UNITED NATIONS

An African Union delegation will head to the rebel stronghold in Benghazi, Libya on Monday after Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi accepted a peace plan offer which calls for a ceasefire.

Fighter jets from Britain’s Royal Air Force (RAF) have destroyed seven tanks near the Libyan cities of Misrata and Ajdabiya, according the UK Ministry of Defense.

The decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict re-emerged in Gaza as Israel continues its retaliatary strikes against a Palestinian rocket attack on a school bus a day earlier.

A research report from The National Center for Atmospheric Research says climate control will damage cities in undeveloped countries.

The Japanese government will look at altering the threshold for radiation exposure as it evaluates whether people can return to the exclusion zones around the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

The Wefaq Opposition group in strife-torn Bahrain claim that hundreds of workers (most Shia Muslims) have been fired by the employees in retaliation for going on strike in March and supporting the protests against the Sunni ruling dynasty.

The European Union (EU) and Palestinians have condemned a plan by the Israel government to construct hundreds of homes in an area claimed by Palestinians.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) says that the regime of Moammar Gaddafi planned to kill civilians even before the revolt in Libya commenced as a way for the government to stave off the kind of rebellion witnessed in neighboring Tunisia and Egypt.

At least ten people have died after a small passenger plane carrying United Nations staff-members crashes at the Kinshasa airport in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), according to the UN.

The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan on Sunday condemned the burning of a Quran in the United States, days after demonstrators retaliated by killing workers for the United Nations and protests in cities around the country have escalated into violence.

Israel has demanded that the United Nations cancel a report that suggested the Jewish state may have committed war crimes during its military offensive in Gaza during 2008-2009.

The city of Ajdabiya, located in the northeastern part of Libya, has been a key flashpoint in the 2011 Libyan uprising.

One day after a dozen people were killed in Mazar-i-Sharif in Afghanistan in a protest related to the burning of a Quran by a U.S. pastor, eight more people died in Kandahar in a similar protest.

Raw footage of violence in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan, in retaliation to the Quran/Koran burning held by pastor Terry Jones, was posted online by Tolo TV. The video is embedded.

Quran burning pastor Terry Jones gives birth to new non-Taliban violence in Afghanistan as seen in Friday riots against U.N. where civilians were instigated by preachers.

At least eight United Nations staff-members and four protesters have been killed during protests in Afghanistan related to a purported burning of a Holy Quran, according to Afghan officials.

Libyan rebels have reportedly offered terms of a ceasefire if Moammar Gaddafi withdraws his soldiers from opposition-controlled cities and subsequently permits peaceful protests against the regime, according to a report in Al Jazeera.

U.S. forces will significantly dilute their role in Libya though they played crucial role in the first phase of Operation Odyssey Dawn, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told the House Armed Services Committee.

A top NATO official on Thursday said there is no purely military solution to the crisis in Libya, as the coalition of North American and European nations took control of protecting civilians while rebels fighting Gaddafi-backed forces suffered setbacks after gains earlier in the week and talk of arming them grew.

On the heels of the defection of former foreign minister Moussa Koussa, more high-level associated of Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi have apparently abandoned him, according to a report in Al Jazeera.

Forces loyal to Moammar Gaddafi are making an aggressive eastward advance into Brega, Libya, where there are battling back undermanned rebel forces for control of the key coastal city.