ARGENTINA and BITCOIN

BITCOIN, THE NEW ALTERNATIVE CURRENCY FOR ARGENTINA?

 BITCOIN, LA  NUEVA MONEDA ALTERNATIVA PARA ARGENTINA?

En Argentina, donde la población tiene que hacer frente aconstricciones económicas  "home made"  impuestas por las autoridades locales, BITCOIN, una moneda alternativa en línea está experimentando una popularidad creciente.

El nuevo sistema de pago está descentralizada en una red peer-to-peer - al igual que el sistema de descargas BITORRENT. Los argentinos están luchando actualmente con alta inflación, la moneda extranjera - las soluciones para frenar la inflación, es difícil de conseguir en estos días. 

Así los argentinos empresariales han comenzado a utilizar BITCOIN con el fin de enviar dinero fuera del país,  obtener dólares  o euros. Todas las transacciones son anónimas. Las autoridades no tienen ninguna posibilidad de controlar esas transacciones.

BITCOIN, THE NEW ALTERNATIVE CURRENCY FOR ARGENTINA?

Argentina, where the population has to cope with “home made” economic constrictions imposed by local authorities, BITCOIN, an alternative online currency is experiencing increasing popularity.

The new payment system is decentralized in a peer-to-peer network – just like the download system BITORRENT. Argentineans are currently struggling with high inflation, foreign currency - the solutions to curb in inflation, is hard to get these days. Thus entrepreneurial Argentineans have started to use BITCOIN in order to get money out of the country or purchase Dollars or Euros. All transactions are anonymous. Authorities have no chance to control such transactions.

BITCOINS, THE ONLINE-ONLY CURRENCY. 

Created in 2009 by a mysterious programmer named Satoshi Nakamoto, bitcoins behave a lot like any currency. Their value is determined by demand, and they can be used to buy stuff. Bitcoin transactions are encrypted and handled by a decentralized global network of tens of thousands of personal computers. Merchants around the world accept the currency, from a bakery in San Francisco to a dentist in Finland. Individuals who own bitcoins and wish to exchange them for physical currencies like euros or dollars can use exchange sites such as localbitcoins.com, a Finland-based site founded by Jeremias Kangas. “I believe that bitcoin is, or will be in the future, a very effective tool for individuals who want to avoid sanctions, currency restrictions, and high inflation in countries such as Iran,” Kangas wrote in an e-mail. 

THE ADVANTAGE FOR COUNTRIES WITH RESTRICTIVE FOREIGN CURRENCY POLICIES IS THAT BITCOINS CAN BE SWAPPED FOR DOLLARS THAT CAN THEN BE KEPT OUTSIDE THE COUNTRY. 
Another plus: Regulators can’t easily track the transactions, since bitcoins aren’t issued from a central server. Bitcoin users can conduct business on virtual private networks, which hide customers’ identities.

Many entrepreneurs and visionaries wish the culture of using digital money will spread all over the world, because it does not have any dependency on anything like politics.

HOW IT WORKS

The project was started in 2009 by an enigmatic programmer known as Satoshi Nakamoto. He always communicated electronically, never answered personal questions, and disappeared from online forums in December. The conspiracy-minded speculate that Nakamoto was actually a group of people, or a government cryptographer, or a pseudonym for Gavin Andresen, the Amherst (Mass.) programmer who took over the project after Nakamoto vanished. 

Digital transactions normally require a trusted intermediary such as PayPal to credit and debit accounts properly and prevent cheating. With BITCOINS, "there is no middleman, says Andresen or," more accurately, there's a distributed middleman. Individual transactions are encrypted, logged by a decentralized network running on thousands of home computers, and recorded in a public ledger. The system works similarly to peer-to-peer music-sharing networks in that files are shared among swarms of users, rather than downloaded from a central server. 

Suppose you're in the market for alpaca socks, one of the few consumer items you can buy with BITCOINS. Step one: Get some BTC—that's the symbol—at a currency exchange site such as Mt.Gox. Then download a desktop app from bitcoin.org, which will store your lucre (some use an online service such as Instawallet.org instead) and connect you to the decentralized BITCOIN network. Next, find the alpaca farms BITCOIN address, a string of characters also known as a public key. Click the send coins button. 

THE BITCOIN NETWORK HAS HANDLED AS MANY AS 87 QUADRILLION CALCULATIONS PER SECOND, 35 TIMES MORE THAN THE TOP SUPERCOMPUTER. 

