Free Talk Live

A suicide bomber has struck a meeting of top Syrian officials in Damascus, killing Syria’s defense minister and the brother-in-law of President Bashar-al-Assad and dealing a major blow to the Assad regime. The defense minister, General Daoud Rajha, is the most senior government official to be killed since the Syrian uprising began 17 months ago. The bombing comes as the United Nations Security Council is set to vote today on a new measure responding to the crisis in Syria.

PARIS -- Governments around the world expelled Syrian ambassadors and diplomats Tuesday, an unusual, coordinated blow to Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime following a gruesome massacre that the United Nations said involved close-range shootings of scores of children and parents in their homes. The United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Bulgaria and the Netherlands took action Tuesday against Syrian diplomats. Britain's foreign secretary said the countries involved in Tuesday's expulsions would also push for tougher sanctions against Syria.

Republican Senator John McCain yesterday urged the U.S. to launch military airstrikes against Syrian president Bashar Assad's regime to force him out of power. "If we stand on the sidelines, others will try to pick winners, and this will not always be to our liking or in our interest.", McCain said.

Daily News @ http://RevolutionNews.US ~ THE disgraced cross-dressing commander of Canada's largest air force base pleaded guilty today to 86 lurid sex crimes, including two murders that "stunned" the military.

Colonel Russell Williams, 47, a married pilot who once flew the jet used to ferry Canada's Prime Minister as well as the British royal family on a visit, displayed no emotion as he admitted to his crimes in a Belleville, Ontario courtroom.

He faces life in prison, with no possibility of parole for at least 25 years.

More than 250 people have been killed by forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad in the village of Tremseh in Hama province, according to opposition activists. The Revolution Leadership Council of Hama told Reuters that most of those killed were civilians. The opposition activists said the village had been attacked by helicopter gunships and tanks, and that pro-government militia men then moved in and carried out execution-style killings.

Anonymous has broken into computer systems of Syria’s Ministry of Presidential Affairs, with the hack collective exposing hundreds of emails including briefings to the Syrian president about the “easily manipulated ” American psyche. Around 78 inboxes were targeted late at the weekend, Haaretz reports, belonging to presidential aides and other advisors at the Ministry. Not content with leaking the messages, Anonymous also revealed all of the passwords the loosely-associated online activist organization had acquired.

WASHINGTON — A small number of CIA officers are operating secretly in southern Turkey, helping allies decide which Syrian opposition fighters across the border will receive arms to fight the Syrian government, US officials and Arab intelligence officers said.

In Syria, Bashar Assad’s regime has mounted a sophisticated surveillance program that monitors the Internet for dissidents using an arm of the military known as The Syrian Electronic Army (SEA). But wherever there’s tyranny there is rebellion.

A cyber-rebel group called the Pirates of Aleppo has mounted an online resistance and one such rebel is developing some exciting rebel tech. Ahmad Heidar is best known by his online name, “Harvester” and he’s been hacking the SEA directly from his hideout right over the border in southern Turkey.

A North Side family is furious over what they claim was an unjustified police shooting of their 7-month-old miniature bull terrier, Colonel Phillips, known to the neighborhood as "The Colonel." Residents are also upset, not just because police shot a puppy they all knew, but also because the shooting occurred not far from a preschool, on a street where pedestrians including children could have been hurt.