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March 29th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda
“We will judge him on his actions, not his promises,” she added,
echoing comments made Tuesday by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Senior US lawmakers went a step further in a non-binding resolution presented
to the Senate.
Republican Senator John McCain presented a toughly worded text co-sponsored by
four other senators condemning “the mass atrocities committed by the
government of Syria”.
They backed calls by some Arab leaders “to provide the people of Syria
with the means to defend themselves against Bashar al-Assad and his forces,
including through the provision of weapons and other material support”.
Ban, who is to attend the summit in Baghdad, expressed deep concern at the
continued bloodshed, which the UN says has claimed more than 9,000 lives in
the past year.
While he welcomed Syria’s acceptance of the six-point plan put forward by
UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan as an “important initial step”
towards ending the killing, he urged Assad “to put commitments into
immediate effect.
“There is no time to waste,” he stressed.
UN Human Rights Commissioner Pillay raised the stakes in an interview with the
BBC that was broadcast Wednesday but recorded before Syria reportedly agreed
to the Annan plan.
She said she believed the UN Security Council now had enough reliable evidence
to warrant a referral to the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Assad’s role as commander of the security forces left him responsible for
their actions during the unrest, she argued.
“President Assad could simply issue an order to stop the killings and the
killings would stop…,” she said.
Pillay also spoke of evidence she had seen that the regime was systematically
targeting children, with hundreds having been detained and tortured.
“It’s just horrendous,” she said.
In Baghdad, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said Wednesday on the eve of
the Arab summit that the meeting would stop short of calling for Assad to
quit or discuss arming his foes.
But Syrian foreign ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi said that in any case
Damascus would pay no heed.
“Syria will not cooperate with any Arab League initiative at any level,”
he said.
The 22-member pan-Arab body in November voted at an extraordinary meeting to
suspend Syria until Assad implemented an Arab deal to end the crackdown.
Qatar, which had pushed for a harder line against Assad, said it was sending a
low-level representative to the Baghdad summit in a show of displeasure at
the line taken by its Iraqi hosts.
Annan said on Tuesday that Assad’s government had accepted his plan, which
includes a commitment to stop all violence, daily two-hour humanitarian
ceasefires and media access to all areas affected by the fighting.
It also calls for an inclusive Syrian-led political process, the right to
demonstrate, and the release of people detained arbitrarily.
China and Russia urged both sides to honour commitments to halt the armed
conflict.
Moscow called on the Syrian opposition to “follow the example” of
the Damascus regime in supporting Annan’s mediation efforts to stop the
bloodshed.
Shelling killed four civilians, while five rebel fighters and four soldiers
died in fierce clashes in Qalaat al-Madiq and surrounding villages, the
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The army tried to storm other rebel positions across the country, including
northwest Idlib, central Homs and the southern province of Daraa, the
Britain-based monitoring group said.
Troops entered the town of Qalaat al-Madiq, in Hama province, just after dawn
following a 17-day barrage of shelling and heavy gunfire to root out rebels,
but did not have full control of the town, it said.
Source: agencies
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