The briefing Mali: Preliminary findings of a four-week mission. Serious human rights abuses, issued in the run-up to the deployment of a UN peacekeeping force in Mali next month, is the result of a research mission carried out in May and June in the country.

“The Malian security forces’ human rights record since January is, simply, appalling. They continue to violate human rights with apparently no fear of being held accountable,” said Gaëtan Mootoo, Amnesty International researcher and member of this research mission.

During the visit, Amnesty International documented dozens of cases of detainees being tortured or ill-treated after being arrested for having alleged links with armed groups. The organization also documented more than 20 cases of extrajudicial-executions or enforced disappearances.

Mohamed Lemine and Mohamed Tidjani were arrested by the Malian security forces on 28 January this year, the day the French and Malian armies entered the city of Timbuktu.

Their bodies were found a few days later and a relative told Amnesty International: “Both wore the same clothes and shoes they had on the day of their arrest, Mohamed Lemine had a white boubou [robe] and black pants while his friend was wearing a boubou. We preferred not to displace the bodies and recovered the tomb with sand.”

Amnesty International’s delegates were able to speak to more than 80 of the 200 detainees held in the capital Bamako, most of them charged with acts of terrorism and other offences.

Many of them said they were tortured or ill-treated and some were reportedly denied medical treatment. A number of them had marks and scars of burnings and cuts – including on their backs, chests and ears.

At least five detainees died in the facility in April 2013, most of them apparently as a result of the appalling conditions of detention and lack of medical care.

When Amnesty International visited the detention center, several child soldiers, some as young as 13 years old, were being held with adults.

The authorities in Mali recognized that some human rights violations had been committed and said a number of cases were being investigated, but so far no one has been brought to justice.

“Ensuring that all those responsible for human rights abuses face justice will not be an easy task but it’s the key to a lasting stabilization and rebirth of a country torn apart for more than 18 months,” said Mootoo.

The organization is also concerned that French military, as well as West African (AFISMA) troops – including forces from Chad and Niger – handed over prisoners to the Malian authorities when they knew or should have known the detainees were at real risk of being tortured or ill-treated.

During the mission, Amnesty International’s delegates also collected testimonies of abductions and arbitrary killings committed by the armed opposition group Mouvement pour l’unicité du djihad en Afrique de l’ouest (MUJAO, Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa) against civilians accused of supporting the French and Malian armies.

Armed opposition groups, including MUJAO and the Tuareg Mouvement national de libération de l’Azawad (MNLA, National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad) were also accused of sexually abusing women and girls and using children to carry weapons, control checkpoints and cook. Some children were also sent to the front line.

“In the run up to the deployment of the UN Stabilization Mission in Mali, it is essential to ensure that the Malian army and any other armed forces respect and protect human rights so people living in the north of the country can be reassured they will be safe,” said Mootoo.

“You are not here to initiate new negotiations. You are here to strengthen and conclude the work that has been done in earnest since the beginning of the ATT process in 2006,” Mr. Ban told representatives from 193 Member States in his opening remarks to the conference in New York.

He added that now is the time for the focus and political will to negotiate the final details and arrive at a consensus outcome during the nine-day conference. “That is the clear message of the General Assembly when it decided that this is the Final United Nations Conference on the ATT.”

The last negotiations on the ATT ended in July of last year without agreement. Disappointed, Mr. Ban described it as a “setback” but also noted that States had reached considerable common ground that can be built on.

In today’s speech, Mr. Ban noted that international standards regulate everything from t-shirts to toys and tomatoes, and he questioned why “there are common standards for the global trade in armchairs but not the global trade in arms.”

An effective and strong ATT will put on notice warlords, pirates, human rights abusers, organized criminals, terrorists and gun runners, Mr. Ban said, and require exporting countries to assess the risk that weapons will be used to commit grave violations of international humanitarian law or even fuel conflict.

Armed violence, he noted, kills more than half a million people each year, including 66,000 women and girls.

In addition, between 2000 and 2010, almost 800 humanitarian workers were killed in armed attacks and another 689 injured, according to the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs.

“We owe this landmark UN treaty to those who have fallen victim to armed conflict and violence, to all the children deprived of a better future, and to all those risking their lives to build peace and make this a better world,” Mr. Ban said.

