Maysun / EPA, file

Syrian Army fighters preparing themselves to shoot against Syrian Army positions in Aleppo, Syria, March 11.

UNITED NATIONS -- Iran, Syria and North Korea on Friday prevented the adoption of the first international treaty to regulate the $70 billion global conventional arms trade, complaining that it was flawed and failed to ban weapons sales to rebel groups.

To get around the blockade, British U.N. Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant sent the draft treaty to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and asked him on behalf of Mexico, Australia and a number of others to put it to a swift vote in the General Assembly.

U.N. diplomats said the 193-nation General Assembly could put the draft treaty to a vote as early as Tuesday.

The head of the U.S. delegation, Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Countryman, told a group of reporters, "We look forward to this treaty being adopted very soon by the United Nations General Assembly."

He declined to predict the result of a vote but said it would be a "substantial majority" in favor.

"A good, strong treaty has been blocked," said Britain's chief delegate, Joanne Adamson. "Most people in the world want regulation and those are the voices that need to be heard."

"This is success deferred," she added.

The point of an arms trade treaty is to set standards for all cross-border transfers of conventional weapons.

It would also create binding requirements for states to review all cross-border arms contracts to ensure arms will not be used in human rights abuses, terrorism or violations of humanitarian law.

NRA: Treaty threatens gun rights
Arms control activists and human rights groups say a treaty is needed to halt the uncontrolled flow of arms and ammunition that they say fuels wars, atrocities and rights abuses.

"The world has been held hostage by three states," said Anna Macdonald, an arms control expert at humanitarian agency Oxfam. "We have known all along that the consensus process was deeply flawed and today we see it is actually dysfunctional."

"Countries such as Iran, Syria and DPRK (North Korea) should not be allowed to dictate to the rest of the world how the sale of weapons should be regulated," she added. 

The National Rifle Association opposes the treaty and has vowed to fight to prevent its ratification if it reaches Washington. The NRA says the treaty would undermine domestic gun-ownership rights.

The American Bar Association, an attorneys' lobby group, has said that the treaty would not impact the right to bear arms.

Jim Watson / AFP - Getty Images

Demonstrators from Amnesty International call for a global arms treaty in a protest outside the White House, March 22.

The main reason the arms trade talks took place at all is that the United States - the world's biggest arms exporter - reversed U.S. policy on the issue after President Barack Obama was first elected and decided in 2009 to support an arms treaty.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had told Iran's Press TV that Tehran supported the arms trade treaty. But Iranian U.N. Ambassador Mohammad Khazaee told the conference that he could not accept the treaty in its current form.

"It is a matter of deep regret that genuine efforts of many countries for a robust, balanced and non-discriminatory treaty were ignored.,” he said.

One of those flaws was its failure to ban sales of weapons to groups that commit "acts of aggression," ostensibly referring to rebel groups, he said. The current draft does not ban transfers to armed groups but says all arms transfers should be subjected to rigorous risk and human rights assessments first.

Syrian Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari echoed the Iranian concerns. "Unfortunately our national concerns were not taken into consideration," he said.

North Korea's delegate voiced similar complaints, suggesting it was a discriminatory treaty.

Russia and China made clear they would not have blocked it but voiced serious reservations about the text and its failure to get consensus.

A Russian delegate told the conference that Moscow would have to think hard about signing it if it were approved.

If adopted by the General Assembly, the pact will need to be signed and ratified by at least 50 states to enter into force.

Related:

'Not good enough': Rights groups blast draft of arms trade treaty

North Korea is no 'paper tiger', warns US official as regime puts rockets on standby

Israel to grill Obama over possible military strike on Iran

Chester Baldicantos / AP

Police examine the scene where prosecutor Maria Teresa Casino was wounded at the Regional Trial Court building in Cebu city in central Philippines on Tuesday.

A Canadian man shot dead a doctor who was suing him and the doctor’s lawyer in a court in the Philippines on Tuesday, according to reports.

Police said the man had smuggled a pistol into the court in the central city of Cebu, the AFP news agency reported.

The report said the Canadian had been accused of petty mischief.

A government prosecutor was also injured and the Canadian was shot and wounded during a melee, police told local radio DZBB. His condition was not clear Tuesday.

BBC News reported that the 65-year-old had been accused of mischief by his neighbors.

AFP said there was a public debate in the Philippines over stricter gun-control laws after a number of gun-related deaths in January.

