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President Barack Obama speaking during an exclusive interview with CNN. Screengrab/CNN

Obama says Syria 'will require America's attention'

The US president called the Syrian attack where it is alleged chemical weapons were used, ‘a big event of grave concern’.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA has said in an interview with CNN broadcast today that the Syrian chemical weapons attack that is alleged to have taken place this week is a “big event of grave concern”.

Pro-opposition groups said yesterday that government forces used a “poisonous gas” in an attack but the government says the reports are “totally false”.

President Obama said that the US is in contact with the international community about the Syrian crisis and said “we’re moving through the UN to prompt better action from them”.

UN inspectors

He said that the US are calling on Syrian officials to allow the UN inspectors that are in Syria at the moment, to inspect the site where the alleged chemical attack took place.

A UN team led by Swedish chemical weapons expert Ake Sellstrom has been in Damascus since Sunday to investigate three sites where chemical weapons attacks allegedly occurred in the past. As well as the US, Britain and France have demanded that the team of UN experts be granted immediate access to investigate the site.

However, President Obama said:

We don’t expect cooperation given their past history.

He added that while “the situation in Syria is very difficult” he said there was “a notion” out there that “the US can solve what is a sectarian complex problem within Syria” which he said  ”can sometimes be overstated”. He said:

There is no doubt when you start to see chemical weapons being used on a large scale… it is very troublesome.

He said when such attacks occur it is of concern to the core national interests of the US, which is “making sure weapons of mass destruction are not proliferating” and the need “to protect our allies [and], our bases in the region”. He said:

It is fair to say that as difficult as the problem is it will require America’s attention and hopefully the whole international community’s attention.

Explainer: What is going on in Syria?>

Column: Those Syrian children are dead because the world didn’t try to save them>

Syrian forces bomb area of alleged chemical attack>

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123 Comments
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    Mute Jed I. Knight
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    Feb 5th 2014, 7:38 PM

    I’m guessing their target audience isn’t rural Ireland???

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    Mute Ina Smidiríní
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    Feb 6th 2014, 1:24 AM

    No they would be talking about places like Africa I presume.

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    Mute SuperFry
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    Feb 5th 2014, 7:47 PM

    Great another reason for people to think I’ll email them back immediately.

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    Mute Gobblor
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    Feb 5th 2014, 8:10 PM

    End world hunger? No! Wifi for all!

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    Mute PerkyBeans
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    Feb 5th 2014, 9:50 PM

    You can download food,
    Torrent a bag of spuds

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    Mute Drew Clarke
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    Feb 5th 2014, 8:31 PM

    please hurry up. I’m being charged e80 a month by onwave for a 20mb connection and I rarely get above 1.5mb. In fact my upload speed is 4 times faster than my download speed 9 times out of ten.

    Someone needs to do an expose on satellite broadband speeds in Ireland. It’s a rip off and needs to be exposed.

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    Mute John Horan
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    Feb 5th 2014, 8:10 PM

    One way, so more like aertel then actual internet then.

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    Mute SuperFry
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    Feb 5th 2014, 8:12 PM

    WAP is back!!

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    Mute John Horan
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    Feb 5th 2014, 10:11 PM

    WAP was still two way. This, like aertel, is one way, so you would receive all the possible pages in one small subset of the internet and hopefully whatever page you want to look at is contained in there.

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    Mute family guy
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    Feb 5th 2014, 8:03 PM

    The mother in laws house has very bad mobile and broadband coverage. Nice to go out there and forget about the phone for a while. This might put an end to this.

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    Mute Gobblor
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    Feb 5th 2014, 9:11 PM

    Or you could just turn it off? DUH!

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    Mute John Swan
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    Feb 5th 2014, 9:38 PM

    What’ll happen to all those fiber optic cables being put in all over the country then? Also, hate to be a stickler about this, but what about the EMF/radiation exposure this would cause? The health implications would really need to be thoroughly and independently investigated.

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    Mute Gabrielle Humphreys
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    Feb 7th 2014, 10:04 PM

    What do you mean John, can you explain to me a wee bit more, gay

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    Mute Alien8
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    Feb 5th 2014, 9:15 PM

    Minimum orbit is 300km, max wifi usually 30m (Max theoretical TDMA range is around 15km). I get the feeling this is an investor trick, but they’ll have to come up with new ideas. Also transmitters for 2 way are over a metre in size for rubbish internet – even Niall Quinn couldn’t sell you that.

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    Mute Daniel Rea
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    Feb 5th 2014, 8:38 PM

    Well if the scientists are right there’ll be no bees left and say goodbye to fertile men

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