MARYLAND – Tibetan spiritual leader The Dalai Lama has decried Buddhist attacks against Muslims in Burma and Sri Lanka, appealing to monks to end hostile campaigns against Muslim minorities.

British cosmologist Stephen Hawking has pulled out of an Israeli conference, joining an academic boycott of Israel to protest against its occupation of Palestinian lands, Cambridge University said on Wednesday.

BEIRUT: Syria’s main opposition National Coalition yesterday said any political settlement to the country’s conflict must start with the departure of President Bashar Assad, implicitly rejecting a US-Russian call for dialogue with the regime.

Fear courses through the streets of Yangon, Myanmar’s biggest city, especially among its Muslim minority. They have watched the country’s spreading religious violence, which threatens to destabilize its fragile democracy, creep closer to home. With little faith in the government’s ability to protect them and a growing movement of Buddhist extremism, some feel they have little choice but to try to defend themselves.