BEIRUT //More than 7,500 people have been killed since the beginning of the Syrian uprising and the government's violent response, a senior United Nations official said yesterday.
B Lynn Pascoe, the United Nations under-secretary general for political affairs, told the Security Council that there have been "certainly well over 7,500" deaths, and that more than 100 civilians were now often killed each day.
While this was the highest estimate given by the UN, Mr Pascoe said it was impossible to give exact casualty figures for the Syrian regime's deadly assault on opposition supporters. The international community's failure to "stop the carnage" was encouraging the Syrian government to believe that it can act with "impunity", he added.
"Tunisia is ready to grant asylum to Syrian President Bashar Al Assad and his relatives in the framework of a negotiated settlement to the Syrian crisis," President Moncef Marzouki told the French-language daily La Presse. The full interview is due to be published today.
"Tunisia is ready to grant asylum to Syrian President Bashar Al Assad and his relatives in the framework of a negotiated settlement to the Syrian crisis," Moncef Marzouki, the Tunisian president, was quoted as saying in a brief article posted yesterday on the French-language daily La Presse website. The full interview was due to be published today.
Tunisia hosted the "Friends of Syria" conference last week, where participants called for an immediate ceasefire and the delivery of humanitarian aid to Syria.
Also yesterday, Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, said Mr Al Assad fits the definition of a war criminal. She stopped short of saying that the international community should make that designation and level charges, pointing out that such a step often made it difficult for a leader to step down. Mrs Clinton was testifying before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee on the budget for the State Department and foreign operations.
Yesterday, the UN's human-rights chief reiterated calls for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and for unfettered access for aid agencies to deliver emergency supplies and evacuate the sick and wounded.
Speaking at an urgent meeting of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Navi Pillay said the world must take action to prevent a continuation of the "countless atrocities" carried out by Syrian security forces.
Ms Pillay also reiterated her call for Syria to be referred to the International Criminal Court "in the face of the unspeakable violations that take place every moment".
Faysal Al Hamwi, Syria's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, said sanctions were preventing Damascus from buying medicine and fuel and that such meetings would only prolong the crisis in Syria, before storming out of the room.
"We reaffirm to all those alleged friends of the Syrian people that the simple step to immediately help the Syrian people is to stop inciting sectarianism, providing arms and weapons and funding and putting the Syrian people one against the other," he said.
Esther Brimmer, the US assistant secretary of state for international organisation affairs, told the meeting that the time had come for nations to stop all financial and material support to Mr Al Assad's regime.
"None can deny that Bashar Al Assad and his criminal cohort are waging a brutal campaign of slaughter, bombardment, torture, and arrest that already has murdered thousands of women, men and children, with more killed each day," she said.
"Without a halt to the killing and a guarantee of immediate humanitarian access, this despicable regime will murder many more before this heinous chapter in Syria's history is over."
The Local Coordination Committees (LCC), a network of local activists, reported that at least another 58 people were killed yesterday, including 22 in the city of Homs. These figures could not be independently verified.
Paul Conroy, a British photographer, was smuggled out of Homs and across the nearby border into Lebanon, it was announced yesterday.
zconstantine@thenational.ae
* With additional reporting from Agence France-Presse, Associated Press and Reuters
First Person
Richard Flanagan
Chatto & Windus
Dubai Bling season three
Cast: Loujain Adada, Zeina Khoury, Farhana Bodi, Ebraheem Al Samadi, Mona Kattan, and couples Safa & Fahad Siddiqui and DJ Bliss & Danya Mohammed
Rating: 1/5
Kanguva
Director: Siva
Stars: Suriya, Bobby Deol, Disha Patani, Yogi Babu, Redin Kingsley
Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
Low turnout
Two months before the first round on April 10, the appetite of voters for the election is low.
Mathieu Gallard, account manager with Ipsos, which conducted the most recent poll, said current forecasts suggested only two-thirds were "very likely" to vote in the first round, compared with a 78 per cent turnout in the 2017 presidential elections.
"It depends on how interesting the campaign is on their main concerns," he told The National. "Just now, it's hard to say who, between Macron and the candidates of the right, would be most affected by a low turnout."
Company profile
Company: Eighty6
Date started: October 2021
Founders: Abdul Kader Saadi and Anwar Nusseibeh
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Hospitality
Size: 25 employees
Funding stage: Pre-series A
Investment: $1 million
Investors: Seed funding, angel investors
Bareilly Ki Barfi
Directed by: Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari
Starring: Kriti Sanon, Ayushmann Khurrana, Rajkummar Rao
Three and a half stars
Know your cyber adversaries
Cryptojacking: Compromises a device or network to mine cryptocurrencies without an organisation's knowledge.
Distributed denial-of-service: Floods systems, servers or networks with information, effectively blocking them.
