Pakistani soldier gets death for killing youth

A Pakistani court on Friday sentenced to death a soldier who shot and killed an unarmed youth as he was begging for mercy — an incident that was caught on videotape and repeatedly broadcast on TV, triggering unusual public anger at the country's powerful military.

Five other soldiers and a civilian who were present during the June killing in a park in the southern city of Karachi were also convicted of murder and handed life sentences.

The verdicts were a rare instance of Pakistani security forces being held publicly accountable over human rights abuses, which are allegedly widespread. The killing came at a time of heightened public criticism of the army over its failure to detect or stop the unilateral May 2 U.S. raid that killed al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden, and added to its humiliation.

Sarfraz Shah, 18, was shot on June 8 after being detained by a group of Pakistani Rangers. A local TV journalist caught the incident on tape. The footage drew public fury, and the suspects in the case were quickly arrested and put on trial.

In a brief session at the anti-terror court that heard the case, Judge Bashir Khoso told the seven men they were guilty of murder and read out the verdicts.

The men were grim-faced, but otherwise did not react. Shaukat Hayat, the lawyer for Shahid Zafar, who was sentenced to death, said he would appeal.

Salik Shah, the victim's eldest brother, burst into tears after hearing the verdict.

"I am satisfied with the verdict," he said later, outside the court. "It would somewhat console our sentiments that the murderers of my brother have been sentenced appropriately."

Officials at the time said Shah was picked up in the park on suspicion of robbery; some accounts have said he was carrying a replica or toy pistol.

The video footage shows him unarmed surrounded by the Rangers. At one point, he moved toward one of them with his arms outstretched, but he was pushed back, then shot twice in the hand and leg. While on the ground, he begged the Rangers to take him to a hospital, but they stood by as he writhed in an expanding pool of blood.

Shah was eventually taken to a local hospital and died shortly thereafter from blood loss.

Pakistani security forces are often accused of using excessive force and killing unarmed civilians, typically those suspected of being criminals or militants. The criminal justice system in Pakistan is inefficient and conviction rates are very low, meaning officers sometimes kill suspects rather than try to prosecute them, human rights activists said.

Human Rights Watch welcomed the verdicts.

"One hopes that the verdict will go some way in arresting the impunity with which Pakistan's trigger-happy security and paramilitary agencies perpetrate abuses," said Ali Dayan Hasan, the group's Pakistan director.

Pakistan rarely executes people sentenced to death, and life sentences usually are 15 years. Executions that do take place are carried out by hanging.

Bollywood film on caste stirs controversy in India

A star-filled Bollywood film on India's caste system churned up passionate debate as it opened Friday, with angry lower caste groups trying to torpedo its release, saying it reinforces social prejudices against them.

The furor makes clear that caste — the millennia-old Hindu custom that divides people in a strict social hierarchy based on their family's traditional livelihood and ethnicity — remains a deeply sensitive subject in modern India, despite government programs to erase such distinctions.

At least three big states have banned the film "Aarakshan" from opening on schedule Friday over fears it could stir up caste tensions. Its director, Prakash Jha, filed an urgent appeal to the Supreme Court seeking to overturn the bans.

The film's stars were given police bodyguards, and police also guarded theaters that did show the film, searching moviegoers and barring them from bringing bags inside, authorities said.

The movie's title means "reservation," a reference to affirmative action quotas for India's untouchables, also known as dalits, in jobs and education.

Dalits, who form nearly a fourth of India's billion-plus population, say the film belittles them and shows them in a negative light.

Jha disputed their interpretation of his movie, but he agreed to edit out parts they may find offensive. The edited version, however, was not available as it opened across the country over this lucrative Independence Day three-day weekend.

The film's star, famed actor Amitabh Bachchan, sounded anguished on his Twitter account Friday, accusing people of condemning the film without even watching it.

"Have cried at our helplessness in not making people understand that this art needs to be seen not banned!" he tweeted.

On his blog, Bachchan quoted his character in the film, the principal of a college: "Two Indias reside in this country ... and in truth, if we have to see any progress in our society, then the distance between these two Indias must be erased."

Caste discrimination runs deep in India despite government efforts since independence in 1947 to use affirmative action to wipe it out. India's economic boom has further sharpened the divide, with much of its dividends accruing to the upper castes.

