Libya asks UN to hold up lifting no-fly zone (AP)

UNITED NATIONS ? Libya asked the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday to hold up on lifting the no-fly zone it imposed and ending its authorization to protect civilians until the transitional government makes an official request, possibly within days.

The council authorized the actions on March 17 in response to an Arab League request to try to halt Moammar Gadhafi's military which was advancing against rebels and their civilian supporters. The NATO bombing campaign that followed was critical in helping the rebels oust Gadhafi from power in August.

Libya's deputy U.N. ambassador Ibrahim Dabbashi told the Security Council the Libyan people look forward to terminating the U.N. mandates as soon as possible, explaining that they "hate any interference" in the country's sovereignty though they know NATO's military campaign was "indispensable" and saved many lives.

Dabbashi said "Oct. 31 is a logical date" but the transitional government needs to evaluate the security situation and the country's ability to monitor its borders.

Russia has proposed that the Security Council adopt a resolution terminating the no-fly zone and authorization of military action to protect civilians. Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said before Wednesday's council meeting that this shouldn't be delayed beyond Oct. 31, but the French and British envoys have cautioned that any actions be coordinated with Libyan authorities when they are ready.

Last week, following Gadhafi's death, NATO announced preliminary plans to phase out its mission on Oct. 31. But the alliance earlier Wednesday unexpectedly postponed a decision, saying NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen needed to continue consultations with the United Nations and Libya's National Transitional Council, which declared the country's "liberation" on Sunday.

NATO aircraft continued air patrols Wednesday and spokeswoman Carmen Romero said the alliance's governing body, the North Atlantic Council, "will meet with partners on Friday to discuss our Libya mission and take a formal decision."

Libya's Dabbashi said the country's air force hasn't been activated, and the interim government has been criticized for delaying the reinstitution of nation's armed forces which are "the only force that can preserve our security and monitor our frontiers as well as protect the security of our citizens."

"Therefore, we wish to inform you not to be hasty in adopting a resolution, and we will inform you of the official decision of the NTC," Dabbashi told council members.

He said Libya expects to establish a new transitional government in the next two weeks and will then start trying to build a prosperous, democratic country that respects human rights. He said this will be difficult because Libya has no institutions ? a result of Gadhafi's more than four-decade dictatorship ? and the country will need U.N. assistance.

Ian Martin, the top U.N. envoy to Libya, told the Security Council that U.N. electoral officials have already met with NTC officials to discuss U.N. support for what will be Libya's first elections for over 45 years within eight months ? to choose a National Congress that will draft a constitution for the country.

Martin again highlighted "the terrible legacy of the extraordinary quantity of weaponry and munitions on which the Gadhafi regime squandered the wealth of Libya, to the benefit only of diverse arms suppliers, and now to the menace of Libya and its region."

He said the U.N. mission is continuing to facilitate coordination among the NTC and international organizations overseeing the control of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, as well as other non-conventional weapons.

"While NTC forces appear to be controlling all relevant chemical and nuclear material sites, centralized command and control remains a concern," Martin said. "It has become clearer that there are additional sites with previously undeclared chemical weapons or materials that the government is about to formally declare" to the organization overseeing the convention that prohibits chemical weapons.

Libya also accumulated the largest known stockpile of shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles in any non-producing country. While thousands were destroyed during NATO operations, Martin said the U.N. is increasingly concerned "over the looting and likely proliferation" of these weapons and other munitions, as well as a spate of newly laid mines.

___

Associated Press Writer Slobodan Lekic contributed to this report from Brussels

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/un/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111026/ap_on_re_us/un_un_libya

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Agreement to tie kilogram and friends to fundamentals

After decades of worry, toil and argument, metrologists have officially begun the process of tying the definitions of four basic units to nature's fundamental constants.

The General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) in Paris, France, has unanimously agreed on a proposal that would lead to reform of the mole, kilogram, kelvin and ampere, according to the international system of units (SI).

