As reported by WOTN earlier today, the US military has filed murder charges against Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales in connection to the killings of 17 Afghan villagers, including nine children.
Syria's British-born First Lady has now become the focus of new further sanctions by the EU. This while the UNHCR issued "strong condemnation" of the continuing escalating violence against civilians.
Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Friday he may recall the Israeli ambassador to the UN Human Rights Council and cut ties with the body.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has signed off on the release of $1.3 billion in annual military aid to Egypt, despite concerns that the country's new leaders are not making sufficient democratic reforms.
Details after the break.
The U.S. military has filed murder charges against Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales in connection to the killings of 17 Afghan villagers, including nine children.
Bales now faces 17 counts of pre-mediated murder and a possible death sentence. He heard the formal charges on Friday.
The case stems from the killing of 17 villagers in Kandahar province on March 11, near a U.S. military outpost where Bales was stationed.
Afghan witnesses say Bales stabbed and shot the villagers, and set some of them on fire. A number of children were among the victims.
Bales' attorney spoke to reporters this week after meeting with his client for several hours.
“He has an early memory of that evening and he has a later memory of that evening. But he doesn’t have memory of in between,” said Bales' defense attorney, John Henry Browne.
Like many other U.S. service members in this decade of war, Bales had multiple deployments. He was on his fourth combat tour and suffered a brain injury in an earlier deployment. That has fueled questions about combat stress, frequent deployments and head injuries.
None of those questions or possibilities are quelling the anger of some Afghans who were already upset by another recent incident - the inadvertent destruction of the Quran by U.S. service members.
The March 11 massacre has sparked calls for revenge and harsh justice.
"We demand from the court in the United States to give the death penalty to the U.S soldier who massacred the civilians, because he deserves hanging, because he committed the biggest crime. We want a punishment based on Islamic sharia law."
The case has raised tensions between the U.S. and Afghan governments.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has demanded that U.S. troops - scheduled to be in his country for two more years - stay out of Afghan villages.
For now, Bales is at a military prison in the U.S. state of Kansas, awaiting word on his fate.
Syria
The European Union imposed a travel ban and asset freeze on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's British-born wife and several other members of his family and administration Friday.
Meanwhile in Geneva, the United Nations Human Rights Council also toughened its stance on Syria with a sharp condemnation of Syria's "escalating violence" and called for an extension of a probe into the Syrian government's alleged abuses in the last year of unrest.
The 47-member body voted 41 to three in favor of an EU-sponsored resolution backed by the United States and Arab countries. China, Russia and Cuba voted against the measure.
In Washington, the Obama administration said it will allow Syrians in the country to remain even after their visa expired and not deport those in the U.S. illegally.
Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano said Syrians in the United States will be given protected status because they would "they would face serious threats to their personal safety" if they were to return.
European foreign ministers meeting in Brussels slapped new sanctions on Syrian first lady Asma al-Assad, the president's mother and sister, as well as eight government officials. The sanctions will go into effect Saturday.
Ahead of the EU meeting in Brussel, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said the European body is greatly concerned over the Syrian crisis and that sanctions are a "really important tool" to include in the political framework on Syria.
"I never underestimate that sanctions make a significant difference because they do two things, one is they target individuals' entities in ways that prevent them from carrying on business as usual. And secondly they make the strong political statement about how the international community feels about what's going on," Ashton said.
The sanctions come after emails leaked show Mrs. Assad allegedly went on lavish shopping sprees while Syria descended into violence. British officials say the EU travel ban can not stop the Syrian first lady from traveling to Britain, if she has retained her citizenship.
The diplomatic action comes as opposition activists reported continued violence on Friday. The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told VOA three Syrian army defectors were killed during heavy fighting in Azaz, near the border with Turkey. It said 13 civilians died Friday.
The rights group also said Syrian forces continued their assault on the central city of Homs - the site of a highly publicized siege earlier in the year.
Amnesty International called on UN special envoy to Syria Kofi Annan to include the monitoring of human rights abuses in his six-point peace plan backed by the UN Security Council earlier this week. The London-based human rights group says its "essential" to document the crimes in order to hold those responsible accountable in the future.
Annan's spokesperson says the former U.N. chief plans to travel to Moscow and Beijing later this week for crisis talks on the issue. He said Annan is still "carefully" studying the Syrian responses his proposal, after returning from three days of intensive talks in Damascus.
Israel
Israel National News is reporting that Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Friday he may recall the Israeli ambassador to the UN Human Rights Council and cut ties with the body.
His remarks came after the 47-member council voted to establish a fact-finding mission to probe the "effects of settlements on Palestinian human rights."
Lieberman also said Israelmay choose not to cooperate with the council in its investigation, adding that he plans to ask the US to quit the council as well.
The resolution to “investigate the implications” of the settlements on “the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including east Jerusalem” was passed by a vote of 36 to 1, with 10 abstentions.
Europe was divided on the fact-finding mission, with Norway, Switzerland, Belgium, Austria and Russia voting for the measure. Italy, Spain, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Moldova abstained.
Other countries with whom Israel has good ties who voted for the measure were Angola, Nigeria, Uganda, China, India, the Philippines, Thailand, Chile, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay. Guatemala, Costa Rica and Cameroon abstained.
The UN Human Rights Council also adopted four other resolutions condemning Israel on Thursday. Only the US voted against the raft of anti-Israel resolutions.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu reacted to the decision on Thursday, saying the council is “hypocritical” and should be “ashamed of itself.”
Egypt
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has signed off on the release of $1.3 billion in annual military aid to Egypt, despite concerns that the country's new leaders are not making sufficient democratic reforms.
Secretary Clinton cleared delivery of the assistance by certifying to U.S. lawmakers that Egypt is meeting its obligations under its peace treaty with Israel and has made “significant progress” toward democracy in the last 15 months. That includes free and fair parliamentary elections and the transfer of legislative authority to that new assembly.
In December, Congress passed a law requiring that Egypt's military rulers support the transition to a civilian government, hold free and fair elections and protect freedom of religion and association before the release of U.S. military aid.
State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland says Secretary Clinton waived legislative conditions relating to the democratic transition on the basis of U.S. national security interests and the goal of maintaining the strategic partnership with Egypt.
"What we are looking to do here is to continue to work with Egyptian partners on the kind of future that they want for Egypt and that is in our mutual interest,” she said.
Some U.S. lawmakers and human rights groups are expressing disappointment with the decision. They say Egypt's transitional military leaders have not demonstrated they are committed to making full democratic reforms.
The Washington-based civil society group Freedom House says the move undermines U.S. support for Egyptian democracy. It says Egypt's military rulers have “repeatedly failed to uphold the fundamental rights of Egyptian citizens.”
Freedom House was one of three U.S. pro-democracy groups shut down in Cairo in December during an Egyptian investigation into illegal foreign funding.
Nuland says a new Egypt is emerging but there is clearly still much work to do.
"There is more to do on the electoral side," said the spokeswoman. "There is more to do on the human rights side. There is more to do on the civil society side. And we make absolutely clear here that we remain deeply concerned regarding the trials of civil society activists - Egyptian and international - and we have raised these concerns and we are going to continue to do so.”
If the situation in Egypt deteriorates, Nuland says Secretary Clinton can always re-evaluate her decision to grant the aid waiver.
Unless otherwise stated, all content based on VOA News reports.
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