Instagram tests new limits in user privacy

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Instagram, which spurred suspicions this week that it would sell user photos after revising its terms of service, has sparked renewed debate about how much control over personal data users must give up to live and participate in a world steeped in social media.

In forcefully establishing a new set of usage terms, Instagram, the massively popular photo-sharing service owned by Facebook Inc, has claimed some rights that have been practically unheard of among its prominent social media peers, legal experts and consumer advocates say.

Users who decline to accept Instagram’s new privacy policy have one month to delete their accounts, or they will be bound by the new terms. Another clause appears to waive the rights of minors on the service. And in the wake of a class-action settlement involving Facebook and privacy issues, Instagram has added terms to shield itself from similar litigation.

All told, the revised terms reflect a new, draconian grip over user rights, experts say.

“This is all uncharted territory,” said Jay Edelson, a partner at the Chicago law firm Edelson McGuire. “If Instagram is to encourage as many lawsuits as possible and as much backlash as possible then they succeeded.”

Instagram’s new policies, which go into effect January 16, lay the groundwork for the company to begin generating advertising revenue by giving marketers the right to display profile pictures and other personal information such as who users follow in advertisements.

The new terms, which allow an advertiser to pay Instagram “to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata)” without compensation, triggered an outburst of complaints on the Web on Tuesday from users upset that Instagram would make money from their uploaded content.

The uproar prompted a lengthy blog post from the company to “clarify” the changes, with CEO Kevin Systrom saying the company had no current plans to incorporate photos taken by users into ads.

Instagram declined comment beyond its blog post, which failed to appease critics including National Geographic, which suspended new posts to Instagram. “We are very concerned with the direction of the proposed new terms of service and if they remain as presented we may close our account,” said National Geographic, an early Instagram adopter.

PUSHING BOUNDARIES

Consumer advocates said Facebook was using Instagram’s aggressive new terms to push the boundaries of how social media sites can make money while its own hands were tied by recent agreements with regulators and class action plaintiffs.

Under the terms of a 2011 settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, Facebook is required to get user consent before personal information is shared beyond their privacy settings. A preliminary class action lawsuit settlement with Facebook allows users to opt-out of being included in the “sponsored stories” ads that use their personal information.

Under Instagram’s new terms, users who want to opt-out must simply quit using the service.

“Instagram has given people a pretty stark choice: Take it or leave, and if you leave it you’ve got to leave the service,” said Kurt Opsahl, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a Internet user right’s group.

What’s more, he said, if a user initially agrees to the new terms but then has a change of mind, their information could still be used for commercial purposes.

In a post on its official blog on Tuesday, Instagram did not address another controversial provision that states that if a child under the age of 18 uses the service, then it is implied that his or her parent has tacitly agreed to Instagram’s terms.

“The notion is that minors can’t be bound to a contract. And that also means they can’t be bound to a provision that says they agree to waive the rights,” said the EFF’s Opsahl.

BLOCKING CLASS ACTION SUITS

While Facebook continues to be bogged in its own class action suit, Instagram took preventive steps to avoid a similar legal morass.

Its new terms of service require users with a legal complaint to enter arbitration, rather than take the company to court. It prohibits users from joining a class action lawsuit unless they mail a written “opt-out” statement to Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park within 30 days of joining Instagram.

That provision is not included in terms of service for other leading social media companies like Twitter, Google, YouTube or even Facebook itself, and it immunizes Instagram from many forms of legal liability, said Michael Rustad, a professor at Suffolk University Law School.

Rustad, who has studied the terms of services for 157 social media services, said just 10 contained provisions prohibiting class action lawsuits.

The clause effectively cripples users who want to legally challenge the company because lawyers will not likely represent an individual plaintiff, Rustad argued.

“No lawyers will take these cases,” Rustad said. “In consumer arbitration cases, everything is stacked against the consumer. It’s a pretense, it’s a legal fiction, that there are remedies.”

Instagram, which has 100 million users, allows consumers to tweak the photos they take on their smartphones and share the images with friends. Facebook acquired Instagram in September for $ 715 million.

Instagram’s take-it-or-leave-it policy pushes the envelope for how social networking companies treat user privacy issues, said Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

“I think Facebook is probably using Instagram to see how far it can press this advertising model,” said Rotenberg. “If they can keep a lot of users, then all those users have agreed to have their images as part of advertising.”

