Associated Press:
A French government spokeswoman has identified two Western reporters killed in Syria as French photojournalist Remi Ochlik and American Marie Colvin.
The spokeswoman, Valerie Pecresse, provided details of the killing to reporters after Syrian government forces shelled the restive central city of Homs.
France’s foreign minister also confirmed the death of a French journalist in violence in Syria.
Alain Juppe told reporters after a weekly Cabinet meeting that French authorities have expressed condolences to the journalist’s family and were working to obtain the exact details about the killing. He did not identify the journalist.
Juppe said Wednesday the death points to “the degradation of the situation” and “an increasingly intolerable repression” by Syrian forces.
Foreign journalists have been sneaking into Syria illegally in the past months with the help of smugglers to cover the 11-month uprising against President Bashar Assad’s regime because the government bars almost all foreign journalists and human rights groups.
The government crackdown killed more than 5,400 people last year, the U.N. says.
"You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Fred."
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This is a real tragedy, Colvin's and Ochlik's deaths, now prominent among the other journalists who have lost their lives exposing the horrors of the Assad regime. Marie Colvin was one of the great ones, utterly fearless, incredibly intelligent and talented. We mourn this great loss to the Free World and the Free Press. Marie always stood for human dignity, freedom and the truth, and the best thing we can do to honor her death is to set our intention to end the Assad regime's jackbooted tyranny over the Syrian people. And the last comment Marie made in her final interview with CNN was that this criminal regime is lying through its teeth while it slaughters its own people.
To let Assad and his despotic allies, China, Russia and Chavez in Venezuela, triumph over this legitimate revolution would be a great tragedy for the Middle East and humanity. Time for America to rise to the occasion.
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