Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, incumbent Yemeni president, has fired two military chiefs loyal to his predecessor Ali Abdullah Saleh. Air force chief General Mohamed Saleh al-Ahmar, Saleh's half-brother, and head of the presidential guard General Tarek Mohamed Abdullah Saleh, his nephew were both sacked. Hadi also fired nearly 20 top officers of old-regime loyalists in a major shake-up of the country's military, Aljazeera.com reported.

The president of the Saudi Arabia Olympic Committee hasn’t allowed sending women to London 2012. Prince Nawaf bin Faisal said his agency was "not endorsing any female participation at the moment." Sue Tibballs, chief executive of the Women's Sport and Fitness Foundation, said the Saudi actions were unacceptable. "We would expect the International Olympic Committee to exclude Saudi Arabia," bbc.co.uk quotes her as saying

Syrian troops have launched fresh assaults on rebels, , as the government prepares to host UN delegation headed by the mediator Kofi Annan. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says several towns have been shelled. Homs, Deraa and Damascus are among them. across Syria. Mr Annan, the UN and Arab League special envoy, is due to address the UN General Assembly on Thursday this week. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has reported fresh clashes in the s... Read more »

Somalia's Olympic committee and football heads are among seven people killed by a bomb in Mogadishu. Prime Minister Abdiweli Mohamed Ali was also at the place when the blast struck the newly re-opened national theatre but he reportedly was unhurt. Militants from the al-Shabab group took responsibility for the bombing, bbc.co.uk reported. The African Union (AU) peacekeeping mission in Somalia condemned the attack as "despicable" and said it would not stop pe... Read more »

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, has expressed concerns over a move by the United Arab Emirates to shut down a US-funded rights advocacy group. "We very much regret it," Aljazeera.com quotes Ms. Clinton as saying. "We are as you know, as anyone who has visited the United States, strong believers in a vibrant civil society ... I expect our discussions on this issue to continue," she added. Clinton said she had discussed the closure with Sheikh Abd... Read more »

Top Sudanese security officials headed to crisis negotiations in the Ethiopian capital on Saturday after a following fresh clashes allegedly backed by South Sudan. "Now the ministerial delegation is leaving for Addis Ababa, after the AU informed us that the South Sudanese delegation arrived yesterday," Middle-east-online.com quotes Al-Obeid Meruh, Sudan's foreign ministry spokesman as saying. Earlier, Meruh said fighting on Friday over the strategic town of... Read more »

The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt has nominated its deputy chairman and group's financier, Khairat al-Shatir, as its candidate for the presidential elections due to be held in May. The choice of Mr Shatir reverses a pledge made earlier by the movemant's leaders not to contest the election. It will again raise concerns among liberals and the military that the Brotherhood could become too powerful. The party won around a third of the vote, and nearly half the s... Read more »

Amnesty International group has demanded the inprisoned Bahraini human rights activist, Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, be released "immediately and unconditionally".51 days ago Khawaja startedn a hunger strike for the and as his condition deteriorates there is growing concern that he may die in jail. He is refusing food in protest at the life sentence he was convicted in June for allegedly plotting against the state. Amnesty activists described his trial by a milita... Read more »

Kuwait's Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber Mubarak Al-Sabah Wednesday had to defend his government's actions on two alleged corruption scandals. The palliament questioning was brought by Shiite MP Saleh Ashour, a strong supporter of former Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Mohammad al-Ahmad Al-Sabah who was forced to resign last November over the two alleged scandals. The first bribes case was referred to the attorney general who has been investigating the allegations... Read more »

Saudi Arabia's high-ranked diplomat in the southern Yemeni city of Aden has been kidnapped outside his home. Police in the city's Mansoura district said gunmen attacked Abdullah al-Khalidi as he was about to get into his car, escaping in another vehicle. A security operation is now under way in the city in an effort to find him. Aden is the city closest to Yemen's Abyan province where government forces have been struggling with militant groups linked to al ... Read more »