Last week, Russia and China blocked a U.N. resolution that would have supported the Arab League peace proposals. Since then, the violence has only intensified.

Like other international diplomats, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu is still reeling from Russia and China’s refusal to back the Arab League proposal’s to solve the crisis in Syria.

“It was a typical Cold War picture, which we do not like to see. And we will pay the price. Today we have 12,000 refugees in Turkey,” he says. “Tomorrow, I don’t know how many.”

Davutoglu says Turkey’s borders will remain open to anyone escaping Assad’s regime. He says he wants to do more to help people inside Syria.

“If this humanitarian tragedy continues, of course there should be some ways for the accessibility of food and medicine for these people,” Davutoglu says. “And here the international community has the responsibility to protect innocent people.”

Though he won’t say how, he insists this is not another Libya and that there is no talk of military intervention. Davutoglu says he still holds out hope that Russia will make a new assessment now that Assad seems to have broken his promises and intensified the shelling of Syrian cities.

Davutoglu says Turkey, too, had held out hopes that Assad would be a reformer, but gave up on that idea last year.

He says Turkey hoped that Assad would be a Gorbachev, referring to Mikhail Gorbachev, the reformist Russian leader. “But he preferred to be Milosevic of Syria,” Davutoglu says, referring to Slobodan Milosevic, the ousted Serbian leader who was facing charges of war crimes when he died in prison at The Hague in XXXX.

And Homs today, Davutoglu says, looks a lot like Sarajevo under siege.

The Turkish foreign minister is to meet Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Monday. State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said the U.S. and its partners are trying to put together a “friends of Syria” group. Though they haven’t settled on a name or a venue for their first meeting, they know what they want.

“The goal of all of the countries and partners that we expect will participate in this is to support the kind of plan that the Arab League put forward, which spoke very clearly about a democratic transition in Syria,” Nuland said.

But just how to get there will be a challenge, says Andrew Tabler of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

“The question is what can this group really do to stop the killing in Syria and what can it do to get humanitarian relief to those who are dying. And that’s where they are coming up with far, far fewer answers than people would expect, given the degree of carnage in Syria,” Tabler says.

The armed opposition might be able to play a role in setting up humanitarian corridors or buffer zones, Tabler says. But so far the U.S. has kept the Free Syrian Army, the anti-government forces, at arms length. He says there is much debate in Washington about that position now.

“If the U.S. is assisting the Syrian opposition, what do they do concerning its armed element? Do you provide nonlethal assistance, lethal assistance?” Tabler says. “Whatever it is, it is a fact on the ground that the U.S. is struggling to deal with. And they are going to need to do that, if they are going to hope to drive the death tolls down and hopefully improve the situation in the short term.”

Davutoglu, the Turkish foreign minister, estimates that 40,000 soldiers have defected from the Syrian army. And though some have gone to Turkey, Davutoglu says his country is not arming or training them. He did not want to talk about tactics under discussion now, saying only his overall goal is to promote a new Syria, where people can chose their leader.

“The Syrian people should decide for the regime, not Bashar Assad himself alone. Syria is not the personal property or family property of Bashar Assad,” Davutoglu says.

And the Turkish official says it’s vital now for the world to send a signal to Syrians that they are not alone. [Copyright 2012 National Public Radio]

The massive, powerful and deadly saltwater crocodile — the world’s largest living reptile — is the evolutionary triumph of 50 million years of natural selection. And in Darwin, the crocodile is equally dreaded and beloved.

Crocodylus porosus was hunted to near extinction in the last century. But in 1974, the Australian government put the species, known affectionately as the “Australian salty,” under federal protection.

Today, the salty’s population has rebounded to near pre-colonial numbers. An estimated 100,000 are thriving in the sluggish estuaries and billabongs, or backwaters, of the Northern Territory — also known as Australia’s “Top End.”

