...boodling on the grand scale...
and Arab League
...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing...
envoy to Syria Kofi Annan will visit the league's headquarters in Cairo next Wednesday and later head to Damascus
...Capital of the last remaining Baathist regime in the world...
, the head of the pan-Arab bloc said on Thursday.
Annan, a former UN secretary general, "will come to Cairo on March 7," Arabi said. "He will then conducts trips to Syria and countries with influence" on Syria, he added.
Arabi, who repeated his call for a ceasefire in Syria, added that the vaporous Arab League will host a Syrian opposition meeting in two weeks.
Annan on Wednesday said he hoped to be in Damascus soon with a "clear" message that the deadly crackdown on anti-regime protesters and rebels must end.
But Annan also demanded, after meeting UN Secretary General
the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan...
, that the divided international community unite behind his mission as special envoy for the United Nations and Arab League.
Annan and Ban said the priority must be to halt the violence and secure humanitarian access to the Syrian cities where the UN estimates that more than 7,500 people have been killed in the past 11 months.