Arab League officials arrive in Syria on Thursday to prepare for monitors overseeing an Arab peace plan, after activists said President Bashar al-Assad's forces carried out the deadliest assault in their nine-month crackdown on protests.

The

A warplane bombed a Somali village held by Islamist rebels near the border with Kenya on Tuesday, killing several civilians, residents and a Somali military official said.

It

Residents of two southern Philippine cities battered by a storm that left over 1,000 people dead and displaced hundreds of thousands started the hard work of reclaiming their lives as authorities buried dozens of bodies in concrete vaults on Wednesday.

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Workers began culling 17,000 chickens at a wholesale poultry market in Hong Kong on Wednesday after a dead chicken there tested positive for the deadly H5N1 avian virus, a government spokesman said.

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Egyptians returned to the polls on Wednesday in a staggered parliamentary election after five days of violence in Cairo that has cast a pall over the transition to democracy and drawn a U.S.

New York, December 20, 2011- Political conflict and unrest proved deadly for journalists in 2011, while governments failed to prosecute those who targeted reporters for their work, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists' year-end survey of journalists killed in the line of duty.

At

KHARTOUM, Sudan, December 20, 2011/African Press Organization (APO)/ -- On December 20, the Government of Japan decided to dispatch an engineering unit of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) consisting of up to 330 personnel to the United Nations Mission in the Republic of South Sudan (UNMISS), in addition to the two Staff Officers that are already dispatched.

NAIROBI, Kenya, December 20, 2011/African Press Organization (APO)/ -- UNESCO's International Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC) sponsored an inaugural safety and protection training workshop for East African journalists, from 6 to 8 December 2011 in Nairobi, Kenya.

ABUJA, Nigeria, December 20, 2011/African Press Organization (APO)/ -- International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Christine Lagarde made the following statement today in Lagos at the conclusion of her visit to Nigeria.

“It has been a pleasure to visit Nigeria on my first trip to Africa as Managing Director.

The first Arab peace monitors will arrive in Syria this week, the Arab League chief said on Tuesday, after more than 100 people were killed in one of the bloodiest days of a revolt against President Bashar al-Assad.

Security

Egyptian police and soldiers firing guns and teargas fought to clear protesters from Cairo's Tahrir Square Tuesday, the fifth day of clashes that have killed 13 people and drawn a stinging rebuke from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Clinton