|
(Continued from page 29)
gration principles, including legalization for the 11 million immigrants living here illegally, to the GOP rank and file as they look to revive long-stalled efforts to overhaul the nation's immigration system.
• Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and other House GOP leaders will measure the willingness of party members to tackle immigration in a midterm election year when they unveil the principles Thursday at the GOP caucus' annual retreat in Cambridge, Md.
• "We're going to outline our standards, principles of immigration reform and have a conversation with our members, and once that conversation's over we'll have a better feel for what members have in mind," Boehner told reporters this week.
• Boehner faces strong opposition from several conservatives who fear that legislation will lead to citizenship for people who broke U.S. immigration laws, are suspicious of President Barack Obama and his enforcement of any law and are reluctant to give the president a long-sought legislative victory.
• Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, delivered a 30-page package to all 232 House Republicans on Wednesday that offered a point-by-point rebuttal to the expected principles.
• ___
Syria has deliberately razed entire neighborhoods, international rights group says
• BEIRUT (AP) -- The Syrian government used controlled explosives and bulldozers to raze thousands of residential buildings, in some cases entire neighborhoods, in a campaign that appeared designed to punish civilians sympathetic to the opposition or to cause disproportionate harm to them, an international human rights group said Thursday.
• The demolitions took place between July 2012 and July 2013 in seven pro-opposition districts in and around the capital, Damascus, and the central city of Hama, according to a 38-page report by Human Rights Watch. The New York-based group said the deliberate destruction violated international law, and called for an immediate end to the practice.
• "Wiping entire neighborhoods off the map is not a legitimate tactic of war," said Ole Solvang, emergencies researcher for HRW. "These unlawful demolitions are the latest additions to a long list of crimes committed by the Syrian government."
• Human Rights Watch said many of the demolished buildings were apartment blocks, and that thousands of families have lost their homes because of the destruc (Continued on page 31)
|
|
