Syrian police launched a relentless assault on a neighbourhood sheltering anti-government protesters, fatally shooting at least 15 in a pre-dawn operation, witnesses said.

Simon Sebag Montefiore tells Stephen Jewell about writing ‘the greatest story ever told’ and why the history of Jerusalem is the story of the world.

Higher fuel prices are likely to mean lower profit margins and lower real wages.

Middle East tension poses a threat to the delicate global recovery.

All New Zealanders who wanted to leave Libya had now left, Foreign Minister Murray McCully says.

Investors flocked to oil and gold on world markets overnight amid escalating tensions in the Middle East, with violence in Libya gathering steam.

There is also nothing moderate about a government instituting a system of torture against political dissidents.

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.

The wave of protests across the Middle East and North Africa don't yet constitute revolution and real democratic change may be decades away, Auckland University associate professor Stephen Hoadley says.

A high-flying banker from NZ has denied having sex with two women caught in a love triangle that went violently wrong.

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

Clashes between protesters and security forces left dozens of people injured in Libya today.