(Additional reporting by Dan Levine; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)

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Angelina Jolie to Direct Unbroken Film

Angelina Jolie is in final negotiations to direct her second film, Unbroken, based on the story of Louis Zamperini, an Olympian-turned-World War II prisoner of war, according to Deadline.

Video: Angelina Jolie Talks Kids, 'Blood and Honey'

"I was so moved by Louie Zamperini's heroic story, I immediately began to fight for the opportunity to make this film," said The Oscar-winning actress in a statement. "Louie is a true hero and a man of immense humanity, faith and courage. I am deeply honored to have the chance to tell his inspiring story."

Adapted from Seabiscuit author Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption, the feature film will tell the real-life tale of American Olympic distance runner Louis Zamperini, who was captured and imprisoned by the Japanese Navy during World War II.

Unbroken will be the second film directed by Jolie. The 37-year-old made her debut in 2011's In The Land Of Blood And Honey.

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Experts: Kids are resilient in coping with trauma

WASHINGTON (AP) — They might not want to talk about the gunshots or the screams. But their toys might start getting into imaginary shootouts.

Last week's school shooting in Connecticut raises the question: What will be the psychological fallout for the children who survived?

For people of any age, regaining a sense of security after surviving violence can take a long time. They're at risk for lingering anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder.

But after the grief and fear fades, psychiatrists say most of Newtown's young survivors probably will cope without long-term emotional problems.

"Kids do tend to be highly resilient," said Dr. Matthew Biel, chief of child and adolescent psychiatry at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital.

And one way that younger children try to make sense of trauma is through play. Youngsters may pull out action figures or stuffed animals and re-enact what they witnessed, perhaps multiple times.

"That's the way they gain mastery over a situation that's overwhelming," Biel explained, saying it becomes a concern only if the child is clearly distressed while playing.

Nor is it unusual for children to chase each other playing cops-and-robbers, but now parents might see some also pretending they're dead, added Dr. Melissa Brymer of the UCLA-Duke National Center for Child Traumatic Stress.

Among the challenges will be spotting which children are struggling enough that they may need professional help.

Newtown's tragedy is particularly heart-wrenching because of what such young children grappled with — like the six first-graders who apparently had to run past their teacher's body to escape to safety.

There's little scientific research specifically on PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, in children exposed to a burst of violence, and even less to tell if a younger child will have a harder time healing than an older one.

Overall, scientists say studies of natural disasters and wars suggest most children eventually recover from traumatic experiences while a smaller proportion develop long-term disorders such as PTSD. Brymer says in her studies of school shootings, that fraction can range from 10 percent to a quarter of survivors, depending on what they actually experienced. A broader 2007 study found 13 percent of U.S. children exposed to different types of trauma reported some symptoms of PTSD, although less than 1 percent had enough for an official diagnosis.

Violence isn't all that rare in childhood. In many parts of the world — and in inner-city neighborhoods in the U.S., too — children witness it repeatedly. They don't become inured to it, Biel said, and more exposure means a greater chance of lasting psychological harm.

In Newtown, most at risk for longer-term problems are those who saw someone killed, said Dr. Carol North of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, who has researched survivors of mass shootings.

Friday's shootings were mostly in two classrooms of Sandy Hook Elementary School, which has about 450 students through fourth-grade.

But those who weren't as close to the danger may be at extra risk, too, if this wasn't their first trauma or they already had problems such as anxiety disorders that increase their vulnerability, she said.

Right after a traumatic event, it's normal to have nightmares or trouble sleeping, to stick close to loved ones, and to be nervous or moody, Biel said.

To help, parents will have to follow their child's lead. Grilling a child about a traumatic experience isn't good, he stressed. Some children will ask a lot of questions, seeking reassurance, he said. Others will be quiet, thinking about the experience and maybe drawing or writing about it, or acting it out at playtime. Younger children may regress, becoming clingy or having tantrums.

Before second grade, their brains also are at a developmental stage some refer to as magical thinking, when it's difficult to distinguish reality and fantasy. Parents may have to help them understand that a friend who died isn't in pain or lonely but also isn't coming back, Brymer said.