Nevertheless, large sections of India's upper castes are incensed over the quota policy, which ensures lower castes get spaces in the country's highly sought-after medical and engineering schools, universities and jobs.

"Aarakshan" had created a buzz, with the films lead actors — also including action hero Saif Ali Khan and Bollywood starlet Deepika Padukone — traveling the country to promote its release.

In the film, Bachchan plays the idealistic head of a college who ends up being pushed out amid tensions between dalit and upper caste students over the quota system.

Another objection raised by some lower caste groups is that the Dalit protagtonist, is played by Khan, who belongs to an erstwhile royal family in India.

"This objection is unfair. By this logic, are they saying a Dalit cannot play the role of a king in a film?" asks Jha.

With dalit groups saying the film is biased against the quota system, the government of Uttar Pradesh, India's biggest state, banned the film Wednesday. A day later, the governments of Punjab and Andhra Pradesh followed suit.

The ban could cost the film more than 150 million rupees ($3.5 million) in earnings, as filmgoers were expected to crowd theaters over the long weekend, trade analysts said.

A government panel for the welfare of lower castes also has asked the country's film authorities to review the clearance given to the film.

"We have written to the Censor Board to review the film and remove at least five objectionable dialogues from the movie," said P. L. Punia, who heads the panel. "These changes can be made without affecting the narrative of the film."

Another objection raised by some lower caste groups is the casting of Khan, who belongs to one of the royal families that previously ruled parts of India, as the Dalit protagonist.

"This objection is unfair. By this logic, are they saying a Dalit cannot play the role of a king in a film?" asks Jha.

Meanwhile, the Mumbai film fraternity is closing ranks in support of the movie.

"There is nothing objectionable in the film. When people see it, they will realize that there is nothing controversial," said Ajay Devgn, a leading Bollywood action star.

China recalls bullet trains in new blow to technology

China's second-biggest train maker will recall 54 bullet trains used on the new showcase Beijing-Shanghai line for safety reasons, the firm said on Friday, dealing a fresh blow to the nation's scandal-plagued rail system.

The recall of the trains by China CNR Corp Ltd comes three weeks after 40 people were killed in a high-speed rail crash, which triggered public fury, unusually bold media coverage and a freeze on approvals for new railway projects.

China's high-speed rail drive was until recently held up by senior government officials as a trophy of the nation's technological prowess. Now it has become a political albatross, drawing scorn from many citizens long frustrated with the hulking railways ministry.

China's fast-growing microblog websites have served to amplify that public anger, and the recall drew more catcalls on Sina's popular Weibo site (http://weibo.com).

"Wasn't this locomotive the most advanced type, and put into use only after many tests? So how come the problems were discovered after they were put into operation? What a miracle," wrote one Weibo user.

"Can we also recall the Ministry of Railways?," asked another.

Officials blamed July's crash first on a lightning strike and then on faulty signals technology. But on Friday, Chinese media quoted a senior investigator as saying the crash also exposed management failings and could have been avoided.

"There were serious flaws in the system design that led to an equipment failure," said Luo Lin, the minister of China's State Administration of Work Safety, who is leading the probe.

"At the same time, this exposed problems in emergency response and safety management after the failure occurred," the Beijing Times cited Luo as saying.

"This was a major accident involving culpability that could have been totally avoided," he said.

Industry analyst Lu Zhou said the recalls added to signs that China's high-speed railway boom faced bleak times.

"The government is putting a sudden brake on China's high-speed railway story, and we must wait for the bad days to pass over," said Lu, an analyst with Everbright Securities in Shanghai who follows China's high-speed railway train makers.

"A Great Leap Forward-style movement in China's high-speed railway is changing abruptly to a period of silence, and that could last a few years," he said.

The Great Leap Forward was Mao Zedong's disastrous effort in the late 1950s to catapult China into communist prosperity.

But China could not afford to curtail train investment in the longer-term, said Luo.

"After all, China's railway system can't go back to the old days of shabby green cars," he said.

RECALL COULD HIT STEEL, CEMENT DEMAND

The recall and a decision to cut the top speeds of bullet trains nonetheless reflected a rethink by government leaders jolted into considering the risks of high-speed rail growth, said Zhao Jian, an expert on rail at Beijing Jiaotong University who has long criticized the bullet train expansion.

