The approval could open the door to a range of biologic drugs that are generated in plant cells and then transferred to human patients.

The drug, called Elelyso, is a treatment for a disorder known as Gaucher disease that results from the lack of a specific enzyme. Engineers at Israeli biotech firm Protalix Biotherapeutics figured out how to grow this enzyme in carrot cells by inserting a specific gene into them that encodes for this human enzyme. In trials, subjects who received the “bio-pharmed” version of the enzyme showed improvement comparable to that of subjects given another treatment for Gaucher disease derived from hamster cells.

The ability to manipulate the genes of plant cells to produce certain human enzymes isn’t new, but up until now concerns about human biologics derived from plant cells have kept them from gaining traction with the FDA. But plant-derived biologic treatments have proven successful in drugs given to animals in recent years, and for the first time the FDA seems to have softened its skepticism toward bio-pharmed treatments.

For those suffering from Gaucher disease (it’s a lysosomal storage disorder, in case you were curious) that means another treatment option, and one not susceptible to pathogens that can affect mammalian cell stocks and lead to a shortage of usable drugs--shortages that have actually occurred in recent years. But the bigger impact is in the world of bio-pharming itself. Now that plant-derived human biologics have a foot in the door with the FDA, researchers think they can create enzymes to treat a variety of disorders using bio-pharming techniques.

Source: Popular Science - via zeitnews.org

Instead, it stretches across at least 23 million square miles of earth's tropical oceans; the uppermost layers of which make a prime natural source of thermal energy.

Regardless of time of day or cloud cover, Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) promises to harness this thermal sea-based resource year round.

OTEC production converts heat energy from seawater into kinetic energy using the ocean’s naturally steep temperature gradient.  It’s this juxtaposition of tropical (and sometimes subtropical) subsurface seawater at temperatures typically above 80 degrees F. and below 40 degrees F. that makes OTEC possible.

An OTEC plant literally pumps the warm surface seawater through a heat exchanger connected to a closed circuit filled with several hundred tons of liquid ammonia.  Since ammonia boils at lower temperatures and at lower pressures than water, once the warm seawater hits the heat exchanger, it causes the ammonia to vaporize and expand in volume.  As this ammonia vaporizes, it creates pressure to run a turbine coupled to a generator.  In most cases, the resulting electricity would be delivered onshore via an undersea cable.

Once this ammonia vapor exits the turbine, it flows through a second heat exchanger that is connected to a cold water pipe carrying tons of seawater pumped from depths of 3000 ft.  This cold seawater, in turn, condenses the spent ammonia vapor back into liquid and the whole OTEC process begins again.

But despite the fact that the idea for the technology is more than a century old; to date, OTEC has only been successfully demonstrated on small scales of less than a quarter of a megawatt (MW) and has yet to produce utility-scale power.

Source: Renewable Energy World - via zeitnews.org

On 1 June 2011 in Seville, the Coordinadora para la Prevención y Denuncia de la Tortura (CPDT, a network that includes 44 associations) released its eighth annual "Report on torture in the Spanish state", a comprehensive analysis of cases of torture enacted by police officers and public officials in different contexts that range from demonstrations and prisons to police stations and policing in the streets. The definition that is used in collecting these cases is drawn from art. 1 of the UN Convention against Torture (CAT):

"For the purposes of this Convention, torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions".

The report includes information on 280 cases of attacks and ill-treatment suffered by 853 people, the highest number of victims recorded since the CPDT's first report in 2005 (covering the year 2004) when 755 people were affected and over 300 more victims than in 2010, the year with the lowest number of victims (540). The number of cases has remained roughly stable over these eight years, with a maximum of 319 in 2008 and a minimum of 242 in 2009. The data is not exhaustive because cases have been excluded at the request of victims or if the information received was insufficient or not adequately confirmed, and a significant number of incidents involving violence by police or prison officers are never reported, especially when the victims are prisoners or foreigners. Moreover, the report is based on information gathered by associations that are CPDT members and, hence, there are autonomous communities in which they are not present. In spite of the "spectacular" increase in people who have suffered torture and ill-treatment, the report notes the "trend of not reporting attacks suffered by people who participate in various social mobilisations" due to the fear of becoming involved in counterclaims by the police and to a lack of trust in the authorities that investigate these cases. To illustrate this, the authors refer to a demonstration in Plaza de Catalunya in Barcelona in which the Mossos d'Esquadra (the Catalan police force) intervened forcefully: the medical services officially acknowledged having tended to 120 people, the media reported that 150-200 people were injured, but only 56 people lodged formal complaints.

