Spokesperson’s Morning Headlines For Friday, 20 July 2012
SYRIA: The Russian ambassador to France said on Friday he believed that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had accepted he would have to leave power although only in an orderly fashion, but the Syrian government swiftly denied this. Ambassador Alexandre Orlov told French RFI radio that Assad, facing a surging uprising against his rule, signalled readiness to step down when he accepted a recent international declaration which foresaw a transition towards a more democratic Syria. (Radio France Internationale, Reuters)
The U.N. Security Council must decide by midnight on Friday (0400 GMT Saturday) the fate of a U.N. observer mission in Syria, which is crucial to helping implement international envoy Kofi Annan's six-point peace plan. (Reuters)
Russia said Friday it backed an unconditional 45-day extension of the UN monitors mission in Syria proposed by Pakistan, rather than Britain's idea to add 30 days to their mandate one last time. (AFP) Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said that his country would opt for the adoption by the Security Council of a brief depoliticized resolution on a technical extension of the mission for an indefinite period. (Rossiyskaya Gazeta, Moscow)
Russia and China again vetoed a Western-backed U.N. resolution Thursday aimed at pressuring President Bashar Assad's government to end the escalating civil war in Syria, sparking dire warnings of even greater bloodshed and spillover to the wider region. (AP)
The UK, US and France said the UN had failed the people of Syria. (BBC) "The Security Council has failed utterly in its most important task on its agenda this year. This is another dark day in Turtle Bay," Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told the 15-nation council after the vote. (WP) Asked later what the vote signified, Ms. Rice said, “The message it sends is that two permanent members of the Council are prepared to defend Assad to the bitter end.” (NYT)
Sir Mark Lyall Grant said that Moscow and Bejing were putting “their national interests ahead of the lives of millions of Syrians” at a time when major powers should be trying to speak with one voice. (Times, London)
The latest draft of Western countries for a UN resolution aimed at obtaining a green light for military intervention. (People's Daily, China) China fired back Friday at its critics after it vetoed a tougher UN resolution on Syria, arguing the measure would have worsened and broadened the violence there and the country's future must be decided by Syria, not the international community. (DPA)
Kofi Annan is disappointed that the council "could not unite and take the strong and concerted action he had urged and hoped for," his spokesman Ahmad Fawzi said. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also expressed disappointment, accusing the Syrian government of failing to protect its people and pledging that with Annan and the U.N., he will "spare no effort" in the search to end the violence and bring about a peaceful, democratic Syrian-led transition, U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said. (AP)
More than 300 people were killed in violence across Syria on Thursday, making it the deadliest day of a 16-month anti-regime uprising, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. (AFP) Syrian forces fought on Friday to take back border posts seized by rebels and announced they had cleared fighters from a central part of the capital, aiming to regain the initiative after coordinated attacks by an emboldened opposition. (Reuters)
Syrian President Bashar Assad made his first appearance Thursday since a bomb killed some of his top lieutenants, looking calm and composed on state TV even as his forces turned parts of Damascus into combat zones and rebels seized two of the country's border crossings. (AP) General Hisham Ikhtiyar, the head of Syrian national security wounded in a Damascus bomb blast that killed three senior officials, died of his wounds on Friday, state television announced. (AFP)
Rebels battled deep into Damascus and seized control of parts of Syria's borders on Thursday, pressing on with their advance after the assassination of Bashar al-Assad's top security officials brought their 16-month uprising to a head. Government forces unleashed helicopter gunships and artillery against their own capital. Damascus residents told of buildings in flames and corpses in the streets. (Reuters)
At a time when his loyalists may need him more because their morale is at the lowest levels, Bashar al-Assad has practically disappeared. The difference in attitude with the last days of the Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi is overwhelming. (El Pais, Madrid)
The United Nations on Thursday sent its top military official to Syria to take charge of an observer mission as the UN Security Council wrangled over the future of the operation. General Babacar Gaye, chief UN military adviser, was earlier sent to Damascus, UN Deputy Secretary General Jan Eliasson told reporters. (AFP)
