Spotlight
Syrian rebels vowed to fight on in Aleppo a day after being driven out of a key district under heavy shellfire, which was targeting other parts of the strategic city on Friday.
A rebel commander, Hossam Abu Mohammed, said his men were still fighting in parts of Aleppo's southwestern district of Salaheddin after most fled on Thursday under heavy bombing and advancing troops.

A bombing and a shooting targeted a police patrol and a city council member in Iraq, killing four people and wounding four others on Friday, security and medical officials said.
"Three policemen were killed and two others wounded by a bomb targeting their patrol in Al-Muqdadiyah this morning," said a police lieutenant colonel in the town, which lies in restive Diyala province.

Talk of a possible military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities dominated the Israeli press on Friday, a day after Defense Minister Ehud Barak said the issue had become more "urgent."
"(Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu and Barak are determined to attack in Iran in the autumn," trumpeted a front-page headline in top-selling daily Yediot Aharonot.

Lakhdar Brahimi, a veteran diplomat and former Algerian foreign minister, is expected to be named as the new U.N.-Arab League envoy to Syria in place of Kofi Annan, diplomats said Thursday.
Negotiations are still going on over the envoy's role and how the United Nations will operate in Syria amid the intensifying civil war. The mandate of the U.N. mission in the country ends on August 20.

The Egyptian army has arrested six "terrorists" during a sweep in the Sinai Peninsula following a raid at the weekend that killed 16 soldiers, military and security sources said on Friday.

Mohammed Sensawi, a rebel fighter in the Syrian border town of Bab al-Hawa, said: "You see, I have a beard but no moustache. That is normal -- I am a Salafi."
Nearby are a group of Islamist fighters who were among those who wrested control of the Bab al-Hawa crossing between Syria and Turkey from forces loyal to embattled President Bashar al-Assad.

Rights groups, trade unionists and members of the February 20 protest movement have called for demonstrations across Morocco on Saturday against the high cost of living and other causes of social discontent.
An association of 18 rights groups announced a "national day of action against the high cost of living, rising prices, arrests and repression targeting protest movements."

Iran on Thursday appealed to Syria's government and armed opposition to open peace talks as it hosted a hastily arranged international conference on the conflict in its key Arab ally.
Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi told diplomats from Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Cuba, Venezuela and other nations that Tehran was prepared to also host such a dialogue, state television reported.

President Bashar Assad has appointed Wael al-Halqi as Syria's new premier, state television reported on Thursday.
"The president has signed Decree 298, appointing Wael al-Halqi as the new prime minister," the broadcaster reported.

The number of Syrian refugees in Turkey who have fled the escalating violence in their strife-torn homeland has reached more than 50,000, Turkish officials said Thursday.
The total number of the refugees was 50,227 as of Thursday after more than 5,000 Syrians crossed into Turkey this week, the country's Disaster and Emergency Administration said in a statement posted on its website.
