mus4.net

• State media reports many casualties in Aleppo bomb attacks
• Confusion over Free Syrian Army claim of responsibility
• Residents trapped in Homs as the week-long siege goes on
• Obama condemns 'outrageous bloodshed'

Read the latest summary

5.49pm: The Local Co-ordination Committees says 52 people have been confirmed killed by the security forces in Syria today. Homs once again saw the biggest death toll with 16. There were also 15 in Damascus Suburbs, 13 in Aleppo, five in Deraa, two in Deir Ezzor and one in Hama, according to the LCC.

Its report cannot be independently verified.

5.31pm: In a lengthier report than usual, the Local Co-ordination Committees group paints a dire picture of the situation in Zabadani, the rebel-held town close to the Lebanese border. It says seven people are known to have been killed there today:

The brutal shelling of Zabadany continues into its sixth consecutive day, with over 150 mortar and artillery shells dropped on various parts of the city, resulting in the complete demolition of seven homes and partial destruction of 40 homes, the complete demolition of Maree mosque and the city's church, and damging two other mosques. Since the beginning of the shelling, 35 homes have been completely destroyed and 400 homes have been damaged.

Today, seven people were martyred and forty people were injured. Known among the martyrs are: two young men from the Zaleikha family, a young man from the Dalati family, a young man from the Nasab family, a child from the Shamali family and Akarm Olbeh. This is in addition to over two hundred missing people, whose whereabouts are unknown, especially considering that ruins cannot be cleared due to the intensity of the fire.

The brutal shelling targeted the entire infrastructure of the city, the electricity network was targeted, the garage of the civil defense and the fire trucks, Al Jarjaniah hospital, the electricity generators, even the spare ones, all were targeted ... On the human side, the city is suffering from water scarcity because there is no electricity to pump the water to the houses, all the rations [are] finished from the city which is being besieged since more than 10 days [ago] ...all kind of food, fuel or anything similar were not allowed to enter the city since then. On the healthcare side, all the medical supplies, including medical gauze finished, while tens of injured are still in the city as there are no safe way to transfer them to another place.

The military forces are located now on the south entrance ...about 300m from the city's entrance, storming is expected at any moment. The military forces include more than 30,000 soldiers, more than 300 tanks and armoured vehicles.

Restricted access for foreign journalists means the Guardian cannot independently verify this LCC report.

5.16pm: Syrian state media has raised the death toll from today's blasts in Aleppo to 28, with 275 injured (warning: very graphic images in link).

It also continues to present its own alternative version of events in Babr Amr, in Homs:

Armed terrorist groups on Friday detonated a number of booby-trapped houses in Baba Amr neighborhood in Homs with the aim of terrifying citizens and to give the impression that the Army is shelling the neighborhood.

A source at the governorate told Sana correspondent that military engineering units dismantled 15 explosive devices, weighing between 10 to 15 kg, which the armed terrorist groups planted at some streets and houses in the neighborhood to target civilians and law-enforcement forces.

4.57pm: The New York Times Lede blog has examined the difference in reporting of events in Syria in the west and in Syria's allies:

The conflict looks quite different to viewers of two English-language satellite channels owned by the governments of Syria's allies, Russia and Iran.

On those channels, the conflict in Syria is presented largely the same way that it has been since the start of the uprising by Syria's own, state-run media, as an assault on a legitimate government with popular support by groups of armed terrorists.

So, for example, a news bulletin on Iran's state-controlled Press TV on Thursday made no use of activist video, but focused instead on the claim that a leader of the rebel Free Syrian Army in Homs was killed by government forces. In the Press TV report, the commander said to have been killed, Abdul Razzaq Talas, a military defector, was described as "the ringleader of the so-called Al Farouk militant group" ...

Russia Today, a Kremlin-financed channel that finds fault with Vladimir V. Putin's government about as often as Fox News produces exposés on the Republican Party, also presents the situation in Syria as a conflict between armed groups, not a government crackdown on what started as a peaceful protest movement. Unlike the Iranian channel, the Russian network does acknowledge the claims of activists, although it also regularly broadcasts interviews with pundits who deride the opposition as terrorists.

4.45pm: Earlier, we referred to Sky News special correspondent Alex Crawford reporting live from a demonstration in Idlib, in north-west Syria, saying that it is currently "free" (see 2.51pm). This picture shows opposition fighters in a show of strength on the streets of Idlib.

Crawford added that people in Idlib are fearful that it will be "the next Homs".

4.39pm: A frightening video purportedly filmed today in Dael, in Deraa, in southern Syria, shows protesters armed with stones being chased by a tank through the streets.

Deraa is where the uprising against Bashar al-Assad began, almost 11 months ago.

4.23pm: An man who said he is a resident of Zabadani spoke to our colleague Mona Mahmood via Skype. Ilyas al-Zabadani told her:

The bombing has been continuous since dawn. We believe the bombing is done by Grad rockets [manufactured in Soviet bloc]. Some of the bombs have been falling in the middle of the street, some on houses, they are just shooting at random. Many people in the centre are cut off from the internet and electricity. We don't have the number of the injured because the communications are cut between us.

Emad Mahou, an activist from the Syrian Revolution Co-ordinators Union, who was in Zabadani but has now left the area, told the Guardian he had spoken to a friend in the town for five minutes on a mobile phone. Mahou said:

There has been heavy shooting since the early hours of the morning. The government is bombing with tanks. There are around 20 martyrs, so many injuries. The situation there is so hard.

On Wednesday Zabadani activist Fares Mohamad said the town was surrounded by up to 300 tanks. At the time he said 18 people had been killed in an assault that began last Saturday.

3.53pm: The former opposition stronghold of Zabadani resisting a continual assault

Shakeeb al-Jabri, a Syrian activist who comes from the town but is based over the border in Lebanon, has a series of unverified updates about the latest fighting in and around the town:

Neither Zabadani nor Madaya have fallen to Assad's forces despite the constant shelling for the sixth day. #Syria 1

— Shakeeb Al-Jabri (@LeShaque) February 10, 2012

Yesterday the regime forces attempted to storm Madaya after shelling it relentless all day long. #Syria 2

— Shakeeb Al-Jabri (@LeShaque) February 10, 2012

The FSA and the youths in Madaya set up an ambush and forced the regime forces back to the outskirts. #Syria 3

— Shakeeb Al-Jabri (@LeShaque) February 10, 2012

Since then, all attempts by regime forces to storm Madaya have failed miserably with casualties on both sides. #Syria 4

— Shakeeb Al-Jabri (@LeShaque) February 10, 2012

Neither Zabadani nor Madaya deny that the towns' youths, civilians, are involved in resistance against regime forces. #Syria 5

— Shakeeb Al-Jabri (@LeShaque) February 10, 2012

Services such as water and power have been cut to both towns for 13 days now. They are only available a few hours every few days. #Syria 6

— Shakeeb Al-Jabri (@LeShaque) February 10, 2012

Madaya and Zabadani are farm towns but other food supplies are running low. #Syria 7

— Shakeeb Al-Jabri (@LeShaque) February 10, 2012

The displacement of residents from the 2 towns has increased the pressure on Bloudan's (higher up) food supplies. #Syria 8

— Shakeeb Al-Jabri (@LeShaque) February 10, 2012

3.33pm: New video from Baba Amr in Homs shows tanks shelling the neighbourhood.

The commentary says the footage was filmed today, but it cannot be verified.

3.18pm: More than 30 people have been killed in the Baba Amr of Homs today, Abo Emad, an engineering student from the area, told the Guardian. He said they died under the continuing bombardment of the area and by army snipers. "They are targeting anything that moves," he said.

I've seen a lot of bodies and injured people on the street. Some of them were screaming 'please help us'. Unfortunately we can't help really help them.

He said the fact that demonstrations had taken place today in Homs showed that activists were indefatigable.

We are not going to surrender. Even if we lose everything. Just staying alive is fighting back, because they are trying to kill us all. If we had enough weapons here in Syria we would have made the regime fall a long time ago.

We are not afraid of anything right now. We have gone past that point. Of course when someone near you gets killed you are frightened, but after a while your activity comes back. You feel that you have to complete the way your father or brother took... by doing anything you can.

Emad claimed a ground invasion of Homs is already beginning to happen. He said: "Yesterday and the day before they [the army] and entered the Inshaat neighbourhood, near Bab Amro. And they have thrown the people out of their homes."

He added: "The Free Syrian Army isn't getting help from anyone." It is fighting back but it can't hold off the regular army, he said. "You can't fight a tank by Kalashnikov, you can't fight an aeroplane by RPG. We are asking the international community to support the Free Syrian Army."

People are sharing everything they have to survive, he said. Emad said the electricity and communications in the area had been cut, but that he was communicating via a satellite internet connection powered by a generator.

He said: "Our laptops are very important to tell the whole world what's going on here in Syria."

3.17pm: Russia has escalated the war of words over its veto of the UN resolution on Syria by accusing the west of arming the Syrian opposition and warning that it will resort to "drastic measures" if the interference doesn't stop.

Deputy foreign minister Sergey Ryabkov is quoted by the Itar-Tass news agency as saying:

Western states inciting Syrian opposition to uncompromising actions, as well as those sending arms to them, giving them advice and direction, are participating in the process of fomenting the crisis ...

The UN council is not a tool for intervention in internal affairs and is not the agency to decide which government is to be next in one country or another. If our foreign partners don't understand that, we will have to use drastic measures to return them to real grounds."

