BEIRUT — Tens of thousands of Syrians poured onto the streets of cities around the country after prayers on Friday to press their demand for the resignation of President Bashar al-Assad, apparently undeterred by concessions from a top member of Assad’s inner circle. The Local Coordination Committees, an opposition group that organizes the protests, said eight people were killed when troops opened fire on demonstrators in four different locations. With [Read the rest...]

Reports in Ankara said Turkey‘s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was planning to create a buffer zone to prevent its instability spilling into Turkish territory. Mr Erdogan, who once said he would be a “brother” to President Assad, condemned the Assad regime’s use of violence to put down protests as “savagery” and in a key move said he could support intervention by the United Nations. His turn against the Syrian [Read the rest...]

At least 22 people have been killed in Syria, following confrontations between security forces and anti-government demonstrators. Activists say at least 10 of the deaths on Friday occurred in the northwestern province of Idlib. State-run news reports say an armed group in the provincial city of Maaret al-Numan attacked security forces and set several government buildings on fire. The news report said gunmen were trying to “repeat the scenario” of [Read the rest...]

Reporting from Beirut— An explosion blamed on a gas leak struck a newly inaugurated section of an oil refinery Tuesday just before President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke at the facility’s ribbon-cutting ceremony, state media reported. At least one person was killed and up to 25 were injured by the explosion in Abadan in Iran’s oil-rich southwest, according to accounts by domestic Iranian news agencies. One Abadan resident quoted by the Associated [Read the rest...]

Istanbul, Turkey The Libyan capital withstood the heaviest bombardment yet from NATO aircraft early Tuesday morning, as explosions rocked the area around Col. Muammar Qaddafi‘s compound. The strikes – combined with a fresh commitment by Britain and France to deploy highly precise attack helicopters in Libya – appeared to signal a NATO escalation to break the current stalemate, if not actually target the Libyan leader. “I think it is an [Read the rest...]

Reporting from Washington and Los Angeles— Osama bin Laden, the world’s most wanted terrorist, was killed in Pakistan as the result of a U.S. military operation, President Obama announced to the nation Sunday night. The historic revelation comes about four months before the 10th anniversary of the devastating Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, which were executed by the Al Qaeda network helmed by Bin Laden and prompted the [Read the rest...]

While iPhone and iPad owners waffled between Skynet jokes and genuine concern over yesterday’s confirmation that the devices may be mapping their every move, Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., got down to business, firing off nine pointed questions in a two-page open letter to Apple CEO Steve Jobs. The tech-savvy senator cuts to the chase — the fact that iPhones and iPads running iOS 4 record and store users locations in unencrypted files is [Read the rest...]

This was a different speech from one President Bashar al-Assad delivered before an admiring parliament on 30 March, two weeks after the outbreak of by far the most serious internal trouble his regime has faced. Now, giving his new government its marching orders, Mr Assad told ministers their mission was to deliver a raft of reforms, structural changes and a new partnership with the public that would make Syria an [Read the rest...]

Paris With its aircraft in the skies of Libya and Ivory Coast, France has suddenly escaped diplomatic obscurity to find itself taking a leading role in two military ventures that have arguably tipped the scales on behalf of civilians. This comes after France was embarrassingly late in embracing pro-democracy protests that successfully ousted its old allies in Egypt and Tunisia. French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his aides at the Élysée [Read the rest...]

Reporting from Damascus, Syria, and Cairo— Thousands of Syrians flooded the streets of several major cities Friday for a new round of antigovernment protests, defying security forces who used gunfire and tear gas to disperse them. Four people were shot dead in Duma, a suburb of the capital, Damascus, when police fired on about 2,000 people gathered in a major square chanting “Freedom,” according to a witness who withheld his [Read the rest...]