AFP - Getty Images

A photo by the Syrian opposition's Shaam News Network on Wednesday shows Syrian rebels a day earlier allegedly taking over an outpost belonging to government forces.

Syrian government forces are killing demonstrators at the rate of 50 to as many as a 150 a day, but Syrian opposition leaders in exile and in Syria still cannot unite around the common goal of how to topple a brutal dictator.

At this week's meeting of Syrian opposition leaders in Cairo, Egypt, the groups meant to come to an agreement on how to achieve a political transition to a government without President Bashar al-Assad at the helm. Instead they came to blows after heated arguments turned into scuffles in the five-star suburban hotel where they convened.

They disagreed on almost everything, such as how to get rid of Assad.

Khalaf Dahowd, president of the National Coordination Body's Congress in Exile, said he is against violence.  He said he believes in peaceful protest and political and diplomatic pressure: "Arms have to stop, the voice of political solution will rise up. The voice of the guns will be stopped."

Syria pummels rebels; bodies of Turkish airmen found

Dahowd opposed an armed revolt and international military intervention.

"If any military attack happens, it will destroy the social contract and the state, not the regime,” he said.  “It will destroy the social infrastructure and peace within society."

He argued that militarizing the revolution has given Assad "an excuse to enforce real power with atrocities."

"The regime can succeed in the field of war. It knows how to use force. We say that in politics, they will lose," he contended.

Dahowd was not alone.

"(Special UN Envoy) Kofi Annan's six-point plan and Geneva transition plan must be supported internationally by the United Nations Security Council to stop the killing,” said Sinam Mohamed, female president of the People's Council for Kurds in West Kurdistan. “If we support the revolution with weapons, it will lead to civil war between the Alawis and Sunnis.  It is already starting in and around Homs."

Mohamed also called for equal rights for Kurds who are not recognized as a separate ethnic group with a distinct language.

"If we support weapons, we will have a war; Syria as a country will be finished,” she said. “We don’t want to have what happened in Libya. War always ends in dialogue."

Why not have dialogue now, Mohamed contended.

Rights group: Syria's 20 ways to torture prove its crimes against humanity

Others held just as fervently to armed rebellion.

Joanna de Boer / NBC News

George Sabra, Syrian National Council spokesman, attends a Syrian opposition meeting in Cairo, Egypt, to discuss political transition in Syria.

"I am sure Al Assad will leave by demonstrations in the streets and the Free Syrian Army (FSA)," said George Sabra, spokesman for the most widely recognized opposition group, the Syrian National Council (SNC). The FSA is made of defected Syrian soldiers and civilians who are fighting the regime with arms captured from raids and attacks or supplied from other countries in the region.  He said he is optimistic about the FSA's progress and claims they now control 60 percent of the country.

"They are making battle in the capital. It is a war between the Free Syrian Army and the government," Sabra said.

 "The difference between the SNC and other opposition groups is that we strongly support the FSA and are looking to supply them with weapons and other kinds of support.  It’s a real war," said Sabra, who spent eight years in prison and was tortured along with his son.

Mustafa Zakwan, director of the "I Love My Country Group," said force is the only option:

"The issue facing the opposition is clear. Syrian support is fragmented. Each region has a different opinion of how to move forward. This meeting is a useless waste of time. How do they expect that they could possibly come up with a solution in two hours when everyone disagrees. The only thing that anyone can agree on is opposition to Kofi Annan's entirely ineffective plan.  Assad will not work with Annan, it is totally unrealistic. There cannot be a solution that comes from the outside.  It must come from Syria, from our country. Syrians have to rely on force. It is the only way. The international community is afraid of Syrian rebels but they do not respect them. They are not engaged with them the way they need to be, with the real people on the ground."

Activist Bashar Kattab has lived outside of Syria for the past 20 years and supported removing Assad by force.

"Hope for a peaceful solution is lost,” Kattab said. “As long as Al Assad doesn’t believe in peace, neither can the protesters."

Opposition groups are vehemently at odds about whether they should unite at all.  Many find it undemocratic that one voice would represent so many diverse interest groups.  The Syrian National Congress purports to represent the opposition and is largely regarded as such by the international community and the media despite objections by other activists.

"The SNC … wants to dominate power,” Dahowd said. “They are not democratic. We can't go forward with that policy. The SNC is based on the Libyan model. It won't apply to Syria because there are 26 different groups in Syria."

Reporter behind the lines in Syria sees no end to war

Dahowd and many others said the SNC is dominated by fundamentalist Sunni ideology and will seek to impose its will on other social groups. Syria, with its large Shiite, Kurdish and Christian minorities, is a much more complex society than mainly Sunni Egypt, Libya and Tunisia. They were able to unite across the fault lines of religion, ideology, tribe, party and gender to unseat their respective dictators. It was only afterward, on the long and messy path to democracy, that discord emerged between factions seeking their own interests rather than the greater national good.

In Syria, the fault lines continue to impede a solution that can be embraced by all parties. After two days of rancorous talks, the final statement reflected a fractured opposition; it simply called for a halt to violence, the fall of Assad’s regime, support of the Free Syrian Army and the protection of civilians.

Participants disagreed about who would represent the opposition and the need for foreign military intervention.

The most powerful opposition group, the Free Syrian Army, boycotted the meeting altogether, saying in a statement "We refuse all kinds of dialogue and negotiations with the killer gangs…," essentially undermining the meaning of any consensus.

Charlene Gubash is NBC News' producer in Cairo. NBC News' Joanna de Boer also contributed to this article.

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Daniel Roland / AFP - Getty Images

Policemen stand in front of an apartment building after a gunman seized at least four hostages, including a bailiff, during a home eviction in Karlsruhe, Germany, on Wednesday.

Five people were shot dead after a gunman facing eviction seized hostages in an apartment in the southern German city of Karlsruhe on Wednesday, police said.  

The dead were thought to be the shooter, apartment's current renter, a bailiff, a locksmith and the apartment's new renter, police spokesman Norbert Scharer told NBC News. 

"Special forces broke into the apartment after smelling smoke and found five dead bodies. Probably one of them is the gunman," Scharer told NBC News.

A social worker, who also belonged to the visiting group, was released during the hostage taking.

"They all died of gunshot wounds,'' a police spokesman told Reuters.

After shots were heard, officers from the police special response unit, some dressed in protective green suits and helmets, sealed off the area around the building in the north part of the city.

Police said they found a hand-grenade and a rifle in the apartment. 

Karlsruhe, with nearly 300,000 inhabitants, is located near the French border and is home to Germany's Constitutional Court.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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As International Editor at NBC News' British partner ITV News, Bill Neely has covered the Libyan and Egyptian revolutions, the 2008 terrorist attack in Mumbai, as well as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He is on his fourth trip in seven months to Syria, a country largely off-limits to Western journalists, where he and his team are covering the war. He spoke to msnbc.com's F. Brinley Bruton from Syria where he was witnesssing what he called "the battle for Damascus."

Q: Are you surprised by the level of violence you've seen on this trip?

A: Every day there are surprising things to be seen. On my last trip I was genuinely surprised by the level of destruction in the Baba Amr district of Homs where Marie Colvin (an American correspondent for Britain's Sunday Times) was killed. I think this time it has been really surprising to see three, four miles from the center of Damascus such sustained bombardment. Nobody in Damascus can be unaware of what's happening.

I was surprised to see (the Free Syrian Army) operate quite openly. I mean, on Monday they drove us around for a long time through suburbs of Damascus. There wasn't a sign in sight of any army presence and they weren't hiding themselves, they were driving around with the guns out the window.

Ricardo Garcia Vilanova / AFP - Getty Images

A wounded man is lifted after shelling by Syrian government forces in Qusayr, close to the restive city of Homs, on Tuesday.

A few days ago (I was surprised by) the level of artillery and mortar fire going into Douma. It still has the capacity to shock you that an army will use that level of force to subdue a rebellion.

Q: How do you compare this to other conflicts you have covered in the past?

A: My immediate point of comparison would be [Libyan leader Moammar] Gadhafi [shelling] of the town of Zawiya which was 30 miles from Tripoli. Again there was a staggering level of force used in the bombardment.

In Kosovo it was very clear that it was ethnic cleansing, that Orthodox Christian Serbs were ethnically cleansing Muslims, as they had done in Bosnia. It is different here. The suburbs I was in yesterday are Sunni and the regime is not Sunni, it's Alawite, a branch of Shiite Islam, so there is a sectarian element to it. I think the Kosovo thing was even more, well, brutal.

Q: Have we reached a tipping point in the conflict?

A: My view was was that this was a civil war several months ago, and I think if there were any doubt [Syrian President Bashar] Assad answered that question a few days ago when he said this is a war on all fronts.

We don't like to call it a war in the West because we don't have a damn clue what to do about it. At the minute it seems to me it is in the interest of the great powers to almost play this down.

AFP - Getty Images

A destroyed Syrian forces tank stands in street in Atareb in the province of Aleppo on Monday. Most of Atareb's residents fled the town due to heavy fighting between Syrian forces and rebels.

One interesting aspect of this is that the U.N. has now stopped giving casualty figures, it has kind of been stuck for quite a long time at around 10,000. Well, it is way way over that.

