(Reuters) - A liberal activist sentenced to prison and flogging in Saudi Arabia  underwent the first round of 50 lashes in public after Friday prayers, rights watchdog Amnesty International said. Raif Badawi, who set up the "Free Saudi Liberals" website, was arrested in June...

(Reuters) - At least 2,100 people died in Syrian prisons last year and the bodies of many showed signs of torture, a monitoring group said on Friday, quoting the families of deceased detainees. The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it believed the true figure to be...

(Reuters) -  Saudi Arabia  has arrested three Saudi nationals and four Syrians over links to a suicide bombing and gun attack on the kingdom's border with Iraq, the first ground assault by militants on the frontier in years. On Monday, militants killed two Saudi...

(Reuters) - French anti-terrorist police surrounded a small northern town and helicopters hovered overhead after at least one person was taken hostage in a print works by two men believed to have carried out an attack on a Paris satirical journal. Earlier, police had chased a...