West offers words, only, as Syria killing rages

AMMAN/BEIRUT: Syrian government artillery barrages killed dozens of civilians in Homs on Thursday, activists said, as President Bashar al-Assad, bolstered by Russian support, ignored appeals from world leaders to halt the carnage.

The United Nations secretary-general condemned the “appalling brutality” of the operation to stamp out the revolt against Assad, and Turkey’s ambassador to the European Union warned of a slide into civil war that could inflame the region.

Diplomats from Western and Arab powers, lining up meetings that could mean some decisions soon, condemned Assad in strong language. But having ruled out military intervention, they were struggling to find a way to convince him to step down.

Syria’s powerful ally Russia, meanwhile, said no one should interfere in the country’s affairs.

In Homs, witnesses said makeshift hospitals were overflowing in besieged opposition areas with the dead and wounded from nearly a week of government bombardments and sniper fire.

Medical supplies and food were running out and, in the streets, some of the wounded had bled to death as it was too dangerous for rescuers to bring them to safety.

The Local Coordination Committees, an opposition group in Homs, put the death toll on Thursday alone as high as 110 by nightfall, though it remains impossible to verify such accounts:

“This number includes three families whose bodies were dug up from under the rubble of their homes, bodies brought to field hospitals and people who died their from their wounds today,” the group said in a statement sent to Reuters.

A Syrian doctor, struggling to treat the wounded at a field clinic in a mosque, delivered an emotional plea via YouTube video. Standing next to a bloody body on a table, the man, named only as Mohammed, said to the camera, and to the outside world:

“We appeal to the international community to help us transport the wounded. We wait for them here to die in mosques. I appeal to the United Nations and to international humanitarian organizations to stop the rockets from being fired on us.” AGENCIES

Tennis: Kerber sets up Sharapova showdown in Paris

 

Maria Sharapova will face Angelique Kerber for a place in the WTA Paris Open semi-finals, after the German ninth seed beat Romania s Monica Niculescu 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 to reach the last eight on Thursday.

 

Sharapova, the top seed, booked her place in the quarter-finals with a straightforward 6-3, 6-1 defeat of South Africa s Chanelle Scheepers at the indoor tournament on Wednesday.

 

With Li Na and Jelena Jankovic having both withdrawn through injury, the Russian s biggest challenge is likely to come from French second seed Marion Bartoli, who tackles Croatian Petra Martic later on Thursday.

 

A semi-finalist at last year s French Open, Bartoli is the last Frenchwoman left in the draw after Pauline Parmentier lost 6-3, 6-0 to 21-year-old German qualifier Mona Barthel on Thursday.

 

Should Bartoli overcome Martic, she will face Italian seventh seed Roberta Vinci, who overcame a second-set slump to defeat American qualifier Bethanie Mattek-Sands 6-3, 1-6, 6-3.
 

Drones breed militancy, says Hina Khar

 

Attacks by US drones on Pakistani territory are illegal and cannot be tolerated, Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar told a Russian media outlet.

 

She also said the alleged involvement of Pakistani spy agencies with the Taliban is not even worthy of comment.
In a recent development, a US drone strike killed three suspected militants in the Pakistani northwest tribal region, AP news agency reported on Thursday.

 

According to the minister, the US attacks promote extremist moods in the region.

 

“Drones are not only completely illegal and unlawful and have no authorization to be used within the domains of international law but even more importantly, they are counter-productive to the objective of getting this region rid of militancy, and terrorism and extremism,” Hina Rabbani Khar said.

 

“Because if one strike leads to getting you target number one or target number three today, you are creating five more targets or 10 more targets in the militancy that it breeds, in the fodder that it gives to the militants to attract more people to join their ranks.”

 

“We are today in Pakistan suffering from the consequences of what many other powers of the world decided to do in that region to rid itself of the challenge that appeared in 1979, which was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan,” she added.
Allegations that the Pakistani security forces maintain close contact with Taliban and even sponsor them are old and do not even “worth a comment,” Hina Rabbani Khar said.

 

“I think every intelligence agency in the world maintains ties with one group or the other and all of them at some level,” she said. “These ties are now pretty much out at the open because people are openly talking about talking to these people. This is something which is not even worth a comment.”—News Trends Monitoring

 

ICC lauds Afghanistan cricket development

 

War-ravaged Afghanistan s fairy-tale rise in cricket is a success story in the development and growth of the game, a further step arriving with their first-ever one-day international against Pakistan here on Friday.

