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FRANCE HAS OFFICIALLY recognised the newly formed opposition National Coalition as the sole representative of the Syrian people, the first Western country to do so, and said the question of arming them must now be reviewed.
“I announce that France recognises the Syrian National Coalition as the sole representative of the Syrian people and thus as the future provisional government of a democratic Syria, allowing an end to the Bashar al-Assad regime,” President Francois Hollande told a press conference in Paris.
Earlier, the coalition chief Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib called on world powers to arm Assad’s foes, saying they desperately needed “specialised weapons” in order to “cut short the suffering of the Syrians and their bloodshed.”
Hollande said the question of arming the rebels, hitherto opposed by France, would have to be reviewed.
“This question will have to be necessarily reviewed not only in France but in all countries which will recognise this government,” he said.
For its part, the United States said the coalition was “a legitimate representative” of the Syrian people, but stopped short of recognising it as the sole representative.
Britain has said it wants to see more evidence that the grouping has strong support inside Syria before formally recognising it.
Recognition from other countries
The French move came 24 hours after the coalition was recognised by the six member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council: Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar and Kuwait.
The diverse forces involved in the coalition agreed on Sunday to unify their fighting forces under a supreme military council and set up a national judicial commission for rebel-held areas in Syria.
They plan to form a provisional government once the coalition has been widely recognised internationally.
EU foreign ministers meeting in Cairo on Tuesday welcomed the bloc and urged it to bring in more regime dissenters, with Khatib responding that “it is the strongest coalition and represents Syria internally.”
“Many groups have joined. Some have reservations, and we are in touch with everyone. The vast majority has joined,” he said in a telephone interview in Cairo.
The 22-member Arab League has stopped short of granting the bloc full recognition, stating only that it saw the alliance as “the legitimate representative of the Syrian opposition”
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There is more to this than meets the eye no one man caused all this it was many catastrophic failures from Government and Dail and Central Bank as well as Senior civil servants as well as the banks themselves.
The fundamental problem was the “light touch regulation”. And where did that come from?
From Fianna Fáil.
And 35,000 people turn up for the pro-abortion demotration and im yet to see anything done to these 2 ******
They know they can get away with it because we as irish people are missing the point and more over until you stop walking 5 and 10k to raise money for charity to buy hospital bed and make a point to the government to start using the tax money for what they are meant for these kind of things will never stop.who wouldnt wont free money if they know they cant be touch,the system is weak,corrupt and pointless.
We just copied the UK system, so I suppose we should really blame the English.
These two boys are only the tip of the iceberg ….
Time to stop blaming the English dont you think? We the Irish messed things up and we corrupted the political and banking system. So it requires us the Irish to get on with things and fix it because sitting around and blaming others for our problems is not going to do anything.
The funny part of all these is the current government pretend they dont know anything about the banking system,sure what we they doing as opposition.i guess they were there collecting their big pay cheques and never give a toss about anything so do us a favour and stop acting like saints because it makes yees look like clowns .
@Aaron, sarcasm?
So, no minds of your own ? How convenient.
@ Aaron
the banks lending money they knew could never be paid back is what has us in this mess.. you said
…we the irish messed things up and we corrupted the political and banking system … let me ask you is your daddy a banker ?
Aw poor David…. the drip feeding of the recordings are making my life a misery… I wish they would all be out in the public at once so everyone could get over it and move on… well for once im happy they are being drip fed to us… we need time to reflect on the utter shite you were spouting on our behalf….
..all the evidence & proof, yet still nobody accountable or facing justice..
Sorry Fagan my dads not a banker, but let me say this to you, this whole mess is cultural thing at root, you can see it in our society even with the level of Cronyism, we need to start correcting such cultural aspects. And just to clarify Im not saying this is every Irish individuals fault or that they live up certain cultural aspects, but these things are a problem in Irish society.
”We just copied the UK system, so I suppose we should really blame the English”
- yes – we did in way – but the system originated in USA – in Chicago – by Milton Freidman- and his Neo Liberal Economics – so we blindly followed them – over the cliff .
How many of the Nordic countries have called in the IMF [ A disaster happening to any country - with their political agenda ] – but look at much of EU .
We got what we deserved for not questioning hard enough -. USA is a failed state – now a police state – and we still follow them .
@ Aaron …so the bankers lending money to people they shouldnt of lent it to in the first place is a result of irish culture …again your trying to blame the people of ireland are we to blame for the rest of the world
I the sad truth of it is that will probably get back in government in the next election :/
Yes the English always get blamed for anything that goes wrong in Ireland.
You speak the truth!!
Nothing will be done. The government is not going to investigate themselves.
Wait a scapegoat…. does anyone else see the irony in what he’s saying. :-)
Which is why we need to pull a revolution out of our arses.
The poor man, they’re blaming him for all the lies he told.
I feel sooooo sorry for him.
Dish the dirt Drummer, it’s your only chance.
What’s the problem? He told the truth; the regulator, the central bank and all the politicians are a bunch of f*****g clowns.