3.00pm: Another supposedly "free" area, Zabadani, near the border with Lebanon, is already under siege, according to the Local Co-ordination Committees. It says:

The violent shelling of the town with rockets and cannons by the regime's army continues. There are dead bodies scattered in the streets and [they] cannot be pulled out, and many wounded that cannot be treated because of the deteriorating humanitarian condition which the city is suffering from. There is a severe shortage of medical supplies and food, as well as complete communication, electricity and water cut. The city is now completely isolated because of the heavy siege

2.51pm: Sky News special correspondent Alex Crawford spoke live from a demonstration in Idlib today. She said Idlib, in north-west Syria, is currently "free" but people believe it will be the next to receive the treatment dished out to Homs. They say the army have already been gathering in a town nearby.

Crawford said people were "building up for an attack and [are] expecting the Syrian regime, military vehicles. to be heading into this area".

She said there is a "feeling of rebellion and defiance but also some trepidation about what's going to happen next".

2.14pm: Demonstrations have taken place in parts of Homs, despite the reports of a continuing assault, according video footage.

This clip shows a large protest in the Qosoor district in the north of the city.

An activist said demonstrations are managing to take place in some areas despite the presence of the regime's forces in surrounding areas.

Shelling has continued in some areas but not all, he said.

Another clip purported to show a protest in the Malaab area of Homs.

2.04pm: The UN's general assembly is due to discuss Syria on Monday, a UN official has confirmed.

The UN's human rights chief Navi Pillay is due to speak at the session after repeatedly saying that the Assad regime should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity, Harretz reported.

"We believe, and we've said it and we'll keep repeating it, that the case of Syria belongs in the International Criminal Court. This would give a very, very strong message to those running the show," Rupert Colville, spokesman for UN Pillay, told a news briefing.

Pillay will address a UN General Assembly session on Syria being held in New York on Monday, Colville said. "I believe they are considering a resolution, what it will contain I don't know," he added

1.35pm: A spokesman for the Free Syrian Army has told the Guardian that it was not responsible for the bombing in Aleppo.

Lieutenant Omar, who said he was part of the FSA's al-Farouk brigade based in the al-Qasair district of Homs, said: "Don't believe it, the Free Syrian Army is not responsible."

Speaking to our colleague Mona Mahmood, he said:

They are claiming we are responsible, for trying to stop people demonstrating.

We never use car bombs. Yes we might use IEDs [improvised explosive devices] we might use guns, but we don't use car bombs. It is not in our interests, because it would give us a bad reputation.

Look at the timing of the attack. Aleppo has just started to join the protests - which is good for us. If we put a car bomb in Aleppo it would stop people demonstrating there.

There are so many checkpoints in Aleppo, you could never get to a security compound to blow it up. It's impossible.

Omar also claimed five defected soldiers were killed in the continuing assault on Homs. They include a colonel who he named as Ahmed Jumrek. He named two of the victims as Dhiya Albeen Jamoul and Muhammed al-Diri.

Omar also said the FSA had reports that the Syrian was moving 80 tanks towards Homs from the coastal areas of Tartus and Latakia.

1.33pm: While the Syrian government says 25 people have been killed and 175 injured by "terrorist" bomb blasts in Aleppo, opposition activists claim security forces have been killing protesters in the city.

The Local Co-ordination Committees group has named six people it says were killed by security forces in Aleppo.

It also accuses security forces of kidnapping four of the corpses.

The Guardian cannot independently verify the LCC's reports.

1.18pm: Syrian protesters continue to show their anger towards the Russian regime. This video shows people burning a Russian flag in el-Atareb, in Idlib, north-west Syria.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah has become the latest leader to condemn the Russian and Chinese veto of a UN resolution on Syria.

He said on Saudi state TV:

There is no doubt that the confidence of the world in the United Nations has been shaken. Unfortunately, what happened in the UN, in my opinion, is an unfavorable initiative.

Activists in Saudi Arabia said a Shia protester was killed there on Thursday.

1.03pm: Here's a summary of events so far today.

• Syrian state media said at least 25 people were killed in two bomb attacks on security compounds in the country's second city of Aleppo. The government blamed terrorists for the attack, while activists accused the regime of president Bashar al-Assad of staging the attack to discredit the opposition. The timing of the attacks, the way they were reported, and the subsequent dispute about who is to blame, resemble attacks in Damascus in December and January.

• One commander in the Free Syrian Army claimed it carried out the attacks, while other spokesmen for the rebel group have denied responsibility. The confusion underlines the chaotic leadership of the group.

• Residents and activists in the central city of Homs are preparing for a ground invasion by the Syrian army, after a week-long bombardment that has claimed hundreds of lives. "People are readying themselves for what they anticipate will be a final onslaught," Martin Chulov reports from the outskirts of the city.

• A narrow majority of French people would back a UN-authorised military intervention in Syria, according to a new poll. A similar exercise in Britain found that the majority were opposed to military intervention, but would back the imposition of a no-fly zone.

• Protests have taken place across Syria to demonstrate solidarity with the people of Homs and to express opposition to Russia's continuing support to the Assad regime. The theme of the post-Friday prayer protests is "Russia is killing our children". A senior Russian official suggested Moscow would continue to veto any UN proposals aimed at ousting President Assad from power.

• Barack Obama has condemned the "outrageous bloodshed" in Syria, as the US upped it rhetoric against the Assad government. The US ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, said a peaceful transition of power was not possible while "one side constantly initiates attacks against people taking shelter in their homes".

12.56pm: This map shows the two main flashpoints in Syria today.

Meanwhile, demonstrations on the theme "Russia is killing our children" are taking place across the country.

12.42pm: Different arms of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) continue to say different things about the bombings in Aleppo. Its response is only likely to raise further questions about the leadership within the opposition movement.

The BBC quotes Colonel Arif al-Hamoud - the same FSA member cited by al-Jazeera's Rula Amin earlier (see 11.06am) - as saying:

What happened in Aleppo was just an explosion. A car bomb is not our style, we didn't do that.

What happened in Aleppo was a military attack against military intelligence, with shells, rockets and bombs. A number of walls collapsed and there were some people killed from the military base. This was not a car bomb but a military operation.

The BBC says the deputy head of the FSA, Colonel Malik al-Kurdi, confirmed the claim.

But the Syrian National Council has published a statement (in Arabic) it says is by the FSA, in which the renegade army "categorically denies" any connection to the bombings in Aleppo.

11.58am: The theme of this Friday's protest in Syria is "Russia is killing our children".

In Amouda, near the Turkish border, protesters held banners saying: "Russia stop supplying the butcher with weapons, stop using your veto".

Russia remains undeterred.

A senior Russian official signaled that Moscow will continue of veto any resolution aimed at ousting Syrian President Bashar Assad from power.

AP reports:

Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Moscow would thwart any attempts by the West and major Arab powers to oust Assad using the United Nations.

"If our foreign partners don't understand that, we will have to use strong means again and again to call them back to reality," he was quoted as saying by the ITAR-Tass news agency.

11.56am: Unlike the British, the French public favour military intervention in Syria (by a narrow margin), according to a new poll.

A survey published on Wednesday showed that the majority of Britons oppose military intervention in Syria, although 60% would support a no-fly zone.

But a poll published today shows that 51% of French people would support UN-backed military action in Syria. That is a higher percentage than supported the UN mission in Libya (36%) that helped oust Muammar Gaddafi. Britain and France were the two main cheerleaders of the Libya mission.

The survey published today was carried out by pollster IFOP for right-leaning information website Atlantico

11.19am: All the indications point to an imminent ground invasion into Homs, Martin Chulov reports from the outskirts of Homs.

Speaking via satellite phone he said:

The bombing campaign into al-Khalidiyeh and Baba Amr and the surrounding areas has been very intense for the last week or so. There has been manoeuvring in the 12 hours in areas of Homs where they haven't moved before. People are readying themselves for what they do anticipate will be a final onslaught to follow the softening up with all this artillery and bombing.

Martin added:

It is a relatively calm morning compared to the last couple of days. There was a lot of shelling overnight, there's been gunfire this morning. But the midday prayers are under way now, demonstrations are likely to gather in the towns and villages surrounding Homs, and inside Homs itself, and that will give us some idea of how the rest of the day will pan out.

People in the area are wary of state media reports of bomb attacks in Aleppo Martin says.

Every time we hear reports in this area about car bombs or suicide bombs, they are treated with wide scepticism, by the people here who seek us out and say 'there are no terrorists, there are no Salafists'. These things are either being staged by the regime [they say] or they are being cast as legitimate acts of resistance by the Free Syrian Army.

The regime has been quite vehement from day one that this is an armed uprising backed by foreign states. And that they are fighting mostly terrorism rather than legitimate opposition groups. The battle of control of the narrative is just as important as the battle itself.

Martin also described the composition of the rebel fighters:

Most of the Free Syria Army people, that we are dealing with, are military defectors. There are lot of older men amongst them who did military service, and they have taken up weapons again. And there are a smaller group of local businessmen, medics and various other people, who no longer have any work in these towns. They have joined the resistance cause as well. They have picked up weapons in many case, or are simply supporting the resistance fighters by establishing supply lines.

11.16am: Different people within the Free Syrian Army are saying different things about the attacks in Aleppo. While General Aref Hamoud told al-Jazeera's Rula Amin it had attacked two security targets, but not killed civilians (see 11.06am), FSA media spokesperson Captain Ammar al-Wawi told Channel 4 News that the regime was seeking to distract the world's attention from the massacres in Homs. He was quoted as saying:

I know this headquarter [sic] very well. It's strongly protected and no cars are allowed to park there [the regime claims a car bomb caused the explosions]. Usually it's full of security members, how come we don't have large numbers of death among them? This explosion has two goals: drawing the attention and pretext for the army to enter Aleppo since the rallies have started there.

