• Al-Qaeda controls villages in Yemen's Hadramawt

• Kerry slams Iran’s Guardian Council over poll candidates

• Deadly clashes in Lebanon's Tripoli continue unabated

• Police make two further arrests in London soldier killing

• Darfur clashes displace 300,000 people in 5 months

• Syria drags Lebanon into another Lebanese-Lebanese war

• Khamenei’s recipe to secure his supreme rule: Limit presidential race to loyalists

• Syrian refugees head to Libya

• Cameron: Gruesome murder of British soldier is betrayal of Islam

• British FM: Mideast peace process urgent priority

• Israel, Palestinians urged to make hard decisions

• US expands Iran sanctions blacklist

• Damascus agrees ‘in principle’ to attend peace conference

• Mali offensive opens Pandora’s Box: Qaeda offshoot spreads its wings

• Pepper spray charge: New episode in Tunisia Femen activist’s saga

• Mali Islamists take revenge on France in Niger

• Libyans in North Africa scared to return home

• Initiative of ‘Syrian origin’ offers Assad 'safe exit'

• Is Ennahda-led government waging a mock battle to distract Tunisians?

• Cloud of cynicism hangs over Kerry’s fourth visit to Israel

Expanding militancy of Salafist Islamists is a growing regional phenomenon once again, with fighting in Tripoli having direct linkages to the Syrian civil war, notes Rami G. Khouri.

We have a word for the conscious slaughter of a racial or ethnic group: genocide. And one for the conscious destruction of aspects of the environment: ecocide. But we don’t have a word for the conscious act of destroying the planet we live on, the world as humanity had known it until, historically speaking, late last night, writes Tom Engelhardt.

Republicans won’t let go of their conspiracy theory about some nefarious “cover-up” in “talking points” for Ambassador Susan Rice’s TV interviews on the Benghazi attack. But they should at least have better skills for detecting a real cover-up, since they’ve had direct experience, as Robert Parry documents.

The role that Arab League has been playing during the Arab Spring is different; instead of solving the disputes, it became source of legitimacy for various powers to intervene militarily or politically in the region, says Armenak Tokmajyan.

It’s useful to remember that Iran’s election is about Iran, not the United States, notes Robert Dreyfuss.

It is most telling that over two years after the Syrian uprising-turned bloody civil war, the US continues to curb its involvement by indirectly assisting anti-Bashar al-Assad regime opposition forces, through its Arab allies and Turkey, according to Ramzy Baroud.

US Treasury adds 20 individuals, firms to its Iran sanctions blacklist for ‘supporting’ Tehran's nuclear efforts, helping it avoid international sanctions.

WikiLeaks releases transcript of Alex Gibney’s documentary that takes a critical look at the anti-secrecy group.