UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has voiced "grave concern" at reported Israeli air strikes on Syria, and called on all sides to "exercise maximum calm and restraint".

Saudi Arabia has given girls at private schools the right to play sport, the Education Ministry said on Sunday, in a step aimed at easing restrictions on women in the ultra-conservative kingdom.

The Syrian news agency, citing initial reports, early on Sunday said that Israeli missiles struck a military research center near the capital Damascus.

Apparently targeting a suspected weapons site, Israel launched an airstrike into Syria in the wee hours of Friday, US officials said.

Hundreds of families were fleeing Sunni districts of the Syrian city of Banias on Saturday, fearing new attacks after a ‘massacre’ in a nearby Sunni village, a watchdog said.

One for the taste buds! An Indian-origin woman in the UK has been shortlisted out of 600,000 applicants for the post of Western Australia taste master, described as one of the "best jobs in the world".

In its effort to get rid of Assad regime the Obama Administration is preparing to supply lethal weapons to the Syrian opposition, a media report said on Tuesday.

At least 21 people were killed and 78 injured in attacks across Iraq on Monday, mostly in the Shiite provinces, an Interior Ministry source said.

Syrian Prime Minister Wael al-Halqi escaped an assassination bid on Monday, surviving a blast that targeted his convoy in Damascus, Syrian state television reported.

Iraq has suspended the licences of 10 satellite TV channels for promoting "sectarianism", the country's media regulator said on Sunday, after five days of violence killed more than 215 people.