SYRIA: The Arab League says Washington overstepped its bounds by saying Syrian President Bashar Assad has lost legitimacy to lead his country. Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby says Assad assured him that "Syria has entered a new era and is now moving on the road of a genuine reform." Syria came under withering international criticism over attacks on the U.S. and French embassies in Damascus.

EGYPT: Egypt's government, meeting a key demand by protesters, fires nearly 700 top police officers to cleanse the discredited and widely unpopular force. In another nod to demands by activists, Egypt's military is delaying parliamentary elections initially expected to take place in September. The vote is now to be held in October or November. Reformers feared the original date would not give enough time for new parties to organize and campaign.

LIBYA: Libyan rebels fighting to oust Moammar Gadhafi have looted shops and clinics and torched the homes of suspected regime supporters in some of the towns they seized in the country's western mountains, Human Rights Watch says. The findings come as the rebels enlarge the area under their control in the west and inch closer to a key supply route to Tripoli.

YEMEN: Saudi border guards arrest more than 19,000 infiltrators from troubled Yemen in June; nearly double the number caught the month before. The sharp increase comes as Yemen's security situation is rapidly unraveling. Yemen's president is being challenged by a five-month-old popular uprising that has emboldened al-Qaida-linked militants in Yemen's south.

BAHRAIN: A Bahraini woman jailed for reciting poems critical of Gulf kingdom's rulers during a wave of protests earlier this year is released from prison. Ayat al-Qurmezi, 20, became a celebrity among protesters after reciting poems critical of Bahrain's king and prime minister. Al-Qurmezi was detained in March. Last month she was convicted of anti-state crimes in a special security tribunal and sentenced to a year in prison.