'No plans' for Western military action on Syria, Iran

Western nations have no immediate plans for military action to stop the repression of protests in Syria or to halt Iran's nuclear programme, Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Sunday.

Asked if there was a possibility of a no-fly zone in Syria like the one imposed over Libya last year, Hague said there was "no serious prospect" of a UN resolution on the subject.

"We haven't been looking at a no-fly zone," Hague told Sky News, saying it would be only effective in tandem with other measures, and that the Syrian regime had not been relying on air power to repress protests.

"There is no serious prospect certainly at the moment of the United Nations Security Council agreeing any resulution at the moment, let alone agreeing a resolution comparable to anything that happened in Libya."

But he said that if the current Arab League monitoring mission in Syria does not work "I hope they (the Arab League) will come to the UN and suggest a way forward that we can all get behind."

Hague was also cool on suggestions by Qatar that Arab forces should be sent into Syria to stop the deadly 10-month crackdown on dissent by President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

On Iran, Hague warned that Tehran's "dangerous" nuclear drive threatened profileration across the Middle East.

"We must not be put off further sanctions by bluster or statements from Iran," Hague said, adding that he hoped European Union foreign ministers would agree new measures when they meet on January 23.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad waves at supporters during a rare public appearance in Damascus on January 11

"If it continues it will produce nuclear profileration across the Middle East, which will then be extremely dangerous for the people of Iran, for the whole region and for the peace of the world."

Hague refused to rule out military action against Iran but said Britain was not calling for it.

"We've never ruled anything out, we've not ruled out any option, or we've not ruled out supporting any option, we believe all options should be on the table, that is part of the pressure on Iran, he said.

"But we're clearly not calling for or advocating military action, we're advocating negotiation, meaningful netogiations, if Iran will enter in to them."

The West accuses Iran of trying to produce a nuclear weapon, but Iran says its programme is for civilian use.

AFP 2012

HACKERS PUBLISH EMAIL ADDRESSES

British military officials, civil servants and parliamentarians have had their email addresses published on the internet after they were obtained by hackers.

The addresses were contained in a database of subscribers to American consultancy Stratfor which also featured encrypted versions of the passwords used to access its website.

Cyber-security expert John Bumgarner has identified the email addresses of 221 Ministry of Defence officials, 242 Nato staff, 67 Scotland Yard and other police personnel, 45 civil servants from the Foreign Office, 14 from the Home Office, and seven from the Cabinet Office.

British Government sources stressed that the breach was "not a big deal".

Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn was among 23 people who work in the Houses of Parliament whose details were obtained.

The database contained thousands more email addresses, of mainly Americans, including 19,000 US military.

It was exposed by hackers, believed to be part of the Anonymous group, who gained access to the records over Christmas.

Stratfor, which is based in Texas, specialises in foreign affairs and security issues. It had the details of user IDs - mostly email addresses - and encrypted passwords stored in spreadsheets.

Mr Bumgarner, of Washington research body the US Cyber Consequences Unit, told The Guardian: "Any foreign intelligence service targeting Britain could find these emails useful in identifying individuals connected to sensitive government activities."

A British Government spokesman said: "We are aware that subscriber details for the Stratfor website have been published in the public domain.

"At present, there is no indication of any threat to UK government systems.

"Advice and guidance on such threats is issued to government departments through the Government Computer Emergency Response Team."