RIYADH (Reuters) – A group of Saudi clerics has come out in support of a colleague who issued a fatwa saying two writers deserve to die if they did not retract views that he said made them apostates.

GAZA (Reuters) – Hamas voiced willingness on Wednesday to talk to Fatah as part of a Yemeni reconciliation initiative but said the secular faction must drop its demand the Islamist group first give up control of the Gaza Strip.

ADEN, Yemen (Reuters) – A small bomb exploded in a market in Yemen’s southern port city of Aden on Wednesday but caused no casualties, witnesses said, a day after three mortars hit a school near the U.S. embassy in Sanaa.