AMMAN // Syrian troops and militia loyal to President Bashar Al Assad captured and then shot dead 27 young men in northern villages, while two foreign journalists were killed in shelling of the city of Homs, activists said today.
The two journalists were killed when shells hit the house they were staying in, activists and witnesses said. They were named as Marie Colvin, an American working for Britain's Sunday Times newspaper, and French photographer Remi Ochlik.
A witness told Reuters by phone that shells hit the house where the journalists were staying and a rocket hit them as they were escaping.
A Homs-based activist, Omar Shaker, also said two other journalists were wounded, including a photographer for the Sunday Times and a Spanish reporter.
He said the journalists were killed when several rockets hit a garden of a house used by activists and journalists in the Baba Amr area of the city, which has come under weeks of heavy bombardment by Syrian forces. Mr Shaker said the bodies were taken to a makeshift hospital in Baba Amr.
The journalists' deaths came a day after Rami Al Sayyed, a prominent activist and citizen journalist in Baba Amr who was famous for posting online videos, was killed in a rocket attack.
Al Sayyed, 26, was hit "while taking a family to the makeshift hospital," said Hadi Abdullah of the General Commission of the Syrian Revolution, adding that he died after bleeding for more than two hours. "Today there will be no live broadcast because Rami is gone," Mr Abdullah said.
The UN estimates that 5,400 people have been killed in repression by Mr Assad's regime against a popular uprising that began 11 months ago. Syrian activists, however, put the death toll at more than 7,300.
Alain Juppe, the French foreign minister, said the attacks on journalists show the "increasingly intolerable repression" by Syrian forces.
Violence continues to spread. Several YouTube videos taken by activists in Idlib, which could not be independently confirmed, showed bodies of young men with bullet wounds and hands tied lying dead in streets.
The men, all civilians, were mostly shot in the head or chest yesterday in their homes or in streets in the villages of Idita, Iblin and Balshon in Idlib province near the border with Turkey, the Syrian Network for Human Rights said.
"Military forces chased civilians in these villages, arrested them and killed them without hesitation. They concentrated on male youths and whoever did not manage to escape was to be killed," the organisation said in a statement.
"Responsibility for this massacre lies with the general commander of the military and armed forces, Bashar Al Assad," the statement said, adding that only one youth survived the shootings.
One video shows the body of three youths, one visibly shot in the chest, on the floor of a house in Balshon.
"This is martyr Hassan Abdel Qadi Al Saeed, his brother Hussein and [their relative] Bashir Mohammed Al Saeed. They were liquidated by Assad's forces in the February 21 massacre," a voice of a man showing the bodies says.
The raids came as the United States appeared to open the door to eventually arming the Syrian opposition, saying that if a political solution to the crisis was impossible it might have to consider other options.
The comments, made by officials at both the White House and the US State Department yesterday, marked a shift in emphasis by Washington, which so far has stressed a policy of not arming the opposition and has said little about alternatives.
"We still believe that a political solution is what's needed in Syria," Jay Carney, a White House spokesman, said.
"We don't want to take actions that would contribute to the further militarisation of Syria, because that could take the country down a dangerous path. But we don't rule out additional measures."
Asked if the United States was shifting its stance on arming the rebels, US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Washington did not want to see the violence increase and was concentrating on political efforts to halt the bloodshed.
"That said ... if we can't get Assad to yield to the pressure that we are all bringing to bear, we may have to consider additional measures," she said, declining to elaborate.
Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, will meet representatives of some 70 countries and organisations in Tunis on Friday for the first "Friends of Syria" meeting to coordinate the international community's next steps in response to the nearly year-long uprising against Mr Al Assad.
The United States and its allies hope the Tunis conference will allow them to begin drawing up a plan for Syria after Russia and China vetoed a Western-backed Arab League peace plan at the UN Security Council.
With both Russia and Iran firmly backing Mr Assad's government, political analysts say tacit US support for arming rebel fighters could be risky given Syria's complex ethnic and religious make-up and strategically important position.
In Syria yesterday, activists said Mr Assad's forces killed more than 60 people in attacks on villages and an artillery barrage in Homs. The Red Cross called for daily ceasefires to allow in urgently needed aid.
A Syrian opposition figure who managed to get into Homs appealed for international help.
"The sound of bombardment and sniper fire are echoing across the city," Moulham Al Jundi, a member of the Syrian National Council, told Reuters from Homs.
"The army prevents first aid or medical supplies from going in and electricity is cut off 15 hours a day. There has been no mobile phone service for three weeks," said Mr Jundi, who lives in exile in Saudi Arabia and was smuggled into Homs.
"Civilians need safe zones and a way has to be found to ensure that medicine and basic supplies reach Homs. There are no hospitals, no schools, no work, no government departments open and most shops are shut."
A delegation from the Syrian National Council, the main Syrian opposition grouping, is due to meet Red Cross officials in Geneva today.
Activists' accounts of the violence could not be independently verified. The government bars most foreign journalists from Syria.
Official media said government forces were targeting "armed terrorist groups who have been terrifying citizens and attacking security forces and robbing public and private property".
Mountain%20Boy
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Formula Middle East Calendar (Formula Regional and Formula 4)
Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai
Round 4: February 14-16, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia
ANATOMY%20OF%20A%20FALL
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Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
ETFs explained
Exhchange traded funds are bought and sold like shares, but operate as index-tracking funds, passively following their chosen indices, such as the S&P 500, FTSE 100 and the FTSE All World, plus a vast range of smaller exchanges and commodities, such as gold, silver, copper sugar, coffee and oil.
