from cbsnews.com: Peace talks to carve a path out of Syria’s civil war got off to a rocky start Wednesday as a bitter clash over President Bashar Assad’s future threatened to collapse the negotiations even before they had begun. The dispute over Assad cast a pall over an international conference that aims to map out a transitional government and ultimately a democratic election for the country mired in fighting that has killed more than 130,000 people and displaced millions. While diplomats sparred against a pristine Alpine backdrop, Syrian forces and opposition fighters clashed across a wide area from Aleppo and Idlib in the north to Daraa in the south, activists and state media said.