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Syria saw more violence as around 80 people, including women and children, were shot, hacked to death and burned in their homes in a village in Hama province, activists said. Meanwhile, UN monitors proceeding to the site of violence came under fire.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, an Asian bloc led by China and Russia, Thursday sought a bigger role for "peaceful reconstruction" of Afghanistan ahead of NATO's planned pullout by 2014 from the war-torn nation that was given observer status in the regional grouping.

Nigerian authorities have identified 52 of the bodies from the plane crash in Lagos that killed all 153 passengers on board and at least six people on the ground.

In a statement, NATO said the explosion had occurred "several kilometers" from where its troops were stationed.

The Syrian government has declared 17 diplomats from many Western countries as "personae non gratae", a reciprocal move that follows the expulsion of envoys of the conflict ridden nation from many countries last week.

Special Representative Margaret Vogt briefs the Security Council on the situation in the Central African Republic.

The US has dismissed a commonly held notion that its rebalancing strategy and a planned significant presence in Asia-Pacific region was targeted against China or any other country.

Syrian activists say pro-government militia and security forces have killed at least 78 people, including women and children, in the central province of Hama. They say some of those killed in the villages of al-Kubeir and Maazarif Wednesday were stabbed to death and at least 12 bodies were burned.

The Economic Community of West African States, a regional group of 15 countries, has sent a distress call to the international community declaring that more than 6 million people, including one million children, are at risk of hunger in the Sahel region of Africa.

The Economic University of Athens is on the front line in the city’s immigration crisis. Immigrants and their student allies often clash with police and right-wing groups. A local resident supplied VOA with a video shot in early May showing a clash with police.