DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- The World Food Prize Foundation on Wednesday took the bold step of awarding this year's prize to three pioneers of plant biotechnology whose work brought the world genetically modified crops.

The private nonprofit foundation, which is in part funded by biotechnology companies, refused to shy away from the controversy surrounding genetically modified crops that organic food advocates say are harmful to people and the environment.

"If we were to be deterred by a controversy, that would diminish our prize," said the foundation's president, Kenneth Quinn, a retired U.S. diplomat.

This year's award goes to Marc Van Montagu, founder and chairman of the Institute of Plant Biotechnology Outreach at Ghent University in Belgium; Mary-Dell Chilton, founder and researcher at Syngenta Biotechnology; and Robert Fraley, chief technology officer at Monsanto.

Van Montagu and Chilton independently developed the technology in the 1980s to stably transfer foreign genes into plants, a discovery that set up a race to develop tools to genetically engineer plants. It allowed other scientists to incorporate genetic traits in plants to better withstand drought, extreme heat and to fight off pests and disease. Fraley was the first to successfully transfer immunity to specific bacteria into a plant.

Fraley genetically engineered the first herbicide-resistant soybean in 1996.

The foundation lists Monsanto and Syngenta Foundation among its annual donors, along with other agribusiness corporations such as DuPont Pioneer, Archer Daniels Midland Co. and Cargill.

The award drew immediate condemnation from opponents of corporate farming.

"We could not ask for a better poster child for what's wrong with the prize than the recipients of this year's World Food Prize," said Frank Cordaro, who organized an Occupy World Food Prize protest last year. "It's all part of the very same system of the corporate elite. The problem is not with the recipients, the problem is with the system that gives the 1 percent all the power and corporate agriculture is built on that system."

Genetically enhanced crops are grown on more than 420 million acres in nearly 30 countries by over 17 million farmers worldwide, the foundation said. More than 90 percent are small, resource-poor farmers in developing countries.

Many U.S. farmers credited genetic modifications in corn with saving last year's crop from all but total devastation as half of the nation endured the worst drought in 60 years. Modern corn plants are more stable and can withstand a wider variety of climate conditions because of genetically improved leaves, roots and reproductive capability.

Fraley said biotechnology will enable the farming industry to meet the needs of a growing global population.

"We know we need from a demand perspective to double food production around the world in the next 30 years," he said.

Some organic farmers warn that widespread planting of genetically modified crops could contaminate organic and traditional crops, destroying their value. Others are concerned about the uncharted long-term impact for those who eat products such as milk and beef from animals raised on genetically modified plants.

"GMO crops have led to the loss of food security worldwide and for small farmers, they have led to the development of factory farms and have destroyed biodiversity in food we do produce and consume," said David Goodner, a community organizer for Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, an environmental and human rights activist group that opposes corporate farming. "The World Food Prize by selecting these people to honor shows that it cares more about corporate profits than it cares about truly feeding the world with healthy food."

Van Montagu said the food prize award should raise understanding of the safety of genetically modified crops.

"We just have to explain to society the science fact and that is not the slightest risk has been identified. These crops are as safe, if not safer, than food that comes from traditional agriculture," he said. "If somebody denies that we bluntly can say they are misinformed."

The World Food Prize was created in 1986 by Norman Borlaug, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to fight hunger. Borlaug was honored in 1970 for work that boosted agricultural production in what has become known as the "Green Revolution."

Recipients will receive the prize, which includes $250,000, at a ceremony in October at the Iowa Capitol in Des Moines attended by hundreds of scholars and agribusiness leaders from around the world.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration on Friday made it final that employees of religiously affiliated, nonprofit institutions would receive insurance coverage for birth control amid mounting legal challenges to a rule in the recent healthcare law.

The White House proposed in early 2012 an arrangement that allows universities, hospitals and other employers with a religious affiliation to avoid paying directly for contraceptives. Instead, insurance companies provide coverage and foot the bill under the law.

The rule requires an institution's health insurer or third-party insurance administrator to notify employees about birth control benefits and provide beneficiaries with direct payments that cover the cost of contraceptive services.

The announcement was made by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It puts into effect a requirement that has been beset by more than a year of talks between administration officials and religious employers.