More about ITV News' Bill Neely

Activists appear to have some grounding in fact and are coming up with about 18,600 civilians and rebels killed. The deputy foreign minister told me in May that there were more than 6,000 pro-regime dead. That takes you straight away to 25,000. Hillary Clinton said a few days ago it was 700 in the past week. I just looked at the activists figures and it looks about 100 a day now.

This is now the longest of the Arab revolutions by a long way, it is bigger than Libya, Egypt and Tunisia put together.

And the U.N. keeps warning that if we're not careful this will become a catastrophe. I think if it's 100 a day -- you are talking war, you are talking catastrophe.

Photos: A glimpse at the escalating conflict in Syria

And you can talk about talks between the opposition and Assad and a transitional government by mutual consent, and frankly it sounds to the people here on both sides like so much "blah blah blah." In fact, it probably sounds like "blab blah blah" to the citizens of the U.S. and Britain and France as well. But it is it is a [Band-Aid] by embarrassed governments while in reality on the ground there are two sides who are gunning for each other quite literally.

Q: What can the West do?

A: I just came from the U.N. in Damascus and there are dozens of white U.N. Land Rovers lined up there. They are all dressed up with nowhere to go.

It does give a very bad impression of a world that is completely impotent, and secondly of a world that isn't even trying because the U.N. are just sitting in their hotel doing nothing.

UN suspends Syria monitoring due to rising violence

Q: What did you think of the recent Human Rights Watch report on widespread torture in Syria, were you surprised?

A: There was a large element of "duh!" when that report came out. You just thought, "Well, what do you expect, this has been a brutal regime for a very long time."

Yes, it's terrible but I don’t think it told us anything new. Obviously, Human Rights Watch are trying to get the U.N. to refer Syria to the [International Criminal Court], they're building the evidence up block by block.

Rights group: Syria's 20 torture methods

Q: Is the risk that Syria could implode?

A: The distinction is that Libya imploded, and the problem with Syria is that it could explode. Someone once said the Middle East is like a series of detonators all strung together. When Syria goes off Lebanon will, Iraq might, Iran, Syria's closest, friend might. And Israel may get tempted.

Shaam News Network / AFP - Getty Images

A handout image released by the opposition's Shaam News Network shows an anti-regime demonstrator holding a banner during a protest in Kfar Sousa on July 2. The Syrian Revolution General Commission (SRGC) pulled out of an opposition conference in Cairo, citing political "disputes," a statement said on July 3.

Q: So you don't see much sign of the Assad government losing?

A: Not much sign of them stopping the bombardment of Homs and Douma because, if that’s what they feel they have to do to crush the revolution than that’s what they’ll do. They’ve made that absolutely clear. You read the official Syrian news agency and the word "crush" appears many many times. 

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LONDON - A tall, menacing actor famous for playing gangsters waits in a bar named The Blind Beggar, once the scene of an underworld revenge killing. Welcome to East London, the diverse and often eyebrow-raising home of this month's Olympics.

Forget the usual tourist honeypots of Buckingham Palace and Big Ben: Most of the 300,000 additional international visitors expected in London during the Games will see a district that is still evolving from its impoverished, industrial past into a vibrant and appealing part of Britain's capital.

The main Olympic Park is well inside London's sprawling boundaries, only four miles from the city's heart. Athletes will live on the site but thousands of team officials, visitors and VIPs will travel each day from central hotels and through East London to the Games.

"I don't know what they'll make of it," said Stephen Marcus, who played dodgy dealer "Nick The Greek" in Guy Ritchie's locally filmed 1998 gangster movie "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels."

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During the Olympics, Marcus will be giving guided walking tours, offering athletes and ticket-holders the chance to re-trace the steps of the real-life 'East End' mobsters who terrorized London in the 1950s and 1960s.

It is more relevant than you might think: Escaping from poverty, sometimes by criminal means, has been East London's back story over the past five centuries.

Slideshow: When the Olympics is your neighbor

/

A diverse community in East London will welcome the world to Britain for the 2012 Olympic Games. Meet residents and hear how they feel about having a huge, world stage in their backyard.

Launch slideshow

"Its downriver position on the Thames made it the city's gateway during Britain's maritime era and the industrial revolution," said Professor Miles Ogborn, head of the School of Geography at Queen Mary, University of London. "There were docks and sailors in the area, and everything you'd usually associate with that."

Filthy slums
With Britain's prevailing winds blowing industrial smog toward the east, London's 17^th and 18^th century developers headed in the opposite direction – establishing parks, theaters, royal residences and handsome squares in the west.

Click here for more London 2012 coverage

In contrast, the 'East End' descended into filthy slums for the diseased and destitute, earning a reputation as a den of immorality and inspiring many of the wretched characters in the novels of Charles Dickens. Not that its horrors were fictional: In 1888, five women who had turned to prostitution were murdered by a serial killer known as Jack the Ripper. The pub where he met his victims – the Ten Bells – is now a regular port of call for London walking tours.

"What is perhaps most shocking about those crimes, when you learn more about them, is the depth of poverty to which these women had fallen," said Ogborn. "This really was a terrible place to be."

But East London's darkest days came during the Second World War. Between September 1940 and May 1941, the German air force destroyed more than one million homes and killed 20,000 people in a bombing campaign known as The Blitz. The east, whose docks and factories made it a strategic target, bore the brunt of the attack.

'London's equivalent of Al Capone'
Instead of local redevelopment, post-war planners relocated many families to newly built towns and suburbs in the countryside. With the docks also in decline, derelict areas became a playground for career criminals, including the Krays – fearsome twin brothers and boxing champions who ran a casino and night-club empire on the back of protection rackets until finally convicted in 1968.

"They were London's equivalent of Al Capone," Marcus said. "They had celebrity guests and celebrity friends. They would've loved the Olympics, I'm sure ... they'd be at the opening ceremony in a VIP box."

Among the Krays' victims was rival gangster George Cornell, shot dead in front of drinkers in the Blind Beggar pub in Whitechapel in 1966. The bar, which sits on one of the main thoroughfares between central London and the Games site, will be the starting point for Marcus' tour.

Social improvement began with Victorian-era philanthropy – the Salvation Army was founded outside the Blind Beggar by Methodist preacher William Booth – and has since been tied up with major urban regeneration.

Slideshow: Venues for 2012 London Olympic Games

Oda / Getty Images

From Wimbledon to Wembley Stadium to The Dome, a look at the venues for the 2012 London Olympic Games.

Launch slideshow

The 1980s saw vacant docks transformed into Britain's second-largest financial center, complete with blinking 770-foot office tower One Canada Square and a light rail system. Canary Wharf is now home to the world or European headquarters of firms including HSBC, Citigroup, State Street, Clifford Chance, MetLife, Morgan Stanley and Thomson Reuters.

Alastair Jamieson for msnbc.com

Sandra Mjungwa, a store sales manager and East London resident, says the areas where the Olympics will be held is "unrecognizable compared to only a couple of years ago."

The main Games site has been created from industrial wastelands near Stratford, once home to toxic industries banished from more central districts by 19^th century social improvement laws. A massive soil clean-up has allowed 740 acres of polluted low-value brownfield land to be transformed into the Olympic area – although a major sewage pumping station remains defiantly in place.

Stratford station, once a dingy calling point to be avoided at night, is now a flagship transport hub for the Games and a stopping point for trains on the high-speed London-to-Paris Eurostar line. There's also a new $2.75-billion shopping mall, which three-quarters of ticket-holders will have to walk through to reach the main venues for events like swimming, basketball and track.

"The shopping has already made a difference to the area," store sales manager and local resident Sandra Mjungwa told msnbc.com. "It's unrecognizable compared to only a couple of years ago when nobody would come here unless they had to."

Kychia Messenger, 18, an electrical apprentice from Stratford, added: "It's already a better area; you see more people putting litter in the bin and there are fewer gangs hanging around." (The jury's still out on her last point: The day after msnbc.com spoke to Messenger, a man was stabbed to death in broad daylight in the mall after a gang-related brawl only a few yards from the Olympic Park entrance.)

Get behind the scenes with our 'TODAY in London' blog 

This has not deterred thousands of tourists from taking two-hour walking tours of the Olympic site perimeter, long before the Games have begun. "The tours are very popular – we do two on Saturdays now," said London Walks' guide, Kim Dewdney. "Prior to the Olympic redevelopment, nobody ever asked me for a tour of Stratford – but the Games has brought people here and hopefully opened their eyes to the local area."

Among those taking her tour on Friday afternoon was a family of Americans who had spent the morning seeing Westminster Abbey. Also there was Steve Venckus, in London on a business trip from Washington, D.C. "Even though I won't be here when the Games are on, I really wanted to see it all up close so I can say I've been there," he said.

Alastair Jamieson / msnbc.com

Kychia Messenger, 18, an electrical apprentice from Stratford, says there are now "fewer gangs hanging around" the area.

So can visitors expect a friendly welcome to East London? Since the arrival of Huguenot refugees from France in the 17^th century, successive waves of immigrants have made the area their home: Irish weavers, Ashkenazi Jews from Russia and Eastern Europe and, most recently, Bangladeshis. Brick Lane – once home to fabric factories and bagel bakeries – is now known as London's 'curry mile'.

