Egypt has jailed four top security officials accused of ordering police to shoot and kill protesters during country's 18-day uprising, which ousted longtime leader Hosni Mubarak, officials said Friday. Rights activists welcomed the move as a step toward ending the culture of impunity in Egypt's massive security forces, which are hated and feared in Egypt. Officials put the number of protesters killed during the uprising at 365, but human rights activists and others have said the figure is much higher. According to a count by the Front to Defend Egypt Protesters, a group that provides medical and legal assistance to the demonstrators, 685 people died as of March 7. The suspects jailed are the former Cairo security chief, the head of the State Security agency and the heads of General Security and riot police. They are the most senior security officials to be interrogated in the violence that marred the early days of the protests. The men are accused of "inciting, assisting and agreeing to the killing" of protesters under instructions from their superior, said Adel al-Said, deputy General Prosecutor. They allegedly obeyed directives that "contradict government orders to preserve public order." "This is the beginning ...

A giant yellow fireball shot into the sky, trailed by thick plumes of black smoke Wednesday after fighting between rebels and forces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi set two oil installations ablaze and inflicted yet more damage on Libya's crippled energy industry. In the west, Gadhafi claimed victory in recapturing Zawiya, the city closest to the capital that had fallen into opposition hands. The claim could not immediately be verified; phone lines there have not been working during a deadly, six-day siege. State TV showed a crowd of hundreds, purportedly in Zawiya's main square, shouting "The people want Colonel Gadhafi!" but the location of the rally could not be independently confirmed. Western journalists based in Tripoli were taken late Wednesday to a stadium on the outskirts of Zawiya that was filled with Gadhafi loyalists waving green flags in a similar scene, complete with fireworks. Libyan TV cameras filmed the celebrations as food, drinks and cooking oil were distributed. Government escorts refused journalists' requests to visit the city's main square. The fall of Zawiya to anti-Gadhafi residents early on in the uprising that began Feb. 15 illustrated the initial, blazing progress of the opposition. But Gadhafi has seized the momentum, battering the rebels with airstrikes and artillery fire and repulsing their westward march ...

The Moldovan has lived here seven years as a nanny to Italian kids and caregiver to the elderly, but in order to stay she's had to prove her language skills by writing a postcard to an imaginary friend and answering a fictional job ad. "I feel like a guest," said Cojochru. She had just emerged from Beato Angelico middle school where she took a language test to comply with a new law requiring basic Italian proficiency for permanent residency permits following five years of legal residence. Italy is the latest Western European country turning the screws on an expanding immigrant population by demanding language skills in exchange for work permits, or in some cases, citizenship. While enacted last year in the name of integration, these requirements also reflect anxiety that foreigners might dilute fiercely-prized national identity or even, especially in Britain's case, pose terror risks. Some immigrant advocates worry that as harsh economic times make it harder for natives to keep jobs, such measures will become more a vehicle for intolerance than integration. Others say it's only natural that newcomers learn the language of their host nation, seeing it as a condition to ensure they can contribute to society. So far, Italy is only giving a gentle turn to the screw. Cojochru and other test-takers described the exam as easy. No oral skills were tested. In Austria, terms are tougher. There, where native speakers have been sometimes known to scold immigrant parents for not speaking proper German to their ...

An organized international airlift relieved the high pressure human flood from Libya into Tunisia on Thursday, as word spread to thousands of stranded refugees that planes were taking them home. After three days of chaos and a moment of panic when troops fired into the air to control crowds, a sense of order and calm was established at the Ras Jdir border crossing. Egyptian migrant laborers, many working illegally in Libya, were being bussed from a U.N. relief agency transit camp near the frontier to Djerba airport where some 40 evacuation flights were due to fly them out to Cairo during the day. At Djerba airport, long queues built up outside the terminal building and the check-in desks were packed. France was providing six flights every day for the next days, said the French ambassador to Tunisia, Boris Boillon. British charters have also begun a shuttle to Egypt. President Barack Obama said U.S. military and civilian aircraft would help move Egyptians stranded at the border. "The total number of people who have crossed so far, from February 20 to today, is from 90,000 to 95,000," said Firas Kayal of the UNHCR. "Yesterday alone there were 9,000 with Bangladeshis the majority." SHORT QUEUES ON LIBYAN SIDE On the Libyan side, foreign journalists were driven to Ras Judr on an organized trip from Tripoli designed to show the border was uncongested and managed efficiently. A steady trickle ...

French President Nicolas Sarkozy shuffled his Cabinet's top diplomatic and security posts on Sunday, jettisoning his foreign minister who has been roundly criticized for her ties to Tunisia's ousted regime. The unpopular French leader went on prime-time TV to announce the changes, just three months after a previous Cabinet shakeup — and clearly hoping to buff his image ahead of France's presidential election next year. Sarkozy's seven-minute address focused on foreign affairs and sought to counter critics who have faulted his government's response to upheaval in the Arab world, including several former French colonies in North Africa. "These Arab revolutions open a new era in our relations with these countries, with whom we are so close in history and geography," he said, speaking from in front of a bookshelf in the Elysee Palace. "This change is historic. We must not be afraid." Sarkozy made no reference to Foreign Minister Michele Alliot-Marie, who hours earlier sent him her resignation. He simply said Defense Minister Alain Juppe, a longtime ally of popular former President Jacques Chirac, will now be France's top diplomat. Alliot-Marie had only been in the post since November, but became the center of a raging controversy for her December vacation in Tunisia as huge protests forced out the former French protectorate's longtime strongman. Alliot-Marie, 64, has served in high-ranking posts since France's conservatives regained control of the National Assembly in 2002. She was the first woman to serve both as defense and foreign minister. ...