That puts us on the cusp of a historic change in the way science sizes up the world. If the next CGPM, in four years' time, confirms the plan, it will amount to the biggest change to the SI units for a century.

Proponents of the switch are thrilled. "Not a single vote against! It was unbelievable," says Ian Mills of the University of Reading, UK.

Metal shock

Nearly all measurements we make are ultimately based on the SI, with a chain of laws and rules leading back to just seven base units. The way that these units are defined doesn't matter so much for weighing vegetables, say, but many scientific experiments require precise measurement, especially in areas like fundamental physics.

The first sign that the SI was flawed was noticed in 1949 in a check on a lump of metal kept inside a vault at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) in Paris. By definition, it is the only object in existence with a mass of exactly 1?kilogram ? one of the seven SI base units ? so metrologists were unsettled to discover that this mass had changed.

Not liking to rush into anything, however, no one checked the standard kilogram again until 1989. The problem had not gone away.

The metre and the second are two base units that don't have anything like this to worry about. They are defined with reference to the speed of light ? a link to a fundamental constant that makes them robust. Much of the rest of the SI, however, isn't in great shape.

Planck and Avogadro

A drifting kilogram means that the mole, the unit that chemists use for measuring the amount of a substance, is in trouble too. The kelvin is currently defined according to the property of water in a certain state ? a fact that makes precise measurements at very high or low temperatures impossible. Meanwhile, the ampere's definition is so impractical that electrical researchers have had to turn to a definition outside the SI system based on quantum processes instead.

See more: Click here to see the present and proposed SI unit definitions

In 2006, after decades of little action, Mills and fellow metrologists Terry Quinn, Peter Mohr, Edwin Williams and Barry Taylor argued in the journal Metrologia that the four problematic units should be tied to fundamental constants of the universe instead. The seventh, the candela, could wait.

For the kilogram, they suggested using the Planck constant, which relates the energy of electromagnetic radiation to its frequency. The Planck constant can also be used to define the Avogadro constant, the number of atoms in 12?grams of carbon-12, which in turn can be used to obtain the mole.

A fixed value is also possible for another constant, the elementary charge carried by one proton or electron, which can be used to define the ampere. For the kelvin, you can use the Boltzmann constant, which relates thermal and mechanical energy.

Persuasive power

Mills and colleagues had their work cut out to actually make this happen, though. The process of changing the SI units requires a vote by representatives of the member states of the CGPM, which meets only once every four years and is notoriously slow and bureaucratic.

What's more, the reformers had to persuade conservative elements within the CGPM of the necessity of the changes. The conservatives resisted such a switch, claiming that the extra precision was unnecessary and that there was a risk the changes could be wrong.

Mills and colleagues, however, believe that metrology should always be one step ahead: ever-increasing precision is what the field is all about. "We're impeding progress if we refuse," says Mills.

The metre used to be defined by a scratch on a metal bar and the second was linked to the rotation of the Earth, he points out. At the time people were happy enough, but without exquisite accuracy in measuring time and distance, for example, we couldn't use satellites for GPS.

Tense lobbying

On 17 October, Mills stood up in front of the CGPM audience to make the case. It was only a 10-minute presentation, but among the most important of his career. He and colleagues had drafted a proposal that would set the body on a path to change the SI.

Five tense days of behind-the-scenes discussions and lobbying later, Mills and his colleagues learned that the CGPM had unanimously backed the proposal.

Although the decision will not be binding without another vote in four years' time, this approval makes the switch much more likely. "This is a unanimous public statement," says Mills.

At his age, Mills accepts that he himself may not get to see the new system put in place. "It'll happen," he told New Scientist earlier this month. "It may be after I'm gone. I'm 81 years old. But it'll happen."

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Health Tip: Children and Bedwetting (HealthDay)

(HealthDay News) -- Millions of children wet the bed, especially those who have just been potty trained. Most the time, the child simply grows out of it.

