SYRIA
Syria's government endorses a draft law to allow formation of political parties alongside President Bashar Assad's ruling Baath Party, part of a series of promised reforms that the opposition has dismissed as largely symbolic. The comes as security forces detain dozens in the capital Damascus and several other cities in search of anti-government protesters and regime opponents. A seven-year-old child, a boxing champion and a writer are said to be among those arrested.
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LIBYA
Libya says NATO forces struck a local hospital and killed seven people, including three doctors. Libyan government minders bring journalists to the destroyed hospital in the town of Zlitan, about a two hour drive east of the capital Tripoli. The reporters are also taken to several food warehouses that the government says were damaged in the airstrikes and were still burning.
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YEMEN
A powerful Yemeni tribal leader, Sheik Sadeq al-Ahmar, warns against attacks on anti-government protesters, as hundreds of thousands rally in the capital Sanaa and several other cities calling for regime change. A small group of supporters of President Ali Abdullah Saleh who live close to a students' protest camp demonstrate in front of the presidential palace demanding the camp be emptied out.
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EGYPT
A Cairo court decides to combine the trials of ousted President Hosni Mubarak and his former interior minister on charges they ordered the killings of protesters during Egypt's uprising. The trial for Mubarak, his former security chief Habib el-Adly and six aides will start Aug. 3, the court rules during a chaotic hearing where lawyers and relatives of victims push and shout in the courtroom.
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IRAN
Iranian forces shell suspected rebel outposts in Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdish region, killing two Iraqi civilians in the latest in a string of cross-border attacks that have forced hundreds of residents to flee. The Iranian attack appears to target bases of the Iranian Kurdish opposition group PEJAK, or the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan, involved in sporadic clashes with Iranian forces in recent years.
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ALGERIA
Algeria says it wants the world to stop paying ransom to hostage-takers, just as terrorism is growing in the desert Sahel region. Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb is active in the vast desert area and holds four French hostages.