By Sami Aboudi DUBAI (Reuters) - Shi'ite Muslims in the Gulf, alarmed by the shrill sectarian rhetoric of some Sunni clerics after Lebanon's Hezbollah militia entered Syria's civil war, fear they will be blamed and may be victimized for the bloodshed. "Hate language is on the rise, in the press, on social media and even at lectures in mosques. Shi'ites in general are being blamed for what's happening in Syria," said Waleed Sulais, a researcher at the Saudi Adalah Centre for Human Rights.

Australia's opposition on Wednesday accused Prime Minister Julia Gillard of playing the gender card amid continued speculation on her leadership ahead of the September federal election. In a speech she gave at a Women for Gillard Labor Party fundraiser on Tuesday, the prime minister warned that women would "once again (be) banished from the center of Australia's political life" under a government led by opposition leader Tony Abbott.

With no end in sight to Syria's conflict, some refugees in Jordan are offering their daughters for early marriage in the hope of securing them protection as they face growing economic pressure. Syrian refugee Abu Mohammad says he reluctantly opted to marry off his teenage daughter to a rich 40-year-old Saudi man, hoping to give her a better life and ease his family's financial hardships.

So revered is Nelson Mandela today that it is easy to forget that for decades he was considered a terrorist by many foreign governments, and some of his now supporters. The anti-apartheid hero was on a US terror watch list until 2008 and while still on Robben Island, Britain's late "Iron Lady" Margaret Thatcher described his African National Congress as a "typical terrorist organisation." That Mandela's image has been transformed so thoroughly is a testament to the man's achievements, but also, in part, to a concert that took place in London 25 years ago this week.