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AP - The security men brandished their weapons and ordered the suspicious car to halt, forcing the occupants to get out and put their hands in their air. The suspects were quickly handcuffed, frisked and made to kneel on the ground as the vehicle was swept for explosives.

Reuters - Palestinian leaders have not set specific terms on which they would accept a U.S. offer to mediate indirect peace talks with Israel, and expect clarification on such talks in a week, President Mahmoud Abbas said on Tuesday.

AP - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' government decided Monday to hold municipal elections in the West Bank in July, the first voting since Abbas' Fatah movement was trounced by the militant Islamic Hamas in national polls four years ago.

Reuters - The Yemen-based wing of al Qaeda called for a regional Muslim holy war and a blockade of the Red Sea to cut off U.S. shipments to Israel, a further sign of the group's ambitions to mount new strikes outside its base.

Reuters - More than a dozen people were injured when Israeli police confronted Palestinian protesters in a refugee camp at the edge of Jerusalem on Monday, violence stoked by rising tensions over a stalemate in peace talks.

Reuters - A bipartisan drive in Congress to end a Cold War-era travel ban on Cuba was buried during the healthcare reform debate but its supporters hope to dig it out this year.

AFP - The struggling aid effort in Haiti was hit by another setback as the UN halted deliveries to some 10,000 quake survivors after discovering that fake coupons were in operation.

AP - Mexican federal police arrested two suspected gang leaders Monday, delivering another big blow to a brutal drug cartel that terrorized the border city of Tijuana for several years.

AP - The United Nations warned Monday that it will cut off shipments of free medicine to Haitian hospitals that charge patients, saying it had learned some are levying fees for drugs.

AP - Former President Nestor Kirchner is recovering well from emergency surgery on an important artery feeding blood to his brain, one of his doctors said Monday.

The military has retaken the town of Damadola, in the Bajaur area, where the army has been fighting militants for more than a year, officials said.

At least 15 Indian soldiers were killed after an avalanche smashed into a military training camp near the country’s disputed border with Pakistan on Monday, the army said.

Japan’s most influential political leader, Ichiro Ozawa, said that he would keep his formal job as the No. 2 leader of the governing Democratic Party after prosecutors decided not to charge him in a financing scandal.

Police officers also seized money and equipment worth hundreds of thousands of dollars during the crackdown, which occurred in November, state media reported over the past two days.

A Chinese activist who sought to document shoddy construction that he contended had contributed to deaths in China’s devastating 2008 earthquake has been sentenced to five years in prison for subversion.

AP - German exports tumbled by more than 18 percent last year, the biggest fall for 60 years and one that officially knocked the country off its perch as the world's top exporter, government data showed Tuesday.

Reuters - Philippine politicians launched their campaigns on Tuesday in a wide-open race for the presidency, with poverty, corruption and unemployment the top issues for the impoverished Southeast Asian archipelago.

Reuters - Swatch Group , the world's largest watchmaker by sales, posted a forecast-beating full-year profit and confirmed its upbeat outlook for 2010, easing worries a flagging economic recovery may hit demand.

Reuters - A revamp of the financial system needs to be global in nature to prevent a repeat of the worst financial crisis in some 70 years, a top Federal Reserve policy maker said on Monday.

Reuters - An ex-Boeing Co engineer, found guilty last year of passing space shuttle secrets to China in America's first conviction under a 1996 espionage law, was sentenced on Monday to 15 years in prison.

Investor's Business Daily - The Treasury will auction $81 bil of notes and bonds in its quarterly refunding this week, the same as in the prior auction. Gov't officials said they've already raised enough to fund a budget deficit set to expand 14% this year. The Treasury's decision to stop increasing the size of its debt auctions could moderate the rise in bond yields, bolstering the economy as the Federal Reserve removes emergency stimulus. The narrower yield curve may cap mortgage rates as the Fed's $1.25 tril in mortgage-bond purchases is set to expire on March 31.

Reuters - The Federal Reserve could sell some assets later this year in an effort to whittle down its bloated balance sheet to avoid inflation, a senior Federal Reserve official said on Monday.

AP - A Chinese-born engineer convicted in the United States' first economic espionage trial was sentenced Monday to more than 15 years in prison for stealing sensitive information on the U.S. space program with the intent of passing it to China.

AP - The European Union's government-backed lender says it cannot bail out Greece or any other European country that can't pay its debts.

AP - Greece's government on Tuesday tackled the thorny issue of pension and wage reform, part of its plan to fight a debt crisis that has alarmed global markets, even as strikes were being planned nationwide.

Reuters - The euro rose on Tuesday on speculation that European Union nations could bail out errant member Greece, while global stocks were flat and emerging market shares climbed.

AP - German exports tumbled by more than 18 percent last year, the biggest fall for 60 years and one that officially knocked the country off its perch as the world's top exporter, government data showed Tuesday.

AFP - Shares in London were steady at the start of trade on Tuesday amid lingering concerns about massive state debts in Europe.

AFP - As Estonia edges closer to adopting the euro, the prospect is causing jitters in neighbouring Latvia as it tries to climb out of a deep economic crisis and risks fragmenting the Baltic trio on the eastern edge of the European Union.

AFP - EU Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso's new team is set to get the green light from the European parliament Tuesday, ending a three-month limbo period during the bloc's worst ever economic crisis.

Reuters - Toyota Motor Corp was preparing a global recall of its new Prius model on Monday, further damaging its reputation for quality and reliability on the heels of two other massive recalls.

Reuters - The Dow industrials closed below 10,000 for the first time since November on Monday as investors sold bank shares due to heightened concerns about the euro zone's sovereign debt troubles.