European Union nations will enforce an arms embargo against Syria by boarding ships and aircraft carrying suspicious cargo to the war-torn nation, an official said Friday. (AP)
Speaking with NHK in Brussels on Thursday, NATO's Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen ruled out military intervention in Syria, saying a political solution is the way to end violence there. (NHK, Tokyo)
Iraqi government officials said Thursday evening that Syrian rebels had wrested control of all four border checkpoints between Iraq and Syria, and that additional Iraqi forces were being sent to the border. (NYT)
Up to 30,000 Syrian refugees may have crossed into Lebanon in the past 48 hours to escape fighting in their country, the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR said on Friday. (Reuters)
Israel's leaders are growing concerned about Syria's stockpiles of chemical weapons falling into the hands of rogue groups equally opposed to Israel; about the prospect of throngs of refugees appearing at the border; and about the Golan itself “turning into a lawless area where terror elements might also operate,” as Ehud Barak put it. There is concern that the collapse of the Syrian government could lead to a civil war in Lebanon. (NYT) United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon Derek Plumbly voiced his concern that the Syrian crisis could affect the situation in South Lebanon. (As-Safir, Lebanon)
Experts argue that the coming days will be decisive since they will show whether the forces loyal to Bashar Assad will be able to continue exercising control over the capital city and whether there will be mass desertion from the Army. (Kommersant, Moscow)
In what might currently be the most dangerous conflict on earth, where religious and ethnic differences are blocking common solutions and where violence has been used for a year as a means of control by both sides in the civil war, the UN's inability to act becomes a grave threat for a population that has already endured much hardship. (Aftenposten, Oslo, ed)
NATO countries should impose a no-fly zone in Syria. This would make it more difficult for Mr Assad to direct his assaults against Syria's people, which are now being conducted from the air as well as on the ground. Action at the UN is being stymied. But the US and its allies can at least know that, in assisting the rebels, they are not damaging their reputations with Mr. Assad's successors in the way that Russia and China have harmed theirs. (Times, London, ed)
The UN Security Council has not been able to force the Syrian regime to disband because of Russia and China which have their own business interests to protect. But it seems the time has come when no force on earth can save the tottering regime in Damascus. (Tribune, Chandigarh, ed)
As the UN Secretary-General called on Security Council members to "shoulder their responsibility and take... action with a sense of urgency", his unmistakeable meaning was that time was running out. Syria had reached its tipping point, writes commentator Mary Dejevsky. (Independent, London, Op-Ed)
ISRAEL/BULGARIA: American officials on Thursday identified the suicide bomber responsible for a deadly attack on Israeli vacationers here as a member of a Hezbollah cell that was operating in Bulgaria and looking for such targets, corroborating Israel's assertions and making the bombing a new source of tension with Iran. The attacks, the official said, were in retaliation for the assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists, for which Iran has blamed Israeli agents — an accusation that Israel has neither confirmed nor denied. (NYT)
Israel has submitted a complaint to the UN Security Council over the attack upon an Israeli bus in Bulgaria in which 6 people were killed, and has accused Iran of responsibility for it. (Israel Radio)
The Middle East Quartet condemned Thursday the terror attack against Israeli tourists in Bulgaria and called for international assistance in the crime probe. (Xinhua)
Bulgaria has released CCTV footage of a man suspected of carrying out a deadly suicide bombing of a bus carrying Israeli tourists at Burgas airport. A white man with long hair and a backpack is seen walking around the terminal and leaving before the blast. (BBC)
IRAQ: The Iraqi government's patience is "wearing thin" with exiled opponents of Iran who are refusing to leave their camp north of Baghdad, a UN envoy warned Thursday. About 1,200 members of the People's Mujahedeen of Iran have stayed at Camp Ashraf despite a UN-brokered accord with the government to leave as a first step toward finding homes in other countries, Martin Kobler, the UN Special Representative for Iraq, told the UN Security Council. (AP)
EGYPT: Omar Suleiman, the once-powerful head of Egypt's intelligence service who represented the old government's last attempt to hold on to power, died early Thursday in an American hospital, according to the state-owned Middle East News Agency. He was 76. (NYT)
TUNISIA: Former Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment for complicity in the deaths of 43 protesters in the north during the popular uprising that ended his regime. (Diário de Notícias, Lisbon)
