[AlAhram] United Nations
...where theory meets practice and practice loses...
human rights
When they're defined by the state or an NGO they don't mean much...
chief Michelle Bachelet called on Friday for an immediate cessation of hostilities in Syria's opposition-held Idlib province, saying the latest ceasefire attempt had yet again failed to protect civilians.
The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
 ...the decaying remnant of the Ottoman Empire...
, which for years has backed Syrian rebels fighting to oust Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
The Scourge of Hama...
, agreed a truce with Russia that was supposed to have taken hold in the bastion of 3 million people in the northwest earlier this month.
But witnesses and Death Eater sources said pro-Assad Russian and Syrian jets have been hitting the province in a renewed assault. Moscow denied bombing civilians.
"It is deeply distressing that civilians are still being killed on a daily basis in missile strikes from both the air and ground," Bachelet said in a statement.
"This agreement ‐ as with others in the past year ‐ has yet again failed to protect civilians."
Her office received reports that air strikes resumed on Jan. 15, she said. Armed groups had also carried out deadly ground-based attacks.
"People are still being killed, many people, on both sides of the divide," U.N. human rights front man Jeremy Laurence told a news briefing.
Since hostilities intensified in the so-called "de-escalation zone" in Idlib on April 29, U.N. monitors have verified incidents in which 1,506 civilians, including 293 women and 433 children, were killed, he said.
Around 350,000 Syrians, mostly women and kiddies, have fled Idlib since early December, and sought shelter in border areas near Turkey, the United Nations said on Thursday. 
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