In central Turkey, suspected suicide attackers have set off a car bomb near a police station, killing one policeman and wounding nearly 20 civilians. Turkey's interior minister, Idris Naim Sahin, said two suspects sped through a checkpoint Friday and detonated the bomb outside a police station in the town of Pinarbasi in Kayseri province.
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon says the "stepped-up security crackdown" by the Syrian government is leading to "massive violations of human rights" by both sides of the conflict.
In a report to the U.N. Security Council Friday, Ban said the presence of unarmed U.N. observers is "having a calming effect" but the overall level of violence in Syria remains "quite high".
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says "significant differences" remain over Iran's nuclear program following two days of talks in Baghdad. She also says Pakistan's conviction of a doctor who helped in the capture of Osama bin Laden is "unjust."
Egypt's presidential race appeared headed on Friday to a decisive and polarizing runoff between the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate and another with strong ties to former President Hosni Mubarak’s regime. Preliminary counts from Egypt's first free presidential race show the Brotherhood's Mohammed Morsi in the lead and former prime minister and secularist Ahmed Shafiq a strong second.
Details after the break.
Suspected suicide attackers have set off a car bomb near a police station in central Turkey, killing one policeman and wounding nearly 20 civilians.
Turkey's interior minister, Idris Naim Sahin, said two suspects sped through a checkpoint Friday and detonated the bomb outside a police station in the town of Pinarbasi in Kayseri province.
Sahin said police spotted the car in neighboring Kahramanmaras province, where it ignored calls to stop at the checkpoint. He said security forces opened fire as the car approached the police station in Pinarbasi, before the bomb went off.
Sahin earlier said two police officers died, but later indicated that doctors had saved one of them.
Both of the attackers were killed in the incident.
There has been no immediate claim of responsibility, but Sahin hinted that Kurdish rebels might have been behind the attack. He also said the "crazy acts" of a terrorist group are continuing, in apparent reference to the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK.
PKK rebels have been fighting for autonomy in southeastern Turkey for nearly three decades. The conflict has claimed more than 40,000 lives.
Turkey, the United States and the European Union consider the PKK a terrorist group.
Syria
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon says the "stepped-up security crackdown" by the Syrian government is leading to "massive violations of human rights" by both sides of the conflict.
In a report to the U.N. Security Council Friday, Ban said the presence of unarmed U.N. observers is "having a calming effect" but the overall level of violence in Syria remains "quite high".
Earlier Friday, the activist group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said government forces had killed more than 50 people, including 13 children, in Houla in Homs province.
The group said government forces also shot and killed four people in the flashpoint Hama region and another person in southern Daraa province. Details of the incidents were not available.
The killings came as Friday prayers ended in Syria, and protesters spilled on to streets in major cities including Damascus and Aleppo, calling for the resignation of President Bashar al-Assad.
Although hundreds of United Nations observers are in the country, there appears to be little sign that violence between rebels and government forces is subsiding.
The continued unrest has strained a six-week-old cease-fire which is part of a peace plan brokered by international envoy Kofi Annan.
The Reuters news agency quoted an Annan spokesman as saying the envoy would travel to Syria "soon" for what would be his first visit since presenting the peace plan in March.
And the violence is having an impact in northern Lebanon, where ethnic clashes between opponents and supporters of Assad have left at least 11 dead and over 100 wounded in recent days .
VOA's Scott Bobb reports from northern Lebanon that tensions there are still running high.
"Historically, Syria has wielded a great deal of influence in Lebanon, its smaller neighbor, and even occupied it for years up until a few years ago. Although Syria did withdraw a few years ago, the influence is still there and it is resented by many people. In this particular case, in Tripoli, what happened was a Salafist sheikh, the Sunni Islamist, was killed at a checkpoint. He was known to be opposed to the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, and this raised tensions with the local Allawite community, to which President Mr. Bashar al-Assad belongs."
A dozen Lebanese Shi'ite pilgrims who were kidnapped in Syria this week while returning to Lebanon from Iran were released on Friday. While it was unclear who was behind the incident, it set off protests in Shi'ite areas of Beirut and a regional diplomatic spat.
"This is again another irritation or aggravation of the sectarian fault lines that exist in both societies. These are Shi'ite pilgrims in Syria who were captured by someone. It was claimed it was by the Syrian rebels, although the rebels denied it. Some of the anti-Damascus people [in Lebanon] said this was just one more act by the Syrian regime to try to sow dissent and curry favor for its cause," Bobb said.
