*News and analysis

At least 24 people have been killed and dozens others wounded in a bomb attack in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, officials say. The explosion took place on Wednesday morning in a busy fruit and vegetable market. “We have received 15 dead bodies and 35 injured people,” said Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences ...

Malaysia has a serious human rights problem, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW), which released a 100+ page report entitled “No Answers, No Apologies” detailing abuses by Malaysian authorities. The report comes on the heels of accounts that Malaysia arrested infants from the country’s minority Shia Muslim sect, based upon the “crime” ...

Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said Sunday that the Syrian regime is no longer in danger of being toppled by rebels, adding that the world wants to see a diplomatic solution to the country’s ongoing crisis. Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah said that rebels taking over the country is no longer an option, ...

A high-ranking Omani official has praised Iran’s prominent role in the evolution of jurisprudential issues. Speaking on the sidelines of the 13th Meeting of Development of Jurisprudential Sciences in the Omani capital Muscat on Sunday, Omani Foreign Minister Yusuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah said Iran’s involvement in ideological and religious ...

CAIRO, Egypt — Since when does the British government take orders from Saudi Arabia? That’s the question raised by a seemingly dry news story out of the UK this past week. The story, which emerged Tuesday, was that UK Prime Minister David Cameron recently ordered an inquiry into the links between ...

Drive north from the capital, and you soon discover why relief workers call the Central African Republic a post-apocalyptic country. After a year of mass murder, the villages are abandoned and the roads eerily empty and desolate. The checkpoints are controlled by cold-eyed men from largely Christian militias who brandish ...

PARIS, April 4 (Reuters) – Far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen said on Friday it would prevent schools from offering special lunches to Muslim pupils in the 11 towns it won in local elections, saying such arrangements were contrary to France’s secular values. France’s republic has a strict secular ...

Omar Bakri Mohammad is on the run in Lebanon, officials say, after his house was raided as part of an operation to end the sectarian violence in Tripoli. The Sunni cleric is among 200 individuals wanted in connection with their alleged role in clashes that have left 30 people dead ...

A training barracks used by Roman gladiators and the 2,000-year-old mausoleum of the Emperor Augustus could be restored with money from the Saudi royal family, in the latest effort by Italy to secure funding for its crumbling cultural heritage. In a deal brokered by Ignazio Marino, the mayor of Rome, ...

FIFA has threatened to expel Israel over its treatment of Palestinian football players and officials in the occupied West Bank and the besieged Gaza Strip. The Inside World Football website said in a report on Monday that FIFA gave Israel until summer to improve playing conditions and travel for the ...