NEWS, 12.05.2012.

Greek president to urge unity government

Greece's president was set on Saturday to call last-ditch talks in a bid to forge an emergency unity government and avoid fresh elections, after the main parties failed to form a working coalition.Highly-indebted Greece is deeply torn over the tough austerity measures imposed as conditions for its IMF-EU bailouts, and the crisis has raised the threat it could default and leave the 17-member eurozone.Legislative elections last Sunday saw voters punish the mainstream parties and left a fractured political landscape that has raised the spectre of new elections within weeks, amid intense EU pressure over Greek finances.Socialist Pasok leader Evangelos Venizelos said Friday he had failed in the latest bid to form a government, after radical leftist party Syriza refused to join a pro-austerity coalition with the socialists and conservatives.The latest twist in the tortuous political drama came as EU paymaster Germany threatened to cut off the country's loan lifeline and hinted that the crisis-ridden eurozone could get along without Greece.Venizelos was the third party leader who tried and failed to cobble together a government after the inconclusive elections."I am going to inform the president of the republic (Saturday) and I hope that during the meeting with Carolos Papoulias, each party will assume its responsibilities," Venizelos told reporters in Athens.The head of state is then expected to urge party leaders to form a government of national salvation. If the parties cannot agree a compromise by next Thursday, new elections will have to be called.Venizelos had been hoping to win the support of Syriza, a party deeply opposed to the terms of the $311bn EU-IMF bailout and which surged to second place in Sunday's vote.Earlier, another possible ally, the small Democratic Left party, said it would not join a government made up of only Pasok and the conservative New Democracy party that did not include Syriza.Earlier this week both Syriza and the New Democracy party failed in their own attempts to assemble a coalition government.German leaders warned Friday that Athens could expect no more money without reforms and also suggested that the eurozone would cope if the cash-strapped country left the 17-member currency union.

Syria refuses to submit torture report

Syria's authorities have refused to submit a report on torture in the country to a United Nations committee scheduled to discuss the situation there next week, its secretary said on Friday.The Committee Against Torture monitors the implementation of the UN's anti-torture convention by state parties and is currently meeting in Geneva."There is no assurance that a delegation [from Syria] will come but we have been informed that no report would be submitted," committee secretary Joao Nataf told AFP in an email.He added that the meeting would take place on Wednesday as scheduled.The Committee Against Torture is holding its 48th session from 7 May to 1 June when it will focus on a number of countries including Canada, Cuba and Syria.All states party to the convention are required to submit regular reports to the panel of 10 independent experts which then makes recommendations.In November last year chairperson Claudio Grossman wrote to the Syrian authorities highlighting the committee's concern over reports of the spread of torture in the country where a bloody crackdown on protesters was unleashed in March 2011.Grossman asked Damascus to provide a special report stating the measures being taken to ensure its obligations under the Convention Against Torture were being fulfilled.Since the crackdown observers estimate more than 12 000 people have died, including more than 900 since an 12 April truce went into effect.On Tuesday UN-Arab League envoy and broker of the peace plan Kofi Annan told the UN Security Council of his fears that torture, mass arrests and other human rights violations were intensifying in Syria.