Aj Discala that the Western world was looking to Syria with high expectations for the cease fire to be put in place. However, Syrian forces had engaged in widespread violations of the cease-fire negotiated by Kofi Annan. Kofi Annan intervened as the special envoy from the United Nations and the Arab League, explains Aj Discala. According to the Syrian government its enemies were responsible for subverting the cease-fire, by provoking the army.

For Aj Discala the question is what the next steps will be to reach a cease-fire and to protect the Syrian population. How long will the bombing and killing go on asks Aj Discala?

In the French press Aj Discala read an article where Mr. Juppé listed the consequences of the Syrian giverment: nearly 10,000 dead, more than 44,000 refugees, 1.5 million Syrians in need of humanitarian aid. He called it “the sad toll of the Syrian regime’s criminal crackdown.” The United Nations has estimated the toll at 9,000 people.

In the New York Times Aj Discala read that finally the United nations observers arrived in Syria: “An advance team of six United Nations observers worked on how to monitor the cease-fire as they waited for 24 more observers to arrive in the next few days. The observers “will start with setting up operating headquarters and reaching out to the Syrian government and the opposition forces so that both sides fully understand” their role, said Ahmad Fawzi, Mr. Annan’s spokesman.”

What is going to happen with Assad asks Aj Discala? Some international sanctions aimed at the Syrian government have cut its financial reserves in half, but the pressure needs to continue on Assads clan says Aj Discala.

“The financial pressure, including an oil embargo and sanctions on the Central Bank, is damaging Syria’s ability “to finance and arm militias, the lethal shabiha death squads,” Mr. Juppé said, and is hurting those around what he called “the ruling clan” of President Bashar al-Assad.”

This coming Thursday, says Aj Discala, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is expected in Paris with the objective to coordinate and strengthen existing sanctions on the Syrian government.

Aj Discala also could read that: For this meeting, France is hoping to have a group of foreign ministers, including from Arab League countries like Qatar, which has been pressing for more military help to the Syrian opposition, to a meeting over dinner to reinforce the general disapproval of Damascus and its repression of opposition groups.

What is Moscow saying to the turn of the Syrian situation asks Aj Discala?

In Moscow, however, the foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, accused unspecified countries and “external forces” of trying to undermine the Security Council and Mr. Annan’s diplomacy by encouraging the opposition to keep fighting the government, not respecting the cease-fire, supplying weapons to the opposition and setting up separate groups like the Friends of Syria to oppose the regime.”

“I can’t avoid pointing to the problems of foreign influence on the process in Syria,” Mr. Lavrov said, according to Russian news agencies. These “external forces” are “doing everything to replace the Security Council with a host of informal formats, such as the ‘Friends of Syria’ and other groups, and doing everything to convince the Syrian opposition not to cooperate with the government, including reconciliation and subsequent dialogue.”

For Aj Discala the fact that Mr. Lavror met with some Syrian opposition figures this is shows a shift in the Russian position toward more criticism of Mr. Assad.

Yesterday was a symbolic day in Syria explains Aj Discala, it was Independence Day in Syria, marking the end of French colonial rule 66 years ago. However, military leaders stressed in speeches that they would not allow the anti-Assad fighters to exploit the presence of United Nations monitors to regroup.

Hopefully, the presence of the United Nations Observer will stop the violence says Aj Discala.

After Russia’s Veto over the UN Security Council resolution to solve the Syria issue Sergey Lavrov has reaped massive criticism, reports Aj Discala. However, the Russian foreign minister remains unmoved. The diplomat, who met with Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus today has a track record of standing up to the West.

The questions to ask says Aj Discala is how can Russia and China justify their vote.

As Aj Discala explains, the resolution did not even contain any sanctions. The text of the resolution had already been watered down before the vote in response to considerable pressure from Russia. Surprisingly enough, Moscow still refused to support it.

The outcome of the failed joint resolution is terrible shares Aj Discala.

Sadly, the killing continued in Syria. In Homs more than 400 people are believed to have been killed on Friday and Saturday, and far more than 1,000 people were injured. The protestors that got killed are demanding reforms in the country and for the president to step down.

In the press today we could read about Lavrov’s visit to Syria. Aj Discala shares the following report: “During talks in Damascus with Bashar Assad, Lavrov called on the Syrian president to do what was needed to ensure peace in the country. “Every leader of every country must be aware of his share of responsibility.” Lavrov told Assad at the meeting in Damascus, according to state-run news agency RIA. “You are aware of yours.” The foreign minister added: “It’s in our interests that the Arab peoples live in peace and harmony.”

