You have commented 338 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
Syria-Lebanon-Iran
More Deaths as Syria's Revolt Enters 15th Month
2012-05-16
Syria's anti-regime revolt entered its 15th month on Tuesday amid relentless violence that has killed more than 12,000 people and growing fears by Arab countries that a U.N.-backed peace plan will fail.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said another 12 people were killed Tuesday in violence across the country, including four in the coastal city of Banias, a child in Damascus
...Capital of the last overtly fascist regime in the world...
province and five people in the eastern province of Deir al-Zour.

The bloodshed comes despite a truce brokered by U.N.-Arab League
...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...
as part of a six-point plan aimed at ending violence that has swept Syria since March 2011, when the uprising against Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Light of the Alawites...
began.

The United Nations
...an organization which on balance has done more bad than good, with the good not done well and the bad done thoroughly...
has accused both sides to the conflict of violating the ceasefire and warned that the country was edging closer to full-blown civil war.

The Syrian government maintains that foreign-backed "armed terrorist groups" are behind the unrest aiming to undermine the regime and scuttle attempts at political reform.

Officials on Tuesday said slightly more than half of eligible voters had taken part in legislative elections held earlier this month but boycotted by the opposition and described as "ludicrous" by Washington.

Khalaf al-Azzawi, head of the electoral commission, said turnout stood at 51.26 percent for the May 7 vote which he described as "transparent and democratic."

The elections marked the first "multi-party" vote in five decades and followed the adoption in February of a new constitution. Nine parties were created, and seven had candidates vying for a parliamentary seat.

In Riyadh, Soddy Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in their national face...
's foreign minister warned Monday that confidence in Annan's peace mission was fading fast because of the bloodshed.

"Confidence in the efforts of the international envoy is falling rapidly because fighting and bloodshed continue," Prince Saud al-Faisal told news hounds after Riyadh hosted a summit of Arab leaders of the Gulf.

Part of Annan's six-point plan includes the deployment in flashpoint areas of around 300 U.N. military observers. By Sunday, 189 observers were on the ground, the U.N. mission in Syria said.

Although the number of casualties has decreased since the deployment of the observers, the violence has not stopped.

According to the Britannia-based Observatory, more than 12,000 people, the majority of them civilians, have died since the uprising began on March 15 last year, including more than 900 killed since the April 12 truce.

A source in the Syrian National Council, Syria's main exiled opposition umbrella group, said meanwhile that Burhan Ghalioun was elected as the coalition's chief in a vote held in Rome on Tuesday.

Ghalioun garnered 21 votes in the leadership battle while another opposition figure, Georges Sabra, won 11 of the 40 votes cast by members of the general secretariat, the source said.

Ghalioun has led the coalition since it was founded in October 2011 by the consensus of its members, rather than through election.

Unrest spilled over into neighboring Leb at the weekend, where political parties are divided, with one side backing the Syrian opposition and the other Assad's regime.

Nine people were killed in the mainly Sunni Moslem northern Lebanese port city of Tripoli
...a confusing city, one end of thich is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn...
after sectarian festivities erupted on Saturday between residents of rival neighborhoods.

Calm was restored by early Tuesday after the army deployed and gunnies withdrew from the majority Sunni Moslem district of Bab el-Tabbaneh, and Jabal Mohsen, where the majority of residents are from the minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam and loyal to Assad's regime.
Posted by:Fred

00:00