U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry suggested on Tuesday that Israel's announcement of plans to build about 700 housing units in East Jerusalem was the proximate cause for the near collapse of its peace talks with the Palestinians. However, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki...

An Egyptian appeals court on Monday upheld the jailing of three leading figures of the 2011 pro-democracy uprising, tightening a crackdown on secular activists opposed to the army-backed government. Critics see their case as an attempt to stifle the kind of political street...

President Bashar al-Assad has forecast that much of the fighting in the Syrian civil war will be over by the end of the year, a former Russian prime minister was quoted on Monday as saying. "This is what he told me: 'This year the active phase of military action in Syria...