From
YNet:
The United Nations' top human rights official says the death toll from six months of unrest in Syria has reached at least 2,600.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay says the figure is based on "reliable sources on the ground."
Meanwhile, Bouthaina Shaaban, an adviser to President Bashar Assad, said that a total of 1,400 people have died in the unrest: 700 opposition activists and 700 police dead.
Pillay spoke Monday at the opening of a three-week meeting of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
Meanwhile,
France spoke up:
Alain Juppe, France's foreign minister, has stepped up pressure on veto-wielding Russia to support a UN Security Council resolution against the Syrian government's violent crackdown on protests.
Speaking during a visit to Australia on Sunday, Juppe said the UN's failure to condemn the actions of Syrian security forces against anti-government protesters was a "scandal".
He said that France and Russia remained divided over Syria after talks between French and other foreign ministers in Moscow last week.
"We think the regime has lost its legitimacy, that it's too late to implement a programme of reform," Juppe told reporters.
"Now we should adopt in New York the resolution condemning the violence and supporting the dialogue with the opposition," he said.
"It's a scandal not to have a clearer position of the UN on such a terrible crisis".
About 18 more were killed over the weekend.
