Middle East
Saudi Arabia's official press agency says one person was killed and three injured in a gunfight between "masked persons" and security forces in the country's eastern Qatif region.
Tens of thousands of Yemenis rallied in cities across the country Friday calling for sweeping political changes as President Ali Abdullah Saleh approaches what appears to be the end of his 33-year rule.
An Iranian semiofficial news agency reports that the Hamas prime minister of Gaza has arrived in Tehran. The visit may be an attempt by the Palestinian militant movement to avoid snubbing Iran even as it cultivates ties with the wealthy Gulf.
Egypt's security chief for the Sinai peninsula says armed tribesmen have kidnapped three Korean tourists and their Egyptian guide.
Israel says it has successfully tested an upgraded radar for the Arrow missile defense system, developed with the United States and designed to intercept projectiles that might be fired at the Jewish state from Iran.
The lawyer representing deposed Tunisian dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali has condemned as illegal efforts to sell the former president's seized properties.
Algeria's president has announced on state television that elections will be held May 10.
Egypt's ruling generals have a new enemy: the legions of angry soccer fans who have injected fervor into recent protests demanding the military step down and battled police for days in the streets of Cairo.
Iran's official news agency reported Thursday that the navy has added two more domestically built light submarines to its fleet.
Hamas appears to be drifting away from its longtime patron Iran - part of a shift that began with last year's Arab Spring and accelerated over Tehran's backing of the pariah regime in Syria.
An Iranian opposition website reported Thursday that authorities have banned one of the daughters of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi from her teaching job.
Three conservative clerics whose arrests nine years ago heralded the beginning of Morocco's crackdown on Islamists called on Thursday for a new investigation into their country's worst terrorist attack.
Two explosions struck security compounds in Aleppo on Friday, killing 28 people, state media reported, the first significant violence in a major city that has largely stood by Syrian President Bashar Assad in the 11-month-old uprising against his rule.
Tens of thousands of anti-government protesters in Bahrain are streaming toward a site they seek to occupy for the one-year anniversary of their uprising in the Gulf kingdom.
Egyptian authorities barred a British woman from leaving Egypt on Friday because she is on a list of people under investigation over ties to foreign nonprofit groups accused of fomenting unrest in the country, an airport official said.
A Jordanian prosecutor says he has ordered a powerful former intelligence chief to be detained for 14 days pending a probe on charges of embezzlement of public funds, money laundering and abuse of office.
