Barbados economy on the rebound, says PM
Figures for 2010 show the Barbados economy has stopped contracting and there was evidence of modest advancement, reinforced by a 2.8 percent growth in the first three months of this fiscal year.
Now is the time for all citizens and businesses to be recommitted to the sustainable development of Barbados, "as a just and thriving society", emphasised Prime Minister Freundel Stuart on Wednesday, as he delivered the feature address at the 51st Annual General Meeting and Luncheon of the Barbados Employers' Confederation (BEC).
Stuart said if this country was to function as "a well-oiled, appropriately and highly competitive economy", employers had to find ways of creating wealth and distributing it fairly "in order to satisfy the needs of our people."
Stuart added that other indices, such as the provision of enough foreign exchange to cover 20 weeks of imports, the slender reduction in unemployment to 10.5 percent, and the slight improvement in the fiscal deficit by $90 million, offered "a glimmer of hope for the country's continued performance."
Added to this, he disclosed that government had pledged to guarantee a $50 million loan to the Barbados Investment and Development Corporation and to allocate $1.5 million to Fund Access to facilitate small business development.
The prime minister stated that the abolition of the environmental levy on imports, the reduction of fees paid by private transport operators, and those requiring retail liquor licences, as well as the reduction in water rates for registered farmers, were all measures that were intended to assist the private sector.
Stuart emphasised that his government would continue its policy "of maintaining a reliable, social safety net", while at the same time supporting employers and reaching out to those "who have the courage and foresight to sow the seeds that would lead to meaningful and durable recovery."
The prime minister thanked the private sector, including the BEC, for "holding strain during the past three years and collaborating with all the stakeholders to keep industrial strife in Barbados to an absolute minimum."
He also commended the private sector for creatively using measures to maintain employment for Barbadians.
"In the current prolonged recession, you have found and used innovative ways of maintaining employment levels, despite declining profits, serious cash flow challenges and sometimes actual losses," he noted.
Stuart thanked entrepreneurs for "using the unique mechanism of the Social Partnership" to reach consensus with the Barbados Workers' Union, thus enabling agreement on six collective labour settlements and other wage issues.
"It is to be lauded that there were no reported work stoppages in the private sector during the past year, while there was but one in the public sector," he added.
The prime minister affirmed that government would continue its strategy of supporting existing businesses, injecting certain stimuli to aid survival and expansion, and encouraging new business ventures.
$8m cocaine seized
A couple and a Venezuelan national were arrested by police after officers raided a house in Barataria on Thursday and seized hundreds of rounds in ammunition and $8 million in pure cocaine.
Up to late yesterday, the couple, ages 31 and 36, and a 36-year-old Venezuelan, were in custody at the Morvant Police Station, being quizzed by officers of the North Eastern Division Task Force.
According to police, around 4.30 p.m. on Thursday, Task Force officers and police from the Criminal Intelligence Unit, headed by Snr Supt John Martinez, Supt John Daniel and Sgt Roger Alexander, raided a house at Second Street, Upper Sixth Avenue, Barataria.
Police said after conducting months of surveillance at the house, they executed a search warrant and found 11.5 kilogrammes of pure cocaine; 325 rounds of 9mm ammunition; a Walther 9mm pistol with eight rounds ammunition; a Force 99" 9mm pistol with eight rounds of ammunition; and 315 grammes of marijuana.
The three suspects were immediately taken into custody by the officers. An interpreter was used to interview the Venezuelan national in connection with the discovery of the items.
Police said the suspects are expected to be charged at the weekend in connection with the incident.
Budget deficit on track to exceed $1 trillion
The government is taking in more tax revenue as the economy improves, but not nearly enough to keep the federal budget deficit from exceeding $1 trillion for a third straight year.
The deficit for April dropped to $40.5 billion, half the imbalance from the same month last year, the Treasury Department said Wednesday. Tax receipts were up 45 percent last month compared to the same month one year ago.
Still, the deficit is on pace to grow to $1.4 trillion in this budget year, according to the Congressional Budget Office. That would be greater than last year's $1.29 trillion deficit and nearly match the record $1.41 trillion deficit hit in 2009.
