Democracy Now! July 9, 2012

July 09, 2012 from Democracy Now! via Creative Commons License BY-NC-ND

United Nations and Arab League envoy Kofi Annan met today with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the midst of worsening violence. The Justice Department and the Texas legislature are squaring off in court today over the state's controversial voter ID law. And Oakland City Council has voted unanimously to end a contract with Goldman Sachs over high interest rates. Plus headlines, and more.

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Bashar al-Assad

Bashar Hafez al-Assad is the President of Syria and Regional Secretary of the Syrian-led branch of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party. He has served as President since 2000, when he succeeded his father, Hafez al-Assad, who had ruled Syria for 30 years prior to his death. Al-Assa... Explore this topic

Kofi Annan

Kofi Atta Annan is a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations, from 1 January 1997 to 31 December 2006. Annan and the United Nations were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize for his founding of the Global AIDS and Health F... Explore this topic

Syrian Civil War

The Syrian civil war is an ongoing armed conflict in Syria between forces loyal to the Syrian Ba'ath Party government and those seeking to oust it. The conflict began on 15 March 2011, with popular demonstrations that grew nationwide by April 2011. These demonstrations were pa... Explore this topic

Syria

Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south and Israel to the southwest. A country of fertile plains, high mountains and deserts, i... Explore this topic

Kofi Annan peace plan for Syria

The Kofi Annan peace plan for Syria or the six-point peace plan for Syria, launched in February 2012, is considered the most serious international attempt to resolve the Syrian civil war in the Middle East diplomatically. The peace plan enforced a cease-fire to take place acro... Explore this topic

War Crime

A war crime is a serious violation of the laws applicable in armed conflict giving rise to individual criminal responsibility. Examples of war crimes include "murder, the ill-treatment or deportation of civilian residents of an occupied territory to slave labor camps," "the mu... Explore this topic

Ban Ki-moon

Ban Ki-moon is the eighth and current Secretary-General of the United Nations, after succeeding Kofi Annan in 2007. Before becoming Secretary-General, Ban was a career diplomat in South Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in the United Nations. He entered diplomatic servic... Explore this topic

Hillary Clinton

Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton is an American politician and diplomat who was the 67th United States Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013, serving under President Barack Obama. She was previously a United States Senator for New York from 2001 to 2009. As the wife of President Bi... Explore this topic

Civilian casualties

Civilian casualties is a military term describing civilian persons killed, injured, or imprisoned by military action. Civilian casualties can be associated with the outcome of any form of military action regardless of whether civilians were targeted directly or not. This diffe... Explore this topic

Friends of Syria Group

The Group of Friends of the Syrian People is an international diplomatic collective of countries and bodies convening periodically on the topic of Syria outside the U.N. Security Council. The collective was created in response to a Russian and Chinese veto on a Security Counci... Explore this topic

Also See

United States

Bashar al-Assad

Kofi Annan

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Britain and the United States have called for Syrian president Bashar al-Assad to step down, and UN chief Ban Ki-moon has urged the Security Counci...