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UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Russia and China vetoed on Saturday a U.N. resolution that backed an Arab plan calling on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to quit, stalling global efforts to end his bloody crackdown on unrest after hundreds were reported killed in the city of Homs.

The high-level diplomatic setback came after world leaders and Syrian opposition activists accused Assad’s forces of a massacre in a sustained shelling of Homs, the bloodiest episode in 11 months of upheaval in the pivotal Arab country.

Russia and China joined in a double veto of a Western- and Arab-driven resolution at the U.N. Security Council endorsing the Arab League plan for Assad to hand power to a deputy to make way for a transition towards democracy.

The other 13 council members voted for the resolution that would have said the council “fully supports” the League plan aimed at stopping Syria’s bloodshed, whose sectarian overtones threaten stability in the wider Middle East region.

Russia complained that the draft resolution was an improper and biased attempt at “regime change” in Syria, which is Moscow’s sole major Middle East ally, an important buyer of Russian arms exports and host to a Russian naval base.

With an eye to events in Homs, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice dispensed with the usual diplomatic courtesies and declared she was “disgusted” by the Russian-Chinese veto, adding that “any further bloodshed that flows will be on their hands”.

Shortly before the Security Council voted, U.S. President Barack Obama denounced the “unspeakable assault” on Homs, demanded that Assad leave power immediately and called for U.N. action against Assad’s “relentless brutality”.

“Any government that brutalizes and massacres its people does not deserve to govern,” Obama said.

He and other Western and Arab leaders exerted unprecedented pressure on Russia to allow the Security Council to pass the Arab League-backed resolution that calls for Assad to relinquish his autocratic powers and end the violence. The world body says over 5,000 civilians have been killed.

SECOND VETO IN FOUR MONTHS

But Russia, and China following Moscow’s lead, weighed in to torpedo U.N. action on Syria for the second time in four months. In October, they vetoed a European-drafted resolution condemning Syria and threatening it with possible sanctions.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said it had not been possible to work constructively with Russia ahead of the vote, even though military intervention in Syria - fiercely opposed by Moscow - had been absolutely ruled out.

“I thought that there might be some ways to bridge, even at this last moment, a few of the concerns that the Russians had. I offered to work in a constructive manner to do so. That has not been possible,” she told reporters at a Munich conference.

Clinton warned that the risk of more bloodshed and civil war in Syria had risen after the collapse of the U.N. resolution.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said after the vote that France was consulting with Arab and European countries to create a contact group on Syria to try to find a solution to the crisis.

“France is not giving up,” Sarkozy said in a statement, saying Paris was in touch with Arab and European partners to create a “Friends of the Syrian People Group” that would marshal international support to implement the Arab League plan.

The uprising pits Syria’s majority Sunni Muslims against Assad’s minority Alawites, an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam, who have dominated the country’s power structure for decades.

After what U.S. officials called “vigorous” talks between Clinton and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Moscow announced that he and its foreign intelligence chief would fly to Syria on Tuesday to meet Assad, although the trip’s goal was not given.

Moscow objected that the resolution contained steps against Assad, but not against his armed opponents, Lavrov said in Munich before the vote. “Unless you do it both ways, you are taking sides in a civil war.”

In New York, Western delegations rejected what they called “wrecking amendments” by Russia to add language blaming the opposition along with the government for violence and diluting calls for Syria to withdraw its security forces from cities.

Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin denied that Moscow’s amendments were last-minute, or that Russia was standing in the way of a peaceful resolution of the crisis.

“Some influential members of the international community, unfortunately, including those sitting around this table, from the very beginning of the Syrian process have been undermining the opportunity for a political settlement,” Churkin said.

Syrian U.N. envoy Bashar Ja’afari criticized the resolution and its sponsors, which included Saudi Arabia and seven other Arab states, saying nations “that prevent women from attending a soccer match” had no right to preach democracy to Syria.

He also denied that Syrian forces killed hundreds of civilians in Homs, saying that “no sensible person” would launch such an attack the night before the Security Council was set to discuss his country.

