Despite a war, the Syrian government appears determined to go ahead with presidential elections on June 3. It is widely believed that President Bashar al-Assad will easily be elected to a seven-year term. The vote is to be held under new rules that block major Syrian opposition figures...

AP, Beirut- Activists say a makeshift bomb dropped from a Syrian government helicopter has killed at least five people, including two children. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory says the air raid took place Saturday in the town of Sarmeen in the northwestern province of Idlib. It...

Syria's Aleppo has been hit by a power cut for seven consecutive days, a monitoring group said Friday, the day after some 50 civilians were killed in air raids there. Regime-controlled areas of the city and countryside “have been deprived of electricity for seven days, after the...

    Egypt recorded its first MERS infection after a person who arrived from Saudi Arabia tested positive for the virus, state media reported on Saturday. MERS infections have killed 92 people in Saudi Arabia, where the coronavirus was first...