Through the first seven months of the budget year, the deficit has totaled $869.9 billion -- a figure that just three years ago would have ranked as the highest ever for a full year.
Soaring deficits are putting pressure on Congress and President Barack Obama to agree on a long-term plan to trim federal spending.
The White House and Democrats want to trim the deficit through spending cuts and also by ending tax cuts for the wealthy, which were first passed when President George W. Bush was in office and later extended by Obama.
Republicans reject that approach, saying it amounts to a tax increase. Their plan would focus exclusively on cutting spending. They have also proposed further tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.
A decade ago, it seemed the federal budget was heading in the opposite direction. The government had a surplus of $127 billion in 2001 when President George W. Bush took office and was projected to run surpluses totaling $5.6 trillion over the next decade.
But by 2002, the country was back in the red. The deficits grew after Bush won approval for the broad tax cuts, pushed a major drug benefit program for seniors -- which wasn't offset with revenue to pay for it -- and entered the country into wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In 2008, Bush's last full year in office, the deficit had grown to $454.8 billion, a record at the time. And when the economy soured, it jumped into the $1 trillion-plus range.
The Bush administration pushed a $700 billion bailout program in 2008 to rescue the nation's banks, financial firms and automakers. The following year, the Obama administration continued the bailouts and also backed a $787 billion stimulus program to boost the economy.
Higher spending for unemployment insurance and food stamps, and the sharp contraction in tax revenues, also widened the deficit. And it grew even more this year after Obama and congressional Republicans signed off on a deal that extended the Bush tax cuts for two years and also reduced Social Security payroll taxes for one year.
The monthly reports this year have shown that the revenue losses are turning around. Unemployment, while still high, has been declining. More people working means more tax revenue for the government.
Through April, government revenues totaled $1.31 trillion, up 9.2 percent from the seven months through April of 2010. The increase included the big jump in income tax payments received by the government from individuals filing in April and also a gain in corporate tax payments.
Government spending totaled $2.18 trillion through April, a 9 percent increase over the same period a year ago. One of the fastest-rising categories was interest on the government's debt held by the public, which rose 13.1 percent to $139.3 billion through the first seven months of this budget year.
Last month, Standard & Poor's lowered its long-term outlook for the federal debt from "stable" to "negative." The credit rating agency said there could be serious consequences if lawmakers failed to reach a deal to control the ballooning deficits.
The issue is expected to come to a head over the next few months as Congress debates legislation to raise the government's $14.3 trillion borrowing limit. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has said by Aug. 2 he will run out of maneuvering room to avoid a default on the national debt.
But House Speaker John Boehner said this week that any legislation to raise the debt ceiling should be accompanied by spending cuts larger than the amount of the permitted increase in the debt.
Chicago Mayor Renames Street Oprah Winfrey Way
Oprah Winfrey now has her own street.
On Wednesday, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, in one of his last official acts before he leaves office next week, stopped by her studio to rename a street outside Harpo Studios where Winfrey tapes her show “Oprah Winfrey Way.”
Winfrey is widely credited with helping transform a gritty part of the city into a thriving neighborhood, as her beige building with the giant silver `O’ proved to be a magnet for young professionals and families.
Winfrey is the latest of more than 1,000 celebrities, religious leaders and activists and others who have been honored with street signs in the Windy City. Michael Jordan, Siskel and Ebert, Hugh Hefner and Frank Sinatra have been honored over the years — Sinatra twice as it turns out.
OECS works to preserve special border tax arrangements
Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) member states of the World Trade Organization (WTO) are working towards securing flexibilities they have obtained in the negotiations on agriculture and non agriculture tariff liberalization modalities.
These flexibilities will enable OECS governments to avoid cuts to border taxes, including import duties, as a result of the current round of multilateral trade negotiations.
Head of the OECS Secretariat’s Technical Mission in Geneva, Ricardo James, says this is one of the matters discussed at recent talks in Dominica, among OECS trade officials on the current round of WTO negotiations.