ETFs have zero upfront fees and annual charges as low as 0.07 per cent a year, which means you get to keep more of your returns, as actively managed funds can charge as much as 1.5 per cent a year.
There are thousands to choose from, with the five biggest providers BlackRock’s iShares range, Vanguard, State Street Global Advisors SPDR ETFs, Deutsche Bank AWM X-trackers and Invesco PowerShares.
Company%20Profile
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EName%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EDirect%20Debit%20System%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarted%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Sept%202017%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20UAE%20with%20a%20subsidiary%20in%20the%20UK%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EIndustry%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20FinTech%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFunding%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Undisclosed%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestors%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Elaine%20Jones%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ENumber%20of%20employees%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%208%3Cbr%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Director: Laxman Utekar
Cast: Vicky Kaushal, Akshaye Khanna, Diana Penty, Vineet Kumar Singh, Rashmika Mandanna
Rating: 1/5
Neil Thomson – THE BIO
Family: I am happily married to my wife Liz and we have two children together.
Favourite music: Rock music. I started at a young age due to my father’s influence. He played in an Indian rock band The Flintstones who were once asked by Apple Records to fly over to England to perform there.
Favourite book: I constantly find myself reading The Bible.
Favourite film: The Greatest Showman.
Favourite holiday destination: I love visiting Melbourne as I have family there and it’s a wonderful place. New York at Christmas is also magical.
Favourite food: I went to boarding school so I like any cuisine really.
How green is the expo nursery?
Some 400,000 shrubs and 13,000 trees in the on-site nursery
An additional 450,000 shrubs and 4,000 trees to be delivered in the months leading up to the expo
Ghaf, date palm, acacia arabica, acacia tortilis, vitex or sage, techoma and the salvadora are just some heat tolerant native plants in the nursery
Approximately 340 species of shrubs and trees selected for diverse landscape
The nursery team works exclusively with organic fertilisers and pesticides
All shrubs and trees supplied by Dubai Municipality
Most sourced from farms, nurseries across the country
Plants and trees are re-potted when they arrive at nursery to give them room to grow
Some mature trees are in open areas or planted within the expo site
Green waste is recycled as compost
Treated sewage effluent supplied by Dubai Municipality is used to meet the majority of the nursery’s irrigation needs
Construction workforce peaked at 40,000 workers
About 65,000 people have signed up to volunteer
Main themes of expo is ‘Connecting Minds, Creating the Future’ and three subthemes of opportunity, mobility and sustainability.
Expo 2020 Dubai to open in October 2020 and run for six months
Specs
Engine: Duel electric motors
Power: 659hp
Torque: 1075Nm
On sale: Available for pre-order now
Price: On request
Specs
Engine: 51.5kW electric motor
Range: 400km
Power: 134bhp
Torque: 175Nm
Price: From Dh98,800
Available: Now
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
SPEC%20SHEET%3A%20APPLE%20M3%20MACBOOK%20AIR%20(13%22)
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Test
Director: S Sashikanth
Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan
Star rating: 2/5
Racecard
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The biog
Name: Shamsa Hassan Safar
Nationality: Emirati
Education: Degree in emergency medical services at Higher Colleges of Technology
Favourite book: Between two hearts- Arabic novels
Favourite music: Mohammed Abdu and modern Arabic songs
Favourite way to spend time off: Family visits and spending time with friends
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
Our legal consultants
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
If you go...
Fly from Dubai or Abu Dhabi to Chiang Mai in Thailand, via Bangkok, before taking a five-hour bus ride across the Laos border to Huay Xai. The land border crossing at Huay Xai is a well-trodden route, meaning entry is swift, though travellers should be aware of visa requirements for both countries.
Flights from Dubai start at Dh4,000 return with Emirates, while Etihad flights from Abu Dhabi start at Dh2,000. Local buses can be booked in Chiang Mai from around Dh50
How much sugar is in chocolate Easter eggs?
- The 169g Crunchie egg has 15.9g of sugar per 25g serving, working out at around 107g of sugar per egg
- The 190g Maltesers Teasers egg contains 58g of sugar per 100g for the egg and 19.6g of sugar in each of the two Teasers bars that come with it
- The 188g Smarties egg has 113g of sugar per egg and 22.8g in the tube of Smarties it contains
- The Milky Bar white chocolate Egg Hunt Pack contains eight eggs at 7.7g of sugar per egg
- The Cadbury Creme Egg contains 26g of sugar per 40g egg
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Also on December 7 to 9, the third edition of the Gulf Car Festival (www.gulfcarfestival.com) will take over Dubai Festival City Mall, a new venue for the event. Last year's festival brought together about 900 cars worth more than Dh300 million from across the Emirates and wider Gulf region – and that first figure is set to swell by several hundred this time around, with between 1,000 and 1,200 cars expected. The first day is themed around American muscle; the second centres on supercars, exotics, European cars and classics; and the final day will major in JDM (Japanese domestic market) cars, tuned vehicles and trucks. Individuals and car clubs can register their vehicles, although the festival isn’t all static displays, with stunt drifting, a rev battle, car pulls and a burnout competition.
The specs: 2018 Renault Koleos
Price, base: From Dh77,900
Engine: 2.5L, in-line four-cylinder
Transmission: Continuously variable transmission
Power: 170hp @ 6,000rpm
Torque: 233Nm @ 4,000rpm
Fuel economy, combined: 8.3L / 100km
At a glance
Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year
Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month
Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30
Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse
Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth
Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances