SYRIA
The Syrian military intensifies its assault on Daraa, the besieged city at the center of the country's uprising. Defiant residents who have been pinned down in their homes for nearly a week struggle to find food, pass along information and bury their dead.
Syrian tanks shell the city's old quarter as reinforcements roll in. Snipers nesting on rooftops and hiding in high mosque minarets keep people cowering in fear inside their homes.
The death toll has soared to 545 nationwide from government forces firing on demonstrators.
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LIBYA
Angry mobs attack Western embassies and U.N. offices in Tripoli after NATO bombed Moammar Gadhafi's family compound in an attack officials said killed the leader's second-youngest son and three grandchildren. Russia accuses the Western alliance of exceeding its U.N. mandate of protecting Libyan civilians with the strike.
The vandalized embassies are empty and nobody is reported injured, but the attacks heighten tensions between the Libyan regime and Western powers, prompting the United Nations to pull its international staff out of the capital.
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YEMEN
A deal to end Yemen's political crisis nears collapse after the country's embattled president refuses to personally sign it, leaving a deadlock that threatens to plunge the impoverished Arab nation and key U.S. ally deeper into disorder and bloodshed.
The opposition says it will not sign it unless Saleh does too and the loose alliance of oil-rich Gulf Arab nations sponsoring the deal indefinitely postpones the signing ceremony, blaming Yemen's president for the impasse.
Under the deal, President Ali Abdullah Saleh would step down within 30 days in exchange for immunity from prosecution.