When problem behaviors or signs of distress continue for several weeks, Brymer says it's time for an evaluation by a counselor or pediatrician.

Besides a supportive family, what helps? North advises getting children back into routines, together with their friends, and easing them back into a school setting. Studies of survivors of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks found "the power of the support of the people who went through it with you is huge," she said.

Children as young as first-graders can benefit from cognitive-behavioral therapy, Georgetown's Biel said. They can calm themselves with breathing techniques. They also can learn to identify and label their feelings — anger, frustration, worry — and how to balance, say, a worried thought with a brave one.

Finally, avoid watching TV coverage of the shooting, as children may think it's happening all over again, Biel added. He found that children who watched the 9/11 clips of planes hitting the World Trade Center thought they were seeing dozens of separate attacks.

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EDITOR'S NOTE — Lauran Neergaard covers health and medical issues for The Associated Press in Washington.

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U.S. budget optimism send shares, euro up

LONDON (Reuters) - World shares hit 17-month highs and the euro surged on Wednesday on hopes that U.S. politicians will reach a budget deal and that further monetary stimulus will come from Japan.

European shares extended their recent rally in early trading with the FTSEurofirst 300 index <.fteu3> near an 18-month high ahead of the German Ifo survey, which is likely to point to a gradual improvement in business conditions for December.

"What is important, and what is driving the market higher, is that the two parties (in the U.S.) are now in constructive discussions over specific tax levels and spending programs, and working towards a common middle ground," said Cameron Peacock, a strategist at IG Markets.

MSCI's world equity index <.miwd00000pus>, which is in its fifth week of gains, was up 0.3 percent at 342.29 points - a level which surpasses its peaks for this year and has not been seen since July 2011.

In Europe London's FTSE 100 <.ftse>, Frankfurt's DAX <.gdaxi> and France's CAC-40 <.fhci> indexes all rose around 0.3 percent in early trading. <.l><.eu/>

Behind the rally is a view that, once the U.S. fiscal crisis is resolved, the massive monetary stimulus by the world's top central banks will lead to an expansion in economic growth for 2013, supporting equities at the expense of safe-haven bonds.

The Bank of Japan is widely expected to join in the growing activism of central banks to support growth by expanding its asset-buying program aggressively an the end of a two-day policy meeting on Thursday.

The prospect of extra stimulus sent Tokyo's Nikkei share average <.n225> up 2.4 percent on Wednesday and back through the 10,000 points for the first time since April.

The easier policy outlook also sent the yen to a 16-month low against the euro, while the dollar gained 0.2 percent on the Japanese currency to edge back towards its strongest level in 20-months of 84.48 yen hit on Monday.

The growing demand for riskier assets on the hopes for a U.S. budget deal also benefited the euro against the dollar and it touched a 7-1/2-month high of $1.3256.

"Unless U.S. fiscal cliff talks take an unexpected turn for the worse, we believe that EUR/USD will meet our 1.33 year-end target," analysts at BNP Paribas wrote in a note.

Commodities were in consolidation mode, however, as investors waited for a U.S. fiscal deal.

Oil held steady, with Brent crude rising about 10 cents to be just short of $109 a barrel at $108.80, and U.S. crude was little changed below $88 a barrel.

Copper was also flat at $8,017 a tonne. Copper has rallied almost 8 percent from mid-November and hit a two-month high a week ago, but has since lost some ground.

Gold rose 0.3 percent to around $1,675 an ounce, after falling to $1,661.01 on Tuesday, its lowest since August.

(Editing by Anna Willard)

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Syrian rebels take control of Damascus Palestinian camp

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian rebels took full control of the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp on Monday after fighting raged for days in the district on the southern edge of President Bashar al-Assad's Damascus powerbase, rebel and Palestinian sources said.

The battle had pitted rebels, backed by some Palestinians, against Palestinian fighters of the pro-Assad Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC). Many PFLP-GC fighters defected to the rebel side and their leader Ahmed Jibril left the camp two days ago, rebel sources said.

"All of the camp is under the control of the (rebel) Free Syrian Army," said a Palestinian activist in Yarmouk. He said clashes had stopped and the remaining PFLP fighters retreated to join Assad's forces massed on the northern edge of the camp.