In the six official Olympic boroughs of London – Hackney, Newham, Barking & Dagenham, Greenwich, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest – 42 per cent of the population is from non-white ethnic groups, and the area is home to dozens of mosques.

'Challenges'
Diversity of wealth is even wider: Tower Hamlets, which takes in the banking zone of Canary Wharf as well as the government housing projects of Stepney, contains some of Britain's poorest neighborhoods as well as some of its wealthiest. "One hundred and twenty-six languages are spoken in our schools and we have some very rich areas while only a couple of streets away there are people who are just getting by; those challenges are what makes the area interesting," Lutfur Rahman, Britain's first directly elected Muslim mayor, told msnbc.com. "I hope visitors will take the time to see our parks and attractions on their way to the Games."

Visitors may also indulge in a bit of celebrity-spotting: Ralph Fiennes and Keira Knightley are among those following a crowd of hispters and artists into the resurgent districts of Hoxton, Shoreditch and Bethnal Green. Once ghettos, the areas are now sought-after addresses for anyone working in arts or the media – the New York Times described East London as "by far London's trendiest area". Sir Ian McKellen, who played Gandalf in "Lord of the Rings," owns a historic pub called The Grapes near his riverside home in Limehouse.

"Artists have sought out the disused industrial spaces and made them their own," said Ogborn. "In the middle of once-bleak areas like Hackney Wick there are suddenly independent shops and bustling cafes full of artists, like the Hackney Pearl for example."

Alastair Jamieson / msnbc.com

"I think local people will be proud of Britain at the Olympics," said James Hamill, 25, barman at the Princess of Wales in Stratford and a catering worker at the Games.

Marcus said: "It's a community here. No matter what the nationality, ethnicity, and cultural group, there has always been and always will be a strong community life."

Some of the more traditional characteristics of East London have been well-documented in the long-running BBC soap opera, EastEnders, known chiefly for its grittiness.

"There will be some moaning – some of it quite justified – but on the whole I think local people will be proud of Britain at the Olympics," said James Hamill, 25, barman at the blue-collar Princess of Wales pub in Stratford. "We'll be very pleased to see people here."

Micah Smith, Andrew Gee and Jeremy Paduano, NBC News in London, contributed to this report.

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Hamed Jafarnejad / AP

In this picture released by the Iranian Fars News Agency, a surface-to-surface missile is launched by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in an undisclosed location in Iran on Tuesday, July 3, 2012. Note: The Associated Press has no way of independently verifying the content, location or date of this image.

DUBAI - Iran said on Tuesday it had successfully tested medium-range missiles capable of hitting Israel as a response to threats of attack, the latest move in a war of nerves with the West. 

Israel says it could attack Iran if diplomacy fails to secure a halt to its disputed nuclear energy program. The United States also has military force as a possible option but has repeatedly encouraged the Israelis to be patient while new economic sanctions are implemented against Iran.

NYT: US sends ships, planes to Persian Gulf

The Islamic Republic announced the "Great Prophet 7" missile exercise on Sunday after a European embargo against Iranian crude oil purchases took full effect following another fruitless round of big power talks with Tehran.

Iran's official English-language Press TV said the Shahab 3 missile with a range of 1,300 km (800 miles) - able to reach Israel - was tested along with the shorter-range Shahab 1 and 2.

"The main aim of this drill is to demonstrate the Iranian nation's political resolve to defend vital values and national interests," Revolutionary Guards Deputy Commander Hossein Salami was quoted by Press TV as saying.

AP: Iranians planned attacks on US targets in Kenya

He said the tests were in response to Iran's enemies who talk of a "military option being on the table".

On Sunday, Iran threatened to wipe Israel "off the face of the earth" if the Jewish state attacked it.

Analysts have challenged some of Iran's military assertions, saying it often exaggerates its capabilities.

Senior researcher Pieter Wezeman of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said Iran's missiles were still relatively inaccurate and of limited use in conventional warfare. With conventional warheads, "their only utility is as a tool of terror and no more than that", he said by telephone.

He added, however, that they could be suitable for carrying nuclear warheads, especially the larger ones.

The International Institute for Strategic Studies, said in a 2010 report that all Tehran's ballistic missiles were "inherently capable of a nuclear payload", if Iran was able to make a small enough bomb.

Iran denies Western accusations that it is seeking to develop nuclear weapons capability. The world's No. 5 oil exporter maintains that it is enriching uranium only to generate more energy for a rapidly growing population.

Oil markets on edge
Iran has previously threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz, through which more than a third of the world's seaborne oil trade passes, in response to increasingly harsh sanctions by the United States and its allies intended to force it to curb its nuclear research program.

Fars said dozens of missiles involved in this week's exercises had been aimed at simulated air bases, and that Iranian-built unmanned drones would be tested on Wednesday.

Iran repeated its claim to be reverse-engineering the sophisticated U.S. RQ-170 drone that it says it brought down during a spying mission last year.

"In this drone there are hundreds of technologies used, each of which are valuable to us in terms of operations, information and technicalities," General Amir Hajizadeh was quoted by the ISNA news agency as saying.

Wezeman said Iran had a large standing armed force, but that its weapons were generally outdated. "And those weapons only get older and older and they don't have access to new technology because they are under a United Nations arms embargo."

In his first comments since the European Union oil ban took force, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said sanctions would benefit Iran by lessening its dependence on crude exports.

"We must see the sanctions as an opportunity ... which can forever take out of the enemy's hands the ability to use oil as a weapon for sanctions," Fars news agency quoted him as saying.

Negotiations over Iran's nuclear program continued in Istanbul on Tuesday with a meeting of technical experts from Iran and six world powers.

The discussions follow a round of political talks in Moscow last month at which the sides failed to bridge differences or agree on a further round of talks at that level.

The experts have no mandate to strike agreements but the six powers - the United States, China, Britain, Germany, France and Russia - hope that by clarifying technical aspects of Tehran's work they can open way for more negotiations in the future.

Diplomats in Istanbul said discussions were "detailed" and would most likely be followed by a meeting between a senior negotiator from the European Union and Iran's deputy negotiator Ali Bagheri. Such a meeting could, at a later date, be a prelude to talks on a political level, diplomats have said.

"We hope Iran will seize the opportunity ... to show a willingness to take concrete steps to urgently meet the concerns of the international community," EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said ahead of the meeting. Ashton and her team represent the six powers in dealings with Iran.

As a priority, the powers want Iran to stop enriching uranium to levels close to weapons-grade, ship out any stockpile, and close a secret facility where such work is done.

Iran denies its program has a military dimension and wants relief from economic sanctions before it makes any concessions.

Call to shut oil lanes
On Monday, Iranian parliamentarians proposed a bill calling for Iran to try to stop tankers taking crude through the Strait of Hormuz to countries that support the sanctions.

However, the Iranian parliament is relatively weak, analysts say, and the proposal has no chance of becoming law unless sanctioned by Iran's clerical supreme leader.

That is seen as unlikely in the near term given that Western powers have said they would tolerate no closure of the Strait while Iranian leaders, wedded to strategic pragmatism for the sake of survival, have said they seek no war with anyone.

"It's a gesture at this stage," said independent British-based Iran analyst Reza Esfandiari.

"They want to emphasize that Iran can make life difficult for Europe and America. I think this is more of an attempt to offset falling crude prices. Financial markets are very sensitive to such talk."

On Tuesday, the price of Brent crude, which has been on a downward trend for the last three months, broke $100 for the first time since early June.

"A lot depends on nuclear talks," said Esfandiari. "If there's no progress and the initiative is deadlocked, then these kind of actions will intensify."

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Police in Australia have released video from a security camera that shows a woman wielding a knife and allegedly robbing a gas station, according to media reports.

Due to the revealing neckline of her black top, Australian television reporters have dubbed her the "buxom bandit,"  the UK's Telegraph reported.

The video shows a blonde woman wearing a black stocking hat and gloves walking into a gas station. She moves around the aisles then allegedly threatens the station's middle-aged attendant, demanding money.

She reportedly made off with about $360.

Police also are looking for a man in connection with the case, the Courier Mail of Queensland, Australia, reports.

People with information were asked to call Crime Stoppers.

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Pakistan said it will reopen land routes that the United States and other NATO nations use to supply troops in Afghanistan, seven months after the roads were closed in response to an attack by U.S. aircraft that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, NBC News reported on Tuesday.

The move comes after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke on the telephone with Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar and apologized for the incident in Salala last November.

"Foreign Minister Khar and I acknowledged the mistakes that resulted in the loss of Pakistani military lives. We are sorry for the losses suffered by the Pakistani military," Clinton said in a paper statement.

On the phone call, Khar informed Clinton that the supply lines through Pakistan into Afghanistan are opening and that Pakistan would not charge a transit fee for the routes.

Afghans are 'no different from any American' 

"Pakistan will continue not to charge any transit fee in the larger interest of peace and security in Afghanistan and the region," the State Department said.

Pakistani Taliban warned they would attack trucks and oil tankers carrying supplies for the foreign forces in Afghanistan.