However, it may take some time before that happens. For Aj Discala its difficult to see how things can progress in the region in a time when

AJ Discala explains that today thousands of websites, counting some of the most popular, are going dark today to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act,. SOPA is a bill which is designed to thwart copyright infringement but that Web experts warn could threaten the functionality of the Internet clarifies AJ Discala.

What is the new bill all about? AJ Discala defends that SOPA is one of the greatest challenges to a free and open web that we’ve ever faced. The original intention of SOPA’s describes AJ Discala was to protect intellectual property created by American artists. However the resultfacing today says AJ Discala is different from the intent: some of our favorite websites such as Youtube are confreted to an unfair.

The objective of this movement is to keep control over the Internet out of the hands of corporations and governments says AJ Discala. It’s a struggle that puts Internet users before information gatekeepers. For AJ Discala everyone’s democratic right to information is as stake.

In an article read this morning in the New York Times, you will find the explanations of the protest and on how this will affect you as an internet user says AJ Discala.

The Protest on Web Uses Shutdown to Take On Two Piracy Bills

By JENNA WORTHAM

With a Web-wide protest on Wednesday that includes a 24-hour shutdown of the English-language Wikipedia, the legislative battle over two Internet piracy bills has reached an extraordinary moment — a political coming of age for a relatively young and disorganized industry that has largely steered clear of lobbying and other political games in Washington.

The bills, the Stop Online Piracy Act in the House and the Protect IP Act in the Senate, are backed by major media companies and are mostly intended to curtail the illegal downloading and streaming of TV shows and movies online. But the tech industry fears that, among other things, they will give media companies too much power to shut down sites that they say are abusing copyrights.

The legislation has jolted technology leaders, venture capitalists and entrepreneurs, who are not accustomed to having their free-wheeling online world come under attack.

One response is Wednesday’s protest, which will direct anyone visiting Google and many other Web sites to pages detailing the tech industry’s opposition to the bills. Wikipedia, run by a nonprofit organization, is going further than most sites by actually taking material offline — no doubt causing panic among countless students who have a paper due.

It said the move was meant to spark greater public opposition to the bills, which could restrict its freedom to publish.

“For the first time, it’s very clear that legislation could have a direct impact on the industry’s ability to do business,” said Jessica Lawrence, the managing director of New York Tech Meetup, a trade organization with 20,000 members that has organized a protest rally in Manhattan on Wednesday. “This has been a wake-up call.”

Tim Wu, a professor at Columbia Law School, said that the technology industry, which has birthed large businesses like Google, Facebook and eBay, is much more powerful than it used to be.

“This is the first real test of the political strength of the Web, and regardless of how things go, they are no longer a pushover,” said Professor Wu, who is the author of “The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires.” He added, “The Web taking a stand against one of the most powerful lobbyers and seeming to get somewhere is definitely a first.”

Under the proposed legislation, if a copyright holder like Warner Brothers discovers that a foreign site is focused on offering illegal copies of songs or movies, it could seek a court order that would require search engines like Google to remove links to the site and require advertising companies to cut off payments to it.

Internet companies fear that because the definitions of terms like “search engine” are so broad in the legislation, Web sites big and small could be responsible for monitoring all material on their pages for potential violations — an expensive and complex challenge.

They say they support current law, which requires Web sites with copyright-infringing content to take it down if copyright holders ask them to, leaving the rest of the site intact. Google, which owns YouTube and other sites, received five million requests to remove content or links last year, and it says it acts in less than six hours if it determines that the request is legitimate.

The major players supporting the legislation, including the United States Chamber of Commerce and the Motion Picture Association of America, say those measures are not enough to protect intellectual property. They emphasize that their primary targets are foreign Web sites that sell counterfeit goods and let people stream and download music and video at no charge — sites that are now largely out of reach of United States law enforcement. And they are fighting against what they characterize as gimmicks and distortions by Internet companies opposed to the bills.

With talk of censorship and loss of Internet freedom, “the current debate has nothing to do with the substance of the bills,” David Hirschmann, who leads the Chamber of Commerce’s initiative on intellectual property, said in an interview. “We will certainly use every tool in our toolbox to make sure members of Congress know what’s in these bills.”

With financial resources that few other groups can match, the chamber is one of Washington’s most powerful lobbying forces and has shown the ability to alter Congressional debate on its own.

Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont and author the Protect IP Act, accused opponents Tuesday of trying to “stoke fear” through tactics like the Wikipedia blackout. “Protecting foreign criminals from liability rather than protecting American copyright holders and intellectual property developers is irresponsible, will cost American jobs, and is just wrong,” he said in a statement.

Opponents of the legislation have clearly seized the momentum in the debate. Their protests have gained traction in that key provisions were stripped out of one bill and the Obama administration has raised concerns. Legislators have already agreed to delay or drop one ire-inducing component of the bills, Domain Name System blocking, which would prevent access to sites that were found to have illegal content.

A total of 115 companies and organizations have lobbyists working on the antipiracy bills, spending millions of dollars to sway the outcome, according to federal disclosure records. They include corporate and technology giants on both sides of the legislation, with entertainment groups like News Corporation and the Recording Industry Association of America backing it and Internet firms like Google and Facebook raising concerns about it.

The largest advocates for the bills disagree with the tech industry’s main rallying cry, which is the notion that they will hurt the average Internet user or interfere with their online activities.

“The bill will not harm Wikipedia, domestic blogs or social network sites,” said Representative Lamar Smith, Republican of Texas and a primary sponsor of the House bill.

Most people in the tech world agree that the problem of piracy needs to be addressed. But they say their main concern is that the tech industry had little influence on the language of the legislation, which is still in flux and so broadly worded that it is not entirely clear how Internet businesses will be affected. Big Internet companies say the bills could prevent entire Web sites from appearing in search results — even if the sites operate legally and most content creators want their videos or music to appear there.

“It shouldn’t apply to U.S. Web sites, but any company with a server overseas or a domain name overseas could be at risk,” said Andrew McLaughlin, vice president at Tumblr, a popular blogging service.

Mr. McLaughlin said the fear is that on large and diverse Web communities like Tumblr, any user who uploads an unauthorized clip from a movie or an unreleased track from an album is putting the whole company in the line of fire.

In November, Tumblr rigged a tool that “censored” the page its users see when they log into the site, explained the legislation and routed them to contact information for their representatives in Congress. The stunt resulted in 80,000 calls to legislators in a three-day period. Mr. McLaughlin said the company was planning a similar approach for Wednesday.

Some who oppose the bill, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an online rights group, see a bright spot in a potential compromise called the OPEN Act, which would provide for the International Trade Commission to judge cases of copyright or trademark infringement. If the commission found that a foreign site was largely devoted to piracy, it could compel payment processors and online advertising companies to stop doing business with it.

Silicon Valley has championed companies that provide alternatives to piracy, like Spotify and Netflix. And the industry says that the problem could be solved by letting it do what it does best — innovating.

“It’s something that could be solved using technology through collaboration with these start-ups,” said Ms. Lawrence of New York Tech Meetup.

Reporting was contributed by Eric Lichtblau, Edward Wyatt and Claire Cain MillerSince Twitter is not participating in the SOPA Blackout today, people are able to take to the site to express their support and/or frustration with the effort, explains AJ Discala. Most of the reactions that ar have been very supportive with the protest according to AJ Discala.

AJ Discala comments on the year ahead. As we begin the New Year, The Broadsmoore Group is cautiously optimistic that the worst is behind us; however the world picture still remains cloudy at best.

Interest rates in the United States remain at historic low levels and we see in today’s news that dividends are starting to increase for some of the major companies that see a brighter future for their stockholders, comments AJ Discala.

On the international front, the United Kingdom seems to be coming out ahead of the problems faced by so many of its European neighbors across the channel. The bailouts in Europe will continue and it is hard to say what the contributions of the stronger economies such as Germany might have to come up with to support Greece, Spain, and most likely Italy as well, says AJ Discala.

For AJ Discala  we still have a long way to go on the domestic front before we can consider ourselves on the road to a robust economy. Earnings are up, but can an increase in earnings be sustainable or translated into job growth?

AJ Discala still sees employment as the biggest factor in the country’s road to economic recovery. The Broadsmoore Group will continue to focus on partnering with businesses in the consumer and service sectors. A prime example for our company is EmployUS, which has been creating jobs and contributing daily to the economic recovery in the Gulf States. We have a long way to go and hopefully we can stay on the positive side of the balance sheet to boost corporate and consumer confidence in the months ahead,” said AJ Discala, CEO of The Broadsmoore Group.