Nearly 200 Jordanians demonstrated in Amman on Sunday to demand the release of 19 jailed political activists charged with insulting King Abdullah II.

The protesters, mostly Islamist youths, demonstrated outside the prime minister's office, urging the king to free the young activists.

Bahrain on Sunday turned down a request to transfer to Denmark a jailed Shiite activist who has been on hunger strike for two months and also holds Danish nationality.

"The handover of accused and convicted persons to foreign countries takes place under specific conditions... This does not apply in Abdulhadi al-Khawaja's case," a Supreme Judiciary Council official said, quoted by state news agency BNA.

Clashes between government troops and army deserters raged on Sunday across Syria, where at least 84 people were killed and more than 200 arrested, activists and monitors said.

The weekend escalation in violence came ahead of a U.N. deadline of Tuesday for regime forces to cease fire, prompting harsh words from international envoy Kofi Annan who said the escalation was "unacceptable."

North Korea's long-range rocket is on its launch platform, Agence France Presse reporters said Sunday, as the regime again insisted it was to send a peaceful satellite and not a missile.

The usually secretive North organized an unprecedented visit for foreign reporters to Tongchang-ri space center in an effort to show its Unha-3 rocket is not a disguised ballistic missile, as claimed by the U.S. and its allies.

Jordan's King Abdullah II on Sunday reiterated calls to find a political solution in Syria and avoid more bloodshed in the neighboring country, where thousands have been killed in violence.

"Jordan believes in finding a solution to the Syrian crisis in line with Arab consensus and believes in supporting (peace envoy) Kofi Annan," a palace statement quoted the king as telling a U.S. congressional delegation.

Iran on Sunday rejected demands the West is reportedly to submit at talks due to take place in days, saying it will neither close its Fordo nuclear bunker nor give up higher-level uranium enrichment.

Those two demands, outlined by European and U.S. diplomats to The New York Times newspaper, were "irrational," the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, Fereydoon Abbasi Davani, told ISNA news agency in a lengthy interview.

The United States and its European allies plan to demand the immediate closing by Iran and ultimate dismantling of a recently completed underground nuclear facility near the city of Qum, The New York Times reported late Saturday.

Citing unnamed U.S. and European diplomats, the newspaper said the allies will also call at the upcoming negotiations for a halt in the production of uranium fuel that is considered just a few steps from bomb grade, and the shipment of existing stockpiles of that fuel out of the country.

Pope Benedict XVI called on Sunday for an end to bloodshed in Syria and a commitment to dialogue to end the violence there, as part of a wider appeal to give hope to the entire Middle East.

"May the risen Christ grant hope to the Middle East and enable all the ethnic, cultural and religious groups in that region to work together to advance the common good and respect for human rights," he said in his traditional "Urbi et Orbi" message to mark Easter Sunday.

The international mediator for Syria, Kofi Annan, said on Sunday he was shocked by the "unacceptable" surge in bloodshed there despite a U.N. deadline for a halt to all violence next week.

"I am shocked by recent reports of a surge in violence and atrocities in several towns and villages in Syria, resulting in alarming levels of casualties, refugees and displaced persons, in violation of assurances given to me," Annan said in a statement.

All civilians initially listed as missing after a U.S. Navy fighter jet crashed into a Virginia apartment complex have been accounted for, officials said Saturday, though no all-clear has been given.

Virginia Beach Fire Department Captain Tim Riley told CNN that no bodies were found in the destroyed low-rise buildings and rescuers had suspended their search for victims from the ensuing inferno.