"We were shocked after hearing that Pakistan was going to reopen NATO supply line," Ihsanullah Ihsan, spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban told NBC's Mushtaq Yusufzai. "Pakistan is a U.S. slave and wanted the entire nation to become its slave. But we are here and have made all preparations for creating hurdles for NATO supplies. We have a modern strategy to attack NATO supplies from wherever they pass through via Pakistan." 

Reuters

Tankers used to carry fuel for NATO forces wait to cross into Afghanistan at a compound in Karachi on July 3, 2012.

The supply routes were closed by Pakistan in protest of a U.S. strike Nov. 26 on a Pakistani border post at Salala in the country's tribal areas. The strike killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, and the incident was borne of mistrust and miscommunication, according to a U.S. military investigation. But Pakistani officials maintained the strike was deliberate and they closed the overland supply routes, demanding a U.S. apology. 

U.S. officials have used careful language in the months since, saying they "regret" the loss of life, but stopping short of an actual apology.

Pakistani and U.S. officials told NBC News recently that language acceptable to both sides was the subject of many high-level discussions. Several U.S. and  International Security Assistance Force delegations have visited or reached out to Islamabad in the last seven months, including a recent flurry of activity that involved a visit last week from ISAF commander Gen. John Allen and a weekend phone call from Clinton to newly appointed Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf.

A series of domestic political crises in Pakistan contributed to the delay, including the sacking of one prime minister and appointment of another, keeping the civilian government pre-occupied with maintaining power and unable or unwilling to make significant, foreign policy decisions.

Slideshow: Pakistan: A nation in turmoil

Anjum Naveed / AP

Images of daily life, political pursuits, religious rites and deadly violence.

Launch slideshow

A U.S. official told NBC News that discussions to reopen the supply lines widened to include negotiations over back payment for coalition support funds, which the U.S. pays to Pakistan for operations in Afghanistan, drone strikes within Pakistan  and a higher rate per container for use of the supply routes.

Watch World News videos on msnbc.com

Many in the U.S. had pinned their hopes on the Chicago NATO Summit in May as the turning point in declining U.S.-Pakistan relations, but were disappointed when Pakistani officials failed to make any significant moves before or during the meeting. 

The reopening of the supply route marks the first significant step toward repairing relations.

Officials on both sides said recently that the alliance was at an all-time low, a feeling that is reflected in the general Pakistani population. The most recent Pew Research Poll showed anti-Americanism at a new high in Pakistan, with 74 percent of Pakistanis polled saying they considered the U.S. to be an enemy. 

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta welcomed Pakistan's decision to reopen the supply lines.

"As I have made clear, we remain committed to improving our partnership with Pakistan and to working closely together as our two nations confront common security challenges in the region," Panetta said.

NBC’s Fakhar Rehman in Islamabad, Mushtaq Yusufzai in Peshawar and Pakistan Bureau Chief Amna Nawaz contributed to this report.

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Wahdat Afghan / Reuters

An Afghan schoolgirl receives treatment at a hospital after allegedly being poisoned in Takhar province May 23, 2012.

KABUL – Over 100 girls from Afghanistan’s northern Jawzjan province in Afghanistan were hospitalized Monday after allegedly being poisoned.  The girls, ages 8 to 22, fell ill while attending class at Meser Abad High School, local officials told NBC News.

More than 300 schoolgirls in the province have allegedly experienced poisoning in the last two weeks.

Local officials blamed the Taliban for the schoolgirls’ poisoning, however, the Taliban have rejected the accusation.

Some speculate that the illnesses could be blamed on mass hysteria linked to fears of a Taliban takeover once the U.S. and international forces withdraw from the country in 2014.

Both the Afghan government and NATO forces have done blood tests on the students after the poisonings, but have found no traces of poison.   

Experts have said that the poisoning scare has all the “earmarks” of mass hysteria. Robert Bartholomew, an expert on mass hysteria, told the AFP that the scare is typical of social panic in other war zones like Kosovo in the past.

 "The tell-tale signs of psychogenic illness in these Afghan outbreaks include the preponderance of schoolgirls; the conspicuous absence of a toxic agent; transient, benign symptoms; rapid onset and recovery; plausible rumors; the presence of a strange odor; and anxiety generated from a wartime backdrop.”  

EPA

School girls receive first aid in Jowzjan on July 2.

NBC spoke with Heather Barr, an Afghanistan Researcher for Human Rights Watch, based in Kabul, about the incidents and why the education of girls is such a potent symbol of change since the fall of the Taliban.  

Read a Q & A with Barr below:

Why is girls’ education still the subject of the alleged poisoning attacks?
Schoolgirls, their teachers and their schools are a soft target for insurgent groups seeking to terrorize communities and demonstrate the government's inability to protect communities. The Taliban has issued recent statements talking about their commitment to education, but these statements conspicuously do not mention girls' education – and threats and attacks continue.

Why is poison a main method of disruption?
These [alleged] poisonings are very perplexing, primarily because we have yet to see clear scientific evidence of the presence of poison, in spite of testing by [NATO’s] International Security Assistance Force and international organizations. 

Some experts have suggested that these incidents may have a psychological explanation rather than a chemical one. If that is true, it speaks volumes about the trauma and fear school children experience simply going to school every day, due to threats and attacks against schools.

It would also beg many worrying questions about the arrests that have been made in Takhar and the confessions from some of those arrested. [She was referring to the alleged poisoning of students in Afghanistan’s Northeastern Takhar Province]

Whether or not there is poison involved, these incidents are having a devastating effect on girls' education.

Do these attacks against schools have the desired outcome?  Does it disrupt education for girls? Are families frightened or defiant?
I'm afraid that the attacks do have the desired outcome. Many schoolgirls and their families are defiant in the face of threats and attacks, but at the same time half of all girls are not in school, and security is unquestionably the cause of some of these girls being denied education.

What is the Afghan government doing about the attacks?
The government should make public, and share with international experts, any scientific evidence they have regarding the use of poison in these cases. By doing so can they lay to rest questions about whether poison is really involved and gain assistance in prevent future incidents.

Is this situation likely to continue?
Tragically the poisoning incidents seem to be rapidly gaining momentum at the moment. It is urgent that the government respond effectively and find a way to prevent these incidents. And the first steps have to be understanding what poisons – if any – are involved.

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Andrew Cowie/AFP - Getty Images, file

The Lexington Building in east London will be a site for the stationing of surface-to-air missiles during the London 2012 Olympic Games, June 30, 2012.

LONDON - Britain's government confirmed on Tuesday that air defense systems would be stationed at six London sites during the Olympics, including on the rooftops of two apartment blocks, despite fervent opposition from some residents.

"It's a disaster because understandably most people in the area believe it is a bad idea to put surface-to-air missiles on building blocks," said Chris Nineham, who lives near one of the sites. 

The 49-year-old member of campaign group "Stop the Olympic Missiles", which gathered more than 1,000 signatures to oppose a local missile presence, added that any fired missiles could explode over some of the most densely populated areas of London. 

Missiles on my apartment? London resident balks at Olympics security measures

Nineham, who lives near one of the buildings housing the weapons, said he will be "in the line of fire" during the games.  

In an email to msnbc.com, Ministry of Defense spokeswoman Jenny Dickens wrote, "Nobody has ever suggested that the use of GBAD [Ground Based Air Defense] would not have implications on the ground but the point is that these systems are proposed as an absolute last resort option, as part of a much broader, layered air security plan aimed at protecting all of those involved in the Olympics, including local residents."

Defense Secretary Philip Hammond earlier touted the importance of air security.

"While there is no reported threat to the London Olympics, the public expects that we put in place a range of measures aimed at ensuring the safety and security of this once-in-a-generation event. Ground-based air defence systems will form just one part of a comprehensive, multi-layered air security plan which, I believe, will provide both reassurance and a powerful deterrent," he said in a statement.

Brits revel in gloom ahead of London Olympics, but don't believe the gripe

The issue of security is a particularly relevant one to Olympics organizers. The decision to award the Olympics to London was announced on July 6, 2005.  Just a day later, London suffered its worst peacetime attack when four suicide bombers killed 52 commuters.

The games will see the country's largest peacetime security operation and involve tens of thousands of security officials, with 13,500 military personnel, 12,000 police and 10,000 private contractors. 

Other defenses on hand for the games will include a Royal Navy helicopter carrier moored in the River Thames, Typhoon jets, and Puma helicopters, the Ministry of Defense said.  The government was yet to decide whether to keep the defense systems in place throughout the Paralympics.

London beefs up security before Olympics

The Ministry of Defense said it was confident it would defeat "the small number of activists" who launched legal proceedings against the proposed missile placement and are seeking an injunction to prevent the missiles from being deployed. 

Meanwhile, East London resident groups challenging the decision promised a protest in front of London's Royal Courts of Justice on Monday, July 9, when the hearing about the ground-based air defense system takes place. 

Opposition to the missiles is part of a more general feeling of ambivalence towards the London games.