 

Afghanistan joined the International Cricket Council eleven years ago, rose rapidly on cricket horizons in 2009 when they won the right to one-day status by finishing fifth in the World Cup 2011 qualifiers.

 

They won the qualifying rounds to feature in the World Twenty20 held in the West Indies in 2010 and in the same year won the Inter-Continental Cup for Associate countries before finishing silver medallists at the Asian Games in China.

 

Cricket, developed through refugees who learned the game while in Pakistan during the Russian invasion in 1979, is now the most sought after game in Afghanistan.

 

Tim Anderson, ICC global development manager, said Afghanistan s progress is amazing.

 

“We are delighted with Afghanistan and they are a wonderful story for us to tell how you can overcome the challenges and work through the system,” Anderson, a former Australian junior team captain, told reporters.

 

“We are really excited about Afghanistan and they are making some great grounds in terms of infrastructure development in and around Kabul. They are making some other centeres and making good grounds in administration.”

 

Anderson praised the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) for giving Afghanistan an opportunity to play a one-dayer against their team.

 

“Credit to PCB for allowing Afghanistan to play a one-day and I offer them best wishes in this match as it is important for these growing nations to play bigger teams in order to progress,” said Anderson, highlighting China and the United States as other big developing nations.

 

“ICC tend to talk about China and USA in the same breath, whereas the USA has a significant cricket culture as there is a large Asian and Caribbean community so they take a lot of interest, but China on the other hand has next to no cricket culture.

 

“The Asian Cricket Council is doing a great job in China by trying to build some momentum, there is a big facility in Guangzhou and having cricket in the Asian Games was a big plus.

 

“There is definite potential in China but it will take a little while to grow.”

 

The ICC Development Programme was launched in 1997. According to the ICC there are approximately 700,000 male and female participants currently involved in formal cricket programmes outside the Full Member nations.

 

The ICC has set an ambitious strategic target of more than doubling this number to over 1.5 million participants by 2015.

 

ICC has ten full, 59 associates and 36 affiliate members.

 

Anderson said the objectives of the development programme was to increase the number of countries.

 

“The main objectives of the development programme is to build the number of countries at the highest level of the game that can be competitive. Afghanistan and Ireland are in that cateogry and on the other hand we have our focus on the grassroots as well,” he said, praising the growth of Nepal and Papua New Guinea.
 

Turkey may move as Syria presses assault in Homs

AMMAN: Syrian forces thrust into the rebellious city of Homs on Wednesday, killing dozens of civilians by the accounts of opposition activists, and Turkey appeared to be preparing a new push against President Bashar al-Assad.

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, who on Tuesday said he was making ready an initiative uniting those Western, Arab and other

states which have called for Ankara’s former ally Assad to step down, was due to speak to Russia’s president, whose government has angered many by blocking a move against Assad at the U.N.

Moscow’s foreign minister, however, having visited Assad in Damascus on Tuesday, made clear Russia was still opposed to any peace talks that were conditional on Assad first stepping aside.

A newspaper close to the Erdogan government said Turkey planned to organize a conference with Arab and Western governments in Istanbul, part of a broader initiative that may be outlined later on Wednesday. A NATO member and rising Muslim power in the region, Ankara is sheltering Syrian rebel army commanders and has spoken of creating safe havens for refugees.

As the diplomatic gears turned, the military offensive in Homs and elsewhere showed no sign of let up, while activists in the city also accused militiamen of slaughtering three families in their homes – the sort of incident that is fueling fears of a descent into more widespread, Iraq-style sectarian killing.

The day’s total death toll stood at 67, activists said.

The onslaught on Homs, one of the bloodiest of the 11-month-old revolt against Assad, has not relented despite a promise to end the bloodshed that the Syrian leader gave to Russia, which saved Damascus from U.N. Security Council action on Saturday.

In the latest assault on Homs, troops fired rockets and mortars while tanks entered the Inshaat neighborhood and moved closer to Bab Amro, the district hardest hit by bombardments that have killed at least 150 people in the last two days, activists in the city and opposition sources said.

“Electricity returned briefly and we were able to contact various neighborhoods because activists there managed to recharge their phones. We counted 47 killed since midnight,” activist Mohammad Hassan said by satellite phone.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said countries with influence over the Syrian opposition should press them to enter a dialogue with Assad, comments that made clear Moscow had no immediate intention of abandoning its long-time ally.

