by Tuesday night, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.

At least four people were killed in the Dominican Republic by collapsing walls and mudslides, as well as two in Haiti, where communications in the worst-hit areas were down, making it hard for authorities to assess the scale of the damage.

“Haiti is facing the largest humanitarian event witnessed since the earthquake six years ago,” said Mourad Wahba, the U.N. Secretary-General’s Deputy Special Representative for Haiti.

Over 200,000 people were killed in Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, by the January 2010 earthquake.

Matthew was blowing sustained winds of 140 mph (230 kph) or more for much of Tuesday, though as night fell, the windspeed eased to about 130 mph, the NHC said.

Early reports suggested that Cuba had not been hit as hard as Haiti, where the situation was described as “catastrophic” in the port town of Les Cayes.

In the Cuban city of Guantanamo, streets emptied as people moved to shelters or inside their homes.

Matthew is likely to remain a powerful hurricane through at least Thursday night as it sweeps through the Bahamas towards Florida and the Atlantic coast of the southern United States, the NHC said. The storm is expected to be very near the east cost of Florida by Thursday evening, the center added.

The governor of South Carolina ordered the evacuation of more than 1 million people from Wednesday afternoon.

With communications out across most of Haiti and a key bridge impassable because of a swollen river, there was no immediate word on the full extent of potential casualties and damage from the storm in the poorest country in the Americas.

But Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook told reporters in Washington the U.S. Navy was considering sending an aircraft carrier and other ships to the region to aid relief efforts.

The United States has already offered Haiti the use of some helicopters, said Haitian Interior Minister Francois Anick Joseph, who added that damage to housing and crops in the country was apparently extensive.

Twice destroyed by hurricanes in the 18th century, Les Cayes was hit hard by Matthew.

“The situation in Les Cayes is catastrophic, the city is flooded, you have trees lying in different places and you can barely move around. The wind has damaged many houses,” said Deputy Mayor Marie Claudette Regis Delerme, who fled a house in the town of about 70,000 when the wind ripped the roof off.

One man died as the storm crashed through his home in the nearby beach town of Port Salut, Haiti’s civil protection service said. He had been too sick to leave for a shelter, officials said. The body of a second man who went missing at sea was also recovered, the government said. Another fisherman was killed in heavy seas over the weekend as the storm approached.

STARTING FROM SCRATCH

As much as 3 feet (1 meter) of rain was forecast to fall over hills in Haiti that are largely deforested and prone to flash floods and mudslides, threatening villages as well as shantytowns in the capital Port-au-Prince.

The hurricane has hit Haiti at a time when tens of thousands of people are still living in flimsy tents and makeshift dwellings because of the 2010 earthquake.

“Farms have been hit really hard. Things like plantains, beans, rice – they’re all gone,” said Hervil Cherubin, country director in Haiti for Heifer International, a nonprofit organization that is working with 30,000 farming families across Haiti. “Most of the people are going to have to start all over again. Whatever they accumulated the last few years has been all washed out.”

Matthew was churning around 20 miles (32 km) northwest of the eastern tip of Cuba at 11 p.m. EDT (0300 GMT). It was moving north at about 8 miles per hour (13 kph), the NHC said.

Cuba’s Communist government traditionally puts extensive efforts into saving lives and property in the face of storms, and authorities have spent days organizing teams of volunteers to move residents to safety and secure property.

The storm thrashed the tourist town of Baracoa in the province of Guantanamo, passing close to the disputed U.S. Naval base and military prison.

The U.S. Navy ordered the evacuation of 700 spouses and children along with 65 pets of service personnel as the storm approached. U.S. President Barack Obama had earlier canceled a trip to Florida scheduled for Wednesday because of the potential impact of the storm, the White House said.

A hurricane watch was in effect for Florida from an area just north of Miami Beach to the Volusia-Brevard county line, near Cape Canaveral, which the storm could reach on Thursday, the hurricane center said.