At London Olympics, dogs have sniffed out a key anti-terror role

Prominent conservative journalist Charles Moore recently criticized how the games were being handled in news weekly The Spectator:

"For anyone unOlympic living, working in or visiting London between now and September, there is nothing but boredom, inconvenience and officially sanctioned insolence on offer. Thanks to the loathsome ideology of the Olympics, which manages somehow to be fascist and internationalist at the same time, free expression has been banned, and anyone using the Games symbol or the word 'Olympic' in any way is threatened with arrest."

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Reuters

Local residents gather in front of a municipal government building in Shifang county, Sichuan province, in this handout picture taken Monday.

Updated at 10:52 a.m. ET: While Shifang city government officials have announced that construction on the refinery will be halted, some residents have continued to protest in the streets to demand the release of some protesters detained during the protests including an unknown number of college students from a nearby aviation academy.

BEIJING -- Construction of a copper factory in central China has been halted, an official said Tuesday, after days of angry protests over fears of pollution culminated in clashes that saw riot police fire stun grenades and tear gas to break up a crowd of thousands.

Residents of the town of Shifang, Sichuan province, have been slowly gathering around a local city government office since Saturday, the day after a foundation-laying ceremony put on by Sichuan Hongda – a conglomerate specializing in minerals, real estate and finance – to celebrate the first phase of construction on the $1.64 billion proposed molybdenum-copper alloy refinery nearby.

When -- or now if -- completed, the refinery could generate an estimated $8 billion a year.

According to local Sichuan newspaper reports, the protest started with around a dozen people, but by Sunday it had grown as fellow residents and high school students joined them.

By Monday, there was a crowd of thousands, a police officer on duty there told the Chinese newspaper, Global Times. However, the South China Morning Post reported the figure was in the tens of thousands. 

By early Monday afternoon, tensions had escalated and protesters attempted to occupy the city government offices, forcing their way past police inside where they reportedly threw bricks through windows and destroyed offices there. Riot police were brought in to restore order, firing tear gas and stun grenades to break up the crowd.  

Some 13 injuries were initially reported by official state media, but witnesses on the ground reported far more wounded.

As of late Tuesday afternoon, protesters were reportedly still on the streets of Shifang, effectively locked in a standoff.

Local government officials were facing pressure from provincial-level and central government leaders to stifle social unrest.

'No longer suitable for living'
A protester surnamed Wang told NBC News that their numbers had thinned out as the city boosted its police presence.

“The two sides are just standing, facing each other,” Wang said. “There are a lot of police and the roads are blocked.”

“Yesterday, the protesters were all concentrated in front of the government building,” said another protester who requested anonymity. “But today, the police have blocked all the roads around the government building so people cannot concentrate in one area and are scattered everywhere… I am not sure how many people there are, but fewer than yesterday."

Bathed in smog: Beijing's pollution could cut 5 years off lifespan, expert says

Asked what he would do if construction went ahead on the refinery, the man responded, “As far as I’m concerned, I have settled here, but this place will be no longer suitable for living.” 

“If my economic situation and other conditions meet, I will definitely move away," he added.

Concerns over the pollution created by the alloy refineries that dot China’s resource-rich regions have grown in recent years as China’s economy develops and its people become better educated about the effects of industrial waste on human health.

“I think in general smelters are heavily polluting facilities no matter what, they smelt,” said Ma Tianjie, a Greenpeace campaigner in China specializing in heavy metal waste. “We have seen a lot of cases with heavy metal smelters where there is substantial release of all kinds of toxic pollutants.”

Those pollutants are released into the air through smoke and into the nearby area's ground and water supplies through the highly toxic slag waste that is a byproduct of a refinery’s production phase. Arsenic, an element that can cause severe kidney and liver problems in humans, is often found in worrying levels in this slag.

As these health concerns have become increasingly more public, so too has opposition to these refineries in urban areas.

While companies and local governments have up until now been largely able to duck growing NIMBY-ism in urban centers around China, officials here are increasingly finding themselves accountable for the environmental legacy of these lucrative, but highly polluting industries. 

A legacy that Ma warns can stay with a population for a long time. “Generally the smelters will leave a quite heavy legacy to the local community” he warned, “even decades after the facilities leave.”

Construction suspended
The mass public protest in Shifang has for now, had its desired effect: Late Tuesday afternoon, Shifang’s local Communist Party chief, Li Chengjin, announced through the government’s Weibo microblog feed that the government was halting construction of the refinery and would no longer allow it to go ahead.

“It’s definitely a piece of good news that construction is being halted, this is absolutely what we wanted,” said Wang upon hearing the news of the government’s decision to halt construction.

However, similar recent cases suggest that such success could just be temporary. Last summer, thousands of residents of the northeastern port city of Dalian took to the streets to protest a chemical factory after a dike broke following a storm, potentially exposing the city to the threat of a toxic spill.

Local officials were successful in keeping the crowd peaceful and eventually broke up the protests when they emphatically pledged to halt production at the factory and have it moved out of the city.

But production resumed soon after, though local officials there have stressed since then that the factory was still slated to be moved.

NBC News’ Horace Lu contributed to this report.

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AFP - Getty Images

A still from a video shows Islamist militants destroying an ancient shrine in Timbuktu on Sunday. The hardline Islamists who seized control of Timbuktu along with the rest of northern Mali three months ago, consider the shrines to be idolatrous.

World cultural body UNESCO was set to create a special fund to protect Mali's heritage on Tuesday after al-Qaida-linked Islamists attacked historic and religious landmarks in the city of Timbuktu for a third day, breaking down the door to a 15th century mosque that -- according to legend -- had to remain shut until the end of the world.

A UNESCO committee also called for a mission to go to Mali to work with local and national leaders to stop what it called "wanton destruction."

"In legend, it is said that the main gate of Sidi Yahya mosque will not be opened until the last day (of the world)," Alpha Abdoulahi, the town imam, told Reuters by telephone. 

Yet Islamists intent on erasing traces of what some regard as un-Islamic idolatry smashed down the door to the mosque early on Monday, saying they wanted to "destroy the mystery" of the ancient entrance, he said. 

"They offered me 50,000 CFA ($100) for repairs but I refused to take the money, saying that what they did is irreparable," Abdoulahi added.

In a statement emailed to msnbc.com Tuesday, UNESCO's World Heritage Committee called for a series of measures to help save Mali's ancient sites and condemned the "repugnant" destruction of Timbuktu's mausoleums.

UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova has appealed for a halt to the attacks. 

AFP - Getty Images

A still from a video shows an Islamist militant celebrating and shouting after destroying an ancient shrine in Timbuktu on Sunday.

"There are mausoleums, there are mosques, there are manuscripts which represent enormous value for humanity and it is totally unacceptable what is happening there," Bokova said on Monday. 

The U.N. body seeks to protect places around the world it classifies as world heritage sites, arguing they are of special cultural significance and should be preserved for posterity. 

Government powerless
Mali's government in the capital Bamako about 630 miles south has condemned the destruction, but is powerless to halt them after its army was routed by rebels in April. It is still struggling to bolster a return to civilian rule after a March 22 coup that emboldened the rebel uprising further north. 

Witnesses: Islamists destroy ancient sites in Timbuktu

The attacks have been widely condemned inside Mali as well. 

"The 333 saints would be turning in their graves," the country's Les Echos newspaper wrote on Monday, referring to 333 revered Sufi imams, sheiks and scholars buried in Timbuktu. 

"Today there are old women, old people in Timbuktu who say that maybe it is the end of the world," entrepreneur and former Timbuktu resident Male Dioum told Reuters.

Islamists of the Ansar Dine group say the centuries-old shrines of the local Sufi version of Islam in Timbuktu are idolatrous. They have so far destroyed at least eight of 16 listed mausoleums in the city, together with a number of tombs. 

Ansar Dine and well-armed allies, including al-Qaida splinter group MUJWA, have hijacked a separatist uprising by local Tuareg MNLA rebels and now control two-thirds of Mali's desert north, territory that includes the regions of Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu. 

Romaric Ollo Hien / AFP - Getty Images, file

Islamists rebels approach Timbuktu in rebel-held northern Mali in April. "Members of AQIM, supported by (the armed Islamist group) Ansar Dine, have destroyed the tomb of Saint Sidi (Mahmoud Ben) Amar. They set fire to the tomb," an official told AFP in on May 5 on condition of anonymity. "They promised to destroy other tombs, Timbuktu is in shock. Now they want to take and control other tombs and manuscripts," the official said.

The size of the area under their control is bigger than France, heightening fears that Mali will become a jihadist haven. 

The MNLA rebels criticized the Islamists' destruction of holy sites, underlining a growing rift between the two groups that had formed an uneasy alliance to take over the north of the country. 

"The perpetrators of these heinous acts, their sponsors, and those who support them must be made accountable," MNLA spokesman Hama Ag Mahmoud told Reuters in an interview in Nouakchott. 

Desert tourism
Sufi shrines have been attacked by hardline Salafists in Egypt and Libya in the past year. The attacks also recall the 2001 dynamiting by the Taliban of two 6th-century statues of Buddha carved into a cliff in Bamiyan in central Afghanistan. 

According to Time magazine, those who adhere to a more orthodox brand of Islam tend to harbor a particular animosity to Sufism, who have a more mystical interpretation of the divine and a faith that is often rooted in pre-Islamic traditions and a reverence for saints and dead wise men.

