Putin distances Russia from Assad

Putin distances Russia from Assad

MOSCOW

Russian President Vladimir Putin declared Thursday that change was needed in Damascus, further distancing Moscow from Syrian President Bashar Assad in another sign that Assad’s support may be fraying even among his few remaining allies.

Putin made the comments as a U.N. panel concluded that Syria’s raging conflict had become “overtly sectarian” after almost two years of violence and tens of thousands of deaths.

Putin said that Russia would not back Assad, long a close ally, “at any price,” and he used some of the Kremlin’s strongest language to date.

Dock washes ashore

SEATTLE

A dock that apparently was ripped away from Japanese waters by a tsunami and drifted for more than a year and a half across 5,000 miles of the Pacific washed ashore on one of the most remote beaches on the west coast of the United States.

It was spotted Tuesday by the Coast Guard on the Olympic Peninsula. Tsunami-debris experts didn’t try to reach it by ground until Thursday because of stormy weather and treacherous terrain, said David Workman, spokesman for the state Marine Debris Task Force.

UN OKs military action in Mali

UNITED NATIONS

The U.N. Security Council on Thursday authorized military action to wrest northern Mali from the control of al-Qaida-linked extremists but demanded progress first on political reconciliation, elections and training African troops and police.

A resolution adopted unanimously by the U.N.’s most powerful body stressed that there must be a two-track plan, political and military, to reunify the country, which has been in turmoil since a coup in March.

Ohio still low in population growth

AKRON

Ohio continues to lag other states in population growth.

The state gained only 3,218 residents last year, a 0.03 percent increase from the previous year, according to estimates the U.S. Census Bureau released Thursday.

That meager growth rate ranked 48th among all states and the District of Columbia. Only West Virginia, Rhode Island and Vermont were worse.

Rhode Island and Vermont saw their populations decline slightly.

Polio workers get police protection

LAHORE, Pakistan

Under police guard, thousands of health workers pressed on with a polio-immunization program Thursday after nine were killed elsewhere in Pakistan by suspected militants who oppose the vaccination campaign.

Immunizations were halted in some parts of Pakistan, and the U.N. suspended its field participation everywhere until better security was arranged for its workers. The violence risks reversing recent progress fighting polio in Pakistan, one of three countries in the world where the disease is endemic.

Combined dispatches