The battle in Yarmouk is one of a series of conflicts on the southern fringes of Assad's capital, as rebels try to choke the power of the 47-year-old leader after a 21-month-old uprising in which 40,000 people have been killed.

Government forces have used jets and artillery to try to dislodge the fighters but the violence has crept into the heart of the city and activists say rebels overran three army stations in a new offensive in the central province of Hama on Monday.

On the border with Lebanon, hundreds of Palestinian families fled across the frontier following the weekend violence in Yarmouk, a Reuters witness said.

Syria hosts half a million Palestinian refugees, most living in Yarmouk, descendants of those admitted after the creation of Israel in 1948, and has always cast itself as a champion of the Palestinian struggle, sponsoring several guerrilla factions.

Both Assad's government and the mainly Sunni Muslim Syrian rebels have enlisted and armed divided Palestinian factions as the uprising has developed into a civil war.

"NEITHER SIDE CAN WIN"

Syrian Vice President Farouq al-Sharaa said in a newspaper interview published on Monday that neither Assad's forces nor rebels seeking to overthrow him can win the war.

Sharaa, a Sunni Muslim in a power structure dominated by Assad's Alawite minority, has rarely been seen since the revolt erupted in March 2011 and is not part of the president's inner circle directing the fight against Sunni rebels. But he is the most prominent figure to say in public that Assad will not win.

Sharaa said the situation in Syria was deteriorating and a "historic settlement" was needed to end the conflict, involving regional powers and the U.N. Security Council and the formation of a national unity government "with broad powers".

"With every passing day the political and military solutions are becoming more distant. We should be in a position defending the existence of Syria. We are not in a battle for an individual or a regime," Sharaa was quoted as telling Al-Akhbar newspaper.

"The opposition cannot decisively settle the battle and what the security forces and army units are doing will not achieve a decisive settlement," he said, adding that insurgents fighting to topple Syria's leadership could plunge it into "anarchy and an unending spiral of violence".

Sources close to the Syrian government say Sharaa had pushed for dialogue with the opposition and objected to the military response to an uprising that began peacefully.

In a veiled criticism of the crackdown, he said there was a difference between the state's duty to provide security to its citizens, and "pursuing a security solution to the crisis".

He said even Assad could not be certain where events in Syria were leading, but that anyone who met him would hear that "this is a long struggle...and he does not hide his desire to settle matters militarily to reach a final solution."

In Hama province, rebels and the army clashed in a new campaign launched on Sunday by rebels to block off the country's north, activists said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition-linked violence monitor, said fighting raged through the provincial towns of Karnaz, Kafar Weeta, Halfayeh and Mahardeh.

It said there were no clashes reported in Hama city, which lies on the main north-south highway connecting the capital with Aleppo, Syria's second city.

Qassem Saadeddine, a member of the newly established rebel military command, said on Sunday fighters had been ordered to surround and attack army positions across the province. He said Assad's forces were given 48 hours to surrender or be killed.

In 1982 Hafez al-Assad, father of the current ruler, crushed an uprising in Hama city, killing up to 30,000 civilians.

Qatiba al-Naasan, a rebel from Hama, said the offensive would bring retaliatory air strikes from the government but that the situation is "already getting miserable".

(Additional reporting by Oliver Holmes, Erika Solomon and Dominic Evans in Beirut, Afif Diab at Masnaa, Lebanon; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

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How to turn an old Kindle Fire into a Nexus 7 with Android 4.2.1 Jelly Bean [video]

Title Post: How to turn an old Kindle Fire into a Nexus 7 with Android 4.2.1 Jelly Bean [video]
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YouTube Announces Top 10 Videos of 2012

YouTube has just released their top 10 videos of 2012 along with one dazzling video bound to become a viral sensation in its own right.

Watch the clip to see the Rewind YouTube Style video featuring the website's biggest stars acting out a parody of Gangnam Style and Call Me Maybe. The video was shot at the new YouTube Space in Los Angeles, a place for YouTube creators to come learn, collaborate, and create great content to put up on their YouTube channels.

Check out the list of 2012's greatest YouTube moments below:

1) PSY - Gangnam Style: The Korean pop music video that surprised the world is set to hit 1 billion views and has become the most viewed video of all time in just six months.