The purchase is unconfirmed until a miner certifies it. Miners are power users who crunch numbers on behalf of the network, and some have racks of computers dedicated to the task. They're called miners because, just as gold miners increase the supply of gold, they create new BITCOINS, at an algorithmically controlled rate. The greater their computing power, the more they generate for themselves. Once a miner's computer has processed a transaction, the alpaca farm gets BITCOINS and you get socks. It's complex but fast: The BITCOIN network has handled as many as 87 quadrillion calculations per second, 35 times more than the top supercomputer.

BITCOIN, ONLY FOR “MATURE” COUNTRIES? 

BITCOINS have all the advantages of cash—free to use, very hard to trace—as well as its disadvantages. That digital wallet is a file on a hard drive or online, and if it's lost or stolen there's no recourse. The currency is backed only by the faith and credit of its participants and outside the scope of any banker, politician, or the Federal Reserve. To a certain breed of libertarian nerd who grew up on cyberpunk, it's the Digital Rapture. 

BITCOIN also resonates with those who have something to hide. "Any anarchist cyberscheme like BITCOIN will rapidly attract the Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse: Mafia, drug dealers, terrorists, and child pornography," says author and futurist Bruce Sterling. The hacker group LulzSec, which has claimed credit for breaking into websites at Sony (SNE) and the U.S. Senate, says a donor recently sent in $7,000 worth of BITCOINS. Senators Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) urged federal law enforcement to shut down Silk Road, an online catalog for drugs, and spotlighted BITCOIN'S role as the only method of payment for these illegal purchases. Among the legit merchandise you can buy with BITCOIN: organic gardening services, a BITCOIN merit badge from NerdMeritBadge.com, and a smattering of tech products. 

BITCOIN: WILL THE ONLINE CURRENCY INFLUENCE GEOPOLITICS AND STRATEGIES?

Merit badges and gardening are not the stuff revolutions are made of, but BITCOIN'S ascent has created a virtuous cycle: As early adopters see the value of their stakes rise, they have an incentive to entice new users and merchants. The number of people on the BITCOIN network at any given moment has climbed from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands since the start of the year, says Andresen. There are dedicated BITCOIN currency exchanges, escrow accounts, and smartphone apps. In the planning stages are options exchanges, cash registers, and high-frequency trading programs. 

IF THERE'S ONE INDUSTRY THAT TAKES THE MOST CREAM OFF THE TOP AND PROVIDES THE LEAST VALUE, ITS FINANCE

Mark Suppes, a Web developer (who freelances for Bloomberg LP, parent of this magazine), bought a used ATM on EBay (EBAY) for about $400. In a Brooklyn warehouse, he's reprogramming it to accept BITCOIN transfers from a smartphone and dispense U.S. dollars. Suppes is motivated by self-interest—"I own enough BITCOINS that I'll be set if this works out," he says—and a desire to stick it to what he considers economic parasites. "If there's one industry that takes the most cream off the top and provides the least value, its finance," he says. 

Bankers needn't worry at this point. The most common reason to hold BITCOINS is as a speculative investment. "Any given day, it can move 20, 30, 40, even 50 percent," says Adam Cohen, a developer at startup Seatgeek who wrote a critical post about BITCOIN on the Q&A site Quora. "That's scary. I wouldn't want to have a lot of my wealth tied up in it right now." Sterling calls BITCOINS "a cousin project to WikiLeaks." For a glimpse of its future, he says, "find the half-dozen zealots who were core activists of WikiLeaks and ask them how their plan for massive planetary liberation has been going." 

The skeptics are why Andresen evangelizes. After his last haircut, he persuaded his barber to accept payment in BITCOIN. "I had to promise I would buy it back from him if it dropped in value," he says. "I insured his downside risk." 

The bottom line: BITCOINS, a two-year-old virtual currency, have exploded in value since December as tech-minded speculators snap them up.

USA, CHINA AND THE GULF STATES: WHO SHOULD BE DOING THE GEOPOLITICAL HEAVY LIFTING IN THE MIDDLE EAST?

EXTERNAL SECURITY PROVISION IS STILL PROVIDED BY THE WEST, WHILE ECONOMIC PULL HAS SHIFTED TO THE EAST.

Source: Oilprice By Matthew Hulbert 

‘Stick or twist’ sums up the changes of political power in AMERICA and CHINA in November 2012. President Obama won another four year term in Washington, while Xi Jinping assumed stewardship of CHINA. This intricate ‘CHIMERICAN’ relationship is fundamental to the global outlook anywhere you care to look, and nowhere more so than the MIDDLE EAST. External security provision is still provided by the West, while economic pull has shifted to the East. Sounds a simple division of labour, but the ‘roles’ actually become very mixed up once you take a closer look. Squaring this awkward ‘CHIMERICAN’ circle is going to be a tough task for GULF STATES to get right, but it’s absolutely critical to their geo-economic and geopolitical future to do so over the next four years.