He got them, using the people of Ireland’s money, to try and bail out his crap business. He’s obviously far more clever than the electorate.
He’s telling the truth now, he was lying then.
He lied and he got the moolah.
Our moolah.
Absolutely agreed
Anglo ran rings around the regulators
Anglo board ran rings around government ministers and there financial advisers
Ran rings around the central bank
Tried to run rings around the eu banking system
All to prop up a bank that was bleeding 1 B euros A DAy and was going to the wall at a rate of knots . Run by a bunch of salesmen selling loans to people who shouldn’t have even had a sniff of the money never mind getting 100 million loans here and there
Hiding losses with creative banking running down the line between legal and ethical . Auditors from the big five surely must have seen this coming and signed off as sound . The Irish people should
Sue
1 auditors for fraud
2 all Anglo board for bankrupting the country and loss of sovereignty
3 FF ministers in charge at time who allowed this debacle to go ahead and remove all pensions entitlements and straight to jail for corruption who ever found guilty
4 all senior serpents who were involved as they simply had or have no clue about big finance and there incompetence in managing the banking crisis and remove all pensions and entitlements
5 Peugeot for building cars that don’t work . I have gremlins in my electronics I have never experienced before and is taking all my skills to sort out 407SW don’t touch with barge pole
Now where’s me green pills again ………
He was prepared to work to save the bank …question is who was prepared to work to save the people ….yes that’s right not the politicians happy with their lump sums and €3000 a week or the civil servants with jobs for life and big bench marked pensions ….
Awww, poor little David, everyone is picking on him!
Work in any branch of high finance and you’ll hear the same language. I would like to hear the conversations in the dept of finance or dept of the Taoiseach.
What were the heads of finance doing, didn’t Cardiff lose account of 3 billion and then he got a job in Europe I wonder is that where all the Dunces are sent. It says a lot for Europe doesn’t it the shower of wasters
Pure sc*m
Put this d*ckhead in a pillory outside the central bank. I’d love to throw a few rotten eggs at him.
If Drumm didn’t want to be a scapegoat, he shouldn’t have done and said what he did. Simple.
Clearly, Anglo Irish Bank and its irresponsible management were the sepsis in the financial system. There were total rogues.
But Bankers will run riot if not controlled. This is why there has to be a Bank Regulator but the Bank Regulate has to regulate. The Central Bank of Ireland and IFSRA were not just involved in light touch regulation. They turned a blind eye. Every rule of prudent lending was openly and flagrantly broken but nothing was done.
The ultimate culprits are the senior civil servants who were paid magnificently and did a dreadfully bad job, resulting in the destruction of the Irish public finances.
jail the fecker
While these tapes are a shocking indictment on the system that was; and still is. You have to question why they are being released and for what purposes, you cannot listen to these tapes in a vacuum but against the governments of the day and todays. These tapes are but a reason for a referendum on Oireachtas inquiry power and a chance to give government power that should only be held by the Judiciary. Remember this when the question comes around again, ask yourself if you would have liked Haughey, Ahern and Cowen to be in charge of a Dail (without a seanad if current opinion polls are to continue) with the powers the founders thought ought to rest solely with the independent courts of the land.
What Paul Williams is doing with this drip feeding is not in the public interest. It is damaging our international reputation if that were possible. Not defending drumm et al but if the indo were serving the public interest as they said, they’d let it all out in one go.
Indo want to sell papers
Precisely my thoughts. The indo is doing quite a lot of damage in drip feeding.
How many more extracts are going to be released? This could go from now until Christmas.
Other questions I have for the indo is how long did they have possession of these tapes and who on earth gave them over?
People in this country tend to have short memories (look at FF leading the polls again), so I hope they continue drip feeding for as long as it takes until some of these crooks end up in jail. Keep on dripping baby!
Slaughter the scape goat and we can rest easy. Poor little drummer boy.
FF must take the blame for most of our financial crisis.
Yet FF are now the most popular political party according to the polls. What does that say about us? I think it says we are a pack of idiots that are terrified of change.
Linda it’s unreal isn’t it! when will we ever learn?
Well I am sure that the rest of Ireland do not want to be the mules that are hauling the money back into the banks.
He deserves jail at least but he has a point, release all tapes from all banks, stop with the drip feeding and let’s see exactly what happened and of course who the f*#kers that will getaway scot free are.
The saying is true “an ounce of breeding is better than a ton of feeding”. This is one ignorant man and with all his money it’s fairly obvious he was dragged up.
Gary, it was the breeding issue (croneyism etc) that provided the banking and political dynasties that destroyed the country, both economically and politically. Yeah, Drumm is from the North side, but the vast majority of the rest of them were old-school south siders. Thats why none of them are in prison yet.
Cathal don’t get me wrong, all I meant was the foul language he was constantly using and on top of that the fact he said he wanted to punch Brian Linehan. I have no idea where he was brought up, I’m judging him from the tapes. There are classy people that come from nothing and ignorant people that come from wealth.