“We have been negotiating for 10 years. A number of achievements have been made that are of particular interest to the OECS countries. In the area of tariff liberalization for example, a special concession has been granted to small vulnerable economies (SVEs), such as the OECS member states, that will significantly modulate the depth of tariff cuts,” he said.
James added that flexibilities given to OECS members states where there are no cuts in border taxes will certainly do well for OECS economies.
“A significant proportion of government revenue at various levels comes from border taxes including import duties. Therefore, not having to make cuts in our common external tariff (CET) rates as a result of this round will mean that government revenues are being preserved for the time being,” he said.
James was speaking on the recent meeting of OECS trade officials in Roseau, Dominica, which updated OECS member states on all areas of the current round of WTO Doha Development Agenda negotiations.
The areas discussed during this activity included: market access for agricultural and industrial goods, trade facilitation, fisheries subsidies, intellectual property rights, and services.
The OECS Technical Mission in Geneva reported significant progress for the OECS in most areas of the WTO negotiations, but added that there is some work to be done in areas such as intellectual property rights, dispute settlement and the harmonized liberalization of services sectors within the context of the establishment of the OECS Economic Union.
“In the services negotiations, we are talking about the identification of sectors that countries are going to further liberalize and the various modes of supply along which these services will be provided. Each country will have to place an offer on the table regarding the additional services sectors they would want to liberalize and by how much. Once the modalities for tariff liberalization on agriculture and industrial goods are agreed then schedules will be set indicating what tariff lines are to be cut and by how much. In consequence much technical work needs to be done at the national and regional level to indentify which sectors and which modes of supply the OECS member states are willing to liberalize,” James said.
The OECS Secretariat says the recent consultations in Dominica provided a wealth of information to the OECS/WTO member states, having brought them up to speed on the current round of negotiations and the way forward.
“In Geneva the OECS Mission continues to effectively represent the interest of member states working through key negotiating coalitions and blocks such as the African-Caribbean and Pacific Group. Through those key negotiating coalitions and with the very presence of the OECS Mission in Geneva there is tremendous advantage for OECS member states in effectively advancing their concerns and positions at the WTO level,” James explained.
The recent meeting in Roseau of OECS trade officials on WTO negotiations was funded by the Caribbean Integration Support Project (CISP), an initiative under the 9th European Development Fund (EDF) which also funds the operation of the OECS Technical Mission in Geneva, and the Commonwealth Secretariat’s Hub and Spokes Programme.
Bahamas visitor satisfaction up
Visitors to The Bahamas who are very likely to recommend the destination to others are reporting greater visitor satisfaction in 2010 compared to five years earlier.
The information, released by the Ministry of Tourism on Tuesday, was based on data gathered from exit surveys. Among potential recommenders, hotel staff attitudes garnered the most favorable responses; up to 45.8 percent, 2.5 percent above 2005 levels. The greatest increase in satisfaction levels came in the hotel room category, that area up about 5 percent from 24.9 percent in 2005 to 29.8 percent in 2010.
But the report lacked what may be a critical bit of information needed to understand the whole picture of satisfaction levels. It did not report on the actual increase or decrease in the percentage of stopovers who would recommend this destination to others.
Stopover visitor arrivals have been falling every year from 2005 to 2009, according to data available on the ministry’s Tourism Today website. Respective stopover numbers for years 2005 to 2009 were 1,608,153; 1,600,862; 1,527,727; 1,463,006; and 1,327,006. Official stopover figures for 2010 have not been released, but after nine months were up about 5 percent over 2009, coming in at 1,091,012 visitors. The number of stopover guests for 2009 was around 17.5 percent below the 2005 number.
While the deep and long recession of the last few years would have been to blame for much of the fall-off seen in the last few years of the period, the worrisome trend brings to the fore the question of whether, overall, more guests or a greater percentage of them are likely to recommend the destination now. Guardian Business was not able to secure a response from the Ministry of Tourism on the change in that area specifically.
However, the results are still generally encouraging, showing difficult-to-manage but critical aspects of the guest experience improving. Examples of these include perceptions of personal safety, ‘attitudes’ guests encountered away from hotels, and perceptions about cleanliness. The Minister of Tourism and Aviation, Sen. Vincent Vanderpool-Wallace says the increasing satisfaction levels are the fruit of the efforts made in these areas.
