Syria

• A new initiative backed by western powers to create a unified Syrian opposition appears to be in jeopardy of collapsing. A western diplomat told the BBC it was "falling apart" and Burhan Ghalioun, former leader of the SNC, which would see its influence diluted in the new grouping, described it as "dead". Another opposition group, the Local Coordination Committees, said "interventions in the affairs of our revolution, as stated in Hillary Clinton's remarks, are unwelcome". But prominent Syrian dissident Riad Seif, proposer of the Syrian National Initiative, expressed confidence that it would pass.

• Opposition Activists have reported heavy fighting between rebels and government troops backed by Palestinian fighters in the capital Damascus. One group claimed that 23 people have been killed in the last 24 hours in the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk, including seven when a mortar - which both sides blamed on the other - landed on a minibus. An activist told AP regime forces weer backed by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command.

• Eleven people have been killed and 55 injured, including women and children, by a car bomb in a loyalist are of Mezzeh, Damascus, state media reported. Activists claim the Free Syrian Army said it planted the bomb and was targeting shabiha - pro-Assad thugs - in the area.

• A suicide car bombing has killed at least 50 members of the Syrian security forces in Hama province, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Syrian state media put the death toll from the explosion in al-Ziyara at two (both civilians) and said 10 others were injured.

• An air strike has killed more than 20 rebel fighters in Harem, in Idlib, the UK-based Syrian Observatory of Human Rights claims. It said a rebel leader in the town was seriously injured and believed to be dead.

• The UN-Arab League envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, has called for a new UN security council resolution to formalise an declaration adopted in Geneva in June, which called for a transitional administration but did not specify what role, if any, Assad would The initiative came after Brahimi met Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrovin Cairo yesterday. Brahimi said:

It is important that the Geneva Declaration be turned into a resolution from the security council to gain the power to enable it to become an applicable political project.

Al-Jazeera reported that Lavrov dismissed the need for a resolution, saying “some countries which participated in Geneva don't speak with the government but only with the opposition and encourage them to fight till victory and this has very negative implications”.

• Japan is to host international talks in late November aimed at widening sanctions against Syria, it said today.Existing sanctions include freezing assets of the Syrian president and military leaders and an embargo on oil and arms trade with Syria.

Bahrain

• Five homemade bombs have exploded in the Bahraini capital Manama killing two Asian men, the ministry of interior (MOI) said. A third man was seriously injured. The blasts were blamed on "terrorists" but opposition figures expressed suspicion about who was behind the explosions with one suggesting it may have been renegade security forces or a pretext in order to impose martial law.