Syria's authoritarian regime turned bloody on Saturday, with the government and protesters both claiming to have sustained heavy casualties as the country's three-week uprising entered a dangerous new phase.

In order to rush aid and supplies to the beleaguered Western Libyan city Misruta, NATO on Wednesday said it would form a sea bridge to the city after it was cut off by Muammar Gaddafi's forces.

Yemen came close to the brink on Monday as security forces shot dead 17 people as thousands of protesters stormed the Governor's headquarters in the city of Taiz, 200 kms south of here.

Over 100 people have died in violence that was sparked by protests against a US pastor's burning of the holy Quran in Afghanistan's southern city of Kandahar, officials said.

Blaming the West, the foreign ministry in Tehran said on Sunday that the tensions between Iran and the Gulf Arab countries are the result of a “Western and Zionist conspiracy.”

Yemen's opposition on Sunday has asked beleaguered President Ali Abdullah Saleh to hand over power to his Deputy with whom an agreement on transitional period could be negotiated, a statement said.

Amidst a wave of anti-government protests in the country demanding reforms, Syrian President Bashar Assad appointed a former Agriculture Minister on Sunday to form a new government.
 

The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas on Saturday rejected charges that three of its militants killed in an overnight air strike planned to abduct Israelis and warned of retribution.
The Israeli Air Force launched a missile in the early hours at a car travelling in the southern Gaza Strip, killing three members of the Hamas armed wing and wounding a fourth person.

A day after seven UN staffs were killed by a mob in the worst attack on the world body in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion in protests against a Quran burning in the US, ten people died on Saturday in new protests.

Egypt's first presidential elections since the ouster of strongman Hosni Mubarak will be held in October or November, the ruling military council said on Thursday. It has also issued a decree establishing an interim constitution.