Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: 96 Die Amid International Fiddling

A Saturday evening rally in the Bustan Al Qasr section of Aleppo

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Saturday's Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Fighting in the Streets of Damascus

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1930 GMT: Libya. Fighting between government forces and Toubou tribesmen has continued for a second day, with at least 16 people killed.

Government officials said the fighting began after members of the Toubou tribe attacked a checkpoint and tried to gain access to a security building to steal vehicles. However, representatives of the Toubou tribe said they were shelled by the Libya Shield Brigade, former insurgents under Government control, with residents killed and houses burned.

Meanwhile, in Tripoli, officials confirmed that Assembly elections planned for later this month has been postponed to 7 July. The authorities have said that extra time is needed to consider the applications of more than 4000 candidates.

1900 GMT: Bahrain. CNN have picked up the story of 11-year-old Ali Hassan, detaining for participating in an "illegal gathering".

Bahrain's Juvenile Court have now the move of Hassan, arrested on 14 May, from a jail to a juvenile detention facility.

1655 GMT: Iraq. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has called for a national dialogue after President Jalal Talabani said his rivals lacked the votes to oust him.

Al-Maliki's opponents have accused him of monopolising decision-making, with open calls from multiple political parties to withdraw confidence from Maliki’s national unity government.

However, late Saturday, Talabani said the parties lacked the 163 Parliamentary votes required to oust the Prime Minister.

“I take this opportunity to renew a call for all political partners to sit at the table for negotiations, and to be open to discuss all disagreements,” al-Maliki said in a statement “I am sure we will be able to overcome all challenges and difficulties that are in our way."

Talabani's office had announced, “Due to a lack of (support), the letter of his excellency the president of the republic, although its text was prepared, was not given to the parliament.”

Initially, more than 160 lawmakers had supported the motion to remove al-Maliki.

1650 GMT: Syria. Activists have now posted footage of the aftermath of Wednesday's attack on the village of al-Qubair, which killed at least 78 people, with an English translation.

1620 GMT: Syria. Gunmen abducted four Syrian Alawites and a Shia man on Sunday along the border with Syria after a Sunni Lebanese was kidnapped in the same region, a security official and witnesses have said.

The abductions occurred in the Wadi Khaled border region between the two countries.

Residents of the mostly Sunni region of Wadi Khaled blocked roads and burned tires to protest against the abduction of the Lebanese national.

1540 GMT: Bahrain. British Foreign Secretary William Hague has poured cold water on the Russian proposal that Iran is included in an "international contact group":

Hillary Clinton has said from the United States point of view it would be unacceptable to have Iran there. I’ve said that it would be hard to see how it would be workable with Iran there because we want to know that if a conference was held it would lead to progress, it would be likely to lead to a political transition in Syria that it wouldn’t just be, as I say, for the regime to buy time.

Now Iran is a country that has actively supported the Assad regime, we know they’ve given them technical support, they’ve given them advice on how to suppress protest and they probably support them in many other ways that we can’t see. So a country there at the table that is there just to preserve the Assad regime and thereby continue the killing wouldn’t be a very good basis for such a conference.

But of course we will keep talking to the Russians about how we can do this because international unity behind a plan, behind an actual plan of action and a transition in Syria is, as I say, the, the only way to actually bring the killings to an end.

1410 GMT: Bahrain. Claimed footage of police raiding a house in Sitra yesterday morning:

1140 GMT: Yemen. Journalist Iona Craig brings this message from Sana'a, illustrating the difficulties with getting back to "normal" life after recent political transition:

Just as we got up to a record 20+ hours of electricity in a day someone had to go and spoil it.#sanaablackout

— Iona Craig (@ionacraig) June 10, 2012

1030 GMT: Qatar and Jordan. Qatar will soon contribute $1.25 billion to a Gulf Cooperation Council fund for projects in Jordan, according to Jafar Hassan, Jordan’s Minister of Planning and International Cooperation.

Qatar is interested in supporting development projects in energy, health care and transportation, including a gas storage terminal, Hassan said, according the newspaper.

1010 GMT: Syria. The new leader of the opposition , Syrian National Council leader, Abdulbaset Sieda, has asserted, "We are entering a sensitive phase. The regime is on its last legs. The multiplying massacres and shellings show that it is struggling."

Sieda continued, "According to reports, the regime has lost control of Damascus and other cities."

The new leader, who was elected by consensus on Saturday to replace Burhan Ghalioun, said the SNC would continue to back the six-point peace plan of United Nations envoy Kofi Annan, "The Annan plan still exists but it has not been implemented. We will work for this plan to be included under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, to force the regime to implement it and to leave all options open."

0950 GMT: Syria. A Kuwaiti newspaper is claiming that dozens of Kuwaitis have joined the insurgent Free Syrian Army after crossing from Turkey, citing the fighters' relatives.

Relatives said they were in contact with the fighters and that "there are large groups from Saudi Arabia, Algeria and Pakistan" ready to join the uprising against the Assad regime.

Calls to fight alongside the Free Syrian Army have multiplied in recent weeks on online social networks in Saudi Arabia. The kingdom's top religious body issued an edict last week prohibiting Saudis from fighting in Syria without prior approval from the government.

0730 GMT: Syria. Eleven shells falls on Homs on Saturday during this three-minute video:

0545 GMT: Syria.

The Local Coordination Committees of Syria report that 96 people died across the country on Saturday, many of them from regime shelling of the cities of Homs and Daraa. Twenty-six people were slain in Homs, as the Khalidiya, Qusair, and Talbiseh neighbourhoods were hit, and there were also 26 deaths each in Daraa Province and in Idlib Province. Another 12 people died in the coastal area of Lattakia.

Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov put out a statement pointing to the continued tensions within the international community over next steps. Lavrov emphasized the call for a new international meeting to back the plan of United Nations envoy Kofi Annan, but that initiative has been held up over the question of Iran's inclusion.

At the same time, Lavrov was firm in rejecting any further steps such as extended sanctions or support of the insurgency: "Many who demand #Syrian intervention want to make the region a battlefield for superiority in Islamic world. A very dangerous trend."

And in Turkey, the Syrian National Council, which has beset by friction among opposition groups, has named Kurdish activist Abdulbaset Sieda as its new leader. Philosophy professor Sieda has been outside Syria since 1994, spending most of that time in Sweden.