A blast that blew the roof off a downtown building and hurled shards of glass and burned clothing into the streets on Monday apparently was the strongest retaliation yet by al Qaida-linked forces in Somalia for Kenya’s military foray into that country. » read more

Egypt’s election commission released final numbers from last week’s two-day vote, confirming that Mohammed Morsi will meet Ahmed Shafik in a June runoff. But uncertainty continued to plague the election process, as it remains unclear whether Shaifk will be allowed constitutionally to run. » read more

Afghan and U.S.-led coalition officials are investigating reports that eight civilians – including six children – were killed when their home in the eastern province of Paktia was bombed on Saturday by a coalition aircraft. » read more

There had long been clues that a rift between revolutionaries and ordinary Egyptians had always existed and had been fermenting since Mubarak left office. State media, the main source of information for most Egyptians, routinely blamed the state’s growing instability on the revolutionaries. In a nation where many voters had never met a revolutionary, they trusted state media more. » read more

A Cuban Catholic Church official told the Ladies in White on Friday they are no longer a humanitarian group and that the government is unlikely to let them go to the Vatican even if Pope Benedict XVI grants them an audience, spokeswoman Berta Soler said. » read more

After two days of withering and sometimes combative nuclear talks, Iran and six world powers put a positive spin on the outcome. Yet even the official statements pointed toward a chasm of mismatched expectations that has only widened in Baghdad, in Iran's view at least. » read more

The United States has been preparing for varying degrees of anti-Americanism with the election of a new Egyptian president. So even as the seeming chaos appears to calm, the future of American relations with the new democracy remains uncertain. » read more

Egyptians who stood in Tahrir Square 15 months ago demanding a revolution spent Friday stunned and shattered as the first democratic election here rejected their calls, instead producing a runoff between one candidate who wants an Islamic-based state and another who promises a return to the deposed regime. » read more