MIDDLE EAST: IS IT REALLY ALL ABOUT OIL AND GAS?

From the U.S. perspective, the old mantra has always been that a threat to MIDDLE EAST oil supplies correlated to a direct threat to AMERICAN national security. This was explicitly spelt out in the 1980 Carter Doctrine that’s been the cornerstone of Washington’s role in the GULF ever since. But times are now rapidly changing, and doing so, precisely because the U.S. has seen enormous hydrocarbon production growth on home soil. The initial energy ‘revolution’ was in natural gas, making AMERICA the world’s largest single (651bcm) producer, and is now shifting towards liquids. U.S. oil production growth has been 500,000b/d over the past four years, with total liquids output expected to hit 11.4mb/d next year and onto 13-15mb/d towards 2020. That will make AMERICA the largest single liquids player in the world, surpassing even SAUDI production numbers, with the obvious upshot that Washington no longer sees MENA oil as the valued prize it once was. Whether you’re like the International Energy Agency and fully signed up to the ‘U.S. energy independence’ narrative or not doesn’t really matter: The Obama Administration believes it has sufficient ‘hydrocarbon’ space to pick and choose what it does or doesn’t decide to do to underwrite global energy supplies in future. That’s exactly what it’s going to do over the next four years.

Background Information: THE SECRET WAR BETWEEN CHINA AND THE US FOR AFRICA'S OIL RICHES http://geopoliticsrst.blogspot.com.ar/2012/12/usa-china-and-africa.html

LIBYA was the first warning shot where the U.S. took a back seat in ousting Colonel Ghaddafi in 2011, while in IRAN, AMERICA has deemed on-going nuclear containment as a higher political priority than oil market stability. Extreme SYRIAN instability sits uncomfortably somewhere in between. In a new age of AMERICAN priorities, securing global oil supplies no longer axiomatically tops of the list, in what’s been coined the ‘KUWAIT Question’

THE CORE THREAT TO GULF STATE STABILITY IN THE COMING YEARS IS THE PROSPECT OF FALLING OIL PRICES

AMERICA steps in to shore up a major oil producer in the region if things go wrong? The answer is not just highly uncertain, but extremely pertinent when we consider the core threat to GULF STATE stability in the coming years is the prospect of falling oil prices. And you’ve guessed it; the main ‘supply side shock’ traditional producers face, comes directly from AMERICAN liquids supply growth creating downwards pressures. Look at it like that, and Washington’s position comes full circle in the GULF. It’s still paying billions of dollars on external security to maintain open sea lanes from the MIDDLE EAST, only to see OPEC states internally implode under the weight of (U.S. inspired) lower oil prices. Contradictory stuff, at best.

CHIMERICAN CONTRADICTIONS

Yet the ‘contradictions’ run far deeper when you bring US-CHINESE relations into the equation, and does so on two strategic levels. First, AMERICA is busy strengthening its military presence in SOUTH ASIA and AUSTRALASIA in what’s been coined an AMERICAN ‘pivot’ as a direct affront to growing CHINESE regional interests in the SOUTH PACIFIC / SOUTH CHINA SEA. The GULF is merely the secondary line of naval defense that Washington holds over Beijing, and one that gives AMERICA a useful bargaining chip to exact political concessions in CHINA’S backyard. 

EVERYONE KNOWS AMERICA HASN’T NEEDED MIDDLE EAST OIL FOR YEARS; IT NOW IMPORTS LESS THAN 12% OF ITS OIL FROM THE SAND. 

But its position on the map still makes the MIDDLE EAST an important geopolitical asset for the State Department to maintain. Stay planted in the GULF, and AMERICA can make its presence felt more acutely in ASIA-PACIFIC and EURASIA. What was once a game of oil has turned into one of power for Washington.

