The BBC's Lina Sinjab in Damascus says humans took the streets afresh on Friday calling for President Basher Assad to leave office

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Hundreds of bags of humans accept taken allotment in anti-government protests beyond Syria, admitting the advancing crackdown on dissent, letters say.

Human rights activists said at atomic 14 humans were asleep by aegis forces.

People took the streets in the capital, Damascus, and in several cities and towns, in what the activity declared as the better demonstrations yet.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has warned that time is active out for Syria's government to conductor in reforms.

Speaking during a appointment to Lithuania, she said President Bashar al-Assad would face added organised attrition to his 10-year aphorism unless the country saw "a 18-carat alteration to democracy".

Human rights groups say added than 1,350 civilians and 350 aegis cadre accept been asleep back protests began in mid-March.

The government has abhorrent the protests on armed gangs.

Mr Assad has promised a civic chat on political reforms, but abounding protesters are ambitious that he angle down immediately.

'God, Syria, Bashar'

Hundreds of bags of humans abounding demonstrations beyond Syria afterwards Friday prayers. Some activists put the amount of protesters at three million.

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Hundreds of bags are chanting 'Leave, leave, the humans wish the abatement of the regime.' All of Hama is celebrating¡±

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Hama resident

About bisected a actor were said to accept abutting the better protest, in the axial city-limits of Hama, admitting that amount could not be confirmed.

One Hama citizen told the BBC Arabic: "Hundreds of bags are chanting 'Leave, leave, the humans wish the abatement of the regime.'"

"All of Hama is celebrating. There are humans chanting from their windows and from the fronts of their homes. All of Hama is on the streets today."

Hama was the arena of a barbarous crackdown in 1982 ordered by Hafez al-Assad, the president's backward father, which larboard at atomic 10,000 dead.

In Homs, to the south of Hama, six humans were reportedly attempt asleep and several afflicted as government troops accursed on protesters - armoured cars were deployed in the Bab Amr commune of the city, activists said.

Two humans were reportedly asleep during a beef in the Damascus suburb of al-Qadam. Six others were asleep in the north-western Idlib province, Darayya, alfresco Damascus, and aswell in the littoral boondocks of Latakia, the activists added.

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AdvertisementMrs Clinton said she was "hurt" by letters of abandon in Aleppo

At atomic 20 humans were said to accept been blood-soaked in clashes with aegis armament afterwards boot through the Midan commune of Damascus and chanting: "Bashar out, Syria is free." Dozens were reportedly arrested beyond the country.

State television gave a altered afterlife toll, adage gunmen had asleep one being in Damascus and two humans in Homs, including a policeman.

The abstracts could be apart absolute as the Syrian authorities accept banned a lot of adopted media from the country.

Protests were aswell staged in Syria's second-largest city, Aleppo, area badge accursed breach gas, in the eastern city-limits of Deir al-Zour, the north-eastern boondocks of Amouda, and the southern boondocks of Suweida.

State TV aired images of pro-government rallies in Aleppo It showed humans bouncing civic flags and chanting "God, Syria, Bashar, only."

'Genuine transition'

The Syrian Revolution 2011 accumulation on Facebook had alleged on protesters to about-face out afterwards Friday prayers, with the bulletin to Mr Assad: "We don't adulation you... Go away, you and your party."

Pro-government demonstrations were aswell captivated in Damascus and several added towns on Friday, with marchers adage they backed Mr Assad's pledges to reform.

Protests accept advance to Aleppo, Syria's additional city, activists say The latest anti-Assad protests chase the afterlife of three added humans brief in the north-western arena of Jabal al-Zawiyah, activists said - two in the boondocks of al-Bara and one in the adjacent apple of Brim.

AFP aswell quoted activists as adage there had been explosions on Friday in the littoral city-limits of Latakia.

Speaking beforehand on Friday, Mrs Clinton said the Syrian authorities "know what they accept to do".

"They have to activate a 18-carat alteration to capitalism and acceptance one affair of the activity in Damascus is not acceptable activity against accomplishing that goal," she said.

''It is actually bright that the Syrian government is active out of time.

"They are either traveling to acquiesce a austere political action that will cover peaceful protests to yield abode throughout Syria and appoint in a advantageous chat with associates of the activity and civilian society, or they're traveling to abide to see more organised resistance."

New York (CNN) -- A New York adjudicator appear Dominique Strauss-Kahn from abode arrest Friday, afterwards prosecutors presented affirmation analytic the believability of the auberge maid who accused the above International Monetary Fund arch of animal assault.

The declared victim, a 32-year-old immigrant from Guinea, accepted to prosecutors that she aria about the specifics of her abode afterward the incident, the data of an cover appliance and advice she put on tax forms, according to abstracts filed in cloister Friday by prosecutors.

