Portal:Current events/2013 August 28

Current events of August 28, 2013 (2013-08-28) (Wednesday)

Armed conflicts and attacks

• Syrian civil war:
  • Moscow evacuates nationals; Iran dismisses "ridiculous" reports of Assad in Tehran; UN inspectors return to site of alleged chemical attack. (The Times Of Israel)
  • The Saudi army is on full alert after the US-led West increased the level of its threats and said a strike on Syria may come within the next few days. (Fars News)
  • Russia: UN response to alleged attack still premature; Jordan says no Syria strike from its soil. (Haaretz)
  • United Nations Special Envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi says any military action against Syria in response to apparent chemical attacks must be taken after a decision by the United Nations Security Council. "What they [American administration] will decide I don't know, but certainly international law is very clear," he adds. (Reuters)
  • US Vice President Joe Biden says there "is no doubt that Syria's government was responsible for a recent chemical attack in Damascus". (Al Jazeera)
  • British Prime Minister David Cameron says the UK's National Security Council has agreed that the "world should not stand by" after the "unacceptable use" of chemical weapons by the Syrian government. However, a full report from the UN investigation on the chemical attack is expected before taking any measure. (BBC)
  • Syria's deputy foreign minister says that the United States, Britain and France helped "terrorists" use chemical weapons in Syria, and that the same groups would soon use them against Europe. (Reuters)
  • Syrians in the capital Damascus race against time to prepare for a foreign strike, with many hoarding supplies and others scrambling to find accommodation further away from potential military targets. (Reuters)
  • Russian and Chinese officials walk out of the UN Security Council meeting in New York after U.S. Permanent Representative Samantha Power calls for immediate action on Syria. (Itar Tass)
  • Downing Street publishes the UK government's motion on Syria, which proposes waiting for a UN Security Council decision before MPs vote on any military action. (BBC)
  • UN chemical weapons inspectors resume their investigations in Syria (BBC)
  • Syria's ambassador to the United Nations accuses Britain of conspiring with rebel forces to carry out the chemical attack that killed hundreds of Syrian civilians last week. (Telegraph)
  • UN official Hans Blix, who was the head of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, says even if Assad used chemical weapons, the west "has no mandate to act as a global policeman." He called the punitive action as "of self-appointed global policemen" and "very unwise." He said "what is the moral weight of the condemnation by nuclear weapons states of the use of gas as a serious war crime when they themselves will not accept a norm that would criminalise any first use of their own nuclear weapons? ... A quick punitive action in Syria today without UN authorisation would be another precedent [like Iraq], suggesting that great military powers can intervene militarily when they feel politically impelled to do so. (They did not intervene when Iraq used chemical weapons on a large scale in the war with Iran in the 1980s.)" (The Guardian)
• Iraqi insurgency (post-U.S. withdrawal)
  • At least 51 people are killed and dozens wounded in a series of bombings and attacks in and around Baghdad. (Sky News)

Arts and culture

• The westbound span of the San Francisco Bay Bridge closes forever as construction crews finish the replacement. The new span is scheduled to open Tuesday. (ABC)

Law and crime

• Former U.S. Army Major and psychiatrist Nidal Malik Hasan is sentenced to death for the November 5, 2009, Fort Hood massacre that killed 13 and wounded 32 others. He will be granted an automatic appeal; the Army general (convening authority) who will review the case can grant him life without parole; any eventual military execution would need presidential approval. (CNN)