There is a heavy security presence in the port city of Latakia
Syrian troops have deployed in force in the northern city of Latakia, where at least 12 people have died in a wave of unrest that has shaken the regime.
Officials blamed foreign forces for the violence, but residents said pro-government gangs started the clashes.
The authorities said on Sunday they would end decades of emergency rule, after protests erupted in at least six cities on Friday.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is expected to address the nation soon.
Sources say Mr Assad is likely to announce on Tuesday that he is lifting the state of emergency after nearly 50 years and taking steps to annul other restrictions on civil liberties and political freedoms.
There are great hopes among many Syrians that President Assad’s speech will put an end to the recent tension, says the BBC’s Lina Sinjab in the capital, Damascus.
The unrest started in the southern town of Deraa on 18 March and has spread to several cities nationwide. It is the biggest threat to the rule of President Assad, 45, who succeeded his father Hafez on his death in 2000.
Officials say more than 30 people have died since the unrest began, but activists put the toll at more than 100.
Some 90 people have been wounded in this weekend’s violence in Latakia
Syrian troops are now in control of Latakia, 350km (220 miles) north-west of Damascus, our correspondent says.
The government says 12 people were killed during clashes on Friday and Saturday, but residents say the number could be higher.
The streets of Latakia, home to 450,000 people, were completely deserted on Sunday and all shops remained closed.
An Associated Press photographer said two police cars had been smashed in the main Sheikh Daher square.
The offices of SyriaTel, the mobile phone company owned in large part by a cousin of President Assad, had been burned, he said.
At one of the city’s two hospitals, officials said they had treated 90 wounded people on Friday. Many had gunshot wounds to the hands or feet, while others were in critical condition, he added.
Deadly violence has also gripped cities in southern Syria for 10 days.
On Saturday, demonstrators set fire to the Baath party’s local headquarters in the town of Tafas.
On Sunday, several hundred men were holding a sit-in at the Omari Mosque in the nearby town of Deraa, the original focus of protests and scene of a crackdown by security forces last week.
There have also been protests in Hama, a northern city where in 1982 the forces of President Hafez al-Assad, Bashar’s father, killed thousands of people and razed much of the old quarter to put down an armed uprising by the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood.
Protesters have vowed to keep taking to the streets until all their demands for more freedom are met.
The government has tried to calm the situation by promising concessions.
Analysts say there are divergent views within the Syrian leadership on handing the crisis – one group favours a crackdown on the dissent while the other prefers dialogue.
Jihad Makdissi, the spokesman for the Syrian embassy in London, told the BBC World Service that an inquiry was under way into the violence and deaths during recent anti-government protests.
He said the president had intervened to put an end to a “chaotic situation” in Latakia, where people were “vandalising government institutions” and burning cars.
Mr Makdissi said that the promised reforms would include more freedom of speech and a more “democratic environment”.
In London, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights released a list of 41 names of people reportedly detained on Friday in and around Damascus, Homs, Deir al-Zor and other cities.
Amnesty International has issued a list of 93 people it says have been detained.
Reuters news agency meanwhile reported Sunday that two of its journalists in Syria – producer Ayat Basma and cameraman Ezzat Baltaji – were missing.
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The scrapping of EMA became part of the wave of student protests during the winter
The government is set to give details of a replacement scheme for Education Maintenance Allowances which were scrapped in England last year.
There have been reports that up to £180m could be available in discretionary support for students from low-income backgrounds.
The £560m EMA scheme had provided up to £30 per week to help teenagers stay on at sixth forms and colleges.
Education Secretary Michael Gove said the funding had been poorly-targeted.
But Labour’s Andy Burnham claimed scrapping the allowances would mean more youngsters dropping out of education and that social mobility would be “thrown into reverse”.
The funding, received by 650,000 16 to 19-year-olds in England, provided grants of between £10 and £30 per week – with the full amount for families with a household income of less than £21,817.
The allowances had been introduced by Labour in an attempt to tackle the longstanding problem of a high teenage drop-out rate from education, particularly among poorer students.
But the coalition government attacked the EMA scheme as wasteful – and said that it would replace it with a smaller, discretionary fund.
An anticipated increase in the size of this discretionary fund, to be announced on Monday, is likely to be seized upon by the opposition as evidence of a re-think.