The U.S. Roman Catholic bishops and other denominations oppose contraception on religious grounds and have protested against the requirement as have conservatives.

"Today's announcement reinforces our commitment to respect the concerns of houses of worship and other non-profit religious organizations that object to contraceptive coverage, while helping to ensure that women get the care they need, regardless of where they work," HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a statement.

The rule formally takes effect on August 1. Thanks But the administration gave nonprofit employers an additional five months to adjust to the new regulations by having it apply to plan years beginning on or after January 1. Other employers have been required to make contraceptives coverage available to their workers since last August.

Women's advocates applauded the regulations as a milestone that could have profound impact on the education and economic opportunities of women including college students.

"Birth control is basic healthcare for women, and this policy treats it like any other kind of preventive care," Planned Parenthood President Cecile Roberts said in a statement.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which has spearheaded opposition to the policy, responded to the ruling.

"We have received and started to review the 110-page final rule," New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan said in a statement. "It will require more careful analysis. We will provide a fuller statement when that analysis is complete."

LEGAL FIGHT EXPANDS

Opponents say the policy, part of President Barack Obama's Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, violates religious tenets of nonprofit and for-profit employers alike, particularly coverage for the morning-after pill to stop pregnancy and other types of contraceptives, which they view as tantamount to abortion.

Employers have had legal successes, raising speculation that the lawfulness of the rule may eventually be tested by the U.S. Supreme Court.

More than 60 lawsuits have been filed by religious organizations and businesses against the requirement, and courts have granted some 20 for-profit businesses temporary relief from the law while their cases proceed in court.

Earlier this month, a federal judge in Pennsylvania granted the same relief to a religiously affiliated nonprofit for the first time in the case of Geneva College, which was established by the Reform Presbyterian Church.

Friday's regulations came a day after a federal appeals court in Denver ruled that Hobby Lobby, family-owned arts and crafts chain may be exempt from offering contraceptive benefits to its 13,000 full-time employees.

Hobby Lobby's lawyer, Kyle Duncan of the Becket Fund, said his organization filed an emergency request late Thursday asking the district court to take immediate action on the company's request for an exemption from the mandate. On Friday, the retailer was excused by a federal judge from paying up to $1.3 million a day in fines for not providing coverage.

(Additional reporting by Terry Baynes in New York; Editing by Michele Gershberg, Vicki Allen and Kenneth Barry)

[More from BGR: ]

[More from BGR: ]

We sold a bunch more when we lowered the price, de la Vega told CNET. We sold everything we had on that.

BGRthat the First was a flop. At fewer than 15,000 units AT&T sold leading up to the fire sale, HTC First sales were even worse than sales of the HTC ChaCha, which launched on AT&T in 2011 as the Status before being discontinued soon after.

BGRs sources claimed thatand return unsold inventory to HTC, and the $0.99 fire sale was apparently a last-ditch effort to clear out stock. Facebook also decided to cancel the phones European launch following the poor response in America.

According to BGRs sources, AT&Ts plans have not changed and .

A subsequent report from earlier this week stated that , and companies including Samsung, Sony, Huawei, ZTE and Lenovo have no plans to offer handsets with Home pre-installed.

UPDATE: Contrary to de la Vegas comments, BGR was able to confirm that many stores in the New York region have inventory remaining. Several stores reported that they still have the phone available in all colors and several more used words like plenty and many when describing their remaining HTC First inventory. According to AT&Ts website, at least 50 New York City-area stores still have the HTC First in stock.

This article was

HAVANA (Reuters) - One hundred state-run produce markets and 26 other establishments were scheduled to become private cooperatives on Monday as Communist-run Cuba continues to shed secondary economic activity in favor of individual initiative and markets.

The cooperatives will be the first outside of agriculture since all businesses were nationalized in 1968.

The government says many more establishments will follow, beginning in 2014, as an alternative to small and medium-sized state businesses in retail and food services, transportation, light manufacturing and construction, among other sectors.

The produce markets were supplied exclusively by the state, which also set prices and wages.

As cooperatives they will now purchase produce from any source and set their own prices, with the exception of a few state supplied staples, for example rice, chick peas and potatoes in Havana.

At one of the dozens of Havana markets set to become cooperatives this week, the mood was festive on Saturday as workers painted the dark and dingy premises, fixed broken bins and in general spruced up the place on their last day as state employees.