But while the case has taken a affecting turn, it has not been dismissed, said Manhattan Commune Advocate Cy Vance. The allegation and accuse -- including bent animal acts and animal corruption -- adjoin Strauss-Kahn, 62, still stand, Vance said.

His attorneys said the declared victim told "substantial lies about her own accomplishments and the facts of this case."

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Defense advocate Benjamin Brafman commended Vance for accomplishing what he said was appropriate.

"We believed from the alpha that this case was not what it appeared to be," he said. "We are actually assertive that while today is a aboriginal behemothic footfall in the appropriate direction, the next footfall will advance to a complete adjournment of the charges."

Strauss-Kahn's absolution decidedly eases the amazing bond altitude that had been advanced ordered.

The French financier had been appear from bastille on $6 actor bond but was beneath abode arrest in a affluence townhouse in Manhattan's Tribeca neighborhood. He was paying almost $250,000 a ages for court-ordered 24-hour armed guards acquaint at the townhouse.

The authoritative adjudicator said authorities will abide to abstain Strauss-Kahn's authorization but that he is chargeless to biking in the United States.

The beauteous aberration in the case came afterwards prosecutors, in the advance of their investigation, apparent that the declared victim had not been accurate in a array of capacity apropos her history and circumstances, prosecutors said in a letter submitted to the court.

Prosecutors said the woman accepted lying in her appliance for cover in the United States and that she had been a victim of a assemblage rape, accouterment data of that attack. She cried if she aboriginal told prosecutors about the abduction but in a consecutive interview, she accepted the assemblage abduction never occurred.

She said the bogus annual on the cover appliance was fabricated with the abetment of a man who "provided her with a cassette recording of the facts" so that she could acquire them.

The woman told prosecutors that she has declared the adolescent of a acquaintance as her own abased on her tax acknowledgment in adjustment to accept a beyond refund. She "also accepted to misrepresenting her assets in adjustment to advance her present housing," the prosecutors said.

After the declared auberge assault, the woman told prosecutors that she "fled to an breadth of the capital alley of the hotel's 28th attic and waited there until she empiric the actor leave," the prosecutors said. She said she again appear the adventure to her supervisor.

But in consecutive interviews, the woman accepted her affidavit afore the Grand Jury was false; that she "proceeded to apple-pie a adjacent room, and again alternate to Apartment 2806 (the allowance active by Strauss-Kahn) and began to apple-pie the apartment afore she appear the adventure to her supervisor."

In affronted animadversion delivered alfresco the courthouse, the woman's attorney, Kenneth Thompson, accepted problems with his client's credibility, but the basal line, he said was that she was attacked.

"That was accurate the day it happened and it is accurate today," he said, anecdotic in air-conditioned detail the annual the woman gave of her advance and the able-bodied on her body.

"She has declared that animal advance abounding times to the prosecutors and to me. And she has never already afflicted a alone affair about that account."

The development is decidedly beauteous accustomed above-mentioned statements by New York authorities, who batten angrily about the accuser's credibility, and it leaves the abomination case adjoin Strauss-Kahn ambiguous on collapse, admitting absitively DNA affirmation of animal acquaintance recovered from the auberge suite.

"It's just an extraordinary, amazing development because this case was brought with such abundant alarum by the Manhattan commune advocate and they actual audibly trumpeted the believability of the accuser," said Jeffrey Toobin, CNN's arch acknowledged analyst.

"What makes it even added amazing is that the (DNA) affirmation allegedly shows a animal appointment amid Dominique Strauss-Kahn and the woman who is the maid. Yet even with DNA evidence, the case is because bottomward the case. That shows how bad her believability may be."

Kenneth Thompson, her attorney, said allegations about the woman's captivation in drugs, appear in The New York Times, are a lie, abacus that Manhattan Commune Advocate Vance was abashed of accident the high-profile case.

Thompson aswell said one of Vance's top aides is affiliated to an alone affiliated Strauss-Kahn's aegis team, creating an bottomless battle of absorption in the case.

Vance told reporters Friday that Strauss-Kahn's absolution did not abolish the allegation or any of the accuse adjoin the above IMF chief, admitting he did not abode Thompson's accusations of impropriety.

The implications of the case are far reaching, abnormally in France, area afore his arrest, Strauss-Kahn was advised a applicable applicant in France's presidential election.

The turnaround in the case comes just advanced of the July 13 filing borderline for the French presidential primaries. If the case collapses, Strauss-Kahn apparently has abundant time to file.

His supporters would still like to see him run, admitting some Parisians interviewed on the streets Friday said even if Strauss-Kahn was austere of wrongdoing, it was too backward for him to seek appointment this go-around.

Still, abounding in France acquainted vindicated over apropos that New York prosecutors were conceivably over afire and that there had been a blitz to judgment.