Located on an old Saharan trading route that saw salt from the Arab north exchanged for gold and slaves from black Africa to the south, Timbuktu blossomed in the 16th century as an Islamic seat of learning, home to priests, scribes and jurists. 

In recent years, Mali had sought to create a desert tourism industry around Timbuktu. But even before April's rebellion many tourists were being discouraged by a spate of kidnappings of Westerners in the region claimed by al-Qaida-linked groups. 

F. Brinley Bruton and Reuters contributed to this report. 

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Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch commissioned a Syrian artist to produce sketches based on statements received from former detainees and security force defectors. They depict some of the most commonly used torture methods in detention centers across Syria. They are not representations of any specific individuals.

Syrian intelligence agencies are running torture centers where detainees are beaten with batons and cables, burned with acid, sexually assaulted and their fingernails torn out, Human Rights Watch said in a report released on Tuesday.

The New York-based rights group identified 27 detention centers across the country that it says intelligence agencies have been using since President Bashar Assad's government began a crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in March 2011.

"Then they started squeezing my fingers with pliers. They put staples in my fingers, chest and ears. I was only allowed to take them out if I spoke. The staples in the ears were the most painful," the man told Human Rights Watch.

Human Rights Watch

Detainees described being beaten on the soles of their feet with sticks and whips to the point that their skin was raw, their feet swollen and bleeding, making it impossible to walk.

"They used two wires hooked up to a car battery to give me electric shocks. They used electric stun-guns on my genitals twice. I thought I would never see my family again. They tortured me like this three times over three days," he said.

Another man, named “Elias” in the report, described how he was tortured by Syrian intelligence officers in Damascus.

“The guards hung me by my wrists from the ceiling for eight days. After a few days of hanging, being denied sleep, it felt like my brain stopped working. I was imagining things,” he said.

“My feet got swollen on the third day. I felt pain that I have never felt in my entire life. It was excruciating. I screamed that I needed to go to a hospital, but the guards just laughed at me,” he added.

Women, children, elderly people
The report found that tens of thousands of people had been detained by the Department of Military Intelligence, the Political Security Directorate, the General Intelligence Directorate, and the Air Force Intelligence Directorate.

So many people have been arrested that the authorities had used sports stadiums, schools and hospitals as detention centers, the report said.

The report said while most of the torture victims who spoke to the group were men aged 18 to 35, they also spoke to a number of women, children and elderly people who had been tortured.

“Interrogators, guards, and officers used a broad range of torture methods, including prolonged beatings, often with objects such as batons and wires, holding the detainees in painful stress positions for prolonged periods of time, often with the use of specially devised equipment, the use of electricity, burning with car battery acid, sexual assault and humiliation, the pulling of fingernails, and mock execution,” the report said.

It added that several former detainees told Human Rights Watch that they witnessed people dying as a result of torture.

'Mildest form of torture'
A former Syrian intelligence officer told the campaign group that the “mildest form of torture is hitting people with batons” on their arms and legs and “not giving them anything to eat or drink.”

“They used … and electroshock machine … it is a small machine with two wires with clips that they attack to nipples and a knob that regulates the currents,” he said. “In addition, they put people in coffins and threatened to kill them and close the coffin.”

At a meeting of Syrian opposition groups in Cairo on Tuesday, participants were unsurprised by the reports of torture.

"I, myself, and my son were victims. I spent eight years in prison,” George Sabra, spokesman for one of the best known opposition groups, the Syrian National Council, told NBC News in Cairo. “They used electricity (to torture me) and beat my legs.” Sabra said his son was also imprisoned twice and tortured more severely because he was a young man. They left Syria five months ago and are now living in Paris.

Khalaf Dahowd, president of the National Coordination Body's Congress in Exile, believes torture in Syria is overshadowed by worse crimes against humanity.

"The regime has committed massacres! Torture is an abuse of human rights. But massacres have happened," said Dahowd.  

Aret Gabeau, of the Kurdish Center for Legal Studies and Consultancy, hoped the report would make others aware of the scope of suffering under President Bashar al- Assad's rule. 

"I was very reassured to see that reports like this are being published so that those outside of Syria can truly be aware of the level of suffering being imposed on the people by Assad’s regime,” said Gabeau. “This is why the regime is so terrified of the press; they have so much power to undermine Assad further." 

Syrian helicopters strike Damascus suburb

Human Rights Watch has called for the U.N. Security Council to refer the issue of Syria to the International Criminal Court (ICC) and to adopt targeted sanctions against officials carrying out abuse.

"The reach and inhumanity of this network of torture centers are truly horrific," Ole Solvang, emergencies researcher at Human Rights Watch said. "Russia should not be holding its protective hand over the people who are responsible for this."

PhotoBlog: On the road with Syria's rebel motorcycle army

Russia -- an ally of Syria -- and China have already vetoed two council resolutions that condemned Damascus and threatened it with sanctions and French U.N. Ambassador Gerard Araud told reporters on Monday that reaching a Security Council consensus to refer Syria to the ICC would be difficult.

"As France is concerned it's very clear we are very much in favor of referring Syria to the ICC," Araud said.

"The problem is it will have to be part ... of a global understanding of the council and I do think that for the moment we have not yet reached this point," he said.

U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay on Monday reiterated her position that the issue of Syria's conflict should be referred to the ICC in The Hague because crimes against humanity and other war crimes may have been committed.

She said both sides appear to have committed war crimes.

The United Nations has said more than 10,000 people have been killed during the 16-month Syria conflict. 

NBC News' Charlene Gubash and Joanna de Boer in Cairo contributed to this report. Reuters also contributed to this report.

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Dylan Martinez / Reuters, file

Bob Diamond waits to pose for photographs after he was named chief executive of Barclays in September, 2010. Diamond resigned on Tuesday.

LONDON - Bob Diamond, the chief executive of Barclays, resigned early Tuesday over the lending rate-rigging scandal that last week saw the bank fined a record amount by U.S. and U.K. regulators.

The move deepens the latest crisis to hit the financial services industry, with observers suggesting investigations into the manipulation of inter-bank lending rates could soon implicate banks in the United States.

Diamond’s resignation comes a day after the company’s chairman Marcus Agius announced his own departure. Despite also being implicated in the issue, Agius will stay on to lead the search for a replacement chief executive, according a statement early Tuesday.

It came as fresh details about the case showed how Diamond and other senior executives played a role in the affair, according to a story in The New York Times.

In 2007 and 2008, Diamond’s top deputies told employees to report artificially low rates in line with its rivals, deflecting scrutiny about the health of Barclays at the height of the financial crisis, according to several people close to the case, the report said.

Diamond’s statement said he was stepping down because political pressure on Barclays risked "damaging the franchise." Britain’s prime minister on Monday announced a public inquiry, describing the issue as "a scandal."

"I am deeply disappointed that the impression created by the events announced last week about what Barclays and its people stand for could not be further from the truth," Diamond said in the statement.

He will still appear before U.K. lawmakers on Wednesday to answer questions about the affair. "I look forward to fulfilling my obligation to contribute to the [U.K.] Treasury Committee's enquiries related to the settlements that Barclays announced last week without my leadership in question," he said.

'Arrogance'
Barclays is one of a handful of international banks under investigation for rate-rigging misconduct and the first to reach a settlement with regulators.

Last week, regulators in the U.S. and U.K. fined Barclays $450 million for attempting to rig Libor and Euribor, the interest rates at which banks lend to each other and which underpin trillions of pounds worth of financial transactions.

Staff did this over a number of years, trying to raise them for profit and then, during the financial crisis, lowering them to hide the level to which Barclays was under financial stress, according to a BBC report. Britain’s Serious Fraud Office is also considering whether to bring criminal charges, the BBC said.

John Mann, an opposition Labour Party lawmaker and member of parliament's Treasury Committee, told Sky News that Barclays executives were guilty of "arrogance," saying the bank had "systematically defrauded homeowners and customers."

Reuters contributed to this report.

The apparent winner of Mexico's presidential race, Enrique Pena Nieto, struggled Monday with the sticky bonds of his party's notorious past, the limitation of his mandate and an opponent who has yet to concede defeat. 

His long-ruling and now-returned Institutional Revolutionary Party, the PRI, won only about 38 percent of the vote and is unlikely to get a majority in Congress. In fact, it may lose seats.

He faces an old guard in the PRI that still exercises considerable power, an ongoing war against fierce drug cartels and a still sluggish economy. His closest rival, leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who polled a higher-than-expected vote of about 32 percent, has refused to accept the loss, and many of his militant followers are suspicious of the results.

President Barack Obama called Pena Nieto on Monday to congratulate him. The U.S. Embassy in Mexico City said Obama told him the United States "looks forward to advancing common goals, including promoting democracy, economic prosperity, and security in the region and around the globe, in the coming years."

Mexico's old rulers claim presidential triumph

Pena Nieto's account of the talk suggested his party has left behind the touchy nationalism of the past. He expressed interest in cooperation in security, commerce and infrastructure, but didn't bring up the traditional Mexican issue of U.S. immigration reform to help the 12 million Mexicans who live in the United States.

'Productive integration of North America'
Pena Nieto said he wanted "a relationship that will allow the productive integration of North America."