The Nemours Foundation offers these suggestions on what to do when a child wets the bed:

• Be supportive and positive, and assure your child that there's nothing to be embarrassed about.
• Have your child go to the bathroom one last time right before bed each night.
• Offer plenty of fluids during the day, but cut back at night.
• Avoid giving your child any beverages that contain caffeine.
• Consider waking the child during the night for a bathroom break.
• Offer a motivational reward and plenty of praise when your child wakes up dry.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/parenting/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20111024/hl_hsn/healthtipchildrenandbedwetting

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India's inaugural F1 race -- speeding past the poor (Reuters)

SALARPUR, India (Reuters) ? India will hold its first Grand Prix this weekend - a glitzy coming-out party for an emerging economic juggernaut that is lost on villagers like Meera, standing by a fetid pond near the brand new Formula One race track with a child covered in warts.

"What is this Formula One? I learnt only recently that some of our land was acquired for it," said Meera, a mother of four who goes by one name. The floodlights of the $400 million F1 circuit that can hold 100,000 roaring spectators could be seen in the distance.

For a slideshow on India's inaugural F1 Grand Prix, click http://in.reuters.com/news/pictures/slideshow?articleId=INRTR2SSM3

Seen by its supporters as an example of how India's private companies can organise complex, hi-tech and global events, the Grand Prix has re-ignited India's perennial questioning of how far the country should go down the globalisation road.

For critics, it is an example of skewed economic growth, an elitist event where even the cheapest tickets are unaffordable for most people and an event that has no roots among India's 1.2 billion people.

For the moment, that questioning is lost in a media frenzy.

Boosted by Lady Gaga, Bollywood and cricket stars, the Grand Prix may help India regain its self confidence after a scandal-plagued Commonwealth Games sparked headlines mocking the Asian power's arrival on the world stage.

Run by Jaypee Sports International, a subsidiary of the Jaypee Group construction and infrastructure giant, the F1 event has come in on schedule with almost none of the cost overruns, corruption and shoddy construction that plagued the government-run Commonwealth Games last year.

"The world's perception of India is going to change after the Grand Prix and people will forget what happened because of the Commonwealth Games," Jaiprakash Gaur, founding chairman of the Jaypee Group, told local media.

BOOMING MARKETPLACE

The event is also just the latest example of international sports bodies ensuring they get a foot in this booming Asian marketplace with a huge advertising base of millions. India has already attracted the attention of top European football clubs.

Nevertheless, India is playing catch-up with its fellow emerging market rivals. China held a successful Olympics while Brazil will hold the next edition of the football World Cup - and Russia follows four years later. Brazil also has the 2016 Olympics.

But what price this sovereign branding game?

The extravagance of the event and questions about land seizures to make way for the circuit have sparked criticism. Critics have cited it as an example of misplaced priorities in a country where malnutrition rates rival sub-Sarahan Africa.

The cheapest tickets are about 2,500 rupees (about $50) - about half the monthly wage of a cleaner. The most expensive corporate boxes go for about $200,000 - and nearly all have been sold.

When the event was being planned in 2009, then-sports minister M.S. Gill dismissed it as "expensive entertainment."

"In many ways it epitomises what is wrong with this country," said Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, a political commentator.

"One section of India would like to tell the rest of the world about how fast growing we are. Just come here and see the inequality and poverty on the ground and you get a reality check."

Situated in Greater Noida, about an hour's drive from New Delhi, the Formula One track is connected by a new highway through the capital's booming outskirts of anonymous office blocks and cement skeletons of soon-to-be-built colleges.

Within the circuit grounds, where shiny Mercedes Benz display cars are parked, poor Indian women used brushes and their hands to sweep dust and stones from an access road, their children playing nearby.

In nearby Salarpur village, Meera, who is illiterate and can only guess her age, held a sick child in her arms. He has suffered malaria twice. Rubbish lay in ponds of stagnant water. A young calf grazed on garbage.

"I don't understand this concept of cars racing for entertainment," she said. "People pay money to watch this? Like a movie?"

Nearby, workers sprayed the manicured lawns around the F1 track with water in last minute preparations. Meera, who has electricity for four hours a day, must walk half an hour to the nearest water pump.

