Obama proposes corporate tax cut and says system needs to change

President's plan would set a new corporate tax rate of 28% – but Republicans in Congress say that is still too high

guardian.co.uk, Associated Press, Wednesday 22 February 2012 

Barack Obama's plan would mean corporations would have to give up
dozens of cherished loopholes and subsidies. Photograph: Andrew Harrer/EPA

President Barack Obama on Wednesday proposed a lower corporate tax rate and an end to dozens of loopholes he said helps US companies move jobs and profits overseas. "It's not right and it needs to change," he said.

The president wants to lower the US corporate tax rate from the current 35%, the highest in the world after Japan. Under his plan, manufacturers would receive incentives so that their effective tax rate could be even lower.

Obama's election-year plan would set a new 28% corporate tax rate, still higher than the 25% rate sought by congressional Republicans.

"It's a framework that lowers the corporate tax rate and broadens the tax base in order to increase competitiveness for companies across the nation," Obama said in a statement.

Corporations would have to give up dozens of cherished loopholes and subsidies that they now enjoy. Corporations with overseas operations would also face an unspecified minimum tax on their foreign earnings.

The proposal outlined by Geithner would also eliminate tax loopholes and subsidies that Geithner called "fundamentally unfair."

Obama also would set a minimum tax on the foreign earning of US companies.

Chances of accomplishing such change in the tax system are slim in a year dominated mostly with presidential and congressional elections. But for Obama, the proposal is part of a larger tax plan that is central to his re-election strategy.

Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner, who rolled out the plan on Wednesday morning, acknowledged that the debate "will be politically contentious."

"Some will say these proposals are too tough on business, and others will say that they're not tough enough," he said.

Obama's plan would be part of a larger effort to overhaul the US tax system, and it dovetails with Obama's call for raising taxes on millionaires and maintaining current rates on individuals making $200,000 or less. But White House spokesman Jay Carney said Congress could act separately on the corporate tax component of Obama's overall tax strategy.

Republican reaction was mixed. House Ways and Means Committee chairman Dave Camp said he appreciated the administration's plan, though it set a corporate tax rate that is higher than the 25% he has proposed. He faulted Obama, however, for not offering a wholesale overhaul of the entire tax system for businesses and individuals.

"While this is a good step by the administration, I will borrow from the president's own words to Congress from just yesterday: 'Don't stop here. Keep going,'" Camp said in a statement. But seantor Orrin Hatch, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, dismissed the president's plan as a "set of bullet points designed more for the campaign trail than an actual blueprint for fixing our tax code."

While the 35% nominal corporate tax rate ranks among the highest, deductions, credits and exemptions allow many corporations to pay taxes at a much lower rate.

Under the framework proposed by the administration, the rate cuts, closed loopholes and the minimum tax on overseas earning would result in no increase to the deficit.

That means that many businesses that slip through loopholes or enjoy subsidies and pay an effective tax rate that is substantially less than the 35% corporate tax could end up paying more under Obama's plan. Others, however, would pay less while some would simply benefit from a more simplified system.

Reducing the corporate tax rate from 35% to 28% would reduce tax revenues by about $700bn over the next decade, according to an estimate prepared in October by the Joint Committee on Taxation, the official scorekeeper for Congress.

That means lawmakers would have to find about $70bn a year in tax increases to keep the package from adding to the budget deficit, hardly an easy task. In 2010, the corporate income tax raised a total of $278bn, according to the Internal Revenue Service. Corporate income taxes have been shrinking as a share of overall federal taxes for decades. In 2010, corporate income taxes made up just 12% of all federal tax receipts, down from 24% in 1960, according to the IRS.

Geithner said the Obama plan aims to help US businesses, especially manufacturers who face strong international competition. Obama's plan would lower the effective rate for manufacturers to 25% by offering other tax incentives that emphasize development of clean energy systems.

Many members of both parties have said they favor overhauling the nation's individual and corporate tax systems, which they complain have rates that are too high and are riddled with too many deductions.

The corporate tax debate has made its way into the presidential contest. Mitt Romney has called for a 25% rate, Newt Gingrich would cut the corporate tax rate to 12.5%, and Rick Santorum would exempt domestic manufacturers from the corporate tax and halve the top rate for other businesses.

While Obama has been promoting various aspects of his economic agenda in personal appearances and speeches, the decision to leave the corporate tax plan to the Treasury Department to unveil signaled its lower priority.

What's more, the administration's framework leaves much for Congress to decide — a deliberate move by the administration to encourage negotiations but which also doesn't subject the plan to detailed scrutiny.

