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KABUL - The Afghan government was holding secret talks with the Taliban's No. 2 when he was captured in Pakistan, and the arrest infuriated President Hamid Karzai, according to one of Karzai's advisers.

CAIRO - One of Osama bin Laden's sons has called on Iran's supreme leader to release members of his family believed to be under house arrest there since they fled Afghanistan in 2001, according to a letter posted Monday on the Internet.

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday settlement building in east Jerusalem would continue, in a move likely to further heighten tensions with key ally the United States.

TEHRAN, Iran - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's hard-line government said Monday it has banned Iran's largest pro-reform political party in a new strike against an opposition movement that has largely been swept from the streets since last year's postelection turmoil.

DOHA, Qatar - The world has "failed miserably" at protecting tigers in the wild, bringing an animal that is a symbol for many cultures and religions to "the verge of extinction," a top official with the United Nations wildlife agency said Monday.

RIYADH (AFP) - China fully knows what it should do as a global power in the effort to halt Iran's nuclear push, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said in an interview published Monday.

Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao takes the U.S. to task for undervaluing its currency -- a criticism many have leveled at Beijing in recent years

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israel on Monday reopened a landmark synagogue in Jerusalem's walled Old City, saying it should symbolise religious tolerance, 62 years after the building was destroyed in fighting with Jordan.

JERUSALEM - Egyptian security officials arrested an Israeli journalist as he tried to sneak across the porous Israeli-Egyptian border with African migrants, his newspaper reported Monday.

SUVA (AFP) - Fiji's government Tuesday declared a state of disaster in the cyclone-ravaged nation, amid reports of deaths after 17,000 people fled to evacuation centres.

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico - The two families climbed into white SUVs and almost simultaneously left the children's birthday party put on by the U.S. consulate. One headed deeper into one of the world's most dangerous cities, the other toward a bridge to El Paso, one of America's safest.

BERLIN - A German archdiocese that Pope Benedict XVI oversaw from 1977 to 1982 said Monday that a priest convicted in 1986 of sexually abusing children has been suspended for violating a condition that he have no contact with minors.

TAJI, Iraq - The U.S. military handed over control of a prison holding some 2,900 detainees to Iraqi authorities on Monday as the Americans move ahead with preparations for a full withdrawal by the end of 2011.

DUBLIN - Ireland's senior Roman Catholic, Cardinal Sean Brady, said Monday he would not resign despite admitting he helped the church collect evidence against a child-molesting priest — and never told police about the crimes.

JAKARTA, Indonesia - Somewhat bluntly, Barack Obama's former teacher sums up the neighborhood thinking when the future American president turned up with his family in Indonesia's capital more than 40 years ago.

German Catholics are stunned at the revelations in a decades-old case that occurred under the watch of the Archbishop of Munich -- now Pope Benedict XVI

BAGHDAD - A Shiite extremist group on Monday discounted claims from its former hostage that he was mistreated, presenting a video taken during his two-and-a-half year captivity showing the Briton exercising and playing with a child.

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Hundreds of Palestinians clashed with police in several east Jerusalem neighbourhoods early Tuesday amid heightened religious and political tension in the Holy City.

CAIRO (AFP) - Egyptian police arrested on Monday 15 students affiliated with the banned Muslim Brotherhood during a protest at Cairo University against Israeli settlements, a security official said.

LAGOS (AFP) - Nigeria's main armed group MEND threatened on Monday to attack oil firms such as French group Total in renewed violence in the country's restive oil-rich Niger Delta region.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States said Monday it could not predict when it would resume full military ties with Indonesia, as it laid out the details of President Barack Obama's trip to Jakarta and Bali next week.

PARIS (AFP) - President Nicolas Sarkozy's party fought on Monday to recover from a first-round beating by opposition Socialists in French regional elections that also saw the far-right National Front surge back.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - United Nations explosives experts have blown up several Israeli white phosphorous shells as they try to rid Gaza of munitions left behind in last year's war.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday rejected any curbs on Jewish settlement in and around Jerusalem, defying Washington in Israel's deepening crisis with U.S. President Barack Obama's administration.

BANGKOK - Anti-government protesters started donating their own blood Tuesday as part of a plan to splatter the Thai government headquarters in a symbolic sacrifice to press their demands for new elections.

ANTANANARIVO, Madagascar - Madagascar's disaster officials say at least 36 people have died and more than 38,000 were made homeless by Tropical Storm Hubert.

CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez on Monday defended a group of Basque separatists who arrived in Venezuela years ago, saying he is certain they aren't involved in terrorism.

CARACAS, Venezuela - Representatives of a leftist party asserted their independence from President Hugo Chavez on Monday, accepting a dissident politician into their ranks while demanding increased tolerance from Venezuela's socialist leader.

JOHANNESBURG (AFP) - South African President Jacob Zuma is set to visit Zimbabwe this week in a new bid to ease political tensions between President Robert Mugabe and Premier Morgan Tsvangirai, his office said Monday.

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva told his Israeli counterpart Shimon Peres on Monday that Middle East peace has long been his dream.