LIBYA

A Syrian shelling of the opposition stronghold Homs has left two war journalists, Marie Colvin of British newspaper - The Sunday Times - and French photographer Rémi Ochlik, dead, and several other journalists injured, according to various reports.

Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham threw the Syrian gauntlet down to President Barack Obama, saying that anti-Assad protesters should be armed by the U.S.

The Zwai claim that the Tebu are reinforced by mercenaries from neighboring Chad.

Monaco's Prince Pierre Casiraghi was bloodied in a fight Saturday at the Double Seven nightclub in New York City's Meatpacking District. However, the business man and former nightclub owner Adam Hock, who has been charged with assault in the incident, claims the 24-year-old son of Princess Caroline and grandson of former Hollywood actress Grace Kelly started the brawl.

Keen to boost his notoriously bullish image, Putin said in a newspaper article that Russia would spend 23 trillion roubles ($770 billion) over a decade to modernize the former superpower's armed forces, warning of the need to protect the country from new regional and local wars sparked by foreign powers.

After a year of protests, diplomatic wrangling and an assassination attempt, Yemenis will draw a line under Ali Abdullah Saleh's three-decade rule Tuesday by voting in an uncontested election to install his deputy as president.

Police and regime militia patrols fanned out in Damascus' Mezze district Sunday to prevent a repeat of protests against President Bashar al-Assad that have threatened his grip on the capital, opposition activists said.

Police and militia patrols fanned out in the Syrian capital's Mezze district on Sunday to prevent a repeat of protests against President Bashar al-Assad that have threatened his grip on Damascus, opposition activists said.

African Union Chairman Thomas Boni Yayi will visit some of the continent's conflict areas -- including Sudan, South Sudan, Mali, and Libya -- for direct talks, an aide said on Saturday.

Algerian security forces have found a large cache of weapons, including shoulder-fired missiles, which they believe were smuggled in from neighboring Libya, a security source briefed on the discovery told Reuters on Saturday.

Amnesty International describes the situation in northern Mali as the country’s worst crisis in two decades.

The government of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez is emerging as a rare supplier of diesel to Syria, potentially helping the government of the Middle Eastern country's Bashar al-Assad fuel its military in the midst of a bloody crackdown on civilian protests and undermining Western sanctions.

Syrian government forces, disregarding U.N. condemnation, renewed their bombardment of the opposition stronghold of Homs on Saturday as a Chinese minister prepared for talks with embattled President Bashar al-Assad.

The U.S. economy is growing at a respectable 2.8 percent annual rate, the U.S. jobs market has added 243,000 nonfarm payrolls in January and the S&P 500 Index is up eight percent year-to-date. Nouriel Roubini's economic prediction for 2012, however, is still decidedly bearish.

France and England signed a new nuclear-energy pact on Friday that will lead to the construction of more nuclear power plants in the United Kingdom, with more than 500 million pounds sterling ($791 million) of private-sector investment.

The New York Times lost one of its leading Middle East correspondents, Anthony Shadid, Tuesday when he suffered a fatal asthma attack while on assignment in Syria.

Renowned and respected, Anthony Shadid of the New York Times died on Thursday of an asthma attack in Syria. The entire journalism community mourns his death, remembering him for his accurate and moving stories on the Middle East and the peoples' suffering in the region.

Shadid, 43, was on a reporting assignment in eastern Syria when he died, according to an obituary posted on the Times web site. It said Shadid was carried across the border into Turkey by Times photographer Tyler Hicks.

In an interesting turn of events, will the entry of al-Qaeda comically twist the balance as it will be naturally pitted against the Hezbollah, the feared Shia militia actively supported and patronized by Iran? Assad's promise of a regional conflict could come true then!

Anthony Shadid, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner reporting for the New York Times, died Thursday in Syria. The American reporter, of Lebanese origin, leaves behind a wife and two children.

General Electric Co believes China's economy, a key source of revenue growth for the largest U.S. conglomerate, will slow this year but not substantially below 8 percent, said the executive who runs the company's international operations.