Filed by KOSU News in World News.
May 25, 2012

By any definition, the situation in Syria is atrocious with an estimated 10,000 people killed since the uprising started more than a year ago. The latest international effort to reach a ceasefire is on the ropes.

And, last night, during an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, the U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon seem to give little hope for a resolution.

Amanpour pressed Ban, saying the U.N. keeps stating that the situation in the country is unacceptable, but “what is the plan B?” she asked. “What will be the absolute solution to stopping this carnage?”

“At this time, we don’t have any plan B,” Ban said. “The joint special envoy Kofi Annan has proposed six peace proposals, among which the complete cessation of violence is number one. Unfortunately, this has not been implemented while with the deployment of monitoring missions, we have seen some dampening effect.”

The interview came the same day that the U.N. issued a report that found both sides of the conflict were guilty of committing “gross human rights violations.” The report, however, found that the majority of violations were committed by the regime of President Bashar Assad. [Copyright 2012 National Public Radio]