EXTREMES

For the moment, though, the media focus is on speed and glamour, and Force India, India's first Formula One team, which has a slogan of "Raising The Flag."

The 5.14 km track is touted to enable the F1 calendar's second highest average speed after Italy's Monza. Its 1.2 km straight is one of the longest in Formula One, aimed at encouraging high speeds and overtaking.

The grandstand, with seats coloured in the Indian flag colours of saffron, white and green, features an undulating roof that can be seen from miles around.

There is much focus on the track itself, with safety concerns paramount after the deaths of a two-time Indianapolis 500 winner and an Italian motorcyclist in races this month.

But a successfully held event would confirm what supporters hope will be an example of India finally showing what it is capable of.

"This comes after a bad year for India," said V. Ravichandar, chairman of Feedback Consulting in Bangalore, which advises multinationals. He was referring to a string of corruption scandals that hit foreign investments into India amid growing instability of the Congress-led coalition government.

"To have an event that goes smoothly will show that the private sector is capable for pulling off events like this."

But controversies may hang over the event even after a successful weekend.

The Grand Prix will take place in U.P. governed by Dalit or "Untouchable" leader called Mayawati. She has raised a storm of criticism for building parks worth tens of millions of dollars in honour of her party. The state is one of the poorest and most corrupt in India.

Questions have been raised about why Mayawati granted organisers exemption from an entertainment tax. Several hundred farmers plan to protest what they say was the seizure of their land at rock bottom prices by the state government.

"This is just another way of India patting itself on the back and saying we have arrived in terms of size and growth." said Suhel Seth, a popular marketing and management expert.

"Will investors get excited? No."

(Additional reporting by Annie Banerji and Amlan Chakraborty; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/india/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111025/india_nm/india601052

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US pulls envoy out of Syria, citing safety concern

FILE - In this June 20, 2011 photo taken during a government-organized tour for foreign diplomats and the media, US ambassador in Syria Robert Ford, covers his nose during his visit with other foreign diplomats to a mass grave, in Jisr el-Shughour, north of Syria. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Monday, Oct. 24, 2011, that Ambassador Robert Ford returned to Washington this weekend after "credible threats against his personal safety." (AP Photo/Bassem Tellawi, File)

FILE - In this June 20, 2011 photo taken during a government-organized tour for foreign diplomats and the media, US ambassador in Syria Robert Ford, covers his nose during his visit with other foreign diplomats to a mass grave, in Jisr el-Shughour, north of Syria. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Monday, Oct. 24, 2011, that Ambassador Robert Ford returned to Washington this weekend after "credible threats against his personal safety." (AP Photo/Bassem Tellawi, File)

FILE - In this Friday, July 8, 2011 file photo, pro-Syrian President Bashar Assad protesters attach Assad portraits at one of the US embassy entrances, as they protest against the visit of the US Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford to the Syrian city of Hama, in front the US embassy in Damascus, Syria. The U.S. has pulled its ambassador out of Syria over security concerns, blaming President Bashar Assad's government for the threats. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Monday Oct. 24, 2011 that Ambassador Robert Ford returned to Washington this weekend after "credible threats against his personal safety."(AP Photo/Muzaffar Salman, File)

FILE - In this Jan. 27, 2011 file photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, Syrian President Bashar Assad, left, meets with Robert Ford, the new U.S. ambassador to Syria, in Damascus, Syria. The American Embassy in Syria says U.S. Ambassador Robert Ford has been "temporarily" called back to Washington. (AP Photo/SANA, File) EDITORIAL USE ONLY

FILE - This Oct. 21, 2005 file photo shows Syrian Ambassador Imad Moustapha responding to a U.N. report at the Syrian Embassy in Washington. In an immediate response to the Obama administration pulling its ambassador out of Syria over security concerns, Syrian Ambassador Imad Moustapha promptly left the U.S. on Monday, Oct. 24, 2011, said Roua Shurbaji, a Syrian Embassy spokeswoman. She said no other steps were being taken by the embassy and declined to comment on U.S. allegations. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf, file)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The Obama administration has pulled its ambassador home from Syria, arguing that his support for anti-Assad activists put him in grave danger ? the most dramatic action so far by the United States as it struggles to counter a Mideast autocrat who is withstanding pressure that has toppled neighboring dictators.

