Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the older of two brothers suspected in the Boston Marathon blasts, had objected to a sermon at a Cambridge mosque in which the speaker compared the Prophet with civil rights leader Martin Luther King, a mosque official said.

An Egyptian court has sentenced a Coptic Christian school teacher to six years in jail for posting cartoons on Facebook deemed offensive to Islam and for insulting President Mohamed Morsi and his family.

If one day it’s Male, the next day it is Rome. If one day, it’s Mamata Banerjee scuppering a deal with Bangladesh, the next day it’s the DMK threatening the survival of the government for failing to take on the Sri Lankan government. Listening to the hyperventilating television anchors in India, one can be excused for thinking that the whole world has rallied against India.

After spending 24 hours in detention, former Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed on Wednesday walked out of police custody as his trial for alleged illegal detention of a judge has been deferred by four weeks.

Dozens of opposition demonstrators were arrested in the Maldivian capital Male Wednesday as violent protests broke out in the island nation following the arrest of former President Mohamed Nasheed on Tuesday.

Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi declared a month-long state of emergency in three cities along the Suez Canal where dozens of people have been killed over the past four days in protests that his allies say are designed to overthrow him.

The arrest of former President Mohamed Nasheed is an example of selective justice from the Maldives authorities and highlights their failure to investigate other serious human rights abuses in the country, Amnesty International has said.

Stepping up pressure on India, Maldives on Monday pressed for facilitation of the arrest of former President Mohamed Nasheed against whom a fresh court warrant was issued on the sixth day of his stay at the Indian High Commission here.

Egypt's electoral commission on Tuesday announced that voters had approved overwhelmingly the constitution drafted by President Mohamed Morsi's Islamist allies.

Amidst continuing stand-off between the government and the former Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed, who remained holed up in the Indian Mission here for the eighth day, a high-level team of the Indian foreign office arrived here on Wednesday to find a way out.