In Sunday's elections, Mexicans voted above all for a known quantity, the camera-friendly candidate of the party that ruled Mexico without interruption from 1929 to 2000.

But the PRI returns to power in unknown political terrain, where Mexico is more divided, more violent and less tightly controlled, raising the potential for political disputes on top of the drug war. The battle against drug cartels has already cost more than 47,500 lives and may have contributed to the decline of President Felipe Calderon's conservative National Action Party, whose candidate dropped to third place with about 25 percent of the preliminary vote count.

Pena Nieto pledged to continue that anti-drug offensive, but "with a new strategy to reduce violence and protect, above all, the lives of Mexicans." He promised there would be "no pact or truce" with drug cartels, but clearly some supporters expected the PRI to establish some sort of modus vivendi with the gangs, something party leaders were accused of doing in the past.

"He'll stabilize the cartels. He'll negotiate so they don't hurt innocents," Martha Trejo, 37, a PRI supporter from the Gulf coast city of Tampico, said at Sunday's victory rally.

Pena Nieto said Monday he will favor "well-aimed, precision strikes" against the cartels, and more cooperation with U.S. authorities, something that Calderon has already developed far beyond his predecessors.

Hope for new faces
The biggest immediate task facing Pena Nieto is to convince the 62 percent of voters who didn't vote for him that he is not planning a return to the corrupt, authoritarian and free-spending ways of the PRI of the past. Even some of Pena Nieto's supporters, such as school teacher Maria Santillan, 51, expressed hope he would surround himself "with new faces, people who aren't so corrupted."

All the potential conflicts were apparent at the victory rally just after midnight at the PRI's cavernous compound in Mexico City, where Pena Nieto was surrounded by graying holdovers from the PRI's glory days and a raucous crowd of supporters expecting jobs, hand-out programs and a quick reduction in drug violence.

"The PRI have learned to listen to the people, they have learned they are not kings ... to engage with people, understand them, and rule in a coalition with the people," said 20-year-old student Hector Perez.

"There is no return to the past," Pena Nieto said. "I am going to be a democratic president, who understands the changes the country has undergone in recent decades," he said in an apparent reference to reforms that created a more-level political playing field with energized civic organizations putting pressure on governments.

Pena Nieto promised a government "of national unity," but hasn't yet named any Cabinet choices, though he has said his campaign chief, Luis Videgaray, 43, would form part of his government team. Videgaray is well regarded by investors and seen as a possible choice for finance minister.

Nieto also suggested he would seek further internal reforms of his party, which for most of its history followed presidential dictates unquestioningly and rigged votes if it could not win elections that were already tilted sharply in its favor. The party liberalized in its final two decades, but it remained steadfast in protecting its leaders and stonewalling on probes of corruption.

Calderon was quick to recognize the PRI victory, and his party may serve as an ally in Congress in voting through some measures, such as Pena Nieto's call to open the state-owned oil sector to private investment. Pena Nieto told reporters Monday he would start working immediately on tax, energy and labor reforms, and would "sit down with the president (Calderon) ... to talk about what can be put forward before I take office" on Dec. 1.

But those very proposals, especially on the oil industry, have drawn the leftist Democratic Revolution Party, the PRD, into the streets for angry protests in the past.

Rival won't concede
PRD candidate Lopez Obrador has not conceded Sunday's elections, telling his supporters late Sunday, "You know these elections were not equitable," a reference to his allegations that Pena Nieto exceeded campaign spending limits and benefited from favorable coverage in Mexico's semi-monopolized television industry. Lopez Obrador has not said if he will challenge Sunday's vote results, but he led nearly two months of street blockades in Mexico City in 2006 to protest a narrow loss he attributed to fraud.

"We have information that indicates something different from what they're saying officially," Lopez Obrador said of the vote results, but added "We're not going to act in an irresponsible manner."

Lopez Obrador's party actually did better than pre-election polls had projected, winning apparent victories in three of the seven state elections on Sunday. The PRD was on track to win an overwhelming victory in Mexico City, the nation's capital and largest city, as well as taking the governorships of Morelos state to the south and the Gulf coast state of Tabasco, both of which were held by other parties. The PRI seemed to have taken the governorship of the western state of Jalisco from National Action.

Despite winning the presidency, the PRI may actually lose seats in Congress. The PRI-led coalition with the Green Party had about 38 percent of the congressional vote, with 95 percent of ballots counted on Monday. The coalition won about 46 percent in the last legislative vote three years ago.

Many Mexicans questioned why most pre-election polls underestimated support for Lopez Obrador by five or six percentage points, well outside those polls' margin of error. Lopez Obrador had claimed the polls were being manipulated, an accusation that accompanied frequent complaints that Pena Nieto was running a far more expensive campaign than his rivals.

Jorge Buendia of the polling firm Buendia and Laredo said some people who said they would vote for Pena Nieto appear to have changed their minds. There was also a surge in support for Lopez Obrador in the final days that couldn't be fully measured because electoral law effectively prohibits polling in the last week before the elections.

The PRI's victory appeared to be, above all, a triumph of pragmatism and power-broker politics. Few of those at his victory rally Sunday expressed the high-flown rhetoric about democratic transition and reform that were popular when National Action won the 2000 and 2006 elections. For its decades in power, the party excelled at handing out patronage jobs as well as work and business permits in exchange for votes.

Jaime Bernal, 48, who works as an aide to a PRI congressman, said at the rally the secret to the party's comeback was recognizing "the important thing for people is that they have something to eat, a job to support themselves."

But he also praised Pena Nieto's ease at working crowds, shaking hands and hugging people, a talent the party had lost during two decades of PRI presidents known as market-oriented "technocrats."

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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Eduardo Verdugo / AP

Armando Montano, 22, poses for an ID photo at the Associated Press office in Mexico City on June 4.

Police in Mexico City are investigating the death of an Associated Press summer intern whose body was found early Saturday in an elevator shaft.

Armando "Mando" Montano, 22, was working as a news intern for the AP in the Mexican capital. His body was found in the elevator shaft of an apartment building near where he was living in the city’s Condesa neighborhood, AP reported.

Montano had been in Mexico City since early June after graduating from Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa. He was not on assignment at the time of his death, according to the AP. The U.S. Embassy is monitoring Mexican authorities as they investigate the circumstances of his death.

Montano, a native of Colorado Springs, Colo., earned a bachelor’s degree in Spanish and a concentration in Latin American studies from Grinnell. During his time with the Associated Press, he covered stories including the saga of nine young elephants from Namibia who wound up on animal reserve in Mexico’s Puebla state, and the shooting of three federal policemen at the Mexico City airport, the AP said.

“Armando was a smart, joyful, hardworking and talented young man,” said Marjorie Miller, AP’s Latin America editor based in Mexico City. “In his short time with the AP, he won his way into everyone’s hearts with his hard work, his effervescence and his love of the profession.”

Montano had said he planned to pursue a master’s degree in journalism at the University of Barcelona in the fall.  

Montano’s other journalism experience includes reporting for The New York Times, The Colorado Independent, The Seattle Times, and the Scarlet & Black, Grinnell’s College student newspaper.

“Mando was a standout young journalist, with a rare passion and exuberance for life and for people,” Richard Berke, an assistant managing editor at The New York Times, told the AP. “He accomplished so much and touched so many in a short time, and his potential was truly limitless.”

Montano was the recipient of an Ellen Masin Persina Scholarship from the National Press Club in 2008, a Newhouse Scholar with the National Association of Hispanic Journalists in 2008 and a Chips Quinn Scholar from the Freedom Forum for Diversity in 2011, according to the AP. He belonged to the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association.

He was born in Massachusetts and grew up in Colorado, but he lived for two years as a child in Costa Rica and spent time in Argentina and on the U.S.-Mexico border with his family.

Montano is survived by his parents, Diane Alters and Mario Montano, of Colorado Springs, who both teach at Colorado College.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

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KABUL, Afghanistan – The hopes of a whole nation are riding on the shoulders of Dr. Ashraf Ghani. 

As chairman of Afghanistan’s Transition Coordination Commission, his mission is to ease his country fully back into Afghan hands as the United States and its allies finish their withdrawal by the end of 2014.

ZINTAN, Libya - Libya on Monday freed four officials from the International Court (ICC) whose detention since early June on spying allegations had plunged the interim government into its biggest diplomatic controversy since last year's revolution.

Australian lawyer Melinda Taylor and Lebanese-born interpreter Helene Assaf were held in the town of Zintan and accused of smuggling documents and hidden recording devices to Moammar Gadhafi's captured son Saif al-Islam. Two male ICC staff who were travelling with Taylor and Assaf stayed with them.

"I wish to apologize for the difficulties which arose due to this series of events. In carrying out of its duties (the ICC) has no intention to compromise the national security of Libya," Song told a news conference in the western town.

Taylor and Assaf emerged after the news conference from a small room where they had been waiting and were taken to another area where they ate lunch. They looked tired and were dressed in black Islamic robes with their hair partially covered, but were smiling. They did not respond to questions from Reuters.

The four were to leave for Europe on a Monday night flight arranged by Italy, the Italian ambassador in Tripoli said.