Three criteria are used to analyse the problem of torture in Spain: the geographical location where it is practised; who the people on the receiving end of violence are; and which bodies or police and security forces have carried out abuses. The highest number of incidents were in the Madrid region (50), followed by Andalucía (48), Catalunya (40), Euskal Herria (the Basque Country, 35), the Valencia region (22), Castilla y León (20), Galicia (18), Aragón (14) and the Balearic islands (10). There were no cases in La Rioja, one in Castilla La Mancha and Melilla, and less than ten cases were recorded in all the other autonomous communities. The number of victims was highest in Catalunya (241), followed by Euskal Herria (158), the Madrid region (111), Andalucía (105), the Balearic islands (60), the Valencia region (55), Castilla y León (40) and Galicia (36). The figures vary somewhat compared to the total because some people suffered violence in different locations and at the hands of different bodies (particularly in the context of anti-terrorist operations in which suspects are transferred to Madrid).
By breaking down the data and comparing it with the population of the different autonomous communities, the outcome is that the average rate of victims per 100,000 people throughout Spain is 1.78, above which there are only four autonomous communities - Euskal Herria tops the chart, with 5.59, followed by the Balearic islands, 5.39, Ceuta, the Spanish enclave in northern Morocco, with 3.64 (for three victims, considering its low population) and Catalunya, with 3.19. Despite recording over 100 victims, the rate for the Madrid region (with a population comparable to Catalunya) is 1.48, the sixth worse nationwide, and Andalucía (the largest autonomous community in terms of population) is tenth with 1.25 per 100,000 people.

Analysis of the personal situation of victims of police violence is divided into six categories: people in incommunicado detention; participants in social mobilisations; migrants; prisoners; minors; and a wide-ranging "others" category (including sports events, identification by officers in the street or alcohol testing for drivers, for example) that tops the list for the number of cases (77), followed by social mobilisations (75), migrants (74), prisoners (64), minors (13) and people in incommunicado detention (6). The highest number of victims was among participants in social mobilisations (433), followed at a distance by "others" (235), migrants (110), prisoners (71), minors (27) and people held incommunicado (18). The total (894) is higher than the total for the year (853) because there are people who belong in more than one category. The high number of victims among participants in social mobilisations must be read within the context of increasing social unrest and the nationwide Indignad@s 15M protest movement, during whose mobilisations (camps in squares, sit-in protests, actions against evictions) police operations resulted in people being wounded. A comparative chart on victims of police ill-treatment during social mobilisations shows that this year's figure of 433 is the highest to date, followed by 2004 when the figure was 368 and then 2009 with 302 victims. The figure for 2010 was 200, less than half the figure for 2011. 246 people, equivalent to 57% of those ill-treated during social mobilisations, were on the receiving end of abuse by police forces during Indignad@s 15M actions, a group that also makes up 28.8% of the total number of affected people. It is worth noting that a majority of the women who were on the receiving end of violence or ill-treatment were participants in social mobilisations (98 out of a total of 148), followed by "others" (20) and migrant women (19).

As for the officers against whom complaints were lodged for cases of torture or ill-treatment, there were 100 cases involving the national police force, with 289 people affected; both the local police forces and the prison service were accused in 64 cases, involving 141 and 71 people respectively; autonomous community police forces were involved in 36 incidents (33 of which concerned the Catalan Mossos d'Esquadra and the Basque Ertzaintza) that were reported and affected 338 people in total (of whom 213 were in Catalunya and 116 in Euskal Herria); complaints were lodged against Guardia Civil [police force with military status] officers in 15 cases affecting 18 people; and, finally, complaints were lodged in four cases against staff from minors' centres affecting 13 people.

