The   Syrian tragedy   grows more ferocious by the week. I was shocked to learn this weekend that at least 2,000 Afghans, the poorest of the poor from the harshest country on earth – who fled the Soviet invasion of their land and then the post-Russian civil...

Syria's opposition is edging towards agreeing to international peace talks in Geneva but wants approval from fighters inside the country first to give the process more legitimacy, sources at talks in Istanbul said late on Saturday. The leadership of the Syrian National Coalition is...

Behind a veil of secrecy, at least 30 journalists have been kidnapped or have disappeared in Syria — held and threatened with death by extremists or taken captive by gangs seeking ransom. The widespread seizure of journalists is unprecedented, and has been largely unreported by news...

A giant rat killed a one-year-old baby in Western Yemen after eating parts of his body, leaving the mother in nervous breakdown and the town in relentless hunt for the rodent, Yemeni press reported on Tuesday. The baby was laying at a clay hut in al-Hadith district in Western Yemen...

  Qatar's Emir criticized Tuesday what he claimed were unconditional terms for a proposed peace conference on Syria, saying the talks would lead nowhere and should focus on "achieving justice" for Syria's people, according to Nahar net.  Sheikh Tamim bin...

  Hardline conservatives in Iran are gearing up for the commemoration of the 1979 seizure of the US embassy in Tehran on Tuesday. Preparations for the anniversary are happening amid signs of a possible backlash against the recent easing of tensions in US–Iranian...

Saudi authorities announced on Monday that Syrian workers who had violated their labor permit conditions would be exempt from deportation. Maj. Gen. Mansour Al-Turki, a spokesman for the interior ministry, said: “Current circumstances in Syria do not allow us to force...

  Iran's deputy oil minister, Ali Majedi, said Monday on that Pakistan must finance a controversial pipeline that would enable it to buy gas from the Islamic republic. Majedi's remarks come after Pakistan's Oil Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi asked Iran to stump up $2 billion (1.45...

Mohamed Morsi  did not look like a man who had just spent four months in a secret prison with barely any contact with the outside world. Dressed in a dark suit and no tie, and still full of figure, he did not even look like a prisoner. And he tried not to sound like one, either....

Ousted Egyptian president Mohamed Mursi arrived at a Cairo police academy on Monday to face trial in what opponents of the army-backed government say is part of a campaign to crush his Muslim Brotherhood and revive a police state. It is the second time in just over two years that an...

French Foreign Ministry confirms that RFI journalists were abducted and killed by gunmen outside town of Kidal. Two French journalists have been killed in the northern Mali town of Kidal after being abducted by gunmen. Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon, both journalists with...

Tunisia's ruling Islamist Ennahda party and the opposition have failed to reach an agreement on appointing a new prime minister, with both sides pledging to continue negotiations. After an unsuccessful meeting on Saturday morning, the parties sat down behind closed doors again at around...

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will visit Egypt on Sunday for the first time since the army toppled the country's first freely elected president on July 3, state news agency MENA said. It said the visit to Egypt, whose alliance with the United States has come under strain, would only...

Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud was killed on Friday in a U.S. drone strike, security and intelligence sources said, in the latest blow to the Islamist militant group. The al-Qaeda-linked insurgent group confirmed the death of Mehsud, believed to be in his mid-30s....

    The Ministry of Labor has ruled out an extension of the amnesty period and warned illegal workers and Saudi employers that countrywide raids would start on Nov. 4. Hattab Al-Enezi, the ministry’s spokesman, rejected on Thursday reports carried by some channels...

Private CBC TV station says it has stopped Bassem Youssef's satirical show because it violates its editorial policies. A controversial satirical show of Egyptian comedian Bassem Youssef has been taken off air after being accused of violating editorial policies. A private...

Most of the nearly 1,000 people killed last month were civilians, according to government figures. Nearly 1,000 people were killed across Iraq in October, making it the country's deadliest month since April 2008, figures compiled by government ministries showed.. A total of...

Tunisian security forces arrested on Tuesday five people suspected of plotting a suicide bombing that shook a tourist resort and a foiled attack on the tomb of independence leader Habib Bourguiba. “The interior ministry’s specialized security units have managed in a short time...

     Each Saturday morning in July and August, Susan E. Rice ,  President Obama ’s new national security adviser, gathered half a dozen aides in her corner office in the White House to plot America’s future in the Middle East. The policy review, a kind...

  Three people died overnight in Lebanon's northern city of Tripoli in clashes between supporters and opponents of Syria's regime, bringing to nine the toll this week, an official said Saturday.   Sunni and Alawite gunmen have been fighting in the Bab al-Tebbaneh...