Some 2,000 representatives of Governments, international and regional organizations and civil society have gathered at UN Headquarters to take part in the negotiations and related events.

The process is overseen by Ambassador Peter Woolcott of Australia who took over today as president of the conference.

“My door will always be open,” he told participants during his opening statement, adding that by “working together we can make the Arms Trade Treaty a reality.”

Mr. Woolcott urged participants to focus and to reach a consensus, reminding them that “expectations are high and time is limited.”

According to the conference’s website, the proposed treaty will not interfere with the domestic arms trade and the way a country regulates civilian possession; ban, or prohibit the export of, any type of weapons; impair States’ legitimate right to self-defence; or lower arms regulation standards in countries where these are already at a high level.

An arms trade treaty will, it pointed out, “aim to create a level playing field for international arms transfers by requiring all States to abide by a set of standards for transfer controls, which will ultimately benefit the safety and security of people everywhere in the world.”

The negotiations from 18-28 March are an opportunity for states to agree rules to end irresponsible arms transfers across borders that fuel grave abuses of human rights. This is an acid test for states to demonstrate their commitment to human rights and humanitarian law.

“Syria, Mali, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sri Lanka are just a few recent examples where the world bore witness to the horrific human cost of a reckless global arms trade steeped in secrecy,” said Salil Shetty, Amnesty International’s Secretary General.

“It shouldn’t take millions more dying and lives destroyed before leaders show some backbone and take action to adopt global standards to effectively control international arms transfers. They have this historic opportunity to save lives – they need to seize it and stop arms from fuelling atrocities.”

The nine-day ATT conference at the UN follows on from last July when UN negotiations ended without an agreement due to delaying tactics by a handful of states opposed to its goals. In particular, the USA was reluctant to do a deal before the presidential elections. But last November, 157 states voted in favour of returning to the negotiating table this month to finalize the treaty text.

For almost two decades, Amnesty International has been at the forefront of efforts to win a legally binding treaty grounded in international human rights and humanitarian law. Previous attempts before World War Two to forge an arms trade treaty collapsed in part because of the absence of such standards.

Existing UN arms embargoes are only imposed after atrocities have been documented. Because of the lack of agreed systems of regulating arms transfers, they mostly fail to stop the supply of weapons and munitions that continue to fuel atrocities and serious violations of human rights on a massive scale.

That is why it is so important for states to take responsibility for the arms they supply and include a Golden Rule in the treaty. States should assess any proposed transfer to see if there is a substantial risk the arms will be used to commit or facilitate serious human rights violations. If there is such a risk, the transfer should not take place.

“No government or political leader admits publicly that it is acceptable to aid those who commit crimes and human rights abuses – whether in conflict or peacetime – but since the treaty talks began no rule has appeared in the draft texts to prohibit putting arms into the hands of such perpetrators,” said Brian Wood, Amnesty International’s Head of Arms Control and Human Rights.

“Around the world, people are now watching this process hoping their political leaders will not fail them – survivors of armed violence and their communities are crying out for a strong Arms Trade Treaty with clear, universal rules for human rights protection at its core.”

In a briefing released last week, Amnesty International singled out the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – China, France, Russia, the UK and the USA – as shouldering the greatest burden in making a strong treaty a reality. They are charged with maintaining international peace and security, yet in 2010 they accounted for approximately 60 per cent of the more than US$70 billion annual trade in conventional weapons. Their economic interests are growing as the trade is expected to reach US$100 billion annually in the next few years.

“The question of the arms embargo was raised by some members of the European Council. We agreed to task our foreign ministers to assess the situation as a matter of priority already at their informal meeting next week in Dublin, and to develop common positions.”

The lastest development comes amid calls by France and Britain to lift an embargo on supplying weapons to the Syrian opposition with President Francois Hollande warning that France could do it alone if no EU agreement is reached.

The European Union is divided over the issue, with some fearing that sending more weapons to Syria could further escalate the  two-year conflict.

Meanwhile, the Syrian Revolution 2011 Facebook page,  has called on syrians to take to the streets after Friday prayers under the rallying cry “Two years of sacrifice towards victory” as the syrian government beefed up security measures.

