Funerals were held on Sunday for victims of a fierce Syrian government crackdown on anti-regime protests that killed about 50 people in two days, five of them in a funeral procession, activists said.

In the city of Homs, an epicenter in central Syria of the nine-week uprising against President Bashar al-Assad's regime, hundreds of protesters took to the streets, chanting "down with the regime," an activist said.

U.S. President Barack Obama vowed Sunday to "keep up pressure" on Iran to prevent it from obtaining nuclear weapons and forcefully defended his call for an Israeli-Palestinian peace based on pre-1967 frontiers, suggesting critics had misrepresented him.

Outlining U.S. and U.N. sanctions imposed on Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's regime, Obama said Iran is now "virtually cut off from large parts of the international financial system."

A special Bahrain court upheld on Sunday death sentences for two Shiites convicted of killing two policemen during unrest that hit the Sunni-ruled kingdom, the official BNA news agency said.

"The National Safety Appeals Court upheld the death sentence Sunday against Ali Abdullah Hasan al-Singace and Abdul Aziz Abdullah Ibrahim Hussein," BNA reported.

Britain concluded its naval training mission in Iraq on Sunday, more than eight years after it contributed the second largest contingent of troops to the U.S.-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein.

Despite having pulled out the vast majority of its troops in mid-2009, Britain's Royal Navy has continued to train Iraqi personnel to defend their territorial waters and offshore oil installations.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton on Sunday vowed to offer the European Union's long term support to Libyan rebels, hours after NATO bombed the port of Tripoli and Moammar Gadhafi's compound near the capital.

Ashton, on a visit to the rebel-held eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, is to open a European Union mission office in a city hotel later Sunday and she will also address a news conference.

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh warned on Sunday of civil war if the opposition defied his call for them to be present at his palace for him to sign a Gulf deal on a transition of power, as pro-regime gunmen encircled a meeting of Arab and Western diplomatic mediators.

"If they remain stubborn, we will confront them everywhere with all possible means," he said in a televised address, moments before members of his ruling party were seen signing the Gulf Cooperation Council deal.

More than a dozen bomb attacks in and around Baghdad on Sunday left at least 18 people dead, including 12 people killed in a suicide attack, and 80 wounded.

The series of attacks comes just days after blasts against police in a tense northern city killed 29 people, with just months to go before all U.S. forces must withdraw from Iraq amid questions over whether local security forces are up to the task of maintaining stability in the war-wracked country.

Jordan's King Abdullah II has reportedly expressed fear that the Obama administration would conspire against him and ask him to give up his powers if he doesn’t implement reforms.

Israeli daily Maariv has said that the king made the remark in a dialogue with Jewish organizations in Washington during his visit to the U.S. this week.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday he shared U.S. President Barack Obama's vision for peace in remarks appeared aimed at defusing a deepening row with the U.S. leader.

"I am partner to the president's desire to foster peace and I value his efforts in the past and the present to achieve this goal," said Netanyahu, reacting to Obama's speech to the main pro-Israel lobby in Washington.

Amr Moussa, a leading Egyptian presidential candidate, called Saturday for the delay of parliamentary elections in September until a presidential poll is held or a new constitution put in place.

Moussa, the outgoing Arab League secretary general, said September was too early for a parliamentary election, in which Islamists are expected to make a strong showing at the expense of poorly organized secular groups.