Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr (R) meets with UN-Arab League envoy for Syria Lakhdar Brahimi in Cairo on May 19, 2013. An Arab League committee on Syria will hold an emergency meeting on May 23, ahead of an international peace conference on ending the country's civil war, the bloc's deputy leader said.
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (C) attends the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem May 19, 2013. Netanyahu held out the prospect on Sunday of further Israeli strikes inside Syria, pledging to act to prevent advanced weapons from reaching Hezbollah and other militant groups.
FILE - This Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2009 file photo shows Syrian President Bashar Assad, seen, during a meeting with his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, unseen, at the presidency in Tehran, Iran. Syrian President Bashar Assad says he won't step down before elections are held in his war-ravaged country. The Syrian leader's comments, published Saturday in the Argentine newspaper Clarin, highlight the difficulties the U.S. and Russia face in getting the Assad regime and Syria's political opposition to the table at an international conference envisioned for next month.
In this Friday, May 17, 2013 photo, an elderly Palestinian refugee woman feeds a baby suffering from heat rash in a house in Gezirat al-Fadel village, Sharqiya, about 150 kilometers (93 miles) east of Cairo, Egypt. As Palestinians around the world recently marked the 65th anniversary of their mass displacement during the war over Israel's 1948 creation, the refugees in Gezirat al-Fadel say they have it worse than others who fled to Jordan, Syria or Lebanon. Unlike the millions who live in refugee camps in those countries the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) does not have offices in Egypt and so does not offer Palestinian refugees in Egypt assistance.
A protester shouts slogans against Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and his government's policy on Syria, during a demonstration in Ankara May 18, 2013. Erdogan said on Friday it would be up to the U.N. Security Council to decide whether to establish a no-fly zone inside Syria and said he backed the involvement of Russia and China in planned peace talks.
Riot police detain a protester during a protest against Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and his government's policy on Syria, in Ankara May 18, 2013. Erdogan said on Friday it would be up to the U.N. Security Council to decide whether to establish a no-fly zone inside Syria and said he backed the involvement of Russia and China in planned peace talks. The man on right is a passer-by, who did not take part in the protest, but stopped to ask the police to release the protester.