Tropical storm or hurricane conditions could affect parts of Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina later this week, even if the center of Matthew remained offshore, the NHC said.

Governor Rick Scott declared a state of emergency for Florida on Monday, designating resources for evacuations and shelters and putting the National Guard on standby.

(Reporting by Joseph Guyler Delva in Port-au-Prince and Makini Brice in Les Cayes; Additional reporting by Marc Frank in Cuba and Jorge Pineda in Dominican Republic; Writing by Frank Jack Daniel and Dave Graham; Editing by Simon Gardner, Sandra Maler and Nick Macfie)

U.S. suspends talks with Russia on Syria ceasefire

A rebel fighter rides past damaged buildings in al-Rai town, northern Aleppo countryside,

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States on Monday suspended talks with Russia on trying to end the violence in Syria and accused Moscow of not living up to its commitments under a ceasefire agreement.

The announcement came as Syrian government supported by Iranian-backed militias and Russian air power pounded the rebel-held area of Aleppo, bombing one of the city’s main hospitals and badly damaging water supplies.

“The United States is suspending its participation in bilateral channels with Russia that were established to sustain the cessation of hostilities,” U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby said in a statement. “This is not a decision that was taken lightly.”

The confirmation that the U.S.-Russian talks on Syria have collapsed suggests that there is little hope, if any, of a diplomatic solution to end the 5-1/2-year-old civil war emerging anytime soon.

It could also trigger deeper U.S. consideration of military options such as providing more sophisticated arms, logistical support, and training to Syrian rebel groups that U.S. officials have said were under consideration, either directly or via Gulf Arab states or Turkey.

However, U.S. President Barack Obama has been loath to get the United States more deeply involved in a third war in the Islamic world and U.S. officials have said he is unlikely to do so with less than four months left in office.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry threatened last week to end the talks after a ceasefire he and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, brokered collapsed last month after warplanes believed to belong to Russia bombed a U.N. aid convoy.

In the statement, Kirby said the United States would continue to communicate with Russian military to avoid so-called deconfliction – to avoid accidental military interactions – over Syria.

But he said the United States would withdraw all personnel it had dispatched to prepare for military co-operation with Russia under the latest ceasefire agreement.

“Unfortunately, Russia failed to live up to its own commitments …and was also either unwilling or unable to ensure Syrian regime adherence to the arrangements to which Moscow agreed,” Kirby said.

News of the suspending of the talks came as diplomats said the United Nations Security Council would begin to negotiate on Monday a draft resolution that urges Russia and the United States to ensure an immediate truce in Aleppo.

(Reporting by Lesley Wroughton; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Diane Craft)

China paper says U.S., South Korea will ‘pay the price’ for planned missile system

BEIJING (Reuters) – The United States and South Korea are destined to “pay the price” for their decision to deploy an advanced missile defense system which will inevitably prompt a “counter attack”, China’s top newspaper said on Saturday.

Tension on the Korean peninsula has been high this year, beginning with North Korea’s fourth nuclear test in January, which was followed by a satellite launch, a string of tests of various missiles, and its fifth and largest nuclear test last month.

In July, South Korea agreed with the United States to deploy the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system to protect against any North Korean threats.

South Korea aims to deploy the system on a golf course, a defense ministry official said on Friday.

But the plan has angered China, which worries that THAAD’s powerful radar would compromise its security and do nothing to lower temperatures on the Korean peninsula.

In a commentary, the ruling Communist Party’s official People’s Daily said China’s opposition to THAAD would never change as it was a serious threat to the regional strategic security balance.

“Like any other country, China can neither be vague nor indifferent on security matters that affect its core interests,” the newspaper said in the commentary, published under the pen name “Zhong Sheng”, meaning “Voice of China”, often used to give views on foreign policy.

The United States and South Korea have to wake up to the fact that the Korean peninsula is no place to take risks, it added.

“If the United States and South Korea harm the strategic security interests of countries in the region including China, then they are destined to pay the price for this and receive a proper counter attack,” the paper added, without elaborating.

