Schulz: deal offers hope to Ukraine, violence must stop

European Parliament President Martin Schulz made the following statement on an agreement to end the crisis in Ukraine:
"The deal between the government and the opposition in Ukraine offers hope that the country has avoided the worst: escalation of violence and more deaths. I welcome the agreement although the road to rebuilding trust and stability will not be easy.

Women, children allowed to leave besieged Syria city Homs

Women and children trapped in a besieged Syrian city will be permitted to leave “immediately” under a deal that marked the first tangible sign of progress in peace talks.
“What we have been told by the [Syria] government side is that women and children in the besieged area of the [Homs] old city are welcome to leave immediately,” Agence France-Presse quoted U.N. mediator Lakhdar Brahimi as telling a news conference after talks with government and opposition delegations.
“Hopefully starting tomorrow, women and children will be able to leave the Old City in Homs,” Brahimi said.
The subject of Homs -- where hundreds of families in the Old City are living under siege with near-daily shelling and the barest of supplies -- has been discussed at length since the two parties started face-to-face talks on Saturday.

Ukraine: Ianoukovitch propose le poste de Premier ministre à l'opposition

Le président ukrainien Viktor Ianoukovitch a proposé samedi aux chefs de l'opposition Arséni Iatseniouk et Vitali Klitschko de diriger le gouvernement, et s'est dit prêt à une révision de la Constitution pour réduire ses pouvoirs, a annoncé la présidence dans un communiqué.

Arséni Iatséniouk, chef du parti de l'opposante emprisonnée Ioulia Timochenko, s'est vu proposer le poste de Premier ministre et l'ex-boxeur Vitali Klitschko celui de vice-Premier ministre chargé des Affaires humanitaires, a précisé la présidence après des négociations menées à la présidence.

Syrian regime and opposition agree to direct talks

Delegations representing the Syrian regime opposition have agreed to meet in the same room for direct talks on Saturday, UN mediator Lakhdar Brahimi said Friday.

"I met the delegations of the opposition and the government separately yesterday and again today and tomorrow we expect, we have agreed, that we will meet in the same room," Brahimi told journalists.

The meeting would start at the United Nations in Geneva at 10am (0900 GMT), he said.
A first face-to-face meeting between the two warring sides since the Syrian conflict broke out almost three years ago had been due to take place Friday as part of the ongoing Geneva 2 peace talks.
But attempts to bring the government and opposition delegations together initially stumbled, prompting Brahimi to speak to both sides separately in an effort to bring them both to the negotiating table.

Syrian opposition insists Assad should go as past

Ahmad al-Jarba said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had assured the Syrian opposition that Moscow was not holding on to Assad.....

GENEVA, January 23, 23:49 /ITAR-TASS/. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad should go as his government is in the past, National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces leader Ahmad al-Jarba said at a press conference in Geneva on Thursday, January 23.
“We have started to look into the future without him. Assad and all of his regime is in the past now. Nobody should have any doubt that the head of the regime is finished. This regime is dead,” Jarba said, adding, “If Assad were able to rule Syria, we wouldn’t have been here today,” Jarba said.

Syrian peace talks stuck over Assad's future

MONTREUX (Switzerland): Peace talks intended to carve a path out of Syria's civil war got off to a rocky start on Wednesday as a bitter clash over President Bashar Assad's future threatened to collapse the negotiations even before they really begin.

The dispute over Assad cast a pall over the start of an international peace conference that aims to map out a transitional government and ultimately a democratic election for the war-torn Middle East nation.

While diplomats sparred against a pristine Alpine backdrop, Syrian forces and opposition fighters clashed across a wide area from Aleppo and Idlib in the north to Daraa in the south, where the uprising against Assad began three years ago, activists and state media said.

Mass 'executions' in Syria could be war crime: UN

GENEVA: Extremist Islamic groups in Syria are committing a "soaring" number of killings in the country's north that could amount to war crimes, the UN human rights office said on Thursday.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay says that over the past two weeks her office has received reports of "a succession of mass executions of civilians and fighters who were no longer participating in hostilities in Aleppo, Idlib and Raqqa by hardline armed opposition groups in Syria, in particular by the" al-Qaida linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

She warned that such killings violate international humanitarian law, and the numbers of such violations are thought to be alarmingly high.

