ALBA delegation to meet Syrian president on solidarity mission

A visiting delegation from the eight-member Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA) is expected to meet Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Sunday in a show of solidarity with his country. The bloc's talks aim to "reject invasion and political destabilization attempts against the country by the United States and its allies," Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro said in Geneva. "We reject all forms of interventionism that the empire is trying to apply as it did in Libya for a violent process of regime change," he added. Representatives of Venezuela, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Bolivia led by Maduro and Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez are traveling to Damascus to "support the Syrian people in their search for stability." Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines are also members of the regional organization for integrated cooperation. Syria has been gripped by six months of unrest that has spread across the country. Syrian authorities recently put at 800 the number of army officers and law-enforcement troops killed since the eruption of protests in Syria in mid-March, while a recent UN tally estimated the number of civilians killed at 2,900.