Obama's plan is not as ambitious as a House Republican proposal that would lower the corporate rate to 25%.

Still, Obama has said corporate tax rates are too high and has proposed eliminating tax breaks for American companies that move jobs and profits overseas. He also has proposed giving tax breaks to US manufacturers, to firms that return jobs to this country and to companies that relocate to some communities that have lost big employers.

Geithner told a House committee last week that the administration wants to create more incentives for corporations to invest in the United States.

"We want to bring down the rate, and we think we can, to a level that's closer to the average of that of our major competitors," Geithner told the House Ways and Means Committee.

White House economic adviser Gene Sperling has advocated a minimum tax on global profits. Currently many corporations do not invest overseas profits in the United States to avoid the 35% tax rate.

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Johnson & Johnson CEO Bill Weldon retires in April

Associated Press, by Linda A. Johson, AP Business Writer, Feb 21, 2012 

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) -- Johnson & Johnson's longtime CEO, Bill Weldon, is retiring this April, following an embarrassing string of product recalls over more than 2 years that has cost the health care giant hundreds of millions of dollars and consumer trust.

(AP Photo/Mel Evans, File)

The maker of Band-Aids and biotech drugs said Tuesday that Weldon will remain chairman of the board for the time being, while ceding the chief executive post to Alex Gorsky, head of the medical device and diagnostics business. The official transfer will be on April 26, the day of the company's next annual shareholders meeting.

Weldon, 63, has spent his entire career at J&J and became chief executive in 2002. The departure is being described as normal succession planning, but Weldon has repeatedly said he had no plans to leave unless asked to do so by the board of directors, which has long been loyal to him.

His tenure has been tarnished by more than two dozen recalls of nonprescription Tylenol, Motrin, Benadryl and other drugs began in 2009. Medical devices and consumer products also have been recalled.

J&J's McNeil Consumer Healthcare unit has had about 25 product recalls since September 2009. Federal regulators have had three of its factories under scrutiny for nearly two years, and one of those, in Fort Washington, Pa., has been shut and is being rebuilt from the ground up.

Meanwhile, the prescription drug division has had at least two drugs, for seizures and HIV, recalled over that time. Gorsky's medical device unit, the company's biggest by revenue, has had faulty hip implants that were painful to patients recalled, along with contact lenses that sting the eyes.

While there haven't been reports of patients harmed by the recalled products, the sheer volume of them is probably unrivaled in the industry. Weldon has repeatedly said he had the problems under control, only to have another recall pop up, with the latest just last week.

William Weldon compensation

 package is about $29.3 million,

 according to page 43 of this SEC

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Occupy movement targets corporate interest group with ties to legislators

Protest planned against the American Legislative Exchange Council, which critics say has undue influence on US lawmakers

guardian.co.uk, Adam Gabbatt in New York, Monday 20 February 2012

Arizona's controversial immigration law, SB 1070, was modelled on Alec's
No Sanctuary Cities for Illegal Immigrants Act. Photograph: Michael Dwyer/AP

Co-ordinated protests are planned in some 60 cities later this month against a right wing group which activists say has an unfair hand in writing state legislation that favours corporate interests.

Working under the banner Shut Down the Corporations, activists plan to target corporate members of the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec) with nationwide protests on 29 February.

Organisers say Alec, a nonprofit free-market policy group whose membership includes some 2,000 state legislators, wields undue influence by drafting legislation beneficial to its corporate members, which in some cases is then used as a model for legislation in states across America.

The nationwide protest is being co-ordinated by Occupy Portland, with activists across the country due to take part – including from Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Oakland.

"We call on people to target corporations that are part of the American Legislative Exchange Council which is a prime example of the way corporations buy off legislators and craft legislation that serves the interests of corporations and not people," reads a statement on Shut Down the Corporations' website.

David Osborn, from Occupy Portland, said "non-violent direct action" was being encouraged, including protests, rallies and sit-ins.

"In different places it's going to look really different," he said. "In some places it's going to be more of a rally, or a protest outside a corporation that's involved with Alec, whether that's Bank of America, or Pfizer, Altria, or whatever. In other places, and certainly here in Portland, it's going to take more of the form of civil disobedience or direct action, where people will be doing a sit-in or other creative things to disrupt business as usual."

Alec was founded in September 1973 as a "nonpartisan membership association for conservative state lawmakers". The organisation, which counts the conservative billionaire Koch brothers among its financial backers, has a membership some of the largest companies in America.

