U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged Syria to "immediately" end attacks on civilians Saturday, a day after President Bashar Assad launched a fierce crackdown that killed over 50 people.

Ban "appeals for military operations against civilians to stop at once," said his spokesman Martin Nesirky.

Hamas could be swept out of power by the Arab Spring if the Palestinian Authority is able to show "tangible" results from peace negotiations with Israel, a top U.S. diplomat said Thursday.

"The Palestinians are no more immune to the currents of change and demand for democratization, reform and freedom than any of the other people in the region," said Ambassador David Hale, the U.S. envoy for Middle East Peace.

An American evangelical pastor whose church's burning of a Quran sparked deadly violence in Afghanistan announced on Thursday that he plans to run for president in 2012.

In a campaign manifesto titled "Stand Up America!," Terry Jones pledged that on entering the White House he would immediately stop government overspending, bring all foreign-based troops home, and deport all illegal immigrants.

The U.S. and South Korean defense chiefs vowed Friday to raise combat-readiness against North Korean attacks following two deadly incidents last year, saying aggression "is not to be tolerated".

Leon Panetta and his counterpart Kim Kwan-Jin also described the North's uranium enrichment program revealed last November as a "grave threat" that gave it a second path to develop atomic weapons.

Five Arab Spring activists have won the European parliament's Sakharov prize awarded to campaigners for freedom, a parliamentary source said Thursday.

The laureates are Mohamed Bouazizi of Tunisia, awarded posthumously, Egyptian militant Asmaa Mahfouz, Libyan dissident Ahmed al-Zubair Ahmed al-Sanusi, Syrian lawyer Razan Zeitouneh and Syrian cartoonist Ali Farzat, the source added.

Syrian security forces and snipers Thursday killed three people, including a teenager, in the central region of Homs and the southern province of Daraa, two hotbeds of dissent, activists said.

"A 15-year-old minor was killed and three people were wounded by security forces during raids," in the town of Dael, near the southern city of Daraa, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in a statement.

Prime Minister Najib Miqati confirmed to his predecessor PM Saad Hariri that he supports the funding of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, An Nahar newspaper reported on Thursday.

“I announced it from day one, and I insist on my position,” Miqati informed Hariri on different occasions by sending him messages via different mediators, the daily said.

As the global population hits seven billion, experts are warning that skewed gender ratios could fuel the emergence of volatile "bachelor nations" driven by an aggressive competition for brides.

The precise consequences of what French population expert Christophe Guilmoto calls the "alarming demographic masculinization" of countries such as India and China as the result of sex-selective abortion remain unclear.

At least 19 people were killed in violence-hit Syria on Wednesday, activists said, as tens of thousands of supporters of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad rallied in Damascus, in a show of support for the embattled leader.

The demonstrators, waving Syrian flags and brandishing pictures of Assad, swarmed to Omayyad Square, chanting, "The people want Bashar al-Assad."

In the wake of Syrian army cross-border raids into east Lebanon that left three dead, tension has been on the rise in the remote region as anxious residents brace for more incursions.

"The people of Qaa sleep in fear now," said Mansour Saad, mayor of the village which straddles the border with Syria.