Middle East

(Reuters) - Arab foreign ministers will discuss a proposal next week to send a joint U.N.-Arab mission to Syria, a senior Arab League official said on Thursday, after a solely Arab team failed to end President Bashar al-Assad's crackdown on protests.  Ministers meet in Cairo on Sunday to consider whether to extend or scrap an observer mission sent to Syria in December. The mission, criticised by Syria's opposition, faced internal dissent and retreated to hotels for safety as violence surged.

CAIRO (AP) — The Arab League called Sunday for the U.N. Security Council to create a joint peacekeeping force for Syria and urged Arab states to sever all diplomatic contact with President Bashar Assad's regime, the League's latest effort to bring an end to the violence that has killed more than 5,000 people.  Syria immediately rejected the moves, spelled out in a resolution adopted by League foreign ministers meeting in Cairo.

Admirers of the European Union frequently point out that it has a comprehensive selection of non-military crisis management tools. These include the bloc’s economic leverage, mechanisms for deploying civilian peace operations and close working relationships with the United Nations and other multilateral organisations.

(Reuters) - Russia's veto of a Security Council resolution on Syria goes far beyond mere protection for a close ally and arms buyer - it showed Moscow's determination to crush what it sees as a Western crusade to use the United Nations to topple unfriendly regimes.

The same holds true for China, which followed Russia's lead and joined Moscow in its second double veto to strike down a European-Arab draft resolution that would have endorsed an Arab League plan for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to transfer power to his deputy to prepare free elections.

BEIRUT: France will reduce its U.N. Interim Forces in Lebanon regiment from 1,300 to 900 peacekeepers, a French diplomatic source told The Daily Star Tuesday.

The source tied the reduction to an upcoming strategic review of UNIFIL that focuses on ways to increase the responsibility of the Lebanese Army, denying that the cut comes in response to two attacks on French peacekeepers last year.

Russia and China today vetoed a Western and Arab-sponsored resolution condemning Syria's violent repression of anti-government demonstrators, throwing their prestige and power behind a beleaguered President Bashar al-Assad as he intensified a military operation aimed at crushing the year-long uprising.

The humanitarian issue of Camp Ashraf, home to 3,400 members of the Iranian opposition group, the Mujahedeen e Khalq (MEK), in Iraq has crossed party lines in the US, UK and EU as far right neo cons stand alongside democrats and liberals in support of defending an Iranian opposition group upon which there has been heated discussions. With an end of 2011 deadline set by Iraq to close the Camp, the issue will no doubt be a topic of serious discussion as Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki comes to Washington next week

ISTANBUL — In his most blatant criticism yet of Syria’s political repression, the prime minister of Turkey said for the first time on Tuesday that the Syrian president should resign, raising the pressure on him from a country that Syria had once counted as its friendliest neighbor and economic partner.

The Arab League has offered the government of Bashar al-Assad three more days to stop violence or else face economic sanctions after a previous deadline for Syria to act passed on Wednesday.

The announcement followed the regional bloc's foreign ministers meeting in the Moroccan capital, Rabat, to decide their next move after Assad ignored the ultimatum issued on Saturday.  The Arab League is "giving the Syrian government three days to stop the bloody repression" of its civilian population, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani, the Qatari foreign minister, said in Rabat.