Amin acknowledged that the FSA had initially distanced itself from the blasts but said it was now admitting to attacks on the security targets.

11.06am: Al-Jazeera's Rula Amin says a member of the Free Syrian Army told her that they did carry out attacks in Aleppo.

General Aref Hamoud of the Free syrian army says #FSAattackedtwo security compounds in #Aleppo#Syria

— Rula Amin (@RulaAmin) February 10, 2012

Speaking on al-Jazeera, Amin said that the FSA described the military compounds as "legitimate targets" and said that if any civilians were killed they were killed by members of the regular army trying to fire at the FSA attackers. The FSA said it attacked with mortars and rocket-propelled grenades, Amin said.

10.58am: Syrian state media is now reporting 25 killed and 175 wounded in the Aleppo bomb blasts, citing the health ministry (warning: link contains very graphic images).

Despite the blasts, people are demonstrating in Aleppo, according to the Local Co-ordination Committees (LCC) activist group. Aleppo is Syria's second biggest city and to date has seen only relatively small and sporadic demonstrations compared to elsewhere in the country. The LCC says people are chanting in support of Homs.

It reports a number of demonstrations in solidarity with Homs across Syria, including in Deraa, Idlib, al-Hasakeh, Qamishli and the Damascus suburbs.

10.49am: Once more activists are livestreaming video of the skyline of Babr Amr.

At present not much can be seen but the sound of shelling can be heard.

10.16am: Gruesome TV footage of the bomb blasts in Aleppo has been uploaded onto YouTube (warning: graphic).

9.56am: Ayat Basma, a Beirut-based reporter for Reuters, tweets a sample of what Syrian TV is showing from the aftermath of the reported bomb blasts in Aleppo.

Image from syria state tv broadcast frm Aleppo , medics showing remains of bodies twitter.com/AyatBasma/stat…

— Ayat Basma (@AyatBasma) February 10, 2012

9.28am: Dissident Syrian blogger Ammar Abdulhamid argues that the continuing assault on Homs meets many of the legal elements included in the legal definition of genocide.

"They are intentionally destroying members of a certain religious group," he claims.

When the Guardian quoted residents of Homs describing the attack as "genocidal", a reader complained that this was an incorrect and immoral use of the term.

The reader, who gave his name as Joseph, wrote:

The definition of genocide is: "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group". Your writers, and the writers of many other publications, use it incorrectly all too often. What is happening in Syria is tragic, certainly could be called a crime against humanity, etc, but it is not genocide. It is civil war. Misusing genocide as frequently and mainstream journalists seem to love to do is inappropriate, unprofessional, and immoral in the sense that it is crying wolf and diminishing the severity of the word and the magnitude of the times genocide has actually occurred.

9.11am: Syria TV is reported to be showing the remains of people the government claims were blown up by terrorists in Aleppo.

It was quick to broadcast similar images of the apparent victims of the blasts in Damascus.

AP reports:

A weeping television presenter on state-run TV showed graphic footage of at least five corpses, saying the blasts went off near a public garden where children had been playing. Debris filled the street and residential buildings appeared to have their windows shattered.

Activists continue to suspect the attack is a propaganda ploy.

Blow up people then broadcast the gory aftermath on morning TV. What an utterly disgusting regime! #Aleppo

— BSyria (@BSyria) February 10, 2012

9.07am: Martin Chulov, who is near Homs, says fighting has been less intense so far today.

Quiet so far near #Homs today. Rainy morning cleared & crowds gathering for rally. Gunfire crackling, but not like y'day #Syria

— Martin Chulov (@martinchulov) February 10, 2012

Intense battle this town near #Homs yday. Heavy FSA casualties. Medical clinic over-run. "They're coming for us," one Dr said. He's right

— Martin Chulov (@martinchulov) February 10, 2012

8.54am: Syria's state media said the bombs in Aleppo targeted a military security branch and a police headquarters.

The reported attacks come after similar Friday bomb attacks in Damascus on 23 December and 6 January. Activists claimed the Assad regime staged those attacks. Scepticism has also greeted reports from Aleppo.

Two explosions rock Aleppo, obviously another Regime charade on the bodies of innocent civilians and some of its cronies #syria

— Ahmad Shaheen (@Ahmad_Shaheen) February 10, 2012

8.36am: (all times GMT) Welcome to Middle East Live. "A grinding war of attrition has now become an unforgiving battle to the death," the Guardian's Martin Chulov reports from the outskirts of Homs. We hope to be hearing more frontline updates from Martin, later.

For now here's a roundup of the latest developments:

Syria

• Two explosions have hit Syria's second city of Aleppo, killing civilians and members of the security forces, according to state media. The state news agency Sana blamed terrorists for the attack.

• Syrian troops sealed off the population of a rebel stronghold in the city of Homs on Thursday and bombarded it using tanks, helicopters and artillery, as the international community struggled to find a common voice with which to confront President Bashar al-Assad. Eyewitnesses said roads in and out of Baba Amr, in the south-east of Homs, were blocked, preventing the evacuation of children or the wounded, and food, water and medicine were running out fast in the besieged suburb.

• All day medics at a makeshift triage centre tended dead and seriously wounded men, many of them members of the badly outgunned Free Syrian Army, Martin Chulov reports near Homs. A medical student told him:

There have been more than 100 people killed today. We all have family in Homs and we are very worried about the situation there. It is much worse than here. Every day it has been getting worse here and there. No one is coming for us and we accept our fate.

• Robert Ford, the US ambassador to Syria who was recalled last week, has spoken of his "horror and revulsion" at the Syrian government assault on Homs. In a Facebook update he posted satellite images showing evidence of mortar attacks on Homs.

He wrote:

It is odd to me that anyone would try to equate the actions of the Syrian army and armed opposition groups since the Syrian government consistently initiates the attacks on civilian areas, and it is using its heaviest weapons ...

As the United States' Ambassador to Syria I will work with colleagues in Washington to support apeaceful transition for the Syrian people. We and our international partners hope to see a transition that reaches out and includes all of Syria's communities and that gives all Syrians hope for a better future. My year in Syria tells me such a transition is possible, but not when one side constantly initiates attacks against people taking shelter in their homes.

• A compilation of clips from the last 24 hours shows some of the latest violence in Homs and Idlib. The footage includes a Free Syrian Army attack on a military checkpoint in Homs.

• Barack Obama has condemned the "outrageous bloodshed" in Syria. Speaking after a meeting with the Italian prime minister Mario Monti, he said:

We discussed a wide range of diplomatic concern, including the situation in Syria, where we both have a great interest in ending the outrageous bloodshed that we've seen and seeing a transition from the current government that has been assaulting its people.

• Middle East analyst Marc Lynch sets out six reasons why the international community should not arm the Syrian opposition. Summing up his arguments in Foreign Policy magazine, he writes:

Arming the Syrian opposition is not a cheap and effective substitute for military intervention, and it is not a generally harmless way to "do something." It does not guarantee either the protection of the Syrian people or the end of the Assad regime. It is more likely to produce a protracted stalemate, increased violence, more regional and international meddling, and eventual calls for direct military intervention. It's probably going to happen whether or not the United States plays a role, though -- but at least we should know what we're getting into.

Egypt

• The Muslim Brotherhood, which dominates the new parliament, has called for the Egypt's military rulers to cede power immediately, the New York Times reports. The Brotherhood, had previously said it was content to wait for the June deadline by which the generals had pledged to turn over power.

Bahrain

• Bahrain should stop prosecuting "all persons accused of offences involving political expression," US chief human rights envoy said, the LA Times reports. Assistant secretary of state Michael Posner expressed concerns about police using excessive force, including "widespread and sometimes indiscriminate use of tear gas." But he also condemned protesters for attacking police with Molotov cocktails and urged them to eschew violence next week, the one-year anniversary of the protests.

Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich are all speaking at CPAC in Washington today. Follow live coverage of the conservative conference here

12.47pm: The White House prefers the term "accommodation" to "compromise," which rather smacks of West Wing-style cleverness.

The reality may be somewhat different from a neat Aaron Sorkin plot ending. The White House's "compromise" may end up annoying its supporters while still alienating the original opponents. Does this remind anyone of, let's see, any other recent controversies involving funding? I'm thinking Susan G Komen v Planned Parenthood in case you were wondering.

How this ends will depend as much on the reaction of religious groups, especially the Catholic church.

12.30pm: And that's it. The White House website has added information on the compromise.

The compromise "exempts churches, other houses of worship, and similar organizations from covering contraception on the basis of their religious objections", the White House statement says.

Religious organisations "will not have to provide contraceptive coverage" and "will not be required to subsidize the cost of contraception". Instead, contraception "will be offered to women by their employers' insurance companies directly".

Under the new policy to be announced today, women will have free preventive care that includes contraceptive services no matter where she works. The policy also ensures that if a woman works for religious employers with objections to providing contraceptive services as part of its health plan, the religious employer will not be required to provide contraception coverage, but her insurance company will be required to offer contraceptive care free of charge.

The new policy ensures women can get contraception without paying a co-pay and addresses important concerns raised by religious groups by ensuring that objecting religious employers will not have to provide contraceptive coverage or refer women to organizations that provide contraception.

12.25pm: Moving on to the detail of the compromise, he says that "Women will still have access to free preventive care that includes contraceptive services", but if the woman's employer is a charity, then it will be for the insurance company "to reach out" and offer contraceptive care free of charge.

"No religious institution will have to pay for or provide contraceptive services directly", Obama says.

