(Continued from page 34)

divided on those issues, although both maintained they are committed to working together despite their differences.
• The United States and other countries are upset that China and Russia have repeatedly used their veto powers in the U.N. Security Council to block actions that could have led to sanctions against Assad's regime. China says Syria's civil war needs to be resolved through negotiations and not outside pressure.
• "I think history will judge that China's position on the Syria question is a promotion of the appropriate handling of the situation," Yang told a news conference with Clinton. "For what we have in mind is the interests of the people of Syria and the region and the interests of peace, stability and development in the region and throughout the world."
• ___

• BOGOTA (AP) -- The image is seared in Colombian minds: The country's president sits on a big stage looking glum, hands folded in his lap, next to an empty chair.
• It is January 1999. At the inauguration of peace talks, the founding leader of the Western Hemisphere's biggest leftist rebel army has snubbed President Andres Pastrana.
• Cursed, the peace talks drag on for three years in a safe haven the size of Switzerland that the government has ceded to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, which wages war elsewhere, kidnaps and extorts unabated and expands its cocaine business.
• Ten years later, in a wealthier, far more stable Colombia, a different president is giving peace yet another chance.
• "Any responsible leader knows he can't let pass up a possibility like this to end the conflict," President Juan Manuel Santos told the nation Tuesday in announcing an accord with the peasant-based FARC to seek "a definitive peace."
• ___

• LOS ANGELES (AP) -- One asteroid down, one to go.
• After spending a year gazing at Vesta, NASA's Dawn spacecraft was set to

(Continued on page 36)