A government crackdown on two Syrian towns in the country’s centre and south killed at least 33 people, including an 11-year-old girl shot dead by troops during a fierce shelling, activists have said.

SYRIAN security forces opened fire on protesters, killing at least six people as thousands joined demonstrations across the country calling for an end to President Bashar Assad’s regime, witnesses and activists said.

SYRIAN President Bashar al-Assad yesterday issued decrees ending nearly five decades of emergency law, abolishing state security courts and allowing citizens to protest peacefully, state television reported.

ANTI-GOVERNMENT protesters clashed with police who were blocking them from marching to Yemen’s presidential palace in Sanaa yesterday.

HUMAN Rights Watch criticised Jordan’s arrest of four lawmakers who visited the family of slain terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, calling it a violation of freedom of expression.

Three gunmen in a speeding car killed a defence lawyer in the Saddam Hussein trial and wounded another today in Western Baghdad.