One of the better known examples of Alec's influence can be found in Arizona's SB 1070 bill. The legislation, seen as one of the strictest anti-illegal immigrant laws in America's history and criticised by Barack Obama, was modelled on Alec's "No Sanctuary Cities for Illegal Immigrants Act", which had been approved by an Alec task force made up, in part, of prison companies that stood to benefit from the act being passed.

Democratic lawmakers in Arizona and Wisconsin are seeking to introduce the Alec Accountability Act in their states, which would require Alec to register as a lobbying organisation and subsequently disclose its financiers.

Mark Pocan, a Democratic member of the Wisconsin state assembly who is gunning for Congress in in Wisconsin's 2nd Congressional District, is behind the proposed Wisconsin legislation.

"Alec is like a giant corporate dating service [for] lonely legislators and their special interest corporate allies," Pocan told the Guardian. "Alec operates best when it operates in the shadows. Once people find out that it's really nothing but a front for corporate special interests you start to know that the ideas they put forward aren't in the public good."

Occupy Wall Street has been involved in planning the February 29 protests, which will take place in New York on the day, said Ed Needham, who acts as a spokesman for the group.

"People really see it as an incredible example of the type of corrosive relationship between money and politics," he said.

"It's really to shine a focus on what Alec is and how it's very much an instrument of the corporations in terms of buying off state and federal legislators and crafting legislation that is strictly within the 1% interest."

Last year the Center for Media and Democracy and The Nation magazine published a leak of more than 800 pieces of Alec's model legislation, which can be found on the Alec Exposed website. The list includes legislation that Alec Exposed and Shut Down the Corporations say was used to draft anti-Labour legislation in Wisconsin and the controversial Arizona immigration law.

Kaitlyn Buss, director of communications at Alec, said the protests were "not embarrassing in the slightest".

"Alec feels that we understand that not everyone agrees with the principles that were founded on, which is to promote free markets, limited government and federalism throughout American government," she said. "We fully respect the right and expression of those who are protesting but it's not going to distract us from what our mission is."

Buss said legislation that originates with Alec is "brought to us by state legislatures" and then "approved by their legislative board of directors".

"What we do value is the energy and the job creation of the private sector and argue very strongly that they should be part of conversation of what our laws are, what our regulations are," she said.

"Most of these regulations end up very strongly affecting the private sector of our economy, so Alec, as we promote free markets and limited government, it all works together that we value the private sector, but the actual legislation is very legislative driven."

Alec's website says that "each year, close to 1,000 bills, based at least in part on Alec model legislation, are introduced in the states.

"Of these, an average of 20 percent become law."

Sex-changing treatment for kids: It's on the rise

The Associated Press , by LINDSEY TANNER, AP Medical Writer, Feb 20, 2012

CHICAGO (AP) -- A small but growing number of teens and even younger children who think they were born the wrong sex are getting support from parents and from doctors who give them sex-changing treatments, according to reports in the medical journal Pediatrics.

It's an issue that raises ethical questions, and some experts urge caution in treating children with puberty-blocking drugs and hormones.

An 8-year-old second-grader in Los Angeles is a typical patient. Born a girl, the child announced at 18 months, "I a boy" and has stuck with that belief. The family was shocked but now refers to the child as a boy and is watching for the first signs of puberty to begin treatment, his mother told The Associated Press.

Pediatricians need to know these kids exist and deserve treatment, said Dr. Norman Spack, author of one of three reports published Monday and director of one of the nation's first gender identity medical clinics, at Children's Hospital Boston.

"If you open the doors, these are the kids who come. They're out there. They're in your practices," Spack said in an interview.

Switching gender roles and occasionally pretending to be the opposite sex is common in young children. But these kids are different. They feel certain they were born with the wrong bodies.

Some are labeled with "gender identity disorder," a psychiatric diagnosis. But Spack is among doctors who think that's a misnomer. Emerging research suggests they may have brain differences more similar to the opposite sex.

Spack said by some estimates, 1 in 10,000 children have the condition.

Offering sex-changing treatment to kids younger than 18 raises ethical concerns, and their parents' motives need to be closely examined, said Dr. Margaret Moon, a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics' bioethics committee. She was not involved in any of the reports.

Some kids may get a psychiatric diagnosis when they are just hugely uncomfortable with narrowly defined gender roles; or some may be gay and are coerced into treatment by parents more comfortable with a sex change than having a homosexual child, said Moon, who teaches at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics.

It's harmful "to have an irreversible treatment too early," Moon said.