“This is clear evidence that training efforts in both the private and public sectors have had an effect, that the collaboration with the Police has had an effect and that the massive increase in expenditure in cleaning up and fixing the streets have had an effect. In fact the last point has had the second highest percentage improvement,” said Vanderpool-Wallace.
Of the ten categories the statisticians examine to understand the stopover guest experience, only the taxi category was down. That area showed a small drop-off of around a half percent, falling from 29.3 percent to 28.8 percent across the period.
Vanderpool-Wallace told the Nassau Guardian in February that the ministry planned to begin releasing the results of exit surveys to the general public, adding that the measure should go a long way in helping Bahamians collectively understand and address some of the issues that are being raised by visitors. He also said that while both the good and bad would be released, disclosures would not include information that would be detrimental to the destination from a competitive perspective. The form the reports would take and release dates had not yet been determined at that time.
The satisfaction levels reported were based on the difference between the percentage of stopovers reporting ‘much better than expected’ experiences and those reporting ‘not as good’ or ‘much worse’ in the ten categories.
“We have invested a great deal of effort and resources in perfecting methods and systems that enable us to learn what matters in visitor satisfaction and what affects the visitor’s intent to recommend The Bahamas to friends and relatives,” Vanderpool-Wallace said.
“‘It’s Better in The Bahamas’ must spring from the visitor experience and this suggests that the claim is true at least relative to the past five years.”
East finals bound: Miami ousts Boston, 97-87
And he and the Miami Heat are halfway to an NBA championship, having finally found a way to vanquish the Celtics.
Dwyane Wade(notes) scored 34 points, James added 33—including the game’s last 10 in a spectacular closing flourish, part of Miami’s 16-0 run over the final 4:15 — and the Heat beat the Celtics 97-87 on Wednesday night to win their Eastern Conference semifinal series in five games.
When it was over, James knelt on the court, oblivious to the photographers who quickly surrounded him in Miami’s celebration.
“Everything went through my mind at that point,” James said. “Finally getting over this hump against this team. Everything I went through this summer, with ‘The Decision’ and deciding to come down here to be a part of this team … because I knew how important team is to this sport … and all the backlash I got from it.
“I’d be up here for two hours if I tell you exactly everything that went through my head. Very emotional at that point, you know, and happy we got through it as a team.”
That they did—as a team.
James Jones(notes) hit a 3-pointer that kickstarted the final push, and Chris Bosh(notes) finished with 14 points—none of them more important than the two coming when he blew past Kevin Garnett(notes) for a game-tying dunk with 2:57 left.
Wade carried Miami early, then James finished the job. His personal 10-0 run to close the game put some long-simmering Celtics demons to rest.
“I play with the two best players in the league,” Bosh said. “And we do this together.”
True, this was about the collective.
And in the end, for James, it was also personal. The Boston series a year ago was painful for him, as was the summer—and the fallout—that followed after he left Cleveland.
“I apologize for the way it happened,” James said. “But I knew that this opportunity was once in a lifetime.”
Ray Allen(notes) led Boston with 18 points. Garnett had 15 points and 11 rebounds, Paul Pierce(notes) scored 12 and Delonte West(notes) added 10.
“Right now, I am really upset,” Pierce said. “I wish I could have played better tonight. Unfortunately we came up on the short end of the stick. I tip my hat off to Miami. They really played great basketball.”
Rajon Rondo(notes) finished with six points in 31 minutes for Boston, playing with what appeared to be a slimmer brace over the still-painful left elbow that he dislocated during Game 3.
“I know we gave a lot in Game 3,” Celtics coach Doc Rivers said. “And I don’t know if we could ever get that effort back.”
The Celtics got one measure of a victory Wednesday night: Ending months of speculation, Rivers said he will likely return to coach next season.
“I’m a Celtic,” Rivers said. “And I love our guys. I want to win again here. I’m competitive as hell, I have a competitive group. So we’ll see. That’s where I’m at today. Tomorrow I may change my mind.”
