The rubbish has been collected but snipers kill people after dark. Patrick Cockburn reports from a Damascus suburb

After months of disruption, the capital's Leicester Square is being reopened tomorrow to show off its £15.3 million makeover.

A new ‘community trigger’ is to be introduced to replace the discredited ASBO scheme, and make it quicker and easier for police to investigate complaints of anti-social behaviour.

Health Secretary given rough ride at RCN conference as Labour tries to take advantage

Outlandish names are no longer confined to the celebrity sphere

Hundreds of students protested in Syria's northern city of Aleppo yesterday after President Bashar al-Assad's security forces stormed the university, allegedly using live ammunition against students and slinging their belongings out of windows during a rampage that left part of the campus in flames.

Bahrain's highest appeals court has delayed giving a verdict on a jailed hunger striker and other activists seeking to overturn their sentences linked to the Shia-led uprising against the Sunni monarchy.

Formula One drivers took to the race track following days of violent clashes between police and protesters in Bahrain yesterday, with organisers defying calls for the controversial Grand Prix to be cancelled.

Protesting youths burn tyres in streets as organisers go ahead with controversial race

Formula One cars took to the track in Bahrain today, while the government, hoping for a successful Grand Prix, squared off against activists determined to mark it with "days of rage" after more than a year of Arab Spring protests.

The former high-ranking Metropolitan Police officer currently advising the Bahraini government has said that security cannot be guaranteed at the upcoming Grand Prix.

It was hardly an uplifting sight that greeted me when I left home on Easter Saturday afternoon. A very tall man with dreadlocks dismounted from a yellow bike and urinated in the doorway of the boarded-up pub opposite. I told him I thought it was disgusting. He told me it was none of my business. I said it was, because I lived there. He pedalled off, with two-fingers up.

Predictions that unemployment may jump by September make sober reading for Easter. According to the think-tank, the Institute for Public Policy Research, 100,000 more jobs will go during the next six months, mainly in the public sector, while private sector growth will be more than matched by an increase in the total number seeking work.

A man has been banned from carrying scissors in public after he sneaked up on two unsuspecting women and cut their hair, police said today.