By analysing the data on police forces and the typology of victims, it becomes evident that people in incommunicado detention were only allegedly abused by national police (22.2%) and Guardia Civil (77.8%) officers. This is logical, considering that this kind of detention - which has repeatedly drawn criticism from UN Special Rapporteurs on Torture - is used for terrorist suspects who are dealt with in the context of national operations for which these two forces are responsible. Almost half of the participants in social movements who suffered abuses (49.2%) did so at the hands of the Mossos d'Esquadra or the Ertzaintza, whereas the national police force was responsible in 37.9% of cases and local police forces the alleged culprits in 9.8% of cases. Half the migrants (50%) who reported that they had been mistreated accused the national police force, with local police forces responsible in 28.2% of cases.

The CPDT reports that in 2011 there were 51 deaths in custody, which it refers to as an "endemic disease in the Spanish state." It notes that in a decade from 1 January 2001 to 31 December 2011, the CPDT has "directly" learnt of 722 deaths, 65% of them (465) in prisons. The 51 deaths recorded for 2011 include 34 deaths in prison, seven in the custody of the national police force, five in the custody of local police forces, four in the custody of minors' centres' staff, and one in the custody of the Mossos d'Esquadra.

Sources:

"La Tortura en el Estado Español en el año 2011", Coordinadora para la Prevención y Denuncia de la Tortura, Seville, 1 June 2012, summary:
http://www.prevenciontortura.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Info-CPDT-2011-resumen.pdf

Full-text of the report: http://www.statewatch.org/news/2012/jun/spain-cpdt-annual-report-2011.pdf

A recent large study corroborates other independent study surveys comparing unvaccinated children to vaccinated children.

They all show that vaccinated children have two to five times more childhood diseases, illnesses, and allergies than unvaccinated children.

Originally, the recent still ongoing study compared unvaccinated children against a German national health survey conducted by KiGGS involving over 17,000 children up to age 19. This currently ongoing survey study was initiated by classical homoeopathist Andreas Bachmair.

However, the American connection for Bachmair's study can be found at VaccineInjury.info website that has added a link for parents of vaccinated children to participate in the study. So far this ongoing survey has well over 11,000 respondents, mostly from the U.S.A. Other studies have surveyed smaller groups of families.

Nevertheless, the results were similar. Of course, none of these studies were picked up by the MSM (mainstream media). None were funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) or the World Health Organization (WHO) or any national or international health agency or medical profession group (http://healthimpactnews.com).

They don't dare compare the health of unvaccinated children to vaccinated children objectively and risk disrupting their vaxmania (vaccination mania). The focus for all the studies was mostly on childhood illnesses occurring as the children matured.

Dramatic, debilitating, or lethal vaccine injuries were not the focus since so few, five percent or less, actually get reported to VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Injury Reporting System) in the U.S.A. for various reasons including:

* It's a complicated system that takes time from a doctor's practice.
* Most parents don't know about it.
* Only adverse reactions that occur immediately after vaccinations are considered.
* Since VAERS is voluntary, most doctors don't want to incriminate themselves with vaccination injuries and maintain their denial of vaccine dangers.

Consequently, even the most terrible adverse reactions are minimally acknowledged, while long term negative health issues resulting from vaccines are not even considered relevant.

Different surveys summarized

The childhood diseases usually posed to respondents by the independent surveys involved asthma, reoccurring tonsillitis, chronic bronchitis, sinusitis, allergies, eczema, ear infections, diabetes, sleep disorders, bedwetting, dyslexia, migraines, hyperactivity, ADD, epilepsy, depression, and slower development of speech or motor skills.

In 1992, a New Zealand group called the Immunization Awareness Society (IAS) surveyed 245 families with a total of 495 children. The children were divided with 226 vaccinated and 269 unvaccinated. Eighty-one families had both vaccinated and unvaccinated children.

