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New Cold War rivalry over Syrian uprising

OH to have been a fly on the wall at that Damascus meeting the other day.

I'm talking about the one between Syria's President Bashar al Assad and his Russian visitors – some might say allies – Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Mikhail Fradkov, Moscow's director of foreign intelligence.

While the innocent civilians trapped by indiscriminate bombardment in the Syrian city of Homs will no doubt only have survival on their minds right now, it would surely add to their woes to know how much their fate seems increasingly beholden to regional and international power politicking.