THE ONLY REASON AMERICA CAN MAINTAIN A STRONG PRESENCE IN THE GULF IS THANKS TO CHINESE PURCHASE OF U.S. DEBT

That raises our second, deeply ironic strategic factor: The only reason AMERICA can maintain this position in the GULF is thanks to CHINESE purchase of U.S. debt. In geo-economic terms, CHINA holds the aces. It’s entirely Beijing’s call as to how long Washington plays an overlord regional role, letting AMERICA have its geostrategic cake and eat it. Outgoing President, Hu Jintao, was perfectly happy to keep a low profile, ‘free riding’ on the back of U.S. military muscle to quietly build up Beijing’s supply side links. MENA states account for more than half of CHINA’S 5.6mb/d total oil imports, and Hu wasn’t particularly picky about where he’s done business. KUWAIT, UAE, QATAR, YEMEN, OMAN are all on the list, as are SAUDI ARABIA, IRAQ and IRAN. But as the IRANIAN ‘supply option’ highlights, the lines are becoming increasingly blurred for CHINA between purely commercial relations and political imbroglios in the GULF. At some point Beijing needs to reconcile where its political preferences rest between the vast bulk of ARABIAN oil production and PERSIA’S predilection for proliferation. Just as Beijing needs to decide how engaged it’s going to be in regional political reform and how much maritime muscle it’s willing to invest in the region. The more CHINA plays a central economic role in the GULF, the more Beijing will be expected to take up some of the security slack. Regional players all know the U.S. can no longer be categorically relied on to cover their backs beyond conveniently sticking their finger in the Hormuz dyke. The ARAB flag will inexorably follow CHINA’S trade. Beijing needs to be ready.

HIDDEN DRAGON

But that’s Xi Jinping’s entire problem. It’s not that CHINA has been throwing its weight around too much in the MIDDLE EAST, but that it still sees the Gulf largely in commercial terms. For all the hype around CHINA’S ‘String of Pearls’ strategy spanning from the PERSIAN GULF to the CHINESE mainland via the Strait of Hormuz to the Malacca Straits, this amounts to little more than a maritime insurance policy should the U.S. 5th fleet in Bahrain haul anchor too quickly, not a blueprint for ensuring global oil supplies. Internal dynamics across the GULF are no different. Sure, CHINA consumes a vast amount of GULF oil, but it remains highly unlikely to do any heavy lifting rebuilding states such as IRAQ, YEMEN or LIBYA beyond narrow confines of energy infrastructure. When you strip CHINESE external energy policy down to its essentials, you get three core aims. ‘Security of supply’, ‘diversity of supply’ and ‘reducing price risk exposure’ through equity deals. That doesn’t mean meddling in the internal affairs of producer states, nor does it mean dropping the façade of ‘business is business’ ‘politics is politics’ line. But it does mean keeping as many supply side options open for as long as possible, irrespective of the political costs. Xi isn’t about to change that formula anytime soon. Military bulk and political swagger in its own backyard is one thing, but CHINA will remain a consumer of geopolitical stability, not a provider when it comes to the ‘big, bad, energy world’.

CHINA'S INVESTMENT IN THE AMERICAS

Obviously none of that sits particularly well for the MIDDLE EAST’S security posture, but where the picture turns particularly ugly, is that CHINA’S also working very hard to avoid structural dependency on MENA oil thanks to global unconventional gains elsewhere. Beijing is under no illusions that it needs OPEC to fill its incremental supply gaps in the years the come (the vast majority of oil demand growth is going to come from the MIC markets (MIDDLE EAST, INDIA & CHINA)), but one of its key hydrocarbon investment targets is the AMERICAS. Not just in VENEZUELA, ARGENTINA, ECUADOR, BRAZIL and BOLIVIA, but NORTH AMERICA as well, deep into CANADA and AMERICA. The economic rationale is simple; CHINA has no compunctions supporting NORTH AMERICAN supply growth, even to the point of investing in uneconomic fields, so long as it hedges CHINA’S upstream energy portfolio, and in the long term, continues to provide downward pressures on benchmark prices. Cynics could even argue that CHINA is looking to repeat the U.S. shale gas experience that’s made gas a perennial buyer’s market and apply it to oil. The true prize is shifting liquids from a price based game to one of volume, with AMERICA acting as the lightening rod. Achieve that, and Beijing has secured nothing short of an ‘import’ miracle: with supply dependency set to run at 80%, CHINA still gets to drive through its industrial revolution on the cheap, rewriting the rules of the energy game as they go. Play to Washington’s energy independence dreams, all while working towards CHINESE interests.

THE U.S. IS SLOWLY WINDING DOWN ITS POSITION IN MIDDLE EAST

Obviously it remains to be seen how far that narrative will stick given rampant ASIA demand side growth, but if nothing else, it brings our ‘CHIMERICAN’ relationship full circle. The U.S. is slowly winding down its position in MIDDLE EAST on the back of AMERICAN liquid supply growth; investment for which will increasingly come from CHINA. The GULF is left holding the incremental oil baby, with Washington and Beijing not merely unwilling to underwrite security arrangements, but inadvertently working towards an oil market based on volumes, not price.