China has been working for years to develop a high-speed rail network to rival Japan's famed bullet trains, and last year investment on the sector hit a record high of 749.5 billion yuan ($117.2 billion).

Japanese bullet trains have not had any accidents involving injuries or deaths since they started running in 1964, according to a Transport Ministry official in Tokyo.

Even before last month's crash and resulting furor, China's railways sector was under a cloud. The railways minister, Liu Zhijun, a key figure behind the boom in the sector, was dismissed in February over corruption charges that have not yet been tried in court.

As well as the embarrassment for the ruling Communist Party, the slowdown in high-speed rail building could bite into demand for steel, said UOB Kay Hian commodities analyst Helen Lau.

Passengers waiting to board bullet trains from Beijing to Shanghai said they were not worried by news of the recall.

"The risk of an accident is definitely greater on these fast trains, but flying isn't any safer," said Zhang Kelong, a building materials salesman who said he was taking the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed service for the first time.

The government is stepping up safety demands, he noted.

"So the likelihood of another accident happening is small," he said. "Let's just say I would have to be very unlucky for that to happen."

Train maker CNR's President Cui Dianguo said the CRH380B-trains had "experienced a number of quality failings," and the recall would lead to a cut in services on the 1,318 kilometer (820 mille) Beijing-Shanghai route, which takes about 5 hours.

In an earlier statement, the state-owned company said it found faults in signaling systems, sensors and communications components on the trains, which it blamed for delays in service.

Cui did not say how many services would be cut. But the rail ministry said it would reduce the number of trains using the high-speed line by a quarter, the official Xinhua news agency said on Friday.

CNR's rival, China South Locomotive, built both of the trains involved in the crash last month.

The worries over high-speed rail are likely to force central government leaders to drastically reform the Ministry of Railways, possibly merging it into a transport super-ministry, said Zhao, the Beijing professor.

The ministry thwarted an effort to do that a few years ago.

"Now, it's going to happen sooner or later," said Zhao, referring to the merger. "That's the whole direction of reform, and it won't change. But I don't know when it will happen."

(Additional reporting by Zhou Xin, Sally Huang, Michael Martina and Chris Buckley in Beijing; Editing by Ken Wills and John Chalmers)

British police out in force to deter riots

British police prepared to flood the streets on Friday to ensure that weekend drinking does not reignite the rioting that swept London and other cities this week, shocking Britons and sullying their country's image a year before it hosts the Olympics.

Steve Kavanagh, deputy assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, said 16,000 officers, instead of the usual 2,500, would remain on duty in London in their biggest peacetime deployment -- a measure of the perceived public order challenge.

Even in normal times, alcohol-fueled street disorder is commonplace across urban Britain at the weekend.

British Prime Minister David Cameron, describing the four nights of wild looting, arson and violence, in which five people were killed, as "criminality, pure and simple," has called the initial police response inadequate.

His remarks drew a sharp response from the police service, which is facing deep cuts in numbers as part of a sweeping government austerity drive aimed at slashing public debt.

"The fact that politicians chose to come back is an irrelevance in terms of the tactics that were by then developing," said Hugh Orde, head of the Association of Chief Police Officers, referring to Cameron and other senior ministers who cut short their holidays after two days of mayhem at home.

More than 1,200 people were arrested during the unrest -- and one London looter, 24-year-old Natasha Reid, turned herself into police because she could not sleep for guilt after stealing a television, according to her defense lawyer.

In another case, Chelsea Ives, 18, who is among thousands of people enrolled as "ambassadors" to help visitors to the 2012 Olympics, was identified by her mother who saw her on television after allegedly throwing bricks at a police car, media said. Ives denied charges of burglary and violent disorder.

Courts have sat through the night to process those accused of crimes ranging from assault to stealing a bottle of water.

Offenders include a millionaire's daughter, a charity worker and a journalism student, though most are unemployed young men.

In what it said revealed tough justice being meted out, The Guardian newspaper found that in a sample of more than 150 cases before magistrates' courts, most defendants were remanded in custody, even when they pleaded guilty to relatively minor offences.

FIGHTBACK

"The fightback has well and truly begun," Cameron told an emergency session of parliament on Thursday, outlining a range of measures aimed at preventing any repeat of England's worst riots in decades. Targeting street gangs became a top priority.