NO DETAILS YET

China has repeatedly promised to take specific steps to respond since the THAAD decision was announced, but has given no details about what it may do.

The United States and South Korea have said THAAD does not threaten China’s security or target any country other than North Korea.

China is North Korea’s most important diplomatic and economic partner, but Beijing has been infuriated by its nuclear and missile tests and has signed up for strong United Nations sanctions against North Korea.

However, China has continued to call for talks to resolve the North Korean issue and said sanctions are not the ultimate solution.

At a reception in Pyongyang on Friday for China’s National Day, Chinese Ambassador Li Jinjun said his country wanted to consolidate its friendship with North Korea, China’s Xinhua news agency said on Saturday.

The report made no mention of the nuclear issue.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Richard Borsuk)

Russia’s Putin suspends plutonium cleanup accord with U.S. because of ‘unfriendly’ acts

By Dmitry Solovyov

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday suspended an agreement with the United States for disposal of weapons-grade plutonium because of “unfriendly” acts by Washington, the Kremlin said.

A Kremlin spokesman said Putin had signed a decree suspending the 2010 agreement under which each side committed to destroy tonnes of weapons-grade material because Washington had not been implementing it and because of current tensions in relations.

The two former Cold War adversaries are at loggerheads over a raft of issues including Ukraine, where Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and supports pro-Moscow separatists, and the conflict in Syria.

The deal, signed in 2000 but which did not come into force until 2010, was being suspended due to “the emergence of a threat to strategic stability and as a result of unfriendly actions by the United States of America towards the Russian Federation”, the preamble to the decree said.

It also said that Washington had failed “to ensure the implementation of its obligations to utilize surplus weapons-grade plutonium”.

The 2010 agreement, signed by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and then-U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, called on each side to dispose of 34 tonnes of plutonium by burning in nuclear reactors.

Clinton said at the time that that was enough material to make almost 17,000 nuclear weapons. Both sides then viewed the deal as a sign of increased cooperation between the two former adversaries toward a joint goal of nuclear non-proliferation.

“For quite a long time, Russia had been implementing it (the agreement) unilaterally,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a conference call with journalists on Monday.

“Now, taking into account this tension (in relations) in general … the Russian side considers it impossible for the current state of things to last any longer.”

Ties between Moscow and Washington plunged to freezing point over Crimea and Russian support for separatists in eastern Ukraine after protests in Kiev toppled pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovich.

Washington led a campaign to impose Western economic sanctions on Russia for its role in the Ukraine crisis.

Relations soured further last year when Russia deployed its warplanes to an air base in Syria to provide support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s troops fighting rebels.

The rift has widened in recent weeks, with Moscow accusing Washington of not delivering on its promise to separate units of moderate Syrian opposition from “terrorists”.

Huge cost overruns have also long been another threat to the project originally estimated at a total of $5.7 billion.

(Reporting by Dmitry Solovyov; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

Drop in U.S. consumer spending clouds Fed rate hike outlook

By Jason Lange

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. consumer spending fell in August for the first time in seven months while inflation showed signs of accelerating, mixed signals that could keep the Federal Reserve cautious about raising interest rates.

The Commerce Department said on Friday that consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity, fell 0.1 percent last month after accounting for inflation.

Analysts polled by Reuters had expected a 0.1 percent gain.

“Consumers took a breather in August,” said Chris Christopher of IHS Global Insight.

Fed Chair Janet Yellen said last week she expected the U.S. central bank would raise rates once later this year to keep the economy from eventually overheating.

Prices for fed funds futures suggest investors see almost no chance of a hike at the Fed’s next policy meeting in early November and roughly even odds of an increase at its mid-December meeting, according to CME Group.

The dollar <.DXY> was little changed against a basket of currencies while U.S. stock prices were trading higher.

Consumer spending, which has been robust in recent months, partially offset the drag from weak business investment and falling inventories in the second quarter when the economy expanded at a lackluster 1.4 percent annual rate.

