As Act leader Rodney Hide refuses to resign, Don Brash has met with caucus and board members.

Sunni-Shia hostility in the Muslim world is likely to deepen because of the demolition of Shia holy places in Bahrain.

A foreign security presence may need to remain in East Timor and the Solomons for longer than expected.

Oil states are, by their nature, undemocratic.The despots who have ruled the Arab world for half a century are not giving up without a fight.

Sydney lawyer and author of Once Were Radicals: My Years as a Teenage Islamo-facist writes that republican-steered terrorism hearings entirely off the mark.

Saudi Arabia announced it would ban all protests and marches.

Libya's second largest city, Benghazi, has fallen to anti-government forces after a crack army unit defected to the opposition and clashes spread to the capital, Tripoli, residents and news reports say.

The son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has appeared on that country's state-owned television to make a statement denouncing the current civil unrest.

Bahrain's Shia Muslims ran in their tens of thousands back into Pearl Square in the centre of Manama.

Lessons from an extraordinary uprising - for protesters and police alike.

The Egyptian military has reinforced its efforts to try to return the country to normal.