Syria responded quickly Monday, ordering home its envoy from Washington.

American Ambassador Robert Ford was temporarily recalled on Saturday after the U.S. received "credible threats against his personal safety in Syria," the State Department said, pointing directly at President Bashar Assad's government.

Ford, who already had been the subject of several incidents of intimidation, has enraged Syrian authorities with his forceful defense of anti-Assad demonstrations and his harsh critique of a government crackdown that has now claimed more than 3,000 lives.

Calling Ford back to the U.S. is short of a complete diplomatic break but represents the collapse of the administration's hopes that it could draw Assad toward government changes and a productive role fostering Mideast peace. Washington held off on a full condemnation of Assad as his crackdown worsened this spring, and waited months to demand that he step aside.

Ford's presence in Damascus had been an important symbolic part of President Barack Obama's effort to engage Syria, which was without a U.S. ambassador for years after the Bush administration broke ties over Syria's alleged role in the 2005 assassination of a political candidate in neighboring Lebanon.

With Moammar Gadhafi's death last week in Libya, and the revolutions that toppled long-time leaders Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia, Assad is among the Arab Spring autocrats left standing. Along with Ali Abdullah Saleh in Yemen, he is facing the most pressure from his citizens to leave power. Yet with his vast security network and close links with Russia and China, Assad is perhaps the one best placed to withstand pressures for change ? peaceful or violent.

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said, "We are concerned about a campaign of regime-led incitement targeted personally at Ambassador Ford by the state-run media of the government of Syria." She called on the Assad government to "end its smear campaign of malicious and deceitful propaganda."

Nuland could not say when Ford might go back to Syria. Earlier, department spokesman Mark Toner said the U.S. Embassy would remain open in Damascus as the threats were specifically directed toward Ford, and that the ambassador's return depended on a U.S. "assessment of Syrian regime-led incitement and the security situation on the ground."

The State Department said there were no plans to expel Syria's top diplomat in Washington in retaliation. But Roua Shurbaji, a Syrian Embassy spokeswoman, said Ambassador Imad Moustapha left the U.S. on Monday for consultations in Damascus. She said no other measure was being taken by the embassy, and declined to comment on the U.S. allegations.

Ford's departure comes at a worrisome stage in the seven-month movement against Assad. U.S. officials are increasingly concerned about reports of weapons smuggling into Syria and the threat of peaceful protests being replaced by an armed uprising.

Amid that pressure, the world's attention is turning to Syria, even if the demonstrations have delivered only a stalemate. The protesters are too weak to force Assad and his government from power, and for all its brutality the government cannot stamp out all opposition. At the same time, Assad's pledges of reforms have long been ignored as meaningless and there is little indication his government is prepared to initiate a real dialogue with opponents.

If the level of violence resembles Libya's before the NATO intervention, Syria is different because anti-government groups are insisting that they want no outside assistance. The opposition is also hindered in that it remains a largely Sunni movement, with Assad maintaining significant loyalty from his dominant Alawite sect and Syria's minority Druze, Christians and business elite.

Ford arrived in January as the first American ambassador to Syria since the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri on a Beirut street. Syria at the time had thousands of troops in Lebanon and pulled many political strings there, but it has always denied any involvement in the bombing attack.

The Obama administration had hoped to persuade Syria to change its often anti-American policies regarding Israel, Lebanon and Iraq, and to drop its support for extremist groups. Syria is designated a "state sponsor of terrorism" by the State Department.

Assad largely shrugged off U.S. attempts to pull his nation away from its alliances with Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah. And as protests escalated in Syria, Ford essentially dropped his engagement efforts and took on an increasingly high-profile role defending the rights of Syrian protesters.

