Religious-linked violence and abuse rose around the world between 2006 and 2009, with Christians and Muslims the most common targets, according to a private U.S. study released Tuesday.

"Over the three-year period studied, incidents of either government or social harassment were reported against Christians in 130 countries (66 percent) and against Muslims in 117 countries (59 percent)," said the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion and Public Life study.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohammed Amr on Tuesday said he feared that revolt-hit Syria was "heading to the point of no return" and called for an immediate end to violence, the official news agency MENA reported.

"Egypt is following with extreme concern the dangerous deterioration of the situation in Syria," Amr said, expressing "his concern that the situation in Syria is heading to the point of no return," MENA reported.

The head of Iran's parliament's foreign affairs committee accused the United States of seeking to destabilize Syria after talks on Tuesday in Cairo with Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi.

Alaeddin Borujerdi's visit to Cairo was the first since former president Hosni Mubarak resigned in February after 18 days of massive streets protests.

Lebanon’s former envoy to the Arab League Assaad Abi Akl was found stabbed to death at his apartment at the Cairo suburb of al-Omraniyeh, media reports said Saturday.

They said the 70-year-old’s body was found by his nephew in his bedroom. He had received 65 knife wounds.

Ousted president Hosni Mubarak, convicted for having cut Internet services during the revolt which toppled him, has pinned part of the blame on his successor as Egypt's ruler, a defense lawyer said on Friday.

A Cairo court on May 28 fined Mubarak and two former ministers a total of $90 million dollars for "damaging the economy" with a telephone and Internet shutdown during Egypt's uprising.

Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, Egypt's military ruler, will most likely testify in the trial of former president Hosni Mubarak if summoned after a request by the defense, a security official said Thursday.

Fareed al-Deeb, who represented the fallen dictator at his murder trial, asked the judge in its first session on Wednesday to summon Tantawi and military chief of staff Sami Enan along with some 1,600 witnesses.

Egypt's ex-president Hosni Mubarak was wheeled into court on a stretcher on Wednesday and denied murder and graft charges, as sporadic clashes erupted outside between his supporters and his foes.

The former strongman, looking pale and dressed in white, pleaded not guilty from a metal-barred cage to the premeditated murder of protesters who took to the streets to topple his regime in an uprising that erupted on January 25.

An Israeli ex-minister known for his close ties to Hosni Mubarak said on Wednesday he had offered the former president medical treatment in Israel during a meeting before the Egyptian uprising.

Speaking to Israeli military radio, Binyamin Ben Eliezer said he made the offer to Mubarak during a meeting attended by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

Months after an uprising ended his 30-year-rule, Egypt's ex-president Hosni Mubarak faced trial Wednesday on murder charges, in a historic moment for the Arab region whose leaders are rarely held to account.

Mubarak, looking pale and dressed in white, appeared on a stretcher inside a cage at the courtroom set up in the Cairo Police Academy, as his two sons stood by his side in the dock.

Shoppers in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are among the wealthiest and most discerning in the world. Most major malls in Dubai, for instance, feature couture retailers usually associated in the United States with upscale fashion districts. It is not an uncommon sight to see shoppers with several large shopping bags, loaded into a cart just as a family buying groceries would, only the purchases being Gucci shoes and Louis Vuitton handbags. According to Business Monitor International, U.S.$31 billion worth of retail sales are expected this year in the UAE, and will top U.S.$41 billion in less than five years.

As there is more total retail space supply in the country than its entire population -- according to retail surveys, an estimated 5.75 million square meters by the end of 2014, or 1.27 square meters of shopping space for every UAE resident -- online retail has struggled to find room. Because of concerns about fraud, 45% of UAE shoppers said they would not buy online, according to a survey this year by MasterCard.