Iran
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says "significant differences" remain over Iran's nuclear program following two days of talks in Baghdad. She also says Pakistan's conviction of a doctor who helped in the capture of Osama bin Laden is "unjust."
Secretary Clinton says the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France, and Germany set forth detailed proposals on all aspects of Iran's uranium enrichment during this week's talks in Baghdad. Iran, she says, put forth its own ideas, and significant differences remain.
European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton says the two sides found "some common ground" and agreed to more talks in Moscow June 18 and 19.
Secretary Clinton says those talks will seek to address the remaining differences. "As we lay the groundwork for these talks, we will keep up the pressure as part of our dual-track approach. All of our sanctions will remain in place and will continue to move forward during this period. Iran now has the choice to make: will it meet its international obligations and give the world confidence in its intentions or not?," she said.
Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful civilian purposes. The United States and its allies suspect Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons.
Secretary Clinton spoke to reporters following talks with New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully. They discussed NATO actions in Afghanistan, political reform in Burma, and plans for elections in Fiji.
Secretary Clinton also denounced the 33-year prison sentence handed down by a Khyber tribal court Wednesday against Pakistani doctor Shakil Afridi, who helped the U.S. track down Osama bin Laden.
"We regret both the fact that he was convicted and the severity of his sentence. His help, after all, was instrumental in taking down one of the world's most notorious murderers. That was clearly in Pakistan's interests as well as ours and the rest of the world," she said.
Dr. Afridi was convicted of treason for running a fake vaccination campaign that helped the CIA obtain DNA samples as part of efforts to confirm the al-Qaida leader's presence in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad. U.S. special forces killed bin Laden during a covert raid on that compound last May.
Secretary Clinton says Dr. Afridi's actions were in no way a betrayal of Pakistan and his treatment is, in her words, "unjust and unwarranted." She says the United States is continuing to raise his case as part of a series of issues with the Pakistani government, which include reopening supply routes to Afghanistan.
A Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman told reporters Thursday that the Afridi case "will be decided in accordance with Pakistani laws and by the Pakistani courts." He said the United States and Pakistan need to "respect each other's legal processes."
Egypt
Egypt's presidential race appeared headed on Friday to a decisive and polarizing runoff between the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate and another with strong ties to former President Hosni Mubarak’s regime.
Preliminary counts from Egypt's first free presidential race show the Brotherhood's Mohammed Morsi in the lead and former prime minister and secularist Ahmed Shafiq a strong second.
The runoff, to be held on June 16-17, would offer Egyptians a stark choice between candidates from divergent paths.
Morsi was not his Islamist group's first choice for its presidential candidate. But he got the job when the Brotherhood's lead candidate was disqualified and then became a front runner in a show of the group's political muscle.
During the campaign, Morsi delivered fiery speeches and vowed his presidency would be based on Islam but not be a theocracy.
Shafiq was Mubarak's last prime minister before he lost power in last year's pro-democracy protests.
The former Air Force commander was appointed prime minister in hopes of appeasing the popular revolt. But because of that connection to Mr. Mubarak, he is viewed with some suspicion by activists involved in the 2011 movement and polarized voters.
Final results will not be announced until Tuesday.
A victory for one of the secularist candidates would mark a significant turn from parliamentary elections just six months ago when more than 70 percent of voters cast ballots for Islamist parties.
With some key pockets of voting remaining to be counted, independent candidate Hamdeen Sabahi also appears to have fared well and could gain on Shafiq. He rose steadily in opinion polls over the past week, attracting voters who wanted neither an Islamist or a former regime figure.
Some of the other 12 candidates who fared well include Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, a moderate Islamist supported by some liberals, leftists and minority Christians, and former foreign minister Amr Moussa, a secularist who served under Mr. Mubarak
VOA correspondent Elizabeth Arrott says voters are generally pleased with how election officials have handled the ballot-counting.
"In the polling stations themselves, they appear to be going through by hand and this has been one of the key things. Everybody has been very glad that they are doing it that way, By having observers watching them be counted in polling station by polling station, it's much, much harder to commit fraud on any large level."
Whoever wins faces massive challenges. Egypt's economy has collapsed as the key tourism industry dried up, crime has increased and labor strikes have proliferated.
All content based on VOA News reports.
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