"We were given the choice of working as a cooperative member or being laid off," Antonio Rivera, a worker turned member, said.

"I think we will be better off so I joined," he said.

On Sunday the 100 markets took inventory and made other preparations, before their adventure into the country's growing "non-state" sector began.

President Raul Castro, who took over from his brother Fidel in 2008, has already taken steps to deregulate small private businesses in the retail sector, lease small state shops and taxis to individual employees and fallow state lands to would-be small farmers in search of improved production and efficiency.

According to the government, more than 430,000 people now work in the non-state sector which consists of private entrepreneurs, their employees and individuals who own or lease taxis and the like.

The figure does not include some 2,000 agricultural cooperatives and 400,000 small farmers.

MARKET ECONOMICS HAILED

The new cooperative markets average 15 or fewer members and will lease their premises from the state.

They will function independently of state entities and businesses, set prices in cases where they are not fixed by the state, operate on a democratic basis, divide profit as they see fit and receive better tax treatment than individually owned businesses, according to a decree law published in December.

The law allows for an unlimited number of members and use of contracted employees on a three-month basis.

The newly elected administrator of one market said that for weeks they had been making contact with farm cooperatives in preparation for Monday, and could also buy from individual farmers and state farms and wholesale markets.

"I'm sure the public will benefit. The produce will be of better quality, there will be better service and people will go where the prices are the lowest," he said, asking his name not be used because he feared he would get into trouble for talking to a foreign journalist.

"There will be more competition and the winners will be those who do the best job," he said, adding, "everything will depend on us and we will have to look for merchandise wherever because if we don't we will not make anything."

Consumers appeared to support the measure, though some fretted over a possible increase in prices.

"They should have done this long ago," Soledad Martinez said as she shopped at the market on Saturday.

"Now there will be a greater variety and we will be treated better. I just hope prices decrease a bit and do not go up," she said.

Cuban authorities began discussing three years ago how to transform bankrupt small and medium-sized state businesses - plagued by pilfering, embezzlement and general inefficiency - into cooperatives.

The Communist Party adopted a sweeping five-year plan to "update" the economy in 2011, which included moving more than 20 percent of the state labor force of 5 million people into a new "non-state" sector of private and cooperative businesses.`

(Editing by Eric Walsh)

June 28 (Reuters) - Canada is famed as a hotbed of hockey, but basketball dominated headlines in the Great White North after Anthony Bennett became the first Canadian to be taken first overall in the NBA Draft.

With more Canadian talent on the way, Bennett's selection by the Cleveland Cavaliers on Thursday could serve as a red-letter moment in a golden era for Canadian basketball.

Even Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, an avid hockey fan, took to Twitter, writing "Congrats to @AnthonyBennett for being the first Cdn ever drafted #1 overall in the NBA draft. Good luck in Cleveland, we're all behind you."

Bennett will have Canadian company on the Cavs, joining compatriot Tristan Thompson, who had held the distinction of being the highest-drafted player from Canada when he was taken fourth overall last year by Cleveland.

The team's newest forward, who entered the draft out of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, following his freshman year, left New York after the draft to meet reporters in Cleveland.

Bennett thought a moment when asked if there was anything special about his day of non-stop activities. "Yeah, the private jet that I flew in on this morning," he told Reuters with a chuckle in a telephone interview on Friday.

"It's not really something I do, but I can get used to it."

As for reaction from back home, the versatile forward said: "Just been getting a lot of love."

Joining the prime minister with a Twitter reaction was Steve Nash, the two-time NBA Most Valuable Player now of the Los Angeles Lakers, who went 15th overall to the Phoenix Suns in 1996 as the previous top Canadian pick before Thompson.

Wrote Nash, "Proud on Proud!"

INTEREST SKYROCKETED

Bennett was also proud of some other history made Thursday as the selection of British Columbia's Kelly Olynyk, headed to the Boston Celtics as the 13th pick, marked the first time two Canadians were among the top 14 so-called lottery picks awarded to the non-playoff teams.

Canadian basketball is on the rise, according to Bennett.

"For sure. We have a couple of players now in the league, a couple just got drafted and more on the college level and others in high school. I feel like on every level in basketball, there is a strong Canadian group of guys.