That shift was cemented when Obama called on Assad to leave power in August.

"We believe Assad needs to step aside, so engagement with him is certainly over," Nuland said on Monday. "But we are prepared to engage with Syrians of all stripes" and see "if they are able to take the next steps to pursue a democratic future."

Ford has been leading that effort, at great personal danger. He was greeted by demonstrators with roses and cheers when he traveled to the restive city of Hama in July, prompting immediate travel restrictions from Syria. The government stopped short of declaring him persona non grata, but U.S. officials say it has tried to make life for him in the country intolerable.

Just days after the trip to Hama, hundreds of government supporters attacked the U.S. Embassy in Damascus, smashing windows and spray-painting obscenities on the walls. Ford has been hit with eggs and tomatoes while going to meet dissidents or visit mosques. His postings on Facebook have prompted thousands of Syrian and other responses, including death threats from pro-Assad hardliners.

The U.S. last month decried Ford's treatment as "unwarranted and unjustifiable," after Assad supporters tried to force their way into a meeting he was having with a prominent opposition figure. Syrian police were slow in responding, and Ford was trapped inside the building for about three hours. But White House press secretary James Carney insisted at the time that the U.S. had no plans to remove Ford for his safety.

Nuland pointed to two articles in Syrian state-run media that she said highlighted the government's increased incitement of violence against Ford. The first, in the al-Baath newspaper in early October, warned Ford that he could receive more "rotten eggs" if he didn't end his alleged support for armed anti-government groups in Syria. The second appeared in al-Tharwa last week, she said.

The article claimed Ford operated death squads while he was posted diplomatically in Iraq, and that he was trying to apply his experience now in Syria. U.S. officials feared such an allegation might lead to an attack of greater violence against him.

___

Associated Press writers Bassem Mroue in Beirut and Albert Aji in Damascus, Syria, contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2011-10-24-US-Syria/id-d7b76403d23a4734878c1564453e66fe

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Coffee consumption associated with decreased risk for basal cell carcinoma

ScienceDaily (Oct. 24, 2011) ? Caffeine could be related to an inverse association between basal cell carcinoma risk and consumption of coffee, a study found.

The prospective study, presented at the 10th AACR International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research, held Oct. 22-25, 2011, examined the risks of basal cell carcinoma (BCC), squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) and melanoma in connection with coffee consumption and found a decreased risk for BCC only.

"Given the nearly 1 million new cases of BCC diagnosed each year in the United States, daily dietary factors with even small protective effects may have great public health impact," said researcher Fengju Song, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow in the department of dermatology at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School. "Our study indicates that coffee consumption may be an important option to help prevent BCC."

Data were taken from the Nurses' Health Study (Brigham and Women's Hospital) and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study (Harvard School of Public Health). In the Nurses' Health Study, 72,921 participants were followed from June 1984 to June 2008. In the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study, 39,976 participants were followed from June 1986 to June 2008.

The researchers reported 25,480 incident skin cancer cases. Of those, 22,786 were BCC, 1,953 were SCC, and 741 were melanoma.

Song and colleagues reported that women who consumed more than three cups of coffee per day had a 20 percent reduction in risk for BCC, and men who consumed more than three cups per day had a nine percent risk reduction compared with people who consumed less than one cup per month.

The amount of coffee consumption was inversely associated with BCC risk. Those in the highest quintile had the lowest risk, with an 18 percent reduction for women and a 13 percent reduction for men.

Song and colleagues were surprised by the inverse connection in BCC cases only. Animal studies have suggested an association between coffee intake and skin cancer risk, but epidemiologic studies have not conclusively shown the same results, they said.

"Mouse studies have shown that oral or topical caffeine promotes elimination of UV-damaged keratinocytes via apoptosis (programmed cell death) and markedly reduces subsequent SCC development," Song said. "However, in our cohort analysis, we did not find any inverse association between coffee consumption and the risk for SCC."

