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Geneva -- the first round of what is expected to be prolonged negotiations stretching several weeks or even months.
• The government and opposition delegations met Friday with U.N.-Arab League mediator Lakhdar Brahimi.
• Negotiations have been strained over issues such as the opposition's demand for a transfer of power in Syria and have so far failed to achieve any concrete results, including the passage of humanitarian aid convoys to besieged parts of the central city of Homs.
• Brahimi was expected to brief journalists following the meeting Friday.
• A day earlier, Brahimi said the week produced "tense moments and rather promising moments." He said he hoped that all parties could be better organized in the next session.
• ___

• KIEV, Ukraine (AP) -- A Ukrainian opposition activist who went missing last week says he was kidnapped and tortured, the latest in a string of mysterious attacks on anti-government protesters in the two-month-long political crisis.
• Dmytro Bulatov, 35, a member of Automaidan, a group of car owners that has taken part in the protests against President Viktor Yanukovych, went missing Jan. 22.
• Bulatov was discovered outside Kiev on Thursday. He said his kidnappers beat him severely, nailed him to a cross, sliced off a piece of ear and cut his face. He was kept in the dark all the time and could not identify the kidnappers. After more than a week of beatings, they eventually dumped him in a forest.
• "They crucified me, they nailed down my hands. They cut off my ear, they cut my face. There isn't a spot on my body that hasn't been beaten," Bulatov said on Channel 5 television. "Thank God, I am alive."
• Bulatov's face and clothes were covered in clotted blood, his hands were swollen and bore the marks of nails.
• ___

• RISALPUR, Pakistan (AP) -- Militants in Pakistan have found clever ways to

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