The conflict erupted in March 2011 when protesters inspired by Arab world uprisings took to the streets  across Syria calling for freedom.

At the same time, the commander of the rebel Free Syrian Army vowed to continue fighting until Assad’s “criminal” regime is gone, AP reported.

“Dear friends, the Free Syrian Army (fighters) will not give up.”

The United Nations humanitarian chief today urged the international community to do more to end the crisis in Syria which is now entering its third year.

The call came as Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Valerie Amos wrapped up a two-day visit to Turkey, where she spoke with Syrian refugees in the south-eastern Kilis Province.

“I met families who fled their homes more than 18 months ago. They are in despair. They feel abandoned by the international community. They all want the same thing: the conflict to end so that they can go home,”

As part of her visit, Ms. Amos also met in Ankara with the Turkish Deputy Prime Minister, Besir Atalay, and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, as well as other Government officials and senior humanitarian officials, including the President of the Turkish Red Crescent Society (KIZILAY), Ahmet Lutfi Akar.

Syria has been wracked by violence since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began in March 2011. Up to 70,000 people have died, more than 1 million have fled to neighbouring countries, 2 million have been internally displaced and up to 4 million are in need of humanitarian assistance.

Between them, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – China, France, Russia, the UK and the USA – are responsible for over half of the almost US$100 billion total annual global trade in conventional weapons.

The same five states will be pivotal to finalizing an effective Arms Trade Treaty with strong human rights protections at the conference taking place at the UN from 18-28 March.

All this week in the run-up to that historic meeting, Amnesty International activists and supporters are holding a “Global Week of Action” to call on world leaders to adopt an effective Arms Trade Treaty with strong human rights protections.

“It’s clear that the five permanent members of the UN Security Council are responsible for the lion’s share of arms deals across borders – and so collectively they must shoulder the greatest burden in bringing the poorly regulated global arms trade in check,” said Helen Hughes, researcher on arms transfers at Amnesty International.

The 12-page briefing, Major powers fuelling atrocities, includes examples of arms transfers from each of the five countries to states around the world, where they are likely to be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.

According to the briefing, the USA – by far the world’s largest arms trader – frequently exports “non-standard ammunition” to its friends and allies. Rather than being US-made, these arms and equipment are sourced from abroad – typically from the former Soviet Union and Eastern European companies.

It adds, that a  September 2012 contract between the US military and Yemen lists 1 million rounds of sniper rifle ammunition as well as thousands of RPG rockets and mortar bombs. The USA has become Yemen’s largest supplier of military equipment, and in 2011 delivered arms worth US$4.8 million.

The USA is among countries that have tried to weaken the draft text of the Arms Trade Treaty by seeking to exclude certain types of weapons and ammunition from its scope, Amnesty says.

Amnesty International is pressing for the final treaty to cover all types of weapons and munitions for use in military and internal security operations, as well as related equipment, parts and technology.

“No opt-outs should be allowed, and to be effective, the treaty must have a ‘Golden Rule’ requiring states to halt arms exports when there is a substantial risk the arms will be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of international humanitarian or human rights law,” said Brian Wood, Amnesty International’s Head of Arms Control and Human Rights.

“Also, the treaty should completely ban the transfer of arms that would aid or assist in crimes under international law, including extra-judicial killings, torture and enforced disappearances.”

State-owned companies in China account for the bulk of the country’s exports of conventional arms. In recent years they have shipped to countries including Zimbabwe, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sudan, the briefing says.

France has sold vehicles that can be militarized (“véhicules civils militarisables”) to Sudan, where they have been used by government-backed Janjaweed militia who have committed gross human rights violations in the country’s Darfur region, according to the briefing.

Syria historically received the majority of its weapons and munitions from the Soviet Union, and has continued to do so from Russia, the world’s second-largest arms trader by value, according to Amnesty.

Since 2011 when protesters were being killed across the country for calling for freedoms and even after the situation escalated into an internal armed conflict between government and opposition forces in July 2012, Russia and China have blocked efforts at the UN to impose an arms embargo and sanctions on Syria.  Amnesty International has documented a range of Russian and Soviet-era arms and military equipment – ranging from aircraft to cluster bombs – being used in Syria.

