May 14, 2012

May 14 Photo Brief: Syria violence spills over in Lebanon, memorial for bodies found in Mexico, World’s Shortest Man

Stokely Baksh 1 Comment Daily Brief Afghanistan, Brazil, Dalai Lama, England, Germany, Guinness World Records, HMS Queen Elizabeth, hunger strike, Lebanon, Maulvi Arsala Rahmani, Mexico, murder, Nakba Day, Nepal, Pakistan, Palestinian prisoners, Peter Mangs, plane crash, soccer, Somalia, Syria, Tel Aviv, wild boar, World Cup 2012

19 photos

Violence in Syrian conflict spreads to Lebanon, a memorial is created for the 49 victims dumped along highway in Mexico, the “World’s Shortest Man” is from Nepal, and more in today’s daily brief.

: A Lebanese Sunni Muslim gunman sits with his son on Syria Street during fighting in the Bab al-Tebbaneh neighborhood of Tripoli during the second day of clashes between factions supporting and opposed to the revolt in Syria on May 14, 2012. (Joseph Eid/AFP/Getty Images)

: A Sunni Muslim gunman carries a machinegun during clashes at the Sunni Muslim Bab al-Tebbaneh neighbourhood in Tripoli, northern Lebanon, May 14, 2012. (Omar Ibrahim/Reuters)

: A memorial is set up for the victims dumped by hitmen in Cadereyta at the Macroplaza in Monterrey May 13, 2012. Suspected drug gang killers dumped 49 headless bodies on a highway near Mexico’s northern city of Monterrey in one of the country’s worst atrocities in recent years. The mutilated corpses of 43 men and six women, whose hands and feet had also been cut off, were found in a pile on a highway in the municipality of Cadereyta Jimenez early Sunday, officials from the state of Nuevo Leon said. (Daniel Becerril/Reuters)

: Residents look at shoes of missing people that have been arranged to form the number 49 at the Macroplaza in Monterrey May 13, 2012. The memorial was created in memory of the victims whose bodies were mutilated and dumped along the road by hitmen in Cadereyta. (Daniel Becerril/Reuters)

: Chandra Bahadur Dangi (R), the 72-year-old Nepali crowned the “World’s Shortest Man” by Guinness World Records, and his nephew Dolakh Dangi (L) meet Elle the koala at Wildlife World in Sydney on May 14, 2012. Dangi, who is just 54.6 centimetres tall, is in Australia for a week of promotional engagements. (Torsten Blackwood/AFP/Getty Images)

: Nepalese soldiers carry the bodies of passengers and crew from a helicopter on the tarmac at Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu on May 14, 2012. Fifteen passengers died on May 14 when a plane carrying Indian pilgrims crashed near a treacherous high-altitude airport in northern Nepal, while six made a miraculous escape, police said. (Prakash Mathema/AFP/Getty Images)

: Nepalese soldiers carry the bodies of passengers and crew from a helicopter at Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu on May 14, 2012. Fifteen passengers died on May 14 when a plane carrying Indian pilgrims crashed near a treacherous high-altitude airport in northern Nepal, while six made a miraculous escape, police said. (Prakash Mathema/AFP/Getty Images)

: Veiled Pakistani women walk past the wreckage of vehicle at the site of a car bomb attack in Quetta on May 14, 2012. Two soldiers were killed and several other people wounded when a car bomb targeted a Pakistani military convoy in the troubled southwestern city of Quetta, police said. (Khan Banaras/AFP/Getty Images)

: Left-wing Israeli and Palestinian students take part in a ‘Nakba Day’ ceremony held outside the Tel Aviv University on May 14, 2012 in Tel Aviv, Israel. Generally commemorated on May 15, the day after Israeli Independence Day, Nakba Day or “day of the catastrophe” is an annual event that Palestinians hold in honor of the estimated 700,000 displaced that followed the 1948 Palestine War. (Uriel Sinai/Getty Images)

: This picture taken on May 14, 2012, shows a courtroom illustration made at the court in Malmoe from the trial of Peter Mangs (Foreground-R). Mangs is charged with three murders and twelwe attempted murders, all of whom were immigrants, between 2003 and 2010. (Stig-ake Jonsson/AFP/Getty Images)

: A critically malnourished child lies in bed at Banadir hospital in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu on May 14, 2012. Relentless conflict since 1991, drought and insecurity plunged Somalia into the world’s worst humanitarian crisis last year, that saw donors contribute more than 800 million U.S. dollars of the one billion U.S. dollars requested in 2011 to help some 12 million people affected by East Africa’s worst drought in decades. The UN declared six regions in southern Somalia famine zones in early 2011 and although it said at the end of that year that three regions were now not facing famine, more than half of Somalia’s 10 million people are in dire need of help. (Mohamed Abdiwah/AFP/Getty Images)

: A Palestinian man stands chained to a cage during a demonstration in the city of Ramallah, in the Israeli occupied West Bank, in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike in Israeli jails. Some 1,550 Palestinian prisoners are currently on hunger strike, including two detainees who on May 12, entered their 76th day without food. (Abbas Momani/AFP/Getty Images)

: Officials and mourners perform funeral prayers over the coffin of former Taliban minister Maulvi Arsala Rahmani, a senior member of the High Peace Council, in Kabul May 14, 2012. Gunmen shot dead the top Afghan peace negotiator in the capital Kabul on Sunday, dealing a fresh blow to the country’s attempts to negotiate a deal with Taliban insurgents, security sources said. 2012. (Mohammad Ismail/Reuters)

: Buddhist monks chant prior to the arrival of His Holiness the Dalai Lama in St Paul’s Cathedral to receive the 2012 Templeton Prize on May 14, 2012 in London, England. (Oli Scarff/Getty Images)

: Workers carry equipment inside the National Stadium of Brasilia Mane Garrincha during a visit by Brazil’s Sports Minister Aldo Rebelo, in preparation for the 2014 World Cup May 14, 2012. (Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters)

: Supporters of German soccer champions Borussia Dortmund celebrate their team during a parade through the streets of Dortmund, western Germany, on May 13, 2012. Bundesliga champions Borussia Dortmund blasted Champions League finalists Bayern Munich 5-2 in the German Cup final on May 12, 2012 to claim the first domestic double in their 103-year history. (Ina Fassbender/AFP/Getty Images)

: Workers watch as the forward section of the aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth is moved onto a barge at HM Naval Base in Portsmouth, southern England May 14, 2012. (Luke MacGregor/Reuters)

: French retiree Yvan Blaise, 83, caresses Bamby on May 14, 2012 in Saint-Paul-d’Espis, southwestern France, a wild boar he adopted fourteen months ago. Banner reads : “Bamby, private swimming pool.” (Remy Gabalda/AFP/Getty Images)

: Director Barry Sonnenfeld takes photographs during a photocall to promote his film “Men in Black III” in Berlin May 14, 2012. (Tobias Schwarz/Reuters)

Related reading:

Syria exile opposition, world powers lack leverage
By: Oliver Holmes

ROME (Reuters) – When it comes to influencing Syria’s bloody struggle between President Bashar al-Assad and rebels trying to unseat him, the exile opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) seems as helpless an onlooker as world powers groping for a strategy.

The SNC tepidly backed the peace plan U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan agreed with Assad a month ago with the support of the West, China, Russia, the Arab League and almost everyone else.
But Annan’s ceasefire is in tatters and the rest of his six-point deal is mostly confined to the paper it was written on.

U.N. monitors are trickling in, but it is unclear how even the full 300-strong team can halt a budding civil war in Syria, where deadly car bombings present a murky new challenge for the Syrian opposition and its Arab and Western well-wishers alike.