Chinese authorities have scrapped a plan to build a copper plant in a central city after thousands of residents staged three days of protests against the prospect of heavy pollution from the factory.

In a statement posted on its website, the government of Shifang city in Sichuan province said Tuesday it has stopped the metal plant project. Residents began street protests against the project late Sunday, complaining that factory emissions would poison them. Witnesses and officials said the demonstrations turned violent on Monday as riot police confronted thousands of protesters, resulting in at least 13 injuries.

Residents posted photos on the Internet of police firing tear gas and beating demonstrators with batons.

Witnesses said protesters returned to the streets on Tuesday, defying local government warnings against using the Internet and mobile phones to organize more demonstrations. The local government has called on protest organizers to turn themselves into police within three days or face “severe punishment.”

Sichuan-based Chinese dissident Huang Qi told VOA he was in contact with residents of Shifang and described the scene in the city on the third day of protests.

“This morning there was still a big rally of citizens hoping the government would promise to permanently move the Hongda molybdenum-copper alloy project. Meanwhile, the Shifang authorities have cordoned off the urban area and as far as the Mianzhu City area. Armed police are manning the roads and intersections. From Deyang to Mianzhu, traffic is tightly control. Lots of police are on duty on the roads.”

Localized protests have become increasingly common in China, where officials have provoked public anger by pursuing rapid urban development often at the expense of the environment.

Thousands of protesters worried about pollution forced authorities to close a chemical plant in the northeastern city of Dalian in August 2011.

A Turkish newspaper has quoted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad saying he regrets that his forces shot down a Turkish military jet last month.

The Cumhuriyet newspaper published comments from Mr. Assad Tuesday in which the leader insisted the jet was flying in Syrian airspace that had been used by Israeli planes three times.

Turkey says the jet entered by mistake and had flown back to international airspace before Syria shot it down on June 22. The paper quoted Mr. Assad saying he would not hesitate to apologize for the attack if the Turkish account were true.

Some Turks say they want more than Mr. Assad's apology.

“I don't accept this, they shot the plane down deliberately. Our government must take serious precautions. They must not get away with this. With the help of God, we will retaliate.''

Turkey has increased its defenses along the border with Syria, a move Cumhuriyet quoted Mr. Assad as saying his country will not match.

Also Tuesday, Human Rights Watch issued a new report accusing the Syrian government of torturing and abusing detainees at 27 facilities across the country.

The group's UK director David Mepham says they conducted more than 200 interviews with victims.

“The kinds of torture that we are talking about are really appalling types of abuse. We've had people put in stress positions, we've had people who have been electrocuted, we've had people burned with acid, we've had people subject to sexual abuse — terrible crimes have been committed.”

The report lists torture sites in the capital, Damascus, as well as in Homs, Idlib, Aleppo, Daraa and Latakia.

Human Rights Watch says the ill-treatment amounts to crimes against humanity. It urged the United Nations Security Council to refer the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court.

The head of the U.N. mission in Syria suspended operations on June 16 due to safety risks to the 300 observers there. The U.N. said attackers targeted the observer team several times with gunfire and bombs.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement late Monday that the Syrian people and the region “cannot afford more atrocities, suffering and chaos.” He also welcomed an international plan for a transitional government in Syria and said he hoped an opposition conference in Cairo will contribute to creating a “meaningful transition.”

A reporter working for a Polish daily newspaper has been accused of defaming hardline Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko and has been arrested.

Warsaw has demanded the “immediate release of Andrzej Poczobut”, a journalist for Poland's leading liberal Gazeta Wyborcza daily, according to a Friday foreign ministry statement. Poland's Foreign Ministry summoned the Belarus ambassador over the arrest.

The ministry also warned the incident provoked the kind of “self-isolation which is making relations between Belarus authorities and the European Union more and more difficult… and risks greater sanctions” against Minsk.

Andrzej Poczobut's arrest Thursday in the Belarusian city of Grodno near the Polish border came a year after he was handed a suspended sentence for articles written for Poland's Gazeta Wyborcza – one of the country's most widely-read publications.

The Belarus Association of Journalists said security officers detained Poczobut in his apartment for a “repeat offense” of his earlier defamation charge.

Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk told journalists his counterparts from the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia voiced support for Warsaw's position on the arrest on Friday.

Tusk also said he would raise the issue with German Chancellor Angela Merkel later the same day during a meeting on the margins of Friday's Euro 2012 football face off between Germany and Greece.

