Cease Fires

Politically engaged filmmaking is nothing new for Eugene Jarecki, who has grappled with weighty themes in documentaries that include "The Trials of Henry Kissinger" and "Why We Fight. " With "The House I Live In," a cogent look at America's failed war on drugs, his work reaches new depth and urgency. It's a film as profoundly sad as it is enraging and potentially galvanizing, and it's one of the most important pieces of nonfiction to hit the screen in years. Jarecki lays out a clear and compelling case demonstrating that U.S. policy against mind-altering substances and, more to the point, the people who use or sell them, amounts to a systematic scourge upon those with the least resources in this country - a war based on class and race.

QUSAIR, Syria - Sitting on a tennis court at a summer villa in the Syrian countryside, 22 would-be rebel fighters watched as a young man took apart and reassembled a machine gun he had picked from a small spread of arms on a plastic lawn table. "OK, Saeed," said the instructor, 1st Lt. Nazir Jabir, 25, calling on a student in the back row. "What's the name of this machine gun? Stand up. " Saeed stood up, hands clasped behind his back as if in a proper classroom. "PKC," he said, and then a little louder, "PKC.

BEIRUT — Violence in Syria has continued amid a cease-fire, increasing concern that the country is descending into a civil war that could have frightening implications beyond its border, United Nations envoy Kofi Annan told the Security Council on Tuesday. The U.N.-backed peace plan, meant to end the bloodshed of a 14-month antigovernment uprising, remains the only chance to stabilize the country, Annan said. "If it fails … and it were to lead into a civil war, it will not affect only Syria, it will have an impact on the whole region," he said at a news conference in Geneva after his briefing.

BEIRUT - More than a year after the uprising began, only 50 people were still around to protest in a Syrian town of burned buildings and pockmarked storefronts. But for the residents of Anadan who came together to call for freedom and dignity on the morningSyria'scease-fire began last month, it was as though the revolution had begun again. "We were willing to come out like it was our first day," said Abu Ghaith, an activist in the town near Aleppo that rebels seized and lost again to government forces.

BEIRUT - The United Nations Security Council on Saturday authorized a full monitoring mission of up to 300 observers in Syria as the advance team visited the battered central city of Homs for the first time. Opposition activists said the bombardment of Homs, which has been shelled almost continuously for nearly three months, stopped before the monitors toured one of the hardest-hit neighborhoods, Khaldiyeh. State media reported that the team also toured the city's devastated opposition stronghold of Baba Amr, but activists could not confirm the visit.

BEIRUT - Syria and the United Nations reached a preliminary agreement Thursday on a monitoring mission to supervise a shaky cease-fire, as U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon criticized the government of President Bashar Assad for failing to uphold the truce. "Despite the government's agreement to cease all violence, we still see deeply troubling evidence that it continues," Ban said at a news conference in New York. Since the cease-fire began a week ago, government forces have continued to shell cities and towns and open fire on protesters, and some rebel groups are fighting back as an uprising that has racked Syria for 13 months showed no sign of ending.

BEIRUT — Six United Nations observers arrived in the capital of Syria on Sunday night to begin monitoring a cease-fire even as violence continued in parts of the country, further fraying the peace plan. "They've arrived and they will start work tomorrow morning," Kieran Dwyer, a spokesman for the U.N. peacekeeping department, told Agence France-Presse news agency. The monitors are part of an advance team whose task is to ensure the implementation of a six-point peace plan designed to end fighting and a brutal government crackdown in Syria's 13-month uprising.

BEIRUT - Two days into a fragile truce, and the question many are asking is, when is a cease-fire no longer a cease-fire? On the second day of a United Nations-backed peace plan to end violence and unrest in Syria's 13-month uprising, mass protests returned to the streets and in some places were met with gunfire, killing at least eight people, according to activists. In other towns, soldiers and security forces stationed nearby allowed protesters to gather, but the very presence of armed government forces was a violation of the plan.

BEIRUT - Just hours into a cease-fire between the Syrian government and the opposition, the truce was already on shaky ground as more than a dozen people were reported killed and there was no sign that government tanks and heavy weapons had been withdrawn from contested areas. A draft resolution for a United Nations advance monitoring mission could be voted on as early as Friday in an effort to end unrest in the 13-month uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad. Diplomats who met Thursday said a force as large as 200 could eventually be sent to Syria if both sides pledge to honor the peace plan.

BEIRUT - A peace plan deadline for pulling back government forces in Syria came and went Tuesday as attacks across much of the country continued, leaving the international community with little besides condemnation for the country's leadership. But in a show of optimism that seemed to defy the bloody situation in Syria, United Nations and Arab League special envoy Kofi Annan held out hope that a cease-fire might still be reached by Thursday as planned and that negotiations could begin between the government of President Bashar Assad and the opposition seeking Assad's ouster.