Economists said overall economic growth could still accelerate in the current quarter even with August’s slight decline in consumer spending.

The Atlanta Fed said growth appeared on track to accelerate to a 2.4 percent annual rate in the third quarter, according to its closely watched GDPNow forecasting model. It had forecast growth of 2.8 percent for the period earlier this week.

A tightening labor market appears to be pushing up wages and could fuel higher levels of spending in the future. Personal income rose 0.2 percent in August, in line with expectations.

Consumer prices also rose about as much expected in August, with the price index excluding food and energy increasing 0.2 percent from the prior month. That left inflation excluding food and energy at 1.7 percent in the 12 months through August, up a tenth of a percentage point from the prior month and closer to the Fed’s 2 percent inflation target.

(Reporting by Jason Lange; Editing by Paul Simao)

Peres funeral, attended by Obama, briefly brings Israeli, Palestinian leaders together

Still image taken from video of Israeli politician's funeral

By Jeffrey Heller and Jeff Mason

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli and Palestinian leaders shook hands during a brief chat and U.S. President Barack Obama gently reminded them of the “unfinished business of peace” at the funeral Friday of Shimon Peres, the last of a generation of Israel’s founding fathers.

But there was no indication that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s rare visit to Jerusalem and the amiable words he and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu exchanged would lead to any movement in long-stalled peacemaking.

Peres, a former president and prime minister who died on Wednesday at the age of 93, shared a Nobel Prize for the interim land-for-peace accords he helped reach with the Palestinians as Israel’s foreign minister in the 1990s.

Long-hailed abroad and by supporters in Israel as a visionary, Peres was seen by his critics as an overly optimistic dreamer in the harsh realities of the Middle East.

“I know from my conversations with him, his pursuit of peace was never naive,” Obama said in his eulogy of Peres, who did much in the early part of his 70 years in public life to build up Israel’s powerful military and nuclear weapons capabilities.

With divisions deep over Jewish settlement in Israeli-occupied territory that Palestinians seek for a state, as well as other issues, U.S.-sponsored negotiations on a final agreement between the two sides have been frozen since 2014.

Netanyahu and Abbas have not held face-to-face talks since 2010. Abbas opted to attend Peres’s funeral, making the short drive from nearby Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, through Israeli military checkpoints.

“Long time, long time,” Abbas told Netanyahu and the prime minister’s wife Sara, after shaking his hand before the start of the ceremony held in the “Great Leaders of the Nation” section of Mount Herzl cemetery, overlooking a forested valley.

Welcoming Abbas, as participants recorded the encounter on their mobile phones, Netanyahu said of the Palestinian leader’s attendance: “It’s something that I appreciate very much on behalf of our people and on behalf of us.”

In Israel for just a few hours to pay tribute to Peres, Obama said in the eulogy that Abbas’s “presence here is a gesture and a reminder of the unfinished business of peace”. He was the only speaker to acknowledge Abbas’s presence.

In Gaza, ruled by the Islamist group Hamas, hundreds of Palestinians rallied after Friday prayers condemning the participation of Palestinian and Arab leaders in the funeral.

FRONT ROW

Abbas was given a front-row seat between European Council President Donald Tusk and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Obama briefly greeted the Palestinian leader with a kiss on each cheek before walking down the line to stand next to Netanyahu.

“Even in the face of terrorist attacks, even after repeated disappointments at the negotiation table, (Peres) insisted that as human beings, Palestinians must be seen as equal in dignity to Jews and must therefore be equal in self-determination,” Obama said in his address.

U.S. officials have held open the possibility of Obama making another formal effort to get peace negotiations back on the agenda before he leaves office in January, possibly via a U.N. Security Council resolution.

Netanyahu recalled in his eulogy that he had once argued with Peres, a former leader of the center-left Labour Party, about what was more important for Israel – peace or security.

“Shimon, you said, ‘Bibi: the best security is peace.’ And I said, ‘without security there can be no peace.'”

