KAZAKHSTAN - A new round of talks between world powers and Iran over its controversial nuclear programme has opened in the Kazakh city of Almaty. The discussions are the first since talks in July 2012 ended without a breakthrough. Negotiators from Iran are meeting counterparts from the US, UK, France, China, Russia and Germany - the P5+1. International powers suspect Iran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons - a charge Iran strongly denies. Iran insists its purposes are purely civilian, asserting it needs enriched uranium to make medical isotopes.

ITALY - Italy faced political deadlock on Tuesday after a stunning election that saw the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement of comic Beppe Grillo become the strongest party in the country but left no group with a clear majority in parliament. "The 'non-party' has become the largest party in the country," said Massimo Giannini, commentator for the Rome newspaper La Repubblica. World financial markets reacted nervously to the prospect of a government stalemate in the euro zone's third-largest economy with memories still fresh of the financial crisis that took the 17-member currency bloc to the brink of collapse in 2011. A first indication of investors' reaction to the results will come later on Tuesday when the Treasury auctions 8.75 billion euros in 6-month bonds.

EUROPE - “Welcome back to the euro-zone crisis,” said Citigroup in a note to its clients early Tuesday, and it’s easy to see why. Italian government bonds are plunging in early European trading, with investors balking at the worst-of-all-possible-worlds result of the Italian elections. Early indicative prices show the yield on the country’s 10-year bonds has jumped by 0.42 percentage point – an enormous move for this market and the highest level since late November. These are easily the ugliest scenes in euro-zone government bond trading since European Central Bank President Mario Draghi pledged to support this market last summer.

ITALY - Amid the see-sawing results coming out of Rome on Monday, one thing was quickly very clear: against a backdrop of declining wages and pensions and a sharp rise in unemployment, a majority of Italians issued a clear basta to austerity. In the final weeks of his campaign Mario Monti, the country’s technocrat prime minister, tried to soften his austerity message, promising “reasonable” tax cuts and admitting that his policies, although necessary to restore market confidence in Italy, had exacerbated the recession. “The result is the absolute majority of Italians have voted against austerity measures, the euro and Europe,” said Enrico Letta, deputy leader of the Democrat party. “This sends a very clear signal to Brussels and Frankfurt.”

USA - What does Hollywood have against the British? Once again on Oscar night, Tinsel Town gave warmly to us with one hand — while cynically taking away with the other. Argo — the movie that won Best Film — is yet another piece of Hollywood’s Brit-bashing junk history that casts us in a poor light.

BERLIN, GERMANY - The new US secretary of state is visiting Berlin on Monday. He's promising grand things - and he has a soft spot for Europe. But John Kerry has little room for maneuver.

LONDON, UK - Mr Kerry refused to support next month’s referendum among the Falklanders on whether they want to remain British. The issue is thought to have been raised by Foreign Secretary William Hague after Mr Kerry held talks at Number 10 with David Cameron.

GERMANY - For decades after the devastation of World War Two, Germany recoiled from any prospect of military engagement. Now the country is under pressure to get involved in foreign military conflicts as the US cuts back its role as the world's policeman. Germany's growing military role is now being debated in government and academic circles. Germany has been a pacifist nation ever since the catastrophe of World War II. Any call to deploy German troops would trigger mass protests. Those attitudes are changing. Nobody protested last month when the parliament voted to extend the country's military mission in Afghanistan. Still, German politicians are reluctant to talk about their country's role in securing the world.

ANKARA, TURKEY/BERLIN, GERMANY - In view of the German chancellor's talks in Ankara today, German foreign policy experts are pleading for new openings toward Turkey.

UK - We've long known that a lack of sleep makes us feel irritable and crave carbohydrates, not to mention make our skin look dull. Now scientists say that just one week of poor sleep can disrupt hundreds of genes, increasing the risk of a host of life-threatening illnesses linked to stress, immunity and inflammation.

USA - Officials at the US Federal Reserve may be more worried than they have let on about the treacherous task of extricating America from quantitative easing. This is an unsettling twist, with global implications.

ITALY - Early results from Italy's election suggest the houses of parliament may split between left and right, causing new anxiety in the eurozone. Projections suggest Pier Luigi Bersani's centre-left bloc has a narrow lead in the lower house while Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right is ahead in the powerful Senate. A protest movement led by comedian Beppe Grillo surged into third place. The election comes amid a deep recession and tough austerity measures. Speaking on Italian public TV, Mr Bersani's economics spokesman, Stefano Fassina, said: "The scenario from the projections we have seen so far suggests there will be no stable government and we would need to return to the polls."

VATICAN - Pope Benedict XVI has amended Roman Catholic church law so that the conclave selecting his successor can be brought forward, the Vatican says. The change to the constitution means cardinals will no longer have to wait 15 days after the papacy becomes vacant before beginning the conclave. As a result, the conclave can now start before 15 March.

UK - Britain's most senior Roman Catholic cleric, Cardinal Keith O'Brien, is stepping down as leader of the Scottish Catholic Church. He had been accused of inappropriate behaviour towards priests dating back to the 1980s - claims he contests. Cardinal O'Brien, the Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, apologised to "all whom I have offended" for "any failures" during his ministry. He will not take part in electing a new pope, leaving Britain unrepresented. Cardinal O'Brien was due to retire when he turned 75 next month.

SPAIN - Tens of thousands of Spaniards marched through cities across the country on Saturday to protest deep austerity, the privatization of public services and political corruption. Gathering under the banner of the "Citizen Tide", students, doctors, unionists, young families and pensioners staged rowdy but non-violent demonstrations as a near five-year economic slump shows no sign of recovery and mass unemployment rises. Protests in Spain have become commonplace as the conservative government passes measures aimed at shrinking one of the euro zone's highest budget deficits and reinventing an economy hobbled by a burst housing bubble.