12.22pm: The president says he spoke to Catholic officials at the beginning of this, he says, to find a solution that "protects religious liberty". The president criticizes a "cynical desire on the part of some to make this into a political football".

12.18pm: He begins by sayin that 99% of women have used contraception in their lifetime, but more than half of all women between the ages of 18 and 34 have struggled to afford it.

12.16pm: Barack Obama is speaking now at the White House on the contraception compromise.

12.00pm: Awkward moment of the day:

Rick Santorum walks past the Google booth. twitter.com/daveweigel/sta…

— daveweigel (@daveweigel) February 10, 2012

11.47am: Wait long enough and you really will hear everything. In this case, Republican senator James Inhofe just approvingly quoted the Guardian while speaking at CPAC, on the subject of climate change. I doubt that will ever happen again in my lifetime.

Memo to senator Inhofe: perhaps you'd like to quote from this Guardian article?

11.44am: Some hot opinion poll news: Fox News has a new national poll of Republicans showing that Rick Santorum is closing the gap with Mitt Romney.

The poll was conducted over four days and the final numbers had Romney with 33% and Santorum on 23%, followed by Newt Gingrich on 22% and Ron Paul on 15%. But in the polling that was done on 8-9 February – after Santorum's three wins in Missouri, Colorado and Minnesota – he rose to 30% while Romney drooped to 30% and Gingrich fell to 16%. (Before Tuesday's results, Romney was winning 35% and Santorum just 17%.)

Meanwhile, a new ARG poll from the Super Tuesday primary state of Tennessee shows Santorum leading with 34%, followed by Romney with 27%, Gingrich with 16%, and Ron Paul on 13%.

The poll was conducted on 8/9 February and shows some interesting splits among Tennessee Republicans:

Santorum leads with 40% among likely Republican primary voters saying they are supporters of the Tea Party, followed by Gingrich with 21%, Romney with 17%, and Paul with 11%. Among likely primary voters saying they are not supporters of the Tea Party or are undecided about the Tea Party, Romney leads with 34%, followed by Santorum with 29%, Paul with 14%, and Gingrich with 12%.

11.26am: The Guardian's Ewen MacAskill gives his reaction to Rick Santorum's address at CPAC:

I had anticipated a hero's welcome after winning the caucuses and primary this week. The thousands of conservatives packed into the ballroom of the Marriott should be his natural constituency. When he presented himself as the one true conservative in the race, meaning Romney is not, there was only sporadic applause and shouts of "Santorum". In his second pop at Romney, he said if a candidate could not excite the conservative base, what chance of winning in November? But that too only produced scattered bursts of applause.

The problem for Santorum at the CPAC is the same as for conservatives round the country. None of the field generating much enthusiasm. Bernadette Repisky, 46, a Tea Party person attending CPAC for the first time, is supporting Santorum but had hoped that Congressman Allan West, a Tea Party favourite, would stand. She had earlier supported Michelle Bachmann and then Cain. If Romney eventually wins, she will support him. "The main thing is to get Obama, that socialist-Marxist dictator out off the White House," she said.

When Romney's name was mentioned from the platform before Santorum spoke, there was a round of applause. So he has some support here.

I would expect Santorum to win the CPAC presidential straw poll, to be announced Saturday. But, given the state of flux in the Republican race, who can be sure.

It may be that Santorum was trying to do "serious and presidential" in his speech here but he certainly didn't set the crowd alight.

11.05am: Rick Santorum starts by piling onto Obamacare, and claims to have a quote from Margaret Thatcher's last day in office – that she could never achieve what Ronald Reagan achieved in America because of the National Health Service. God knows where he got that from. Margaret Thatcher had 11 years as prime minister and enjoyed some huge majorities in parliament. She looked at alternative funding models for the NHS and each was rejected as impractical or inefficient. Oh and here's
Margaret Thatcher's most famous quote on the subject: "The NHS is safe
in our hands."

It's a less than inspiring speech by Santorum, who should be hitting home runs in this ballpark. But he lights up when he gets on to the subject of the many sins of Mitt Romney, who he describes as creator of the Massachusetts state healthcare model that is "the stepchild of Obamacare". Stepchild? That doesn't make sense.

Santorum isn't naming Romney here but everyone knows exactly who he is talking about:

Ladies and gentlemen, we're not going to win with money. We are going to win with contrasts.

Santorum is taking it low-key here, he looks tired and sounds a little hoarse. Not a barnstorming speech, although he gets a standing ovation in the ballroom, which is packed. I'm surprised he didn't give it more oomph – this was his big chance.

Something about a few election wins makes a candidate sound more presidential. Although constant presence of Santorum family was distracting

— Larry Sabato (@LarrySabato) February 10, 2012

10.49am: And now the billionaire Foster Friess is on stage at CPAC introducing Rick Santorum. It used to be that shadowy megarich puppetmasters used to stay behind the curtain. But thanks to Super Pacs and the Supreme Court, they can step proudly into the spotlight.

Friess is talking about how Santorum is all blue collar. "I make a lot of money. I don't like the fact that I'm discriminated against or even considered evil because of it," he says. Yes, because the extremely wealthy suffer such discrimination these days, don't they?

Foster Friess was wearing a Rick Santorum-label sweater vest. And he did tell a funny joke:

Recently, a conservative, a moderate and a liberal walked into a bar. The bartender says: 'Hi Mitt.'

And now here's Rick Santorum, in fact the entire Santorum family. "It's not the Von Trapp family," says Rick, which frankly is a shame. I am loath to be cruel about a candidate's offspring. Let's just say that in the case of one of his daughters, there is no doubt whatsoever that Rick Santorum is her biological father.

10.48am: On the controversy over religious institutions forced to offer contraception via the healthcare mandate: President Obama is going to address the subject at 12.15pm this afternoon, according to the White House. That slots Obama neatly between Rick Santorum (10.25am) and Mitt Romney (12.40pm) at CPAC today, and possibly shoot their fox.

Is there a compromise on the cards? The White House won't be calling it that for optical reasons but is saying that the healthcare insurer – rather than the employer, in the case of religious institutions – would be responsible for providing contraceptive coverage. What that means is that if, for example, a religious institution, objects to contraception coverage, the health insurance companies will be required to contact individual employees who are policy holder and give coverage directly at no cost.

If that doesn't make sense, think of it this way: If a religious institution (or any employers, it's not yet clear what the scope is) objects to having offer free contraceptive coverage as part of its employees health insurance, the insurance company will have to offer the coverage directly to individual employees at no cost.

10.46am: Back to CPAC, where a huge crowd is waiting to hear the big three Republican presidential candidates. Rick Santorum is supposed to be speaking at 10.25 am, followed by Mitt Romney at 12.40pm and Newt Gingrich at 4pm.

Earlier this morning Mitt Romney spoke to a breakfast hosted by the Northern Virginia Technology Council, in which he told the audience: "I know it seems like government doesn't like you. I love you." Which is not at all strange.

10.40am: Before we get under way properly, here's a summary of what's happening in the campaign scene at CPAC and beyond, from Ryan Devereaux.

The top three contenders for the Republican presidential nomination – Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich – will be speaking at day two of CPAC. Mitt Romney is expected to discuss his record as governor of Massachusetts, Rick Santorum will reaffirm his pitch as the true conservative candidate, and Newt Gingrich will be introduced by his wife Callista, an interesting choice for a conservative audience, given that CPAC is broadly focused on social conservative issues and Callista was formerly Newt's mistress.

Sheldon Adelson, Gingrich's mega financial-backer, may be on the verge of withdrawing his support for the former house speaker. Bloomberg news reports the casino magnate's family, which has donated $11m in the last two months, won't be writing Gingrich any more big checks. Losing such big money support would likely be a crushing – at the end of last month Gingrich announced his team was down to its last $600,000.

Romney seems to be having few problems on the financial side of his campaign. According to Politico, he raked in over $1.3m at fundraiser roundtable in Washington last night. The event was closed to the press, but sources say there were over 700 people in attendance, including big names in healthcare and national security. Santorum is enjoying an influx of money as well, at least according to his aides. Yesterday Mike Biundo, Santorum's campaign manager, tweeted that the former senator has received $2m in donations since clean sweep Tuesday night.

Rick Santorum has attempted to clarify comments he made regarding women serving in military combat. The former Pennsylvania senator raised eyebrows when he said he had "concerns" about women in combat roles due to "other types of emotions that are involved." Santorum appeared on NBC's "Today" show this morning and pointed out that men have a "natural" emotional inclination to feel protective over women, particularly when they are in dangerous situations. "When you have men and women together in combat, I think men have the emotions when you see a woman in harm's way. I think that's something that's natural, that's very much in our culture to be protective."

Today the Republican presidential campaign moves to a hotel in the nation's capital, where Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich are speaking to the Conservative Political Action Conference, an annual gathering of Republican activists.

If Washington DC is like Hollywood for ugly people, then CPAC in an election year is its Universal Studios lot, a veritable "Who's that?" of American politics.

The toughest sell today will be Mitt Romney's address at 12.40pm. Mistrusted and disliked by many conservative activists – you can purchase a pair of "Mitt Romney flip-flops" at a stall at the CPAC venue – Romney will want to make a play for conservative bona fides as well as his economic credentials.

For Santorum and Gingrich it is likely to be a much friendlier crowd – and the two may want to score points off one another. Santorum's recent victories in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri make him the hero of the hour but Gingrich isn't queuing up to praise him. A campaign schedule distributed by the Gingrich campaign this morning describes Santorum's address at CPAC as "In defense of big labour" while Romney is namechecked as "Author of Obamneycare".

