சிரியாவில் இராணுவத் தலையீட்டுக்கு அழைப்புவிடும் Qatar

Qatar State Visit To the UK

In This Photo: Queen Elizabeth II, Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Philip, Prince Charles, Camilla Parker Bowles, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al-Missned, the Emir of the State of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin
Khalifa Al-Thani, Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Charles, Prince of Wales and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall review a Guard of Honour during their visit Windsor Castle as part of their State visit to the United Kingdom on October 26, 2010 in Windsor, England. The Sheikh is on a two day State visit to the UK, the first
since 1985, which is seen as important in strengthening already strongly established business links with one of the Gulf States most financially powerful nations.

Qatar calls for intervention to end Syria violence

By Michael Peel in Abu Dhabi  January 14, 2012 5:40 pm

Arab troops should be sent to end the bloodshed in the uprising against Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, Qatar’s ruler has said, the first public call for military action as political efforts to halt the violence unravel.
Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani – who joined Nato’s military action in Libya – told the US broadcaster CBS that soldiers should go to Syria to “stop the killing”, as the mounting death toll made a mockery of a regional peace plan.

The Emir’s remarks, in an interview due to be broadcast on Sunday, raise the stakes hugely in a conflict in which even Mr Assad’s enemies abroad have shied away from suggesting military intervention. Western and Arab powers fear the potentially destructive regional impact of war in a country allied with Tehran and which lies at the geographical and political heart of the Middle East.

The intervention plan floated by Qatar – a small but very rich oil state which has taken its historically muscular foreign policy to another level during the Arab awakening – is a sign of how Middle Eastern and western officials are searching for new strategies on Syria amid a faltering three-week old monitoring mission sent there by the inter-governmental Arab League.

Killings in Syria – where 5,000 are estimated to have died during the ten month uprising – have continued despite the arrival of the mission to investigate whether the regime is implementing a peace plan under which it is supposed to pull the army off the streets, release political prisoners and start talks with the opposition.

Six Syrian civilians were killed Saturday, including a 13-year-old boy and a man shot dead in the rebellious central city of Homs, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claimed, according the Associated Press.

Nabil Elaraby, Arab League secretary-general, warned on Friday that Syria could slip into civil war. The conflict is becoming increasingly militarised, with army defectors now involved alongside the peaceful protesters whose first demonstrations almost a year ago triggered a brutal crackdown by regime forces.

Although there appears to be no appetite for western military intervention along the lines of the Nato mission in Libya that played a big part in ousting Col Muammer Gaddafi, there have been reports of an informal contact group forming to co-ordinate policy on Syria.

The group is said to include Gulf states, Turkey, the US and leading European powers, although NATO and several of its members hit back this week at Russian claims that they were “working under the Libyan scenario” with some Arab allies on a plan to topple Mr Assad militarily.

The allegations by Nikolai Patrushev, Russia’s security council chief, echo the view of Russia’s KGB-trained security elite, but also indicate that Russia is trying to pre-empt calls through the UN or elsewhere for intervention against its strongest Arab ally.

Moscow’s anxiety might have been heightened by meetings this week between Mrs Clinton, and her Saudi and Qatari counterparts.

A Russian-operated ship carrying ammunition docked in a Syrian-government controlled port earlier this week, alarming Assad regime opponents.

Syria’s opposition has condemned the Arab League monitoring mission as an ineffectual operation that is allowing the president more time to crush the uprising. observers have also been plagued by problems on the ground, including minor injuries to 11 monitors from a pro-Assad mob and a walkout by an Algerian team member who branded the operation a “farce”.

Analysts say the Syrian regime – which claims the uprising against it is an act of terrorism driven by foreign powers – has shown few signs of honouring pledges under the Arab League peace plan.

S&P Defends Ratings Cuts as France, Germany Stay the Course

WSJ EUROPE NEWS JANUARY 14, 2012, 6:01 P.M. ET

S&P Defends Ratings Cuts as France, Germany Stay the Course

By GEOFFREY T. SMITH, GABRIELE PARUSSINI and NADYA MASIDLOVER

Standard & Poor's analysts on Saturday defended their downgrades of more than half of the euro zone's 17 members, as the highest-profile victim of the mass ratings cut—France—looked to play down the impact.
In a conference call hours after the downgrades, S&P analysts said they stood by their moves as they believe the euro zone's policy response to the debt crisis has been largely misguided and is building up future risks.

"The proper diagnosis would have to give more weight to the ... rising imbalances in the euro zone," said Moritz Kramer, head of European sovereign ratings. He pointed to problems such as divergences in competitiveness from one country to another, which he said is reflected in huge imbalances in national
current accounts.

Mr. Kramer said the centerpiece of a December summit aimed at arresting the crisis, the adoption of tighter fiscal rules to avoid excessive deficits, "wouldn't have identified the risks" in advance as Germany had one of the largest budget deficits of all during the first 10 years of the euro's existence, whereas Spain, which is a problem area now, had a largely balanced budget.

