BBC correspondent Alan Johnston was released early Wednesday after being held for 114 days, ending the longest-ever captivity of a journalist kidnapped in Gaza.

Egyptian border guards shot a Sudanese refugee and arrested two others early Wednesday as they tried to cross from Egypt into Israel, a police official said.

Egypt’s state-appointed Grand Mufti, who last week declared female genital cutting as banned in Islam, defended his decision by likening the practice to an ancient custom once wrongly seen as necessary for good health.

An Egyptian court accepted an appeal Monday from 45 Copts who were denied the right to reclaim their religious identities after they decided to convert back to Christianity from Islam, a lawyer and court officials said.

Liderul PNL Gorj, Dan Ilie Morega, îi cere şefului său de partid, premierul Călin Popescu Tăriceanu, să demită un înalt funcţionar public din Ministerul Educaţiei.

EuroNews, the European news channel, in a news report that was broadcasted repeatedly about the gathering of 50,000 Iranians in Paris on Saturday described the event as the one that rarley Paris has witnessed.

Congressman Bob Filner, Democrat from California, spoke to a crowd of 50,000 Iranians in Paris, Saturday June 30.  He criticized the EU policy toward the Iranian regime and expressed support for Mrs. Maryam Rajavi’s proposed “Third Option” as the only solution the current Iran-West crisis.

Last night, Mr. Mohammad Jalali, a 25-year-old man who set himself on fire in protest to the fuel rationing by the mullahs’ regime in Iran, died after not receiving any medical care in the notorious Gohardasht Prison in the outskirt of Karaj City, thirty Kilometers west of Tehran.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon acknowledged on Monday he had spoken out of turn in a report that leaned towards the Moroccan side in protracted negotiations with the Polisario movement over western Sahara.

Iran admitted on Tuesday that international sanctions imposed over its controversial nuclear programme were harming its ability to invest in oil infrastructure, the backbone of its economy.