Lavrov was speaking in Moscow a day after he met Assad in Damascus, where he said both nations wanted to revive an Arab League monitoring effort that was suspended due to violence.

Erdogan would speak about Syria with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev later on Wednesday, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said. Erdogan described the Russian and Chinese veto of the U.N. resolution as a “fiasco.”

Syrian opposition figures, who said Lavrov had brought no new initiative, spurn Assad’s promises of reform as meaningless while his troops are killing civilians and say he must go.

Walid al-Bunni, a senior member of the opposition Syrian National Council (SNC), dismissed Lavrov’s dialogue proposal.

“The Arab initiative is clear. Assad must step down and Syrians will then be ready to sit together at a table with whoever succeeds him to discuss a democratic transition,” the head of the SNC’s foreign policy committee told Reuters.

Western and Arab states frustrated by the Russian and Chinese vetoes of their draft U.N. resolution are seeking to isolate Assad and bolster those opposed to his 11-year rule.

MILITIAMEN

Pro-Assad militiamen shot dead at least 20 civilians in Homs when they stormed their homes on the outskirts of opposition areas overnight, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Rami Abdelrahman, who heads the British-based Observatory, told Reuters the unarmed victims were a family of five, one of seven and one of eight.

There was no immediate comment from Syrian authorities and the report could not be verified. The authorities have placed tight restrictions on access to the country.

Activist Hassan said bombardment intensified in the early morning, targeting the Sunni Muslim districts of Bab Amro, al-Bayada, al-Khalidiya and Wadi al-Arab, all hostile to Assad, whose minority Alawite sect has dominated Syria for five decades.

“Mortar and rocket fire has subsided, but heavy machineguns and anti-aircraft guns are still strong,” he said. “Tanks are in main thoroughfares in the city and appear poised to push deep into residential areas.”

The state news agency SANA said “armed terrorist groups” had attacked police roadblocks in Homs and fired mortar bombs at the city, with three falling on the Homs oil refinery, one of two in Syria. It gave no details of any damage.

SANA said funerals had been conducted on Tuesday for 30 members of the security forces.

Army deserters and insurgents, at least nominally commanded by officers based in Turkey, are fighting back against Assad’s violent response to what began as a mostly peaceful protest movement and now threatens to slide into sectarian civil war.

DIPLOMATIC PRESSURE

“Assad is seeing the civilized world turn against him and he thinks he will win if he uses more brutal force before the world could act,” said Catherine al-Talli, a senior SNC member.

The attack on Homs has intensified Western and regional diplomatic pressure on Assad. The six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council recalled their ambassadors from Damascus on Tuesday and expelled Syrian envoys from their own capitals.

Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd called in Syria’s charge d’affaires Jawdat Ali on Wednesday and told him it was time for Assad to “find an exit strategy before the situation in Syria degenerates further and more lives are lost.”

Russia’s veto of the Security Council resolution on Syria went beyond protecting an ally and arms buyer, analysts said. It showed Moscow’s determination to crush what it sees as a Western crusade to use the United Nations to topple unfriendly governments.

The same holds true for China, which followed Russia’s lead and joined Moscow in striking down a European-Arab draft resolution that would have endorsed an Arab League plan for Assad to transfer power to his deputy to prepare free elections.

“There are all sorts of political interests involved but there is also a basic difference about whether the international community should be involved in internal conflicts against the will of the government,” said David Bosco of American University in Washington. AGENCIES

No bullying Syria, Putin warns US, EU

 

Russian strongman Vladimir Putin said this after his envoy returned from talks with President Bashar al-Assad.

 

“Of course, we condemn violence from whichever side it comes, but we must not behave like a bull in a china shop,” Russian news agencies quoted Putin as saying.

 

“We need to allow people to decide their own fate independently.”

 

He spoke after his foreign minister Sergei Lavrov declined to say earlier Wednesday whether Moscow had asked the embattled leader to go in his meeting with Assad.

 

“Any outcome of national dialogue should be the result of agreement between the Syrians themselves and should be acceptable to all Syrians,” Lavrov told reporters.

 

He sidestepped a direct question from a reporter who asked him whether he urged Assad to step down during talks in Damascus Tuesday, conducted as Syrian forces shelled opposition centres in the city of Homs.

 

“Trying in advance to decide the result of national dialogue is basically not the job of the international community,” Lavrov said, adding that both the government and all the opposition forces should sit down for talks.