Imagine if these tapes had been published at the start of the crisis… You have to wonder why they weren’t and why there’s a drip feed several years later.
I guess the “soft landing” turned out to be real for bankers, developers, regulators and politicians.
One word CARTEL..I personally can’t wait to hear Cowens dreary voice coming into recognition as a player in all this
Most of the top presenters from RTE were in the Galway tent.So its ironic that they are surprised what’s coming out in the Anglo gate tapes.
The guy is the very definition of Traitor!
Just by stating that he wasn’t the only one doing something wrong still means that he was doing something wrong! I am enjoying the drip feeding and long may it continue. If it had all leaked at once it would now have magically been swept under the carpet – this way it is kept in the media and I hope it stays this way until something is finally done. The lack of action makes me think that the politicians, bankers, developers all have something to be scared of… Oh and FF top the poles again, short memories it would seem. Shame there is no drip feeding to remind all the mindless sheep of FF’s role in all this – it seems to be the only thing that works in Ireland…
i got a lot of red thumbs last week for mentioning the other banks and what would their tapes reveal. not just irish banks foreign banks too. time will tell.
Rose,I agree with you there is more to come. As Tim Fat Coogan says, some one usally the winners will write the history books.
Opportunity for the Irish Gathering to make a killing. 63 ‘Septic Dunk Tanks’ outside the Central Bank, each one for a banker, politician or nama abuser. €5 to trow a ball to dunk one, the queues would be massive..from trains, planes and automobiles.. Hell I would walk… The Irish would come back in herds. Clean up the country as well.
Will the Indo please release ALL the tapes NOW, so that we can hopefully get a clear picture, bring in a German commissioner and derail the corruptness.
And they have not been replaced by much better !
Can you even imagine what it would have been like if the present lot had been in power at the time!
‘They were marching to the beat of a different Drumm.’
The indo knows we have a short memory so thy are drip feeding it to keep up focused on the bastards that got us in this mess . Well i hope . That’s why thy are doing it
Hopefully he’s p##sed off enough by this to name and shame a few of the politicians and civil servants he’s talking about!
And on a lighter note,i was stop recently by a garda doing 55km on a 50km and just out of curosity i ask the garda where did he got that figures from,he replied i got it out of mi back side..hahaha..have a good day folks…
In the absence of a political will to hold an independent inquiry and the absence of (seemingly) a Police investigation then the drip feed of these tapes is the right thing to do…… Like the infamous Chinese water torture method the skinning of these deplorable excuses of humanity the results will come in! If the Authorities government, legislative, justice (gardai) are dithering (I’m being kind using this word) in their response to this emergency then we have to find other ways. This Indo Sino tape torture is working…. this Drumm pup (and colleagues) doesn’t want to be the scapegoat… well let’s drip feed more and more and make that smug, arrogant muppet squeal like the proverbial pig (that he appears to be). Keep applying the pressure Indo and who knows your management of these tapes (which I applaud) might be the catalyst for REAL change in this shambolic Republic.
FF. have to take the blame for the banking collapse , FG. and Labour in government are not doing anything to upset the the people that destroyed the country, all we are hearing is more cuts and more taxes , the people are paying for the sins of the Golden circles . Time for the government to wake up and do their job and bring a little bit of justice to the country . Putting it on the long finger and hoping the people will forget is not an option .
A number of Italians I’ve spoken to over the last few days think that we’re mugs in Ireland for taking it lying down.
Like that lot can talk – one word Berlusconi.
Why doesn’t Drumm just do what bankers always do when faced with a problem. . . . pass the buck. He knows a lot more than he is saying about the guarantee, and eveything else that went on at that time, and I’d say that the sale of toilet rolls to certain TD’s homes have increased hugely in the last week. No surprise either that Noonan warned about “mucking around with evidence”. Trying to cover his buddie”s backs as usual.
I’d have the death penalty of these people, they have destroyed the country.
I hope someone manages to get a hold of drumms neck and wrings it for him, he doesn’t deserve to walk the streets of this country without being lynched
The Regulator failed to regulate which allowed the sort of very bad lending practices to become the “norm”. Drum et al just resorted to type with no opposition from politicians too busy being in the “tent” themselves to do their duty. FF Govt totally culpable and then compounded mistake by failing to tell UE to GTF! Net result ? Population in hock forever, emigration our best export again and the nation a poster boy for incompetence. Large corporations here not for Irish “expertise” in matters financial just the bottom line tax rate . Thank you Connolly et al RIP.
Drum should be arrested and charged ASAP!
Enda act ASAP!
Thae corrupt Irish govt put in place as at now and in the past are the ones responsible the Irish people need to either accept the blame or do something about it me myself I left the whole mess as I couldn’t bear it absolute “bolloxoligy” to even hear this from a senior banker is absolutely ridiculous ….
Extra asterisk in f*cking Amy. Oops..that doesn’t read well!!
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