...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing...
envoy Kofi Annan
...Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh and so far the worst Secretary-General of the UN. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize for something or other that probably sounded good at the time. In December 2004, reports surfaced that Kofi's son Kojo received payments from the Swiss company Cotecna, which had won a lucrative contract under the UN Oil-for-Food Program. Kofi Annan called for an investigation to look into the allegations, which stirred up the expected cesspool but couldn't seem to come up with enough evidence to indict Kofi himself, or even Kojo...warned on Wednesday it would be "disastrous" if rebels fighting the Syrian regime were to be armed, as proposed by Soddy Arabia and Qatar.
"I've always said the militarization of the conflict will be disastrous," Annan told a news conference in Tehran during a visit to Iran, Syria's chief ally in the Middle East.
Annan, who drew up a six-point plan to end combat in Syria, said a new conflict could not be tolerated in the Middle East.
The envoy said he believed his plan could still be salvaged and be fully implemented by a deadline at 6:00 am Damascus
...Capital of the last remaining Baathist regime in the world...
time (0300 GMT) on Thursday if both the Syrian regime and rebels respected its terms.
He said the regime of Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir
Pencilneckal-Assad
Leveler of Latakia...
has given "further clarifications" over how it would implement its side of the plan after it failed to observe a Tuesday deadline to withdraw its forces from urban areas.
"What they mean and want is an assurance that the other forces, the opposition forces, would also stop the fighting so that we could see cessation of all the violence," he said.
Annan said his team has "had positive answers from them" and that "governments with influence" had also been approached to ensure that all sides in the conflict respect the ceasefire.