Turkey condemns Syria for killings

BEIRUT (AP) — A team of Arab observers headed to Syria today as neighboring Turkey condemned President Bashar Assad for turning his country into a “bloodbath” after the regime killed more than 200 people this week alone, drawing international condemnation and dramatically raising the death toll in the nine-month uprising.

More than 100 people were killed just outside the village of Kfar Owaid, about 30 miles from the northern border with Turkey in Syria’s Idlib province on Tuesday. Government troops surrounded residents and activists in a valley and unleashed a barrage of rockets, tank shells, bombs and gunfire in an hours-long assault that one activist described as an “organized massacre.”

The United Nations says more than 5,000 people have died since March as Syria has sought to put down the uprising — part of the Arab Spring of protests that has toppled long-serving leaders in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.

On Wednesday, the Obama administration accused the Syrian government of continuing to “mow down” its people and the French foreign ministry said everything must be done to stop this “murderous spiral.”

Egypt’s prime minister calls for dialogue

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt’s military appointed prime minister is calling for a national dialogue to resolve the country’s ongoing political crisis and pleads for a two-month calm to restore security.

Kamal el-Ganzouri also told a news conference today that the ruling military, which took over from longtime leader Hosni Mubarak 10 months ago, is eager to relinquish power, but he did not elaborate.

El- Ganzouri, 78, is a Mubarak-era prime minister appointed by the military last month.

His comments coincide with growing calls for the military to step down immediately amid mounting criticism of the generals’ handling of the country, their human rights record and failure to revive the economy or restore security.

Lockerbie bomber says he is innocent

LONDON (AP) — The convicted Lockerbie bomber claimed today to have new evidence about the 1988 terrorist attack on Pan Am Flight 103 that he said could clear his name.

Abdel Baset al- Megrahi was convicted in 2001 over the attack that killed 270 people, most of them American, when the aircraft exploded over the Scottish town. He was freed from a Scottish jail on compassionate grounds in August 2009 after doctors estimated he had only three months to live due to cancer.

In an interview published in several British newspapers, which they reported had been carried out by al- Megrahi’s friend George Thomson on Saturday, the former Libyan intelligence officer protested his innocence and claimed he was on the brink of death.

“I am an innocent man,” al- Megrahi was quoted as saying. “I am about to die and I ask now to be left in peace with my family.”

Arlington to issue report on gravesites

ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) — Arlington National Cemetery will report to Congress on its review into the accuracy of its gravestones and burial sites.

Congress ordered the report, due today, in the wake of revelations that some people had been buried in the wrong place or in misidentified and unidentified gravesites. Those reports led to the ouster of the cemetery’s top two officials last year.

An interim report from the cemetery last month found no further evidence of misplaced or misidentified gravesites after individual checks had been made of roughly 260,000 grave markers. But the report found potentially tens of thousands of discrepancies between the information on headstones and that contained on internal cemetery paperwork.

So far, the cemetery has generally earned high praise from Congress for its efforts to reform past practices.