Spotlight
Regime forces fired on protesters at a protest hub near Damascus and killed at least 39 people around Syria on Thursday, even as peace monitors spread out across the country, activists said.
Fourteen people were shot dead in several restive Damascus suburbs, 10 in the central flashpoint province of Homs, 13 in the central province of Hama and two in the northwestern province of Idlib, the Local Coordination Committees, the main activist group spurring protests on the ground, said.

The head of Israel's Mossad spy agency has said a nuclear Iran might not pose an "existential threat" to the Jewish state, in remarks reported Thursday by Haaretz newspaper.
"Does Iran pose a threat to Israel? Absolutely," the daily quoted Mossad chief Tamir Pardo as telling a group of Israeli ambassadors.

Yemen's army killed six suspected al-Qaida militants in a Katyusha rocket attack on their hideout in the restive southern city of Zinjibar, an official said on Thursday.
"The army carried out heavy shelling using Katyusha rockets on a house in Zinjibar's east where al-Qaida militants were gathered to plot attacks on army units... killing six," said the official in the adjacent town of Jaar.

Palestinian militants fired a rocket at southern Israel on Thursday morning, hours after Israeli warplanes attacked "terror sites" inside the Gaza Strip, the army said.
"A rocket fired from Gaza exploded in an open field in the Eshkol region," a military spokesman told Agence France Presse.

The U.S. State Department on Wednesday urged Syria to allow Arab monitors to observe as many anti-regime protests as possible and provide unfettered access to members of the opposition.
However, it said it was premature to comment on the first day of monitoring on Tuesday, unlike France which said the monitors were denied the chance to see the reality in the flashpoint city of Homs, where many civilians have been reported killed.

Jordan on Wednesday urged an end to "killing" in Syria, and called for reforms in its northern neighbor, where the United Nations says more than 5,000 people have died in a crackdown on dissent.
"Killing in Syria must stop and the promised reforms must be implemented without delay," Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh said in a lecture at the Royal Jordanian National Defense College.

The German foreign ministry said it was holding talks with Syria's ambassador to Berlin Wednesday regarding accusations that the regime's secret services had attacked an opposition member in Germany.
A ministry spokesman said its political director would discuss with Syria's envoy the beating of a local Green party politician of Syrian origin, Ferhard Ahma, at his home early Monday.

Arab League observers have not been allowed to determine the real situation in Syria's protest hub of Homs and should return for the full picture, the French foreign ministry said on Wednesday.
"A few Arab League observers were able to be briefly present in Homs yesterday. Their presence did not prevent the continuing of the bloody crackdown in this city, where large demonstrations were violently repressed, leaving about 10 dead," ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said.

Jerusalem municipality on Wednesday approved plans for another 130 housing units in Gilo, a settlement neighborhood in the annexed eastern sector of the Holy City, a city councilor told Agence France Presse.
Pepe Alalu of the left-wing Meretz party said the district planning committee had given the green light to a project to build 130 homes in three 12-storey tower blocks on the eastern outskirts of Gilo which lies just a few kilometers north of Bethlehem.

A Yemeni civilian was shot dead Wednesday in a shootout between the Republican Guard and gunmen loyal to dissident tribal chief Sadiq al-Ahmar, witnesses said.
The clash broke out when a military commission attempted to remove barriers near the interior ministry in Amran Street, Hasaba neighborhood, in an effort to return the capital to normalcy following unrest.
