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transformation from dictatorship to democracy in peril.
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• BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan (AP) -- A Russian Soyuz craft launched into the morning skies over Kazakhstan on Sunday, carrying three astronauts on their way to the International Space Station, where they will quickly start preparing for a frenzy of incoming traffic.
• NASA astronaut Sunita Williams, Russian cosmonaut Yury Malenchenko and Ja

pan's Akihito Hoshide are set to travel two days before reaching their three colleagues already at the permanent space outpost.
• Families and colleagues watched the launch from an observation platform in the Russian-leased cosmodrome in the dry southern steppes of this sprawling Central Asian nation.
• Liftoff took place at the exact scheduled time of 08:40 a.m. local time (0240 GMT), sending a deafening roar as the craft gained height.
• Despite withstanding intense G-force pressure, the three astronauts looked relaxed in televised footage as they performed a series of routine operations.
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• DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) -- Syria has denied that government forces used heavy weapons during a military operation that has brought widespread international condemnation.
• Syrian Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi told reporters in Damascus on Sunday the violence in Tremseh was a military operation targeting armed fighters, not a massacre.
• He said no heavy weapons were used in the violence Thursday.
• That directly contradicts accounts by activists and the U.N., which said monitors saw the army use heavy weaponry and attack helicopters.
• U.N. observers have found pools of blood in homes and spent bullets, mortars and artillery shells. Dozens of people have already been buried in a mass grave.
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