2) Walk off the Earth: This is the most-viewed cover song of 2012, attracting 140 million views this year.

3) KONY 2012: This video contained a call to action and collected 31 million views in a single day -- the most views ever for a YouTube video.

4) Call Me Maybe - Bieber, Gomez, Pena: This video, covering the song of the summer, kicked off a trend of lip sync videos that spanned from the Harvard baseball team and celebs to Olympians.

5) Epic Rap Battles - Obama vs. Romney: This episode featured well-known Obama impersonator Alphacat, and is one of the better known instances of the 2012 trend of Obama and Romney videos.

6) Dramatic Surprise: This video, featuring a mysterious sign in the middle of a Flemish square, brought in 25 million views in its first week.

7) Why You Asking All Them Questions: Comedian Emmanuel Hudson's popularity exploded this year partly from this video that garnered 39 million views -- almost half of which came from mobile devices.

8) Lindsey Stirling: Lindsey's trademark dubstep violin styles created a lot of buzz this year -- especially in the U.S., Germany and Poland. This video, which was shot by Lindsey's fellow YouTube creator Devin Graham, has over 500,000 likes and 100,000 comments.

9) Facebook Parenting: This video taught us not to mess with Dad. Bringing in 11 million views in one day, this video was the catalyst for an international discussion about parenting and Facebook.

10) Stratos Highlights: This live stream of Felix Baumgartner's free-fall from 128,000 feet shattered previous live stream records with 8 million concurrent views.

Visit youtube.com/rewind for more.

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Experts: No link between Asperger's, violence

NEW YORK (AP) — While an official has said that the 20-year-old gunman in the Connecticut school shooting had Asperger's syndrome, experts say there is no connection between the disorder and violence.

Asperger's is a mild form of autism often characterized by social awkwardness.

"There really is no clear association between Asperger's and violent behavior," said psychologist Elizabeth Laugeson, an assistant clinical professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Little is known about Adam Lanza, identified by police as the shooter in the Friday massacre at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school. He fatally shot his mother before going to the school and killing 20 young children, six adults and himself, authorities said.

A law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss the unfolding investigation, said Lanza had been diagnosed with Asperger's.

High school classmates and others have described him as bright but painfully shy, anxious and a loner. Those kinds of symptoms are consistent with Asperger's, said psychologist Eric Butter of Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, who treats autism, including Asperger's, but has no knowledge of Lanza's case.

Research suggests people with autism do have a higher rate of aggressive behavior — outbursts, shoving or pushing or angry shouting — than the general population, he said.

"But we are not talking about the kind of planned and intentional type of violence we have seen at Newtown," he said in an email.

"These types of tragedies have occurred at the hands of individuals with many different types of personalities and psychological profiles," he added.

Autism is a developmental disorder that can range from mild to severe. Asperger's generally is thought of as a mild form. Both autism and Asperger's can be characterized by poor social skills, repetitive behavior or interests and problems communicating. Unlike classic autism, Asperger's does not typically involve delays in mental development or speech.

Experts say those with autism and related disorders are sometimes diagnosed with other mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder or obsessive-compulsive disorder.

"I think it's far more likely that what happened may have more to do with some other kind of mental health condition like depression or anxiety rather than Asperger's," Laugeson said.

She said those with Asperger's tend to focus on rules and be very law-abiding.

"There's something more to this," she said. "We just don't know what that is yet."

After much debate, the term Asperger's is being dropped from the diagnostic manual used by the nation's psychiatrists. In changes approved earlier this month, Asperger's will be incorporated under the umbrella term "autism spectrum disorder" for all the ranges of autism.

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AP Writer Matt Apuzzo contributed to this report.

___

Online:

Asperger's information: http://1.usa.gov/3tGSp5

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U.S. budget hopes lift shares, other risk assets

LONDON (Reuters) - Global shares and other risk assets rose on Tuesday, encouraged by signs of a U.S. budget compromise aimed at stopping a package of tax hikes and spending cuts hurting the economy next year.

The differences over how to resolve the "fiscal cliff" narrowed significantly on Monday night when the White House proposed leaving lower tax rates in place for everyone earning under $400,000.