Underneath the talking heads at CPAC is the gathering controversy over the White House's healthcare mandate enforcing access to contraception by religious institutions. The lack of a specific exemption for religious institutions has provoked an uproar, led by the Catholic church and picked up by Christian evangelicals. The latest news is that the White House is preparing to move to soften its line. But how far remains a mystery:

Waved off describing WH announcement today on contraceptiion issue as a "compromise." Am told Pres Obama not changing his stand.

— Mark Knoller (@markknoller) February 10, 2012

Outside the Beltway bubble, there is a Republican contest going on in Maine that ends tomorrow. As they used to say: "As goes Maine, so goes the nation," and Mitt Romney is going to Maine as soon as he has finished at CPAC, speaking this evening at a rally at Portland Yacht Services. Because nothing says "man of the people" than hanging around yachts.

• Tear gas fired during Athens protests
• Party leader refuses to support austerity measures
• Venizelos: Greece must decide whether to remain in the euro
• No disembursement without implementation
• Another MP resigns
• Live-blogging now: Nick Fletcher

5.45pm: Now Fitch has waded in again to the Greek debate.

The ratings agency, which said last month the country would struggle to make its March bond repayments, has said it must secure an agreement about its bailout or face a disorderly default.

Now this may all be stating the obvious but it's chilling nonetheless. According to Bloomberg, Fitch said such a default could cause panic in the Greek banking system and cause contagion elsewhere, with Portugal and Ireland mentioned. Capital.gr reports:

"They must get this deal agreed really within the next few days to enable them sufficient time to do the paperwork and have the new bailout money disbursed before that bond is due," Tony Stringer, a managing director at Fitch, said in a conference in Singapore today. "If they don't manage to achieve that, then it could be in the realms of a disorderly default."

5.26pm: In a move which will surprise absolutely no one who's been following the long drawn out Greek drama, the proposed cabinet reshuffle has reportedly been delayed until Monday.

That means it will happen after Sunday's vote on the austerity measures (sorry for stating the obvious, there.)*

Meanwhile European markets have closed and it's not a pretty sight. Germany's Dax is down 1.41%, France's Cac is 1.51% lower and Italy is off 1.76%. The FTSE 100 finished 43.08 points lower at 5852.39, a 0.73% decline.

Athens fell more than 5% before recovering some of its losses to end 3% lower.

Meanwhile on Wall Street the Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 120 points at the moment, or nearly 1%.

* An update: talk now is the bailout vote itself might now not take place until Monday. Why am I not surprised?

4.44pm: We seem to be up to four resignations at the moment.

These are deputy foreign minister Mariliza Xenogiannakopoulou and three members of LAOS. According to Greek newspaper Etathimerini:

Transport Minister Makis Voridis, Deputy Merchant Marine Minister Adonis Georgiadis and Deputy Agriculture Minister Asterios Rondoulis tendered their resignation after LAOS leader Giorgos Karatzaferis said that he would not support the loan agreement following lengthy negotiations this week.

Apparently a cabinet meeting is due shortly which will be covered here (in Greek).

4.00pm: And the resignations apparently keep on coming. Greek TV is reporting deputy foreign minister Mariliza Xenogiannakopoulou is stepping down, while AP says two ministers have resigned. No more details on either, and at the moment it's not clear which two ministers AP is referring to.

There is growing talk that prime minster Lucas Papademos will announce a cabinet reshuffle...

3.49pm: Back with the US, it appears American consumers turned less optimistic about the economy in the early part of this month.

A Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan index of consumer sentiment fell from 75 in January to 72.5, less than the 74.5 level economists had been expecting. Annalisa Piazza of Newedge Strategy said:

This is quite disappointing, given the reassuring picture described by the last bureau of labour statistics employment report and the upswing in other survey indicators. We expect an upward correction in the coming months, with further signs of improvement in the US economy.

It has disappointed the market for sure, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average has slipped further, down 126 points or almost 1%.

3.19pm: Here's some video of the demonstrations in Athens against the austerity measures, showing police using teargas against protestors.

It also includes George Karatzaferis of the Laos party saying he cannot vote in favour of the proposed cutbacks.

2.57pm: Reports are coming in that another Greek minister has resigned over the austerity measures.

Deputy farm minister Asterios Rodoulis is said to have quit, following in the footsteps of Pavlos Stasinos, a Pasok (socialist) MP. Yesterday, a Pasok deputy labour minister and a New Democracy deputy both quit, saying they could not accept the demands being made on the Greek people.

Meanwhile my colleague Larry Elliott has written a piece arguing that the Germans want the Greeks out of the euro. He says:

With one important caveat, this would be a good outcome for Angela Merkel. If Greece decided to quit the euro of its own volition, she could say she had done all she could to keep the single currency intact but, in the end, the Greeks themselves had decided it was time to go.

The caveat is, of course, that a Greek departure would be orderly rather than disruptive.

2.41pm: The uncertainty in Greece - to put it mildly - is causing ructions well away from Hellenic shores.

Wall Street has just opened and in keeping with other global markets, it is falling sharply. The impetus for all this was news that George Karatzaferis of the Laos party, part of the Greek coalition, had refused to support the austerity programme the country has to agree in return for a second aid package worth €130bn.

It is still possible that Sunday's vote will endorse the cuts, but the move by Karatzaferis has caused more confusion in an already confusing situation. And markets are not liking it one bit. Germany's Dax is now down 1.65%, France's Cac is off 1.16% and the FTSE 100 has fallen 0.7%.

As for the US, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is down around 101 points or 0.7% in the first few minutes of trading. The fall comes despite news of a US trade deficit that widened from $47.1bn in November to $48.8bn in December, much in line with expectations.

With investors seeking havens for their money and finding few around, one area of appeal was UK government gilts, which have jumped more than a point. Ten year yields have dipped by 8 basis points to 2.143%.

2.08pm: It appears inevitable that Greek prime minister Lucas Papademos will be forced to shake up his cabinet very soon.

The Greek government spokesman has just told Helena Smith in Athens that since the national LAOS party [the government's junior coalition partner] won't be giving its vote to the loan agreement in parliament (see 12.19pm), it is "only logical" that there will be a cabinet reshuffle.

Spokesman Pandelis Kapsis said:

It is only logical that since he [Laos leader Georgios Karatzaferis'] won't be [endorsing the latest round of austerity measures in exchange for aid], his ministers won't be staying in the government.

Another well-placed official said Karatzaferis' decision not to back the measures when they are put to vote on Sunday would create "a serious problem" although he did not think it would stop the package being passed.

And with that, I'm handing this blog over to my colleague Nick Fletcher. Thanks all.

1.54pm: Greece's largest police union has threatened to issue arrest warrants for officials from the country's European Union and International Monetary Fund lenders for demanding deeply unpopular austerity measures.

That's according to Reuters, which says it has obtained a letter from the Federation of Greek Police. In it, the police accuse Troika officials of:

...blackmail, covertly abolishing or eroding democracy and national sovereignty.

Since you are continuing this destructive policy, we warn you that you cannot make us fight against our brothers.

One target of the warrants would be the IMF's top official for Greece, Poul Thomsen.

Reuters explains:

The threat is largely symbolic since legal experts say a judge must first authorize such warrants, but it shows the depth of anger against foreign lenders who have demanded drastic wage and pension cuts in exchange for funds to keep Greece afloat.

1.30pm: Here's a lunchtime round-up of the main events so far:

• One of Greece's coalition leaders has refused to support the austerity programme that Greece must accept in return for a second aid package. George Karatzaferis of the Laos party said that the plan was the wrong way to take Greece. The move throws the situation in Athens into fresh confusion – just a day after the country's prime minister claimed that he had an agreement.

• Greek workers are taking part in a 48-hour strike in protest at the bailout plans. Transport systems, schools and offices have all been affected. In Athens, demonstrators convened on Syntagma Square and chanted for MPs to resign. Clashes broke out, teargas was deployed, and petrol bombs were thrown at police.

• Overnight, finance minister Evangelos Venizelos warned that Greece must either comply with the demands of its lenders, or quit the eurozone. He spoke out after the eurogroup of finance ministers ruled that Greece has not yet met its obligations, and must find €325m of additional budget cuts.

• Several MPs have spoken out against the austerity measures. One independent member pledged to vote against the plan, a second quit the government, and a third claimed that the latest budget cuts would ensure Greece's bankruptcy.

And on another note this lunchtime, several hundred Belgian firefighters have broken through police lines in Brussels and hosed down the prime minister's office in protest at the government's tougher retirement plans – part of its own austerity plans.

Remarkable scenes -- for once, it wasn't the protesters who got a drenching.

1.19pm: An update on that Greek cabinet meeting -- it's now been postponed until tomorrow. The situation is looking increasingly confused.....

12.51pm: The Greek cabinet is now planning to meet at 5pm Athens time (3pm GMT) to discuss the next step. That''s two hours later than planned -- following George Karatzaferis's decision to refuse to support the budget plans.

12.46pm: This second picture from Athens shows a petrol bomb exploding near riot police.

We don't yet know whether there were any injuries.

12.42pm: We have more pictures from today's protests in Athens.

This image shows demonstrators who have been detained by riot police.

12.38pm: An independent MP named Milena Apostalaki (formerly of Pasok) has announced that she will not vote for the austerity measures when they come before the Greek parliament (probably on Sunday).

Apostalaki's move comes amid mounting speculation that MPs will be ordered to vote in favour of the package.

That, Helena Smith says, will be very unpopular -- many MPs want to vote against the deepy unpopular package.