Exactly one year earlier, James was maligned in Cleveland when the Cavaliers were embarrassed by the Celtics, 120-88 in Game 5 of that East semifinal series. Boston won in six games, the finale of that matchup being James’ last game with the franchise that drafted him No. 1 overall in 2003.
He wound up in Miami, alongside Wade and Bosh, aiming to chase a title.
Eight wins down, eight wins to go.
Next up for the Heat is the East finals against either Chicago or Atlanta, a series that may begin as early as Sunday. Chicago leads 3-2 with Game 6 on Thursday.
“When you’re playing this game, and you have another guy over there doing the things and as capable as LeBron, not only am I a fan on the court, but it makes the game easier,” Wade said. “Obviously.”
Obviously.
James put Miami up for good with a 3-pointer with 2:10 remaining, then added a game-sealing—more aptly, a series-sealing—3 with 40.4 seconds left, then turned and posed for some fans who screamed in delight.
“They make you fight for everything,” James said. “You can never take the foot off the gas. You can never take a second off against that team.”
So he kept playing, all the way to the final second.
A steal and two-handed slam 6 seconds later for good measure, followed by a Celtics turnover, got the party started. It was over, the Heat and Celtics knew it, and Rivers stood silently near the bench, his arms folded across his chest as James ran down the clock on Miami’s final offensive possession of the series.
Of course, he scored.
Boston was done, thoroughly worn down by a younger, more athletic opponent. The Celtics won the first three meetings between the clubs this season, then lost five of the final six.
“It was a series that all of us wanted, really since training camp,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said.
Wade was knocked over into some courtside seats trying to snare the final rebound, but that only prolonged the moment. James knelt in prayer for several seconds, then ran over to wrap Wade in a long embrace as the fans screamed loudly.
“D-Wade, he made it real difficult,” Celtics forward Glen Davis(notes) said. “He came through. He carried the team. He willed them to win. He carried them just long enough for LeBron to knock us out.”
The Heat said often in this series, Boston laid the plan for what Miami needed to ultimately do to become champions.
James said it again when it was over Wednesday night.
“It’s a great team,” James said of Boston in the on-court celebration. “Like I said, I got the utmost respect for that team. They’re the reason why all three of us came together, is because of what they did, that blueprint they had in ’08 when they all came together. So it’s a great team win and get ready for our next opponent.”
It’s Miami’s fourth trip to the East finals, its first since 2006.
Wade had 30 points through three quarters. James added 20, while the rest of the Heat managed only 21 and they were down 73-71.
And when everyone went cold to open the fourth, Boston seized a bit of control. West scored six of the Celtics’ first eight points in the final quarter, the last of those coming on a drive with 9:21 left for an 81-74 lead.
NOTES: Celebrities at the game included financial guru Suze Orman (in a jacket, as always) and 18-time golf major champion Jack Nicklaus (in no jacket, Masters green or otherwise). … The game’s first six sets of two-shot trips to the foul line resulted in everyone going 1 for 2—Wade and Garnett did it twice, with James and Joel Anthony(notes) doing it once. … Wade had a spectacular play with 1:22 left in the opening quarter, when he fought off Jeff Green(notes) to rebound a missed 3-pointer by Mario Chalmers(notes), then—while falling, in one motion—tossed it off the rim and in, beginning a three-point play.
Novak Djokovic wins in Rome to maintain unbeaten run
Novak Djokovic stayed on course to become world number one with a 6-0 6-3 victory over Polish qualifier Lukasz Kubot at the Rome Masters.
The Serb, who beat Rafael Nadal to win in Madrid last Sunday, was largely untroubled by Kubot as he picked up his 33rd straight win this season.
Djokovic, 23, will replace Nadal as number one if he wins the title and the Spaniard is beaten before the semis.
Nadal struggled to a 6-7 (5-7) 6-4 6-0 win over 148th-ranked Paolo Lorenzi.
It was the third consecutive match that the Spaniard, whose two-year winning streak on clay came to an end in the Madrid Masters final, has dropped a set.
A wayward overhead smash from Nadal handed his rival the tie-break before the world number one levelled matters after Lorenzi was broken in the ninth game of the second set.