SUDAN/SOUTH SUDAN: Sudanese president Omer al-Bashir said his meeting with his south Sudanese counterpart Salva Kiir was “very positive” and expressed his commitment to meet the deadline of the UN Security Council. (Sudan Tribune)
ETHIOPIA: The Ethiopian government on Thursday rejected reports that Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has a life-threatening illness. (DPA)
CHAD/SENEGAL: The International Court of Justice is due to rule on whether Senegal should extradite Chad's former President Hissene Habre to face trial in Belgium. (BBC)
MALI: A prisoner exchange enabled three European aid workers held hostage to be released on Wednesday in Mali, negotiators have revealed. (BBC)
COTE D'IVOIRE: Nine women were yesterday sentenced to jail terms for the female circumcision of around 30 young girls, in what the UN said was the first criminal prosecution of its kind in Cote d'Ivoire. (SABC Online, South Africa)
LIBERIA : Former president Charles Taylor has appealed his conviction for war crimes in Sierra Leone and a 50-year jail sentence imposed, the international court handling the case said on Thursday. (News 24, South Africa)
D.R. CONGO : The government wants UN peacekeepers to fight the rebellion in its east, its foreign minister said Thursday, after the country agreed with neighbouring Rwanda to accept an international intervention. (Independent Online, South Africa)
ZIMBABWE : A copy of the draft Constitution leaked to the media on Tuesday night appears to strengthen the position of President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF, evidence of its success in fending off earlier moves by the opposition to push through sweeping changes. (Mail and Guardian, South Africa)
Unless an environment for generally free and fair elections can be secured, we have to give a cautious nod of welcome, even to compromised progress, and support calls for the lifting of sanctions that are probably more helpful to Mugabe now than they are to proponents of change. (Mail and Guardian, South Africa, ed)
AFGHANISTAN: The British Prime Minister, David Cameron, has warned the Taliban during a visit to Afghanistan that they will not be able to simply "wait it out" until troops withdraw in 2014. Mr. Cameron stated: "What I would say to the Taliban is be in no doubt there is a very clear and strong plan to transfer lead security responsibility… to very capable Afghan forces." (Independent, London)
NORTH KOREA: Impoverished North Korea is gearing up to experiment with agricultural and economic reforms after young leader Kim Jong-un and his powerful uncle purged the country's top general for opposing change, a source with ties to both Pyongyang and Beijing said. (Reuters)
JAPAN: A series of recent events have shed light on the hawkish nature of the administration of Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda. It is taking one step after another to undermine the no-war principle of the Constitution. In the latest move, the administration is trying to change the interpretation of the Constitution so that Japan can exercise the right to collective defense. (Japan Times, Tokyo, ed)
CHINA : A Chinese court on Friday rejected an appeal by Ai Weiwei, who has become one of the government's most high-profile critics, in a $2.4 million tax evasion case. (NYT)
TIMOR-LESTE: The Timorese authorities and the UN have reinforced security in Viqueque to prevent possible unrest during the funeral of the young man shot by the police last Monday, during post-electoral violence. (SIC Notícias, Lisbon)
SLOVENIA: United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon is meeting Slovenian officials at the start a trip to the Balkans which is expected to take in all of the countries that emerged from the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Ban met Slovenia's Prime Minister Janez Jansa on Friday and also plans to hold talks with President Danilo Turk and address parliament. (AP) Ban and Slovenian officials were expected to discuss the situation in the western Balkans and the deteriorating situation in Syria, TV Slovenia said. (TV Slovenia, DPA)
CYPRUS : The U.N. Security Council has extended the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus through January 2013, and again urged the Greek Cypriot and the Turkish Cypriot leaders to speed up talks aimed at reunifying the divided Mediterranean island nation. (AP)
SPAIN: Spanish police have fired rubber bullets and charged protesters in central Madrid after a huge demonstration against economic crisis measures. (Al Jazeera)
HAITI: President Michel Martelly's motorcade was involved in a car accident in northern Haiti on Thursday that left seven people seriously injured, though the president was not hurt, officials said. (AFP)
UNITED STATES : At least 14 people have been killed in a shooting at a Batman film premiere in the US city of Denver, police say. About 50 people have been injured in the incident at the cinema complex in the suburb of Aurora. (BBC)