Syria is expected to dominate talks at today’s G8 summit in Ireland. As world leaders arrived today, Russian President Vladimir Putin criticized the U.S. for last week’s decision to arm Syrian rebels, saying the aid will go to fighters who eat human flesh. Putin was referring to an infamous video that circulated last month of a Syrian rebel biting into the organ of a dead Syrian soldier. At the United Nations, outgoing U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice defended the decision to arm Syrian rebels and played down speculation the U.S. will seek to impose a no-fly zone on Syria.

Susan Rice: “Our intelligence community has high confidence that chemical weapons, including sarin, have been used by the government against the opposition on multiple occasions over the course of the last year, on a small scale. On the issue of a no-fly zone, we have been clear that we’re not excluding options, but at this stage no decision has been taken. And as my colleagues in Washington described at some length yesterday, that option has some downsides and limitations that we are very well aware of and will factor into any decision.”