Arab League Seeks UN Help

The Arab League has demanded that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad resign from his office and turn power over to his vice president. They furthermore called for the Syrian government to start a dialogue with the opposition within two weeks and for a unity government to be formed within two months. The temporary government would then have three months to write a new constitution and then hold parliamentary and presidential elections. The Syrian government quickly rejected the proposal. And now the Arab League will submit it to the UN for international backing.

Til now the Arab League had been content to extend it's observation mission another month, but Saudi Arabia had stated it would pull it's observers out, stating that Syria had not lived up to it's part of the agreement. Under the agreement for observers, Assad's government was to, "cease all violence against civilians, free political detainees, remove tanks and weapons from cities and allow outsiders, including the international news media, to travel freely in Syria". Very little of which happened.

Saturday alone saw the deaths of at least fifty-nine. Since last March when protests began, it is estimated that up to ten thousand have been killed in the violence, that in some areas of the country has gone all the way to civil war.