Month: May 2013

The leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group has said that Syrian rebels will not be able to defeat President Bashar Assad’s regime militarily, strongly suggesting that Syria’s “real friends” including his Iranian-backed militant group would intervene on the government’s side if the need arises.

Militants in Syria have used chemical weapons against civilians with the aim of discrediting forces loyal to President Bashar Assad, Syrian state-run TV said on Tuesday.

“Terrorists gathered together residents of the city of Saraqib at the city’s southern gates and released a powder of unknown origin amongst them, causing asphyxiation, tremors and other breathing problems,” an official said.

Those injured by the chemicals had been taken to hospitals in Turkey to use the incident as the basis for accusing government forces of using chemical weapons, the official added.

Iraqi officials say a car bomb in a Shiite suburb of Baghdad has killed four people and wounded 12 others.

Two police officers say the parked car bomb went off early morning today in Hussainya and killed four civilians.

They added that 12 others, including four policemen who were in a nearby checkpoint, were wounded. The Shiite-dominated district is located some 25 kilometers east of the center of the capital. A medical official confirmed the casualty figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to release information.

A court has convicted, in absentia, Tunisia’s former dictator of voluntary homicide and sentenced him to life in prison, the third such sentence for Zine El Abidine Ben Ali since he was overthrown in January 2011.

Ben Ali has been living in exile in Saudi Arabia, where he fled amid an uprising that toppled him after 23 years in power.

Tunisia’s state-run news agency TAP said he was tried for the death of a demonstrator and injuries to two others during a crackdown on protesters in the southern city of Sfax.

The Pentagon has stepped up planning for potential military intervention in the Syrian civil war.

The move comes specifically because of growing evidence the Syrian regime may have used chemical weapons.

According to CNN, a senior administration official said that ‘there is intensified planning underway as more precise evidence has come that the Syrian regime used chemical weapons’.

If President Barack Obama were to order action, it could involve thousands of US troops. The official said it’s not likely to involve troops on the ground in Syria.

Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev could avoid death penalty if he provided information about the attacks to investigators.

Some very preliminary talks are underway ‘for the past few days’ to potentially allow Tsarnaev to resume providing investigators with information, government sources have said.

According to CNN, one source said that communications are in the very early stages, and not a sign lawyers for either side are ready to make a deal.

US President Barack Obama has acknowledged that over the last decade, a number of people from the South Asian origin particularly those from Hindu, Muslim and Sikh communities — have been subject to hate crimes in the country.

“In the last decade, South Asian Americans — particularly those who are Muslim, Hindu, or Sikh — have too often faced senseless violence and suspicion due only to the colour of their skin or the tenets of their faith,” Obama said in a proclamation to declare May as the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month.

In the face of mounting attacks by the Taliban on politicians and election meetings, army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani on Tuesday said there should be no doubt that Pakistan’s polls would be held as scheduled as they could usher in “true democratic values”.

Addressing an event to mark the Youm-e-Shahada (Day of Martyrs), Kayani reiterated the army’s commitment to holding of free and fair elections.