DAP: The breaking news in Cambodia: “Damascus slams UN resolution on Syria” plus 9 more

BEIJING, Nov. 23 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations General Assembly Third Committee Tuesday adopted a resolution condemning Syria for human rights violations, drawing sharp criticism from Damascus, which called it a U.S.-inspired political move.

The non-binding resolution, sponsored by Britain, France and Germany, was approved by a vote of 122-13 with 41 abstentions. It calls on Syrian authorities to implement an Arab League peace plan calling for the withdrawal of government tanks from the streets.

It also calls for the release of political prisoners, an end to attacks on civilians, and allowing observers into the country.

Syria's UN envoy Bashar Ja'afari said the resolution wouldn't benefit Syria and claimed it was a U.S.-inspired political move.

"Although the draft resolution is submitted primarily from three European countries, it is not a secret that the United States of America is the mastermind and main instigator of the political campaign against my country," Ja'afari said.

China abstained from the vote. The country's Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Wang Min has called on the international community to help ease tensions in Syria, saying that exerting pressure through country-specific resolutions won't resolve differences.

"The international community should play a constructive role in order to create conditions for the easing of tension in Syria," Wang said, adding that China welcomes the mediation plan of the Arab League.

Triggered by anti-government protests in March, the crisis in Syria has lasted for months. The uprising has mainly been peaceful, but is growing more violent with some protesters taking up arms.

Confrontations between security forces and pro- and anti-government protesters have left more than 3,500 people dead, according to UN estimates.

As the crisis unfolded, a Syrian committee charged with drafting a new constitution said it had already laid out the basic principles for the suggested constitution and had established a mini-committee for its final formulation, the independent al-Watan newspaper reported Tuesday.

Quoting a source in the committee, the paper reported that the mini-committee would complete its mission next week and a press conference would be held to clarify the new basic principles for the constitution.

According to the source, the new constitution would be devised on the basis of a democratic and civil state. It said the committee had reviewed a number of constitutions, including the French and Moroccan ones, and was working on a daily basis to complete its mission.

This committee was formed in mid-October by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to prepare for a new constitution.

NEW DELHI, Nov. 23 (Xinhua) -- Seven members of a family were killed and five critically injured when their vehicle rammed into a police outpost in the northern Indian state Uttar Pradesh early Wednesday, reported the Indo-Asian News Service.

The accident took place in Mohamdabad town in Mau district, 250 km from the state capital Lucknow, when the speeding Scorpio ploughed into the police outpost and overturned, killing seven men on the spot.

The driver could be drunk as the car was returning from a wedding function in a nearby village, said police.

PHNOM PENH, Nov. 23 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen said Wednesday this year's flood devastation was a major test for Cambodia's rice export capacity of one million tons by 2015.

He said that the recent flooding was more serious than that in 2000 and it had completely destroyed 190,000 hectares of rice paddies, or eight percent of this year's rice paddies production, according to the updated figure.

"With this damage, if, this year's harvest, we still have the rice paddy surplus of between three and four million tons left for exports, it means that the floods will not affect our scheme to export one million tons of milled rice by 2015," he said during the 16th Government-Private Sector Forum.

Floods in some rice producing countries have driven up the prices of rice on international markets and it is an opportunity for Cambodia, he said, adding that the country expected to export about 180,000 tons of milled rice in 2011.

Currently, Cambodia's milled rice has been exported mostly to the European countries -- a high risk for Cambodia's rice industry, he said, advising the Commerce Ministry to seek its talks with the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and other Asian countries as well as Africa for the exports.

Meanwhile, the premier called for more investment in post- harvest technology to improve the quality of processed rice.

Cambodia aimed at becoming one of the key rice exporters by 2015 by exporting at least of one million tons of rice in that year.

The country has 3.9 million tons of rice paddies, in equivalent to 2.5 million tons of milled rice, left over for exports this year, according to the government report.

However, this country can export only the small amount of its milled rice due to the lack of sophisticated post-harvesting technology.

SANAA, Nov. 23 (Xinhua) -- Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh arrived in Saudi capital Riyadh on Wednesday morning to attend the signing ceremony of a power transfer deal between the government and the opposition, Yemeni state TV and a government official said.

"The president of the Republic arrived safely in Riyadh to attend the signing ceremony of GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) deal and its mechanism," Yemeni TV reported.

"The unannounced visit came upon a request of the Saudi government leaders and the UN secretary general to end the country's 10-month-old unrest after the ruling party and opposition reached a political compromise which was mediated by the UN envoy to Yemen Jamal bin Omar," the Yemeni official told Xinhua.

KABUL, Nov. 23 (Xinhua) -- The UN mission in Afghanistan on Wednesday called on Afghan government to protect the women rights and improve the implementation of law for "Elimination of Violence against Women" in the country.

"Judicial and law enforcement officials are so far implementing sporadically the two-year-old law Elimination of Violence against Women (EVAW) supporting the equality and rights of Afghan women, and the Government has not yet succeeded in implementing the law to the vast majority of cases of violence against women," the United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan (UNAMA) said in a report released here on Wednesday.

The justice sector in some Afghan provinces has applied the EVAW law which is encouraging. But the low number of cases prosecuted and tried shows that a much more active collective effort by justice system actors, government decision-makers and others is needed to urge judicial and local authorities to apply the law to all cases of violence against women, said Staffan de Mistura, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Afghanistan and head of UNAMA.