“While it won’t be a panacea for all of the world’s misuse of arms, if we get a strong Arms Trade Treaty it will be an important step towards achieving much more security and human rights protection for billions of people who today live in fear,” said Wood.

“Despite improvements to the security situation in some areas, fear of returning home remains widespread,” said Adrian Edwards, a UNHCR spokesman.

Of the estimated 430,000 people uprooted since the beginning of 2012 in Mali, available figures are that 260,665 are still displaced within the country. The refugee population is around 170,000, of whom more than 70,000 are in Mauritania, some 47,200 in Burkina Faso, 50,000 in Niger and about 1,500 in Algeria.

Edwards said that spontaneous returns among IDPs were still low although bus services between the Mali capital Bamako and the northern town of Gao resumed last week, and boats were also now travelling between the towns of Mopti and Timbuktu.

For the internally displaced and refugees alike the primary worry remains insecurity. “Continued fighting, suicide attacks, reprisal attacks against some communities, the presence of landmines and unexploded ordnance in the regions of Mopti, Gao and Timbuktu, are all cited as reasons to delay returning,” Edwards noted.

However, the absence of services in the north is also a factor. With few schools functioning there, and government authorities still absent in many towns and cities, many displaced families prefer to wait.

For those outside Mali an additional complication is ethnic make-up, as a majority of the refugees are Tuareg or Arab. Fear of reprisal attacks is widespread, as is fear of criminality or that jihadists might remain present in the community.

A reflection of the situation is that while new refugee numbers are substantially down on their levels of a few weeks ago, Mali is continuing to see net refugee outflow, albeit a modest one. During February, average arrivals in Mauritania were more than 1,500 people per week – mainly from the Lere, Goundam, Gnoufonke and Timbuktu areas. Refugee numbers in Burkina Faso and Niger are static.

UNHCR believes that reconciliation efforts are urgently needed, together with efforts to combat impunity, to encourage peaceful coexistence between communities, to help long-term stabilization and security and to prevent Mali’s displacement crisis from becoming more protracted. We are at present planning support for reconciliation in areas of displacement and returns, as well as in refugee camps.

“The north and the south need to trust each other, we need reconciliation,” said Fama, an ethnic Tuareg sheltering in Bamako, where she said she is regarded with suspicion. “We just want to live in peace now and have more access to development,” added the 56-year-old.

Meanwhile, some of those who have returned to their homes from urban areas like Bamako, or are thinking about it, say it is too costly in the cities. “Life is too expensive in Bamako, we can’t afford to stay longer here,” said 18-year-old Fatoumata as she waited to board a bus to Gao.

“We live in very bad conditions here, with limited access to electricity and current water. We can’t find jobs here,” added the young woman, who fled to Bamako with her husband last April and gave birth later in the year.

The inquiry which was led by French judge Christine Chanet, states that a multitude of the human rights of the Palestinians are violated in various forms and ways due to the existence of the settlements.

According to the report, these violations are all interrelated forming part of an overall pattern of breaches that are characterized principally by the denial of the right to self-determination and systemic discrimination against the Palestinian people which occur on a daily basis.

Since 1967, Israeli governments have openly led, directly participated in, and had full control of the planning, construction, development, consolidation and encouragement of settlements, the report states.

“In compliance with Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention Israel must cease all settlement activities without preconditions,” said Ms. Christine Chanet, chair of the Mission from France.

The report states that settlements are established and developed for the exclusive benefit of Israeli Jews. The settlements are maintained and advanced through a system of total segregation between the settlers and the rest of the population living in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. This system of segregation is supported and facilitated by strict military and law enforcement control to the detriment of the rights of the Palestinian population.

“We are today calling on the government of Israel to ensure full accountability for all violations, put an end to the policy of impunity and to ensure justice for all victims,” said Ms. Asma Jahangir, member of the Mission from Pakistan.

The report also states that Israel is committing serious breaches of its obligations under the right to self-determination and under humanitarian law. The report concludes that the Rome Statute establishes the International Criminal Court’s jurisdiction over the transfer of populations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

“The magnitude of violations relating to Israel’s policies of dispossessions, evictions, demolitions and displacements from land shows the widespread nature of these breaches of human rights. The motivation behind violence and intimidation against the Palestinians and their properties is to drive the local populations away from their lands, allowing the settlements to expand,” said Ms. Unity Dow, member of the Mission from Botswana.

Witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch by phone since January 8 – when hostilities between the Islamist groups and Malian army intensified – described seeing many children, some as young as 12, taking active part in the fighting. Witnesses also said that children were staffing checkpoints in areas that have come under aerial bombardment by the French or are near active combat zones. The Islamic groups – Ansar Dine, the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) – have recruited, trained, and used several hundred children in their forces since occupying Northern Mali in April 2012.

“These Islamist groups have no business recruiting children into their ranks, much less putting them on the front line,” said Corinne Dufka, senior West Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. “These groups seem to be willfully putting scores of children directly in harm’s way. Before the military campaign goes any further, the Islamists should release these children back to their families.”

Three witnesses from Konna described seeing numerous children among the ranks of the Islamists who took over and briefly held the town on January 10. Witnesses in Gao said that they saw children among the reinforcements which left Gao for Konna; mothers looking for their sons who had left Gao to fight; and children wounded during the fight for Konna arriving in Gao.

“The Islamists arrived in about 10 land cruisers,” one witness from Konna said. “After the fighting died down, we went to the entrance of town to see them. I was shocked to see about a dozen children among them, several were only 12 or 13 years old, all armed with big guns, and working alongside the big men.”

Other witnesses observed children inside pickup trucks as they left Gao to reinforce the Islamists as they fought to hold onto Konna. One older man told Human Rights Watch:

On Friday [January 11] at around 4 p.m., I saw six Toyota land cruisers full of fighters leaving for the battle in front of the HQ of the Islamic Police. There were children in two of these – around five in one truck and two in the other. These are our children – what do they know of war? These so-called Islamists are sending our innocents to be slaughtered in the name of Jihad…I ask you, what kind of Islam is this?

Residents travelling in the Gao region in January described seeing children playing a major role in staffing checkpoints. A woman who travelled from Bamako to a small village near Gao on January 8 and 9 described seeing children working the checkpoints in the towns of Boré, Douentza, and Gao.

“There were so many children among MUJAO,” she said. “In Boré it was the children who came into our bus to ask for our papers and check our luggage. There was only one boy over 18 at this checkpoint. And in Douentza, there must have been 10 of them under the age of 18, the youngest was only about 11.”

A trader said he saw about 20 armed child combatants under 16 staffing the checkpoints leading in and out of the towns of Bourem and Ansongo, also in Gao region, on January 11.

The Islamists’ use of children apparently began shortly after they seized control of the north in April and has continued steadily since then. Witnesses have observed the children staffing checkpoints, conducting foot patrols, riding around in patrol vehicles, guarding prisoners, and preparing food in numerous locations controlled by the groups. Children from both Mali and Niger have been recruited. The witnesses have described how within Mali, the Islamists have recruited substantial numbers of boys from small villages and hamlets, particularly those where residents have long practiced Wahhabism, a very conservative form of Islam.

In December, one witness described visiting six small training camps in the Gao region in which a total of several dozen children were being trained on how to use firearms and were undergoing physical fitness training. In several of these places, children were also observed studying the Koran. Some of these training centers were within or adjacent to Islamic military bases.

Three places within the town of Gao where witnesses have observed children being trained in recent months – in and around Camp Firhoun, the “jardin of Njawa”, and the Customs Building (Directionnationale des douanes) – were allegedly targeted for aerial bombardment by the French armed forces on January 12. It is not clear whether children were at the site during the bombing.

The Islamist armed groups, the French and Malian armed forces, and troops from ECOWAS countries should take all the necessary precautions to protect the lives of children, Human Rights Watch said.

Mali is a party to the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflicts, which bans the recruitment and use in hostilities of children under the age of 18 by non-state armed groups. Recruitment of children under age 15 into armed forces for their active use in armed conflict constitutes a war crime under the Rome Statute, which established the International Criminal Court. The prosecutor of the court, Fatou Bensouda, is currently considering whether to open an investigation into crimes committed in Mali after the Malian government referred the situation since January 2012 to the court in July.

“All armed groups should immediately release the child soldiers they recruited and help them to rejoin their families, Dufka said. “Islamist group leaders should know that recruitment and use of child soldiers is a war crime.”