A Big Comeback

“Our main thing we do now is full-time crocodile management in the Top End,” says Tom Nichols, a wildlife ranger with the Northern Territory government parks and wildlife service. The job has its occupational hazards. An irate crocodile took a chomp out of Nichols’ left hand nine years ago. His hand was sewn up and he went back to work.

The Northern Territory’s crocodile rangers capture between 250 and 300 saltys a year. The rangers nab them in floating traps in Darwin Harbour and wrestle them out of populated areas. The rangers then zip-tie and duct-tape their jaws and sell the animals to crocodile farms.

“We are finding crocs in areas we never found ‘em before, such as right in the town of Darwin itself,” Nichols says. “We find ‘em in swimming pools and in backyards. We have a 24-hour callout number and we’re forever getting calls at this time of year during the wet season,” when saltwater crocodiles like to move into fresh water.

Dwyn Delaney, an outdoorsman and gun fancier, owns a Western wear store in Darwin. Like some others in the Northern Territory, he’s concerned the salty population may have come back too strong.

“They’re everywhere. You fall in the drink, in rivers, you wanna get outta there real quick,” Delaney says.

He feels it’s time to start culling the crocodiles to reduce their numbers. And Delaney, whose shop is full of dead animal heads, would be happy to volunteer. “I am armed to the teeth here,” he says.

There have been five confirmed fatal croc attacks since 2005 in the Nothern Territory, and two unconfirmed deaths in which the bodies were never recovered. In the most recent confirmed case, in April 2010, an 11-year-old girl was swimming in Lambells Lagoon when she was — in local parlance – “taken” by a crocodile.

That was the last straw for the territory. Alarmed wildlife managers initiated a safety and awareness program called Crocwise, complete with public service announcements and stern signs warning which water holes are unsafe for swimming.

A Fraught, But Symbiotic, Relationship

Darwin residents fear the crocodile, but they also admire it — and some depend on it for their livelihoods. Australian crocodile farms exported 52,000 skins in 2010, and the region boasts a dozen river tours, known as “croc cruises,” where boatloads of tourists can watch a behemoth salty leap from the river for meat on a stick from only a few feet away. It’s a riveting sight — the largest adult males can reach 20 feet in length and weigh more than a ton.

And crocodiles sell newspapers.

Matt Cunningham, editor of the NT News, puts a croc photo on the front page several times a week. The newspaper is famous throughout Australia for its carnivorous journalism.

“As far the NT News goes, there’s no such thing as too many crocodile stories,” Cunningham says. “Crocodiles are amazing beasts. Darwin is one of the few places in the world where man and crocodile live, sort of, side by side.”

Would-be crocodile hunter Delaney is all too familiar with the local abundance of crocodile stories.

“The only thing that’ll get a croc off the front page of that paper is a dingo story or a cyclone,” he says.

Or, adds Cunningham, the first sting of the season from another deadly aquatic neighbor: the box jellyfish. [Copyright 2012 National Public Radio]

The Vatican endorsed the symposium — called “Toward Healing and Renewal” — the aim of which was changing the culture of how the church deals with cases of pedophile priests.

One of the highlights was a late-afternoon penitential mass on Feb. 7 — apparently the first time a senior Vatican official conducted a service to ask the forgiveness of abuse victims.

In his homily, Cardinal Marc Ouellet, who runs the Vatican’s congregation for bishops, called the crisis “a source of great shame and enormous scandal.”

“The first step on this road is to listen to them carefully and to believe their painful stories,” he said.

A Victim Speaks

But there was only one victim to listen to at a symposium that gathered many bishops and religious superiors. Marie Collins, 65, recalled how she was raped as a 13-year-old by a hospital chaplain in her native Ireland.

In her prepared remarks, Collins described how “those fingers that would abuse my body the night before were the next morning holding and offering me the sacred host.”

And she insisted on accountability for the harm and destruction done to victims through cover-ups and mishandling of cases.

“The guidelines must have something backing them in the way of a penalty or a consequence for any religious leader or bishop who decides not to implement them,” she said.

