Leila Fadel

The Shiite leader executed by Saudi Arabia was fighting for rights for the country's Shiite minority in a broad grassroots effort.

Egypt has shut down a free Facebook service called Free Basics. The government says it's a licensing issue, but critics say the Egyptian government is stifling freedom of expression.

The country executed 47 people today, including a prominent cleric for the minority Shia in the Kingdom. Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr was a vocal critic of the Saudi monarchy and was arrested in 2012.

A fire engulfed a 63-story hotel in Dubai just before the new year on Thursday, causing extensive damage but fortunately only minor injuries. It was the latest in a series of skyscraper fires in the emirate.

On top of the Egyptian government's longstanding effort to squelch dissent, it's engaged in a recent wave of action against free speech — which could set the tone for more censorship in 2016.

Tourism in Egypt is struggling after years of unrest and one bad news story after the next. The tourism minister announced a social media campaign to showcase Egypt but it backfired.

Dr. Raslan Fadl was sentenced to two years in prison after a girl died in his care. NPR found him working at a government hospital.

Mohammed Farouk, a student at Staffordshire University, was reading a book for his postgraduate counterterrorism studies this spring when two women approached him in the library.

"I was reading that in the university, and I was kind of quizzed by two ladies. They were quizzing me on my views on ...

The last deep pit coal mine in northern England closes next month, marking the death of an industry that has fueled area towns for decades. Miners are angry the government didn't do more to help them.

After the early morning raid in Saint-Denis, a northern suburb of Paris, French President Francois Hollande reminded everyone that France is at war with terrorists.

The man was severely injured in last week's explosions outside the soccer stadium. French media initially reported that he might have been a bomber but he was in Paris to care for a sick brother.

Egypt says its already weak tourism industry will take big hits if the crash of a Russian jet there scares off Russian visitors. And one Egyptian talks about trying to make it in the tourism business.

Officials attempts to prevent press from talking to people at the Sharm el-Sheikh airport, and Egypt's reluctance to say a bomb could have caused the crash, raise concerns about its investigation.

U.S. lawmakers say intelligence indicates a bomb was the likely cause of the break-up of a Russian airliner. The air crash and the cancellation of flights has hurt the resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh.

In Egypt, one of the country's most prominent rights defenders, Hossam Bahgat, was detained and is being interrogated on charges of publishing false news that could harm the nation.

Recently Bahgat, 36, has emerged as a standout investigative journalist in a country where much of the news media has been ...

More people were killed by police in the United States in the last month than were killed by police in England and Wales in the last 24 years. In the U.K., police officers don't carry guns.

Britain's prime minister and President Obama have mentioned the possibility of a bomb aboard the passenger jet. Their information, whatever it is, apparently comes from intelligence agencies.

The British government says there's a "significant possibility" that the Russian plane that crashed in Egypt's Sinai desert last week was brought down by a bomb.