The trouble began in London after police shot dead a black man and refused to give his relatives information about the incident, but then degenerated into widespread looting and violence in many parts of the capital and other major cities.

Britain could make it easier to evict people from government housing for rioting, a minister said on Friday, the latest move by a coalition desperate to show it is tough on crime.

"That may sound a little harsh, but I don't think this is a time to pussyfoot around," Eric Pickles, communities minister, said, adding that the measure would require legal changes.

"These people have done their best to make people frightened on the streets where they live. They've done their best to destroy neighborhoods, and frankly I don't feel terribly sympathetic toward them."

The Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition is keen to regain the initiative after early criticism that it was slow to respond to the rioting which has overturned Britain's image abroad as a generally peaceable and orderly society.

A 68-year-old man who was attacked as he tried to put out a fire set by rioters in London on Monday night died of his injuries, officials said on Friday.

Three men were killed in Birmingham, central England, when a car drove into them as they tried to stop rioters, and a man died after being shot during riots in Croydon, south London.

Britain is divided over what caused the disorder, but many people fear any reduction in police numbers would leave the country exposed if similar trouble erupted in future.

The opposition Labour Party has urged the government to abandon its plans for a 20 percent phased cut in police funding.

Community leaders and some commentators point to poverty, unemployment and a sense of exclusion among many young people, with public sector cuts likely to hit the poor hardest.

But the scale and ferocity of the rioting, not only in inner-city areas but also in some middle-class suburbs, has generated a law and order debate with starkly different views.

"There's got to be a curfew put in place. I would have put in as many police as possible straightaway -- they did that eventually. I probably would have used teargas myself," said Graham Sawyer, 46, a construction site project manager from Romford, east of London.

"I'm old enough to remember (former prime minister) Margaret Thatcher. She certainly wouldn't have let it happen. I think she would have possibly gone too far, but I think she would have stopped it straight away," he said.

(Additional reporting by Peter Griffiths, Mohammed Abbas, Tim Castle and Adrian Croft; Editing by Alistair Lyon)

Gaddafi forces still hold Brega oil terminal, refinery

Troops loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi are still in control of the oil terminal and refinery of the strategic eastern port of Brega despite rebel advances, a spokesman for rebel forces said on Friday.

The two sides have been battling for months over Brega, 750 km east of Tripoli. The rebels see securing the oil facilities as a tipping point in the war and hope to resume oil exports from there as quickly as possible.

Rebels said they had captured a residential area of Brega on Thursday. But spokesman Mohammed Zawawi told reporters it was still not safe to go into the city. The oil terminal is about 15 kms (about 10 miles) from the residential district.

"Now we're trying to clear that area. There are some Gaddafi troops still there," said Mohammed Zawawi. "Gaddafi troops are shooting rockets into the city."

Gaddafi is clinging to power despite a near five-month-old NATO air campaign, tightening economic sanctions, and a lengthening war with rebels trying to end his 41-year rule.

The rebels have seized large swathes of the North African state, but are deeply divided and lack experience, and Thursday's gains in the east broke weeks of stalemate.

In the west, rebel forces driving north toward the town of Zawiyah, within striking distance of Gaddafi's stronghold in the capital, have not moved up from Thursday's positions.

Rebels said they had reached the village of Bir Shuaib, some 25 km (15 miles) from Zawiyah, which has unsuccessfully risen up against Gaddafi twice this year.

THREE FRONTS

The western battle is one of three widely separated rebel fronts against Gaddafi forces. In the east around the ports of Misrata and Brega, fighting had been bogged down in recent weeks while the western rebels have advanced.

Misrata, a sea port on the Mediterranean under rebel control for months, is about 500 kms (300 miles) east of Brega

Zawiyah lies less than 50 km west of Tripoli, on the main road to Tunisia, which has been a lifeline for Libya but has begun to crack down on rampant smuggling of gasoline.

Rebels in the western mountains do not operate as a single force, as each town has its own command. But when they join forces for major operations they can muster a few thousand men.

In an effort to pile economic and military pressure on Gaddafi, more countries are set to announce next week that they will free frozen assets for the rebels, a British official said.

"While it's hard to predict when this will end, it's easy to see the pressure is building on Gaddafi and it is only a matter of time before he's forced to leave power," the official said.