“The Secretary-General hopes these actions will help to arrest the latest offensive while efforts continue to fully implement Security Council Resolution 2085 (2012) aimed at the full restoration of Mali’s constitutional order and territorial integrity,” according to a statement released by his spokesperson.

Northern Mali was occupied by radical Islamists after fighting broke out in January 2012 between Government forces and Tuareg rebels, after which the country underwent a military coup d’état, in March.

According to media reports, a French air operation began on Friday and continued over the weekend after the armed groups overran the town of Konna, which had been on the de facto dividing line between those areas under Government control and those already occupied by the rebels.

Mr. Ban stressed that the latest events underscore the urgency of implementing all aspects of resolution 2085, including support for Malian defence forces and the deployment of the African-led International Support Mission in Mali, or AFISMA, the Council authorized through that text, according to the statement.

Also urgent were the success of mediation efforts of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the development of a consensual roadmap for a political transition and provision of support, Mr. Ban said.

According to the statement, preparations are also continuing for the deployment soon of a UN multidisciplinary team to the capital, Bamako, to carry forward support requested for both the political and security process.

Mr. Ban spoke on Saturday with the President of Côte d’Ivoire and Chair of ECOWAS, Alassane Ouattara, who briefed him on the ECOWAS summit planned for 19 January in Abuja and the plans of several of its member States to deploy military forces, the spokesperson said.

The Secretary-General was briefed on the French operation yesterday by French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius.

Meanwhile, Mr. Ban’s Special Representative for West Africa, Said Djinnit, continues his consultations in the sub-region as part of efforts to speed up implementation of resolution 2085, the spokesman added.

Mr. Djinnit met yesterday in Abuja with the President of the ECOWAS Commission, Ambassador Kadré Desiré Ouédraogo, and with Foreign Minister Djibrill Bassolé of Burkina Faso. He is expected to travel to Bamako in the coming days, Mr. Ban’s spokesperson said.

Also yesterday afternoon, the delegation of France briefed the Security Council in a closed-door session on the military action conducted by the country after which its Permanent Representative told correspondents that Council members had expressed their support and understanding of the operation in the context of resolution 2085.

The renewed clashes in the north, as well as the proliferation of armed groups in the region, drought and political instability have uprooted hundreds of thousands of civilians in Mali. Over 412,000 people have been forced to flee the north, and an estimated five million people have been affected by the conflict.

Syria’s information minister, Omran al-Zoubi, accused France along with Turkey and Qatar of supporting “terrorism” in Syria by recognizing the new opposition Syrian National Coalition , including the acceptance of an official envoy in Paris, to remarks he made in an interview on al-Alam News Channel.

” This adoption proves again the involvement of the ruling institution in France, regardless of the president, along with Turkey and Qatar in supporting terrorism in Syria.”

Al-Zoubi stressed that the Syria opposition abroad has lost its free and independent will regarding accepting dialogue or not.

Meanwhile, Iran, hosted a summit in Tehran on Sunday to seek an end to the conflict in Syria.

Iranian officials said about 200 Syrian “political characters” had participated but there was no indication that the Syrian National Coalition, a new umbrella opposition group led by Sunni Muslim cleric Mouaz Alkhatib, had attended, according to Reuters.

Iran has backed the government of Syria, throughout the conflict, reportedly providing arms and training for government forces. In turn, Iran  has accused Western and Arab nations of stirring violence in Syria by arming opposition groups.

The Iranian Foreign Minister, Ali Akbar Salehi said in a speech in Tehran on Sunday, that “some countries envisage arming the opposition with heavy and semi-heavy weaponry.”

Salehi said such arms deliveries would set a “dangerous precedent” and constitute “a clear interference in the affairs of an independent country,” according to AFP.

His speech comes as EU foreign ministers are set to meet on Monday to discuss the lifting of the arms embargo to Syria.

France has publicly said it favours sending “defensive” weapons to the Syrian opposition, after recognising the new Syrian National coalition and deciding to host an ambassador in Paris.

There were reports Sunday of a minor exchange of fire across the border with Israel in the Golan Heights with no casualties, the third such incident reported this month, according to the israeli army.