UN resolution on Syria is path to war, says Russia
Feb 4, 2012, ROME: Hundreds of people were plucked to safety on Saturday after a ferry caught in a snow storm ran aground off Italy, as a vicious cold snap that has claimed over 250 lives across Europe refused to ease its clench.
Ukraine has suffered the heaviest toll of 122 deaths, including many people who froze to death in the streets, as temperatures plunged to as low as minus 38.1 degrees Celsius (minus 36.5 Fahrenheit) in parts of the continent.
Some airports were shut, flights and trains were delayed, and highways gridlocked as emergency services raced to clear the falling snow.
But as Europe huddled indoors for warmth, Russian gas giant Gazprom said it could not satisfy western Europe's demand for more energy.
In Italy, the Shardon ferry ran aground shortly after setting off from Civitavecchia port near Rome, causing panic among the 262 passengers who feared a repeat of a cruise ship tragedy in the area last month which killed 32 people.
Coastguard spokesman Carnine Albano said the accident, which tore a 25-metre (80-foot) hole in the ship's side above the waterline, was caused after the vessel was buffeted by a violent snow storm from the north-east.
All passengers were evacuated to safety and no injuries were reported.
Heavy snowfalls in Rome caused the capital better known for its warm sunshine to grind to a halt. Parts of the Venice lagoon also froze over.
In Poland, the death toll rose to 45 as temperatures reached minus 27 Celsius in the north-east.
Snow fell in Bosnia for the second straight day, paralysing traffic, with one patient dying as the ambulance was unable to reach his village in the south of the country.
Public transport was disrupted in Sarajevo, with several tramlines blocked by snow since Friday evening.
Even Croatian and Serbian Presidents Ivo Josipovic and Boris Tadic were forced to postpone their departure from Friday's regional meeting, as they were blocked in the ski centre Jahorina, near Sarajevo.
"I can only leave the house if I dig a tunnel with a showel, my car has become a mountain of snow," IT worker Eldar Hajdarevic told AFP by phone.
In tiny Montenegro, villages in the mountainous north were cut off. Rescuers managed to evacuate 120 people, among them 31 school children from neighbouring Albania on a field trip, Interior Minister Ivan Brajovic said.
Both airports -- in the capital Podgorica and the Adriatic port Tivat -- were closed for traffic, while the authorities ordered a railway service to be halted fearing mountainous avalanches.
The Netherlands' Amsterdam-Schiphol airport meanwhile reported "dozens of delays and cancellations."
The cold snap has also killed people in the Baltic countries of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Czech Republic, Italy, Slovakia, France as well as Austria and Greece.
On revolution anniv, Iran warns West over oil curbs
Feb 4, 2012, TEHRAN: Iran's supreme leader threatened on Friday to retaliate against the West for sanctions, a day after a US newspaper said defence secretary Leon Panetta believed Israel was likely to bomb Iran within months to stop it building a nuclear bomb.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's defiant televised speech marking the anniversary of the 1979 Iranian revolution was the first time the top authority has spoken publicly about the impact of the new sanctions , which have strangled the Iranian economy since the start of the year.
"In response to threats of oil embargo and war, we have our own threats to impose at the right time," Khamenei told worshippers in his televised speech.
"Sanctions will not have any impact on our determination to continue our nuclear course. "Such sanctions will will make us more self-reliant ," he said.
Dozens hurt in clashes over Yemen vote: activists
Saturday 04 February, 2012: Armed clashes between supporters and opponents of a presidential election in Yemen left dozens of people wounded in the main southern city of Aden, activists from both sides said today.
The violence erupted late yesterday when supporters of the Southern Movement, a separatist group, attacked a march organised by rivals from a year-old protest movement against President Ali Abdullah Saleh, one activist said.
More than 30 demonstrators were injured, some by gunfire, he added.
A medical official confirmed that dozens of people had been hurt, and one who suffered serous head injuries was rushed to hospital in Aden.
A Southern Movement activist blamed the other side for triggering the violence by staging their demonstration in a stronghold of the movement, and said 15 people from his group were injured -nine by bullets.
Nasser Tawil of the Southern Movement said the "tragic and unacceptable" clashes happened because supporters and opponents of Yemen's presidential election set for February 21 were in the same neighbourhood.