ENTROPIC FUTURE?

To say that would be a disappointing outcome for GULF STATES would be an understatement. Back in the real energy world where OPEC – and more specifically – GULF STATES, are fundamental to the functioning of world energy markets, it would be remarkably helpful if Mr. Obama and Xi Jinging sat down to work out who should be doing the geopolitical heavy lifting for what (and where) in the GULF. IRAQ massively reduced U.S. stock in the MIDDLE EAST, as much as LIBYA has raised serious questions over AMERICAN resolve. Put the AMERICAN ‘energy independence’ narrative into the mix, and it’s abundantly clear that vacuums need to be filled. Instead of fighting CHINA for geopolitical primacy in the ASIA-PACIFIC, AMERICA should be pro-actively bringing CHINA into the international security fold: A shared division of geopolitical labour in the MIDDLE EAST would be a perfect place to start given CHINA’S economic significance in the region. Beijing has to start filling inexorable AMERICAN gaps, not just with ongoing treasury purchases from the Fed, but with military hardware to boot.

But leave this all to chance by playing narrower ‘CHIMERICAN’ games, and things are going to end very badly. Not just for GULF STATES struggling to maintain political stability in a lower price environment, but more explosive issues on IRAN where no common approach has been agreed. When the political powder kegs explode, it’s only then that markets will realise how crucial GULF STATES remain to balancing oil markets on a daily basis. Everything else will prove to be hot air; U.S. energy independence rhetoric won’t match supposed pricing power with market practice. Scorched earth. Scorched markets. Everyone loses out.

Despite the long odds, there could still be a final twist in the tale for the GULF here though. If Washington and Beijing end up passing the MIDDLE EAST buck in favour of their own perceived interests, as brutal as that might be for the region, once we finally enter a volumes based energy world thanks to U.S. supply growth, OPEC will almost certainly come out on-top. MIDDLE EAST oil vs. the U.S MID-WEST? The sand wins hands down in a utilitarian race to the ‘bottom of the barrel’, with OPEC not just reclaiming, but enhancing its share of global production to over 50% by 2030. That’s something that Mr. Obama and Xi Jinping would do very well to bear in mind in the years ahead. The MIDDLE EAST might be stuck between two hopeless ‘CHIMERICAN’ claimants right now, but writing the GULF off full stop, would be a very big mistake for the energy world indeed.

FRANCES "COLONIAL AMBITIONS" IN SYRIA

French Syrian Mandate Flag

 

FRENCH COLONIZERS HAVE NOT ACCEPTED THE LOSS OF THEIR COLONY

By Elena Gromova 

History stutters: the new leader of the SYRIAN National Coalition, knighted by the West, is none other than the grand-son of one of the chief collaborators of the FRENCH occupation of SYRIA in the 20s. Formerly, the FRENCH colonial power resorted to religious leaders to teach submission to the people under its domination; today it relies on clerics to overthrow the secular regime of the SYRIAN ARAB REPUBLIC.

 

More than 70 years has passed and the grandson of this Nur-Eddin – Mouaz al-Khatib, a former preacher at the Umayyad mosque in Damascus and now a deserter and traitor – has been elected head of the “QATAR COALITION” which was created on 11 November at a meeting in DOHA.

Left Picture: French Circassian Cavalry assembling outside the railway station at Damascus, French Mandate of Syria in preparation of the surrendering ceremony to Axis officials, Sep 1941

FRANCE has shown its gratitude to the third-generation collaborator al-Khatib, whose grandfather collaborated with the colonisers, for his faithful service. Namely the former colonial power has been the first to recognise the “QATAR COALITION” as a legitimate representative of the SYRIAN people. It is no surprise that the flag of the “opposition” – green, white and black with three stars – is the same as the flag from the time when SYRIA was under FRENCH mandate.

No sooner had SYRIA gained their freedom from TURKISH rule than it immediately fell under the authority of the FRENCH in 1920, and the League of Nations gave FRANCE a mandate to control SYRIA. The FRENCH occupation army, headed by General Henri Gouraud, faced weak opposition from an armed SYRIAN army which had only just been formed and had nothing except rifles and machine guns, while the FRENCH had heavy artillery and aircraft. The conflict was one-sided.