12.26pm: The euro has fallen sharply since Karatzaferis began his press conference -- losing almost a cent against the US dollar to $1.3204.

Shares are also in retreat, with the FTSE 100 down 44 points at 5851. The German Dax has suffered a heavier fall, down almost 1.7%.

12.19pm: Bombshell -- George Karatzaferis has declared that he cannot vote in favour of the austerity measures that international lenders insist Greece must accept.

Karatzaferis explained that he believes the road being proposed by the troika is 'not right'.

He also explained that he still supports Lucas's Papademos interim government, but wants the Greek prime minister to consider a reshuffle.

Karatzaferis's Laos party controls 16 seats in 300 seat parliament, so Papademos would still have a majority if Laos walked out of the coalition (which does not appear to have happened).

However, his power extends beyond simple parliamentary maths, as the EU has demanded that all parties need to sign the bill before financial aid is released.

12.10pm: Karatzaferis – whose far-right party is the smallest part of the coalition – goes on to claim that the Paol Thomsen, the International Monetary Fund's mission chief to Greece, should be declared "persona non grata".

That'll go down well with the international lenders, points out the Financial Times's Christopher Adams:

Karatzaferis really going out of his way to build bridges with creditors

— Christopher Adams (@ChrisAdamsMKTS) February 10, 2012

Karatzaferis. also called for "the restoration of democratic processes in Europe", and appeared to claim that Greece could cope without the "German boot".
.

12.06pm: While protests continue on the streets of Greece, the leader of the Laos party has begun his eagerly awaited press conference.

Looking very glum, George Karatzaferis tells the assembled media in Athens that Greece's dignity has been stolen, adding that he "will not put up with the country being ridiculed".

We have Germany deciding on behalf of Europe

More to come (via Helena, who's watching the press conference now).

11.47am: Riot police in Syntagma Square have clashed with demonstrators in the last few minutes.

Helena Smith reports that tear gas has been deployed, as "running battles" break out between protesters and the police on the steets of Athens.

Reuters reports that youths have been "throwing stones and petrol bombs".

Here's a picture from the streets, via Twitter.

Χημικά κ χτυπήματα τώρα οπισθοχωρουν #10fgr#Syntagma twitter.com/giannisg_/stat…

— giannis g. (@giannisg_) February 10, 2012

The kind of scenes we have seen at previous demonstrations, unfortunately:

Hooded persons breaking/hurling marble at riot police, tear gas, an MP resigns. Just another day in Athens. P.S. Most of us are at work

— Living in Greece (@livingingreece) February 10, 2012

11.25am: LAOS leader George Karatzaferis is due to give a press conference in a few minutes in Athens – and it could be significant.

UPDATE: It's been delayed until noon GMT / 2pm local time

Laos political aides say that Karatzaferis wants to "speak to the people" through the press*. They say he is furious that he was not consulted about the final deal which Evangelos Venizelos presented in Brussels last night.

Could he, as the rumour mill suggests (10.41am), quit the coalition?

* - it's a two-way process, so keep those comments coming....

11.20am: Word is also spreading on the streets that a government ministry has been occupied by protesters (as we flagged up at 10.41am). Helena Smith reports that demonstrators are being encouraged to head over there.

As kizbot points out in the comments below:

'Κατάληψη' or 'occupation' of a building is a common form of protest here.. especially in schools and universities. I wouldn't take it as a major sign of revolution.

11.11am: At Syntagma Square, our correspondent Helena Smith finds more people than ever before are saying that Greece should leave the eurozone.

That view conflicts with polls that have shown the vast majority of Greeks wanting to hang onto their euros, and not revert to the drachma.

But Despoina Koutoulouglou argued that it would be better to leave the single currency:

Under these terms why would we want to stay?

They are turning us into a sort of India with slave wages.

Koutoulouglou described herself as a member of the "500 euro generation" - a term used to describe young people who only receive low wages and are unable to leave their parents' home.

11.07am: Police bearing riot shields and protective helmets are now lined up outside the Greek parliament.

The protests still appear peaceful at this stage.

10.41am: Rumours are sweeping Greece that Laos, the far-right junior party in Lucas Papademos's coalition government, might quit the administration.

George Karatzaferis, the Laos leader, is reportedly meeting with Papademos now. A press conference is scheduled for 1.30pm local time (11.30am GMT), local media report (just checking this out now).

There are also reports that workers have occupied an office of the ministry of finance:

Ορθή επανάληψη: Κατάληψη στο υπουργείο Οικονομικών στη Φιλελλήνων από υπαλλήλους twitter.com/naftemporiki/s…

— naftemporiki (@naftemporiki) February 10, 2012

10.36am: The front page of the mass-selling Ta Nea sums up the mood, Helena Smith reports from Athens.

It declares:

"Citizens speak: We have turned fifty years back."

"A cold war [has erupted] with our lenders."

Helena confirms that another MP, Pavlos Stasinos, has indeed resigned from the socialist Pasok party in "disgust" over the agreement. Throughout the morning MPs have been ringing into radio shows to have their voices heard -- the vast majority being far too afraid to be seen in public .

Many said they would vote with their "conscience" come Sunday when the controversial loan agreement is put before the Greek parliament for endorsement. The effects of the accord, they argued, would be as bad as bankruptcy itself.

"If we vote these measures through we are setting in motion the bankruptcy of our country," said Odyyseus Boudouris, a parliamentarian with the socialist Pasok party. "The dilemma we are faced with is awful and wrong. But bankruptcy won't just be bad for Greece, it will be bad for our partners in the EU."

10.14am: Maria Verivaki has got in touch to report that there is disruption in the city of Hania, on Crete:

main roads closed in hania centre of town due to marches, approx 800m stretch; my cabbie husband simply avoids this road

Another reader in Greece, James Wilkins, says he would be happier if "this charade" was over, and Greece had defaulted:

It will mean many horrible years for the Greeks, but at least the world will have to find another country to scapegoat.

The Greeks will survive, they always do, but other eurozone countries, including Germany, and Britain and America too, will struggle. I look forward to the time when Greece has forgotten this experiment with borrowed capital ( from which other countries benefited) and goes back to being what it once was - a poor little country on the south of Europe where people, despite the poverty, enjoy life.

9.58am: Greek media are reporting another resignation over the austerity plan -- Pavlos Stasinos, a Pasok (socialist) MP. That would be the third since Greece's leaders agreed to the draft agreement. Yesterday, a Pasok deputy labour minister and a New Democracy deputy both quit, saying they could not accept the demands being made on the Greek people.

9.46am: Helena Smith, our correspondent in Athens, says the mood among protestors is far from mild.

"They are crooks and thieves," the crowds have been screaming outside the 300-seat House. "Our politicians should live on a minimum wage to see what it's like" railed Iphighenia Kontou, a laid-off shop assistant. "What have these measures achieved? None of them have worked and they want more? "

"We want justice," screamed a group of hospital workers. "They are tearing down our state," said Giorgos Klonizakis, a doctor. "People can't get basic healthcare any more. They want us to pay off our country's debts at the expense of everything else. Why hasn't one person gone to prison yet for all the corruption, all the wrongdoing that got us here in the first place?"

"For a long time we accepted these measures because we understand that Greece needs change," said a mechanic requesting anonymity. "But they've got us nowhere and it's now the third year! The middle class is being torn apart. To ask for more when there is no more to cut is foolish and dangerous."

Helena adds that the unions appear to have achieved a good turn out -- what's not clear yet is whether today's march (like so many before) will descend into violence. She adds:

Riot police armed with stun guns and teargas cannisters are out in force -- lined up in armour like medieval soldiers in the narrow streets beneath Syntagma square around the finance ministry. Most are young - much younger than many of the protestors out there.

9.25am: Update on the strikes -- people are gathering in Syntagma square, the area in the centre of Athens outside its parliament.

Some are carrying loudspeakers, and Reuters reports that slogans are being chanted across the square -- including:

No to layoffs! No to salary cuts! No to pension cuts! Do not bow your heads! Resist!

Teachers, hospital staff and bank employees are all joining in the strike, although we don't get have details of how many people are taking part in the industrial action.

There were marches on the streets of Athens on Tuesday during another general strike -- turnout wasn't as high as at some previous demos, partly due to heavy rain in the city. Today's marches will be closely watched to show the level of public anger.

9.04am: We recently created a Flickr page called "Greece - life in an economic crisis", where readers can upload their own pictures from the country (hat-tip Laura Oliver). It's still open – Greek readers might wish to upload their images.

8.59am: If you're in Greece today -- we'd be very grateful to hear how the strike is affecting you. Are you taking part? Do you support the action?

Let us know in the comment below, or via email (graeme.wearden@guardian.co.uk) or Twitter (@graemewearden).

Many thanks again if you helped out with this on Tuesday.

8.51am: The Greek transport system has been disrupted this morning as the 48-hour strike called by the country's two biggest unions gets under way.

Some railway, ferry and public transport schedules are suspended, as this picture shows.

Unions are planning to hold protests several cities, including Athens, around midday local time (10am GMT).

8.41am: Germany will vote in 17 days on whether Greece should receive its second bailout.

Klaus Ernst, the co-leader of the opposition Left party, has just told reporters that Angela Merkel briefed the leaders of the five parties in the lower parliamentary chamber about the Greek situation. According to Ernst:

We will probably have a special meeting of the Bundestag on February 27 to make decisions.

Another hurdle for the Greek bailout package to clear.

As I understand it (but I am very happy to be corrected) every eurozone parliament must give its approval to the €130bn package -- in the same way that they approved the changes to the eurozone bailout fund last autumn (although Slovakia initially opposed it). The French government gave its approval last September (when the bailout was a mere €109bn).