Britain is playing a leading role in NATO air strikes against Gaddafi's forces, which have weakened his armory but have not enabled the rebels to deliver a knockout blow.

Tightening the economic noose around Gaddafi, Tunisia said on Thursday its troops were patrolling fuel stations to curb the flow of smuggled gasoline into neighboring Libya.

International sanctions and the effects of Libya's civil war have disrupted normal supplies of fuel to parts of the country under Gaddafi's control, but huge volumes of gasoline are instead being smuggled across the Libyan-Tunisian border.

"The armed forces are now conducting checks at fuel stations in the south of Tunisia ... so that neither Tunisians nor Libyans can fill up with large quantities," Tunisian defense ministry official Mokhtar Ben Nasr told a news conference.

"These checks are aimed at preventing the smuggling of diesel and gasoline to Libya."

(Additional reporting by Michael Georgy with rebel forces in the west, Tarek Amara in Tunisia, Joseph Nast in Berlin and Mariam Karouny in Beirut ; writing by Douglas Hamilton, editing by Gareth Jones)

Special interests gave millions to budget panel

The 12 lawmakers appointed to a new congressional supercommittee charged with tackling the nation's fiscal problems have received millions in contributions from special interests with a direct stake in potential cuts to federal programs, an Associated Press analysis of federal campaign data has found.

The newly appointed members — six Democrats and six Republicans — have received more than $3 million total during the past five years in donations from political committees with ties to defense contractors, health care providers and labor unions. That money went to their re-election campaigns, according to AP's review.

Supporters say the lawmakers were picked for their integrity and experience with complicated budget matters. But their appointments already have prompted early concerns from campaign-finance watchdog groups, which urged the lawmakers to stop fundraising and resign from leadership positions in political groups.

The congressional committee, created as part of the debt limit and deficit reduction agreement enacted last week, is charged with cutting more than $1 trillion from the budget during the coming decade. If the committee doesn't decide on cuts by late November — or if Congress votes down the committee's recommendations — spending triggers would automatically cut billions of dollars from politically delicate areas like Medicare and the Pentagon.

The lawmakers represent a large swath of political ideology and geography, but they have some things in common: They received more than $1 million overall in contributions from the health care industry and at least $700,000 from defense companies, the AP found. Those two industries, especially, are sensitive to the outcome of the committee's negotiations because the automatic spending cuts could affect them most directly.

The committee's co-chairs — Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas — each received support from lobbyists and political committees, including those with ties to defense contractors and health care lobbyists. Hensarling's re-election committee, for instance, received about $11,000 from Lockheed Martin and $8,500 from Northrop Grumman.

Companies like Lockheed rely heavily on government contracts: More than 80 percent of Lockheed's net sales during the first six months of 2011 came from the U.S. government, according to Securities and Exchange Commission records. And in SEC filings two weeks ago, Northrop expressed concern of a "material adverse effect" on its finances had the debt ceiling not been raised.

The other panel members are Sens. Max Baucus, D-Mont.; John Kerry, D-Mass.; Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.; Pat Toomey, R-Pa.; and Rob Portman, R-Ohio; and Reps. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C.; Xavier Becerra, D-Calif.; Chris Van Hollen, D-Md.; and Michigan Republicans Dave Camp and Fred Upton.

The AP's analysis shows the extent to which special interests have directly supported the 12 members during their tenures in Congress, including support from agriculture businesses ($600,000) and labor unions ($580,000). Big checks also came in from the banking and insurance industry.

The extent of potential conflicts could be even greater than the AP's analysis shows. The AP measured contributions from industry PACs to lawmakers' election committees. But it didn't capture amounts from independent expenditures, such as donations, from defense executives and their families or money given to leadership political committees.

Even still, influence can extend beyond direct campaign contributions. Senate records show that Murray, also the chairwoman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, was named in so-called honoree payments of more than $1 million from lobbyists since 2008. Such honoree contributions are sent to groups associated with members of Congress or for events held in their honor.

Murray spokesman Matt McAlvanah said Thursday that the senator "has made a career out of standing up for working families and against special interests. And that's reflected in her personal story, her votes and the policies she has championed."

