President Bashar al-Assad blames conspirators for the unrest sweeping Syria. Witnesses claim soldiers who disobeyed orders in Banias were shot by security services as crackdown on protests intensifies. Syrian soldiers have been shot by security forces after refusing to fire on protesters, witnesses said, as a crackdown on anti-government demonstrations intensified. Witnesses told al-Jazeera and the... 

Monkey business: A rhesus monkey on the uninhabited island of Cayo Santiago. Racial, ethnic and religious prejudice may lie in our evolutionary past, according to new research using monkeys. Several experiments have found the animals were more wary of outsiders and associated bad things with them. The research was conducted on the uninhabited Puerto Rico island of Cayo Santiago, which has a large rhesus... 

Nearly 60% of people were against the plan. If the referendum would have passed, Iceland’s total population of 318.452 had to pay $5.8 billion in bailout, which means every Icelander would have been forced to pay $18.213, including new born babies, elders and crippled. It’s amazing only 58% voted against the bailout and not 98%. Icelanders have rejected the latest plan to repay the UK and... 

Olga winced as she drew back the bandage on her right breast, revealing an infected puncture wound that hadn’t healed since a man bit her in a fit of sexual rage. But the wound, for which the 19-year-old Moldovan lacked even basic medicine, is only a small part of Olga’s daily agony. For more than a year she has been held as a sex slave in this town in western Macedonia, where human trafficking... 

Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets of Syria on Friday and were again met by violent crackdowns from security forces, particularly in the city of Daraa where rights groups report forces opening fire into massive crowds of demonstrators. At least 37 protesters were killed nationwide, and 25 of those in Daraa alone. Several hundred others were also wounded. The toll is the one of the... 

US Deupty National Security Advisor John Brennan is reponsible for foreign policy in Yemen and considered a top anti-terrorism advisor to President Obama. Al-Qaeda in Yemen has not been held responsible for the death of even one American for the past five years, yet the US continues to play the al-Qaeda card and provide the country’s regime with military aid. In an interview with Press TV, Ali... 

Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever, left, speaks about illegal immigration at an event in Arizona also attended by Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu. AP An Arizona sheriff says U.S. Border Patrol officials have repeatedly told him they have been ordered to reduce – at times even stop – arrests of illegal immigrants caught trying to cross the U.S. border. Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever... 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tells UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon that the flotilla, scheduled to head toward the Gaza Strip in May, is a provocation and goods can easily be transported to the strip via land. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon Friday to stop the impending flotilla that is supposed to set sail to the Gaza Strip in May. The Israeli... 

A 12-year-old Staten Island boy was charged with felony assault as a hate crime for attempting to rip a religious head scarf off the head of a classmate on Wednesday, sources said. Osman Daramy attacked the female student outside the Berta Dreyfus Intermediate School in Stapleton about 1 p.m., the sources said. Osman allegedly punched and kicked the girl before trying to grab the scarf wrapped around... 

Top of the EU's list to cut climate change emissions is a target of 'zero' for the number of petrol and diesel-driven cars and lorries in the EU's future cities. The European Commission on Monday unveiled a “single European transport area” aimed at enforcing “a profound shift in transport patterns for passengers” by 2050. The plan also envisages an end to cheap... 

Civil rights leader the Rev. Joseph Lowery is among the plaintiffs, who claim the state circumvented the typical legislative process in creating “super-majority white neighborhoods.” Suit says ‘super-majority white neighborhoods’ were created. The Georgia Legislative Black Caucus filed a lawsuit Monday against the state of Georgia seeking to dissolve the city charters of Dunwoody, Sandy... 

The BBC's Lina Sinjab is one of the few journalists to reach Deraa. At least six people have died after security forces fired on protesters outside a mosque in the Syrian city of Deraa, human rights activists say. Hundreds of people had gathered in the streets outside the Omari mosque to prevent troops from storming it. The mosque has been the focus of anti-government demonstrations – at... 

The operation to create a no-fly zone in Libya has just begun, but already conservative Fox News pundit Bill Kristol is wishing the U.S. would send in ground troops “sooner rather than later.” U.S. President Barack Obama said Saturday the “Odyssey Dawn” operation launched under a UN Security Council resolution was a “limited military action,” unlike the regime change... 

As our world continues spinning out of control today due to the horrific events in Japan and the chaos of rebellion sweeping the Middle East, following a year (2010) that the global insurance giant Munich Re named as the second worst in history for natural disasters, shocking news has arrived from America showing that the long feared “shroud of silence” is about to fall upon them thus completing... 

Smoke rises over Ajdabiya, the last major city between forces loyal to Moammar Gaddafi and rebel-held Benghazi. A military intervention against Col Muammar Gaddafi’s onslaught on Libyan rebels has been proposed at the UN in an eleventh-hour attempt to stop the dictator crushing opposition strongholds. European diplomatic sources said that military operations could be under way “within hours”...