Syrian offensive uproots more than 120,000, monitor group says
LEBANON - A Syrian government offensive in the southwest has uprooted more than 120,000 civilians, driving most of them towards the border with Jordan and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, a war monitoring group said yesterday.
A senior Israeli minister said refugees gathering at the Golan frontier must be prevented from crossing into Israel. Jordan, already hosting some 650,000 Syrian refugees, also says its border will remain closed to more refugees.
Syrian government forces backed by Russian air power have turned their focus to the rebel-held southwest since defeating the last remaining insurgent pockets near the cities of Damascus and Homs. Their advances in areas east and northeast of Deraa city, and bombardment of the heavily populated rebel-held town of Nawa to its northwest, have triggered a mass flight of civilians.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said tens of thousands had gathered at Syria’s border with Jordan while thousands more had fled to the Golan frontier, many of them from Nawa. Observatory Director Rami Abdulrahman, speaking by phone, said some people had also crossed into governmentheld areas, while others had gone to a corner of the southwest held by an Islamic Stateaffiliated group.
“I think we must prevent the entry of refugees from Syria to Israel, in the past we have prevented such cases,” Israeli Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz, a senior minister, told Tel Aviv Radio 102FM in an interview.
Jordan says the international community must find ways to support Syrians inside Syria. “Jordan has reached its capacity in receiving refugees,” Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi told the pan-Arab broadcaster al-Jazeera late on Thursday, affirming the government position.
The Syrian war has already displaced 6 million people inside Syria and driven 5.5 million abroad as refugees.
(Reuters) BEIJING - Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said that the government should make continued efforts to streamline administrative approvals, delegating power to lower levels and improving regulations and services. Li made the remarks during a teleconference presided over by Vice Premier Han Zheng, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee. The reform to cut red tape, delegate power and improve regulations and services is “a reform of the government itself like a blade facing inward” and also a strategic move to push forward government function transformation and stimulate market vitality, Li said. Over the past five years, efforts in this respect have promoted entrepreneurship and innovation, and ensured steady economic growth and employment, Li said. In the next five years, such efforts must be continued to raise the efficiency of government services, create a business environment featuring fair competition, and further unleash market vitality and the potential of domestic demand, Li said. To that end, more concrete measures will be taken to cut red tape and improve regulation and services, the premier said. Within five years, the time required for setting up a company will be cut to five working days, and the time for approving construction projects and for foreign trade customs clearance will be halved.
Li added that a unified negative list for market access will be implemented across the country, taxation and fees will be further reduced, and effective investment will be raised through bettering the business environment.
The government will also take concrete measures to improve supervision in pursuit of fairness and order, and optimize government services for the sake of convenience and service quality, Li said.
(Xinhua)