Spotlight
A group of 36 NGOs urged Israel Wednesday to stop demolishing Palestinian homes, hours ahead of a Middle East visit by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry aimed at revitalizing peace talks.
"Since the resumption of the peace process in July, Israel has destroyed 207 Palestinian homes and property in the occupied West Bank, displacing 311 Palestinians, over half of whom are children," rights groups and charities including Oxfam, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said in a joint statement.

Pope Francis on Wednesday called for prayers for a group of nuns seized from their convent in Syria and for all hostages held in the war-torn country.
"I invite you all to pray for the nuns of the Greek Orthodox convent of St Takla of Maalula in Syria who were forcibly taken away by armed men two days ago," Francis said at a general audience in St Peter's Square.

Saudi Arabia's intelligence chief has held a new meeting in Russia with President Vladimir Putin on the Syrian conflict, the second closed-door encounter this year between the Russian leader and the key regional powerbroker.
The Kremlin said in a statement late Tuesday that Prince Bandar bin Sultan discussed with Putin at the president's suburban Moscow residence the situation in the Middle East and preparations for a Syria peace conference planned in January.

Turkey's popularity in the Middle East has dropped sharply over the past two years, an opinion poll showed Wednesday, reflecting Ankara's sometimes controversial foreign policy strategy.
The biggest decline was registered in Egypt and war-ravaged Syria, where Turkey is strongly opposed to those in power, according to the poll by an Istanbul-based think-tank.

Qatar has stressed it has had no direct or indirect contact with Syria's regime, as the head of Hizbullah said he had received an envoy from Doha.
"Qatar does not have any direct or indirect contacts with the Syrian regime," said the foreign ministry in a statement late Tuesday, stressing support for the armed opposition.

Syria's Bashar Assad will remain president and lead any transition agreed upon in Geneva peace talks planned for next month, a government minister insisted on Wednesday.
"If anyone thinks we are going to Geneva 2 to hand the keys to Damascus over (to the opposition), then he might as well not go," Information Minister Omran al-Zohbi said in remarks carried by the official SANA news agency.

The United States was Tuesday seeking an explanation from Bahraini authorities after a US embassy observer was expelled from the trial of a prominent rights activist.
A representative of the U.S. embassy was asked to leave Monday's court hearing for Shiite activist Nabeel Rajab, a State Department official confirmed.

Israel has sent humanitarian aid to neighboring Syria, Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said Tuesday during a visit to the tense frontier.
"We've sent food, water, baby food and other humanitarian products," he told reporters.

Prominent Egyptian youth leader Ahmed Duma was arrested Tuesday and ordered detained for four days for organizing an unauthorized demonstration and assaulting security forces, judicial sources said.
Duma is the third pro-democracy activist to be detained within a week, as Egyptian authorities widen their crackdown on protesters since interim president Adly Mansour passed a law on November 24 that bans all unauthorized demonstrations.

The EU envoy to Israel expressed optimism Tuesday about U.S. efforts to broker an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal and insisted the West had taken a tough line on Israeli settlement construction.
A steady flood of Israeli settlement announcements have threatened to derail negotiations relaunched in late July, but EU Ambassador to Israel Lars Faaborg-Andersen said there was still time for progress.