Already, even as the final appointments to the committee were announced Thursday, watchdog groups said the panel members will be under remarkable pressure from outside interests. Public Campaign, one such group in Washington, said establishing the committee "will make it cheaper for Wall Street, tax-dodging corporations and special-interest lobbyists to influence the spending cuts and revenue debate in Washington as the focus shifts to just 12 members of Congress."

Bob Edgar, president of the advocacy group Common Cause, said that "with the public already disgusted with Washington in the wake of the debt-limit debacle, it's vital that people have confidence that supercommittee members are thinking about the nation's best interests, not positioning their party or worrying about how their decisions appear to donors."

Public Campaign also called on Murray to step down immediately as head of the Democratic campaign committee.

The White House called such complaints "silly criticism."

"Elected members of Congress are responsible: They take an oath, they are responsible to serve their constituents and their country," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters this week. "We expect every member on the committee to take that responsibility seriously."

Syrian troops fire on protesters in eastern city

Syrian soldiers opened fire on protesters in at least one flashpoint city and deployed across the country Friday as President Bashar Assad's embattled regime tries to crush a 5-month-old uprising despite broad international condemnation.

Activists said military raids earlier in the day killed two people.

Friday has become the main day for demonstrations in Syria, despite the near-certainty of a government crackdown with bullets and tear gas.

Syrian troops opened fire on thousands of protesters in the eastern city of Deir el-Zour after Friday prayers in two mosques, according to two main activist groups.

There was no immediate word on casualties in Deir el-Zour. But activists said Syrian troops killed two people during raids in the northern Idlib province and the suburbs of the capital, Damascus.

The protest in Deir el-Zour was significant because government forces took control of the city, along with Hama in central Syria, during deadly military assaults this week. Both cities had seen some of the largest protests in recent weeks before the government unleashed tanks and sniper to put down the revolts.

In Hama, Syrian troops surrounded mosques and set up checkpoints to head off any protests.

"There are security checkpoints every 200 meters (655 feet), they have lists and they're searching people... the mosques are surrounded by soldiers," a Hama-based activist told The Associated Press by telephone, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

He said tens of soldiers were stationed in the Assi square in Hama, which had been the main converging point for hundreds of thousands of protesters in recent weeks. Snipers were stationed on rooftops.

Syria has banned most foreign media and restricted local coverage, making it impossible to get independent confirmation of the events on the ground. The government has justified its crackdown by saying it was dealing with terrorist gangs and criminals who were fomenting unrest.

The military offensive reflects Assad's determination to crush the uprising against his rule despite mounting international condemnation, including U.S. and European sanctions.

In Washington, presidential spokesman Jay Carney stopped just short of calling for Assad's ouster, saying that Syria "would be a much better place without him."

"We believe that President Assad's opportunity to lead the transition has passed," Carney told reporters traveling on Air Force One with President Barack Obama to Michigan.

On Friday, Syrian activists said troops and tanks stormed the town of Khan Sheikhon in the northern province of Idlib amid heavy gunfire that killed one woman.

The raid is part of a military operation in the restive area near the Turkish border in the past few days. Intense protests in the region triggered a harsh government response in June and forced thousands of Syrians to flee across the border to Turkey.

Many of those who fled are still living in several refugee camps across the border.

A flurry of foreign diplomats have rolled through Damascus urging Assad to end a campaign of killing that rights groups say has left about 1,700 civilians dead since mid-March.

But Assad has brushed off the reproach. In a continuing nationwide campaign of arrests, Syrian activists said security forces detained Abdul-Karim Rihawi, the Damascus-based head of the Syrian Human Rights League. A longtime rights activist, Rihawi had been tracking government violations and documenting deaths in Syria.

He was picked up from a cafe in central Damascus along with a journalist who had been interviewing him, according to rights activist Ammar Qurabi.

France on Friday condemned the arrest and called for his immediate release.

"By its brutal and symbolic character, the arrest of Abdul-Karim Rihawi constitutes a new unacceptable decision by the authorities of Damascus," a French Foreign Ministry statement said.

The statement said the arrest goes against the expectations of the international community and said the violent repression and political arrests must cease in Syria.

The Syrian uprising was inspired by the revolts and calls for reform sweeping the Arab world, and activists and rights groups say most of those killed have been unarmed civilians. An aggressive new military offensive that began with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan at the start of August has killed several hundred people in just one week.