Syrische Armee vernichtet Dutzende Extremisten, darunter ausländische Söldner

Die syrische Armee hat am Samstag dutzende Extremisten, darunter viele ausländische Söldner, getötet, wie die Agentur Sana am Sonntag unter Berufung auf die Regierungskräfte meldet.

„Bei Sonderoperationen in den Orten Duma, Yabrud, Maalula und Zabadani wurden Dutzende Extremisten, darunter Bürger Saudi-Arabiens und des Libanon, getötet. Die Armee hat im Raum von Duma eine Anti-Terror-Operation durchgeführt und den Bunker einer bewaffneten Gruppe mit Waffen und Munition zerstört“, heißt es.

Ukraine : l'UE suspend les négociations, les manifestations se poursuivent/John McCain Visits Ukraine, Backs Opposition Protesters

Cette annonce de l'Union européenne intervient alors que 200 000 opposants au président Ianoukovitch sont rassemblés dans les rues de Kiev.
 
Alors que l'Ukraine s'enfonce dans une grave crise politique, l'Union européenne met la pression. L'UE a annoncé, dimanche 15 décembre qu'elle suspendait les négociations avec Kiev sur l'accord d'association et de libre-échange. Cette décision intervient alors qu'une manifestation monstre est organisée par les pro-européens à Kiev.

Churkin: Syrian Opposition used chemical weapons in a bid to provoke Western invasion ....

UNITED NATIONS, December 14 (Itar-Tass) - Russia’s UN envoy Vitaly Churkin has said that chemical attacks in Syria, including the one in Guta on August 21, were staged by the Syrian Opposition, which was trying to provoke armed intervention by Western countries. 

Churkin was speaking at a meeting of the UN General Assembly behind closed doors on Friday. A transcript of his statement has been circulated by Russia’s permanent mission at the United Nations.

As Ukraine Opposition Rallies Intensify, Lenin Statue Falls. -A group of masked youths apparently belonging to the Svoboda nationalist party used a steel cable to rip it down

KIEV, December 8 (RIA Novosti) – Several hundred thousand people gathered in the Ukrainian capital Sunday for one of the largest protest rallies in the former Soviet nation’s history, throwing down the gauntlet to a government that has resisted calls for negotiation with the opposition.

In an incident that may have spark criminal investigations and cast a shadow over the generally pacific events, however, a group of nationalists ripped down a statue of Soviet revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin.
The mass assembly in Kiev was the biggest to date since the government last month pulled out of preparations to sign landmark political and trade deals with the EU, sparking widespread indignation across Ukraine.

Syria: UN humanitarian chief urges pause in fighting to allow access to trapped civilians.

13 September 2013 – As fighting between Syrian Government and opposition forces continue to intensify, the United Nations humanitarian chief today called on all sides to agree to a pause in the hostilities so that relief agencies could gain “immediate and unhindered access” to evacuate desperate civilians trapped in towns and cities increasingly under siege.
“I am extremely worried by reports that more than half a million people remain trapped in Rural Damascus,” Valerie Amos said in a statement, noting, for example that the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is receiving “very disturbing reports” from the town of Moadamyieh, which is just a few kilometres from the capital

Russian Arms Supplies to Syria ‘No Breach of Law’ - Putin ..... one does not really need to back the people who not only kill their enemies, but open up their bodies and eat their intestines

LONDON, June 16 (RIA Novosti) – President Vladimir Putin on Sunday defended Russia’s weapons supplies to Syria saying they are in the framework of the international law. “If we speak calmly, I want to stress that Russia supplies arms to the legitimate government of Syria in full compliance with the norms of international law and we call on our partners to act in the same way,” Putin told reporters after talks with British Prime Minister David Cameron on Sunday. “We are not breaching any rules,” Putin said. "I think you will not deny that one does not really need to back the people who not only kill their enemies, but open up their bodies and eat their intestines," Putin said referring to a video footage of a rebel eating what appeared to be a government soldier’s heart.

Lavrov: Syria Government Gaining Ground, No Need to Use Chemical Arms

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said there was no need for the Syrian government to use chemical arms since the Syrian Army was making steady advances on the ground.
"The regime, as the opposition is saying out in the open, is enjoying military success on the ground," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters during a joint press appearance with his Italian counterpart Emma Bonino. "What sense is there for the regime to use chemical arms -- especially in such small amounts?" Lavrov asked.
Russia said on Friday that US allegations Assad had used chemical weapons during the fight with the foreign-backed militants were fabricated and unconvincing.