Syrian Govt Troops are defending the capital of Damascus, as they attempt to retake suburbs from rebels and 19 Syrians were killed.
The IAEA arrived in Tehran for a 3 day visit to look at Iranian Nuke Facilities.
The soon to be ex-President of Yemen arrived in the US for medical treatment, possibly related to the Al-Qaeda assassination attempt on him at a mosque.
The Obama Administration has opened negotiations with the Taliban in Qatar.
An Iraqi was killed in a bombing, as the Iraqi Parliamentary Impasse ended.
And the Islamists are expected to take the upper house of Parliament in Egypt in elections with low turnouts.
Mr. Saleh arrived at an unspecified location in the United States late Saturday after a stop in London.
His staff has said he is to be treated for injuries suffered during the assassination attempt last June, after which he spent several months recuperating in Saudi Arabia.
Meanwhile, Yemeni security officials said a high-ranking police officer, a soldier, and four Islamist militants were killed in the south of the country in the last 24 hours.
The officials said the head of a criminal investigation unit in Hadrawamout province was gravely wounded late Friday when unidentified gunmen attacked him near his house with automatic weapons. The attackers managed to flee, but the police officer later died of his wounds.
In the southern city of Zinjibar, the capital of Abyan province, a soldier and four Islamist militants died in overnight clashes. Government troops have been trying to regain control of swathes of territory in the province taken last year by Islamist groups.
Mr. Saleh, who is due to step down next month, left the Yemeni capital, Sana'a, for neighboring Oman a week ago. In his farewell speech, he asked the Yemenis to forgive him for any “shortcomings” during his 33-year rule and vowed to return to Yemen as the head of his General People's Congress party.
But thousands of Yemenis want Mr. Saleh to be put on trial for a violent crackdown in which hundreds of people have been killed. They reject granting him full immunity from prosecution, which the country's parliament approved last week as part of a Gulf Cooperation Council-backed deal to encourage him to leave office.
Mr. Saleh signed the plan last November and agreed to transfer presidential powers to his deputy ahead of February elections that will pick his successor. Yemeni state media said the president declared Vice President Abed Rabbo Mansour Haid responsible for the country and promoted him to the military rank of field marshal.
U.N. nuclear inspectors have begun a mission to Iran to investigate allegations of secret military dimensions to the Iranian nuclear program.
The International Atomic Energy Agency team led by Herman Nackaerts arrived in Tehran on Sunday for a three-day visit. Before Nackaerts left the agency's headquarters in Vienna, he said he wants Iran to “engage” his team on the accusations that Iranian authorities are trying to develop nuclear weapons under cover of a peaceful energy program.
Iran has repeatedly denied the allegations and refused to discuss them with the IAEA or world powers. Nackaerts, a Belgian who serves as IAEA deputy director general, said his team's planned dialogue with Iran on issues of concern to the agency is “long overdue.”
It is not clear which sites the U.N. nuclear inspectors will visit in Iran or which Iranian officials they will meet.
The IAEA issued a report last November saying it has evidence that Iran engaged in nuclear activities related to developing nuclear weapons. Iran dismissed that report as based on fabricated intelligence from Western powers.
The United States and European Union have tightened economic sanctions on the Iranian central bank and oil industry in recent weeks to pressure Iran into stopping uranium enrichment – a process that has military and civilian applications. Earlier this month, Iran said it started enriching uranium at its underground Fordo complex, which has the capacity to speed up the production of weapons-grade material.
Iran has threatened to respond to Western sanctions by closing the Strait of Hormuz, a vital pathway for global oil supplies. Iranian officials also have warned that an embargo on Iranian crude exports will raise oil prices and hurt the West more than Iran.
On Sunday, Iranian state media quote the head of Iran's state oil company Ahmad Qalehbani as saying he expects an increase in oil prices to a range of $120 to $150 a barrel. He did not give a timeframe for the prediction. U.S. oil futures closed at $99.56 a barrel on Friday.
Syria's embattled government defended its capital from rebel fighters Sunday, with security forces deployed across the city and around 2,000 troops backed by tanks and armored vehicles launching an assault to retake suburban areas.
Sustained fighting rocked at least four districts around Damascus, the country's largest city and seat of President Bashar al-Assad's power. The offensive pushed into predominantly Sunni Muslim areas of the capital's eastern outskirts that have slipped from government control over the past two weeks.
Activists say at least 19 civilians and rebel fighters were killed in Sunday's clashes.
The Damascus suburbs have seen large demonstrations demanding the removal of Mr. Assad, a member of the minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam that has dominated the mostly Sunni Muslim country for the last five decades.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported 72 people killed across the country Sunday, including 41 civilians, mostly in the Damascus suburbs and the central cities of Homs and Hama. The reports could not be confirmed because Syria bars foreign journalists from operating freely in the country.
In one incident, Syria's state news agency SANA said a roadside bomb went off near a military bus south of Damascus, killing six soldiers and wounding six others. SANA also reported the deaths of 23 other security personnel in fighting with rebels.
The Syrian government accuses armed terrorists of driving the revolt against Mr. Assad's 11-year autocratic rule and killing 2,000 security personnel. The United Nations estimated the death toll from the unrest at 5,400 earlier this month before it stopped updating the figure because of difficulties in obtaining information.
Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby said Sunday the regional bloc is in talks with Russia and China to try to persuade them to support an Arab plan for ending the crisis. Elaraby was speaking in Cairo before leaving for New York, where he will formally present the initiative to the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday.
The Arab League plan calls for President Assad to transfer power to a deputy and form a unity government to prepare for national elections under international supervision. The Assad government has rejected the proposals as a violation of Syria's sovereignty.
Russia, Syria's key military ally and a veto-wielding member of the Security Council, opposes efforts by Arab states and Western powers to use the U.N. body to pressure Mr. Assad into stopping his violent crackdown.
Syria's escalating violence prompted the Arab League to suspend the operations of its observer mission in Syria on Saturday. Elaraby said monitors will remain in Damascus until the League's foreign ministers meet next Sunday to decide whether to pull them out of the country.
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