A Voice of America reporter has been detained in the Ethiopian capital while trying to cover a demonstration Friday. Witnesses to the arrest said that reporter Peter Heinlein and his translator Simegineh Yekoye were detained while seeking to interview protesters during a Muslim demonstration following Friday prayers in Addis Ababa. Another Western reporter said there was a heavy police presence at the demonstration and that he also was stopped by police and told to leave the area. ...

LISBON -- Free state-funded health care is one aspect of the post-WWII political settlement of which Europeans are most proud. But now it could be under threat as governments are strapped for cash, and in Portugal, one of the continent’s poorest performers, the question of whether free health provision is still affordable is pressing. Portuguese citizens have their vices like anyone else. But if their health deteriorates, they know, like most Europeans, there is a high quality yet mainly ...

A spokesman for the African Union Mission in Somalia says that AU and Somali forces have pushed Islamist militants out of a town on the outskirts of the capital, Mogadishu. Paddy Ankunda said Friday that the troops crossed into Afgoye earlier in the day and that most of the town was now under their control, while some fighting with al-Shabab militants was still going on. The capture of Afgoye represents a major advance for African Union and Somali troops, who have made strong gains ...

TRIPOLI, Lebanon - Some 700 people in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli staged a rally Friday to demand the release of Sunni Islamist leaders who they said were detained for opposing Syria's President Bashar al-Assad. The demonstration comes amid fears that the conflict in Syria could further enflame sectarian tensions in Lebanon. Hundreds of Sunni Islamists known as Salafists Friday demonstrated in the northern Lebanese city, Tripoli. They were demanding the release of some 200 ...