Residents of Homs’ battered Baba Amro district, speaking by telephone, denounced the Russian-Chinese veto, some chanting, “Death, rather than disgrace”.

One resident who identified himself as Sufyan said: “Now we will show Assad. We’re coming, Damascus. Starting today we will show Assad what an armed gang is.” Assad has called his opponents “armed gangs” and “terrorists” steered from abroad.

Mohammed Loulichki, the U.N. ambassador of Morocco, the sole Arab member of the 15-nation council, voiced his “great regret and disappointment” at the veto and said the Arabs had no intention of abandoning their plan. British envoy Mark Lyall Grant said there would be a new U.N. push if violence continued.

France called the Homs assault a “massacre” and a “crime against humanity.”

Turkey said hundreds had been killed and the United Nations must act. Tunisia expelled the Syrian ambassador, and the flag above its embassy was brought down.

Death tolls cited by activists and opposition groups ranged from 237 to 260, making the Homs attack the bloodiest so far in Assad’s crackdown on protests and one of the deadliest episodes in the “Arab Spring” of revolts that have swept the region.

Residents said Syrian forces began shelling the Khalidiya neighborhood at around 8 p.m. (1800 GMT) on Friday using artillery and mortars. They said at least 36 houses were completely destroyed with families inside.

“We were sitting inside our house when we started hearing the shelling. We felt shells were falling on our heads,” said Waleed, a resident of Khalidiya.

“The morning has come and we have discovered more bodies, bodies are on the streets,” he said. “Some are still under the rubble. Our movement is better but there is little we can do without ambulances and other things.”

An activist in the neighborhood contacted by Reuters said:

“We have dug out at least 100 bodies so far, they are placed in the two mosques.” He put the total number of wounded at 500.

CONDEMNATION

Video footage on the Internet described as being from Homs showed at least eight bodies assembled in a room, one of them with the top half of its head blown off. A voice on the video said the bombardment was continuing as the footage was filmed.

As news of the violence spread, angry crowds of Syrians stormed their country’s embassies in Cairo, London, Berlin and Kuwait and protested in other cities.

Syria denied shelling Homs and said the Internet video was staged. It is not possible to verify activist or state media reports as Syria restricts independent media access.

Syria’s state news agency, SANA, quoted a “media source” as saying, “The corpses displayed by some channels of incitement are martyrs, citizens kidnapped, killed and photographed by armed terrorist groups as if they are victims of the supposed shelling.”

The official Syrian account was disregarded across the globe, where international condemnation was thunderous.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe declared that “those responsible will have to answer for it” and, in remarks aimed at Moscow, said any country that blocked U.N. action would bear a “heavy responsibility in history.”

The Syrian government says it is facing a foreign-backed insurgency and that most of the dead have been its troops. SANA reported funerals of 22 members of the security forces.

Some Syrian activists said the violence was triggered by a wave of army defections in Homs, a stronghold of protests.

(Additional reporting by Joseph Logan, Mariam Karouny and Dominic Evans in Beirut, Arshad Mohammed and Stephen Brown in Munich, Ahmed el-Shimy in Cairo, Caren Bohan and Katharine Jackson in Washington, Steve Gutterman in Moscow and John Irish in Paris; Writing by Mark Heinrich and Peter Graff; Editing by Louise Ireland and Peter Cooney)

Russia and China blocked a UN Security Council resolution condemning Syria for its crackdown on protests, hours after Syrian forces bombed Homs, killing hundreds.

The heaviest reported day of death since the Syrian uprising began coupled with the second UN veto in four months triggered a wave of international outrage at the failure to reach a common stand at the United Nations.

Washington on Saturday said it was “disgusted” with the rare double veto and France denounced Friday’s massacre in the city of Homs as a “crime against humanity.”

President Bashar al-Assad’s troops shelled Homs “randomly” during the night killing men, women and children, the opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) said.

It said at least 260 civilians were killed in the onslaught. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said about 100 women and children were among the 237 dead in its toll. Both said hundreds more were wounded.

