Votes are being counted in Egypt after the second day of polls in the first parliamentary elections since President Hosni Mubarak was ousted. There were again long lines outside polling stations in Cairo and other big Egyptian cities. The vote itself was largely calm. General Ismail Atman, a member of the ruling military council, said he expected turnout in this first round to exceed 70%. Another member of the council, Maj Gen Mukhtar al-Mulla, called the t... Read more »

Nineteen people have been killed and 22 injured by a suicide car bomber at prison gate near Baghdad. The attack occurred in the town of Taji at 08:00 local time, some 25km (15 miles) north of the capital. The casualties reportedly include prison staff, security guards, and police officers. "There was smoke and fire all around the place. I saw bodies of four policemen on the ground and scattered flesh," Bbc.co.uk quotes police officer Hisham Ahmed as saying.

Saudi police have taken extra precaution measures and are on high alert following violence that broke out in the east of the country. Saudi police put up checkpoints around the town of Qatif, after two people were killed and six others were wounded earlier this week in crossfire between security forces and what the Saudi interior ministry called ‘criminals serving a foreign power’. Slogans condemning the royal family have appeared walls throughout the Qatif... Read more »

Mauritania this week gave its airwaves to two new television and five radio private broadcasters. Communications Minister Hamdi Ould Mahjoub handed out licences at a ceremony in the capital city of Nouakchott, where he admitted that the move was "a real challenge" but "should not be assimilated with anarchy"."We should rather submit this operation, as the law stipulates, to precise and clear rules dictated by our social and cultural realities and specific a... Read more »

Parliamentary elections have began in Morocco. The referendum in the north African kingdom was brought forward in response to the Arab Spring riots. It is the first poll since the introduction of a new constitution, proposed by King Mohammed VI, was approved by a referendum in July.It is expected to be a close contest between a moderate Islamist opposition party and a new coalition of liberals closely tied to the royal palace. Both parliament and the PM wil... Read more »

Arab League foreign ministers arrived in Cairo on Thursday to discuss imposing sanctions on Syria for failing to implement the signed Arab League plan to end a crackdown on protests against President Bashar al-Assad rule. The League has suspended Syria and threatened sanctions. The kind of sanctions is not specified. “Syria has not offered anything to move the situation forward,” Alarabiya.net quotes a senior Arab diplomat at the League as saying. “The posi... Read more »

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has arrived in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, to sign a deal under which he will resign. Under the document, brokered by Yemen's Gulf Arab neighbours, Mr Saleh, 69, is to send his powers to his deputy ahead of an early election. The president has been facing protests against his dictatorship since the beginning of the year, reported.

Jordan's King Abdullah II was yesterday holding talks in Ramallah with Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas on his first visit to the West Bank in more than a decade. The talks were held just days ahead of a key summit between the rival Palestinian movements Fatah and Hamas, who are intend to make a unity deal that has drawn fierce opposition from Tel-Aviv and Washington. In a few days Abbas who is also Fatah leader heads to Cairo to meet exiled Hamas chief Khal... Read more »

A bus carrying Turkish pilgrims has come under attack in northern Syria, near Homs. At least two people, one of them the bus driver, were injured in the attack. The bus passengers were returning from the Hajj - the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia. "We confirm that an attack took place in Syria," Bbc.co.uk reported a foreign ministry official as saying. He didn’t give any further information, but reminded about Turkey's warning to its citizen... Read more »

Ousted Libyan leader Moamer Gathafi's son Seif al-Islam and one-time successor has been arrested according to information of senior National Transitional Council official. Seif al-Islam wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), was "arrested in the couth of Libya" by former rebel forces. As the last key figure of the Gathafi regime to have avoided capture or not to have escaped abroad, news of his arrest was greeted in the capital city of Tripoli by... Read more »