Syrian authorities will attend talks in January aimed at resolving the civil war but will not succumb to Western demands for President Bashar al-Assad to step aside, a Foreign Ministry source said on Wednesday. It was the first formal response from Damascus to this week's...

Women refugees who escaped Syria's conflict to find sanctuary in neighbouring Lebanon have been sexually harassed by employers, landlords and an employee of a local aid group, Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday. The organisation said it interviewed a dozen women who described being...

Attacks in Iraq, including suicide bombings against police and the killing of a family, left 11 people dead Wednesday, part of a surge in violence authorities have struggled to stem. The bloodshed, which has left nearly 6,000 people dead so far this year in the worst violence to hit...

When he was agitating for revolution, urging fellow Syrians to rise up against President Bashar al-Assad, Abdullah dreaded the midnight knock at the door from the secret police. Now that the uprising has succeeded in his home town near Aleppo, pro-democracy activists are living in fear...