Wall Street had a solid session overnight, with share prices closing sharply higher amid more takeover activity and encouraging results on manufacturing during June.
Court proceedings against Israel's outgoing President Moshe Katsav for sex offences have been further delayed as the prosecution sought extra days to justify a plea bargain deemed too lenient.
US President George W Bush and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin are trying to repair a damaging split between their two countries with a meeting at the Bush family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine.
A Hamas television station which killed off a Mickey Mouse lookalike character who urged children to fight against Israel says it will use other famous characters to further its Islamist agenda.
Barack Obama's $US32.5 million ($37.9 million) fundraising bombshell is tearing at the aura of invincibility that had gathered around Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton's White House campaign.
Chadian President Idriss Deby's son Brahim, touted as his possible successor, was found dead near his home outside Paris and police launched a murder investigation, French police and court officials said.
Taliban fighters are using civilians as human shields against attacks from government and international troops in Afghanistan, the US ambassador to the United Nations said in Rome.
The United Nations and other agencies have offered aid and helicopters to Pakistan after floods unleashed by a cyclone and days of torrential rain which affected 1.5 million people.
GAZA CITY, Gaza (AP) -- Israel ignored mounting international calls for a cease-fire Monday and said it won't stop its crippling 10-day assault until "peace and tranquility" are achieved in southern Israeli towns in the line of Palestinian rocket fire....
FREEPORT, Bahamas (AP) -- Jett Travolta's body shows no sign of head trauma and his death certificate says he was killed by a seizure, an undertaker said Monday, after doctors performed an autopsy on the 16-year-old son of the U.S actor....
JERUSALEM (AP) -- The contours of a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas are emerging, with diplomacy focusing on international guarantees, including foreign border monitors to oversee any agreement....
BAGHDAD (AP) -- The United States inaugurated its largest embassy ever on Monday, a fortress-like compound in the heart of the Green Zone - and the most visible sign of what U.S. officials call a new chapter in relations between America and a more sovereign Iraq....
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) -- Wailing in grief, Salah Samouni banged his head against a wall inside the hospital morgue where the bodies of his three young nephews lay on the floor Monday....
NEW DELHI (AP) -- India handed Pakistan detailed evidence on the Mumbai attacks on Monday that included information on interrogations, weapons, and data gleaned from satellite phones that officials said proved Pakistani "elements" were behind the deadly siege....
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- The United Nations said Monday there is an "increasingly alarming" humanitarian crisis in Gaza, directly contradicting Israeli denials that its offensive caused the growing problem....
VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- More nations must take in Guantanamo inmates once the U.S.-run prison closes, the U.N.'s torture investigator said Monday, insisting that many were held simply because they were "in the wrong place at the wrong time."...
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- The Taliban has long exaggerated its military successes, but its figures for 2008 may be the militia's most startling claims yet....
BAGHDAD (AP) -- Iraqis wounded by gunfire in a Baghdad square 15 months ago are awaiting with guarded hopes the beginning of court proceedings against five former private Blackwater Worldwide security guards....
The Israeli military encircled densely populated Gaza City late Monday as the death toll topped 500. Friendly fire also killed three Israeli troops in an explosion in northern Gaza, military officials say.
Hundreds of people in southern Afghanistan have burned Israeli flags and shouted anti-Israel and anti-American slogans to protest Israel's military action in Gaza, according to eyewitness accounts from a CNN stringer.
Gunmen attacked a riot police unit in Athens Monday, seriously injuring an officer following weeks of violent protests sparked by the deadly police shooting of a teenager last month.
A 10-year-old girl was killed and 35 other people wounded in a major earthquake near the north coast of West Papua, Indonesia, government officials said.
India has handed evidence it says links the November massacre in Mumbai to "elements in Pakistan" over to Pakistani government officials, its foreign ministry announced Monday.
Thai police charged a Bangkok nightclub owner on Monday in connection with a New Year's Eve fire that has claimed the lives of at least 64 people, police said.
The contours of a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas are emerging, with diplomacy focusing on international guarantees, including monitors to oversee any agreement.
Israel ignored mounting international calls for a cease-fire and said it won't stop its crippling 10-day assault until "peace and tranquility" are achieved in southern Israeli towns in the line of Palestinian rocket fire.
The United States opened its new embassy building in Baghdad on Monday, a step meant to symbolize its transition from occupying power to an ally of a sovereign Iraqi government.
Tens of thousands of North Koreans rallied Monday in a display of might and loyalty that underscored the regime's guiding "military first" principal amid tensions with rival South Korea.
After 10 days of a relentless Israeli assault, Shifa Hospital, Gaza's largest, is overwhelmed. Bodies are now crowded two to a morgue drawer, and some — like those of the Samouni children — are on the floor.
Israel scrapped arrangements Monday to allow the first foreign reporters into the Gaza Strip since the military launched its offensive against Palestinian militants, adding to mounting media frustration at being locked out of the war zone.
Rescuers pulled 33 bodies Monday from a massive landslide that covered a northern Guatemala highway, and rescue workers continued digging for more victims.
