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For the past three decades, Egypt has received an average of $2 billion a year from the United States, making it the biggest recipient of American foreign aid besides Israel.

But with the country now at a critical stage in its transition toward democracy, that aid is in peril — as U.S. lawmakers threaten to block assistance in response to Egypt’s crackdown on pro-democracy groups, several of them well-connected nongovernmental organizations based in Washington.

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KABUL — In a country where the recent past has unfolded like a war epic, officials think they have found a way to teach Afghan history without widening the fractures between long-quarreling ethnic and political groups: leave out the past four decades. 

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KABUL — Last year was the deadliest for civilians in the decade-long U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, according to a United Nations report released Saturday.

The report said 3,021 civilians were killed in 2011, an 8 percent increase from 2010. It was the fifth consecutive year that the number of deaths has increased.

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UNITED NATIONS — Russia and China on Saturday vetoed a U.N. resolution condemning Syria’s violent repression of anti-government demonstrators, effectively quashing efforts to isolate President Bashar al-Assad’s government as it intensifies a nearly year-long crackdown.

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MOSCOW — Tens of thousands of Russians embraced the numbing cold and marched to a frozen riverbank near the Kremlin on Saturday, demonstrating their determination to keep up the pressure on Vladimir Putin for fair elections and honest government.

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DAMASCUS, Syria — Syrian government forces launched a mortar and rocket assault on the country’s third-largest city Friday night that activists said killed more than 200 people, intensifying pressure on the U.N. Security Council as it prepares to vote on a measure aimed at ending a bloody government crackdown.

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CAIRO — At least 12 people have been killed in clashes triggered by a deadly melee at a soccer match in Port Said on Wednesday, Egyptian authorities said Saturday.

At least seven protesters were killed in clashes with security forces that began Thursday night near the Interior Ministry in Cairo, and at least five were killed in the seaport city of Suez, according to state media.

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Last year was the deadliest for civilians in the decade-long U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, according to a United Nations report released Saturday. The report said 3,021 civilians were killed in 2011, an 8 percent increase from 2010. It was the fifth consecutive year that the number of deaths has increased.

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MUNICH — In a rare joint appearance overseas, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton sought to reassure European allies that the United States will not diminish its security relationship with the continent, even as it withdraws troops and places a higher priority on Asia.

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Syrian opposition groups say the regime turned tanks and guns on residents of Homs, killing more than 200 people on the 30th anniversary of a massacre in Hama under then-President Hafez Assad.

Even as Syrian activists on Friday commemorated an atrocity from their past, the regime of Bashar Assad was turning tanks and guns on residents of the central city of Homs, reportedly killing more than 200 people and wounding scores, anti-government groups said early Saturday.

Insults swirl as Hong Kong residents say mainland tourists bring bad manners and women on the verge of childbirth into the territory, and mainlanders accuse their neighbors of snobbery.

 

Egypt's protest movement is re-energized by anger over the Port Said soccer riot. Three protesters have died in two days of clashes.

 

The ties present powerful threats to Colombia President Santos' efforts to end a decades-long conflict with leftist rebels and push through ambitious reforms.

 

A study released Friday has shaken up much of what we thought we knew about malaria.

The number of people who die annually of the tropical disease is roughly double the current estimate, according to the report, published in the science journal Lancet. Additionally, many of malaria’s victims are now believed to be adults, overturning the previous belief that adults almost never die of the disease.

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ROME — Former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has declared he is “stepping aside” from frontline politics, revealing he has no intention of running again for his old post.

In his first interview since resigning amid turmoil over financial markets in November, Berlusconi spoke to the Financial Times at his Rome residence on a range of subjects, including what he called a media-inspired furor over his “bunga bunga” parties, his anger at “left-wing” magistrates hounding him in the courts and his drive to promote political and judicial reforms.

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Anonymous has struck — and struck again.

Early Friday, the FBI said that hackers from the well-known collective had intercepted and released a confidential conference call between the FBI and Scotland Yard.

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In his first extended public appearance as CIA director, David H. Petraeus this week did more than display his well-known discipline for staying on message. He did his best to bring other government voices back on message as well.

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NAIROBI — The United Nations on Friday declared Somalia’s famine over, but officials warned that more than 2 million Somalis are still in dire need of assistance and that conditions could again slide by May.

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As the FBI and Scotland Yard conducted a conference call last month on their investigation of an international group of hackers, the discussions were being secretly monitored -- by the hackers themselves.

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