American Cardinal William Levada, who heads the Vatican office that deals with clerical sex abuse, delivered the keynote address. He defended Pope Benedict XVI, saying he has been instrumental in cracking down against pedophile clergy.

“Unfortunately, the pope has had to suffer attacks, especially by the media over these past years in various parts of the world, when he should receive the gratitude of us all, in the church and outside it,” Levada said.

But the cardinal acknowledged that the more than 4,000 cases reported to his office in the past decade revealed the inadequacy of applying canon law alone.

The Vatican, however, has yet to rule that all abusive priests be reported to civil authorities – whether required by law or not.

Critics Say It’s Not Enough

Several victims’ advocates criticized the symposium as “cheap window-dressing.” They have long demanded that the Vatican make public decades of secret files on clergy sex offenders and their enablers.

One symposium speaker, the Vatican’s prosecutor in sex abuse cases, Monsignor Charles Scicluna, said canon law already provides sanctions for bishops who do not report predator priests.

But Vatican analyst John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter wonders whether the sanctions will be applied.

“I don’t think the problem is law,” Allen says. “I think the problem is will to enforce it. We have heard senior Vatican personnel commit themselves to a tough new standard of accountability for bishops, too. The question is going to be, ‘Are we actually going to see that enforced in the real world?’”

Still, Allen says that the symposium could be a sign that within the Vatican, on the issue of clerical sex abuse, the center of gravity is moving away from the deniers and toward the reformers. [Copyright 2012 National Public Radio]

The photo deemed the best of 2011 was taken by Spanish photographer Samuel Aranda while on assignment for The New York Times in Yemen. That one, and winners of other categories, were announced this week.

Unlike the familiar scenes of riots and violence that poured out of the Middle East last year, Aranda’s image is one of tender repose. A veiled woman holds a wounded relative “inside a mosque used as a field hospital by demonstrators against the rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, during clashes in Sanaa, Yemen,” the World Press caption reads, on Oct. 15.

The composition alone is immediately striking. Whether intentional or inadvertent, the image bears an uncanny resemblance to Michelangelo’s iconic (and religious) Pieta. Along those lines, The New York Times describes it as having “the mood of a Renaissance painting.”

“In the Western media, we seldom see veiled women in this way, at such an intimate moment,” contest judge Nina Berman is quoted as saying by World Press Photo. “It is as if all of the events of the Arab Spring resulted in this single moment — in moments like this.”

The World Press Photo awards have been around since the ’50s, and you might recognize some of the past recipients of the “photo of the year” award.

Like Malcolm W. Browne’s 1963 photo of the Buddhist monk who set himself on fire in protest. Or Eddie Adams’ harrowing 1968 image of an execution in South Vietnam. Or Charlie Cole’s 1989 image of the Tienanmen Square demonstrator.

Last year, the award went to Jodi Bieber for a portrait of an Afghan teenager, Bibi Aisha, who was disfigured for fleeing her husband.

The winning images are almost invariably scenes of violence, vice, death or destruction. This year is no exception, but the tone is slightly different — a bit more subtle.

What was the most iconic news photo you saw in 2011? [Copyright 2012 National Public Radio]

Speaking to Morning Edition co-host Steve Inskeep from Beirut, where she has been monitoring developments inside Syria, Kelly said activists and residents in Homs say the city is now surrounded by army tanks. Shelling continues. Field hospitals are running out of supplies. Activists and fighters who are trying to resist the regime of President Bashar Assad are asking the international community to do something to intervene.

One way citizen journalists in Homs are trying to get the word out about what’s happening is with live video streams on the Web, such as one here. They’re also using Twitter and other social media sites to post messages. NPR.org’s Ahmed Al Omran is following their reports on his Twitter page.

Also in Syria today, there’s word of two explosions at government security compounds in the city of Aleppo, The Associated Press reports. State-controlled news media are saying that 25 people were killed and 175 wounded. They’re blaming “terrorists,” while “anti-Assad activists accuse the regime of setting off the blasts to discredit the opposition and to overt protests that had been planned in the city on Friday,” the AP says.

