GENEVA -- The U.N.'s top human rights official warned Friday that all-out civil war could engulf Syria unless countries that have backed international envoy Kofi Annan's peace plan rally around calls for an independent probe into the killing of more than 100 civilians last week.
As countries lined up at an emergency meeting of the U.N. Human Rights Council to express their horror about the Houla massacre, in which the global body said 49 children were among the dead, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights appealed for support for the six-point plan to halt the violence in Syria.
"Otherwise, the situation in Syria might descend into a full-fledged conflict and the future of the country, as well as the region as a whole could be in grave danger," Navi Pillay told the 47-nation council in a speech read out on her behalf.
It was the fifth time that the Geneva-based council called an urgent meeting on Syria, something the country's ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, Fayssal al-Hamwi, said was a sign that some countries are trying to divide his country.
Al-Hamwi, too, condemned the massacre in Houla but blamed it on "groups of armed terrorists" seeking to ignite sectarian strife.
U.S. Ambassador Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe said there was no doubt that the regime of President Bashar Assad was responsible for the killing.
Thousands rally in north Egypt against Mubarak-era presidential candidate facing runoff
Thousands are rallying in the northern Egyptian coastal city of Alexandria against the man who served as Hosni Mubarak's last prime minister and who is to face an Islamist candidate in the upcoming presidential runoff.
The protesters say Ahmed Shafiq, who was forced to step down after Mubarak's ouster last year, should not be allowed to run because he was a senior official in the former regime.
Shafiq is headed into the June 16-17 runoff against the Muslim Brotherhood's candidate, Mohammed Morsi.
A former air force commander, Shafiq has cast himself as a strongman who will restore law and order. Opponents view him as the military's favorite.
Several hundred protesters also rallied Friday in Cairo's Tahrir Square, the birthplace of the Egyptian uprising.
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A series of bomb attacks in the Iraqi capital Baghdad has killed at least 12 people and wounded 29 others, police and medical sources said.
The biggest blast, a car bomb, left at least eight dead near a busy restaurant in the Shia district of Shula in the north of the city.
At least four other bombings were reported in other areas of Baghdad.
Violence in Iraq has declined in recent years, but bomb attacks are still a regular occurrence.
In western Baghdad, a passer-by was killed when a car bomb blew up near the home of an adviser to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in the Yarmuk area of the city; two people died in attacks on the homes of two policemen in the Amiriya district. One of the policemen was killed and the other wounded, AP news agency reported.
Attacks were also reported in Ghazaliya in the west of the city and Dora and Saidiya in the south.
Baghdad is currently hosting a major auction inviting international firms to explore oil and gas across Iraq.
Thursday's attacks follow two bombings targeting security forces in the city on 13 May in which killed six people died.
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UNITED NATIONS, May 31 (Reuters) - A Russian cargo ship that Western officials say was heavily laden with weapons for the government of Syria docked at the Syrian port of Tartus last weekend, a rights group said on Thursday.
Washington condemned the reported weapons delivery.
"Today's updated shipping databases show that the Professor Katsman did in fact dock in the port of Tartus on May 26, 2012 before heading to Piraeus, Greece," Sadia Hameed of Human Rights First told Reuters.
Western officials confirmed her remarks, adding that they understood the ship had been carrying arms for the government of Syria, which for 14 months has been using its security forces to attack an increasingly militarized opposition.
One Western diplomat told Reuters the shipment included heavy weapons, though it was not immediately clear what kind of heavy arms.
A spokesman for Russia's U.N. mission said he would look into the issue.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice condemned the reported delivery of weapons to the Damascus government.
"This is obviously of the utmost concern given that the Syrian government continues to use deadly force against civilians," she told reporters.
"It is not technically obviously a violation of international law since there's not an arms embargo," she said. "But it's reprehensible that arms would continue to flow to a regime that is using such horrific and disproportionate force against its own people."
Hameed said that Human Rights First had been tracking the ship from May 23-30 and discovered "a window of time on May 26 when the ship's transponder appears to have shut off." A Western diplomat said turning off a transponder would be a violation of International Maritime Organization regulations.
Al Arabiya television first reported about the arms shipment last week. One Western diplomat who confirmed the report at the time said the ship is owned by a Maltese firm, which itself is owned by a Cypriot company that is owned by Russian firm.
Diplomats said the Russian firm might have been acting on behalf of state arms exporter Rosoboronexport, though that was not clear. Rosoboronexport could not immediately be reached for comment. Last week the company declined to comment on the ship.
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Israel's Defence Minister, Ehud Barak, has said it might consider a "unilateral move" if peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority fail.
Mr Barak said that Israel's newly expanded governing coalition had to "lead a diplomatic process" in search of a permanent peace deal.
"We are on borrowed time", he warned.
Negotiations on a two-state solution stalled in late 2010 following a dispute over Jewish settlement construction in the occupied West Bank.
Last month, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas demanded that Israel freeze all settlement construction, and accept the ceasefire lines which existed before the 1967 Middle East war as the basis for the borders of a future Palestine, with mutually agreed modifications, before he would return to direct peace talks.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has so far refused to freeze settlement construction in East Jerusalem. Palestinians want the area for their future capital, but Israel insists the city cannot be divided.
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Unemployment in the eurozone was 11% in April, unchanged from March, but still the highest since records began in 1995.
Spain had the highest rate in the eurozone at 24.3%, while Austria had the lowest at 3.9%, according to the official figures from Eurostat.
A seasonally adjusted total of 17.4 million people were unemployed in the eurozone, up from 17.3 million.
In the 27-nation European Union, the jobless rate was 10.3%, up from 10.2%.
"Today's grim unemployment figures provide a sober reminder that the eurozone economy is in desperate need of a more expansionary policy stance," said Martin van Vliet, an economist at ING.
