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Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Syria on "edge a blade"

The United Nations says more than 9,000 people have been killed since anti-regime protests broke out in March 2011, while monitors put the number at more than 10,000. On Monday, Human Rights Watch said Syrian security forces and pro-regime militias had executed more than 100 civilians and rebel fighters in attacks on protest hubs since late 2011. Many of the summary and extrajudicial executions were carried out last month, and at least 85 of those killed were residents who never took part in fighting, including women and children. Monitors said 51 people were killed on Sunday, a day after nearly 130 died across Syria, while 200 others were arrested in raids by government forces pushing to crush dissent ahead of the April 10 deadline. At least 35 Syrian civilians were killed on Monday in shelling by regime forces that struck a village in the country s central Hama province, a monitoring group said. Among the dead in the village of Latamna, 15 were under the age of 18 and eight were women, said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The bombardment, which he described as a "new massacre by the Syrian regime," came a day before a UN deadline for a truce plan. A peace plan for Syria was in jeopardy after the regime laid down conditions for a pullout of government troops from protest hubs and fresh clashes raged on Monday. Under a peace deal brokered by Kofi Annan, the former UN chief, the Syrian army was scheduled to withdraw from protest cities on Tuesday, with a complete end to fighting set for 48 hours later.

North Korea Unha-3 rocket launch between April 12 and 16


North Korea on Sunday took members of the foreign media to visit the site of a rocket launch. North Korea allows members of the foreign media to visit the site of a rocket launch it says will carry a weather satellite into space, but which the United States and its allies have condemned as a disguised ballistic missile test. North Korea says the Unha-3 rocket will carry a weather satellite into space when it is launched between April 12 and 16 to coincide with the centenary of the country s founding father Kim Il-sung. The United States, Japan and South Korea have said the rocket is a disguised ballistic missile test. Dozens of members of the foreign media were taken by train to the Sohae (West Sea in English) Satellite Launch site. Jang Myong Jin, the site s director, said the invitation was a  bold decision  by the country s new leader Kim Jong-un, which aimed to prove that the rocket was being used for peaceful means. "If it were a ballistic missile it would have to be hidden in an underground chamber, or would need to be carried aboard another vehicle for protection. If it were not, then it would be useless in a real war," he told a crowd of members of the media. North Korea agreed in February to stop nuclear tests, uranium enrichment and long-range missile launches in return for food aid, but that has all since unravelled with the North s rocket launch. Japan and South Korea have said the rocket s launch would violate a U.N. Security Council resolution, and have warned of international consequences if it goes ahead.

Siachen rescue operation update

Snowfall hampered efforts to boost search for 135 people buried in avalanche in the Gayari sector. On Saturday, April 7, 2012an avalanche smashed into a Pakistani army base on the Himalayan glacier close to India, burying around 135 soldiers & civilian.  At least 240 Pakistani troops and civilians worked at the site of the disaster at the entrance to the Siachen Glacier with the aid of sniffer dogs and heavy machinery, said the army. But they struggled to dig through some 25 meters (80 feet) of snow spread over an area of about one kilometer. The US team of high altitude specialists arrived in the country to help but could not reach the site of the avalanche due to the bad weather. It has been over two days since a huge wall of snow crashed into the remote Siachen Glacier base, high in the mountains of Kashmir. Experts say there is little hope of finding survivors, though no bodies have been recovered yet. Specially trained search-and-rescue teams of army engineers equipped with locating gadgets and heavy machinery, on Sunday, joined rescue units aided by sniffer dogs and helicopters. But a senior military official said attempts to send extra equipment up to help with the search on Monday had been delayed. Thousands of soldiers from India and Pakistan stationed in Siachen brave viciously cold temperatures, altitude sickness, high winds and isolation for months at a time. Troops have been posted at elevations of up to 6,700 meters (22,000 feet) and have skirmished intermittently since 1984, though the area has been quiet since a cease-fire in 2003. India and Pakistan have spent heavily to keep a military presence in the frozen area, where temperatures can plunge to minus 70 degrees Celsius.