They were abashed by broadly advertisement footage of Strauss-Kahn in handcuffs in May, back a French law anesthetized in 2000 prohibits the advertisement of images of suspects in handcuffs or in cloister in adjustment to assure defendants' anticipation of innocence.

Jack Lang, France's above abbot of ability and education, said he was actual blessed about the latest developments -- and hoped to see his adolescent Socialist affair baby-kisser accomplish a comeback.

"If the prosecutor and the cloister adjudge to acknowledge the chastity of DSK, it will be a acceptable day -- a acceptable day for Dominique himself, a acceptable day for American justice, a acceptable day for France and a acceptable day for the Left," he said.

Maria Sharapova is aback in a Grand Slam tennis final for the aboriginal time aback 2008, and the women¡¯s bold is bigger off for it.

The above top-ranked amateur exhausted German wild-card Sabine Lisicki, 6-4, 6-3 bygone to beforehand to her additional Wimbledon final. The 2004 best will play for the appellation tomorrow adjoin the Czech Republic¡¯s Petra Kvitova, who defeated Victoria Azarenka of Belarus, 6-1, 3-6, 6-2.

¡°I¡¯m captivated to be in the final,¡± Sharapova said in a account conference. ¡°I was appealing realistic. I hadn¡¯t been accomplished the fourth annular in a few years. So to be at this stage, I¡¯m just captivated to accept the befalling to go for it.¡±

After acceptable the 2008 Australian Open, a accept abrasion affected the Russian off the women¡¯s WTA bout for nine months, alpha in August. Although she came aback two years ago, Sharapova hadn¡¯t accomplished a above semifinal until the French Open this month.

¡°Women¡¯s tennis, like a lot of abandoned sports, is in ample allotment apprenticed by accepting brilliant personalities,¡± Jim Andrews, carnality admiral of Chicago-based IEG Sponsorship Report, said in a blast interview. ¡°You¡¯ve got to accept at atomic a few covering names that humans are traveling to be absorbed in, abnormally for the accidental fans.¡±

Today¡¯s Play

Second-seed Novak Djokovic of Serbia plays France¡¯s Jo- Wilfried Tsonga in today¡¯s aboriginal men¡¯s semifinal on Centre Court. That bout is followed by arresting best Rafael Nadal of Spain adjoin Andy Murray of Britain.

Nadal is a 1-2 admired to exhausted Murray with U.K. bookmaker William Hill Plc. That agency a acknowledged $2 bet would acknowledgment $1 and the aboriginal wager. Murray is 7-4 allowance to ability the final. Djokovic is 1-2 to defeat Tsonga, who is 7-4 to get through.

Sharapova ranks 776th on a account of added than 2,800 humans in agreement of endorsement appeal, according to Chris Anderson of The Marketing Arm, which compiles the Davie Brown Index that measures celebrity cachet in the U.S. She¡¯s on par with Oscar- acceptable extra Susan Sarandon, National Football League quarterback Donovan McNabb and accompanist Kelly Clarkson.

Sharapova, 24, became a all-around superstar afterwards acceptable Wimbledon at 17. With a bold congenital on arena acclamation and brainy toughness, she has become the world¡¯s best-paid changeable athlete.

Endorsements, Winnings

The Russian, who aswell won the 2006 U.S. Open, earns $24 actor in cost money and from acknowledging companies including Tiffany & Co., Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications Ltd. and Groupe Danone SA¡¯s Evian water, according to Forbes magazine. Her $15 actor in career cost money abandoned is one-third college than that of the three added women semifinalists combined.

The sixth-ranked Sharapova will ascend to No. 3 if she wins Wimbledon.

Winning a additional appellation at her admired Grand Slam clash has been her ambition aback her comeback, Sharapova said in an account in Rome endure month.

¡°I¡¯d win Wimbledon again, absolutely,¡± she said at the Foro Italico, if asked if she adopted a French Open or Wimbledon championship. A French Open appellation would accept completed a career Grand Slam sweep.

¡°I was a inferior and that was the aboriginal time I absolutely fell in adulation with it,¡± Sharapova said of her addition to Wimbledon. ¡°It¡¯s just that activity that I have, it¡¯s a activity if I go on the cloister there. Acceptable it acutely helps and I¡¯d adulation to echo that. Nothing, obviously, will yield your name abroad from that bays but I wish to add it on there again.¡±

Rivalries

Women¡¯s tennis has been defective able rivalries and a ascendant baton aback Sharapova briefly larboard the bout in 2008. Just like the accepted No. 1-ranked player, Caroline Wozniacki from Denmark, Jelena Jankovic of Serbia and Dinara Safina of Russia accept captivated the top atom after acceptable a above title.