The BBC adds that:

“Aleppo, a mercantile city, has seen only minor protests and relatively little violence since the uprising against President Assad erupted in March, which human rights groups say has left more than 7,000 civilians dead.”

There are also reports and photos of continued fighting in the northern province of Idlib

As we’ve said previously, because few foreign journalists have been allowed in Syria it’s difficult to verify the claims made by either side. But independent organizations, such as the U.N., report that more than 5,000 people have been killed in the past year — most at the hands of government forces. [Copyright 2012 National Public Radio]

In June, a cancerous tumor was discovered in Chavez’s abdomen, forcing him to dramatically scale back public appearances as he sought treatment in Cuba. Some predicted that the end was near.

But this year, Chavez has returned to his outspoken ways — just in time for his re-election campaign.

A few days ago, he served as the president, commander in chief and emcee at a long military parade. He looked robust once more, his black hair back to normal from the chemotherapy.

At least from afar, Chavez appeared to be in fine form once again, as he sang to supporters lined up for the parade.

He then explained how the song is about his idol, independence hero Simon Bolivar, and how Bolivar rode his horse home to rebuild his country — Chavez’s implication being that now the same can be said about him.

Outside his inner circle, of course, no one really knows for sure just how healthy he is. He has said only that doctors removed a baseball-size tumor, and that after four chemotherapy sessions, he is better than ever.

What is clear is that suddenly this year, Chavez seems to be everywhere, says Carlos Romero, a political scientist in Caracas. “He has been spending many hours in the Congress, in the national assembly; he has been spending many hours in front of journalists in the presidential palace; he has been traveling abroad; he has been traveling inside the country; he has been in some rallies in Venezuela,” he says.

Romero says the strategy has had an impact. “People thought in June that Chavez will be out. We already have seen seven months and Chavez is not only recuperating his health but also is recuperating his leadership,” Romero says.

Indeed, supporters like 62-year-old Hilda Rivera have been watching him on television. She says he is back for sure. “My president is fine,” she says, explaining that she prayed and prayed for him to recover.

That kind of loyalty — which has helped Chavez stay in power since 1999 — has given him a spike in various polls ahead of October’s presidential election.

Last week, at a festive event marking the 20th anniversary of his first attempt to gain power — a failed coup — Chavez characterized himself as a humble servant.

Chavez said that a revolution can’t depend on one man — it’s far too big for that.

And he revved up his followers, just days ahead of the opposition’s first-ever primary to choose a candidate to run against Chavez — telling them that the old political guard would never return, no matter what kind of campaign is mounted against him. [Copyright 2012 National Public Radio]

As an exchange student back in the 1960s, Andoh came to Japan from New York to pursue anthropology. She fell in love, but not just with a local businessman. She is also devoted to parsing and explaining the finer points of Japanese cuisine to the rest of the world, as writer for Gourmet, cookbook author, and culinary teacher in suburban Tokyo.

One thing Andoh has learned along the way is that traditional dishes often disappear during periods of upheaval – like right now.

Next month marks one year since the triple crisis — the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident — pummeled Japan. But concerns about food safety in the aftermath of the nuclear accident have hampered recovery of regions like Tohoku — a prime producer of seafood, delicacies like miso paste, and sake. So Andoh decided to help by raising money doing what she does best: publishing a cookbook.

But instead of her usual lavish coffee-table tome, this book would have to be shorter and published online only, to be completed in time for the one-year disaster anniversary.

Andoh’s mission this time is also to save Tohoku by documenting its obscure regional cuisine.

Chilly and remote, with both mountains and a long coast, Tohoku cooking draws heavily on foodstuffs dating back 5,000 years.

“Some of foodstuffs that I’ve tried to give a new life to – the seeds, the nuts, the dried flowers – they’re not things that people normally would think of using in the kitchen,” she says.

Documenting the cuisine is challenging work, in part because many residents have scattered. Some are living in temporary housing while others have moved to other parts of Japan, she says.

