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New Sanctions On Russia Could Lift Oil Prices Further

April 18, 2018 10:32·
Nikki Haley

Nikki Haley

Experts from the worldwide chemical weapons watchdog are in Syria and are now expected to visit that site in the town of Douma Wednesday.

Lavrov charged that it was the United States, France and Britain who were "standing in the way" of the investigation by ordering air strikes "in the blink of an eye" before the OPCW team had a chance to do their work.

"The team has not yet deployed to Douma", Uzumcu told an executive council meeting of the OPCW in The Hague on Monday.

Bashar Ja'afari said if the team decides "the situation is sound", the fact-finding mission from the global chemical weapons watchdog - Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons - will start work there Wednesday.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said it was the "obligation of the Syrian government to provide all the conditions for (OPCW inspectors) to work without any restrictions".

Journalists were allowed access to Douma on Monday.

"In the general objective forces, we are a bit lagging behind the United States".

U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley is pushing back against a White House claim that she was confused when she said new sanctions against Russian Federation were imminent, releasing a pithy statement saying, "With all due respect, I don't get confused".

And he said she should have recalled MPs from their Easter break to decide if the action was needed.

Earlier Monday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said the inspectors could not go to the site because they needed approval from the U.N. Department for Safety and Security. "It's probably to give themselves the time to finish cleaning up". The Kremlin said on Tuesday that President Vladimir Putin had telephoned German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who supported the Western strikes but did not participate in them.

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The UAE said the money was to pay for the salaries for Somali soldiers as part of an agreement between the two countries. Somalia called on the United Nations Security Council to "take the necessary steps" to "put an end to these actions".

The French leader was also set to strip Syrian President Bashar al-Assad of the prestigious Legion d'Honneur (Legion of Honour) award he was granted by former president Jacques Chirac in 2001.

The most expansive proposal would have hit Russian provided air defences in Syria and "was created to cripple the regime's military capabilities without touching Mr Assad's political machinery".

Yet, a report on SANA that Syrian air defences had shot down missiles over Homs province overnight raised fears that further action had indeed been taken.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human rights, which follows the war through a network of activists on the ground, reported the sound of explosions and lightning-like flashes in the skies over Homs and near Damascus, without saying what it was.

Saturday's air strikes were the first coordinated Western strikes against Assad's government in a seven-year war that has killed more than 500,000 people and drawn in global powers and neighboring states. "We were even able to visit the hospital where [volunteer-run rescue group] the White Helmets showed the video of the people being hosed down", Sharp said.

Asked about the draft text, Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told AFP that it was "untimely", indicating Moscow was not ready to engage with the West on Syria after the military strikes.

The latest round of diplomatic maneuvring comes as US-backed Kurdish forces fighting the IS group face a Turkish assault in northern Syria.

That has prompted many fighters to quit the battle against IS in order head for the Kurdish enclave of Afrin.

The Syrian army began preparatory shelling on Tuesday for an assault on the last area outside its control near Damascus, a commander in the pro-government alliance said.

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