World - AFP

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israel said on Monday there was no deal yet on a prisoner swap with Hamas, as efforts appeared to gather pace on an accord that could see a Gaza-held soldier exchanged for hundreds of Palestinians.

BRASILIA (AFP) - Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Monday urged his visiting Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to find a "just solution" with the West to Tehran's contested nuclear program.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - President Barack Obama gathered his war cabinet Monday for what officials indicated could be the final time before he decides whether to dispatch tens of thousands more US troops to Afghanistan.

MOSCOW (AFP) - Eight soldiers died in a munitions blast Monday in central Russia, a defence ministry spokesman said, at the same arms depot where two died in a huge accidental weapons explosion 10 days earlier.

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Iraq's upcoming general election will be delayed, a top MP warned, because an amended electoral law agreed on Monday is likely to be vetoed for a second time by the country's Sunni vice president.

BUCHAREST (AFP) - Centre-right incumbent Traian Basescu and left-wing leader Mircea Geoana battled to form vote-winning alliances Monday after being forced into a second round of a presidential election.

TANJUNG BALAI, Indonesia (AFP) - The captain of an Indonesian ferry which sank killing 29 people rejected claims of overcrowding Monday and blamed a freak storm for the disaster, as officials launched an investigation.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A alleged Belgian arms dealer on Monday pleaded guilty to charges of conspiring to export fighter jet engines and parts to Iran, US justice officials said.

CHICAGO (AFP) - Eight people face terrorism charges in the case of 20 young men missing from Minnesota after allegedly being recruited to fight for an Islamist militia in Somalia, officials said Monday.

HEGANG, China (AFP) - Relatives of victims angrily demanded answers Monday as the death toll from China's worst mining disaster in two years climbed to 104 and hopes of finding more survivors faded.

TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran's envoy to the UN atomic watchdog said on Sunday that Tehran wants a guaranteed supply of fuel for a research reactor as a military chief warned that any attack on its nuclear sites would be crushed.

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israeli President Shimon Peres said on Sunday there has been "progress" in talks to free soldier Gilad Shalit, held captive by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip for the past three years.

BUCHAREST (AFP) - Romania's incumbent president and his Social-Democrat rival will face a run-off after Sunday's first round election, exit polls showed, as the country aims to recover from a political crisis and a deep recession.

JAKARTA (AFP) - Rescuers on Sunday desperately hunted for survivors in the waters off Indonesia's Sumatra island after a ferry sank in stormy seas, killing at least 29 people, officials said.

BELFAST (AFP) - A massive car bomb that failed to explode properly was designed to cause widespread destruction in Belfast, police said Sunday, underscoring the threat to Northern Ireland's fragile peace.

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Iraq on Sunday for the first time said that the bombers who killed more than 150 people in Baghdad on October 25 came from neighbouring Syria, but steered well clear of accusing Damascus of collusion.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Sunday started a high-profile state visit to the United States with a call on President Barack Obama to stay committed on Afghanistan and pressure Pakistan.

KHAR, Pakistan (AFP) - Pakistani troops on Sunday repulsed an attack by militants on one of their posts in a lawless tribal region, killing 11 rebels, officials said.

MADRID (AFP) - A Spanish trawler captain released by Somali pirates said he is haunted by his failure to save a 12-year-old Ukrainian girl held captive for more than six months, a newspaper reported Sunday.

CHICAGO (AFP) - New terrorism charges were expected Monday in the case of dozens of Somali-Americans, who disappeared from their homes in Minnesota and are believed to have joined an Islamist militia in Somalia.

LIBREVILLE (AFP) - Two French aid workers were kidnapped overnight by a gang of armed men in the northeast Central African Republic, close to the border with Sudan, a Bangui diplomat in Sudan said Monday.

BRASILIA (AFP) - Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday began a controversial visit to Brazil, the key leg of a tour to sympathetic Latin American and African countries he sees backing Tehran's vision of "a new world order."

ROME (AFP) - A military C-130 Hercules transport plane crashed on take-off during a training flight near Pisa in northwest Italy Monday, killing all five people on board, the Italian air force told AFP.

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israel said on Monday there was no deal yet on a prisoner swap with Hamas, as efforts appeared to gather pace on an accord that could see a Gaza-held soldier exchanged for hundreds of Palestinians.

LONDON (AFP) - British police have agreed a compensation deal with the family of an innocent Brazilian who was shot dead in London four years ago after being mistaken for a suicide bomber, both sides announced on Monday.

LONDON (AFP) - Residents in flood-hit northwest England began returning to their homes Monday but police warned it could take years to recover from the devastation left by the heaviest rainfall on record.

MOSCOW (AFP) - President Dmitry Medvedev promised Russian activists Monday to push new laws to support NGOs, moving to burnish his image as a liberal reformer and further distancing himself from Vladimir Putin.

ROME (AFP) - A military C-130 Hercules transport plane crashed on take-off near Pisa in northwest Italy on Monday, killing at least four people, the ANSA news agency reported.