World outrage at Syria "massacre", but no action
(Reuters) - The United States has branded Syria's leaders murderers after an attack on a village by President Bashar al-Assad's troops left dozens dead, but there was no break in the deadlock among world powers over how to bring about an end to the bloodshed.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also condemned what his monitors on the ground had seen as an "indiscriminate" bombardment that included rocket-firing helicopters of the town of Tremseh in rebellious Hama province, and he questioned Assad's commitment to a U.N.-sponsored peace plan for Syria.
But at U.N. headquarters in New York, U.S. diplomats and their Western allies continued to run up against a refusal on the part of Russia to lift its veto on harsher sanctions or any steps Moscow views as imposing "regime change" in Damascus.
There was "indisputable evidence that the regime deliberately murdered innocent civilians", said U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, demanding access for U.N. observers who on Thursday were spectators to hours of bombing and gunfire, but were kept out of the village by Syrian troops.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/13/us-syria-crisis-idUSBRE8610SH20120713
