In the desert beyond Dubai's glittering and manic metropolis, Ewan McDonald unleashes his inner petrolhead ...

Asim Qureshi has caused outrage by saying the murderer Jihadi John was 'beautiful' adding that he 'wouldn't hurt a fly'.

The Isis executioner known as 'Jihadi John' was today named as a graduate from London who was able to flee to Syria despite being on a terror watch list.

The decision to commit NZ military contingent to Iraq is a case of misguided foreign policy.

A senior US security official will visit New Zealand next month as part of a tour of the Asia-Pacific.

Passions over the announced deployment of a New Zealand training mission to Iraq spilled over in Parliament again yesterday.

The quality of New Zealand's training contribution to the Iraqi armed forces would be a welcome addition to the fight against Isis (Islamic State), Iraq's ambassador to New Zealand, Mouayed Saleh, said last night.

In Dubai, Pamela Wade meets a cranky camel who takes her on a peaceful and relaxing ride.

Buildings lie in waste, reduced to rubble. Others, their faces are shorn clean off. Bullet casings litter the streets, unexploded mortars burrow into pavements.

The Governor-General will represent New Zealand at the funeral of the Saudi King Abdullah.

A video has emerged online claiming one of the two hostages being held by Isis has been killed and showing the other hostage outlining new terms for his release.

The collapse of the government in Sanaa means the United States has lost a reliable partner in its fight against al-Qaeda in Yemen with potentially dire consequences, experts say.

Salman bin Abdulaziz's conservative outlook puts him at odds with his moderate predecessor - and there are concerns about his medical state.

Hostages are a "military consultant" who headed to war zones after his wife died of cancer and a journalist dedicated to revealing horrors of war.

The international outcry over restrictions on freedom of speech in Saudi Arabia escalated as an array of Nobel prizewinners published an open letter calling on the country's academics to condemn the public flogging of the blogger Raif Badawi.

Abu Dhabi is one of the seven principalities that comprise the United Arab Emirates. Michael Lamb is easy prey for its complicated charms.

There is a scene in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass in which Alice meets the White Knight who is wearing full armour and riding a horse which he keeps falling off.

Isis' vaunted exercise in state-building appears to be crumbling as living conditions deteriorate across the territories under its control.

It happened just out of Cairo and it really wasn't my idea. I was visiting some pyramids - about the only tourist in town - when the lonely soldier standing guard decided to walk with me.

The UN's refugee agency has revealed "the most lethal route in the world" after a record number of deaths.

Parliament has just passed legislation aimed at stopping would-be foreign fighters from leaving New Zealand to join Islamic State in Iraq.

The father of a teenager from Cardiff is thought to be the first Briton to have rescued his son from the jihadist group Islamic State.

The Iraqi army includes 50,000 "ghost soldiers" who do not exist, but their officers receive their salaries fraudulently, according to the Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.

Urgent changes to the law introduced to combat the threat of "foreign fighters" had been flagged by the Prime Minister as for short-term only.

British journalist and Islamic State (Isis) group hostage John Cantlie says in a newly released propaganda video he is likely to suffer the same fate as other US and UK hostages, who were beheaded.

The global halal industry excluding financial services is estimated to exceed $2 trillion and will grow 4 per cent to 5 per cent annually.

Standing atop a sand dune silently contemplating the rising sun, Jim Eagles understands why these vast wastes are the cradle of the world's great religions.

Israel revived one of its most controversial policies by blowing up the home of a Palestinian man who killed two people, including a 3-month-old baby, by smashing his car into a crowded tram stop.