Tagged: United Nations

The peace plan backed by the United Nations got the support of Arab foreign ministers today.

The leaders, who were in Baghdad for an Arab League summit, endorsed the plan which calls for a cease fire, the release of political prisoners and dialogue with the opposition. The ministers said Syria should enact the plan.

Reuters reports:

"A spokesman for U.N. envoy Kofi Annan says Syria has accepted his plan to end the bloodshed in the country," The Associated Press reports.

Ahmad Fawzi said the news came in a letter from President Bashar Assad's government to Annan, the former U.N. secretary general who has been trying to broker an end to the Assad regime's crackdown on dissent — which the U.N. estimates has led to the deaths of more than 8,000 people in the past year.

The United Nations special rapporteur on torture has reached the conclusion that the United States violated some of the rights of the Army private accused of leaking classified information to WikiLeaks.

Pfc. Bradley Manning has been in U.S. custody since May 2010 and as we've reported, Juan Méndez, the U.N.'s top torture official, has already had some tough words for the U.S. leading up to this report.

Syrian activists blamed pro-government militiamen for the latest killing of civilians in the city of Homs. At least a dozen people, including children, were killed, state media confirmed, saying instead that the perpetrators were "armed terrorists."

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 12 people were killed, but the Local Coordination Committee had a much higher figure – 45, according to The Associated Press.

The AP quoted the LCC and the Observatory as saying: