Ann Harrison

Police arrested two separatist leaders in south Yemen ahead of planned rival rallies marking the first anniversary of ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh's ouster, an official and activists said Wednesday.

Iran's judiciary will soon make public the findings of a probe into the death in detention of a blogger whose fate provoked an international outcry, its High Council of Human Rights said.

Iran's judiciary will soon make public the findings of a probe into the death in detention of a blogger whose fate provoked an international outcry, its High Council of Human Rights said on Sunday.

Parliament has launched a probe into the death in detention of an Iranian blogger and will make its report public, the ISNA news agency on Sunday cited deputy speaker Mohammad Hassan Abutorabi as saying.

Syrian rebels killed 28 soldiers on Thursday, a watchdog said, amid a report they beat and executed some of them, as fighting raged in the country's northwestern battlefields.

Syrian rebels killed 21 members of the elite Republican Guard in Damascus province on Thursday, as the army subjected several districts of second city Aleppo to fierce shelling, a monitoring group said.

Rights group Amnesty International on Tuesday welcomed the release from prison in Iran of a Christian pastor, Youcef Nadarkhani, who had been condemned to death for converting from Islam to Christianity.

Amnesty International urged UAE authorities on Tuesday to release activists or provide them with fair trials, saying 50 people have been arrested in a clampdown on peaceful dissent.

Amnesty International on Wednesday called on Bahraini authorities to release leading Shiite activist Nabil Rajab sentenced to three months in jail for posting tweets deemed insulting to Sunnis.

Amnesty International called on Friday for an immediate arms embargo on the Syrian government and for caution over the supply of weapons to rebels in the conflict-strewn country.

Amnesty International on Friday urged world leaders at a Geneva conference on the Syrian conflict not to sacrifice human rights for the sake of a political settlement.

Peace envoy Kofi Annan is pushing a plan for an interim government for Syria to include representatives of both sides in the conflict ahead of an international conference on Saturday, diplomats said.

Peace envoy Kofi Annan is proposing a transitional government for Syria including members from both sides of the country's war, diplomats said.

An attack on a pro-government television station near Damascus killed seven staff on Wednesday, as peace envoy Kofi Annan confirmed a meeting on Syria would be held on the weekend.

The Syrian conflict took a broader turn in the region on Tuesday after Syrian rebels reportedly kidnapped 13 Lebanese Shiite Muslims as they were headed home by bus from a pilgrimage in Iran.

Amnesty International on Friday urged Israeli authorities to release Palestinian prisoner Hanaa al-Shalabi who has been on hunger strike for more than a month, saying she was "at risk of death."

The UN and Arab League were considering Syria's response to their proposals to end the bloodshed as Amnesty International Wednesday alleged detainees in Syria faced a "nightmarish world" of torture.

LONDON (Reuters) - Iran has "dramatically escalated" a crackdown on dissent in the run-up to this week's parliamentary elections, arresting lawyers, students and journalists and targeting electronic media, human rights group Amnesty International said on Tuesday.

Iran has escalated its crackdown on freedom of expression ahead of this week's parliamentary election, Amnesty International said in a report published on Tuesday.

Western and Arab nations are to challenge Syria to allow in desperately needed humanitarian aid at a meeting Friday aimed at increasing pressure on President Bashar al-Assad to end his bloody crackdown.