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• BEIRUT (AP) -- Syrian rebels on Thursday bombarded a military air base in Aleppo using a tank captured from government troops as activists reported that the regime has unleashed new raids against opposition fighters near the capital Damascus, killing dozens.
• The Aleppo report was one of the first indications the rebels are starting to deploy the heavy weapons they've managed to capture in the past weeks from the Syrian army. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the rebel-seized tank shelled the Menagh military airport outside Aleppo, which the regime has used to launch attacks on rebel positions in the surrounding area.
• Rami Abdel Rahman, the director of the Observatory, said it was not the first time the rebels have used the tanks they have captured by the regime.
• It is, however, rare and represents an escalation in the battles between the two sides. Up to this point, rebel forces have suffered from the huge disparity in armaments with Syria's well-armed military that also has fighter jets and helicopter gunships at its disposal.
• Rebel forces in northern Syria attacked the country's largest city of Aleppo two weeks ago and have captured several neighborhoods, mostly lower income areas on the periphery which they have since held despite ground and air assaults by the government.
• ___

• LONDON (AP) -- Perhaps we should have seen this coming.
• Back in 2007, a butcher at the Fantastic Sausage Factory in the quaint English county of Dorset was told to remove a window sign depicting sausage meat twisted into the shape of the the five Olympic rings.
• And last year, competitors in a baking contest in bucolic Shropshire were warned by games organizers to drop plans to place Olympic-themed marzipan figurines atop their cakes.
• But those were merely preliminary skirmishes in a multibillion-dollar sponsorship battle that has drawn charges that London organizers have been heavy-handed,

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