Some factions of the Movement have been campaigning for a boycott of the election, which they say fails to meet their aspirations for autonomy or even southern independence.
Saleh's deputy, Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi, himself a southerner, is the sole candidate in the election to succeed the veteran strongman who is standing down after more than three decades in power.
Nationwide protests erupted against Saleh's regime in January last year, triggering months of bloodshed.
Saleh himself arrived in New York on January 28 to receive medical treatment for blast wounds suffered in a June bombing at the presidential palace.
US officials have said he will not return to Yemen until after the election.
Southerners have long complained of discrimination by the authorities in Sanaa, and Tawil accused Saleh supporters of stoking tensions in the south, proposing the election be postponed.
Rajapaksa says 'imported solutions' won't work in Sri Lanka
Saturday 04 February, 2012: With differences over a political solution hampering Sri Lanka's efforts to resolve the Tamil issue, President Mahinda Rajapaksa on Saturday said participation in a parliamentary panel and not an "imported solution" was the way to heal the ethnic woes.
In a reference aimed at the stalled talks with the TNA over the India-supported devolution of power to Tamil-majority areas, the President asked the Tamil party to join the political process rather than utilising "foreign influences".
"We believe that the mechanism for solving the national question is the parliamentary select committee," Rajapaksa said in comments marking Sri Lanka's independence day.
The government's talks with the Tamil National Alliance have been struck over the latter's demand of giving revenue and police powers to the Northern and Eastern provinces under the 13th Amendment plus approach.
It is to be noted that the 13th Amendment solution has been promoted by India.
"It is the duty of all parties in the country to solve problems according to people's wishes by participating in this Parliamentary Select Committee rather than relying on imported solutions and utilising foreign influences," Rajapaksa said.
TNA has refused to nominate its members to the parliamentary committee as it feels the process would be meaningless unless its key demands were met.
Attacking the pro-LTTE diaspora, the president said "conspiracies and propaganda of terrorists based overseas have not abated they expect to achieve in Sri Lanka certain results that happened in some countries" an obvious reference to the Arab Spring demonstrations which led to regime changes.
Rajapaksa, whose main achievement remains his military success over the LTTE, said no solution can be found by accommodating extremist views.
"What is required today is the formulation of policies based on a vision that is commonly applicable to the whole country," he said.
The independence day celebrations took place in the historic kingdom of Anuradhapura with a colourful ceremony presided over by Rajapaksa.
Sri Lanka's colonial history dates back to 1505 when the Portuguese landed in the island.
They built the Colombo Fort in 1517 and expanded control over the island's coastal areas.
The Sinhala majority resisted the Portuguese throughout the 16th century.
The main grouse was that the Sinhalese were forced to convert to Christianity.
In 1602, the Dutch arrived in the central kingdom of Kandy and by 1660 the Dutch controlled the whole island except the kingdom of Kandy.
Robert Knox, a British sea farer's chance arrival in 1659 was to later lead to British colonisation of the island.
The British occupied the coastal areas of the island they called 'Ceylon' by 1796.
By 1802, the Dutch areas of control was ceded to Britain and the island became a crown colony.
In 1803 the British invasion of Kandy was thwarted but in 1815 Kandy came to be occupied by the British.
The British domination in the island continued till 1948 when Ceylon was granted independence.
Over 200 people killed in Syria's Homs before UN vote
Feb 4, 2012, BEIRUT: More than 200 people were killed in shelling by Syrian forces in the city of Homs, activists said on Saturday, ahead of a UN Security Council vote on a draft resolution backing an Arab call for President Bashar al-Assad to give up power.
Amid the surge in violence, the United States called for international solidarity against Assad, but Russia's foreign minister warned of a "scandal" if the draft came to a vote, suggesting Moscow would use its Security Council veto.
Death tolls cited by activists and opposition groups ranged from 217 to 260, making the Homs attack the deadliest so far in Assad's crackdown on protests which erupted 11 months ago, inspired by uprisings that overthrew three Arab leaders.
Residents said Syrian forces began shelling the Khalidiya neighbourhood at around 8 p.m. (1800 GMT) on Friday using artillery and mortars. They said at least 36 houses were completely destroyed with families inside.
"We were sitting inside our house when we started hearing the shelling. We felt shells were falling on our heads," said Waleed, a resident of Khalidiya.
It is not possible to verify activist or state media reports as Syria restricts independent media access.