Labour’s deputy leader, Harriet Harman, said it was going to be a “very half-hearted reinstatement”.
“The government were wrong to abolish it. I have seen the difference it made, not just to help people stay on, but also young people who do stay on don’t have to do so many hours part-time work to make ends meet.”
There are EMA schemes in Scotland and Wales which will continue. Allowances in Northern Ireland are under review.
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The BBC’s Mark Worthington says many people in Japan are becoming increasingly concerned about what is going to happen in the future
Highly radioactive water has been found for the first time outside one of the reactor buildings at Japan’s quake-hit Fukushima nuclear plant, officials say.
The leak in a tunnel linked to the No 2 reactor has raised fears of radioactive liquid seeping into the environment.
Earlier, Japan’s government strongly criticised the plant’s operator, Tepco, over mistaken radiation readings.
Officials said the radiation scare inside the No 2 reactor was caused by a partial meltdown of fuel rods.
This discovery of highly radioactive water outside a reactor building is a worrying development, says the BBC’s Mark Worthington in Tokyo.
Up until now, pools of water with extremely high levels of radiation have only been detected within the reactor buildings themselves.
FUKUSHIMA UPDATEReactor 1: Damage to the core from cooling problems. Building holed by gas explosion. Highly radioactive water detected in reactorReactor 2: Damage to the core from cooling problems. Building holed by gas blast; containment damage suspected. Highly radioactive water detected in reactor and adjoining tunnelReactor 3: Damage to the core from cooling problems. Building holed by gas blast; containment damage possible. Spent fuel pond partly refilled with water after running low. Highly radioactive water detected in reactorReactor 4: Reactor shut down prior to quake. Fires and explosion in spent fuel pond; water level partly restoredReactors 5 & 6: Reactors shut down. Temperature of spent fuel pools now lowered after rising high
Q&A: Fukushima radiation alert A new way to look at radiationThe water was found in an underground maintenance tunnel, with one end located about 55m (180ft) from the shore.
However, Tepco said there was no evidence that the contaminated water had reached the sea.
The discovery comes as Japan’s chief cabinet secretary said that the priority at the plant was to ensure that contaminated water did not leak into the soil or the sea.
Yukio Edano was speaking at a news conference a day after Tepco said radiation levels at reactor No 2 were 10 million times higher than normal before correcting that figure to 100,000.
“Considering the fact that the monitoring of radioactivity is a major condition to ensure safety, this kind of mistake is absolutely unacceptable,” Mr Edano said.
That water is the most contaminated to be found at the plant so far, exceeding 1,000 millisieverts per hour.
Tepco has apologised but the mistaken reading at the Fukushima Daiichi plant has called into question the operating company’s handling of the current crisis, our correspondent says.
Tepco has been criticised for a lack of transparency and failing to provide information more promptly and for making a number of mistakes, including worker clothing.
Two workers were taken to hospital last week after wading though contaminated water with inadequate protection. They were expected to be released on Monday.
Workers are battling to restore power and restart the cooling systems at the stricken nuclear plant, which was hit by a quake and tsunami over two weeks ago.
A 9.0-magnitude earthquake on 11 March and the powerful tsunami it triggered is now known to have killed 10,901 people, with more than 17,000 people still missing.
More than 190,000 people are living in temporary shelters.
The BBC’s Roland Buerk in Rikuzentakata, Iwate prefecture, says prefabricated houses are being wired for electricity, but there is initially room for only 150 of the 1,000 survivors there.
In Miyagi prefecture – another of the worst-hit areas – the authorities estimate it will be three years before all of the rubble and debris has been cleared.
Some 20,000 US troops are bolstering Japan’s Self-Defence Forces, delivering aid in what is said to be the biggest bilateral humanitarian mission the US has conducted in Japan.
As well as shortages of food, water and fuel, survivors are also having to endure frequent aftershocks.
Japan lifted a tsunami warning earlier on Monday that was issued after a 6.5-magnitude quake struck off the northern coast.
It is not reported to have caused any injuries or damage.
For the first time since the disaster, the government has permitted a foreign medical team to enter the country to treat victims, the Japan Times reports.
The health ministry has lifted a ban on holders of foreign medical licences from practising in Japan, allowing a team of 53 medical aid workers from Israel, including 14 doctors and seven nurses, to work.
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