Top stories from DAWNS Digest
Syria Peace Talks A No-Go
The joint UN-Arab League envoy had no good news to report following a slew of meetings in Geneva yesterday. “Brahimi conferred with senior U.S. and Russian officials before widening the talks to include representatives from Britain, France and China, as well as Syria’s neighbors Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, and the Arab League. Brahimi said he would bring Russian and U.S. officials together again on November 25 and hoped that opponents of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad would have agreed on delegates to represent them some days before that.” (Reuters http://reut.rs/186ujqc)
Bangladesh Court Sentences 152 Mutineers to Death
A Bangladesh court has sentenced 152 soldiers to death for their role in a 2009 mutiny in what is being deemed the world’s largest criminal trial. “Investigators charged 850 soldiers with murder, rape, arson, looting weapons and conspiracy, though only 846 were judged. The brutal mutiny, also known as the Bangladesh Rifles revolt, saw military commanders hacked, tortured and burned alive, their bodies dumped in sewers…The two-day mutiny took place on February 25 and 26 in 2009, after border guards’ demands for a pay raise and other changes were rejected.” (GlobalPost http://bit.ly/1a5LIT6)