LIBYA
Libyan rebels regain control of the eastern gateway city of Ajdabiya after international airstrikes cripple Moammar Gadhafi's forces, in the first major turnaround for an uprising that a week ago appeared on the verge of defeat. A doctor in the western city of Misrata says airstrikes there put an end to two days of shelling and sniper fire from Gadhafi's forces.
In Tripoli, a distraught Libyan woman storms into a hotel to tell foreign reporters that government troops raped her, setting off a brawl when hotel staff and government minders try to detain her.
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SYRIA
Protesters set fire to offices of the ruling party in southern and western Syria, according to accounts by government officials, activists and witnesses. In Latakia, a religiously mixed city on the Mediterranean coast, crowds burn tires and attack cars and shops. Officials say at least two people were killed there.
Seeking to ease a week of unrest, President Bashar Assad pulls back police and soldiers from the southern city of Daraa, the epicenter of the protests, and releases hundreds of political prisoners.
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YEMEN
Talks between members of President Ali Abdullah Saleh's party and the opposition make no progress toward a deal on the president's possible resignation. Protesters behind six weeks of demonstrations are demanding his immediate ouster, while the president's dwindling allies seek a transition that allows an "honorable" exit for a leader in power for 32 years.
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JORDAN
Thousands of supporters of King Abdullah II take to the streets of the capital to express their loyalty in the face of a resilient opposition movement demanding political reforms and new elections. The brother of a man who died a day earlier in clashes involving rival groups of protesters and police says he was part of the anti-government side. That contradicts the view of authorities who insist he was a government supporter and that he died of a heart attack.
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