"Later on, it's going to be pretty crazy," he said, admitting to dreams of Olympic glory. "Everyone is going to want to bring back a medal."

Popularity of basketball in Canada should not be that surprising.

Canada, after all, can lay claim to its invention as Canadian sports coach James Naismith is credited with devising the game in Springfield, Massachusetts, first played with soccer balls shot into peach baskets hung above a gym floor in 1891.

NBA Canada General Manager Dan Mackenzie said the launch of National Basketball Association (NBA) franchises in Toronto and Vancouver in 1995 had a great impact.

"In '95 the Raptors and Grizzlies hit the floor and this is really the first generation of kids that have grown up having the NBA in their backyard," he told Reuters in a telephone interview.

The Grizzlies lasted only six seasons in Vancouver before they moved to Memphis in 2001, but general interest across Canada in basketball has skyrocketed in recent years.

"Having the league more present both on television and on media platforms and in live events has really had a great impact on kids' desire to pick up a basketball versus a hockey stick," he said.

'MAPLE JORDAN'

Mackenzie pointed to statistics showing that over the last four years basketball was growing faster than soccer and hockey in terms of participation and said Canadians have embraced digital platforms providing nearly non-stop NBA action.

"When you layer on top of that the macro factors of immigration, we think immigration has been a big part of the growth of the sport here," the NBA executive said.

"We think a lot of that is due to people coming to Canada from countries where basketball is very popular. For our country, the two largest sub-groups of newcomers to Canada are folks from the Philippines and from China. Those are two countries where basketball is very popular."

He said the general hoops interest in Canada combined with "the individual passion, talent and desire of these kids that are starting to excel, it really makes for a great movement."

"When you look at the pipeline of talent coming through, if you look at the NCAA pipeline, high schools in Canada and/or in prep schools in the U.S., the Canadians are coming."

One of the most eagerly anticipated Canadian players, Andrew Wiggins, will be hitting the major U.S. college basketball scene next season as a freshman at Kansas, where Naismith went on to coach basketball at the turn of the 20th Century.

Even Bennett is excited by what Wiggins, who has been dubbed the "Maple Jordan," could accomplish.

"He's just real dominant, can take over games any time he wants," Bennett said. "He's athletic, he can shoot.

"I feel like in the next draft coming up, he can go number one, too, and make history again. Two Canadian players going number one, back-to-back. That would be something else." (Reporting by Larry Fine in New York; Editing by Frank Pingue)

U.S. District Judge Joe Heaton set a hearing for July 19 to address claims by the owners of Hobby Lobby and the Mardel Christian bookstore chains that their religious beliefs are so deeply rooted that having to provide every form of birth control would violate their conscience.

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had said Thursday the companies were likely to prevail, comparing the companies to a kosher butcher unwilling to adopt non-kosher practices as part of a government order.

Until the hearing, the government cannot impose fines against Hobby Lobby or Mardel for failing to comply with all of the Affordable Care Act. The companies' owners oppose birth control methods that can prevent implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterus, such as an intrauterine device or the morning-after pill, but are willing to offer the 16 other forms of birth control mentioned in the federal health care law.

"The opinion makes it very clear what is a valid religious belief and what is not," said Emily Hardman, spokeswoman for The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. The group is representing the companies and their owners, the Green family.

Heaton asked the government and companies to seek some sort of solution before the hearing, given that the 10th Circuit has already cleared the way for the companies to challenge the law on religious grounds. While not binding beyond the states in the 10th Circuit, Thursday's ruling could benefit others that oppose all forms of birth control, Hardman said, such as Catholic hospitals.

"We got a fantastic opinion from the 10th Circuit, which will impact all the cases," she said.

The companies had faced fines totaling $1.3 million daily beginning Monday. Had they dropped its health care plan altogether, they could have been fined $26 million. The only alternative would be to pay for birth control that violates its religious beliefs, the companies' owners said.

The appeals court on Thursday had suggested the companies shouldn't have to pay the fines, but there were unaddressed questions pending at the lower court. Heaton resolved those Friday in the companies' favor: Hobby Lobby had shown they would suffer financial or spiritual consequences, and that an injunction was in the public interest.

