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TRIPOLI - Muammar Gaddafi was a hunted man on Monday as loyal remnants of his forces made last-ditch stands in the capital while world leaders rushed to embrace the fractious rebel movement as new masters of Libya's oil riches.
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BEIRUT - Syrian forces shot dead three people in Homs during a visit by a U.N. humanitarian team on Monday, activists said, and the United Nations said the death toll from President Bashar al-Assad's crackdown on protests had reached 2,200.
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CAIRO - Egypt announced plans to develop a region bordering Israel on Monday after Israeli officials blamed its loosening grip on the area for the killing of eight Israelis by armed militants, inflaming tensions between the two neighbours.
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NEW YORK - New York prosecutors asked a judge to dismiss sexual assault charges against former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn on Monday, a stunning reversal that could revive the political future of a man many had seen as the next president of France.
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TOKYO - Vice President Joe Biden said on Monday China's leaders did not seek reassurances about the weak U.S. economy, and he called Xi Jinping -- the man expected to take over as China's next president -- pragmatic and strong.
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ULAN BATOR - U.S. Vice President Joe Biden lauded land-locked Mongolia's efforts at democratisation on Monday, offering support to a country that is strategically located between China and Russia and sits on vast quantities of untapped mineral wealth.
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BUENOS AIRES - Argentina's opposition leaders are campaigning to retain their clout in Congress after President Cristina Fernandez's landslide primary election win dashed their hopes of taking the presidency.
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MOSCOW - Signs in Dari decorate the creaky lifts of a Moscow hotel heaving with Afghan merchants and schoolchildren who have found refuge in a former foe.
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TOKYO - Former Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara, who has called beating deflation a top priority, will throw his hat into the ring to become Japan's next prime minister, media said on Tuesday, clouding the prospects of the fiscally conservative finance minister.
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NEW DELHI - A hunger strike by an Indian anti-graft activist entered its seventh day on Monday with opposition parties calling for nationwide rallies this week, prompting the government of Premier Manmohan Singh to take tentative steps to open talks.
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MOSCOW - North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, travelling by train on his first visit to Russia in nine years, headed west on Monday toward the Siberian city where he is expected to meet President Dmitry Medvedev.
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UMM AL-QUWAIN - In a dark auditorium, rows of men in traditional white robes and women swathed in black watch silently as computer-animated characters take their turn at electronic voting machines in a film aimed at educating them on how to vote.
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OTTAWA - Jack Layton, the charismatic leader of Canada's official opposition, died on Monday just months after guiding his New Democratic Party to its strongest ever performance in the May federal election.
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