Britain said Saturday it was in urgent talks with allied countries on "a strong international response" after the bodies of more than 90 people including children were found in a Syrian town.
"We are consulting urgently with our allies on a strong international response, including at the U.N. Security Council, the EU and U.N. human rights bodies," Foreign Secretary William Hague said.
Full StoryThe Free Syrian Army said on Saturday it could no longer commit to the ceasefire brokered by U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan unless there was an immediate solution to regime violence.
"We announce that unless the U.N. Security Council takes urgent steps for the protection of civilians, Annan's plan is going to go to hell," a statement by the FSA said.
Full StoryGermany's foreign minister said Saturday he was "horrified" by reports that more than 90 people had been massacred in a Syrian town, and said those responsible must be punished.
"I am shocked and horrified by the news that dozens of civilians, including many children, were killed in attacks by the security forces of the Assad regime," Guido Westerwelle said in a statement.
Full StoryA Palestinian was shot and wounded on Saturday in clashes with Jewish settlers from the hardline Yitzhar settlement in the northern West Bank, witnesses and an Agence France Presse journalist said.
Dozens of settlers, some of them armed, set alight to a field of grain and to olive trees in Orif village near the settlement, the sources said. Some fired at Palestinian villagers, one of whom was gravely wounded and taken to hospital.
Full StoryFormer U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who is leading a delegation monitoring Egypt's first post-revolt presidential election, said on Saturday the process was "encouraging" despite unprecedented constraints.
"I would say that these (elections) have been encouraging to me," he told a news conference in Cairo, but added that his Carter Centre had "constraints placed on us as witnesses that have never been placed on us before."
Full StoryIslamist lawmakers disrupted the first session of Algeria's new parliament Saturday, waving placards condemning alleged fraud in this month's elections before walking out of the chamber.
The 49 members of the three-party Green Algeria Alliance (AVV), a moderate Islamist coalition, staged their protest immediately after the roll-call of newly-elected deputies.
Full StoryThirty-three people, including six soldiers, were killed in Saturday clashes between al-Qaida and the army in southern Yemen as troops advanced towards the Abyan provincial capital Zinjibar, military and local sources said.
Soldiers from the 25th Mechanized Brigade "managed early on Saturday to deal heavy blows to terrorists in Maraqid and Mashqasa ... killing 20 terrorist elements, most of them Somalis," Brigadier General Mohammed al-Sawmali told defense ministry news website 26sep.net.
Full StoryThe apparent winners of the first round of Egypt's first free presidential election, one from the Muslim Brotherhood and one Hosni Mubarak's last premier, were reaching out to the losing candidates on Saturday ahead of a June run-off.
Final votes were still being counted, but unofficial results suggested that the top two vote-getters out of 12 candidates were the Brotherhood's Mohammed Mursi and Ahmed Shafiq, a holdover from the regime of ousted president Mubarak.
Full StoryFrance condemns the "massacre" by Syrian forces which reportedly killed more than 90 people in the town of Houla and calls for greater international action, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Saturday.
"I am making immediate arrangements for a Friends of Syria group meeting in Paris," Fabius said in a statement in the wake of Friday's attacks on the town in a new violation of a ceasefire.
Full StoryThe U.N. mission chief in Syria Major General Robert Mood on Saturday condemned the "brutal tragedy" in Houla, where he said 92 bodies, including those of more than 32 children, had been counted.
Mood said he condemns "in the strongest possible terms the brutal tragedy" in Houla in the central province of Homs, adding that U.N. monitors visited the area and counted 92 bodies, including "more than 32 under the age of 10."
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