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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

In brief: Syria plans election despite civil war

From Wire Reports

Damascus, Syria – Syria called a presidential election for June 3, aiming to give President Bashar Assad a veneer of electoral legitimacy in the midst of a civil war that has killed more than 150,000 people and driven a third of the population from their homes.

The opposition and the United States denounced the vote as a farce, and a U.N. spokesman said it will “hamper the prospects for a political solution.” But Assad’s government appears determined to hold the election as a way of exploiting its recent military gains.

The announcement Monday by Parliament Speaker Jihad Laham raises questions about how the government intends to hold any kind of credible vote within the deeply divided country, where large swaths of territory lie outside government control and where hundreds of thousands of people live either in rebel-held or contested areas or under blockade by pro-government forces.

Weather stymies search for jet

Sydney – An air search for the missing Malaysia Airlines jet was suspended for a day due to stormy weather today as the painstakingly slow sonar scanning of the targeted patch of seabed continued.

Up to 10 planes were to scour the ocean surface for debris today over an area covering 19,000 square miles centered 1,000 miles northwest of the Australian west coast city of Perth, the search coordination center said in a statement.

But the center later said the planes would be grounded in Perth due to poor weather related to a tropical cyclone developing off the Australian coast to the north.

Ten ships would continue the search today. A robotic submarine was finishing today its ninth 16-hour mission scanning the silt-covered seafloor since the search for wreckage shifted beneath the waves on April 14.