GENERAL YUSUF AL-’AZMA 1883-1920

The SYRIAN Minister of War Yusuf al-’Azma accepted the battle, knowing it would be impossible to win, but being a true patriot of his homeland, he was unable to allow the FRENCH to take Damascus without a fight. The battle took place 23 kilometres from Damascus, in the mountainous region of Maysalun. Yusuf al-’Azma personally took part in the one-sided battle. The soldiers fought for a whole day, but the superiority of the FRENCH was just too great. Only when all the SYRIAN soldiers had been killed were the FRENCH able to advance on Damascus.

Syrians and Druses rose up against the FRENCH occupiers in 1925 and even managed to liberate Damascus, but the FRENCH used their military strength to quash the uprising in 1927. The first shot of the uprising was fired on 7 June 1925 – a hero of the uprising, Hussein Murshid Radwan, wounded a FRENCH officer when he ordered a peaceful anti-FRENCH demonstration to be broken up.

SYRIA reveres its heroes and at the beginning of November, a magnificent monument was erected in the city of Suwayda in Hussein Murshid Radwan’s honour. The sculptor, Fuad Naim, has paid particular attention to the hero’s enormous sword which he has clenched in his mighty hand while challenging the FRENCH to battle.

FRANCE LOST SYRIA. SOMETHING IT CANNOT OVERCOME IT SEEMS 

In the center of Damascus, meanwhile, there is a monument in honor of the SYRIAN Defense Minister Yusuf al-’Azma, a hero of the Battle of Maysalun Pass. Here we have genuine insurgents who fought for a free SYRIA. Now, however, the word “insurgent” has been completely defiled and is used today to refer to all sorts of rubbish recruited from all corners of the world who are high on drugs and murdering SYRIANS for money.

Until quite recently there was another monument in honour of al-’Azma which stood near the General Staff building. On 3 September this year, however, during an attack on the General Staff building, terrorists did not spare this monument. The vandals destroyed it. Can SYRIA’S history really be that dear to these mercenaries? Or to the descendants of those who collaborated with the occupiers?

70 years has passed since FRANCE lost SYRIA as one of its colonies and was forced to recognize its independence. As recent events have shown, however, FRANCE just cannot ignore the colonial itch. It is doing everything to regain its sovereignty, although this time around, even if they conquer SYRIA, it would no longer be full sovereignty since FRANCE would have to share it with the USA, Turkey and other NATO partners. This is not troubling Hollande, however, who is backing every reprobate in SYRIA so long as the reprobate’s position falls within the neocolonial plans of FRANCE’S false socialists.

Back in the summer, French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault did not hesitate in saying that FRANCE was supplying SYRIAN fighters with communication equipment and other technology. He spoke as though the equipment was not for the purpose of killing. But it is all the same – is it really not going to aid the murderers?

FRANCES INTENTIONS TO CREATE A “BUFFER” ZONE AND A “NO-FLY” ZONE HAD TO BE ABOLISHED

And now the pseudo-socialist François Hollande has held a meeting with the old collaborator’s grandson, Mouaz al-Khatib. After the meeting in Paris, the ambassador of the SYRIAN terrorists showed up – a certain Munzir Makhous who, together with his boss, was part of the delegation who visited the Élysée Palace and implored Hollande to supply the fighters with heavy artillery. Hollande promised to bring the matter up for discussion with the countries of the EU.

Earlier, Hollande had announced his intentions to create a “buffer” zone and a “no-fly” zone in SYRIA. At that time, however, his own foreign secretary threw cold water on his plans by announcing that such zones could only be created by a decision of the UN Security Council. And the position of the UN Security Council is clear – RUSSIA and CHINA will not give the go ahead for yet more ventures like the ones that have already ruined LIBYA. Knowing this, however, Hollande is trying to raise the morale of the terrorists operating within SYRIA. In order to do this, he is promising to create a “no-fly zone” – the relentless bombardment of SYRIA, in other words – and this is the one thing that the terrorists want. They are putting themselves at risk every time they place an improvised explosive device near a school, a hospital, a shopping center, a mosque. Obviously they want to get support from the air so that they no longer have to risk their lives.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sykes%E2%80%93Picot_Agreement

While the SYRIAN government and the SYRIAN people are placing monuments in honor of their heroes, the so-called “opposition members” are collaborating with the neocolonialists, making much of the colonialists’ flags while killing soldiers and civilians. FRANCE recognizes these murderers and terrorists as “legitimate representatives of the SYRIAN people”. The only question is whether “representatives” like these are what the SYRIAN people really need.