ANKARA- Turkey shelled Syria on Wednesday in retaliation for cross-border fire that killed five of its nationals, in a sharp escalation of tensions between the neighbours. NATO and major Western...

CAIRO- Egyptian police arrested two Coptic Christian children accused of insulting Islam by allegedly urinating on a paper containing verses of the Koran, a judicial official said on Wednesday. Nabil...

TUNIS- Tunisian Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali pledged on Wednesday to guarantee press freedom and resolve the heightened tensions between his government and the media, one of his advisers said. During...

PARIS- Astronomers said Wednesday they had found evidence of something they never expected to see -- two black holes lurking inside a 12-billion-year-old cluster of tightly-packed stars in our Milky...

DUBAI- Six Bahraini medics were jailed on Tuesday, a day after their conviction in connection with last year's anti-regime protests were upheld by the kingdom's highest court, lawyers said. The...

ALEPPO, Syria- Army shelling and air raids killed dozens of civilians including children in Syrian flashpoints on Monday, a watchdog said, while rebels and loyalists fought close-quarter battles in...

CAIRO- Egyptian doctors began a partial strike on Monday to demand better pay and working conditions, their syndicate said. Doctors at 540 government hospitals have stopped work, but emergency and...

DAMASCUS- A suicide bomber blew up a car in the Kurdish city of Qamishli on Sunday, state television said, in the first such attack in Syria's mainly Kurdish northeast, which has largely kept out of...

CAIRO- Television channel chief and presenter Tawfiq Okasha, who is on trial for alleged incitement to murder Egypt's President Mohamed Morsi, was arrested on Sunday for former convictions passed in...