Doctors who provide the treatment say withholding it would be more harmful.

These children sometimes resort to self-mutilation to try to change their anatomy; the other two journal reports note that some face verbal and physical abuse and are prone to stress, depression and suicide attempts. Spack said those problems typically disappear in kids who've had treatment and are allowed to live as the opposite sex.

Guidelines from the Endocrine Society endorse transgender hormone treatment but say it should not be given before puberty begins. At that point, the guidelines recommend puberty-blocking drugs until age 16, then lifelong sex-changing hormones with monitoring for potential health risks. Mental health professionals should be involved in the process, the guidelines say. The group's members are doctors who treat hormonal conditions.

Those guidelines, along with YouTube videos by sex-changing teens and other media attention, have helped raise awareness about treatment and led more families to seek help, Spack said.

His report details a fourfold increase in patients at the Boston hospital. His Gender Management Service clinic, which opened at the hospital in 2007, averages about 19 patients each year, compared with about four per year treated for gender issues at the hospital in the late 1990s.

The report details 97 girls and boys treated between 1998 and 2010; the youngest was 4 years old. Kids that young and their families get psychological counseling and are monitored until the first signs of puberty emerge, usually around age 11 or 12. Then children are given puberty-blocking drugs, in monthly $1,000 injections or implants imbedded in the arm.

In another Pediatrics report, a Texas doctor says he's also provided sex-changing treatment to an increasing number of children; so has a clinic at Children's Hospital Los Angeles where the 8-year-old is a patient.

The drugs used by the clinics are approved for delaying puberty in kids who start maturing too soon. The drugs' effects are reversible and Spack said they've caused no complications in his patients. The idea is to give these children time to mature emotionally and make sure they want to proceed with a permanent sex change. Only one of the 97 opted out of permanent treatment, Spack said.

Kids will more easily pass as the opposite gender, and require less drastic treatment later, if drug treatment starts early, Spack said. For example, boys switching to girls will develop breasts and girls transitioning to boys will be flat-chested if puberty is blocked and sex-hormones started soon enough, Spack said.

Sex hormones, especially in high doses when used long-term, can have serious side effects, including blood clots and cancer. Spack said he uses low, safer doses but that patients should be monitored.

Gender-reassignment surgery, which may include removing or creating penises, is only done by a handful of U.S. doctors, on patients aged at least 18, Spack said. His clinic has worked with local surgeons who've done breast removal surgery on girls at age 16, but that surgery can be relatively minor, or avoided, if puberty is halted in time, he said.

The mother of the Los Angeles 8-year-old says he's eager to begin treatment.

When the child was told he could get shots to block breast development, "he was so excited," the mother said.

He also knows he'll eventually be taking testosterone shots for life but surgery right now is uncertain.

The child attends a public school where classmates don't know he is biologically a girl. For that reason, his mother requested anonymity.

She said she explained about having a girl's anatomy but he rejected that, refused to wear dresses, and has insisted on using a boy's name since preschool.

The mother first thought it was a phase, then that her child might be a lesbian, and sought a therapist's help to confirm her suspicion. That's when she first heard the term "gender identity disorder" and learned it's often not something kids outgrow.

Accepting his identity has been difficult for both parents, the woman said. Private schools refused to enroll him as a boy, and the family's pediatrician refused to go along with their request to treat him like a boy. They found a physician who would, Dr. Jo Olson, medical director of a transgender clinic at Children's Hospital Los Angeles.

Olson said the journal reports should help persuade more doctors to offer these kids sex-changing treatment or refer them to specialists who will.

"It would be so nice to move this out of the world of mental health, and into the medical world," Olson said.

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Arizona sheriff quits Romney campaign over alleged threat to deport ex-lover

Paul Babeu, co-chairman in Arizona of Republican hopeful's campaign, says claim is false but stands aside

guardian.co.uk, Associated Press, Sunday 19 February 2012

Arizona sheriff Paul Babeu at a press conference where he denied threatening
 to deport an ex-lover. Babeu has resigned from the Romney campaign.
Photograph: Deirdre Hamill/AP/Arizona Republic

An Arizona sheriff has resigned as co-chairman of Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney's campaign in the state after he was accused of threatening a former lover with deportation to Mexico if he talked about their relationship.

Paul Babeu, Pinal county sheriff, denied he or his lawyer made the deportation threat but stepped down from helping the former Massachusetts governor who is seeking the presidential nomination.

Babeu acknowledged a previous relationship with the man making the allegations, whom he identified only as Jose.