Man-in-the-middle attack: Intercepts two-way communication to obtain information, spy on participants or alter the outcome.
Malware: Installs itself in a network when a user clicks on a compromised link or email attachment.
Phishing: Aims to secure personal information, such as passwords and credit card numbers.
Ransomware: Encrypts user data, denying access and demands a payment to decrypt it.
Spyware: Collects information without the user's knowledge, which is then passed on to bad actors.
Trojans: Create a backdoor into systems, which becomes a point of entry for an attack.
Viruses: Infect applications in a system and replicate themselves as they go, just like their biological counterparts.
Worms: Send copies of themselves to other users or contacts. They don't attack the system, but they overload it.
Zero-day exploit: Exploits a vulnerability in software before a fix is found.
The National Archives, Abu Dhabi
Founded over 50 years ago, the National Archives collects valuable historical material relating to the UAE, and is the oldest and richest archive relating to the Arabian Gulf.
Much of the material can be viewed on line at the Arabian Gulf Digital Archive - https://www.agda.ae/en
Stree
Producer: Maddock Films, Jio Movies
Director: Amar Kaushik
Cast: Rajkummar Rao, Shraddha Kapoor, Pankaj Tripathi, Aparshakti Khurana, Abhishek Banerjee
Rating: 3.5
Recipe
Garlicky shrimp in olive oil
Gambas Al Ajillo
Preparation time: 5 to 10 minutes
Cooking time: 5 minutes
Serves 4
Ingredients
180ml extra virgin olive oil; 4 to 5 large cloves of garlic, minced or pureed (or 3 to 4 garlic scapes, roughly chopped); 1 or 2 small hot red chillies, dried (or ¼ teaspoon dried red chilli flakes); 400g raw prawns, deveined, heads removed and tails left intact; a generous splash of sweet chilli vinegar; sea salt flakes for seasoning; a small handful of fresh flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped
Method
▶ Heat the oil in a terracotta dish or frying pan. Once the oil is sizzling hot, add the garlic and chilli, stirring continuously for about 10 seconds until golden and aromatic.
▶ Add a splash of sweet chilli vinegar and as it vigorously simmers, releasing perfumed aromas, add the prawns and cook, stirring a few times.
▶ Once the prawns turn pink, after 1 or 2 minutes of cooking, remove from the heat and season with sea salt flakes.
▶ Once the prawns are cool enough to eat, scatter with parsley and serve with small forks or toothpicks as the perfect sharing starter. Finish off with crusty bread to soak up all that flavour-infused olive oil.
Past winners of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix
2016 Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes-GP)
2015 Nico Rosberg (Mercedes-GP)
2014 Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes-GP)
2013 Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull Racing)
2012 Kimi Raikkonen (Lotus)
2011 Lewis Hamilton (McLaren)
2010 Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull Racing)
2009 Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull Racing)
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Our legal columnist
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Advocate at Al Bahar & Associate Advocates and Legal Consultants, established in 1994
Education: Mr Al Bahar was born in 1979 and graduated in 2008 from the Judicial Institute. He took after his father, who was one of the first Emirati lawyers
From Zero
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Label: Warner Records
Number of tracks: 11
Rating: 4/5
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Classification of skills
A worker is categorised as skilled by the MOHRE based on nine levels given in the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO) issued by the International Labour Organisation.
A skilled worker would be someone at a professional level (levels 1 – 5) which includes managers, professionals, technicians and associate professionals, clerical support workers, and service and sales workers.
The worker must also have an attested educational certificate higher than secondary or an equivalent certification, and earn a monthly salary of at least Dh4,000.
World Cup warm up matches
May 24 Pakistan v Afghanistan, Bristol; Sri Lanka v South Africa, Cardiff
May 25 England v Australia, Southampton; India v New Zealand, The Oval
May 26 South Africa v West Indies, Bristol; Pakistan v Bangladesh, Cardiff
May 27 Australia v Sri Lanka, Southampton; England v Afghanistan, The Oval
May 28 West Indies v New Zealand, Bristol; Bangladesh v India, Cardiff
Dust and sand storms compared
Sand storm
- Particle size: Larger, heavier sand grains
- Visibility: Often dramatic with thick "walls" of sand
- Duration: Short-lived, typically localised
- Travel distance: Limited
- Source: Open desert areas with strong winds
Dust storm
- Particle size: Much finer, lightweight particles
- Visibility: Hazy skies but less intense
- Duration: Can linger for days
- Travel distance: Long-range, up to thousands of kilometres
- Source: Can be carried from distant regions
Venom
Director: Ruben Fleischer
Cast: Tom Hardy, Michelle Williams, Riz Ahmed
Rating: 1.5/5
Score
Third Test, Day 2
New Zealand 274
Pakistan 139-3 (61 ov)
Pakistan trail by 135 runs with 7 wickets remaining in the innings
