Saudi Arabia launched a high-speed railway Tuesday connecting Islam’s holiest cities.

An Egyptian court on Sunday sentenced 66 people to life in prison, including Muslim Brotherhood chief Mohammed Badie, over an August 2013 attack on a police station in Minya.

An Israeli warplane on Saturday struck the northern Gaza Strip but apparently caused no casualties.

Gaza’s Health Ministry says a Palestinian has been killed and dozens injured by Israeli fire at a border protest.

A Pakistani court has suspended the jail sentences given to former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and two family members by an anti-corruption court earlier this year, with the three expected to be released after the payment of a bail bond.

Russia’s defense ministry said on Tuesday that one of its military aircrafts with 15 people on board disappeared from radar screens over Syria because it was shot down inadvertantly by Syrian military.

The leaders of Russia and Turkey have agreed to establish a de-militarised zone in Syria’s Idlib province, in a move that ostensibly puts on hold a threatened all-out assault by government forces on Syria’s last rebel bastion.

At least eight Palestinians were injured Monday when Israeli troops fired on a group of stone-throwing Palestinian youth in the northern West Bank city of Nablus.

Israeli warplanes bombed a Hamas position in the east of the Gaza Strip on Friday, according to local sources.

The death toll from a suicide attack on Afghan protesters has soared to 68, officials said Wednesday, as violence flares across the country ahead of elections and a key Islamic holy day.