Syrian opposition activists say government forces have intensified their shelling of rebel-held neighborhoods in Homs, killing a least 11 people — one day after U.N. observers suspended their work.

Activists released new amateur video Sunday of what appeared to be heavy shelling in the central Syrian city. The opposition also reported that clashes and shelling in several cities killed at least 50 people Saturday.

While it is not possible to independently verify the claims and video, Homs has been the epicenter of the anti-government unrest that has paralyzed Syria for more than a year, killing thousands. The Syrian government blames the violence on what it calls “terrorists.”

The escalating violence forced some 300 unarmed United Nations observers to suspend their mission Saturday. But the mission's head says his workers will not leave the country, and on Sunday, a group of U.N. observers travelled from Damascus to Hama to replace staff.

The U.N. sent its observers to Syria to monitor the implementation of a six-point peace plan and cease-fire brokered by U.N. and Arab League Envoy Kofi Annan. But the cease-fire has never taken hold and several days ago a group of observers came under attack when it went to visit the town of al-Haffeh in Latakiya.

Syrian opposition officials in Istanbul, including the Syrian National Council's Bassam Imadi, said recently they believe the U.N. mission has failed.

U.N. observer teams have also been targets of roadside bombs. Although no one was killed or seriously wounded, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., Susan Rice, said the observers were “one [explosion] away from a disaster.”

The U.N. Security Council must decide whether to renew the mission by July 15.

British Prime Minister David Cameron has gone before a media ethics panel to testify about his relationship with media mogul Rupert Murdoch.

Mr. Cameron told the government-funded, independent panel that politicians and the media have had a too close relationship for the past two decades. He says there needs to be more transparency and better regulations need to be in place because the current system does not work.

Prime Minister Cameron says his policies are based on belief and not the demands of, or relations with, a media editor. But he admits within the political system, favoritism toward the media does happen.

Mr. Cameron ordered the court inquiry last July, after Murdoch's News of the World tabloid was accused of hacking the phone of a murdered schoolgirl and the phones of major politicians and celebrities.

The prime minister's relationship with Murdoch gained scrutiny after Mr. Cameron hired former News of the World editor Andy Coulson as his communications chief.

Coulson now faces corruption charges in connection with the phone-hacking scandal.

Shortly after the phone-hacking allegations became public, Murdoch closed News of the World.

The hacking allegations against News of the World trace back several years. In 2007, a News of the World reporter and a private investigator hired by the paper were jailed for intercepting the cell phone messages of British royal officials. The tabloid also is accused of hacking the phones of politicians and celebrities.

Some critics of the original investigation have suggested London police were too close to the newspaper — a claim the police deny.

Kenyan police and government officials say Internal Security Minister George Saitoti is among at least six people killed in a police helicopter crash early Sunday, near the capital, Nairobi.

Authorities say an assistant and a bodyguard of Saitoti were also killed in the crash in the Ngong hills area.

Saitoti was a former Vice-President, who planned to run for president in next year's March election.

The identity of the other victims has not been confirmed. Some witnesses say the bodies are burned beyond recognition.

The cause of the crash is being investigated.

U.S. President Barack Obama is set Tuesday to award the Israeli president, a World War II resistance fighter, a former U.S. astronaut, and several others the nation's highest civilian honor — the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

In a ceremony at the White House, the president will give the medal to 13 people deemed to have made “especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.”

Included among the recipients is the Israeli President Shimon Peres, who is known as an advocate for Israel's security and for peace.

Another honoree, the late Jan Karski, was part of the Polish underground resistance movement during World War II. He reported to Allied nations some of the first eyewitness accounts of the Holocaust.

Other recipients include American folk musician Bob Dylan; the first female U.S. secretary of state, Madeleine Albright; and former U.S. astronaut John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth.

President Obama will also honor Japanese-American Gordon Hirabayashi, who died earlier this year. Hirabayashi was a college activist against the forced relocation and internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.

The medal will also be given to novelist Toni Morrison; civil rights advocate John Doar; former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens; women's college basketball coach Pat Summitt; smallpox physician William Foege; and labor rights advocate Dolores Huerta.

Also honored will be Juliette Gordon Low, founder of the Girl Scouts, who died in 1927.

International peace envoy Kofi Annan is in Syria to salvage a peace plan that he admits is not being “implemented comprehensively,” as rights activists report a government assault on the central city of Hama that killed at least 34 people.

