Syrian government and opposition both denounce transition plan

07/02/12: Al Jazeera reports Syria’s opposition and state media demonstrated rare agreement in branding a new international plan for a transition in strife-torn Syria a failure, as the death toll for a weekend of violence topped 140.  World powers meeting in Geneva on Saturday agreed that the transition plan could include current regime members, but the West did not see any role for President Bashar al-Assad in a new unity government.  Russia and China insisted that Syrians themselves must decide how the transition takes place, rather than allow others to dictate their fate; Moscow and Beijing, which have twice blocked UN Security Council resolutions on Syria, signed up to the final agreement that did not make any explicit call for Assad to cede power.