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QuestCinq News

December 06, 2012 1:05 pmET

(Reuters) – Western powers are whipping up fears of a fateful move to the use of chemical weapons in Syria’s civil war as a “pretext for intervention”, President Bashar al-Assad’s deputy foreign minister said on Thursday.

CAIRO — “The Egyptian army sealed off the presidential palace with barbed wire and armored vehicles Thursday as protesters defied a deadline to vacate the area, pressing forward with demands that Islamist leader Mohammed Morsi rescind decrees giving himself near-absolute power and withdraw a disputed draft constitution.”( Huffington Post)

Reported by CNN from another source, “The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported Wednesday that Faisal al-Miqdad, the Syrian deputy foreign minister, recently traveled to Cuba, Venezuela and Ecuador with personal letters from Assad looking at the possibility of political asylum for himself and his family if he were forced to leave Damascus…”

DUBLIN — “In a potential sign that Russia’s support of embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad may be softening, Moscow’s top diplomat will meet jointly Thursday with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and the U.N. envoy for Syria, a senior State Department official said…”(WashingtonPost)

GUATEMALA CITY (AP)– A lawyer for software company founder John McAfee says he has been denied political asylum in Guatemala, paving the way for his deportation to Belize.

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