That was a change of position for President Barack Obama who has been pushing for a $250,000 threshold although it is still far from Republican House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner's preference of $1 million.

"Overnight news on the fiscal cliff has been taken positively by the markets here in Europe after underperforming the U.S. recently," Securequity sales trader Jawaid Afsar said.

European shares <.stoxx50e> mirrored an upward push by Asian equities, opening up 0.5 percent as London's FTSE 100 <.ftse>, Paris's CAC-40 <.fchi> and Frankfurt's DAX <.gdaxi> climbed between 0.4 and 0.5 percent.

It left the MSCI index of global stocks <.miwd00000pus> 0.2 percent higher, on the cusp of a three-month high and with a more significant 1-1/2 year high also in its sights.

Futures suggested a higher Wall Street opening too<.n> and oil, copper and gold also firmed. Expectations of more monetary easing in Japan kept the yen soft, however.

As European trading gather pace, the dollar inched up 0.1 percent to 83.96 yen, off a 20-month high of 84.48 yen hit on Monday but well above its late New York levels on Friday. The euro hovered at $1.3158.

Concerns that fiscal stimulus could seriously increase the country's debt burden pushed the benchmark 10-year Japanese government bond yield to a one-month high of 0.750 percent.

In European bond markets, trading remained subdued ahead of the year-end. German Bund futures slipped to 144.62 as increasing signs of progress in the U.S. budget talks eased demand for low-risk assets.

"We're lower on the fiscal cliff progress. The markets are very thin out there and so price moves could get overdone today," said one bond trader.

(Additional reporting by David Brett; William James; editing by Anna Willard)

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U.N. chief alarmed by escalating violence in Syria

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed alarm on Sunday at the worsening violence in Syria, including the reported mass killing of Alawites and alleged firing of long-range missiles on Syrian territory, Ban's spokesman said.

"The Secretary-General is alarmed by the continued dramatic escalation of violence in Syria over the past several days, and the grave danger facing civilians in areas under fire," Ban's spokesman, Martin Nesirky, said in a statement.

"There have been extremely worrisome reports earlier this week of a mass killing of civilians in the village of Aqrab near Hama, as well as alleged firing of long-range missiles in some areas of the country," he said.

In the Aqrab incident, up to 200 members of President Bashar al-Assad's Alawite minority were injured or killed in an attack on their village in central Syria on Tuesday, opposition activists said. The death toll was still not known.

There have also been reports of the Syrian government using Scud missiles. NATO's U.S. commander said on Friday the alliance was deploying the Patriot anti-missile system along Syria's northern frontier because Assad's forces had fired Scud missiles that landed near Turkish territory.

Nesirky said that "continued bombing raids by fixed-wing military aircrafts and attack helicopters on populated areas have been amply documented."

"Today's reports of aerial bombing amid intense violence resulting in many casualties among the Palestinian refugee population in the Yarmouk camp in Damascus are a matter of grave concern," he said.

Activists said fighter jets had bombed the Yarmouk camp, killing at least 25 people sheltering in a mosque.

Nesirky said Ban "calls on all sides to cease all forms of violence. The Secretary-General reminds all parties in Syria that they must abide by their obligations under international humanitarian law to protect civilians."

"Targeting civilians or carrying out military operations in populated areas, in an indiscriminate or disproportionate fashion that harms civilians is a war crime," he added.

Syrian Vice President Farouq al-Sharaa told a Lebanese newspaper that neither forces of President Bashar al-Assad nor rebels can win the war in Syria. That is a view a number of U.N. officials and diplomats have voiced privately to Reuters.

The U.N. Security Council has been incapable of taking any meaningful action in the conflict. Veto powers Russia and China refuse to condemn Assad or support sanctions. Assad's government accuses Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, the United States and other Western governments of supporting and arming the rebels, an allegation the governments deny.

Meanwhile, U.N.-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi has failed to bridge the gaps between the Russian and U.S. positions on Syria, which U.N. diplomats say is at the heart of the longstanding deadlock on the Security Council.

Nesirky said Ban "reiterates his call on the international community to make every effort to stop the tragic spiral of violence in Syria and urgently to promote an inclusive political process leading to a peaceful political transition."

(Reporting By Louis Charbonneau; Editing by Sandra Maler)

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