The immediate deadline, though, is next Wednesday – when the eurogroup of finance ministers meets again.

That gives the Greek government just five days to meet the new demands, which Elizabeth Afseth of Investec says will be challenging:

Specifying another €325m in savings will not be easy and getting the party leaders to sign up for it may be even trickier with an election looming.

Although as regular commentator RobertSchuman points out below, the €325m does not represent an increase on the original target of €3.3bn of budget savings. The eurogroup is demanding deeper cuts than contained in the plan that Greece politicians agreed to on Thursday.

8.14am: Most of Europe's stock markets have opened lower this morning. The FTSE 100 index dropped 30 points to 5864, a drop of around 0.5%.

That's partly due to disappointment over Greece, but shares have also been dented by disappointing trade data from China suggesting the global economy is slowing.

Greek bonds have dropped in value this morning, as economist Shaun Richards points out on Twitter:

The response to the new austerity is for the one-year bond yield in Greece to rise back above 500%. Some rescue! #gfc2 #euro #eurochat

— Shaun Richards (@notayesmansecon) February 10, 2012

8.09am: Evangelos Venizelos has said that Greece must decide whether it wants to remain in the eurozone.

The Greek finance minister told journalists that the Eurogroup have left Greece with a clear choice -- accept more austerity measures that its international lenders demand, or leave the euro.

Speaking after the talks broke up, Venizelos said:

From today until the next meeting of the eurogroup, our country, our homeland, our society has to think and make a definitive, strategic decision.

If we see the salvation and future of the country in the euro area, in Europe, we have to do whatever we have to do to get the program approved.

Venizelos also criticised politicians who have criticise the austerity measures forced on Greece :

Nobody can keep pretending to be the good guy....The era of easy choices and demagoguery is over.

Greek ekathimerini.com , Friday February 10, 2012 (02:09)

7.49am: Jean-Claude Juncker, the prime minister of Luxembourg who chairs the Eurogroup*, was adamant last night that Greece had not done enough – yet – to receive a second rescue package.

Juncker said that the €325m shortfall must be addressed within days. The Greek parliament must also approve the wide-ranging reform plan, and the various leaders of its political parties must also pledge to enforce the plan.

Juncker told a press conference in Brussels his position was clear:

In short, no disbursement without implementation.

Neat, but not quite as catchy as 'No taxation without representation'. In this case, of course, there is no shortage of taxation:

The €325m black hole in the Greek budget plan was caused by the heads of its coalition parties rejecting pension reductions. If the missing funds can't be obtained there, prime minister Lucas Papademos will have to reach agreement on alternative spending cuts or tax rises.

* - the group of 17 finance ministers from eurozone countries

7.42am: My colleague Ian Traynor reported earlier this morning that the Troika of Greece's lenders voiced exasperation with Greek "delaying tactics".

Ian writes:

Despite announcements earlier that the coalition government in Athens had yielded to savage new terms from the eurozone to qualify for the bailout, the eurozone finance ministers were unimpressed. The emphasis was on first getting Greece to deliver its side of the bargain.

"On the condition that the Greek parliament takes decisions on the prior actions over the coming days, then next week we can finalise decision on the overall package," said Olli Rehn, the European commissioner for monetary affairs.

"It's up to the Greek government by concrete actions through legislation and other actions to convince its European partners that the second [bailout] programme can be made to work."

7.35am: Good morning. Greece's hopes of receiving its second rescue package received a setback overnight, as its eurozone partners warned that Athens has not met the terms of the €130bn bailout.

Meeting in Brussels last night, European finance ministers studied the plan presented by the Athens government yesterday and concluded that it was incomplete.

The European central bank, the European commission, and the International Monetary Fund are now demanding €325m in further cuts to this year's budget before it will approve the rescue package.

The news comes as Greek workers begin a nationwide two-day strike in protest at the austerity measures that coalition leaders reluctantly signed up for this week. Unions have warned that the country now faces a "social uprising".

Imports fell in January at the fastest annual pace since the lowpoint of the global financial crisis in 2009

A sharp drop in Chinese imports, a gloomy outlook for global oil demand and a burgeoning US trade deficit combined to fan growing fears over a deteriorating global economy.

Signs that demand was slowing in China raised concerns for nations relying on exports to grow out of the economic crisis.

There was a further blow when the International Energy Agency (IEA) cut its oil demand forecast for a sixth consecutive month, citing a weak global economy.

China said its imports fell in January at the fastest annual pace since the lowpoint of the global financial crisis in 2009. At the same time its exports fell, putting in their worst performance for more than two years.

As wrangling continued over a solution to Greece's problems, there were signs that the eurozone crisis and the knock-on effect on demand was hurting Chinese exporters. Their sales to the European Union suffered the first annualised fall for almost a year. Exports to the US put in their worst performance for a year as growth slowed markedly.

However, it was the fall in imports that exercised market traders. Many countries, including the UK, have been pinning hopes on robust Chinese demand to boost their exports and offset weak demand in domestic and developed markets.

Analysts cautioned against reading too much into China's January trade figures, which were disrupted by an unusually high number of public holidays this year due to week-long lunar new year celebrations, which fell in February last year.

"Exports per working day grew, suggesting that growth in external demand for Chinese goods is only gradually decelerating," said Wei Yao, at Société Générale. "Even taking the holiday into account, however, the import numbers were surprising. January was the second month in a row of much slower than expected import growth."

Whatever the reasons for China's exports dip, it will do little to quell criticism from overseas policymakers that Beijing is keeping its currency artificially weak to gain a competitive advantage over other exporters.

Those concerns, held particularly among American politicians, were underlined by news of a record trade gap between the US with China in 2011. Data from the US commerce department showed the gap grew 8.2% last year. Imports from China were almost four times as high as US exports into the country.

The US data reinforced concerns about waning global demand and the far-reaching effects of the eurozone crisis. The final three months of 2011 showed a marked slowdown in US export growth, led by deteriorating business with the eurozone.

"With the danger that the eurozone enters a deep recession still very real, weaker demand from Europe will mean that overall US exports may struggle to rise at all this year," said Paul Dales, senior US economist at Capital Economics.

Fears that the global economy was deteriorating again after some brief-lived new year's optimism were reflected in the IEA's latest forecast for oil demand. The agency believes demand will now grow by less than 1% in 2012.

"This month's report dwells on recent economic downgrades, and resultant weaker oil products demand growth for 2012," the IEA said. "This is providing a ceiling for otherwise stubbornly high crude prices."

Assuming a technical recession – two consecutive quarters of contraction – for a large part of Europe, the agency said, the region was likely to see the world's biggest relative decline in oil demand this year.

Roshan Selvakumar says he saw attackers run into shop and heard 'crunching sound like grinding teeth' as bullet struck him

A bystander who was shot in the face at a south London convenience store has described hearing a "crunching sound like grinding teeth" as the bullet struck him.

Roshan Selvakumar, 35, sustained injuries when three masked young men chased a member of a rival gang into the shop in Stockwell and fired two shots through the open door, a court heard. The attack also left five-year-old Thusha Kamaleswaran paralysed after she was shot in the chest.

In a statement read out to the jury at the Old Bailey in London, Selvakumar, who still has the bullet in his head because doctors say it is too dangerous to remove, said he had been chatting to the shop owner on the evening of 29 March last year when he heard what he thought was gunfire and saw two men running towards the shop.

"I could see a male on a bicycle firing a gun at them," said Selvakumar, who lives in a flat above the shop. "They both ran through the open door into the back of the shop. I remember them lying down by the fridge."

The jury has heard how the three attackers from a gang in Brixton had set out on a "mission" into a rival gang's territory earlier that evening. After chasing their intended victims into the shop, the court heard how they circled the shop on bicycles before one of them took out a handgun and fired at least two shots.

Selvakumar said: "I became aware the male on the bike was now sitting on the frame and the bike was stopped in front of the shop, about a metre away."

He said lots of things happened "very quickly" as the boys inside the shop started throwing bottles off the shelves at their attackers.

"I remember bottles smashing on the floor by my feet. I was aware the man on the bike was firing the gun. I suddenly felt a blow to my face. I heard a crunching sound that sounded like teeth grinding.

Selvakumar said at first he thought he had been hit by a bottle before one of the shop staff told him he had been shot.

"I was holding my face with my hands, blood was pouring everywhere."

Seven seconds later, the gunman fired again, hitting Thusha in the chest. The five-year-old, whose uncle owns the shop, had been playing with her brother and sister in the back of the store but came to the front of the shop to see what was causing the commotion.

The bullet went through her chest and out of her back and Thusha went into cardiac arrest on the shop floor. Prosecutor Edward Brown QC said that although she was initially responsive, her breathing was laboured and she had "a blank or bewildered look on her face".

"She would squeeze the hand of the police officer who was tending to her," he added.

Thusha underwent emergency surgery in the street. Her condition deteriorated on the way to hospital.

Dr Malcolm Tunnicliffe, of King's College hospital, south-east London, told the court on Friday Thusha was "clinically dead" for between one and two minutes when the ambulance arrived at the emergency department.

In a statement read to the court, he said: "Without this surgery, it is unlikely she would have survived."

Kazeem Kolawole, 19, Anthony McCalla, 19, and Nathaniel Grant, 21, all deny causing grievous bodily harm with intent to Thusha and to Selvakumar.

All three also deny the attempted murder of Roshaun Bryan – one of the two men who ran into the shop – and having a firearm with intent to endanger life.

