Syrian government troops continue killing civilians - another 40 reported so far today - as the politicians continue talking. Following on from Kofi Annan declaring promises from Assad, today the Arab League is noted as being involved in the latest peace deals.
Pakistan's army chief on Wednesday met with with top U.S. commanders for the first time since a November NATO airstrike on a border post killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, causing relations between the two countries to sink to a new low.
Afghan women have been imprisoned for "moral crimes" that include running away and adultery. A Human Rights Watch report is particularly critical of President Hamid Karzai's Western-backed government, saying it has failed to fulfill its obligations under international human rights laws. The imprisonments are validated under interpretation of sharia law.
Details after the break.
Syria
Syrian rights activists say government forces have assaulted several rebel strongholds, triggering battles that killed 40 people as Arab nations began a new diplomatic effort to end Syria's year-long conflict.
Activists said Wednesday that government troops battled opposition forces in the towns of Rastan in central Syria and Daraa in the south.
The New York Times, citing the Local Coordination Committees activist group, reported that troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad stormed the northern town of Saraqeb, leaving 40 people dead and the streets littered with unidentified corpses and wounded citizens after four days of attacks. The group appealed to the Red Cross and other humanitarian organizations to "treat the injured and bury the martyrs."
Kofi Annan's Six-Point Peace Plan
- A Syrian-led political process to address the aspirations and concerns of the Syrian people.
- A U.N.-supervised end to armed violence by all parties in Syria.
- Timely humanitarian assistance in all areas affected by fighting.
- Increasing the pace and scale of release of arbitrarily-detained people.
- Ensuring freedom of movement for journalists.
- Respecting freedom of association and the right to demonstrate peacefully.
The violence continued a day after international envoy Kofi Annan said Syria had accepted his peace plan for a cease-fire and a dialogue between government and rebel forces. He had urged the Syrian government to implement the plan immediately.
Arab League foreign ministers expressed support for the Annan peace initiative at a meeting in Baghdad, where leaders of the regional bloc were expected to attend a summit on Thursday.
A draft resolution prepared by the ministers for the summit's approval calls on the Assad government to stop violent attacks on the opposition and allow peaceful protests.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said Syria's implementation of Mr. Annan's plan is "more important than acceptance" and represents a "last chance" for the country to resolve its crisis peacefully.
A Syrian official said his government will reject any resolution passed by the Arab League on Syria. The bloc suspended Syria's membership last year to punish Damascus for continuing a deadly crackdown on an opposition uprising.
Pakistan
Pakistan's army chief has met with with top U.S. commanders for the first time since a November NATO airstrike on a border post killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, causing relations between the two countries to sink to a new low.
General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani met Wednesday with the head of U.S. Central Command, General James Mattis, and the commander of NATO and U.S. forces in Afghanistan, General John Allen, at Pakistani army headquarters in Rawalpindi outside Islamabad.
The Pakistani military said the commanders would discuss the investigation into the November 26 cross-border attack and improvements in border coordination procedures.
The deadly strike brought relations between the United States and Pakistan to a new low and prompted Pakistan to block NATO supply routes into Afghanistan.
In January, Pakistan's army rejected a U.S. military probe that blamed the attack on mistakes made by both sides. The army said it did not agree with U.S. findings that American forces acted in self-defense and with appropriate force after being fired on by Pakistani soldiers. Pakistan's military said the attack was deliberate.
The country's parliament is now debating new rules of engagement with the United States. A parliamentary committee reviewing U.S. ties is demanding a U.S. apology for the deaths of 24 Pakistani soldiers and an end to U.S. drone strikes.
U.S. President Barack Obama said Tuesday that Pakistan's review of its ties with the United States should not only respect Pakistan's sovereignty but also U.S. security needs. He acknowledged that relations between the two countries have been strained in recent months.
Obama made the comments alongside Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on the sidelines of an international nuclear summit in Seoul.
Afghanistan
Human Rights Watch says hundreds of Afghan women have been imprisoned for "moral crimes" that include running away and adultery. The report is particularly critical of President Hamid Karzai's Western-backed government, saying it has failed to fulfill its obligations under international human rights laws.
Kenneth Roth, Human Rights Watch Executive Director, says in the decade since the fall of the Taliban, Afghanistan's criminal justice system has made little progress in the way it treats women.
“Women are still very vulnerable to forced marriage, to domestic violence, to sexual abuse and when they try to do something about it the the legal system does not answer,” said Roth.
The report says nearly 400 women are in Afghan prisons for moral crimes, although that number has gone down significantly since 2010. These crimes include not only adultery, but also running away from home to get married, to flee a forced marriage or to escape domestic abuse, which is not a crime under Afghan law.
Roth says arrests have been justified under a unique interpretation of Sharia law.
“The Afghan supreme court has said that the crime of running away can be found in Sharia, but when we looked around the world no other government thinks that running away is in Sharia," said Roth. "Afghanistan stands alone in that interpretation.” [Editor emphasis]
Earlier this month, President Hamid Karzai announced a blanket pardon for women imprisoned for running away from their parents. The government says it is working on identifying and releasing these women.
The report says that some women have been convicted of adultery after being raped or for leaving an abusive husband and seeking protection from a man who is not a family member. It says judges often convict on the basis of confessions given in the absence of lawyers and signed by women who cannot read nor write. Prison sentences can last in some cases more 10 years.
Women publicly convicted of moral crimes also expressed fears that after they are released, they could be murdered by their families for reasons of honor.
During the Taliban's five-year rule, women and girls were severely marginalized in all aspects of Afghan society. Women were forced to wear body-and-face covering burqas and were not allowed out of the house without a male family member as an escort.
The Afghan constitution now ensures equal rights for women and outlaws violence against women. A number of Afghan women have been elected to parliament and access to education for girls continues to grow. But Afghanistan remains a very conservative culture and women remain vulnerable to discrimination and abuse.
Human rights groups are worried, as the United States and NATO reduce their presence in Afghanistan, President Karzai will sacrifice the rights of women in peace talks with the Taliban and to appeal to more conservative elements in Afghan society.
All content based on VOA News reports.
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