UN suspends patrols in Syria

UN suspends patrols in Syria

BEIRUT

U.N. observers suspended their patrols in Syria on Saturday due to a recent spike in violence, the strongest sign yet that an international peace plan was unraveling despite months of diplomatic efforts to prevent the country from plunging into civil war.

The U.N. observers have been the only working part of a peace plan brokered by international envoy Kofi Annan, which the international community sees as its only hope to stop the bloodshed.

Myanmar activist accepts ’91 Nobel

LONDON

Twenty-one years after she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Myanmar democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi made her acceptance speech at last on Saturday during her first tour of Europe since being freed from house arrest.

“When I joined the democracy movement in Burma, it never occurred to me that I might ever be the recipient of any prize or honor. The prize we were working for was a free, secure and just society where our people might be able to realize their full potential,” Suu Kyi, 66, said in Oslo.

Saudi heir dies

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia

For the second time in less than a year, Saudi Arabia was thrown into the process of naming a new heir to the country’s 88-year-old king after the death Saturday of Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz.

That forces a potentially pivotal decision: whether to bring a younger generation a step closer to ruling one of the West’s most critical Middle East allies. King Abdullah now has outlived two designated successors, despite ailments of his own.

It’s widely expected that the current succession order will stand, and Nayef’s brother, Defense Minister Prince Salman — another elderly and ailing son of the country’s founding monarch — will become the No. 2 to the throne of OPEC’s top producer.

But Prince Nayef’s death opens the possibility that a member of the so-called “third generation” of the royal clan — younger and mostly Western educated — will move into one of the traditional ruler-in-waiting roles.

Woman drives car into crowd

LIMA, Ohio

A 63-year-old woman inexplicably drove her car into a crowded town square in northwest Ohio and struck bystanders, sending some through the air and pinning others under the car until freed when bystanders lifted the vehicle, authorities and witnesses said.

About 30 people were injured. Some suffered serious injuries to their legs, heads and necks, none of them life-threatening, police said. All but four were released from the hospital Friday, a hospital spokeswoman said. At least one other person was taken to another hospital.

The chaotic scene unfolded Friday night when more than 1,000 people had gathered for a weekly community event.

Hitchhiker shot self, authorities say

BILLINGS, Mont.

A West Virginia man who claimed to be the victim of a drive-by shooting along a rural Montana highway while working on a memoir called “Kindness in America” has confessed shooting himself, authorities said Friday.

Valley County sheriff’s officials said they believe 39-year-old Ray Dolin shot himself as a desperate act of self-promotion, but they offered no further details.

Charges were pending, and the case remains under investigation.

Combined dispatches