“And you know what our surprise conclusion was? We are both right… The goal is not power. Power is the vehicle. The goal is existence and co-existence,” Netanyahu said.

Peres, who suffered a stroke two weeks ago, was buried in a Jewish religious ceremony in a plot between two other former prime ministers, Yitzhak Rabin and Yitzhak Shamir. Rabin was assassinated by an ultranationalist Israeli in 1995 over the interim peace deals struck with the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

“Gone too soon,” one of Peres’s two sons, Yoni, quoted his father as telling him when asked what he wanted as his epitaph.

Amos Oz, the celebrated Israeli author and peace campaigner who was a long-time friend of Peres, said in his eulogy it was time to create a Palestinian state alongside Israel. “We must split this house into two apartments,” Oz said. “Where are the brave and wise leaders who will continue his legacy?”

The rulers of Egypt and Jordan, the only Arab states to have signed peace treaties with Israel, in 1979 and 1994, were not in attendance. But the Egyptian foreign minister came and King Abdullah of Jordan sent a telegram of condolences.

Britain’s Prince Charles, French President Francois Hollande, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, Polish President Andrzej Duda, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and former British leaders David Cameron and Tony Blair also were at the funeral.

(Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza; Writing by Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Luke Baker and Mark Heinrich)

Moscow vows to press Syria offensive; U.S. weighs tough response

Rebel fighters of 'Al-Sultan Murad' brigade gather on the outskirts of the northern Syrian town of Shawa, which is controlled by Islamic State militants, in Aleppo Governorate, Syria,

By Jonathan Landay and Tom Perry

WASHINGTON/BEIRUT (Reuters) – The Kremlin vowed on Thursday to press on with its assault in Syria, while U.S. officials searched for a tougher response to Russia’s decision to ignore the peace process and seek military victory on behalf of President Bashar al-Assad.

Moscow and Damascus launched an assault to recapture the rebel-held sector of Aleppo this month, abandoning a new ceasefire a week after it took effect to embark on what could be the biggest battle of a nearly six-year war.

Rebel fighters have launched an advance of their own in countryside near the central city of Hama, where they said they made gains on Thursday.

The United States and European Union accuse Russia of torpedoing diplomacy to pursue military victory in Aleppo, and say Moscow and Damascus are guilty of war crimes for targeting civilians, hospitals and aid workers to break the will of 250,000 people living under siege inside Syria’s largest city.

EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini called the air strikes in Aleppo a “massacre” and said European governments were considering their response. Russia and the Syrian government say they are targeting only militants.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who personally negotiated the failed truce in talks with Russia despite scepticism from other senior U.S. officials, has said Washington could walk away from diplomacy unless the fighting stops.

He has called for a halt to flights, a step rejected by Moscow. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday Russia would “continue the operation of its air force in support of the anti-terrorist activity of Syria’s armed forces”.

Peskov said Washington was to blame for the fighting, by failing to meet an obligation to separate “moderate” rebel fighters from terrorists.

“In general, we express regret at the rather non-constructive nature of the rhetoric voiced by Washington in the past days.”

U.S. officials are considering tougher responses to the Russian-backed Syrian government assault, including military options, although they have described the range of possible responses as limited and say risky measures like air strikes on Syrian targets or sending U.S. jets to escort aid are unlikely.

BATTLE FOR ALEPPO

Recapturing Aleppo would be the biggest victory of the war for government forces, and a potential turning point in a conflict that until now most outside countries had said would never be won by force.

The multi-sided civil war has killed hundreds of thousands of people, made half of Syrians homeless, and allowed much of the east of the country to fall into the hands of Islamic State jihadists who are enemies of all other sides.

Aleppo has been divided into government and opposition sectors for four years, and its rebel zone is now the only major urban area still in the hands of anti-Assad fighters supported by the West and Arab states. The government lay siege to it in July, cutting off those trapped inside from food and medicine.