German chancellor Angela Merkel on Saturday called for speedy implementation of euro-zone proposals to address the debt crisis.

(Video: Reuters/Photo: AP)

But Mr. Kramer stressed that S&P isn't calling for more fiscal stimulus from the countries with the biggest debt problems, saying that they have neither the room, nor enough credibility in the debt markets, to try to spend their way out of trouble.

"That certainly wouldn't be regarded as a credit positive, not by our metrics at least," Mr. Kramer said.
The call came a day after S&P downgraded more than half of the currency bloc's 17 sovereign nations. In doing so, it became the first credit-rating firm to strip France and Austria of their triple-A ratings, and cut Portugal and Cyprus to junk status.

Meanwhile, French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said Saturday that the government would press on with planned overhauls but wasn't considering fresh austerity measures.Mr. Fillon sought to play down the downgrade in front of anxious voters, who will cast their ballot to pick the next president in 99 days. "This decision is an alert which should not be dramatized, but should not be underestimated either," he said.

The downgrade, which is likely to impose higher borrowing costs on the euro zone's second-largest economy, landed a hard blow on President Nicolas Sarkozy, who had positioned himself as the defender of the country's financial standing during Europe's sovereign-debt crisis.

Countries react to the "Black Friday" announcement of nine credit rating downgrades in the euro zone by Standard & Poor's agency.

Mr. Sarkozy justified efforts to push through unpopular programs—a pension overhaul and deficit-cutting austerity measures—as necessary to defend France's triple-A rating, which it had held since 1975. Other overhauls, aimed at increasing the country's competitiveness and stemming the shift of industrial jobs abroad, are scheduled to be discussed and possibly adopted by the end of the month.

S&P's decision to leave Germany's triple-A rating unchanged exposed a deepening gulf between Paris and Berlin, with France looking increasingly incapable of holding up to Germany and politically weaker in the tough negotiations to resolve the euro-zone crisis.

Mr. Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have held themselves up as the main driving force steering the EU through the debt crisis, presenting other EU countries with compromise solutions that Paris and Berlin had agreed upon ahead of key EU meetings.

France has often counted on the support of southern nations, including Italy, to counterbalance Germany's calls for fiscal orthodoxy, a stance backed by the Netherlands and Finland—both triple-A rated countries.

Mr. Fillon denied that the ratings downgrade would skew the negotiating balance in favor of Germany. "There's no reason our relationship should change," he said. "The destinies of France and Germany are completely linked."

For her part, Mrs. Merkel on Saturday told reporters the S&P ratings downgrades underscore that euro-zone nations must accelerate efforts to implement a closer fiscal union and to set up a permanent bailout facility, the European Stability Mechanism. The ESM, scheduled to start on July 1, should start "as soon as possible" because this is important for investors' confidence, the German leader said.

She said that the downgrades weren't a full surprise and dismissed concerns that they would harm the euro's temporary bailout facility, the European Financial Stability Facility, by making it more difficult for the fund to borrow. "This won't torpedo the work of the EFSF," she said.

While Germany retained its triple-A credit rating, Mrs. Merkel said, "I don't believe that the downgrade has any influence at all on Germany having to do more than others. Instead, we must broaden the basis of our rescue facilities, which we can only do with the ESM because all countries will provide cash" for the facility.

Mrs. Merkel also said she was open to ideas to change legislation that would allow financial players to be less dependent on rating firms' assessments, given insurers' obligation to purchase sovereign bonds with triple-A ratings.

"This is generating a self-reinforcing effect," she said. "That's why I believe it would be very useful to look into it and think about possible legal changes. I support this approach." She referred to a proposal made earlier Saturday by a lawmaker in her party. Michael Meister, a lawmaker with the Christian Democratic Union, said new legislation was needed that would require banks and insurers to provide their own ratings on
their investments instead of relying on rating firms.

Meanwhile, S&P's Mr. Kramer identified a number of near-term risks for the region, highlighting the apparent breakdown of talks between Greece and its private-sector creditors. He said that Greece's debt burden has to be cut, and warned that a disorderly default could shake market confidence, making it
harder for countries to keep rolling over maturing debt. Italy alone has to refinance more than €130 billion of debt between February and April, he said.

Mr. Kramer said S&P still believes that Greek bondholders could hope to recover between 30 and 50 cents on the euro, but said the likeliest outcome was toward the bottom of that range.Also in the call, Mr. Kramer was critical of the euro zone's bailout vehicles, saying that the European Stability Mechanism appeared set up to act as a preferred creditor, subordinating all current holders of euro-zone bonds in the event of a debt
restructuring.
—Andrea Thomas contributed to this article.

Source: Wall Street Journal