Syrian troops today shelled the central region of Houla where more than 100 people were massacred last week, activists said.

The eurozone crisis should not stop EU countries from co-ordinating their foreign policies, Herman van Rompuy told an audience in London today.

The rapper-come-director's new film explores the urban tensions that led to last summer's riots – and he's not the only one finding cinematic inspiration in social unrest

Israel has handed over the bodies of 91 Palestinian militants to the government in the West Bank in an effort to induce President Mahmoud Abbas to renew peace talks.

The two sons of Hosni Mubarak, the deposed President, were charged with insider trading yesterday and are to be tried before a criminal court. They were among nine men who made illicit gains from the sale of a bank, according to a statement from the prosecutor-general's office which was reported by the state news agency. It gave no other details.

An Israeli journalist is to be indicted for possession of classified Israel Defence Forces (IDF) documents in a decision strongly criticised yesterday by the head of the country's Press Council.

A seven-decade old cultural taboo will be broken next month when an Israeli symphony orchestra will play works by Richard Wagner inside the country for the first time since the state's foundation in 1948.

A top Israeli minister has fed speculation that the Jewish state could be responsible for a powerful new virus said to have been used in an attack on computers across the Middle East.

Al-Qa'ida's second in command in Afghanistan has been killed in an air strike in eastern Kunar province, Nato says.

The Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has sparked a furious response from women's rights activists after comparing abortions to botched air strikes that last year killed of scores of Kurdish civilians.

Ever since word of the Flame virus first got out the superlatives have come in thick and fast.

Is there a market for Saddam Hussein's autobiography? His eldest daughter Raghad thinks so. Now living in exile in Jordan, she's hawking the handwritten manuscript around publishers. Details of their contents or composition are unknown, but Raghad's lawyer, Haitham Nabil al-Harsh, told an Arab news channel: "These are the only real memoirs Saddam Hussein wrote by hand, and they will be released as soon as we find a publishing house."

It was in Assad's interests to avoid any atrocities. But the regime could not restrain its forces

The Muslim Brotherhood’s presidential nominee attempted to shore up his support in Egypt today by offering to open up senior political positions for Christians and promising not to impose Islamic dress codes for women.