This first week of July in Paris leaders from some 50 countries
grouped as the Friends of Syria met for the third time to coordinate
efforts to get President Bashar al Assad to give up power, although
Russia and China boycotted the gathering. Russian television RTR reported from Syria.

The NGO Human Rights Watch published a
damning report on the Assad regime, denouncing systematic torture in
secret prisons in Syria. Swiss SF1 television called its report the
‘Torture Archipelago’.

On Wednesday, Turkey recovered the bodies of the pilots of its F4
jet shot down by the Syrians for having strayed into their airspace. The
wreckage was retrieved from the Mediterranean Sea, Turkish TRT television reported on the emotional impact at home.

Eighteen months of fighting and the civil war goes on. F2 French television reported from a Crusader-built strategic stronghold.