Main news of May 20

 

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours.

World

 * Protests broke out in several Syrian regions, local media reported

 * Former IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn will spend his home arrest period in a luxury Manhattan apartment

 * Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected U.S. President Barack Obama’s call for Israel’s 1967 borders to be taken as the starting point for talks on a future Palestinian state

 Russia

 * U.S. plans for a missile defense system in Europe will pose a genuine threat to Russia’s nuclear deterrence capability if they are carried out in full, a General Staff official said

 * A bipartisan bill freezing assets and blocking visas of individuals who commit gross human-rights violations against Russian rights activists was introduced in the U.S. Senate