The last week of bombing has killed hundreds of people and left many hundreds more wounded, with no way to bring in medical supplies. There are only around 30 doctors inside the besieged zone. The two biggest hospitals were knocked out of service by air strikes or shelling on Wednesday.

Russia says the only way to defeat Islamic State is to support Assad. Washington says the Syrian president has too much blood on his hands and must leave power.

Washington is bombing Islamic State targets in the east but has otherwise avoided any direct participation in the civil war in the rest of the country, leaving the field open to Russia, which joined the war a year ago tipping the conflict in favor of its ally Assad.

Relations between Moscow and Washington are already at their worst since the Cold War, with the United States and European Union having imposed economic sanctions over Russia’s annexation of territory from Ukraine and support for separatists there.

WASHINGTON CAUGHT OFF GUARD

The ferocity of the assault on Aleppo is driving many of the Western-backed anti-Assad groups to cooperate more closely with jihadist fighters, the opposite of the strategy Washington has hoped to pursue, rebel officials told Reuters.

In Aleppo, rebels fighting under the Free Syrian Army banner are sharing operational planning with Jaish al-Fatah, an alliance of Islamist groups that includes the former Syrian wing of al Qaeda.

Meanwhile, in nearby Hama province, FSA groups armed with U.S.-made anti-tank missiles are taking part in a major offensive with the al Qaeda-inspired Jund al-Aqsa group that has diverted some of the army’s firepower from Aleppo.

The FSA rebels have deep ideological differences with the jihadists, and have even fought them at times, but say survival is the main consideration.

“At a time when we are dying, it is not logical to first check if a group is classified as terrorist or not before cooperating with it,” said a senior official in one of the Aleppo-based rebel factions. “The only option you have is to go in this direction.”

Two U.S. officials said the speed with which the diplomatic track collapsed in Syria and pro-government forces advanced in Aleppo had caught some in the administration off guard.

Obama administration officials have begun considering responses, including military options, U.S. officials said. The new discussions were being held at “staff level,” and had yet to produce any recommendations to Obama.

Even administration advocates of a more muscular U.S. response said on Wednesday that it was not clear what, if anything, the president would do, and that his options “begin at tougher talk”, as one official put it.

One official said that before any action could be taken, Washington would first have to “follow through on Kerry’s threat and break off talks with the Russians” on Syria.

OPTIONS ON THE TABLE

Possible responses include allowing Gulf allies to supply rebels with more sophisticated weaponry, or carrying out a U.S. air strike on a Syrian government air base, viewed as less likely because of the potential for causing Russian casualties, the officials told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The options being weighed are limited in number and stop well short of any large-scale commitment of U.S. troops.

One of the officials said the list of options included supporting rebel counter-attacks elsewhere with additional weaponry or even air strikes, which “might not reverse the tide of battle, but might cause the Russians to stop and think”.

Another official said any weapons supplied to rebels would not include shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, which rebels say they need to fight the Russian air force but which Washington fears could end up in the hands of militants.

Other ideas under consideration include sending more U.S. special operations forces to train and advise Kurdish and Syrian Arab rebel groups, and deploying additional American and allied naval and airpower to the eastern Mediterranean.

U.S. officials had considered a humanitarian airlift to rebel-held areas, which would require escorts by U.S. warplanes, but this has been deemed too risky and “moved down the list”, one official said.

(Additional reporting by John Walcott, Matt Spetalnick, Arshad Mohammed and Phil Stewart in Washington, Dmitry Solovyov in Moscow and Robin Emmott in Brussels,; writing by Peter Graff, editing by Peter Millership)

U.N. calls Aleppo a slaughterhouse as Russia, Syria forces bomb hospitals

Medics inspect the damage outside a field hospital after an airstrike in the rebel-held al-Maadi neighbourhood of Aleppo, Syria,

By Ellen Francis and Tom Perry

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Russian or Syrian warplanes knocked two hospitals out of service in the besieged rebel sector of Aleppo on Wednesday and ground forces intensified an assault in a battle which the United Nations said had made the city worse than a slaughterhouse.