The Italian's form deserted him in the decider which Nadal won at a canter.
Nadal will now face either countryman Feliciano Lopez or Germany's Phlipp Kohlschreiber.
Earlier, Djokovic took just 67 minutes to complete his victory and said his intention was to quickly move through the early rounds.
"I want to be on the court as short a time as possible in the opening rounds after the run I've had during the last three to four months," the Serb commented.
"My confidence is there. At the moment I'm trying to concentrate on one match at a time. I'm not thinking about losing."
His team have had the record of his winning run, which is 35 stretching back to last season, printed on T-shirts which they were wearing in Rome.
Djokovic added: "I'm proud to have had this run, but it was my team's idea to have the T-shirts printed."
The Serb will now face Stanislas Wawrinka in the third round after he beat Italy's Filippo Volandri 6-1 3-6 6-2.
John McEnroe currently holds the record of most wins since the start of the season with 42 in 1984. The next record is Guillermo Vilas's 46 straight wins achieved during 1977.
Meanwhile, Argentine Juan Ignacio Chela joined Djokovic in the third round following a 6-4 6-2 win over Frenchman Giles Simon.
Roger Federer was also safely through to the next round after he defeated Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 6-4 6-2.
"It was easier than I expected. I always expect a tough match from Jo," said Federer after his victory.
"But I was able to play a clean match from start to finish and I'm really pleased."
Andy Murray also learned his third-round opponent. The British number one will face Potito Starace after the Italian beat Viktor Troicki 6-4 6-4.
In the women's event, world number one Caroline Wozniacki bounced back from last week's disappointing defeat to Julia Goerges in Madrid with a crushing 6-2 6-0 victory over Australia's Anastasia Rodionova.
Wozniacki's clay-court form may have been patchy at times this season but she was on top form to dispose of the world number 80 in 71 minutes, converting five of the seven break points she fashioned on the Rodionova serve.
Wozniacki will next face Yanina Wickmayer of Belgium, who scored an impressive upset victory over 13th seed and former French Open champion Ana Ivanovic, winning 2-6 7-6 (7-4) 6-3.
Elsewhere two-time champion Jelena Jankovic dispatched Lucie Safarova of the Czech Republic 6-0 6-3 while third seed Victoria Azarenka rolled past Sara Errani of Italy 6-1 6-2 and fourth seed Li Na of China dispatched Lourdes Dominguez Lino of Spain 6-4 6-2.
French Open finalist Sam Stosur also advanced, but three seeds lost: number eight Agnieszka Radwanska, Andrea Petkovic (12) and Ivanovic (13).
Activists: Syrian Tanks, Troops Kill 19 People in South, West
Syrian rights activists say government forces have fired on residential areas in the south and west of the country, killing at least 19 people in a crackdown on protests against President Bashar al-Assad's autocratic rule.
The National Organization for Human Rights in Syria says tank shells and gunfire killed 13 people including a child in the southern village of al-Haraa Wednesday. Rights activists say the Syrian military also attacked several other villages near the southern town of Daraa, where the uprising began in mid-March before spreading nationwide.
In the west, rights activists say Syrian tanks and snipers killed at least six people in the Bab Amr neighborhood of Homs, the country's third largest city. Syrian forces have surrounded Homs as part of a security operation that began Monday.
Syria's state news agency says Syrian troops attacked what it calls "armed terrorist gangs" in Bab Amr and the southern region of Daraa Wednesday. It says the fighting killed two Syrian soldiers and wounded five others. The agency says Syrian troops also arrested dozens of armed fighters and seized weapons and ammunition.
The U.S. State Department sharpened its criticism of the Syrian crackdown Wednesday, accusing Damascus of engaging in "barbaric" and "repressive" measures that amount to "collective punishment of innocent civilians."
Spokesman Mark Toner said the Syrian government needs to realize that the "window is narrowing" for it to change course toward "meeting the legitimate aspirations" of the Syrian people.
Syrian rights activists say the number of people killed across Syria in the anti-government uprising ranges from 600 to 700. There is no independent confirmation of casualty figures because Syria has banned most international journalists from the country.