After arriving in the Syrian capital, Damascus on Monday, Mr. Annan urged “everyone with a gun” to lay down arms and help resolve Syria's 15-month conflict peacefully. He also said he was “shocked and horrified” by the “tragic” killings of at least 108 people in the rebellious town of Houla on Friday.

“I urge the government to take bold steps to signal that it is serious in its intention to resolve this crisis peacefully and for everyone involved to help create the right context for a credible political process. And this message of peace is not only for the government, but for everyone, every individual with a gun. The six point plan must be implemented comprehensively, and this is not happening to date.''

Syrian officials said the former U.N. secretary-general would meet Syria Foreign Minister Walid Moallem later in the day and President Bashar al-Assad on Tuesday.

His arrival came after rights activists said security forces bombarded neighborhoods in the flashpoint city Hama from Sunday into early Monday in retaliation for rebel attacks on government positions. They said the fighting killed soldiers, rebels and at least 13 civilians. The casualties could not be independently confirmed.

Still, Robert Mood, the head of the U.N. observer mission, said Monday he was seeing “positive signs” in some regions, as his team pushes for dialogue and stability. He said he was looking forward to briefing Annan on what the observers have witnessed so far.

“I look forward to be able to convey my impression of the Syrian people, also to share with him that the suffering of the Syrian people is something that they do not deserve, and we will then have discussions at different levels with different people on whatever we can do to bring this forward in a positive direction, UNSMIS as a mission. I will be advising Kofi Annan, and we will then make a comprehensive assessment and continue our work in that regard.”

The U.N. Security Council issued a press statement Sunday strongly condemning the killing in Houla, where U.N. observers confirmed the deaths of dozens of civilians.

Syrian U.N. Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari repeated his government's denial of any role in the Houla killings, blaming them instead on armed terrorist groups Damascus says are behind the rebellion.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday both sides are to blame for the massacre. Russia is a longtime ally of Syria and has shielded President Assad from U.N. sanctions sought by Western and Arab powers who oppose his 11-year rule.

Lavrov downplayed Russian support for Mr. Assad at a news conference with visiting British Foreign Secretary William Hague. The Russian foreign minister said: “We do not support the Syrian government. We support Kofi Annan's (peace) plan.”

Britain has said the Syrian government is primarily responsible for Syria's violence. But, Hague said London agrees with Moscow on the need to support the Annan peace initiative. He said the alternative is “ever increasing chaos in Syria and a descent … into all-out civil war and collapse.”

China also has blocked the U.N. Security Council from imposing sanctions on Syria. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said Monday that China is “shocked” by the Houla killings but stopped short of directly criticizing the Assad government. Beijing called on all sides in the Syrian conflict to implement Mr. Annan's plan for ending the violence “immediately.”

The foreign ministry of Iran, another Assad ally, blamed the massacre on terrorists trying to create chaos and instability in Syria and said the foreign powers backing such attacks are doomed to fail.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon sent a letter to the Security Council saying U.N. observers who viewed the bodies of the Houla victims on Saturday saw wounds from artillery and gunfire. He said the monitors also found artillery and tank shells and fresh tank tracks in the area. The observers reported seeing 108 corpses, including those of 49 children and 34 women.

The United Nations says more than 10,000 people have been killed in Syria since the government began its crackdown on dissent in March 2011.

Nepal's Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai called for new elections after the term of the country's parliament, the Constituent Assembly, expired at Sunday midnight without completing the task of writing a new post-war constitution.

Mr. Bhattarai, who leads a national unity government made up of the country's four main political parties, said the Constituent Assembly had failed to achieve its goal and that he would stay in office until the new polls, scheduled for November 22, take place.

The Constituent Assembly, created in 2008 after the abolition of Nepal's centuries-old Hindu monarchy, was tasked with drafting the far-reaching document, but was unable to finish the task. Its tenure was extended four times, but the Supreme Court rejected any further extensions.

The four main parties were attempting to resolve differences over whether new states to be created by the constitution will be drawn on the basis of ethnicity. Opponents of the idea said it could fuel more unrest.

As the midnight deadline approached, thousands of people gathered outside the parliament building in the capital, Kathmandu, and clashed with riot police. Police used tear gas and several people were reportedly injured in the skirmishes.

Last November, Nepal's main political parties agreed to a deal to integrate thousands of former Maoist fighters into the army, a move seen as bolstering the peace process.

Maoist rebels were allowed to join the government after a 2006 peace deal ended their decade-long insurgency that claimed more than 13,000 lives.