CAIRO (Reuters) – An Arab League committee on Syria will ask Arab foreign ministers on Sunday to extend a monitoring mission in the country by one month, sources attending the committee meeting said.

Hundreds of Syrians have been killed since the mission began its work in late December and political opponents of President Bashar al-Assad are demanding the League refer Syria to the United Nations Security Council.

CAIRO (Reuters)- Arab states are worlds apart on Syria as they haggle over whether to keep peace monitors in the country as their month-long mandate expires without a halt to President Bashar al-Assad’s bloody crackdown on popular unrest.

Efforts by Syria’s Gulf Arab critics to force an end to the conflict are being blocked by other Arab states closer to Assad, leaving the country facing the risk of protracted fighting whose sectarian dimensions could threaten regional stability.

CAIRO (Reuters) – After weeks of observing bloodshed in Syria armed with nothing but pens, Arab League monitors will report on Friday that Damascus has failed to fully implement a peace plan. Now what?

In the short-term, the League will have to decide on the fate of its monitoring mission, whose mandate expires on Thursday. It can either be scrapped, extended or possibly beefed up to include more observers and even an armed element.

CAIRO (Reuters) – The Arab League has urged the Syrian government to end its violence against protesters and allow League monitors in the country to work more freely, but stopped short of asking the U.N. to help.

The arrival last month of the monitors in Syria to judge whether the government was honouring a pledge to end a crackdown on a popular revolt has not ended the violence, in which the United Nations says more than 5,000 people have been killed.

CAIRO (Reuters) – Arab League foreign ministers meet on Sunday to discuss whether to ask the U.N. to help their mission in Syria, which has failed to end a 10-month-old crackdown on unrest that has killed thousands.

Qatar proposes inviting U.N. technicians and human rights experts to help Arab monitors judge whether Syria is honouring its pledge to stop its repression, Arab League sources said. One said it might ask that U.N. staff helping the mission be Arabs.

CAIRO (Reuters) – Arab foreign ministers meet on Sunday to discuss whether to ask the United Nations to help their mission in Syria which has failed to end a 10-month crackdown on anti-government protests in which thousands have died.

The proposal by Qatar is to invite U.N. technicians and human rights experts to help Arab monitors assess whether Syria is honoring a pledge to stop its crackdown, sources at the Arab League said. A source said it might request that U.N. staff helping the mission be Arabs.

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egyptian prosecutors have demanded the death sentence for former president Hosni Mubarak and other defendants including his two sons and the former interior minister for their role in the killing of protesters in the uprising that swept him from power.

Many Egyptians hope the trial will heal some of the scars of Mubarak’s autocratic rule and help the country find stability after nearly a year of political turmoil under the military generals who replaced him in power.

MAHALLA EL-KUBRA, Egypt (Reuters) – Egyptians voted in the third round of a parliamentary election on Tuesday that has so far handed Islamists the biggest share of seats in an assembly that will be central in the planned transition from army rule.

Islamist groups came late to the uprising that unseated President Hosni Mubarak in February, but were well placed to seize the moment when Egyptians were handed the first chance in six decades to choose their representatives freely.

CAIRO (Reuters) – The Egyptian woman who brought a case against Egypt’s army for conducting “virginity tests” on her and others hailed a court ruling on Tuesday ordering the military to stop such actions.

Activists say the verdict is a victory for civilian courts over generals who took charge when Hosni Mubarak was ousted in February and adds pressure on the army to hold to account troops who have been rebuked by Egyptians and major aid donor the United States over the treatment of women during protests.