Wherever he goes, Los Angeles Philharmonic music director Gustavo Dudamel is hailed as a symbol of El Sistema, Venezuela's model music education program. But Tuesday Dudamel arrived in L.A. as the subject of criticism for not speaking out against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro's policies.

Yesterday, Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo López, whom the government has blamed for the recent protests, promised to turn himself in under one condition: that the protests continue in Caracas today. This morning, tens of thousands of people obliged. Twitter has been flooded with aerial pictures of the mass protests—many of which Venezuela’s government seems to prefer no one see, as it blocked some of them from appearing for a time, according to the company.

UN officials lashed out as violence threatened efforts to help civilians. 'We understand that a war is going on. But even wars have rules,' the UN humanitarian chief said angrily. It has not been a promising 24 hours for mediation and humanitarian efforts in Syria. The UN's humanitarian chief lambasted the effort to provide aid to the Syrian city of Homs Thursday night, and today, UN special envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi warned that the failure of ongoing negotiations was "staring us in the face."

Among Venezuelans taking to the streets are student protesters who, in the past, have proven to be a powerful political force. Using Twitter as well as street demonstrations, the students offer a boost to a weak and disjointed opposition. Tens of thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets of Caracas and other cities Wednesday in the biggest antigovernment protests yet during the 10-month term of President Nicolas Maduro. Pro-government demonstrators also turned out, sparking confrontations that reportedly left three people dead.

Bosnians were working to clean the streets of their capital on Sunday, and assessing the political ramifications of three days of unprecedented unrest over unemployment, political paralysis and corruption that for some brought back painful memories of the Balkan country’s 1992-95 war.

On Friday the Popular Committees of the World Cup published a list of their 8 demands for the federal and state governments in Brazil. This is attracting a good amount of interest in Brazil and has been shared on the blogs of some of the most popular sports journalists in Brazil. So far, I haven’t seen an English language version of these demands so I’ve translated them below.

As U.S. mediated Middle East peace talks enter their seventh month, mounting tensions have emerged between Israel and Washington. Israeli officials are furious after Secretary of State John Kerry warned that if peace talks with the Palestinians fail, Israel could face growing international boycotts. Kerry was speaking at a security conference in Munich.

US Secretary of State John Kerry is reaching the last stretch of the first round (out of 12 at least) of the hopeless boxing match he is waging against the bitter fate in the Middle East. Kerry's paper will probably be called Terms of Reference, which is not easily translatable into Hebrew. Several alternative and loose translations are possible — such as "principles of reference," "an agreed-upon basis for discussion" or "negotiation guidelines" — and with them just as many variations.