The Romney campaign said in a statement: "Sheriff Babeu has stepped down from his volunteer position with the campaign so he can focus on the allegations against him. We support his decision."

Babeu, a tough law-and-order advocate, was considered a rising star in state Republican politics and a strong candidate to win the party nomination for a congressional seat in Arizona this year.

The Phoenix New Times newspaper reported this week that Babeu's lawyer had asked Jose to sign a legal agreement that would require him to keep quiet about his involvement with the sheriff . According to the newspaper the lawyer also warned Jose that any talk about their relationship could imperil his immigration status.

"All of these allegations that were in one of these newspapers were absolutely false, except for the issue that referred to me as being gay, and that is the truth. I am gay," Babeu told the news conference.

Babeu first came to statewide prominence in 2010 when he appeared in a campaign ad for the US senator John McCain of Arizona, who was the Republican presidential nominee two years earlier, calling for tough immigration measures.

Babeu is a strong critic of the handling of immigration issues by Barack Obama's administration. Republicans are choosing a candidate to challenge Obama for the presidency in November's election.

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 by raising taxes, from the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington
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China backs Assad before Syrian forces open fire at funeral

Beijing's deputy foreign minister argues for 'stability' as regime continues to target protesters

guardian.co.uk, Conal Urquhart and agencies, Saturday 18 February 2012 

An image grab taken from a video uploaded to YouTube showing
Syrian mourners coming under fire. Photograph: -/AFP/Getty Images

China has expressed support for President Bashar al-Assad's regime as Syrian security forces continue to target pro-democracy protesters.

The endorsement of Assad by Chinese deputy foreign minister Zhai Jun on Saturday came shortly before Syrian troops opened fire on a funeral procession in Damascus.

Zhai, who met Syrian opposition and government representatives before backing Assad, said China was "deeply concerned by the escalating crisis" but added that "the Chinese experience shows a nation cannot develop without stability".

The Chinese official said his government supported Syria's plan for a referendum on constitutional reform next week. "China supports the path of reform taking place in Syria and the important steps that have been taken in this respect," he said.

A few hours later, Syrian forces opened fire on the funeral of three men killed by security forces on Friday, killing at least one person.

"They started firing at the crowd right after the burial. People are running and trying to take cover in the alleyways," a witness told Reuters by telephone.

The opposition Syrian Revolution Co-ordination Union said the gunfire near the cemetery had killed one mourner and wounded four, including a woman who was hit in the head.

Up to 30,000 demonstrators had taken to the streets in the capital's Mezze district, near the headquarters of air force intelligence and that of the ruling Ba'ath party.

Footage of the funeral broadcast on the internet showed women ululating to honour the victims. Mourners shouted: "We sacrifice our blood, our soul for you martyrs. One, one, one, the Syrian people are one."

YouTube footage from the Damascus suburb of Douma showed several thousand protesters at the funerals of two people said to have been killed there by security forces. The bodies were carried though crowds of mourners waving pre-Ba'ath Syrian flags.

The Chinese embassy said Zhai held separate meetings with moderate opposition figures Qadri Jamil, Louay Hussein and Hassan Abdulazim, but gave no details.

"We told the Chinese envoy that most of the opposition accept a dialogue if that dialogue is serious and responsible, meaning that the Syrian authorities would implement what is agreed. But the problem with dialogue is that the authorities have lost credibility," Hussein told Reuters.

Fighting has continued across Syria during the envoy's visit. In Homs, there was no let-up in the bombardment of the city by government forces. Rebels set fire to a fuel tank at a refinery in the city.

The state news agency, Sana, said that 10 members of the security forces were buried on Saturday. A soldier and a local councillor were killed by gunmen in Idlib and Aleppo, the agency said.

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Chris Christie vetoes New Jersey same-sex marriage bill

Republican governor acts on his vow to reject measure and reaffirms view that state's voters should have final say on issue

guardian.co.uk, Associated Press, Saturday 18 February 2012

Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey, has vetoed the same-sex
marriage  bill passed the day before by the state assembly.
Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

The governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, has rejected a bill allowing same-sex marriage in the state and renewed his call for a ballot question to decide the issue.

His veto came a day after the state assembly passed the bill. The state senate had passed it on Monday. Christie, a Republican who opposes same-sex marriage, had vowed "very swift action" once the measure reached his desk.

In returning the bill to the legislature, Christie reaffirmed his view that voters should decide whether to change the definition of marriage in New Jersey. His veto also proposed creating an ombudsman to oversee compliance with the state's civil union law, which same-sex couples have said is flawed and promotes discrimination.

