A Syrian opposition leader urged President Bashar al-Assad on Thursday to hand power to his deputy or his prime minister and then go abroad with 500 members of his entourage, without immunity from prosecution.
Assad is likely to reject or ignore the 16-point peace plan proposed by Moaz Alkhatib, who resigned as head of the Western-backed opposition National Coalition in March, particularly given recent military gains by his forces against rebels.
However, Alkhatib’s proposal shows a willingness to work with people associated with Assad throughout the revolt and will be seen as stretching out a hand to members of the government.
It is unclear if Alkhatib’s proposal will win support from other Syrian opposition figures gathering in Istanbul on Thursday to decide how to respond to a U.S.-Russian proposal to convene peace talks involving Assad’s government next month.
Alkhatib said Assad should respond within 20 days and that he should then be given a month to dissolve parliament. Once Assad had ceded power, his government should stay in office for 100 days and restructure the military before handing over to a transitional government “which should be agreed upon and negotiated within the framework of international assurances”.

Aid organisation Oxfam warned on Monday that the warmer weather will increase health-related risks for hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon, and appealed for urgent funds.

With temperatures set to soar up to 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit), and as refugees continue to flee to Jordan and Lebanon, “the health risks must be urgently addressed,” Oxfam said in a statement.

“Increased cases of public health-related diseases such as diarrhoea and skin infections have already been recorded in host communities and temporary settlements where an increasing number of refugees now live,” it added.

Oxfam said it is “crucial to ensure funds are in place to provide refugees with shelter, clean water and adequate sanitation,” adding that it is aiming to raise $53.4 million (41.6 million euros) over the next year.

So far Oxfam’s appeal is only 23 percent funded, the statement said.

Ancient Egyptians primarily had sex in the summer, new research reveals.

The most popular time for love-making was July and August meaning that 20 per cent more babies were born in March and April than in other months.

As a consequence, most deaths among women of childbearing age also occurred in these months.

Archaeologists working at a cemetery in the Dakhleh Oasis in Egypt excavated 765 graves and were able to establish the month of each person’s death because the graves were all pointed towards the rising sun.

Live Science reported that they uncovered the graves of 124 babies that had died 18 to 45 weeks after conception – putting these two pieces of information together enabled the researchers to piece together the most popular time for love-making.

It is thought that in ancient Egypt beliefs about fertility and the Nile flood may have been responsible for the baby booms.

The residents of the Dakhleh Oasis believed that the river was the key to their land’s fertility and the floods occurred during the summer months meaning that there were widespread celebrations.

In openly displaying his homosexuality while serving as an Orthodox rabbi, Ron Yosef has broken a major taboo in the closed religious world that he inhabits.
Although May 17 is to be marked International Day Against Homophobia, the biblical stance on homosexuality remains clearly laid out in Leviticus, one of the five books of the Torah, which says that the sexual act between two men is an “abomination.”
But 38-year-old Yosef, who holds an Orthodox rabbinical diploma, believes it is possible to be “both gay and observant.”
He first became aware of his sexual orientation in his early 20s, with the realisation forcing him away from the faith and into the welcoming arms of secular Tel Aviv, the gay capital of the Middle East.
But it didn’t last long.
“By the age of 30, I was finally at peace with myself after deciding I could be both Orthodox and gay even though many observant people in the same situation had left the religious world,” he told AFP.
In 2008, he set up a website to help others in his situation which soon turned into an organisation known as HOD, the Hebrew acronym for “Orthodox Jewish homosexuals.”

Junk-food starved Gazans can now order Kentucky Fried Chicken to go thanks to a new smuggling service which brings takeout from Egypt via a network of underground tunnels.
It’s not exactly “fast” — taking several hours to arrive, with the Palestinian delivery company behind it charging hefty prices to cover the cost of fuel and transport.
“Last chance to order for the Thursday 6:00 pm delivery is Wednesday night,” says the Yamama delivery firm on its Facebook page.
Yamama then orders the meals, about 30 on a typical run, from the KFC outlet in the Egyptian city of El-Arish, some 40 kilometres (25 miles) away.
“We place the order with the restaurant in El-Arish, then drive it in a car to the Egyptian side of Rafah,” said Yamama director Khalil al-Ifranji.
“Someone takes it from there through the tunnels to (Gazan) Rafah. They then drive it to our headquarters (in Gaza City).”

Officials say a wave of evening bombings have torn through mainly Shiite areas in Baghdad, raising the nationwide daily death toll to at least 32.

The attacks come amid growing tensions between the Shiite-led government and minority Sunnis.

Police and hospital officials say the deadliest attack was near a bus stop in the sprawling neighborhood of Sadr City where at least seven people were killed and 20 wounded. Officials say in all 11 bombings struck Baghdad, as well as the cities of Kirkuk and Tarmiyah.

Nobody claimed responsibility for the attacks, but they bore the hallmark of al-Qaida in Iraq and other Sunni insurgent groups.

More than 94,000 people have been killed in more than two years of conflict in Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in a newly-revised toll on Tuesday.
The watchdog group said it revised the toll — just two days after it announced a tally of 82,257 dead — after receiving new information from regime-controlled Alawite areas of the Sunni-majority country.
On Sunday, the Britain-based watchdog which relies on a vast network of activists and medics on the ground put the death toll since the March 2011 start of the anti-regime uprising at 82,257, including 34,473 civilians.