The Assad regime “committed one of the most horrific massacres since the beginning of the uprising in Syria,” the SNC said. Opposition groups say more than 6,000 people have now been killed in the country since last March.

Dozens of bodies and scenes of chaos could be seen in video images shown by the Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya television channels.

Church bells rang out and Muslim prayers were recited in Homs mosques for those killed, activists said. Thousands took part in funeral processions across the city.

AFP was not able to verify the authenticity of videos or the tolls because of restrictions on reporting in Syria. But US President Barack Obama denounced the “unspeakable assault” and demanded that Assad step down.

“Assad must halt his campaign of killing and crimes against his own people now. He must step aside and allow a democratic transition to proceed immediately,” Obama said in a statement.

The Syrian government denied responsibility for the deaths, blaming them on opposition rebels seeking to influence Security Council debate on Syria. But Russia and China used their diplomatic muscle for the second time in four months to block a resolution condemning the violence.

The other 13 countries in the 15-member council voted for the resolution, proposed by European and Arab nations to give strong backing to an Arab League plan to end the crackdown.

Russia and China “remain steadfast in their willingness to sell out the Syrian people and shield a craven tyrant,” US ambassador Susan Rice told the council.

In a separate message on Twitter, Rice wrote: “Disgusted that Russia and China prevented the UN Security Council from fulfilling its sole purpose.”

Britain is “appalled” at the veto, said its UN ambassador Mark Lyall Grant, while French President Nicolas Sarkozy “strongly deplores” the veto by Russia and China, his office said.

The Arab League meanwhile renewed its call for Syria to end the crackdown. It said “the escalation of violence has put the Syrian crisis on a dangerous new curve which will lead to an aggravation of the situation and an increase in deaths.”

But Russia’s UN envoy Vitaly Churkin defiantly rejected attacks from the European and Arab nations that proposed the resolution, which has been negotiated for several weeks.

Churkin justified the veto by saying the proposed resolution “sent an unbalanced signal to the Syrian parties.”

His Chinese counterpart Li Baodong said pushing through such “a vote when parties are still seriously divided… will not help maintain the unity and authority of the Security Council, or help resolve the issue.”

Western envoys said they had bent over backwards to change the text after Russia had balked at any resolution that could be used to justify foreign military intervention, called for Assad to quit or imposed an arms embargo on Syria.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she had tried to negotiate with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference in Germany.

But the resolution’s backers said they decided to end negotiations and call for a vote after Russia demanded new changes early Saturday.

Russia — for whom Syria is its last remaining major ally in the Middle East — announced that Lavrov and intelligence chief Mikhail Fradkov would travel to Damascus on Tuesday to press Assad to discuss a political solution.

As news of the Homs killing spread, protesters stormed Syrian embassies in Athens, Berlin, Cairo, Kuwait and London. Tunisia announced it was expelling Syria’s ambassador and withdrawing its recognition of the Assad government.

The Homs attack came on the 30th anniversary of a massacre by Assad’s father Hafez in the city of Hama in which tens of thousands died.

Russia will build a reliable aerospace defense system to effectively counter NATO missile threats, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said on Sunday.

Rogozin, recently appointed as a deputy prime minister to oversee Russia’s defense industry, said on his Twitter that the global security conference being held in Munich had failed to come to a compromise on creating a European missile defense system.

Rogozin quoted NATO Secretary General Anders Fog Rasmussen as saying that NATO would continue “to develop a missile defense system because we feel a strong responsibility to protect our populations effectively against the missile threat.”

“Well, as for us, we also feel responsibility for protecting our population from your missile threat and will create a reliable air and space defense,” Rogozin, who served as Russia’s envoy to NATO before his new appointment, wrote on his Twitter account.

Russia and NATO agreed to cooperate on the so-called European missile shield during the NATO-Russia Council summit in Lisbon in November 2010. NATO insists, however, there should be two independent systems that exchange information, while Russia favors a joint system with full-scale interoperability.