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Large sums of money donated to Somalia's UN-backed interim government have not been accounted for, a World Bank report says.
The report, seen by the BBC, is being circulated at talks in Turkey on how to end Somalia's decades of anarchy.
It alleges a discrepancy of about $130m (£85m) in the accounts over two years.
UK foreign minister William Hague told the BBC that an international board to oversee the distribution of aid funds needed to be established urgently.
Somalia's transitional government mandate expires in August when it is due to hand over to an elected president.
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U.S. employers created 69,000 jobs in May, the fewest in a year, and the unemployment rate ticked up. The dismal jobs figures could fan fears that the economy is sputtering.
The Labor Department also says the economy created far fewer jobs in the previous two months than first thought. It revised those figures down to show 49,000 fewer jobs created.
The unemployment rate rose to 8.2 percent from 8.1 percent in April, the first increase in 11 months.
The economy is averaging just 73,000 jobs per month over the past two months -- roughly a third of jobs created per month in the first quarter.
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The famous politician left a federal courthouse in North Carolina late Thursday afternoon thanking the jury and saying "I don't think God's through with me," after a federal judge declared a mistrial in his high-profile corruption case.
Jurors found him not guilty on just one count of accepting illegal campaign contributions but were deadlocked on the remaining five, resulting in the mistrial decision by Judge Catherine Eagles.
It's unclear whether federal prosecutors will seek to retry him. A Justice Department spokeswoman said the department had "no immediate comment" on the next step.
But a law enforcement official later told Fox News that it is unlikely the Justice Department would retry Edwards.
Emerging from a cloud of legal troubles for the first time in years, the former Democratic presidential candidate gave an emotional statement on the courthouse steps Thursday. Choking up, he spoke of his love for the child he fathered out of wedlock with his mistress Rielle Hunter. And he spoke of the future, suggesting he wasn't preparing to leave the public spotlight.
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In less than 100 days, Democrats will gather in Charlotte, N.C., for their presidential nominating convention.
The city was a natural choice after President Obama in 2008 turned a reliably red state to blue for the first time since Jimmy Carter won it in 1976.
But how things can change in four years.
Since the president squeaked out victory in the Tar Heel state, Republicans took control of the legislature for the first time in 100 years; Democratic Gov. Bev Perdue declined to seek re-election; unemployment moved to fifth-worst in the country; and voters passed an amendment to ban same-sex marriage just days before Obama announced his support for gay marriage.
All of this has many people asking – why was it that the Democrats picked Charlotte?
“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. “It sent the right message for Democrats that they were going to fight.
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During an appearance on CNN on Thursday night, Bill Clinton weighed in on presumptive Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's former private equity firm, Bain Capital, which has come under scrutiny in the campaign.
"I don't think we ought to get into a position where we say this is bad work," Clinton said. "This is good work."
He continued, "I think, however, the real issue ought to be, what has Gov. Romney advocated in the campaign that he will do as president? What has President Obama done and what does he propose to do? How do these things stack up against each other? That's the most relevant thing."
Clinton characterized Romney's career as "sterling."
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Nancy Reagan endorses Romney's bid for president
Former first lady Nancy Reagan served lemonade and cookies to Mitt Romney and his wife and offered the Republican presidential nominee something extra -- her endorsement.
The widow of President Ronald Reagan says she is firmly behind Romney. And she says that her "Ronnie" would have liked Romney's business background and what she calls his "strong principles."
Romney and his wife, Ann, visited Mrs. Reagan at her Los Angeles home on Thursday. The Republican presidential candidate has been campaigning and raising money on the West Coast this week.
In a statement issued after the Romneys' visit, Mrs. Reagan said she believes that Romney has the experience and leadership skills that, in her words, "our country so desperately needs."
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WASHINGTON -- Two major United Nations organizations warned world leaders on Thursday to avoid restrictive free trade agreements that may threaten public health, amplifying international pressure against President Barack Obama's controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership deal.
A report issued by the U.N. Development Program and the anti-AIDS UNAIDS detailed a host of drug financing policies and intellectual property standards that inflate the price of medications, and urged governments to reject such terms in trade negotiations. By granting pharmaceutical companies long-term monopolies on lifesaving medications, the U.N. groups noted, poor citizens are denied lifesaving treatments.
The Obama administration, in trade talks with eight Pacific nations, is aggressively pursuing the price-protecting standards denounced by the U.N. groups. The new report carefully omits any explicit reference to trade pacts in the works. But the report's release follows a U.N.-hosted meeting between several Pacific nations, including Malaysia and Vietnam, both of which are involved in the Trans-Pacific talks. A UNAIDS press release accompanying the report mentions the Trans-Pacific deal, and trade experts said the report is a clear rebuff to the American position.
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WASHINGTON (AP) -- Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney is
giving President Barack Obama "an F, across the board" for his handling
of the economy.
In an interview broadcast Friday, Romney tells CBS News that Obama
lacks a "fundamental understanding" of how the free enterprise system
works.
The former Massachusetts governor says capitalism "is the only system
that's ever been shown to lift people out of poverty." Yet, he argues
that Obama believes "the way to do that is to have the government make
investments and have the government choose the winners and losers."
He credits Obama for taking down terrorist leader Osama bin Laden in
the interview but says the president gets a failing grade on foreign
affairs. Romney complains that, quote, "the Arab spring has become the
Arab winter" under Obama's watch.
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2 years or so ago,I had the opportunity to log in to the VOCR show on Blogtalkradio and became very understanding of the views you held. Although I think you are a little edgy with your statements and sometimes ruffle my D feathers a little, I always came away with more knowledge than when I logged in and a clearer understanding of issues, not bad for a Canadian.