Two patients died in one of the hospitals and other shelling killed six residents queuing for bread under a siege that has trapped 250,000 people with food running out.

The week-old assault, which could herald a turning point in the war, has already killed hundreds of people, with bunker-busting bombs bringing down buildings on residents huddled inside. Only about 30 doctors are believed to be left inside the besieged zone, coping with hundreds of wounded a day.

“The warplane flew over us and directly started dropping its missiles … at around 4 a.m.,” Mohammad Abu Rajab, a radiologist at the M10 hospital, the largest trauma hospital in the city’s rebel-held sector, told Reuters.

“Rubble fell in on the patients in the intensive care unit.”

M10 hospital workers said oxygen and power generators were destroyed and patients were transferred to another hospital.

Photographs sent to Reuters by a hospital worker at the facility showed damaged storage tanks, a rubble strewn area, and the collapsed roof of what he said was a power facility.

There were no initial reports of casualties there, but medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said two patients had been killed at the other hospital, in shelling which took it out of service as well, leaving east Aleppo with only seven doctors in a position to undertake surgery.

“And this comes at a time when east Aleppo has been under siege since July and is suffering the bloodiest indiscriminate bombing since the beginning of the war,” MSF’s Syria head Carlos Francisco said.

The government of President Bashar al-Assad, backed by Russian air power, Iranian ground forces and Shi’ite militia fighters from Iran, Iraq and Lebanon, has launched a massive assault to crush the rebels’ last major urban stronghold.

Syria’s largest city before the war, Aleppo has been divided for years between government and rebel zones, and would be the biggest strategic prize of the war for Assad and his allies.

Taking full control of the city would restore near full government rule over the most important cities of western Syria, where nearly all of the population lived before the start of a conflict that has since made half of Syrians homeless, caused a refugee crisis and contributed to the rise of Islamic State.

UNPRECEDENTED BOMBING

The offensive began with unprecedentedly fierce bombing last week, followed by a ground campaign this week, burying a ceasefire that had been the culmination of months of diplomacy between Washington and Moscow.

Washington says Moscow and Damascus are guilty of war crimes for targeting civilians, hospitals, rescue workers and aid deliveries, to break the will of residents and force them to surrender. Syria and Russia say they target only militants.

Asked by a reporter at the United Nations whether Syria had bombed the two hospitals hit on Wednesday, the Syrian ambassador to the world body, Bashar Ja’afari, appeared to laugh.

The Syrian army said a Nusra Front position had been destroyed in Aleppo’s old quarter, and other militant-held areas targeted in “concentrated air strikes” near the city.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said those using “ever more destructive weapons” were committing war crimes. Describing the situation in Aleppo, he said: “This is worse. Even a slaughterhouse is more humane.”

France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said he was working to put forward a United Nations Security Council resolution to impose a ceasefire in Aleppo, and that any country that opposed it would be deemed complicit in war crimes.

“This resolution will leave everyone facing their responsibilities: those who don’t vote it, risk being held responsible for complicity in war crimes,” he said.

Another hospital, M2, was damaged by bombardment in the al-Maadi district, where at least six people were killed while queuing for bread at a nearby bakery, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring body and residents.

Food supplies are scarce in the besieged area, and those trapped inside often line up before dawn for food.

The collapse of the peace process leaves U.S. policy on Syria in tatters and is a personal blow to Secretary of State John Kerry, who led talks with Moscow despite scepticism from other top officials in President Barack Obama’s administration.

Kerry spoke to Lavrov on Wednesday and Russia said later that it was ready to continue diplomacy on Syria and would soon send experts to Geneva for talks with U.S. counterparts on normalizing the situation in Aleppo and elsewhere.

The U.S. State Department said non-diplomatic options to halt the violence had been discussed within the administration, but declined to say what the options might be.

BATTLEFIELD VICTORY

Assad’s Iranian and Lebanese Hezbollah allies have said in recent days the war will be won in combat.