 

All those who have influence over the Syrian opposition forces should urge them to start negotiations with Assad s government, he added.

 

Some analysts said Lavrov s most recent remarks indicated Moscow had not shifted its stance on Syria.

 

“Judging by Lavrov s statements after his Damascus visit the question of Assad s resignation has not been raised,” said Boris Dolgov, an analyst at the Moscow-based Institute of Oriental Studies.

 

“It would have been strange anyway — why would Russia start talking about his resignation after having vetoed the Syria resolution” in the United Nations.

 

Lavrov quoted Assad as saying he told Vice President Faruq al-Shara “to contact all opposition groups and to organise a national dialogue that will be inclusive and encompass all Syrian political forces.”

 

Lavrov, who was given a hero s welcome in Damascus by pro-Assad demonstrators, also said that recalling envoys from Syria would not help the Arab League s plan.

 

“I do not think that recalling ambassadors helps create conditions that would be favourable to the realisation of the Arab League s plan,” he said after talks with Pakistan Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar.

 

A day after the United States closed its Damascus embassy, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain joined Britain and Belgium on Tuesday in recalling their ambassadors to Syria for consultations.

 

The six Arab states of the Persian Gulf also said they had decided to expel Syria s envoys and withdraw their own from Damascus in protest at the “mass slaughter” of civilians.

 

Lavrov also criticised a “hasty decision” by the Arab League to freeze the work of its observer mission in Syria.

 

“The presence of foreign observers always plays a restraining role and it was unclear why a number of Gulf states recalled their envoys from this mission and why the mission after that was suspended at the very moment its report was supposed to be heard at the UN Security Council,” he said.

 

After Tuesday s talks Lavrov said Russia would work to end the crisis under a peace plan put forward by the Arab League and that Assad was ready for dialogue with all political forces.

 

But he did not specify whether he was referring to the latest Arab League plan calling for Assad to step down or a November plan that called for an observer mission and an end to violence.

 

Moscow sparked Western anger last week by joining Beijing in using its Security Council veto to block UN action against Assad s regime based on the more recent Arab League plan.

 

Seeking to address Western criticism that Russia missed a chance to end bloodshed, Lavrov Wednesday defended Russia s veto, saying Moscow had prevented wider opposition violence.

 

“We have missed an opportunity to allow the armed units that are fighting against government forces to take control of cities and villages,” Lavrov said sarcastically.

 

“If the authors of the resolution have this goal in mind, then you should directly say that we want the armed units to take control of cities in Syria.”

 

“You need to speak honestly with your partners,” he added. “Half of the truth is worse than a lie.”–AFP

Pakistan eyes political solution to Afghan problem: Hina

 

Addressing a joint news conference in Moscow after a meeting with her Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar said that Pakistan wants to foster strong relations with Russia in different fields.

 

She said there is an intensive collaborative road map for cooperation and inter actions between the two countries. She said we are looking forward for the energy group to be meeting within the first half of this year.

 

The Foreign Minister described her meeting as very good and said it would give way to have clarity in the inter actions and institutional framework that we have been able to develop. Hina said that Pakistan takes pride in developing good relations with Russian.

 

She said Pakistan has been working to find solution to Afghanistan s problems having Afghan owned‚ Afghan led dialogue and what the Afghan people decide.

 

The Foreign Minister said Pakistan will welcome Russian investment in the Pakistan Steel Mills.
 

SC admits plea against COAS, DG ISIs possible termination

 

The worthy court rejected the objections of the registrar office. The court directed the registrar office to include the plea in the cause list. The attorney general raised objections with regard to admission of the plea for regular hearing.

 

The Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry directed the attorney general to give arguments reading the inadmissibility of the plea.
On the previous hearing the court was informed by the attorney general that the government has no intention to terminate the COAS and the DG ISI. The court, on this, directed the government to give written assurance in this regard.
 

France slams Russia for blocking Syria resolution

 

French Defence Minister Gerard Longuet slammed Russia on Sunday for blocking a UN Security Council resolution on Syria and said Moscow cannot hold out “indefinitely” in the face of global opinion.

 

“Russia, for reasons that are almost shameful, is blocking everything,” Longuet told RTL radio.

 

“We have a duty, we Europeans, to show that we will never accept this regime. Russia can hold out for 15 days, two months, but it cannot hold out indefinitely,” he said.

 

Russia and China on Saturday blocked a UN Security Council resolution condemning Syria for its crackdown on protests, drawing condemnation from other global powers and the Syrian opposition.