“There’s a sense of urgency I feel that before it gets too assimilated, that people share their food memories with me so I can get it out there to a larger audience,” Andoh says.

Andoh’s e-book includes delicacies such as walnut and miso-stuffed herb leaves, enoki mushrooms with dried chrysanthemum petals, and persimmons in pine-nut sauce. But the cover displays just three rice balls — the Japanese equivalent of a peanut-butter sandwich.

“Because it travels well, doesn’t have to be reheated, it became the first food that survivors ate,” she says. “That’s the whole point. It’s comforting, because it’s recognizable. It’s the thing you want when everything else falling apart.”

Andoh’s book, Kibo, Brimming with Hope, will be released this month in digital form only, with half the proceeds going to the recovery of Tohoku. [Copyright 2012 National Public Radio]

Robin Givhan, special correspondent for style and culture at Newsweek and The Daily Beast, is in New York to cover the shows. She tells NPR’s Michel Martin that she goes into each Fashion Week with an open mind.

“I’m always kind of curious to just go to shows from people I have never heard of, and you never know when you’re going to see another Alexander Wang, or another Phillip Lim, or another Joseph Altuzarra.”

Givhan is particularly interested in seeing designer Donna Karan’s fall collection. Karan has spent a lot of time working with artisans in Haiti after the devastating earthquake in 2010, and Givhan says that experience has influenced Karan’s design.

New Technology

Another big influence on fashion week is new technology. One designer, Prabal Gurung, is displaying his collection without a runway. He’s hosting an online, digital-only show this week.

New technology like live streaming has made the logistics of seeing a designer’s collection a lot easier, according to Givhan. For example, a person could watch a fashion show on their tablet in the back of a cab.

“It’s a great idea if you cannot be there, but it doesn’t replace actually being there,” says Givhan. “There really is a kind of magic in seeing the clothes actually move in 3-D and seeing them on an actual real person.”

A Global Sensitivity

One trend that’s here to stay, according to Givhan, is the globalization of the fashion industry.

“So often the focus is really about sort of Western sensibility. And when the industry strays into other areas, whether it’s Asian or African or Middle Eastern, there has, in the past, tended to be a kind of costumey, tourist souvenir kind of tone to it. But I think that it’s becoming much more sophisticated in the way that it’s represented on the runway.”

Many fashion designers are now traveling abroad to better understand the people who purchase and wear their clothes. Givhan says this exchange is creating a new kind of diplomacy.

“They have to understand those consumers because the same things that work in New York or Chicago or Washington or L.A. don’t necessarily translate to Beijing.”

Workplace Rights For Models

Earlier this week, a nonprofit group called Model Alliance was launched. The group is calling attention to some serious workplace issues for models. The alliance says that the industry often tolerates sexual harassment and ignores child labor laws.

Givhan says groups like this have been started in the past, but that this latest effort seems to be more organized than before.

“It’s been a very tricky thing to do because [models] are independent contractors. And in many ways they have a lot of issues in common, but they’re also competing with each other, so that’s created some hurdles to work together.”

The group has some important backers, but it’s too soon to tell if the movement has much traction.

Givhan says that though the fashion industry is not a bad place to work, it does have problems.

“I think it speaks volumes about the industry and the way that it thinks about models from the sheer fact that they’re most often referred to as girls,” says Givhan. “I think that tells you a lot about the amount of power they have in the industry, and the way that they’re seen by designers and others.” [Copyright 2012 National Public Radio]

In Revolution 2.0, Ghonim traces the planning that took place in the days before Jan. 25, 2011, when thousands of Egyptians gathered in Cairo’s Tahrir Square in preparation for the uprising. He also gives an insider’s account of what he experienced during the protests — when Egyptian security authorities locked him in a basement jail cell — and then what it was like after the departure of President Hosni Mubarak.

Ghonim launched his Facebook group, called Kullena Khaled Said (“We Are All Khaled Said”), after graphic pictures of a 28-year-old man who had been killed by Egyptian security officials began to emerge on the Internet.