As news of the violence spread, crowds of Syrians stormed the Syrian embassies in Cairo and Kuwait in protest, and demonstrators rallied outside Syrian missions in Britain, Germany, Greece and the United States.
It was not immediately clear what had prompted Syrian forces to launch such an intense bombardment, just as diplomats at the Security Council were discussing the draft resolution supporting the Arab League demand for Assad to step aside.
But without its proposed amendments, Russia was likely to veto the resolution, remarks made on Saturday by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov suggested.
Some Syrian activists said the violence was triggered by a wave of army defections in Homs, a stronghold of protests and armed insurgents who Assad has vowed to crush.
"The death toll is now at least 217 people killed in Homs, 138 of them killed in the Khalidiya district," Rami Abdulrahman, head of the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told Reuters, citing witnesses.
"Syrian forces are shelling the district with mortars from several locations, some buildings are on fire. There are also buildings which got destroyed."
A Syrian activist said Assad forces bombarded Khalidiya, a key anti-Assad district, to scare other rebel neighbourhoods. "It does not seem that they get it. Even if they kill 10 million of us, the people will not stop until we topple him."
The opposition Syrian National Council said 260 civilians were killed, describing it as "one of the most horrific massacres since the beginning of the uprising in Syria".
Syria's state SANA news agency denied Homs was shelled, accusing rebels of killing people and presenting them as casualties for propaganda purposes before the U.N. vote.
"The corpses displayed by some channels of incitement are martyrs, citizens kidnapped, killed and photographed by armed terrorist groups as if they are victims of the supposed shelling," it quoted a "media source" as saying.
The opposition council said that it believed Assad's forces were preparing for similar attacks around Damascus and in the northern town of Jisr al-Shughour.
Another group, the Local Coordination Committees, gave a death toll of over 200.
Video footage on the Internet showed at least eight bodies assembled in a room, one of them with the top half of its head blown off. A voice on the video said the bombardment was continuing as the footage was filmed.
One activist said residents were using primitive tools to rescue the people. They feared many were buried under rubble.
"We are not getting any help, there are no ambulances or anything. We are removing the people with our own hands," he said, adding there were only two field hospitals treating the wounded. Each one had a capacity to deal with 30 people, but he estimated the total number of wounded at 500.
"We have dug out at least 100 bodies so far, they are placed in the two mosques."
UN VOTEAt the United Nations, the Security Council was due to meet at 10 am (1500 GMT) to vote on the Western-Arab draft endorsing an Arab League plan calling for Assad to resign.
"As a tyrant in Damascus brutalizes his own people, America and Europe stand shoulder to shoulder. We are united, alongside the Arab League, in demanding an end to the bloodshed and a democratic future for Syria," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said at a security conference in Munich.
"And we are hopeful that...the Security Council will express the will of the international community."
But Russia has balked at any language that would open to door to "regime change" in Syria, its crucial Middle East ally where Moscow operates a naval base.
"If they want another scandal for themselves in the Security Council, then we probably cannot stop them," Lavrov said in comments reported by the Itar-Tass agency.
He said he hoped the draft would not come to a vote without changes "because our amendments to this draft are well-known".
Clinton and Lavrov were scheduled to meet at 1030 GMT on Saturday on the sidelines of the Munich conference for talks expected to focus on Syria.
EMBASSY PROTESTS
In Cairo, a crowd stormed the Syrian embassy smashing furniture and setting fire to parts of the building in protest over the Homs bloodshed.
The gate of the embassy was broken and furniture was smashed on the second floor of the building, a Reuters witness said. It was the second attack on the mission in a week.
In London, more than 100 Syrians hurled stones at the Syrian embassy, smashing windows and shouting slogans, and five people were arrested after trying to break in, according to TV reports.
In Washington, about 50 people took part in a nighttime rally outside Syria's embassy, chanting "Down with Assad". Syrians also demonstrated at embassies in Kuwait and Athens.
Some carried signs including one that juxtaposed pictures of Assad and Adolf Hitler. "We want to show solidarity with the people in Syria being killed every day," said Mohammad Kousha, a Syrian living in Washington.
In the cities of Hama and Idlib, activists said hundreds of people took to the streets in solidarity. They chanted in Idlib: "Homs is bombarded, and you are still sleeping?"