The jury has heard that the attack was the result of an escalating feud between rival gangs in Brixton and nearby Stockwell. He said the defendants were closely associated with the OC (One Chance) and Gas (Guns and Shanks) gangs and were involved in an escalating conflict with members of the ABM (All About Money) gang from Stockwell.

The trial continues.

After the cancellation of Salman Rushdie's festival appearance, Taslima Nasrin attacks the growing 'appetite for censorship' in India which has prevented her own book launch

The writer Taslima Nasrin has hit out at a "growing cancer" afflicting Indian society, identifying a increasing "appetite for censorship" after the second high profile literary event in less than a month was cancelled amid concerns over security.

"Writers and artists have become the soft targets of religious extremists," she said. "The authority tries to appease either Hindu fanatics or Muslim fanatics in India. All the political parties have different agendas, but they have no agenda or intention to value freedom of expression. It's a dangerous race, who can violate free speech more."

A week after plans for the novelist Salman Rushdie to appear at the Jaipur literature festival were scrapped due to threats of assassination the author later judged to be fabricated, the launch of the latest volume of Nasrin's autobiography, Nirbashan (Exile), at the Kolkata Book Fair was abandoned.

Nasrin fled Bangladesh in 1994 when Islamic extremists threatened to kill her, saying that she had made "objectionable comments" about Islam and the prophet Muhammad – which the author denies. After a decade in Europe she moved to Kolkata, where she lived until 2007, when she was forced into hiding after being attacked for being "anti-Islam" at a book launch in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

The writer, who now lives in Delhi, was not due to be present in person at the launch of Nirbashan, but a protest from the All India Minority Forum still forced fair organisers to call it off. The Kolkata Book Fair did not respond to the Guardian's request for comment, but explained to the Times of India that they "could not risk" it. "We were told by this group that the release might cause trouble inside the fair," said spokesperson Tridib Chatterjee. When her publisher later organised a smaller release on their stall at the fair, protesters attempted to prevent it.

"You may wonder why the authority tries to ban me or ban my book launch," said Nasrin. "They believe I am anti-Islam, and supporting me or allowing me entry to the country or the state or the city or the book fair would send a wrong message to the Muslim fanatics. They fear they would lose the Muslim vote. They do not want to take the risk of a single Muslim vote."

The author believes "the appetite for censorship is growing in India", she said. With Rushdie prevented by fears of violence from attending or even speaking via video link at the Jaipur event in January, Nasrin says we are witnessing "the disturbing victory of Islamic gangsters" in Jaipur and Kolkata. "I am wondering how to stop this growing cancer from spreading," she said.

Like Rushdie, Nasrin also suspects her book launch did not represent a genuine security threat. "It was something cooked up," she said, "as launching a book by a controversial author could have proved awkward for the fair and the government."

According to Nasrin, intolerance is growing "because the government does not take action against intolerant fanatics and the fanatics are forgiven for whatever violence they commit in the name of religion ... India needs to secularise the states, judiciary and educational systems. People need to learn about the principles of democracy, freedom of expression, human rights and humanism. They need to be enlightened. In the name of 'Indian secularism', irrational blind faith and the barbarity of all religions seem to be accepted and respected equally."

• Comments will open by 10am GMT on Saturday morning

Practical Action has been working with people in Kenya to improve living conditions in their villages by introducing fuel-efficient stoves and using biogas equipment

Firefighters in the town of Gruissan have been gathering up surviving flamingoes after at least 55 birds died

The Vampire Slayer's difficult choice matters because it raises a rarely-aired question about many real pregnancies
Warning: Contains spoilers

In the most recent issue of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer comic, penned by the show's creator Joss Whedon, Buffy considers getting an abortion. It's a sensible conversation to have: she's not sure who the father of her foetus is; she's a rather chaotic woman in her mid-20s who spent her early 20s caring for her younger sister after their mother died. She's, you know, a vampire slayer. It's very mature of her to consider, responsibly, whether she's ready to be a mother.

Of course, because this fairly unremarkable conversation takes place in the comic-book spin-off of a TV show from the US, it's been greeted with more hysteria than is really warranted. "While I never watched Buffy myself," says one anti-abortion blogger, thus throwing all his opinions on everything in the world forever into question, "I did watch Whedon's short-lived sci-fi series Firefly, a couple of episodes of which indicate Whedon has a rather lax view of sexual mores." Oh, Republicans. What you call a "lax view of sexual mores" is just "the view held by everyone who doesn't believe in a God who is unhealthily focused on what we all do with our genitals". Most of us already subscribe to the basic premise: "do what you like as long as you don't hurt other people".

It's nearly 10 years now since Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the TV show, ended, but I wish they'd been able to do this story on TV, because it deserves a wider audience than we Buffy-fanatics who buy the comic books. Although one in three women in the US will have an abortion at some time in their lives, TV shows and movies have been very timid about dealing with the issue. Even the ballsy Juno, talking so readily about "sexually active" teens and the problems of picking adoptive parents, didn't really let the protagonist have a serious conversation about whether she should terminate her preganancy.

"One in three women" makes abortion, for the record, an issue which crops up in as many women's lives as cancer does. There's still a squeamishness about talking about it though – perhaps because of fear of offending religious sensibilities, but probably also because, like miscarriage (another under-discussed topic) we don't really have the vocabulary to talk about what's happening, or the words themselves have become overloaded with political symbolism. Did something "die"? Were cells removed? Is is OK to grieve? Is it OK not to? Pro-life people talk about "the unborn baby". Pro-choice people say that that very phrase has already stacked the conversation in an anti-abortion direction. Even the labels for the groups – pro-choice and pro-life – seem oddly tortured. Surely most of us are pro-both. And why is abortion always labelled a women's issue when, by definition, there's a man involved every time?

The conversations are awkward and difficult, which is why it's so important to have them. Imagine if other series for teens were able to start addressing the topic. Imagine if measured, thoughtful discussions about abortion were the norm. As ever, Buffy leads the way.

Further 175 hurt in security compound blasts but opposition blames attacks on security forces aiming to disrupt protests

The worsening violence in Syria spread to the country's largest city, Aleppo, on Friday with two blasts outside security compounds that left 28 people dead.

The explosions outside military intelligence and police compounds, which Syrian state media blamed on "terrorists", wounded 175 people, the worst bloodshed Aleppo has seen since the uprising against Bashar al-Assad began last year. The northern city and economic hub has been largely quiet, but protests had been planned for Friday. Anti-Assad activists accused the regime of setting off the blasts to discredit the opposition and disrupt demonstrations.

Government forces, meanwhile, continued their siege of rebel-held districts in Homs and other opposition areas, going house to house arresting people in the Insha'at district and keeping up an artillery and tank barrage on Baba Amr.

The intensified campaign began with the failure of the UN security council to agree on a common position last weekend, when Russia and China vetoed a resolution backing an Arab League peace plan and calling on Assad to step down. Moscow and Beijing stuck to their positions on Friday, dashing any residual hopes of a diplomatic breakthrough in the security council. Russia's deputy foreign minister, Sergey Ryabkov, accused the west of fuelling the crisis by arming the rebel Free Syrian Army.

"Western states inciting Syrian opposition to uncompromising actions, as well as those sending arms to them, giving them advice and direction, are participating in the process of fomenting the crisis," Ryabkov said, according to the Itar-Tass news agency.

Western governments have denied supplying arms to the Free Syrian Army, which officials on on Friday referred to as a ragtag force of local militias and army deserters.

"The Free Syrian Army is less cohesive that the name suggests. In a number of neighbourhoods, it is a combination of local residents and defecting soldiers," a senior European diplomat said, on condition of anonymity.

While there have been reports of Gulf states providing arms to the Free Syria Army, observers said there were no sign of modern or sophisticated weapons in the rebels' hands and that the Free Syria Army was having trouble smuggling arms across the Turkish and Jordanian borders.

Western capitals have stressed that the diplomatic initiative in the wake of the UN security council debacle will be left to Arab states and Turkey. Foreign ministers from the Gulf Cooperation Council are due to meet on Saturday in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and the Arab League is due to convene in Cairo on Sunday, to draft a new strategy to raise pressure on Damascus without Russian or Chinese help. That strategy is expected to include the creation of a "friends of Syria" group excluding Moscow and Beijing, to impose new sanctions and to rally support for the Arab League peace plan in the UN general assembly.

Turkey and some Arab states have been pressing for urgent action to help pockets of Syrian civilians caught in the conflict with little access to food, water or medical supplies. However, the US and European states have been resolutely opposed to the creation of a "safe zone" or "humanitarian corridors" because they would require significant military force to enforce them.

"All this talk of humanitarian corridors and no-fly zones – once you start to go through with it and unless you follow it through,  you do more harm than good," the European diplomat said. "A humanitarian corridor has to be legal and properly protected. Otherwise you expose humanitarian aid workers to danger for example. You can't do this unless you are ready to go the whole hog."

Russian and Chinese resistance in the security council means it is impossible for the time being for the international criminal court to start investigating the Assad regime for crimes against humanity. However, the UN high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, is due to address the general assembly on Monday to press the case for indictments.

"We believe, and we've said it and we'll keep repeating it, that the case of Syria belongs in the international criminal court. This would give a very, very strong message to those running the show," Rupert Colville, Pillay's spokesman, said.

British officials said the UK government had been providing training and materials for independent human rights groups to record suspected atrocities, to provide admissible evidence for future trials at the international criminal court or elsewhere.

"The UK has funded and is continuing to fund work aim at collecting evidence of crimes and preserve that evidence so that it can be use at a later date," the official said. "Even though these people may be out of reach of justice today, there may a time when are they are not."