Leaders of Muslim countries are expected to suspend Syria's membership of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation at a summit in Mecca on Wednesday, despite the vocal objections of President Bashar al-Assad's main ally Iran.

Ecuador is likely to announce a decision on whether to grant political asylum to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange before the end of the week in a case with diplomatic implications around the world, President Rafael Correa said on Monday.

China on Tuesday promised to help major firms invest in impoverished neighbor North Korea, signaling strong support for the North's untried young leader just as he is believed to be planning reforms to his country's broken economy.

Veteran fighters of last year's civil war in Libya have come to the front-line in Syria, helping to train and organize rebels under conditions far more dire than those in the battle against Muammar Gaddafi, a Libyan-Irish fighter has told Reuters

Syrian rebels fighting to oust President Bashar al-Assad need the protection of no-fly zones and safe havens patrolled by foreign forces near the borders with Jordan and Turkey, a Syrian opposition leader said.

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday issued a veiled warning about China's rising influence in Russia's resource-rich Far East, saying it was essential to defend the area against "excessive expansion by bordering states".

Egypt's Islamist President Mohamed Mursi dismissed Cairo's two top generals and quashed a military order that had curbed the new leader's powers, in a move that further stamped his authority on the country and its army.

Venezuelan security forces have arrested an American citizen who entered the nation illegally with geographical coordinates in a notebook, President Hugo Chavez said on Thursday.

Syrian forces have pushed rebels back from a strategic district of Aleppo, but skirmishes continued in the city and the United Nations said the conflict engulfing Syria would have no winner.

Libya's national assembly picked former opposition leader Mohammed Magarief as its president as the North African country's newly elected congress began its rule.

Syrian troops and rebels fought over the country's biggest city Aleppo as President Bashar al-Assad's key foreign backer Iran gathered ministers from like-minded states for talks on Thursday about how to end the conflict.

A Swiss laboratory will help investigate the unexplained 2004 death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat only if it receives guarantees its findings will not be used for political purposes, a spokesman for the lab said on Wednesday.

President Mohamed Mursi sacked the intelligence chief on Wednesday and Egyptian aircraft hit targets on the border with Israel in the biggest assault in the area in nearly 40 years after a deadly attack by militants on Egyptian border police.

Libya's ruling council handed over power to a newly elected national assembly on Wednesday in the North African country's first peaceful transition of power in its modern history but which comes amid heightened violence.

Emergency workers and troops rushed food, water and clothes to nearly 850,000 people displaced and marooned from deadly floods spawned by 11 straight days of southwest monsoon rains that soaked the Philippine capital and nearby provinces.

Abu Bakr, a Syrian rebel commander on the outskirts of Aleppo, is a devoted Islamist determined to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad. But the radical allies that have joined the rebels in recent months alarm even him.

Egypt launched air strikes near its border with Israel on Wednesday and killed more than 20 suspected Islamic militants, in a crackdown on jihadists blamed for a deadly attack on Egyptian border police, an army official and eyewitnesses said.

GUWAHATI, India, Aug 6 (AlertNet) - Hundreds of thousands of people sheltering in squalid, overcrowded camps in India's northeast desperately need food, water and medicines after fleeing some of the worst communal violence in a decade, officials

British Prime Minister David Cameron faces a public test of his government's slumping popularity after a prominent Conservative legislator said on Monday she was quitting for family reasons and moving to join her husband in New York.

Syrian Prime Minister Riyad Hijab has defected to the opposition seeking to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad, a spokesman for Hijab said on Monday, marking one of the highest profile desertions from the Damascus government.

Never mind the floods. Enjoy the rollercoaster ride and keep smiling.

Chief negotiators for the EU and Iran agreed on Thursday to hold more talks about Tehran's nuclear work, but the European Union gave no sign progress was imminent in the decade-long dispute.

Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is quitting as international peace envoy for Syria, frustrated by "finger-pointing" at the United Nations while the armed rebellion against President Bashar al-Assad becomes increasingly bloody.

Afghan security forces killed five insurgents and wounded one during a pre-dawn raid in Kabul on Thursday, with authorities saying they had thwarted a mass attack and captured intelligence pointing to the militant Haqqani network.

President Barack Obama has signed a secret order authorizing U.S. support for rebels seeking to depose Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his government, sources familiar with the matter said.

A woman has been hailed a hero after details of her astonishing work with abandoned children has emerged.

Iran should stop exporting crude oil and instead try to sell refined oil products, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying on Tuesday, a day after the United States moved to tighten sanctions on its energy sector.

Russian investigators charged opposition blogger and protest leader Alexei Navalny with theft on Tuesday, threatening one of President Vladimir Putin's most outspoken opponents with a 10-year jail sentence.

Half of India's 1.2 billion people were without power on Tuesday as the grids covering a dozen states broke down, the second major blackout in as many days and an embarrassment for the government as it struggles to revive economic growth.

Syrian helicopter gunships and artillery pounded two key areas of Aleppo on Tuesday, extending the army's campaign to control the country's biggest city, but rebel fighters said troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad had been forced to ret