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Syria shows UN is mostly useless, most of the time

GIVEN the waves of demonstrations by democracy activists in Moscow and other sub-zero Russian cities, Vladimir Putin is probably no fan of spontaneous uprisings.

China's government, equally, is not known for encouraging popular dissent. Neither regime would relish free and fair elections.

It was not entirely a surprise, then, to see the Russians and the Chinese act as one to veto a UN Security Council resolution designed to hasten the departure of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad. In non-diplomatic language, what was in it for them?