A Syrian general and friend of Syrian President Bashar Assad fled the country on Thursday and is seeking to go to France, according to reports.

A friend of Brig. Gen. Manaf Tlas, who headed a unit of Syria’s elite Republican Guard, left Syria and arrived in Turkey on Thursday, Reuters reported.

“He left Syria and arrived yesterday in Turkey. He wants to come to France to join his family," the friend told Reuters by telephone from Paris.

A group of more than 1,000 Internet experts, researchers and observers are split on how far technology companies will go to cooperate with authoritarian governments in the future.

In a survey released Thursday by the Pew Center and Elon University, 51 percent of experts agreed that by 2020, tech companies based in democratic countries will be expected to protect their users from being attacked or monitored by their governments.

But 39 percent predicted the opposite, agreeing with the statement that tech companies will minimize how useful their tools are for political activism to stay on good terms with autocratic regimes.

The United Nations's Human Rights Council on Thursday backed a first-of-its-kind resolution affirming that people have the same rights in the digital world as they do offline, including freedom of expression.

More than 80 countries signed on to co-sponsor the Internet freedom resolution, including 30 members of the council. The United States, Tunisia, Brazil, Nigeria, Turkey and Sweden presented the resolution. 

“This outcome is momentous for the Human Rights Council,” said Ambassador Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe. “It’s the first ever UN resolution affirming that human rights in the digital realm must be protected and promoted to the same extent and with the same commitment as human rights in the physical world.”

Chavez is leading a movement "that seeks to undermine freedom, diminish prosperity and expand tyranny,” Romney said.

The Treasury Department on Thursday hit six people with financial sanctions for their links to a Somali Islamist group, including two Eritrean military officials.

The inclusion of Col. Tewolde Habte Negash and Brig. Gen. Taeme Abraham Goitom, the head of Eritrean External Intelligence, is a warning sign that the United States will sanction anyone suspected of supporting al Shabaab, which the State Department considers a terrorist group. Both Eritrea and al Shabaab have long been in conflict with regional powerhouse Ethiopia, a U.S. ally.

“Today, the United States imposed sanctions on six individuals who threaten peace in Somalia,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said in a statement. “These individuals all have links to the terrorist organization al Shabaab, which remains one of the greatest obstacles to restoring stability in Somalia. The sanctioning of two Eritrean military officials underscores the ongoing concern about Eritrea's violations of Security Council resolutions. Thwarting Somalia’s path to peace and creating regional discord will not be tolerated. The United States condemns, in the strongest terms, all acts that further destabilize Somalia and bring harm to innocent civilians.”

The individuals' addition to the Office of Foreign Assets Control's list of Specially Designated Nationals blocks their assets and bars Americans from doing business with them.

A July 4th Web post from the U.S. consulate in Hong Kong that repeats past communist praise for the United States has gone viral in China, The Wall Street Journal reports. Read more...

Iran is repainting its tankers in an attempt to conceal the excess oil that they are now carrying due to sanctions slashing Iranian oil exports, The New York Times reported.

The report from Iranian port city Bandar Abbas found that a fleet of 65 tankers have become “floating storage facilities” for Iran’s oil that it can’t export. One tanker, Neptune, had a fresh coat of black paint, but the ship’s real name was Iran Astaneh, the Times reported.

Iran’s oil exporting problems have grown this month as new sanctions kicked in from the European Union, which stopped importing Iranian oil. Those sanctions, along with ones enacted by the United States, have taken a bite out of Iran’s economy, which relies on oil exports.

The first batch of 25 files suggest technology from Italy's Finmeccanica industrial group has been used in Bashar Assad's crackdown.

The European Parliament voted overwhelmingly against a deal that the entertainment industry argues would combat copyright theft.