UN Secretray-General Ban Ki-moon accused the Syrian army of appalling brutality after the deaths of 69 more civilians on Wednesday and said the Arab League was proposing a joint mission to witness the bloodshed.
Fifty deaths were reported in the protest city of Homs where a barrage of gunfire, mortars and shells was launched at dawn and continued all day. State television said a car bomb ripped through the central city, killing and wounding civilians as well as security officers.
Ban said the “appalling brutality” of the government’s artillery assault on the protest city of Homs “is a grim harbinger of worse to come.”
Amid a flurry of diplomatic activity, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin insisted any outside intervention to stop the violence would have the destructive effect of “a bull in a china shop.”
However, Ban launched the idea of sending a joint observer mission as he bemoaned the UN Security Council’s failure to agree a resolution on the crisis.
Ban and Arab League Secretary-General Nabil al-Arabi spoke on Tuesday. The League suspended its monitoring mission to Syria on Jan. 28 because of the mounting violence.
“He informed me that he intends to send the Arab League observer mission back to Syria and asked for UN help,” Ban told reporters after briefing a UN Security Council meeting. “He further suggested that we consider a joint observer mission in Syria, including a joint special envoy.”
The UN leader said consultations would be held with the Arab League and UN Security Council members in coming days “before fleshing out the details.”
The UN secretary-general said he feared the violence would worsen and launched into a new attack on the divided 15--member Security Council. Russia and China again vetoed a Syria resolution on Saturday.
Their move had been “disastrous” for the Syrian people and had only encouraged Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step up his “war” on opponents, Ban said in New York.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
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