Middle East Report 21 Oct 2015 WR15-337

The first snippet has nothing to do with the Middle East

CANADIAN STUDENTS AREN'T STUPID

They walked in tandem, each of the ninety-two students filing into the already crowded auditorium. With their rich maroon gowns flowing and the
traditional caps, they looked almost as grown up as they felt. 

Dads swallowed hard behind broad smiles, and Moms freely brushed away tears.
 

This class would NOT pray during the commencements, not by choice, but   because of a recent court ruling prohibiting it "for fear of Offending
non-Christians".
 

The principal and several students were careful to stay within the guidelines allowed by the ruling. They gave inspirational and challenging
speeches, but no one mentioned divine guidance and no one asked for blessings on the graduates or their families.
 

The speeches were nice, but they were routine until the final speech    received a standing ovation. 

A solitary student walked proudly to the microphone. He stood still and    silent for just a moment, and then it happened.
 

All 92 students, every single one of them, suddenly SNEEZED in unison!
 

The student on stage simply looked at the audience and said,
'GOD BLESS YOU! and then walked off the stage!
 

The audience exploded into applause. This graduating class had found a    unique way to invoke God's blessing on their future, with or without the court's approval.
 

Isn't this a wonderful story? Please pass it on to all your friends ??? and   GOD BLESS YOU!!!!
 

This is a true story; it happened at Eastern Shore District High School in    Musquodoboit Harbour, Nova Scotia.

The Syrian army denied Russian ground troops are fighting alongside its forces, saying Moscow was deploying only air power in Syria.

In a statement issued late on Tuesday on the Syrian news agency SANA, a military source was quoted as saying that reports Russian combat forces were engaged in ground operations were "baseless and mere propaganda".

Russia's three-week-old military operations were limited to aerial bombing of what the source described as terrorist hideouts, command centers and weapons depots.

A senior pro-government military source told Reuters on Tuesday that at least three Russians had been killed fighting alongside Syrian government forces and several more wounded when a shell hit their position in the coastal province of Latakia.

Rami Abdulrahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights which monitors the conflict, said that his sources in the area had confirmed the deaths of Russians, but did not have a figure. He said he believed they were not regular Russian forces but volunteers.

Russia's Defense Ministry denied on Tuesday that Russian soldiers had died recently in Syria, in comments carried by Russian news agencies.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad flew to Moscow on Tuesday evening to personally thank Russia's Vladimir Putin for his military support, in a surprise visit that underlined how Russia has become a major player in the Middle East.

It was Assad's first foreign trip since the outbreak of the Syrian crisis in 2011, and came three weeks after Russia launched a campaign of air strikes against Islamist militants in Syria that has also bolstered Assad's forces.

The Kremlin kept the visit quiet until Wednesday morning, broadcasting a meeting between the two men in the Kremlin and releasing a transcript of an exchange they had. It did not say whether the Syrian leader was still in Moscow or had returned home.

Putin said he hoped progress on the military front would be followed by moves toward a political solution in Syria, bolstering Western hopes Moscow will use its increased influence on Damascus to cajole Assad into talking to his opponents.

Iran has also long been a strong Syrian government ally, and the fact that Assad chose to visit Moscow before Tehran is likely to be interpreted in some circles as a sign that Russia has now emerged as Assad's most important foreign friend.

Russian state TV made the meeting its top news item, showing Assad, dressed in a dark suit, talking to Putin, together with the Russian foreign and defense ministers.

The Kremlin has cast its intervention in Syria, its biggest in the Middle East since the 1991 Soviet collapse, as a common sense move designed to roll back 'international terrorism' in the face of what it says is ineffective action from Washington.

It is likely to use Assad's visit to buttress its domestic narrative that its air campaign is just and effective and to underline its assertion that the foray shows it has shaken off the Ukraine crisis to become a serious global player.

"First of all I wanted to express my huge gratitude to the whole leadership of the Russian Federation for the help they are giving Syria," Assad told Putin.

"If it was not for your actions and your decisions the terrorism which is spreading in the region would have swallowed up a much greater area and spread over an even greater territory."

Assad, who looked relaxed, emphasized how Russia was acting according to international law, praising Moscow's political approach to the Syrian crisis which he said had ensured it had not played out according to "a more tragic scenario."

Ultimately, he said, the resolution to the crisis was a political one.

"Terrorism is a real obstacle to a political solution," said Assad. "And of course the whole (Syrian) people want to take part in deciding the fate of their state, and not just the leadership."

Putin said Russia was ready to help find a political solution and hailed the Syrian people for standing up to the terrorists "almost on their own," saying the Syrian army had notched up serious battlefield success in recent times.

He said Russia had felt compelled to act in Syria because of the threat Islamist militants fighting Assad's forces there posed to its own security.

"Unfortunately on Syrian territory there are about 4,000 people from the former Soviet Union - at a minimum - fighting government forces with weapons in their hands," said Putin.

"We, it goes without saying, can not allow them to turn up on Russian territory after they have received battlefield experience and undergone ideological instruction."

Putin said that positive developments on the military front in Syria would provide a basis for a long-term political solution, involving all political forces, ethnic and religious groups.

"We are ready to make our contribution not only in the course of military actions in the fight against terrorism, but during the political process," Putin said, according to the transcript released by the Kremlin.

"This will, of course, be in close contact with other world powers and with countries of the region which are interested in a peaceful resolution of the conflict," Putin said.

Eavesdropping by Russia’s intelligence services has found that ISIS is seeking to join forces with the Al-Nusra Front and other terrorist groups in their war against the Russian army, said the spokesman of Russia’s Defense Ministry, Major General Igor Konashenkov, on Wednesday.

Iran’s supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Wednesday approved his country’s nuclear agreement with Western powers on the condition that the US and the other countries announce the elimination of sanctions against Iran. In the message posted on his official website, he also said that the deal had “”structural weak points” which left open the possibility of renegotiation or Tehran’s withdrawal. 

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will hold a joint meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry and the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia and Turkey in Vienna on Friday to discuss the situation in Syria, Russia's Foreign Ministry said Wednesday.   

Palestinian Authority Chairman Abu Mazen (Mahmud Abbas) said Wednesday that a religious conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is already underway, alleging that Israeli Prime Minister  Netanyahu made a misleading statement by claiming he is committed to maintaining the status quo on the Temple Mount. In a press conference with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in Ramallah, he added that the situation on the Temple Mount should be returned to the one that existed before the year 2000.