GENEVA (AP) — Peace talks aimed at ending Syria's five-year civil war got off to a shaky and chaotic start Friday, with the main opposition group at first boycotting the session, then later agreeing to meet with U.N. officials — while still insisting it would not negotiate.
That small commitment by the group known as the Higher Negotiating Committee came just minutes before U.N. special envoy Staffan de Mistura met with a delegation representing the government of President Bashar Assad.
BOSTON – When Peggy Hartshorn and her family began taking in pregnant women, she didn't know they were taking the first steps toward joining an international organization. But three years later in 1978, she discovered a network, now known as Heartbeat International, devoted to helping women through maternity.
"Some of them had been "thrown out" of their homes or been abandoned by boyfriends because they refused to have an abortion," Hartshorn says about the first women she helped in "Foot Soldiers Armed with Love," her book about the organization's history. She became the group's chairman in 1990.
