World / Nation Briefs February 25, 2012

Clinton blasts Russia, China as 'despicable'

TUNIS, Tunisia - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton blasted Russia and China as "despicable" for opposing U.N. action aimed at stopping the bloodshed in Syria, and more than 60 nations began planning a civilian peacekeeping mission to deploy after the Damascus regime halts its crackdown on the opposition.

In his most forceful words to date on the Syrian crisis, President Barack Obama said the U.S. and its allies would use "every tool available" to end the bloodshed by the government of President Bashar Assad.

"It is time to stop the killing of Syrian citizens by their own government," Obama said in Washington, adding that it "absolutely imperative for the international community to rally and send a clear message to President Assad that it is time for a transition. It is time for that regime to move on."

Obama spoke as a group known as the Friends of Syria, led by the U.S. and European and Arab nations, met in Tunisia in the latest effort to halt the Assad regime's nearly year-old suppression of an anti-government uprising.

The group's actions are aimed at jolting Assad and his allies into accepting demands for a democratic transition, even as they are still unwilling to commit to military intervention.

For presidents, sorry seems to be the hardest word

WASHINGTON - Nearly every president ends up saying he's sorry for something America has done - from a bomb gone tragically astray to the locking up of Japanese-Americans during World War II. This time it's disrespectful disposal of Qurans. And again there are critics who see an apology as a sign of weakness or a failure of patriotism.

Should being president mean never having to say you're sorry?

Few would go that far, but there are plenty of advocates for keeping presidential regrets to a minimum.

It seems that the bigger the national blunder, the more controversial the apology.

So saying the U.S. is sorry for the mistaken bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia or the accidental sinking of a Japanese fishing boat is widely accepted. But apologizing for the moral catastrophe of slavery is so contentious that no president has done so.

Girl had troubled life before being ran to death

ATTALLA, Ala. - Savannah Hardin's life was in turmoil long before police say the 9-year-old was run to death by her grandmother and stepmother for allegedly lying about some candy she ate.

Divorce and custody documents filed in family court over a period of several years reflect a history of fractured family relationships, with Savannah's divorced parents fighting over her welfare; claims of mental instability and abuse between her father and his second wife; medical problems that required frequent doctor visits; and counseling for the girl who still somehow managed to remain among the top students in her third-grade class.

Authorities said Savannah's life ended in exhaustion earlier this month when she was forced by her paternal grandmother, Joyce Hardin Gerrard, to run for three hours, while her stepmother, Jessica Mae Hardin, did nothing to stop it.

The grandmother prodded her along cruelly, and the stepmother didn't intervene until Savannah collapsed in an unconscious heap, investigators say.

Now, Hardin Garrard is in jail and Savannah's stepmother is being held in police custody at a hospital after giving birth to another child. Both have been charged with murder.

Bitter dispute between trustees, residents

BOSTON - With only eight days to live, a wealthy, ailing Massachusetts merchant wrote in his will 351 years ago that he was leaving a spectacular 35-acre seafront property for the benefit of public school children, decreeing the land should never be sold or wasted.

The dying wish of William Payne, one of the state's earliest settlers, created the nation's oldest charitable trust and eventually led tenants to build 167 cottages - most of them used by summer vacationers - on the land he left for the seaside city of Ipswich. The rent money has generated some $2.4 million to help fund public schools over the last 25 years.

Now, the trustees want to tear up the will, convert the property into condominiums and sell them to the tenants to settle a 2006 lawsuit filed by the tenants over rent increases. But hundreds of Ipswich residents have gone to court to block the settlement, saying it violates the sacred intent of Payne's will and shortchanges the schools.

The Massachusetts Appeals Court is considering whether to nullify the settlement and is scheduled to hear arguments in the case March 2.

The residents contend that while independent appraisals show the value of the land is an average of about $41 million, the agreement sets a sale price of nearly $32 million. They also say that the settlement also denies public schools the benefit of rising land value that occurs over the long term and that could help them collect higher rents.

Report notes rapidly expanding Iranian activity

VIENNA - Iran has rapidly ramped up production of higher-grade enriched uranium over the last few months, the U.N. nuclear agency said Friday, in a confidential report that feeds concerns about how quickly the Islamic republic could produce an atomic bomb.

The International Atomic Energy Agency report also said Iran failed to give a convincing explanation about a quantity of missing uranium metal. Diplomats say the amount unaccounted for is large enough to be used for experiments in arming a nuclear missile.

Iran insists it is not interested in nuclear weapons and says its activities are meant either to generate energy or to be used for research.

But the report contained little assurances the country's activities are purely peaceful. Instead, it also confirmed that two IAEA missions to Tehran within less than a month had failed to dent Iran's refusal to assist an IAEA probe of suspicions the country has been secretly working on aspects of a nuclear weapons program.

Chavez bids farewell, flies to Cuba for surgery

CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez bid an emotional farewell laced with references to Jesus Christ and independence hero Simon Bolivar as he departed Venezuela on Friday for Cuba for urgent surgery to remove a tumor he says is probably malignant.

Clasping the hand of his youngest daughter, Chavez addressed allies of his socialist political movement and troops standing at attention at the Miraflores presidential palace.

"I say this from my gut: With cancer or without cancer ... come rain, thunder or lightning ... nobody can avoid a great patriotic victory Oct. 7," the president said, referring to the date of Venezuela's presidential election. "Long live Chavez!"

- The Associated Press