The differences were dramatic, with unvaccinated children showing far less incidence of common childhood ailments than vaccinated children (http://www.vaccineinjury.info/images/stories/ias1992study.pdf).

From a different survey in the South Island New Zealand city of Christchurch, among children born during or after 1977, none of the unvaccinated children had asthma events where nearly 25% of the vaccinated children were treated for asthma by age 10 (http://www.vaccineinjury.info/images/stories/ias1992study.pdf).

Many of the comments from non-vaccinating parents to VaccineInjury.info for the ongoing Bachmair survey mentioned vaccination danger and developing true immunity naturally were concerns (http://www.vaccineinjury.info).

A PhD immunologist who wrote the book Vaccine Illusion, Dr. Tetyana Obukhanych, has gone against the dogma of her medical training and background. She asserts that true immunity to any disease is not conferred by vaccines. Exposure to the disease, whether contracted or not, does (http://www.vaccinationcouncil.org).

Perhaps the most informal grass-roots survey going on now is by Tim O'Shea, DC, author of Vaccination is Not Immunization. He simply has non-vaccinating parents email him with comparisons of their children's health to friends and families they know with vaccinated children. That and more is available on his site (http://www.thedoctorwithin.com).

Sources for this article include:

http://healthimpactnews.com

http://www.vaccineinjury.info/images/stories/ias1992study.pdf

Link to participate in Bachmair survey here: http://www.vaccineinjury.info

http://www.vaccinationcouncil.org

http://www.thedoctorwithin.com

May be of interest for the undecided: http://churnyourown.com/2011/11/28/vaccine-controversy/

Learn more: naturalnews.com/

When the jury in Department 34 of Santa Clara County Superior Court finally sits down to deliberate, the main question facing the nine men and three women sounds simple: Just who is the victim here?

William Lynch, 45, is accused of tracking down Father Jerold Lindner on May 10, 2010, and assaulting him at his Jesuit retirement home. Witnesses testified during the preliminary hearing that Lynch had punched and kicked the elderly priest, yelling: "You ruined my life. Turn yourself in. You molested me."

Lynch and his younger brother sued the Society of Jesus, Lindner's order, 15 years ago, alleging that the priest had raped them and forced them to have sex with each other when Lynch was 7 and his brother 4. The case was settled for $625,000, and Lindner was removed from Loyola High School in Los Angeles, where he had been teaching. The church never informed law enforcement about the allegations.

More than a dozen men and women have accused Lindner of molesting them through the years — including his sister, nieces and nephew. The Catholic Church has settled three cases brought against him, according to a Jesuit spokesman. But the 67-year-old has never faced charges because the statute of limitations for the alleged abuse had run out.

William Lynch, right, hugs his father, John Lynch, as they arrive at a San Jose courthouse. William Lynch is being tried on charges of assault and elder abuse. (Paul Sakuma / Associated Press / June 20, 2012)

Now Lynch has been charged with felony assault and elder abuse, facing up to four years in prison. He turned down a plea agreement, he said in an interview as his trial began here Wednesday, because "I realized it was the only way I could get Father Lindner in court and to have an opportunity to possibly find some justice that way."

Deputy Dist. Atty. Vicki Gemetti began her dramatic opening statement in silence, placing a larger-than-life photo of a dazed and bloodied Lindner on an easel before the jurors. Every seat in the courtroom was filled.

"Who beat up the old man?" Gemetti began. "That's what you thought about when you saw that picture and you didn't know anything else about it. The defendant beat up the old man. The defendant beat this man up because he's angry and wanted revenge.

"The defendant planned and executed a violent attack against the man who molested him over 30 years ago," she continued, saying Lynch had acted as a vigilante. And revenge, Gemetti said, "is not a defense, ever, to a criminal act."

