By Ahmad Khatib / AFP RAMTHA: Syrian refugees in Jordan see a grim future in their homeland, saying the regime has not yet shown its “ugly face” and are bracing themselves for more bloodshed, in which thousands have already died. A year after protests first erupted against President Bashar al-Assad’s 11-year-old rule, prompting a brutal regime …
By Dmitry Zaks / AFP MOSCOW: Russia said Friday it opposed an “unbalanced” Washington-backed UN draft resolution on Syria because it failed to call for a simultaneous halt in violence by the government and rebels. The warning came amid tense consultations over a draft resolution aimed at showing the Damascus regime that world opinion had turned …
By AFP BEIJING: China said Friday it is sending an envoy to Saudi Arabia, Egypt and France to explain its position on Syria, after Beijing called for an end to the year-long conflict in the Middle East country. China unveiled a six-point peace plan last Sunday, calling for an immediate end to the bloody violence …
By AFP DAMASCUS: Syrian activists voiced growing fears on Friday of a major assault like the one that devastated the Homs neighborhood of Baba Amr, on the eve of a first visit by new international envoy Kofi Annan. Troop reinforcements backed by tanks were massing in the northwestern province of Idlib, close to the Turkish …
By Edmund Blair / Reuters CAIRO: Kofi Annan, the UN-Arab League special envoy on Syria, will urge government and opposition to halt violence and seek a political settlement after a year of conflict when he makes his first trip to Damascus on Saturday, he said on Thursday. World powers have met behind closed doors at the …
By Shlomo Ben Ami MADRID: The English author and priest William Ralph Inge once said that “A man may build himself a throne of bayonets, but he cannot sit on it.” Syria’s Assad dynasty, however, seems to believe that it can defy that dictum. Historically, few autocrats have understood that change produced peacefully by government is …
By David Scheffer CHICAGO: Justice will be a long time coming in Syria, but it can begin with a Security Council referral of the situation in that wounded country to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for investigation and, ultimately, prosecution. The obstacles are serious, but the goal is imperative. This week, United Nations High Commissioner for …
By Tamim Elyan / Reuters CAIRO: Arab League chief Nabil Al-Araby said on Thursday he was opposed to violence as a way to end the Syrian crisis after Gulf states called for arming the rebels seeking to oust President Bashar Al-Assad. Saudi Arabia and Qatar have led the Arab charge to isolate Syria, although other leading …
By AFP DAMASCUS: Elite troops backed by tanks massed round the Syrian protest city of Homs on Wednesday as Washington worked on a UN Security Council draft resolution demanding humanitarian access to trapped civilians. China said it backed sending international aid as diplomats said the new text being drawn up by Washington focused on getting …
By Ayman Samir and Tamim Elyan / Reuters CAIRO: Arab foreign ministers will meet for two days starting on March 10 in Cairo to discuss developments in Syria and prepare for the Arab League summit in Iraq next month, a league source said. The ministers will discuss Damascus’ failure to implement the league’s resolutions of bringing …
By AFP DAMASCUS: Almost 90 percent of voters approved Syria’s new constitution brought in after 11 months of anti-regime protests, the interior minister announced on Monday. Mohamed Al-Shaar also told a news conference that turnout reached 57.4 percent of eligible voters, with 89.4 percent of the 8.376 million who cast their ballots in Sunday’s referendum …
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis / Reuters AMMAN: Syrian artillery pummeled rebel-held areas of Homs on Monday before an expected government announcement that a vote – decried as a sham by the opposition and the West – has approved a new constitution proposed by President Bashar Al-Assad. Shells and rockets crashed into Sunni Muslim districts of Homs …
