London: Britain said on Thursday it was "very likely" the Syrian government had used chemical weapons, and Turkey announced it was stepping up testing of people fleeing the Syrian civil war for traces.
US Secretary of State John Kerry expressed gratitude to Russia for its willingness to try to arrange a "Geneva two" conference to negotiate an end to the conflict, in a sign of a thawing of the long diplomatic chill between Washington and Moscow, Syria's strongest ally.
Damascus and the head of the Arab League welcomed the apparent rapprochement between the United States and Russia this week. Syrian opposition leaders are skeptical of an initiative they fear might let President Bashar al-Assad hang on to power.
Kerry, in Rome, said however a transition government would have to have the "mutual consent of both sides, which clearly means that in our judgment President Assad will not be a component of that transitional government"....
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04:06 AM, May 10, 2013
AAP is doing what politicians have forgotten to do As the summer kicks in, people's representatives are often seen scurrying for their cool drawing ...
06:20 AM, May 08, 2013
An Assistant Sub Inspector (ASI) has died in a farmers' protest in Tarn Taran in Punjab on Wednesday morning. ...
09:31 AM, Mar 06, 2013
Following rebel gains, the leader of the Syrian opposition made his first visit on Sunday to areas near the embattled northern city of Aleppo as fighters trying to oust President Bashar al Assad captured a police academy and a border crossing along the frontier with Iraq. ...
04:19 AM, Mar 04, 2013
Syrian opposition leader Moaz Alkhatib urged Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government on Monday to start talks for its departure from power and save the country from greater ruin after almost two years of bloodshed. ...
02:55 AM, Feb 05, 2013
Syrian troops stepped up an offensive against rebels in the north on Wednesday, following explosions targeting security forces and a university campus that killed more than 100 people in two days. ...
02:46 AM, Jan 17, 2013
About 1 million Syrians are going hungry due to the difficulty of getting supplies into conflict zones and the fact that the few government-approved aid agencies are stretched to the limit, the United Nations said on Tuesday. ...
03:24 AM, Jan 09, 2013
More than 60,000 people have died in Syria's uprising and civil war, the United Nations said on Wednesday, dramatically raising the death toll in a struggle that shows no sign of ending. ...
12:40 AM, Jan 03, 2013
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11:05 AM, Dec 05, 2012
Protests by Islamists allied to President Mohamed Mursi forced Egypt's highest court to adjourn its work indefinitely on Sunday, intensifying a conflict between some of the country's top judges and the head of state. ...
05:02 AM, Dec 03, 2012
Beirut: A video that appears to show a unit of Syrian rebels kicking terrified, captured soldiers and then executing them with machine guns raised concerns Friday about rebel brutality at a time when the United States is making its strongest push yet to forge an opposition movement it can work with. UN officials and human rights groups believe President Bashar Assad's regime is responsible for the bulk of suspected war...
02:53 AM, Nov 03, 2012
Geneva: Up to 700,000 Syrian refugees may flee abroad by the end of the year, the UN refugee agency said on Thursday, nearly quadrupling its previous forecast for the exodus from the deepening crisis. Most faced what was likely to be a bitterly cold winter living in tents with little prospect of returning to their homeland, it said. The agency urged Western donors to help raise nearly $500 million to...
01:18 AM, Sep 28, 2012
Kudankulam: The police cracked down on anti-nuclear protesters at the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant in Tamil Nadu on Monday. Police moved in to chase the protesters at Kudankulam and fired tear gas shells. Thousands of protesters fled towards the ocean and threw slippers, shoes and small stones at the police force. After the protesters were sandwiched between the police force of one side and the ocean on the other side,...
12:14 PM, Sep 10, 2012
Beirut: Two Syrian activist groups say about 5,000 people were killed in Syria in August, making it the deadliest month since the uprising began more than 17 months ago. Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Sunday that 5,440 people, including 4,114 civilians were killed. The Local Coordination Committees, another activist group, said 4,933 civilians were killed in August. The civil war witnessed a major turning point in August...
11:19 PM, Sep 02, 2012
Beirut: Row upon row of bloodied bodies wrapped in colorful blankets laid out on a mosque floor in a Damascus suburb. Long narrow graves tightly packed with dozens of victims. Nestled among them, two babies were wrapped in a single blood-soaked blanket, a yellow pacifier dangling beside them from a palm frond. Evidence mounted on Sunday of a new massacre in Syria's deepening civil war, with activists reporting a killing...
08:01 PM, Aug 27, 2012
Washington/Beirut: President Barack Obama warned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Monday that US forces could move against him, notably if he deployed his chemical weapons against rebels trying to overthrow him. In some of his strongest language yet on Syria, on a day when UN observers pulled out after a fruitless bid for peace and Assad's forces mounted new attacks, the U.S. leader said Assad faced "enormous consequences" if he...
02:20 AM, Aug 21, 2012
Beirut: Syrian state-run news agency SANA says President Bashar Assad has appointed a new prime minister to replace one who defected this week to neighboring Jordan. Assad appointed Wael Nader al-Halqi, elevating him from the post of health minister. Halqi is a member of Assad's ruling Baath party and hails from the southern city of Daraa, birthplace of the Syrian uprising. The 48-year-old held the post of secretary general of...
05:27 PM, Aug 09, 2012
Anadan: The guards pulled him from his cell before dawn on Monday, bound his hands, blindfolded him and drove him to an empty lot in the Syrian city of Aleppo. They sat him in a row with 10 other captives, he said, then cocked their guns and opened fire. "They sprayed us," recalled 21-year-old Mahmoud, the lone survivor of the latest mass killing of Syria's civil war. "The first bullet...
04:39 AM, Aug 07, 2012
United Nations: The reported brutality in Syria's biggest city, Aleppo, where forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and rebels continue to face off in bloody clashes, may amount to crimes against humanity, the UN chief said on Friday. "As we meet here, Aleppo ... is the epicenter of a vicious battle between the Syrian government and those who wish to replace it," Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the 193-nation UN...
01:41 AM, Aug 04, 2012
Beirut: The Syrian regime threatened on Monday to use its chemical and biological weapons in case of a foreign attack, in its first ever acknowledgement that it possesses weapons of mass destruction. Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi vowed, however, that Damascus would not use its unconventional arms against its own citizens. The announcement comes as Syria faces international isolation, a tenacious rebellion that has left at least 19,000 people dead...
06:28 PM, Jul 23, 2012
