Moroccans voted Friday in a referendum on curbing the near absolute powers of King Mohammed VI, who has offered reforms in the wake of protests inspired by pro-democracy uprisings around the Arab world.

Faced with demonstrations modeled on the Arab Spring protests that ousted long-serving leaders in Tunisia and Egypt, Mohammed VI announced the referendum last month to devolve some of his powers to the prime minister and parliament of the north African country.

The U.N. Security Council on Thursday extended the mandate of the U.N. force monitoring the ceasefire in the Golan Heights between Syria and Israel by another six months.

The unanimous decision extends the mandate of the U.N. Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) to December 31, 2011.

Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Thursday that he plans to visit Syria, facing mounting criticism for its bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, while on a tour of the region.

Davutoglu said that he hoped at the weekend "to leave for a tour of countries in the Middle East which will include Syria," the Anatolia news agency reported.

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood told Agence France Presse on Thursday it was open to contacts with the United States as long as its "values are respected" but said there had been "no direct contacts" in the past.

"We are willing to meet in a context of respect. If the U.S. is truly willing to respect our values and support freedom as it says it does, then we have no problem," spokesman Mahmud Ghozlan said after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said there had been "limited contacts" with the group.

Syrian troops swept into new villages in the northwest on Thursday amid anti-regime protests in the country’s second city Aleppo, activists said.

Around 60 tanks and armored personnel carriers rumbled into two villages in the countryside of Idlib, said Rami Abdul Rahman of the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Britain has given the Libyan rebels 5,000 sets of body armor, as well as police uniforms, high-visibility vests and communications equipment, Foreign Secretary William Hague said Thursday.

He said this was "fully in line" with the U.N. Security Council resolution governing international action on Libya and the arms embargo.

Irish activists on Thursday accused Israel of sabotaging a ship that had been due to join a flotilla to challenge an Israeli blockade of Gaza, forcing the vessel's withdrawal.

The Irish Ship to Gaza (ISG) campaign said it "believes that Israel has questions to answer and must be viewed as the chief suspect in this professional and very calculating act of sabotage".

A second trial of Tunisia's ousted president, which had been due to start on Thursday has been postponed until July 4 because of a strike by judges, the judge in the case said.

Judge Touhami Hafi announced the postponement of the case against the exiled Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, in which he has been charged with the illegal possessions of arms and drugs, in a statement to the court in Tunis.

An Egyptian court on Thursday postponed issuing a verdict in a high profile police brutality case until September, amid mounting frustration over the slow pace of reform since the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak.

A large security presence had been deployed outside the courthouse in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria where dozens of activists had gathered to hear the ruling in the trial of two police officers accused of beating to death 28-year-old Khaled Said last year.

Iran and Syria "remain leading state sponsors of terrorism," top U.S. counterterrorism official John Brennan said on Wednesday while introducing a new American anti-terrorism strategy.

"Hezbollah and Hamas are terrorist organizations that threaten Israel and our interests in the Middle East. We will therefore continue to use the full range of our foreign policy tools to prevent these regimes and terrorist organizations from endangering our national security," Brennan said.