Nations today agreed to launch a UN-led investigation of Syria's bloody crackdown on its uprising, demanding that its government immediately stop the violence, release political prisoners and lift restrictions on the news media and access to the internet.

LIBYAN leader Muammar Gaddafi vowed to fight on to his “last drop of blood” and roared at his supporters to take to the streets against protesters demanding his ouster, shouting and pounding his fist in a furious speech yesterday after two nights of a bloody crackdown in the capital trying to crush the uprising that has fragmented his regime.

The streets of Libya’s capital are littered with the bodies of scores of protesters shot dead by security forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi, an opposition leader said today.

Nepalese security forces fought back a communist rebel attack today, as foreign diplomats sought to halt the country’s political crisis and officials placed the capital, Kathmandu under curfew for the fifth day due to anti-monarchy protests.