But the rebels remain a potent military force even as they have lost control of urban areas. The collapse of peace efforts ends a proposed scheme to separate Western-backed fighters from hardened jihadists.

It has also raised the question of whether the rebels’ foreign backers, states including Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United States, will increase military backing to rebels who have long said weapons they provide are inadequate.

The rebels’ main demand has long been for the provision of anti-aircraft missiles, but Washington has resisted this, fearing they could end up in the hands of jihadists.

U.S. officials told Reuters in Washington that the collapse of the Syrian ceasefire had heightened the possibility that Gulf states, particularly Saudi Arabia, might arm rebels with shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles.

A senior rebel commander, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it was not out of the question that this could happen. “The Americans might thinking about doing something, but nobody knows how big it will be,” the commander said.

Another rebel commander told Reuters his group had received deliveries of a new type of Grad surface-to-surface rockets. The rockets, with a range of 22-40 km, had arrived in “excellent quantities” and will be used on battlefronts in Aleppo, Hama and the coastal region, Colonel Fares al-Bayoush said.

Fierce fighting accompanied by air strikes was reported on Wednesday in northern Hama province between Syrian government and allied forces trying to recapture territory lost to insurgents this week, and rebels who made some advances, the Observatory and a rebel group said.

MORE GROUND ATTACKS

A senior official in Aleppo-based rebel group said pro-government forces were mobilizing in apparent preparation for more ground attacks in central areas of the city.

“There have been clashes in al-Suweiqa from 5 a.m. until now. The army advanced a little bit, and the guys are now repelling it, God willing,” a fighter in the rebel Levant Front group said in a recording sent to Reuters, referring to an area in the city center where there was also fighting on Tuesday.

Another rebel official said government forces were also attacking the insurgent-held Handarat refugee camp a few kilometers to the north of Aleppo.

“It doesn’t seem that their operation in the old city is the primary operation, it seems like a diversionary one so that the regime consumes the people on that front and advances in the camp,” the official, Zakaria Malahifij, head of the political office of the Fastaqim group, told Reuters from Turkey.

(Reporting by Tom Perry, Ellen Francis and Lisa Barrington in Beirut, Philip Pullella in Vatican City, John Irish in Paris and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva, Lidia Kelly in Moscow, Michelle Nichols in New York and Arshad Mohammed in Washington, writing by Peter Graff, editing by Peter Millership and Philippa Fletcher)

China armed forces warn Japan against South China sea patrols

BEIJING, Sept 29 (Reuters) – Japan is “playing with fire” with plans to step up activity in the contested South China Sea through joint training patrols with the United States, China’s Defence Ministry said on Thursday, warning it would not sit watching from the sidelines.

China claims virtually the entire South China Sea and has repeatedly denounced what it views as interference there by the United States and its ally, Japan.

Japan is strengthening its ties in the region, in particular with the Philippines and Vietnam, which contest China’s claims to parts of the sea, and it aims to help build the capacity of coastal states in the busy waterway, its defence minister said this month during a visit to Washington.

Chinese Defence Ministry spokesman Yang Yujun, asked about Japan’s plans, said it had constantly been trying to stir things up in the South China Sea for its own purposes.

“We must solemnly tell Japan this is a miscalculation. If Japan wants to have joint patrols or drills in waters under Chinese jurisdiction this really is playing with fire,” Yang told a monthly news briefing.

“China’s military will not sit idly by,” he added, without elaborating.

Ties between Asia’s two largest economies have long been overshadowed by arguments over their painful wartime history and a territorial spat in the East China Sea, among other issues.

Ships carrying about $5 trillion in trade pass through the South China Sea every year.

Brunei, Malaysia and Taiwan also have claims in the sea, which is also believed to be rich in energy resources and fish stocks.

In July, an arbitration court in the Hague said China’s claims to the waterway were invalid, after a case was brought by the Philippines. China has refused to recognise the ruling.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Robert Birsel)

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