“Looking at Khaled’s photo after his death, basically, I just felt that we are all Khaled Said. That was a feeling,” he tells Fresh Air’s Terry Gross. “It wasn’t just a brand name. It was a feeling. We were all of these young Egyptians who could die and no one [would be] held accountable. So at the time, I thought, ‘I have to do something.’ And I believed that bringing Khaled’s case to a public case would be helpful.”

Ghonim’s Facebook page anonymously called for accountability for Khaled’s death and an end to corruption within the Egyptian government.

“We [wanted] to expose the bad practices of the Egyptian police,” he says. “Because the last thing a dictator wants is that you expose their bad practices to its people.”

The page engaged users, solicited ideas from Egyptians, and also proposed a Jan 25. mass protest date. The Facebook group was set up through a proxy program in order to keep Ghonim’s identity a secret.

“I basically thought that my anonymity was my power, was the reason this page was so powerful,” he says. “A lot of people believed in what was there.”

Right before the protests started, security officials in Egypt learned Ghonim’s identity. They captured him early in the morning on Jan. 28.

“I was walking out at night, after having dinner with some colleagues, and I was on Twitter, walking, and all of a sudden I found three people surrounding me, one covering my mouth and the other taking my phone,” he says. “I was looking around, trying to grasp what was going on, and I heard one of them say, ‘OK, we’re done, send the car.’ So I knew I was getting kidnapped.”

For 11 days, Ghonim was held blindfolded in a cell and repeatedly interrogated. Egyptian security officials told him that they suspected he was working with foreign officials and called him a traitor.

“It was a very hard moment for me,” he says. “I would accept being seen as someone who is the opposition, who is creating problems for them — but the fact that they called me a traitor was very hard on me. I told them, ‘You can torture me as much as you want, but you’re not going to get this out of me because this is not true. I would prefer to die than to admit something I’ve never done, that I think is completely wrong.’”

Meanwhile, news began to circulate on the Internet about his disappearance. Activists on Twitter and Facebook began to coordinate efforts to find Ghonim. As he languished — unaware of the protests or what his fate would be — Google, his employer, started working behind the scenes to publicize his disappearance. His release on Feb. 8 was seen as a key moment in the revolution.

Since then, Ghonim has been hailed for his energizing use of social media while planning the pro-democracy demonstrations in Egypt. He says sites like Facebook are tools that can help connect people and disseminate information to the masses, but cannot create social changes on their own.

“We used all the available tools in order to communicate with each other, collaborate and agree on a date, a time and a location for the start of the revolution,” he says. “Yet, starting Jan. 28, the revolution was on the streets. It was not on Facebook, it was not on Twitter. Those were tools to relay information, to tell people the truth about what’s happening on the ground.”

Interview Highlights

On the voice he used in his Facebook postings

“I was writing with my heart, not my keyboard. I was writing what I felt should be written.”

On the Jan. 25 protest

“On the 14th of Jan, when Ben Ali left Tunisia — when he escaped practically to Saudi Arabia — the whole Internet webosphere was talking about it. Egyptians were saying, ‘We are worse than Tunisia. We have to do something. This is our moment.’ And a lot of people had this belief. Being influenced by those people, I just wrote on the page, ‘Today is the 14th of January. In 10 days, we have a police day. If 100,000 of us take to the street, no one is going to stop us.’ And that was the beginning.”

On how the Egyptian government spun the protests

“The regime labeled it as the Muslim Brotherhood revolution and said it was a revolution of extremists or the liberal are financed from abroad. All of this didn’t really work because people saw what was happening in Tahrir. And so, every political, social groups — males and females, Muslims and Christians — were taking to the streets and all demanding one thing: that this regime has to go.”

