Leaders of Sudan's main opposition group, whose men are fighting government troops in South Kordofan, on Saturday rejected calls to disarm and said they would negotiate only via an outside third party.

The northern branch of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement, the ruling party of South Sudan, in a statement also accused the government of seeking to destroy north-south relations just two weeks after formal southern independence.

Jazz great Herbie Hancock wants his music to build bridges between cultures, a mission that fits perfectly with his new role as a U.N. cultural ambassador promoting peace through culture and education.

The 71-year-old — imbued with boundless energy, curiosity and cool-cat poise — is a natural for the job. His "The Imagine Project" album is a multicultural potpourri featuring collaborations with musicians from 11 countries and seven languages. He founded The International Committee of Artists for Peace, too.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Saturday the Palestinians' bid to win U.N. backing for statehood was forced upon them by Israel's refusal to halt settlement building and end its occupation.

"We are going to the United Nations because we are forced to, it is not a unilateral action," he said in a speech in Arabic in Istanbul, where he is meeting Palestinian diplomats from around the world.

U.N. special advisers on human rights have said that violations reportedly committed by security forces in Syria may qualify as crimes against humanity.

Francis Deng, the special adviser to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on the prevention of genocide and Edward Luck, the special adviser on the responsibility to protect, said Friday that Syrian security forces have reportedly continued to kill civilians and make arbitrary arrests.

The recent dispute between Lebanon and Israel will be a top priority for the Lebanese parliament when it meets on Aug. 3 and 4 and a main concern for the government in its effort to prevent the Jewish state from launching an aggression on Lebanon’s oil and gas fields.

As Safir newspaper said Friday that MPs from major parliamentary blocs could be tasked with preparing a draft-law that confirms Lebanon’s rights on the fields in the contested areas.

U.S. official Frederic Hof is making routine visits to Beirut to follow up the dispute between Lebanon and Israel on their maritime borders, Western diplomatic sources in Beirut said Friday.

The sources told As Safir daily that Hof is visiting Lebanon along with cartographers in an expression of Washington’s interest in solving the feud over oil and natural fields and setting the stage for possible U.S. investments in the sector in the future.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman said that he had been informed that a search is underway for the four suspects in ex-Premier Rafik Hariri’s assassination case.

In an interview with al-Hurra TV, Feltman said that the search for the four Hizbullah members against whom arrest warrants were issued by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon was “the responsibility of the Lebanese government.”

Yemeni Republican Guards shot dead one protester and wounded three in the second-largest city of Taez on Thursday, medics said.

The Guards opened fire as thousands of people protested against the regime of President Ali Abdullah Saleh in central Taez, a flashpoint city south of the capital Sanaa, according to organizers.

Israel will not "take responsibility" for the deaths of nine Turkish nationals by apologizing to Ankara over its botched 2010 raid on a ferry heading for Gaza, a senior cabinet minister said Thursday.

"We are not ready to apologize as apologizing is taking responsibility," Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Yaalon told reporters in Jerusalem.

Former U.N. nuclear watchdog Chief Mohamed ElBaradei is the most popular choice for next Egyptian president, according to an army survey conducted on Facebook, state media reported on Wednesday.

The survey, which was launched a month ago on Facebook, asked members to rate their favorite for the country's top job, in an exercise criticized as unrepresentative.