Clashes between soldiers and deserters in villages of Idlib province in northwest Syria Twelve people were killed in clashes between soldiers and deserters in villages of Idlib province in northwest Syria on Thursday, a human rights group said. \"Seven soldiers and five deserters or civilians were killed in the clashes in villages west of Jabal al-Zawiya,\" the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights
said, adding that dozens of people were wounded.
The Observatory and the Local Coordination Committees, an anti-regime activist network, said soldiers and security forces raided the villages backed by tanks.
More than 2,900 people have been killed in the six months since the beginning of a crackdown on anti-government protests in Syria, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said Thursday.
\"According to the detailed list of names of individuals we\'ve been keeping, the total number of people killed since protests began in Syria now stands at more than 2,900,\" Commission spokesman Rupert Colville told AFP in Geneva.
Colville said that figure could rise because \"quite a lot more people\" have been reported missing in Syria since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad\'s government in mid-March, and the UN has yet to verify their whereabouts.
Germany\'s foreign ministry has summoned Syria\'s ambassador to Berlin to complain about a disparaging comment by the Syrian envoy at this week\'s United Nations Security Council vote on President Bashar al-Assad\'s crackdown.
After Tuesday\'s Security Council vote, at which permanent members Russia and China vetoed the European-drafted resolution condemning Syria for its bloody crackdown on protesters, Syrian envoy Bashar Ja\'afari told reporters:
\"Here Germany comes, the third musketeer, Germany who persecuted the Jews in Europe, is now trying to show itself as an honest broker of a very deceiving and cheating draft resolution on Syria.\"
Germany\'s foreign ministry said in a statement: \"The Syrian ambassador to the UN expressed himself in a completely unacceptable way at the end of the meeting of the UN Security Council on the Syria resolution.\"
The German Foreign Ministry also said it had made clear that spying and exerting pressure on members of the Syrian opposition in Germany was \"in no way acceptable\".
The number of Arab tourists who drive into Lebanon is down by 90 per cent this year after months of political unrest in Syria, the only neighbouring country with an open border into Lebanon, its tourism minister said on Thursday.
Fadi Abboud said: \"600,000 Arab tourists normally drive through Syria [into Lebanon] every year ... 90 per cent of all overland arrivals have been lost in 2011.\"
Overland arrivals through Syrian border crossings account for about a quarter of tourist arrivals to Lebanon, which has long promoted itself as a diverse country boasting Roman ruins,limestone caves, ski resorts, beaches and a vibrant night life.
Tourists from the Gulf, Jordan and Iraq usually drive through Syria to get to Lebanon, but the escalation of violence in Syria since anti-government demonstrations began in March has slowed the flow.
The UN World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) says tourism revenues in Lebanon were down 20 per cent in the first six months of 2011. Tourism accounts for 22 per cent of GDP.
Abboud added Western tourists had shied away from the Middle East due to the \"Arab spring\" unrest.
But he said he believed Lebanon\'s tourism sector could weather the storm.
\"The main percentage of tourists coming to Lebanon are the jet setters and playboys of the Middle East ... who come for the night life and cuisine,\" he said.
\"They come into Lebanon through the airport and so they are not affected.\"