HUMAN RIGHTS

Syrian president Bashar al-Assad took to the streets of Baba Amr, a former Syrian rebel stronghold in the neighborhood of Homs, sporting a casual look dressed in an open-necked shirt and blue suit.

Syria has accepted UN envoy Kofi Annan's six-point proposal to end violence, a sudden development in the long-standing crisis, which the US has welcomed with caution and a general sentiment of skepticism.

In a typically provocative statement, Ahmadinejad said Iran had no limit to expanding ties with President Bashar al-Assad's regime and that Iran would do all in its power to support this country.

Confidential documents reveal the nation's leading anti-gay marriage group discussed framing President Obama as a social radical and making vocal support for traditional marriage a requirement to gaining the Republican presidential nomination.

The Middle East saw a nearly 50 spike rise in executions during a year of widespread turmoil and revolutions.

Syrian opposition activists gathered in Istanbul to endorse a program for political change to unify their movement, but the conference proved divisive even before officially opens Tuesday.

Israel severed ties Monday with the United Nations Human Rights Council after it voted to initiate an investigation into human rights abuses in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Turkey closed its embassy in Damascus on Monday, as the country stepped closer to suspending diplomatic ties with President Bashar al-Assad. Meanwhile, the Syrian military has cracked down on dissidents trying to cross the Syria-Turkey border.

A property consultant long tied to China's leadership won Hong Kong’s executive election, authorities said Sunday.

Pope Benedict is on a six-day trip to Mexico and Cuba.

Before a much anticipated election, Burmese state television announced Friday it will postpone voting in three Kachin state districts

Sri Lanka has rejected a United Nations Human Rights Council resolution urging the country to look into alleged war crimes committed by the military in 2009.

Of the 47 delegations at the Geneva talks, 41 voted in favor of the resolutions against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, while Russia, China and Cuba voted against it.

ZTE Corp, China's second-largest telecommunications equipment maker, said it will curtail its business in Iran following a report that it had sold Iran's largest telecom firm a powerful surveillance system capable of monitoring telephone and Internet communications.

China faces a shortage of transplant organs and has long relied on organs from condemned prisoners, apparently with their prior consent.

A coalition of advocacy groups is asking the United Nations to intervene to help stop California's widespread use of solitary confinement, saying the routine isolation of inmates is akin to torture.

Syria fits the bill of a nation that has made most of its friends by virtue of having common enemies. There is probably no other way to explain how this fiercely secular Arab nation has been commanding tremendous support from the religious fanatics that routinely make Iranian governments.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced a series of tough measures in the wake of a string of killings in southern France by an Islamist terrorist. However, the President's new proposal to jail frequent visitors of terror-linked Websites has raised concern among journalists and legal experts in the country.

Over the past 24 months, Cuba has been cracking down on internal dissent through the harassment and arrests of activists, journalist and bloggers, Amnesty International reported on Thursday.

In the majority of these cases, the killer was the girl’s father, husband or brother.

The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) passed a resolution urging Sri Lanka to investigate possible war crimes that may have been committed by both sides of the island nation's 26-year civil war.