Russia has retained staunch opposition to the planned deployment of U.S. missile defense systems near its borders, claiming they would be a security threat. NATO and the United States insist that the shield would defend NATO members against missiles from North Korea and Iran and would not be directed at Russia.

A would-be female suicide bomber from downtown Moscow was detained in the Chechen capital Grozny, a law enforcement source said on Saturday.

The unidentified 20-year-old, a resident of the capital’s well-off Basmanny district, came to the North Caucasus to train as a suicide bomber, the source said.

The woman came to Grozny hoping to establish ties with local Islamist insurgencies and return to Moscow to blow herself up there, the report said; however, she was detained by local police.

The woman gave a “muddy” testimony, the source said. An investigation is ongoing.

Two female suicide bombers blew themselves up in the Moscow metro in 2010, killing 41 people.

A dozen dead and thousands injured – the bloody aftermath of three straight days of rioting in Egypt. It all began after an outbreak of violence at a football match earlier this week that claimed the lives of 74 people.

­Since the revolution which toppled the Mubarak regime began in the capital, Cairo, in January 2011, peace has never quite returned to Egypt’s towns and cities. When a military regime filled the space left by Mubarak’s ouster, demonstrators returned to the streets, where they have remained ever since. Hopes that fresh elections would bring calm were dashed when the Port Said football tragedy triggered a new wave of violence, giving fresh impulse to street protests.

The combination of people’s unhappiness with the rule of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, and anger over the events in Port Said have created a volatile mix. Egyptians have been quick to condemn the authorities, blaming the Interior Ministry for failing to provide effective security at the match, and even suggesting it instigated the chaos. They say the government has an interest in maintaining the instability in order to justify its hard-line rule.

Egyptian football fans – also known as the Ultras – were among those who spearheaded the uprising against the Mubarak regime last year. This time, after the Port Said violence, they proceeded to the building of the Interior Ministry in central Cairo demanding justice and an immediate transition from military to civilian rule, as well as snap presidential elections.

The standoff between the protesters and police is still going on. According to RT’s correspondent Maria Finoshina, who is reporting from the scene, numerous rioters are chanting anti-military slogans and many wear facial masks soaked in liquid, in order to protect themselves from the teargas fired by police forces.

“People are just protesting, and they [police] are shooting them. Canisters of tear gas have an unbelievable effect – people might die of that, they suffocate, every day – children, everyone… Today a [seven-year-old] child got hit by a [police] car,” one of the Cairo protesters told RT. “What they are doing to protesters and what they are doing to the country – it’s more than enough, it must be over.”

The failure of Egypt’s ruling Military Council to securely transfer power to civil leadership within a specified timeline is fueling new, violent protests, with increasing numbers of people falling into harm’s way.

­Fresh clashes have emerged outside the Interior Ministry, as police once again resort to volleys of tear gas and rubber bullets into crowds who throw rocks in reply.

At least dozen more people have been lost their lives, and over 2,000 injured in protests across the country since 74 were killed at a riot following a football match this past Wednesday.

In response to the protests, Egyptian authorities are debating whether to move a presidential election forward from its current planned date in June.

The president and entire board of Egypt’s football association were fired after the tragedy, but the move failed to abate protests over the deaths. Demonstrators across the country maintain that there was more to the clashes than a regular football rivalry. They do not blame the football federation, and instead place the guilt on the security services for allowing armed militants to enter the stadium.

Demonstrators are demanding that the Military Council leaves power.

“The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces has mismanaged the transitional process,” says Professor Omar Ashour from the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter.

Civilian rule has remained an unfulfilled dream, and economic life in the country has not returned to normal. Authorities have also failed to follow through on a promise to restructure the security services formerly loyal to ousted President Hosni Mubarak.

“All these expectations: a better economy, dignity, freedom and bread – all the slogans of the revolution have not been accomplished a year after the revolution,” Ashour noted, recalling that the deadline for the most important expectation – a power transfer within the first six months of Mubarak’s exit from power – passed long time ago.

“Protesters want an elected president now, so they can hold him accountable if he fails to restore the Egyptian economy and fails to reform the security services,” Ashour told RT.

“The angry, mostly young protesters – who count large numbers of football fans amongst them – are right to feel victimized,” Ashour explained. They cannot bring another revolution – but they can put enormous pressure on the newly elected parliament and the Military Council.

Europeans should ask why they are to pay for an American-Israeli adventure in Iran during a time of unprecedented austerity, political analyst Chris Bambery told RT.

Iran says it will definitely stop oil exports to “certain” European countries, while the decision to cut supplies to further EU states is still in discussion.

This comes as Tehran’s response to an EU oil embargo that was set to come into force on July 1.

It is clear that Tehran has leading European powers like Britain and France in mind among those “certain” countries, says political analyst Chris Bambery, noting well-documented Western concerns of Iranian-directed terrorist attacks in the US and Europe and Tehran’s possession of missiles capable of reaching both.

“The Iranians must understand from recent history that the history of sanctions, like in the case of the former Yugoslavia or Iraq, has been to soften up those countries in preparation for a military assault,” Bambery told RT.

Iran is already surrounded by US military bases, so Tehran is surely feeling the pressure of the recent build-up in the Persian Gulf. The situation is dangerous because of the possibility of accidental clashes like the 1988 incident when a US missile accidentally shot down a Iranian civilian airliner over the Strait of Hormuz. The incident claimed lives of all 290 passengers and crew aboard, and Washington has never apologized for it.

Bambery called on the people of Europe and America to force their governments to pull back and start talking with Iran, instead of imposing sanctions on it.

The events in Libya and now Syria set a vivid example of what awaits the Iranians: “They must feel they are next on the list,” Bambery says.

No matter how many times it was said that the US cannot roll out another war, Bambery says, Israel could still attack Iran, bringing an immediate retaliation from Tehran and creating full-fledged military engagement a reality.

In the meantime, the Iranian oil embargo will deal a low blow to Europe – particularly the crisis-stricken southern states like Greece and Italy, which would suffer the most while an inevitable oil price hike kicks in in the other EU countries.

Europeans would be better off asking their governments why recession-stricken European national economies should support a war with their oil supplier, Bambery concluded.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has acknowledged that an accord with Russia on a Western-drafted UN resolution on Syria is unachievable given both sides’ positions.

­Clinton has had vigorous talks with Russia Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on the sidelines of Munich Security Conference, discussing various matters from the European anti-missile shield to the UN’s proposed resolution on Syria.

She said that up to the last moment, she had hoped it would be possible to ease Moscow’s concerns. But negotiations with Lavrov only showed that both sides were unwilling to compromise.

Of the vote, Clinton said, “It is difficult, however, to imagine that after the bloodiest day yet in Syria, there are those who would prevent the world community from condemning this violence. And I would ask them: what more do we need to know to act decisively in the Security Council?”

Clinton had criticized Moscow and Beijing for blocking a new resolution on Syria while the Security Council’s other thirteen members voted in favor of it. She warned that Syria’s current state of affairs could devolve into civil war between forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and those of the armed opposition.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon expressed his deepest regrets over Russia’s and China’s decision to block the resolution, saying it could undermine the UN’s image.

Meanwhile, French UN Ambassador Gerard Araud said the vote on the Syria resolution marks a sad day for the Security Council, Syrian citizens and democracy.

The United States is “disgusted” by Russia and China’s decision to veto a U.N. Security Council resolution today that called for an immediate end to the violence in Syria, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice said today.

The Security Council vote today came on one of the bloodiest days of the popular uprising in Syray, as President Bashar al Assad’s security forces launched a withering artillery assault on the city of Homs that has reportedly left 200 to 400 dead.

Though they were the only negative votes in a 13 to 2 vote, Russia and China’s  veto power as permanent members of the Security Council killed the resolution drafted by Arab and European countries.

