A serious situation in Syria
| 09:18 UK time, Thursday, 24 March 2011
This subject was discussed on 24th March 2011. You can listen to it here.Ìý
There are reports this morning that at least 10 anti-government protesters have been killed in the southern Syrian city of Deraa, after police opened fire on them.
Others have been putting the number of casualties at significantly higher - one human rights activist in Syria puts the total at 37 - and the number who were shot at is put in the hundreds.
Discounting what has been happening in Libya in recent weeks, this is the third time since Friday that protesters have been fired on in a Middle Eastern country.
Previous action saw protesters cleared from Bahrain's Pearl Roundabout using lethal force, resulting in many deaths, while in Yemen, at least 45 people died when snipers fired into a crowd in the capital Sanaa.
Barbara Bodine, former US ambassador to the Republic of Yemen,
When we spoke to New York-based on our pilot programme on Wednesday, she said that Libya has dominated global attention and the world was not paying enough attention to what is happening in Syria.
So what's your reaction to events in these smaller countries? Are their leaders taking advantage of Western attention being focused on Libya to crush dissent? Or should we accept that, in the words of one diplomat, "accidents happen" when trying to keep a country under control?