On realizing that the Egyptian government was going to use violence

“I could see things going in the wrong direction, and thought that the regime would use violence to get everyone back to their homes. On the 25th of Jan., they forced everyone out of the square. They used rubber bullets, water hoses, tear gas. They were using it excessively despite the fact that protestors were so peaceful. At that time, everyone was very peaceful and civilized. They were all chanting and singing and calling for the regime to end, and planning to spend the night with no violence. And the regime used violence against them.”

On an emotional interview he gave to an Egyptian television station after his release

“I was happy to see people saying, ‘We were against this and then after seeing you, we are with the revolution.’ A page was created for me afterwards calling on me to speak on behalf of the Egyptian people, and a quarter-million people joined after that interview. But, as you might have noticed, I did not agree to do that. I do not agree that we personalize a revolution. If I was against personalizing a cause, I would definitely be against personalizing a revolution, I would definitely say this was leaderless and it should continue leaderless, and no one should be taking the lead after all these people sacrificed their lives.” [Copyright 2012 National Public Radio]

Russia drew a lot of flack from Arab countries and the West when it vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution aimed at pressuring Assad to stop his crackdown on protesters.

That has some analysts in Russia doubting whether the Kremlin really has a cogent strategy for the Middle East.

The dilemma for Russia policy in the Arab World can be illustrated by two very different events that took place this week.

On Tuesday, crowds of Assad supporters in Damascus greeted Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and the country’s foreign intelligence chief, Mikhail Fradkov.

Lavrov said Russia was willing to serve as a mediator in the conflict, although Assad’s forces continued their assault on the opposition.

Meanwhile, a very different scenario was playing out in New York.

Russia’s U.N. ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, appeared at a hastily called news conference to deny rumors that he had threatened the prime minister of Qatar.

The rumors, which were widely circulated in the Arab media, said that Churkin had warned the Qatari leader that Russia would “wipe Qatar off the map.”

“There was nothing, not even any hints of any threats, intimidation, rudeness from me or from the prime minister of Qatar for that matter,” Churkin said.

Russia’s relations with Qatar have been strained since December, when customs officials in Doha allegedly manhandled Russia’s ambassador to that country.

Although Churkin denied using any bullying tactics, he added something that sounded vaguely like a warning.

“Apparently somebody is trying very hard in order to drive a wedge between Russia and the Arab world. If it’s somebody who is really coming from the Arab world, I think there is a very good Russian saying, which they, I think, should keep in mind, “Don’t spit into a well. You may well need it for a drink of water,’” he said.

At this point, it’s unclear who needs whom.

Analyst Yevgeny Satanovsky says Russia doesn’t really need Syria as a trading partner.

Satanovsky is president of the Moscow Institute for Middle Eastern Studies.

He says Russia’s support for Syria is part of a pragmatic effort to contain Islamic extremism by balancing opposing factions.

“Russians understand there are no non-dictatorship regimes in the Middle East. There is no chance for democracy of the Western style in the Middle East. And we try to make balance,” Satanovsky says.

But other analysts say Russia needs to be careful of its image in the Arab world.

Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, points out that Russia’s stand on Syria puts it at odds with important members of the Arab League, such as Saudi Arabia.

“Saudi Arabia has enormous leverage on the global oil market. Saudi Arabia has resources that could be used to minimize Russia’s control of parts of its own country,” Trenin says.

He means the North Caucasus, the region that includes volatile areas such as Chechnya.

Trenin says that what Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, tried to do in Damascus this week should have been done months ago, when the Arab Spring protests first erupted.

“If Russia wanted to uphold its prestige as an important player, it needed to engage more fully in looking for a peaceful resolution to the Syrian conflict,” he says.

Both analysts say one of Russia’s mains concern is keeping a lid on Islamic radicalism, the kind that is spreading in the Muslim parts of Russia’s own territory.

Satanovsky says Russian policy seeks to play off the Islamic fundamentalist regimes of the Arab world against Iran.

In putting such strong and public support behind the Syrian regime, though, Russia has put itself at a pivot point in the major struggles of the Arab World.

It’s not clear whether it has a strategy to affect the balance there. [Copyright 2012 National Public Radio]