Song said that additional studies specifically addressing the association between coffee consumption and BCC and the mechanism behind this association are warranted.

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US senator talks about military options in Syria (AP)

SOUTHERN SHUNEH, Jordan ? U.S. Senator John McCain said Sunday that military action to protect civilians in Syria might be considered now that NATO's air campaign in Libya is ending.

However, President Barack Obama's administration has made clear it has no appetite for military intervention in Syria ? a close ally of Iran that sits on Israel's border ? and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton noted Sunday that the Syrian opposition has not called for such action as President Bashar Assad's regime.

"Now that military operations in Libya are ending, there will be renewed focus on what practical military operations might be considered to protect civilian lives in Syria," McCain said at the World Economic Forum in Jordan. "The Assad regime should not consider that it can get away with mass murder. Gadhafi made that mistake and it cost him everything," he added, referring to ousted Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi who was captured and killed last week by fighters loyal to the new government.

"Iran's rulers would be wise to heed similar counsel," McCain said.

It was not clear whether the Republican senator from Arizona was referring to American or NATO military action against the Syrian regime, which has waged a 7-month crackdown on opposition protesters and killed about 3,000 people, according to the U.N.

However, international intervention, such as the NATO action in Libya that helped topple Gadhafi, is all but out of the question in Syria. Washington and its allies have shown little inclination for getting involved militarily in another Arab nation in turmoil. There also is real concern that Assad's ouster would spread chaos around the region.

Syria is a geographical and political keystone in the heart of the Middle East, bordering five countries with which it shares religious and ethnic minorities and, in Israel's case, a fragile truce. Its web of alliances extends to Lebanon's powerful Hezbollah movement and Iran's Shiite theocracy. There are worries that a destabilized Syria could send unsettling ripples through the region.

Most Syrian opposition groups, inside and outside Syria, also have said they oppose military intervention.

Mohammad Habash, a member of Syria's outgoing parliament, said such military action "will only bring catastrophes, wars and blood and this is what we don't wish at all."

"We believe that the best way to protect civilians is diplomatic pressure and pushing the regime to sit and talk with the opposition and pushing the opposition to sit with the regime," said Habash, who has been linked to the regime but has recently tried to position himself between the government and the opposition.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said on "Fox News Sunday" that Washington is "strongly supporting a change from Assad and also an opposition that only engages in peaceful demonstration." But she stressed that Syria's opposition has not called for the kind of outside intervention that Libya's opposition did.

McCain also warned Iran after it was accused in the United States of backing a plot never carried out to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the U.S.

"Their plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington has only reminded Americans of the threat posed by this regime, how it is killing Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan, supporting violent groups across the region, destabilizing Arab countries, propping up the Assad regime, seeking nuclear weapons, trampling on the dignity of Iran's people."

Iran has maintained its backing for Assad's regime, but has increasingly urged him to halt attacks on protesters and open dialogue seeking to end the unrest. Tehran has dismissed the U.S. allegations of the plot as "baseless" and has said it was willing to examine hard evidence that the U.S. claims links Tehran and the foiled assassination conspiracy.

Iranian officials have rejected tough talk from Washington as "rhetoric," saying the U.S. is not in a position to attack the Islamic Republic. The country regularly holds war games to showcase its capabilities in defending its nuclear facilities from possible attack.

The elite Revolutionary Guard, Iran's most powerful military force, has warned that there would be a strong Iranian response should the U.S. take military action against the country. Iran repeatedly has threatened to target Israel should the U.S. or Israel take military action against it.

McCain also accused Iran of trying to "hijack" the Arab Spring.

"No issue unifies the American people more than the need to protect our friends, our allies, our interests from the comprehensive threat posed by the Iranian regime. No one should test our resolve in this matter," McCain said.

"Not to say that American leadership is neither welcomed nor wanted in the Middle East today. To the contrary, as I travel across this region, I have met with heads of state, young democratic activists business leaders and nearly every single one wants more American leadership and not less."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/mideast/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111023/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_mideast_arab_spring

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