Middle East, United Nations | featured news

The United Nations' nuclear watchdog has set up a specialized Iran Task Force to handle its inspections and investigation of the Islamic state's disputed atomic activities, an internal document showed on Wednesday.

The United Nations on Friday confirmed that veteran Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi would become the new international mediator on Syria, as the 17-month-old conflict slid deeper into civil war and refugees fled to Turkey in increasing numbers.

Syrian forces have pushed rebels back from a strategic district of Aleppo, but skirmishes continued in the city and the United Nations said the conflict engulfing Syria would have no winner.

Syrian fighter jets fired on rebel positions in the commercial capital of Aleppo on Wednesday, U.N. observers told The Associated Press, a development that could signal a significant escalation in the battle for control of the key city.

UN and Arab League envoy Kofi Annan's top deputy, Nasser al-Qudwa, called on Syrian opposition groups on Monday to formulate a unified set of demands that would allow for better cooperation with the international community in searching for a solution to the political crisis in Syria.

United Nations observers monitoring the turmoil in Syria suspended operations on Saturday in response to escalating violence which threatens to kill off a tattered peace plan brokered by international mediator Kofi Annan.

As Russia and China remain steadfast in their refusal to back UN resolutions condemning President Bashar al-Assad, the BBC news website looks at media coverage of the Syria conflict in both countries and whether broadcasters tend to justify this stance.

A defiant Syrian President Bashar Assad offered no new initiatives Sunday to revive a faltering United Nations peace plan but instead assailed a "foreign conspiracy" stoking violence and denied his government had a role in "monstrous massacres" across the nation.

Syrian forces and pro-government militia accused of committing a massacre in Houla could face prosecution for crimes against humanity, the United Nations said on Friday and rights experts said Syrian authorities had directly ordered torture.

U.N. nuclear inspectors displayed new satellite imagery on Wednesday indicating that some small buildings had been dismantled and other possible clean-up work undertaken at an Iranian military site they want to visit.