'Last chance' to avoid civil war in Syria - Annan

SYRIA: UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan says his peace plan could be the last chance to avoid civil war in Syria, where a truce has failed to end 14 months of bloodshed that monitors say has killed nearly 12,000 people.

Annan told the UN Security Council on Tuesday that the priority in Syria was "to stop the killing," and expressed concern that torture, mass arrests and other human rights violations were intensifying. Regime forces "continue to press against the population," despite a putative truce that started on April 12, but attacks are more discreet because of the presence of UN military observers, diplomats quoted him as saying. AFP