Syria can still make deadline, official says

ROTA, Spain – If Syria can remove all its ingredients for making poison gas and nerve agent from the country by the end of the month, an ambitious June 30 deadline for destroying the chemicals should be met, a spokesman for the world’s chemical weapons watchdog said Thursday.

It remains to be seen if Damascus can remove the chemicals by the end of April. It has taken months to ship out just over half of the 1,300-metric ton stockpile. Overland shipments through the civil war-torn country are only happening sporadically.

Under a time line drawn up last year, the most toxic chemicals were to have been removed from the country by Dec. 31, but that deadline was missed because of poor security and other factors. Syria later submitted a new time line.

World murder rates down, report shows

LONDON – Global murder rates have declined slightly, but remain very high in the Americas and parts of Africa, according to a new U.N. study released Thursday.

Homicide rates in southern Africa and Central America are more than four times higher than the global average of 6.2 victims per 100,000 people, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime report said. The figures chronicle murder rates in 2012. It found more than half of all victims are younger than 30.

U.N. policy analyst Jean-Luc Lemahieu said the figures show that Canada and the U.S. remain below the global average but some countries in Central and South America are higher.

“The Americas remain a very violent part of the world,” Lemahieu said.

Associated Press