Lynch — and possibly other alleged victims of Lindner — are scheduled to testify in the trial. To blunt the stories of stolen innocence and defuse the power of details that she called "gut-wrenching," Gemetti on Wednesday played a nine-minute video of Lynch describing for the San Jose Mercury News how Lindner had raped and strangled him and forced him to commit incest as the priest watched.

Then she told the jury that the evidence in the trial "will show that he molested the defendant all those years ago."

In addition, Gemetti said, Lindner "will probably lie to you" and say the abuse never happened. But Lynch is the one on trial, she said, and "the evidence in this case will establish that the defendant beat this man. It will be undeniable."

Defense attorney Pat Harris countered the photograph of a Lindner with an elementary school picture of Lynch, age 7, smiling, and a Polaroid of the Lynch boys and their sister. William has his arm around his younger brother.

"The case did not begin in 2010," Harris told the jury. "It began with a 7-year-old boy and his 4-year-old brother … the two of them were on a camping trip with their family."

It was Memorial Day weekend, 1974, and the campout in the Santa Cruz Mountains was sponsored by a group of devout lay Catholics called the Christian Family Movement. "Father Jerry," as he was known then, was the group's spiritual advisor.

Lindner lured Lynch into his tent twice and raped him, Harris said. The first time, the boy was alone. The second time he arrived at Lindner's tent, Lynch's little brother was already there, looking dazed.

Lindner proceeded to rape and sodomize Lynch, Harris said, "then he forced Mr. Lynch and his brother to have a sexual act." Afterward, Harris said, Lindner "told Mr. Lynch, 'You are no longer a child of God. You are dirty.'

"And he threatened that he would do unspeakable acts to his family if they ever told," Harris continued. "For years they didn't."

But Lynch did not act out of revenge, Harris said. After his brother told their parents about the abuse when the two young men were in their 20s, Lynch went to police and to the Catholic Church. He said he and his brother finally filed a civil suit in an effort to get Lindner out of the classroom and away from other young people.

In the years since the alleged abuse, Lynch has suffered from depression and alcohol abuse and twice attempted suicide. He and his brother have since become estranged. "I essentially died that day," Lynch said in an interview after the opening statements.

Source: Los Angeles Times - Copyright ©

In the early 1990s, members of an elite Mexican military squad were trained at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in counter-insurgency and counter-narcotics techniques. Ironically, somewhere between 30 and 200 of the approximately 500 Mexican soldiers who trained there went on to form the Zetas drug cartel, al-Jazeera reports.

Craig Deare, whom al-Jazeera describes as “a former US special operations commander,” told the news network that the Mexican soldiers “were given map reading courses, communications, standard special forces training, light to heavy weapons, machine guns and automatic weapons.”

Al-Jazeera reports:

The Mexican personnel who received US training and later formed the Zetas came from the Airmobile Special Forces Group (GAFE), which is considered an elite division of the Mexican military….
After US training, GAFE operatives defected from the Mexican military to become hired guns, providing security to the Gulf cartel, a well established trafficking organization, according to Laura Carlsen, director of the Americas program of the International Relations Center.
“They split from the Gulf cartel and formed as a cartel in their own right,” Carlsen, based in Mexico City, told Al Jazeera.
The Zetas’ alleged current leaders, Heriberto Lazcano, known as Z-3 and Miguel Trevino, or Z-40, were first recruited by Osiel Cardenas, the now-jailed leader of the Gulf cartel. The name “Zetas” originates from the radio code “Z” used by top military commanders in Mexico.
“Military forces from around the world train at Ft. Bragg, so there is nothing unique about Mexican operatives learning counter-insurgency tactics at the facility,” the news network notes. “However, critics say the specific skills learned by the Zetas primed them for careers as contract killers and drug dealers.”

An estimated 29,000 people have been killed since Mexican President Felipe Calderon declared war on the cartels in 2006.

In recent months the war has been marked with increasingly brazen and violent attacks, such as the slaughter of 72 migrants on the US-Mexico border in August. Police say the massacre may have been related to a dispute between the Zetas cartel and the group they spawned from, the Gulf Cartel.