A senior U.S. official later told VOA that the tougher State Department language is partly a response to a Syrian presidential adviser's recent claim that U.S. statements on Syria were "not too bad." The adviser, Bouthaina Shaaban, made the comment in a New York Times interview published earlier this week.
The U.S. official also said Syria's actions against protesters are "reaching an untenable point."
A bipartisan group of U.S. senators introduced a nonbinding resolution Wednesday, urging President Barack Obama to "speak out directly and personally to the people of Syria" as a show of U.S. support for the protests.
The senators, led by Independent Joe Lieberman, also condemned human rights violations in Syria and welcomed Mr. Obama's authorization of targeted U.S. sanctions against Syrian officials blamed for those abuses.
In other developments, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says Syrian security forces arrested leading dissident Mazen Adi of the People's Democratic Party on Tuesday. Syrian authorities have detained thousands of protesters and dissidents in recent weeks in a bid to crush the uprising. Some have been released.
The London-based rights group says Syrian authorities have released about 300 people who were detained in the coastal city of Banias, where government forces began a crackdown on opposition protesters last week. It says the authorities made the detainees sign a pledge to stop demonstrating before releasing them.
In an apparent gesture to the opposition, the Syrian government formed a commission Wednesday to draft a new election law. Mr. Assad has announced several reforms in recent weeks, including the lifting of a 48-year state of emergency, while also intensifying his crackdown on the protests.
Mr. Assad's cousin Rami Makhlouf is vowing the Assad family will "fight until the end." He made the comment in an interview with the New York Times published Wednesday.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged President Assad Wednesday to "desist from excessive force and mass arrests of peaceful demonstrators" and to heed calls for democratic reforms. Speaking at a news conference in Geneva, Mr. Ban also called on Syria to allow humanitarian workers to enter Daraa.
Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuter
Spain: Earthquake rocks Lorca, Murcia, killing 10
At least 10 people were killed after a magnitude-5.2 earthquake toppled several buildings in southern Spain near the town of Lorca, officials say.
The quake struck at a depth of just 1km (0.6 miles), some 120km south-west of Alicante, at 1847 (1647 GMT), the US Geological Survey reported.
Lines of cars lay crushed under tonnes of rubble and a hospital was evacuated as a precaution.
The quake followed a 4.4-magnitude tremor about two hours earlier.
It is not clear how many people were injured, although Spanish media say there are dozens.
Military deployed
Spanish TV captured dramatic images of a church bell tower crashing to the ground, landing just metres from a cameraman.
Shocked residents and workers rushed out of buildings and gathered in squares, parks and open spaces. Old buildings were badly damaged.
As night fell many people were still too afraid to return to their homes.
"The whole of the centre of Lorca has been seriously damaged," a delegate from the regional government of Murcia told national radio.
"There are thousands of very disorientated people."
A doctor told the online edition of El Pais that she and her colleagues went into the streets and treated people with serious injuries, many of them "unconscious".
"The ambulances could not reach them. They took more than 40 minutes," the doctor said.
Angel Dominguez, a translator based in Lorca, tweeted: "A friend of ours was in the main avenue of Lorca - she saw debris falling down on pedestrians. The poor girl was shocked."
The earthquakes were felt over a wide area.
"Unfortunately, we can confirm... deaths due to cave-ins and falling debris," Lorca Mayor Francisco Jodar told radio station Ser.
"We are trying to find out if there are people inside the collapsed houses," he added.
A number of aftershocks have been felt in the region after Wednesday's quake, and authorities fear the death toll could rise.
Spain's Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has deployed emergency military units to the scene, the Spanish news agency Efe reported.
Mr Zapatero was in a meeting with Spanish King Juan Carlos when he was informed of the quake, the premier's office said in a statement.
The BBC's Sarah Rainsford in Madrid says the quake is the most serious to hit Spain in about 50 years.
Spain has hundreds of earthquakes every year but most of them are too small to be noticed.
Murcia is the country's most seismically active area and suffered tremors in 2005 and 1999.
Murcia is close to the large faultline beneath the Mediterranean Sea where the European and African continents meet.