In fighting Hobby Lobby and other companies that oppose some or all forms of birth control, government lawyers had said companies cannot pick which portions of the Affordable Care Act with which they will comply.

Spokesmen for the Department of Health and Human Services have repeatedly declined to comment on pending lawsuits over birth control coverage.

Electronic court filings did not show any response from the government to Hobby Lobby's latest injunction request, but Heaton said in his order that lawyers from both sides had weighed in.

Hobby Lobby's lawyers have said the U.S. Department of Human Services has granted exemptions from portions of the health care law for plans that cover tens of millions of people and that allowing the companies an injunction would be no great burden to the government at the expense of the Greens' religious freedoms.

The companies' lawyers calculated potential losses at $475 million in a year $100 per day for 13,000 workers while harms to the government are "minimal and temporary."

Danny Werfel told reporters Monday that after becoming acting IRS chief last month, he discovered inappropriate and wide-ranging criteria in lists screeners use to single out groups for careful examinations. He did not specify what terms were on the lists.

Werfel's comments suggest the IRS may have been targeting groups other than tea party and other conservative organizations for tough examinations to see if they qualify. The agency has been under fire since last month for targeting those groups.

Werfel said he has suspended use of those lists. Investigators have previously said agency officials abolished targeting of conservative groups in those lists in May 2012.

RELATED:

Since the 2012 election, there hasn't been a lot of good news for Obama's liberal base. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi wasat Netroots Nation when she defended the NSA's spying. Obama's nominee to head the CIA was filibustered over the drone program, and he announced some changes that could allow some Guantanamo detainees to go home afterto include more half the people imprisoned there. (Some detainees are , and the strike is .) Environmentalists have frequently protested the Keystone XL pipeline in front of the White House. Obama's speech on Tuesday, in which he will not reveal his decision on the pipeline, will give them something to seize on.

RELATED:

Obama's announcement comes at a time when his presidency is —  — being declared dead. Thanks to bad news and Washington gridlock, "Not yet six months into his second term, Barack Obama's presidency is in a dead zone," argues . This is because of "his own failure to use the traditional tools of the presidency to exert his will. Obama does not instill fear — one of the customary instruments of presidential power." Obama might be failing at deploying an intangible instrument of presidential power, but on Tuesday, he will use a real one. New Jersey Rep. Rob Andrews, a Democrat, tells Politico, "I don’t think he has chosen to use all the levers of power that he has at his disposal." Obama relies too much on the power of his speeches, Andrews says, instead of instilling fear. But analysis might give him reason to think fear wouldn't work either: "Eighty percent of the members are in a district where a primary challenge is their principal political vulnerability... If the president goes out and barnstorms, it works politically for that member to vote against the president. It has the opposite effect." Neither perks nor a reign of terror would change that electoral reality.

RELATED:

Obama's piecemeal approach to slowing our descent into environmental calamity is a big change from 2008, when had big plans to stop global warming,  explains. But cap-and-trade failed in the Senate in 2010 — before the Tea Party wave later that year. Now he's going to use a piecemeal approach to slowing environmental calamity. Obama's turning to the Environmental Protection Agency, which the Supreme Court ruled in 2007 can regulate carbon dioxide. The EPA has proposed carbon standards for future plants, but it hasn't yet targeted existing plants, which release 40 percent of carbon emissions in the U.S. Obama's announcement changes that. How tough the EPA makes its new rules will determine whether the U.S. can meet its goal of cutting carbon emissions by 17 percent of the 2005 level by 2020.

RELATED:

The pace at which the federal bureaucracy moves partially explains the timing. In May,  reported Obama's executive orders might go down like this, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council's Dan Lashof:

The agency will finish drafting its regulation scheme by the end of the year. It will then take about a year of public comments and revisions, at which point it will finalize its rule. That will be the end of 2014, just after the midterm elections. Another nine months to a year will be required to carry out the rule, which will get us to the end of 2015—and the international climate summit.

This isn't the first time the White House said it would turn to executive action to get things done. That happened only a year into Obama's first term. "The challenges we had to address in 2009 ensured that the center of action would be in Congress," White House aide Dan Pfeiffer toldin February 2010. "In 2010, executive actions will also play a key role in advancing the agenda." Baker's analysis of what problems that might pose is interesting given what's happened since then:

But Mr. Obama has to be careful how he proceeds because he has been critical of both Mr. Clinton’s penchant for expending presidential capital on small-bore initiatives, like school uniforms, and Mr. Bush’s expansive assertions of executive authority, like the secret program of wiretapping without warrants.