"I am adhering to what I've said since this bill was first introduced – an issue of this magnitude and importance, which requires a constitutional amendment, should be left to the people of New Jersey to decide," Christie said in a statement. "I continue to encourage the legislature to trust the people of New Jersey and seek their input by allowing our citizens to vote on a question that represents a profoundly significant societal change. This is the only path to amend our state constitution and the best way to resolve the issue of same-sex marriage in our state."

Democrats who had pushed the bill forward said they were disappointed, but not surprised, by Christie's action.

"He had a chance to do the right thing, and failed miserably," said Steve Sweeney, the senate president.

Lambda Legal, a civil rights organisation focusing on gay rights issues that last year filed a lawsuit for marriage equality in New Jersey, called Christie's veto "an unfortunate detour" in the quest for gay marriage.

Proponents of the bill said gay marriage is a civil right being denied to gay couples, while opponents said the definition of marriage as a heterosexual institution should not be expanded. The legislation contains a religious opt-out clause, meaning no church clergy would be required to perform gay marriages and places of worship would not have to allow same-sex weddings at their facilities.

Washington governor, Chris Gregoire – another gay marriage supporter – also reached out to Christie, a practising Catholic. Gregoire sent a letter last month offering to talk about gay marriage because, in her words, "while I am a governor, I am also a Catholic."

The Roman Catholic church opposes same-sex marriage.

Gregoire signed a gay marriage measure into law in Washington on Monday. Her spokeswoman said Christie hasn't responded to the letter.

Thirty states, including South Carolina, have adopted constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriages, most by defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

Six states and Washington, the capital district, allow gay marriage. Washington state's new gay marriage law is set to go into effect in June.

Lawmakers in New Jersey have until the end of the legislative session in January 2014 to override the veto.

Democrats are hoping that support for gay marriage – 52 percent for gay marriage, 42 against it, in New Jersey, according to one recent voter poll – will continue growing.

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UN General Assembly passes Syria resolution

Deutsche Welle, 16 February 2012

The United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution calling for an end to violence in Syria and an end to the rule of President Bashar al-Assad.

The United Nations General Assembly has passed an Arab-led resolution condemning rights violations in Syria and calling on President Bashar al-Assad to step down.

The measure would be non-binding and is expected to make little difference on the ground.

The resolution passed 137-12, with 17 abstentions. China and Russia were among the countries their votes against the measure. Both countries vetoed a similar resolution earlier this month at the UN Security Council. Vetoes are not allowed in the 193-member General Assembly.

Killing continues

As the General Assembly convened to discuss Syria, violence on the ground in opposition hotspots around the country intensified. At least 41 people were reportedly killed when regime tanks moved on protest hubs. 

Tanks have been bearing down on
Syrian opposition cities for weeks

Assad's troops pummeled the central city of Homs for a 13th straight day, with 18 people killed in central Hama province and four others dying in the southern city of Daraa, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group reported.

The group also said it feared security forces had carried out killings in Daraa province, where dozens of civilians disappeared on Wednesday.

"There are fears regime forces carried out a massacre in Sahm al-Julan," the Britain-based group said in a statement.

"Witnesses said security forces shot at the civilians and then piled them onto pick-up trucks. Their fate is unknown," said the Observatory, which provided the names of 14 of those feared killed.

There were also reports Thursday that the well-known blogger Razan Ghazzawi and rights activist Mazen Darwish had been detained by security forces.

Human rights groups put the cumulative civilian death toll from 11 months of crackdown and conflict in Syria at around 7,000.

Ban condemnation

Earlier Thursday, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon had called for an urgent end to the "indiscriminate" shelling of civilians in Syria, highlighting the likelihood that the regime had committed crimes against humanity. 

Homs has been under bombardment
for nearly two weeks

"We see neighborhoods shelled indiscriminately, hospitals used as torture centers, children as young as 10 years old killed and abused. We see almost certain crimes against humanity," Ban told reporters in Vienna.

"What is important at this time is that first the Syrian authorities must stop killing their own people," Ban said after meeting Austrian President Heinz Fischer.

International attention continues to focus on Syria away from the United Nations forum, with China announcing that Deputy Foreign Minister Zhai Jun would visit Damascus on February 17 and 18 for talks aimed at ending the violence.

The United States, meanwhile, has announced new sanctions against the Iranian intelligence ministry, claiming it has supported the crackdown on dissent in Syria.

dfm/rc (AFP, dpa)

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