SYRIA HEAD OF CONFERENCE ON DISARMAMENT

    NP:  GENEVA — The Syrian government of President Bashar Assad has been accused of using chemical weapons, barrel bombs and torture against its own people during a seven-year civil war.
  On Monday, it took up the rotating presidency of the U.N.-backed Conference on Disarmament.
  The move was met with outrage from Western governments, but there was little they could do to prevent Syria from taking over the world’s only permanent multilateral body for negotiating arms control agreements for four weeks.