LONDON (Reuters) - Cycling sponsors can enjoy great value for money if they are willing to trust that the sport is finally leaving its dark doping days behind.

Before the start of the 100th edition of the Tour de France on Saturday, cycling has been boosted by news that U.S. consumer electronics company Belkin will sponsor the former Rabobank team until 2015.

The Dutch bank pulled out last year when cycling was reeling from the downfall of American rider Lance Armstrong, stripped of his seven Tour de France titles after admitting to doping.

However, a feared rush for the exits by sponsors has failed to materialize. The deal with California-based Belkin shows that companies still want to buy into a sport offering wide exposure to an affluent audience for a modest price.

"If they look at the fundamentals of the sport, they are really strong. More and more people are taking up cycling," said Lars Seier Christensen, chief executive of Saxo Bank, the Danish company which sponsors the Saxo-Tinkoff team.

"It's a much better deal than other sports - the doping problem instituted a discount in the pricing."

SPONSORS PLAY VITAL ROLE

Sponsors are the main source of revenue for most teams taking part in events like the Tour.

Road races do not charge admission fees for the hundreds of thousands of fans who line the route, and event organizers tend to keep the bulk of television revenues for themselves in the absence of a standard formula for sharing them with the teams.

Tour teams could operate on an annual budget of under 15 million euros ($19.6 million), Christensen said. The leading teams were spending only around 25 million, he said, noting that sum would buy only one top soccer player.

Despite the importance of sponsors, cycling does not market itself as slickly as other sports.

"Formula One and football are more glamorous and are sold more professionally," said Ulrich Lacher, a director of sports marketing research company REPUCOM.

Those sports have well-established methods to help sponsors receive maximum exposure for their brands - a process known as activation.

"In cycling this has to be driven by the sponsor and although the activation opportunities exist, they are more difficult to implement," added Lacher.

Cycling can also learn from sports like Formula One by giving TV viewers more of an inside view on races through greater use of features such as audio and data feeds.

"In terms of media distribution, cycling is improving but still faces some challenges like conveying the effort, the pain and the tactics amongst riders," said Ioris Francini, head of global sales and acquisitions for sports marketing firm IMG.

IMG took over as the international distributor for the Giro d'Italia race this year. The number of broadcasters taking the Giro and hours screened had doubled over 2012, Francini said, a sign of the sport's global appeal.

SKY'S EXAMPLE

British pay television company BSkyB has enjoyed spectacular returns since it launched its professional team in 2010.

Team Sky rider Bradley Wiggins became the first Briton to win the Tour de France last year and his team mate Chris Froome is among the favorites for this year's race.

"Having our brand on our shirts is a huge benefit," said Tricia Thompson, director of cycling at BSkyB. The exposure also helps the Sky brand in Italy and Germany where the British company has sister channels.

Another obvious benefit for the top cycling sponsors is that they can get naming rights for teams as well as having their brands displayed on team kit.

Sky's launch of a professional team complemented its efforts to get more Britons on their bikes. It is part of the company's attempt to show itself as having a positive effect on British sport after buying live TV rights to Premier League soccer, Formula One and English test cricket.

"We invest in sport. We are and have been involved in transforming a lot of UK sport," said Thompson.

She says other companies are keen to emulate Sky's success.

"There are definitely a lot more brands interested in getting involved in cycling. It's on a lot more people's radars. A lot of brands can see the potential now."

($1 = 0.7637 euros)

(Editing by Robert Woodward)

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Friday the late night attack on Karak, in eastern Daraa, killed four women and four girls. The Observatory relies on a wide network of activists on the ground in Syria for its information.

Syria state news agency said regime forces were chasing "terrorist cells" in Daraa province, including along the border with Jordan. It did not mention Karak.

SANA said 18 opposition fighters including Jordanians, a Saudi and a Chechen, were killed. It did not refer to civilian casualties.

The United Nations says more than 6,000 children are among more than 93,000 people killed in Syria's civil war.