Assad calls Syria polls on May 7

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad yesterday announced parliamentary elections for May 7, even as monitors said violence raged in flashpoint provinces and rebel fighters killed 22 regime troops in ambushes.
The announcement came as UN-Arab League peace envoy Kofi Annan said he was expecting a response from Assad to "concrete proposals" to halt Syria's bloodshed and Russia stepped in with a proposal for international observers.
State news agency SANA said Assad, who has proposed a programme of reforms in the face of an unprecedented revolt, has set May 7 as the date for legislative elections under a new constitution passed in February.
The elections would be the third such polls since Assad came to power in 2000, but the first under a multi-party system as authorised under the new law.
Annan, speaking to reporters in Ankara after meeting with Syria's opposition, said he was "expecting to hear from Syrian authorities today since I left some concrete proposals for them to consider."
He was referring to weekend meetings in Damascus with Assad, after which he had expressed optimism the crisis could be resolved peacefully.
Against that backdrop, the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR said yesterday that around 30,000 Syrians had fled to neighbouring countries and another 200,000 had been displaced inside the country, quoting Syrian Red Crescent data.
Human Rights Watch said yesterday Syria has planted landmines near its borders with both countries, along routes used by refugees fleeing the country.
"The Syrian regime is trying to prevent people from going in and from fleeing the country," said Nadim Houry, deputy director of the group's Middle East and North Africa division.
Russia, accused of having shielded its ally Syria, yesterday said it will press Damascus to accept international monitors who could observe the implementation of a "simultaneous" ceasefire between government troops and armed rebels.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia was discussing the proposal with both the Arab League and at the United Nations, where a Security Council ministerial meeting debated the Syrian crisis on Monday.
Meanwhile, China and Arab countries agree on the need to find a "political solution" to the crisis in Syria, Chinese envoy Zhang Ming said yesterday after talks in Cairo with Arab League officials.
He told reporters he was on a mission to discuss a six-point Chinese initiative and talk with Arab officials ways of reaching "international agreement and finding a peace solution" to the Syria violence.
Under pressure from Western powers for twice blocking with Russia resolutions against Syria at the UN Security Council, China unveiled this month a six-point plan, calling for an immediate end to the conflict.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, meanwhile, announced that a second "Friends of Syria" conference would take place in Istanbul on April 2, following an initial forum in Tunis on February 24.
In the latest violence, pro-government newspaper Al-Watan said regime forces recaptured the rebel stronghold of Idlib after several days of shelling, while activists said pockets of resistance remained from rebel fighters.
More than 40 people were reported killed in violence across Syria yesterday, including 23 members of the security forces, as a pro-government daily said the regime had captured the rebel city of Idlib.
The Observatory said at least 14 civilians were killed in the central province of Homs, in Idlib, Aleppo in the north and the Damascus region town of Douma, while another soldier died in Aleppo.
Despite international pressure and growing clamour for foreign intervention, Assad's regime has pushed on with its brutal crackdown on a year-long revolt that has killed more than 8,500 people, mostly civilians, according to activists.
On Monday, the opposition denounced the "massacre" of 47 women and children in the flashpoint central city of Homs. The regime blamed the killings on "armed terrorist gangs."
The grisly murders in Homs, Syria's third-largest city, came less than two weeks after regime troops stormed its rebel Baba Amr neighbourhood, following a month-long bombardment in which activists say 700 people were killed.