The BBC confirmed with a senior member of the Libyan attorney general's office that the ICC staff members would be leaving the country. The source, however, said they would be expected back in Libya for a ruling. 

"We expect them to come back for the hearing but if they don't, a ruling will be made in absentia," the source told the BBC.

Taylor had been sent to Libya to represent Saif al-Islam, whom the ICC wants extradited to face charges of war crimes allegedly committed during the NATO-backed revolt that toppled his father last year. Libya has so far refused to extradite Saif al-Islam, saying it would prefer to try him in its own courts.

Tunisia extradites former Gadhafi PM to Libya

"The agreement was that there would be a continuation of the negotiations with the ICC," Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammed Abdel Aziz told the news conference.

"If the ICC wants to send another team they will have to send one that respects Libyan sovereignty."

Judicial experts say Saif al-Islam is unlikely to get a fair trial in Libya, where the arrests of the ICC officials only served to highlight the challenges the interim government faces in imposing its authority on the myriad militias who helped topple Gaddafi and are now vying for power.

The western mountain town of Zintan is effectively outside central government control. With Saif al-Islam in its custody, the Zintan brigade gained leverage in dealings with the Tripoli government as it tries to negotiate his fate with the ICC.

The arrest of the ICC officials also put the interim government in an awkward position where it was essentially negotiating a deal between his captors and the outside world.

Late last month, the ICC expressed regret to Libyan authorities in what seemed to come close to an apology designed to secure the release of its employees.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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BEIRUT - Syrian attack helicopters bombarded a suburb of Damascus on Monday and Turkey said it had scrambled warplanes near the border in the north, as a 16-month conflict entered a more violent phase and diplomacy appeared to have failed. 

Fighting has come to the gates of the capital in recent weeks and is also raging throughout the country as the battle to unseat President Bashar al-Assad increasingly takes on the character of an all-out civil war, fueled by sectarian hate. 

Syrian government forces have launched an assault on Douma, a city on the edge of Damascus where troops stormed a rebel stronghold two days ago leaving bodies rotting in the streets of the nearly abandoned town. 

"The bombardment of Douma continued today using helicopters. Some activists entered the city today and they saw at least seven decaying bodies in the streets under the sun. One man had been executed inside his house," said Mohamed Doumany, an activist who fled the city two days ago and was now nearby. 

"There is huge destruction in the city, which is almost empty. Only a few of its people remain inside," he told Reuters by Skype. 

Annan: Nations back Syria transition plan

Diplomats from the West and Arab states who oppose Assad met the Syrian leader's allies Russia and China on Saturday in Geneva under the auspices of peace envoy Kofi Annan. But they made no progress persuading Moscow and Beijing to sign up to a statement calling for Assad to leave power, leaving the effort to forge an international consensus in tatters. 

Turkey said on Monday it had scrambled six F-16 fighters in response to three separate incidents of Syrian helicopters approaching the border. Turkey also scrambled fighters on Saturday and has moved guns and soldiers toward the frontier. 

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told Syrian opposition figures gathered in Cairo that their struggle to unseat Assad would end in victory. 

"The Assad regime's guns, tanks, weapons have no meaning in the face of the will of the Syrian people. Sooner or later the will of the Syrian people shall reign supreme. And you will lead this process," he said. 

Former Assad ally
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, a former ally of Assad who has turned decisively against him, says Turkish military rules of engagement have been changed and any Syrian forces approaching the border and deemed threatening will be targeted. 

The Syrian government tightly controls access, making it difficult to verify accounts of fighting on the ground. 

Syrian rebels: 170 regime tanks mass near major city

Anti-Assad activists said there were heavy clashes in Deir Ezzor province near the Iraqi border where villages were under army fire. Rebels destroyed two tanks, they said. 

In rural areas near Aleppo south of the Turkish border there were clashes following explosions inside the city overnight. Forested areas near the border were on fire, activists said. 

Syrian artillery pounded the village of Talbiseh near Homs on Monday, targeting an area near the mosque. Video footage posted on YouTube showed a blast hitting the mosque's slender minaret, engulfing it in a cloud of grey smoke and dust. 

Other footage showed high explosive rounds slamming into an unseen target behind the mosque every minute. 

Security forces were also shelling towns in the province of Deraa, near the Jordan border, activists said.

Fragmented opposition
Also on Monday, the head of the Arab League called for the fragmented Syrian opposition to unite and said a U.N.-brokered plan for a transitional government in Syria fell short of expectations. 

Speaking at the start of a two-day conference that brought together some 250 members of the Syrian opposition, Arab League Secretary General Nabil Elaraby urged them not to waste the chance presented by the meeting to overcome their differences and band together to help lift Syria out of its crisis. 

VIDEO: War in Syria edges closer to Assad

"There is an opportunity before the conference of Syrian opposition today that must be seized, and I say and repeat that this opportunity must not be wasted under any circumstance," he said. "The sacrifices of the Syrian people are bigger than us and more valuable than any narrow differences or factional disputes." 

More than one year into the Syrian revolt, the opposition is still hobbled by infighting, although in general the disparate groups agree that Assad should have no role in a transitional period. One main sticking point is how to achieve a peace plan that would end the bloodshed and Assad's authoritarian rule. While some activists have called for international intervention in Syria, others have rejected the idea. 

The failure of diplomacy to have any measurable impact on a conflict that the United Nations says has killed more than 13,000 people is testing the patience of countries in the region, especially Turkey, which reacted with fury 10 days ago when Syria shot down one of its warplanes. 

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

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Kerim Okten / EPA, file

Police officers detain suspected rioters in Enfield, North London, Britain, on August 9, 2011.

LONDON -- British police expect another outburst of rioting in London -- possibly even this summer as the country prepares to host the Olympic Games -- as economic hardship pushes more people towards social unrest, a study found on Monday.

Thousands of angry young people rioted through the streets of London and other big cities last August, looting shops and burning buildings, prompting pledges from government to crack down on crime.

The joint study by Britain's left-leaning Guardian newspaper and the London School of Economics was based on interviews with 130 officers caught up in the riots.

It found that the police expect more trouble but feel their ability to respond could be weakened by austerity measures. Last year a riot in north London, which started after a peaceful protest against the killing of a local man by police on August 4, triggered similar scenes across the country's capital and in cities such as Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool. 

Sad truth behind the London riot

"Police expect a repeat of the riots that spread across England last summer, and are concerned about whether they will have the resources to cope with future unrest on that scale," the study said.  "Officers said further disorder was likely, with many citing worsening social and economic conditions as the potential cause."

The government wants to make cuts of about 20 percent to police budgets. Like all public sector workers, officers also face pay freezes and higher pension contributions.

Meanwhile, security is under international scrutiny in London as it prepares to host the Olympic Games from July 27 when thousands of tourists and sports fans are expected to flock to Britain. 

No direct correlation? 
A former high-ranking member of London's Metropolitan police, the country's largest police force, cautioned against drawing a direct link between economic hardship and civil unrest.

"It is accurate to say that police funding is coming under a lot of pressure," Bill Tillbrook, the former head of the specialist firearms unit at the Met told msnbc.com. "But it is not as simple as saying that if there are fewer police officers, there will be more riots." 

Nevertheless, the study showed many of those interviewed felt more riots were likely or even "imminent." In a response it described as typical, the study said one superintendent from Manchester police said he expected more disorder "within the year." 

"I think if you have bad economic times, hot weather, some sort of an event that sets it off ... my answer is: yes, it could," he told the study. 

"Because I don't think anything has changed between now and last August, and the only thing that's different is people have thought: riots are fun." 

Photos: Riots break out in UK

Police were accused at the time of being too slow and ill-prepared in their response but many officers now feel budget cuts could only weaken their ability to deal with another wave of unrest, the study said. 

The vice chairman of the country's largest association of police officer agreed with many of the study's conclusions. 

"Clearly we are in an austerity program.  We are losing 20 percent of our budget over four years," Simon Reed told msnbc.com.  "And the since disorder have lost 5,000 officers."

Indeed, more painful measures are expected as the coalition government makes cuts to plug the budget deficit. Public sector borrowing is due to fall from about 128 billion pounds ($200 billion) last year to 98 billion in 2013/14. 

Al-Qaida to Occupy: UK preps Olympics security

The economy fell back into recession around the turn of the year and while overall unemployment has fallen in recent months, the rate of joblessness among those aged 18-24 remains as high as 19.9 percent. 

The HMIC independent police watchdog, in a report on Monday, said police forces planned to cut six percent -- 5,800 fewer officers --  of frontline roles as a result of spending cuts. 

"In addition, plugging the outstanding 302-million-pound funding gap might require a further reduction of officer numbers," it said. 

Msnbc.com's F. Brinley Bruton and Reuters contributed to this report. 

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Alastair Grant / AP File

Moazzam Begg gestures during an interview about his book "Enemy Combatant: A British Muslim's Journey to Guantanamo and Back," in a file photo from 2006.

LONDON – Moazzam Begg makes an unlikely former terrorism suspect. Soft-spoken, gentle-mannered and with a slight build, the British-born 43-year-old is open to tough questions and does not flinch when pushed on his alleged links to international terrorism.