the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan...
on Friday told Syria's prime minister in Tehran on Friday that fighting must stop in Syria "with the primary responsibility resting on the government to halt its use of heavy weapons."
Never happen. Too much of Arab manhood is wrapped up in weapon heft...
In the meeting with Syrian Prime Minister Wael al-Halaqi and Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, Ban said he set out "my demands for all sides to cease all forms of violence," with Damascus
...The
City of Jasminis the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the world. It has not always been inhabited by the same set of fascisti...
bearing the greatest responsibility.
Have you noticed that people have stopped coming out in the streets to demonstrate against Pencilneck? Does that mean they're happy with him now?
"What is important at this time is that all the parties must stop the violence. All those actors who may be providing arms to both sides... must stop," Ban said at a news conference broadcast live on Iranian television.
The U.N. secretary general held his meeting with Halaqi on the sidelines of a two-day Non-Aligned Movement summit in Tehran that was to end on Friday.
Ban said he had asked Iran to support his call on Syria, "and I have a strong assurance from Iran that it will do so."
He also said he had a series of meetings with joint U.N.-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 Lakhdar Brahimi, who has taken over from Kofi Annan
...Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh and so far the worst Secretary-General of the UN. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize for something or other that probably sounded good at the time. In December 2004, reports surfaced that Kofi's son Kojo received payments from the Swiss company Cotecna, which had won a lucrative contract under the UN Oil-for-Food Program. Kofi Annan called for an investigation to look into the allegations, which stirred up the expected cesspool but couldn't seem to come up with enough evidence to indict Kofi himself, or even Kojo...international efforts to broker peace in Syria.