 

Amid anti-government protests in Russia, Longuet said authorities in Moscow are “discovering that Russian public opinion will not accept that the country be complicit, particularly through the Syrian affair, in the worst kind of abuses.”

 

“We are isolating the Russian authorities on this question,” he said.

 

“Whether in three weeks or two months, the world will be different, because there is an awareness in major countries that we can longer sit idly by,” Longuet said.
 

Big freeze grips Europe with 200 dead

LONDON: Temperatures have plunged to new lows in Europe where a week-long cold snap has now claimed more than 220 lives as forecasters warned that the big freeze would tighten its grip over the weekend.

A total of 223 people have died from the cold weather in the last seven days according to an AFP tally, with Ukraine suffering the heaviest toll.

People have been found dead on the streets in some countries, while thousands have been trapped in mountain villages in Serbia. In Italy, Venice’s canals started freezing over and even Rome was dusted in snow.

The lowest temperatures recorded in Europe were in the southwest of the Czech Republic, where the mercury dropped as low as minus 38.1 degrees Celsius (minus 36.5 Fahrenheit) overnight Thursday.

The EU executive said Friday that vital Russian gas deliveries had dropped in nine countries, with Russian giant Gazprom invoking flexibility clauses as it also braves a cold snap. Supplies fell 30 percent in Austria and 24 percent in Italy.

Ukraine’s emergencies ministry raised its death toll to 101 since the cold snap took hold, 64 of whom died on the streets.

Almost 1,600 people have sought medical attention for frostbite and hypothermia and thousands have flocked to temporary shelters.

The chilling temperatures killed eight more people over 24 hours in Poland, bringing the death toll to 37 since the deep freeze began a week ago, police said.

Temperatures plunged to minus 35 Celsius in some areas of Poland Friday.

In Bulgaria parts of the River Danube froze over, while another six people were found dead from the cold, bringing the overall tally to 16 in the last week, according to local media.

Most of the dead in the European Union’s poorest country were villagers found frozen to death on the side of the road or in their unheated homes, the reports said.

More than 1,000 Bulgarian schools remained closed for a third day amid fresh snowfalls and piercing winds in the northeast.

In neighbouring Romania two more people died, bringing the overall toll to 24, and hundreds of schools remained closed.

In Rome, residents experienced only their second day of snow in 15 years, with white flakes covering palm trees, ancient Roman ruins and Baroque churches across the capital.

Up to five centimetres (two inches) of snow fell in some districts and ancient monuments like the Colosseum were closed to visitors for fear of damage to the structure.

Canals in Venice, where temperatures fell as low as minus 5 Celsius, started freezing. However trains resumed normal service across the country except in and around Bologna and on a local line near Rome after days of delays.

Three people have died due to the extreme weather in recent days, including a homeless man found in Milan on Thursday.

An Italian ferry with over 300 people aboard got into difficulties off the port of Civitavecchia, north of Rome late Friday, hitting a harbour wall and ripping the side of the ship, port authorities said.

Two tugs managed to bring the “Sharden” safely in with all passengers and crew safe and sound.

In Estonia, a man was found frozen to death on a street in Tallinn, the first reported death there.

France also reported its first death after an 82-year-old man suffering from Alzheimer’s wandered out of his home in his pyjamas in the eastern French village of Lemberg and died of hypothermia.

One person died in Serbia, but teams of workers ploughed through snowdrifts to get food, supplies and aid to thousands of residents of mountain villages cut off by the weather.

“To help a woman who needed to reach a hospital we were breaking through two-metre (six-foot) snow drifts, which lasted for two and a half hours,” said Vedran Taskovic, a rescuer in the southeastern town of Vranje.

The cold snap has also killed people in the Baltic countries of Latvia and Lithuania, as well as Austria and Greece.

Swathes of Britain were bracing for snow after temperatures plunged to minus 11 degrees Celsius overnight in some areas, with authorities warning that the cold could catch people off-guard after a warmer-than-normal winter so far.

Further north, about 40 people were injured in about 100 road accidents caused by powdery snow and icy conditions, police said.

The first snows to hit Belgium caused more than 1,100 kilometres (700 miles) of traffic jams on roads and highways, said automobile associations. The last record was 948 kilometres registered in February 2010.

Algerian officials announced they had cancelled ferry services to the southern French port of Marseille because of the conditions. AGENCIES

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