The vetoes came after a week of intense negotiations to gain Russian support for a resolution it had opposed from the start.   The resolution supported an Arab League plan that called for an immediate end to the violence in Syria and a political solution to the crisis.  Russia was opposed to the resolution because of concerns that it could leave an opening for a foreign intervention against one of its loyal client states.

The vetoes drew harsh criticism from Security Council members that supported the resolution and who had amended it several times to ease those concerns, rewording language about the transition of power and watering down the possibility of future sanctions against the Assad regime.

“The United States is disgusted that  a couple of members of this Council continue to prevent  us from fulfilling our sole purpose,” U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice said. “For months this Council has been held hostage by a couple of members,” she said, referring to Russia and China, who she said had been “delaying and stripping bare any text to force Assad to stop his actions.”

Without referring to Russia by name, she said the vetoes were “even more shameful” given that Russia has continued to sell weapons to to Syria.  She called the vetoes “unforgivable” and said “any further blood that flows will be on their hands.”

In brief remarks to the Council, Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said Russia actively supports an end to the violence in Syria, but that the resolution did not “accurately reflect the real state of affairs” in Syria and “sent an unbalanced signal to the parties.”  Churkin was speaking about armed opposition groups that have also been conducting violent attacks against the Assad regime in Syria.

He once again cited Russian concerns about “regime change” by “influential members of the international community who have been undermining the possibility of a settlement in Syria.”

French Ambassador Gerard Araud said the vetoes were a “sad day for the UN Security Council … a sad day for democracy and a sad day for Syrians. … Hundreds of Syrians are dying and it is no longer possible to wait. ”

Peter Wittig, the German ambassador to the United Nations criticized the vetoes particularly for having come on “one of bloodiest days of the Arab spring” and the 30 th anniversary of the massacre in Hama, Syria ordered by Assad’s father that resulted in 20,000 dead.

“This is the real scandal,” Wittig said. “Afraid this will spur further violence and make it difficult to reach a political solution.”

British Ambassador to the U.N. Mark Lyall  said Russia and China should “ask themselves how many more deaths they are prepared to tolerate.”

He said the negotiations had “removed every possible excuse” for voting against the resolution. He also said that the United Kingdom and other countries would continue their efforts to stop the violence in Syria.

Li Baodong, China’s Ambassador to the UN told Council members that China voted against the resolution because it would “further complicate the situation” in Syria.

He also said that China supported the Russian delegation’s last minute calls for a delay on the vote as well as amendments proposed by Russia that  were not taken up by the Council.

Thousands participated in rallies both in support and against Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Saturday around Russia and outside Moscow.

In St. Petersburg, 5,000 rallied against Putin, according to official police estimates; the organizers put the figure at 20,000. Local news web site Fontanka.ru reported the downtown Konyushennaya Square was filled to capacity and could not accommodate all participants. Police have consistently downplayed the size of anti-Putin rallies, which organizers claim were attended by a much higher number than the official figures.

Police estimates show that about 2,000 attended a protest event in Yekaterinburg in the Urals, some 3,000 in Samara in central Russia, and between 1,000 and 1,500 in the Siberian city of Tomsk. Elsewhere in western Siberia, some 3,000 came to an opposition rally in Omsk, compared to 8,000 at a pro-Putin event.

The biggest pro-government rally outside Moscow took place in Voronezh in central Russia, gathering almost 14,000, city police said. Local news web site Communa.ru put the figure at 8,000 to 10,000. In Ufa, some 5,500 attended a combined rally and concert in Putin’s support, police said. Police and the opposition have generally had greatly differing estimates of the number of people who attended pro-Putin rallies.

Police said the total number of people who attended the various rallies throughout Russia was about 230,000 people.

Protest rallies also took place outside the country: some 100 protested against Putin’s policies and his expected return to the Kremlin in March by the Centre Georges Pompidou in central Paris. To withstand a winter chill of minus 3 degrees Celsius, a samovar with hot tea was brought in by organizers.

Some 10 supporters of the protests picketed the Russian embassy in the Latvian capital Riga.