"Progress on the status of Afghan women over the last ten years, including their 38 percent access to schools, their 69 MPs in Parliament and some women who have qualified as airplane pilots,is undermined by uneven implementation of the Elimination of Violence against Women Law," De Mistura said in the report.

BANGKOK, Nov. 23 (Xinhua) -- A total of 610 people were confirmed dead and three people were missing in the floods that have inundated the upper part of the country for about four months, the Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Department reported on Wednesday.

Four more people were confirmed dead on Tuesday in central province of Suphan Buri.

Floods were caused by the heavy monsoon "Nock-Ten" and overflow from several dams in upper part of the country since mid July.

On Wednesday, floods still prevail in 17 of 77 provinces and are affecting about 4.9 million people from 1.8 million households

The floods have affected about 4.0 million households and about 13.4 million people in 64 of 77 provinces since July 25.

PHNOM PENH, Nov. 23 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen hailed the athletes for their good performances and winning more medals during the 26th Southeast Asian Games (SEA Games) in Indonesia's Jakarta and Palembang from Nov. 11- 22.

"Our athletes have earned up to 50 medals including 8 gold ones from the 26th SEA Games, it's more than in the previous SEA Games in Laos that we earned only 40 medals including 3 gold ones," he said on Wednesday at the end of his speech during the 16th Government-Private Sector Forum (G-PSF) at the Peace Palace.

The Cambodian athletes had contested in 20 sports at the 26th SEA Games.

The government of Cambodia provides 6,000 U.S. dollars for a gold medal winner, 4,000 to the silver medal winner and 2,000 to the bronze medal winner.

Meanwhile, Hun Sen said he would give an additional 3,000 U.S. dollars, 2,000 U.S. dollars and 1,000 U.S. dollars to each of gold, silver and bronze winners respectively.

He said that Cambodia would not host SEA Games before the year 2020 due to limited budget.

"For now, Cambodia needs to mobilize resources to develop physical infrastructures such as roads, bridges, schools, hospitals, irrigation system and so on, so we cannot divert this budget for organizing SEA Games until at least 2020," he said.

KATHMANDU, Nov. 23 (Xinhua) -- Nepali government is all set to form 75 model Village Development Committees (VDCs) in all 75 districts of the country.

The Ministry of Local Development has been preparing guidelines to manage model VDCs and ease selection process of the proposed model VDCs, said Bijaya Kumari Prasai, officer at the ministry.

"A preliminary draft has been prepared and the National Planning Commission has given its nod to it," Prasai was quoted by Wednesday's The Himalayan Times as saying.

There are about 3,915 VDCs in the country. The government, in its budget speech, had announced to declare 75 model VDCs in all districts.

Prasai said the guidelines will soon be forwarded to the cabinet. "After the cabinet approves the guidelines, model VDCs will be selected," she said.

Every District Development Committee will select three VDCs and recommend them to the ministry, which will finally select one VDC from each district, according to the proposed draft.

A model VDC needs to be linked with road to the district headquarters, or be located at a place which takes an hour to reach by bus or three hours on foot from the nearest road.

According to the ministry, the directive will set rules to manage model VDCs. The 75 VDCs will have all infrastructures -- roads, electricity, drinking water, sanitation, education, health services, good governance system and efficient service delivery.

SYDNEY, Nov. 23 (Xinhua) -- Australian renters and home purchasers are struggling with high housing costs, figures released by Australians for Affordable Housing (AAH) on Wednesday showed.

AAH on Wednesday revealed the extent of housing stress across Sydney, along with releasing a list of housing stressed Sydney suburbs.

The suburbs of Auburn, Fairfield, Canterbury, Strathfield and Liverpool are the top five on the list.

AAH spokeswoman Sarah Toohey said Auburn residents suffer the most, with 28 percent experiencing housing stress, while Fairfield had the highest proportion of people experiencing both mortgage stress with 34 percent and private rental stress with 51 percent.

"Areas such as Canterbury, Strathfield, Liverpool and Bankstown all have rates of housing stress over 20 percent," Toohey said.

AAH is calling on the state and federal governments to urgently invest more in public housing and establish a rental affordability scheme.

"Housing is the single biggest cost of living issue in Australia. When low income households spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing costs they are officially in housing stress," Toohey said. 

ISLAMABAD, Nov. 23 (Xinhua) -- At least three policemen were killed and four others injured early Wednesday morning when a group of militants attacked a police station in Dera Ismail Khan, a town in Pakistan's northwest province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, reported local media Duniya.

According to the report, an estimated 14 militants were involved in the attack. Details about the attack are not immediately available.

The report about the attack by militants on a police station in Dera Ismail Khan came just one day after a widely reported ceasefire announced by Pakistani Taliban in the country.

Late on Tuesday, local media quoted a foreign media report as saying that Pakistani Taliban (TTP) had declared a nation-wide ceasefire in support of the peace talks with the Pakistani government and the ceasefire had actually been in effect since October.

However, a lot of clashes between the militants and the security forces have been reported in Pakistan's northwest and southwest regions over the last week or so. Both Pakistani government and army have denied any talks with Pakistani Taliban. Even the Pakistani Taliban spokesman Ihsanullah Ihsan also denied the talks while talking to reporters in Peshawar on telephone on Tuesday.

Wednesday morning's attack on a police station in Dera Ismail Khan is the second serious attack of its kind in the town. Earlier this year, another police station in the town was also attacked by a few suicide attackers, during which some 20 policemen were held hostage by the attackers who later killed themselves or got killed after hours of firing with the security forces coming to rescue the hostages.