Slideshow: Connecticut school massacre

Michelle Mcloughlin / Reuters

The second deadliest school shooting in U.S. history sent crying children spilling into the school parking lot as frightened parents waited for word on their loved ones.

Launch slideshow

Shock and sympathy were the initial reactions from around the world to a shooting rampage that left 26 people dead, including 20 children, at a Connecticut elementary school. Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard described the attack as a "senseless and incomprehensible act of evil."

"Like President Obama and his fellow Americans, our hearts too are broken," Gillard said in a statement.

The gunman killed his mother at home before opening fire Friday inside the school in Newtown, Connecticut, killing 26 people, including 20 children, police said. The body of the killer, identified as 20-year-old Adam Lanza, was also found at the school.

"As parents and grandparents, as brothers and sisters, as friends of the American people, we mourn the loss of children, aged only 5 to 10 years, whose futures lay before them," Gillard said. "We mourn the loss of brave teachers who sought only to lead their students into that future but were brutally murdered in a place of refuge and learning."

Australia confronted a similar tragedy in 1996, when a man went on a shooting spree in the southern state of Tasmania, killing 35 people. The mass killing sparked outrage across the country and led the government to impose strict new gun laws, including a ban on semi-automatic rifles.

Elementary school massacre: 20 children among 28 killed in Connecticut slaughter

Gillard's sentiments echoed those of British Prime Minister David Cameron, who said he "was shocked and deeply saddened" to learn of the "horrific shooting."

"My thoughts are with the injured and those who have lost loved ones," he said. "It is heartbreaking to think of those who have had their children robbed from them at such a young age, when they had so much life ahead of them."

In Japan, where guns are severely restricted and there are extremely few gun-related crimes, public broadcaster NHK led the noon news Saturday with the shooting, putting it ahead of an update on the final day of campaigning before Sunday's nationwide parliamentary elections.

NHK, which had a reporter giving a live broadcast from the scene, said that five of the children at the school were Japanese, and that all five were safe. Its report could not immediately be independently confirmed.

Authorities ID gunman who killed 27 in elementary school massacre

Several Japanese broadcasters ran footage from Newtown, showing scenes of people singing outside churches Friday evening, as well as part of President Barack Obama's tearful press conference.

In China, top of the news
The attack in Connecticut quickly consumed public discussion in China, rocketing to the top of topic lists on social media and becoming the top story on state television's main noon newscast. China has seen several rampage attacks at schools in recent years, though the attackers there usually use knives. The most recent attack happened Friday, when a knife-wielding man injured 22 children and one adult outside a primary school in central China.

Gunman's mother owned weapons used in Connecticut school massacre

Much of the discussion after the Connecticut rampage centered on the easy access to guns in America, unlike in China, where even knives are sometimes banned from sale. But with more than 100,000 Chinese studying in U.S. schools, a sense of shared grief came through.

"Parents with children studying in the U.S. must be tense. School shootings happen often in the U.S. Really, can't politicians put away politics and prohibit gun sales?" Zhang Xin, a wealthy property developer, wrote on her feed on the Twitter-like Sina Weibo service, where she has 4.9 million followers. "There will always be mental patients among us. They should not be given guns."

In the Philippines, a spokeswoman for President Benigno Aquino III said, "What makes it more painful is that most of the victims were small children."

"Our deep condolences go out to the families, teachers and their loved ones. Our hearts and minds are with them and pray with them as they go through a very difficult time, especially with Christmas approaching," deputy presidential spokeswoman Abigail Valte told DZBB radio.

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Jorge Cabrera / Reuters

Riot police detain an injured peasant farmer as they evict protesters near the Supreme Court in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, on August 21, 2012.

Honduran riot police fired tear gas to remove farmers who had set up barricades and burned tires to block a main avenue near the Supreme Court in the capital Tegucigalpa on Tuesday, Reuters reports.

The protesters were demanding that a decree that would have the effect of disarming farmers in Bajo Aguan be ruled unconstitutional by the court.

The Honduran Congress approved a law earlier this month prohibiting the public possession and transportation of guns in Colon, a region of the country where drug trafficking and other agrarian conflicts are blamed for the killings of more than 60 people in the past three years.

At least 20 of the farmers were detained after attacking policemen with rocks during the protest, local media reported.

Previously on PhotoBlog:

• Farmers seize land from one of the wealthiest men in Honduras
• Hunt for drug traffickers terrorizes Honduras village

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