In September, 27 gunmen believed to have links to cartels were found dead in Ciudad Mier. They were on property owned by the Zetas.

Last year, gunmen believed to be working for the Zetas broke 53 people out of a prison, part of a pattern of prison break-puts allegedly orchestrated by the group.

Source: Raw Story (http://s.tt/1ddz5)

Marchers following the lavender line painted on Fifth Avenue Sunday for New York's annual gay pride march marked the first anniversary of the state's same-sex marriage law.

Throngs of spectators crowded along the sidewalks on Fifth Avenue, waving rainbow-colored flags as participants including Cyndi Lauper as grand marshal, went by. The parade was held one year to the day of same-sex marriage being legalized in New York state.
Among those participating were Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who was accompanied by her wife. They were married last month.

Bloomberg had a message to the rest of America: "The government should get out of your personal life."

"New York is a place where you can do whatever you want to do," he said, before stepping off onto the parade route.

Each year since 1970, the parade has had a different theme. This time, it's called "Share the Love." Organizers say they want other states to pass legislation that allows same-sex marriage in six states and the District of Columbia.

This year marked another first for the movement, with a float carrying active members of the U.S. military who can now openly declare their sexuality while being allowed to still serve.
"It's great to be proud of who we are," said Air Force 1st Lt. Josh Seefried, co-director of OutServe, a network of actively-serving LGBT military personnel.

Source: nypost.com

The Uruguayan government has devised a new measure to fight drug trafficking: lawmakers are to send a bill to Congress on Wednesday that would legalize marijuana sales.

Only the government would be allowed to sell special cigarettes, report local news outlets. The new indulgence would only be available to registered users, though. A limit would be set and those exceeding it would be subject to drug rehabilitation.

The new crime-fighting measure is designed to lift profits from drug dealers – and divert the public from harder drugs. MPs also expect the new measure to go hand in hand with an anti-drug campaign.

Marijuana is not outlawed in Uruguay, where the possession of drugs for personal use has never been criminalized. The country is considered to be serving South American drug traffickers as a big hub for drugs destined for Europe.

In 2007, some 458 kilograms of cocaine were seized in the Latin American country, the biggest cargo of smuggled drugs ever intercepted there.

Source: RT.com

Whoever the perpetrators of the crimes in Syria are, they must know that they will have to answer for their acts in a court of law,” said Switzerland’s representative to the United Nations, Paul Seger, speaking  in an open debate on the protection of civilians at the UN Security Council on Monday.
 
“The fight against impunity is a necessary condition for a lasting peace,” he maintained.

On the subject of humanitarian access to civilians in areas of conflict, he pointed out that such access was becoming increasingly difficult in today’s armed conflicts, and that non-state armed groups “continue to pose a challenge for the protection of civilians”.
 
“Whenever the question of evaluating the interest of engagement is raised, the consequences for civilians are the most important criterion,” he said, and warned of the “potentially negative effects” of some of the measures adopted by some countries in pursuit of the “legitimate goal of fighting terrorism”.
 
“It would be regrettable if these measures complicated or indeed prevented the establishment of a dialogue for purely humanitarian purposes and prevented access to vulnerable populations by humanitarian staff, and the strengthening of respect for international humanitarian law by armed groups,” he said.
 
Earlier this month Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, called for an investigation of the use of drone strikes by the United States to kill suspected militants in Pakistan, saying that they kill innocent civilians.
 
"Drone attacks do raise serious questions about compliance with international law, in particular the principle of distinction and proportionality," she said after a four day fact finding visit to Pakistan.

Source: swissinfo.ch and agencies

Peace envoy Kofi Annan said after talks in Geneva that the government should include members of Assad's administration and the Syrian opposition to pave the way for free elections.

"It is for the people to come to a political agreement but time is running out," Annan said in concluding remarks.

"We need rapid steps to reach agreement. The conflict must be resolved through peaceful dialogue and negotiations."

