Tens of thousands rally to support Assad in Damascus

BEIRUT (Reuters) — Tens of thousands of Syrians demonstrated in central Damascus on Wednesday in show of support for President Bashar al-Assad, who is battling a six-month uprising against his rule in which the United Nations says 2,900 people have been killed."America, out, out, Syria will stay free," chanted the crowd, many of them carrying pictures of Assad and Syrian flags. They also shouted slogans warning the European Union not to intervene in their country.
"God, Syria and Bashar," they sang.
State television described the government-backed rally as a "million-strong march ... supporting national independence and rejecting foreign intervention."
At the start of the demonstration a man holding the flags of Russia and China -- which both vetoed a European-drafted resolution against Syria at the United Nations last week -- flew over the crowd, suspended from a helicopter by rope.