The Geneva talks had been billed as a last-ditch effort to halt the worsening violence in Syria but hit obstacles as Russia, Assad's most powerful ally, opposed Western and Arab insistence that he must quit the scene.

The final communiqué said the transitional government "could include members of the present government and the opposition and other groups and shall be formed on the basis of mutual consent".

But in a victory for Russian diplomacy, it omitted language contained in a previous draft which explicitly said it "would exclude from government those whose continued presence and participation would undermine the credibility of the transition and jeopardize stability and reconciliation".

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said he was "delighted" with the result as it meant no foreign solution was being imposed on Syria.

But U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said it sent a clear message to Assad that he must step down.

"Assad will still have to go," Clinton told a news conference after the meeting ended.

"What we have done here is to strip away the fiction that he and those with blood on their hands can stay in power."

Annan called the meeting to salvage a peace plan that has largely been ignored by the Assad government. He stressed that the transition must be led by Syrians and meet their legitimate aspirations.

"No one should be in any doubt as to the extreme dangers posed by the conflict - to Syrians, to the region, and to the world," he said in opening remarks.

His plan for a negotiated solution to the 16-month-old conflict is the only one on the table and its failure would doom Syria to even more violence. More than 10,000 people have been killed since the anti-Assad uprising broke out and the past few weeks have been among the bloodiest.

Highlighting the deteriorating situation on the ground, Syrian government forces pushed their way into Douma on the outskirts of Damascus on Saturday after weeks of siege and shelling. Fleeing residents spoke of corpses lying in the streets.

Britain's ITV showed footage of clouds of black smoke over built-up areas and said warplanes had struck at targets in the suburb.

The army also attacked pro-opposition areas in Deir al-Zor, Homs, Idlib and the outskirts of Damascus, opposition activists said.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Assad and his close associates could not lead any transition. Accountability for war crimes must be part of such a process, he added in his speech to the meeting.

Hague called for the U.N. Security Council to start drafting a resolution next week setting out sanctions against Syria, a move that he noted put him at odds with Russia.

The foreign ministers of the council's five permanent members - Russia, the United States, China, France and Britain - all attended along with Turkey, Kuwait, Qatar, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.

Notably uninvited were Iran, Syria's closest regional ally, and Saudi Arabia, a foe of both Damascus and Tehran and leading backer of the rebel forces opposing Assad. Nor was anyone from the Syrian government or opposition represented.

PATH TO WAR

The Syrian conflict has evolved from peaceful protests against the Assad family's four-decade rule to something akin to a civil war with a sectarian dimension.

The world has condemned the ferocity of Assad's forces' crackdown - including military assaults on pro-opposition areas and mass arrests - but has been unable to halt violence which threatens to draw in the region's religious and political rivalries and alliances.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 56 people had been killed across the country on Saturday.

Syria's border with Turkey was also tense following a Turkish military build-up in response to Syria's shooting down of a Turkish warplane last week.

A Syrian witness said Turkish forces stationed on the border opposite the Syrian town of Jandaris fired machineguns in the air in response to Syrian army bombardment of rebel areas.

"It was to tell the Syrian side we are here," the witness said.

Syrian forces reentered Douma and soldiers were carrying out searches in hospitals for dissidents and rebel fighters, activists said. Electricity and water were cut off.

Abo Abdullah, 50, said he and his five children left Douma on Sunday morning fearing attacks by government forces.

"I saw at least three bodies on a street corner, some houses were destroyed, others were on fire. Only a few people remained inside the city. Those who can, leave," he said.

"I saw a body on the side of the street and dogs were gathering around it."

State news agency SANA said security forces were raiding hideouts in Douma of "armed terrorist groups" and had killed, wounded or arrested scores.

Although the government routinely refers to its enemies as foreign-controlled terrorists, Assad himself conceded this week that the country was now in a state of war.

Source: reuters.com - (Additional reporting by Andrew Quinn, Tom Miles and Emma Farge in Geneva and Oliver Holmes and Mariam Karouny in Beirut; Writing by Angus MacSwan; Editing by Andrew Roche)