CAIRO, EGYPT - Egypt's long banned Muslim Brotherhood said Tuesday it intends to form a political party once democracy is established, as the country's new military rulers launched a panel of experts to amend the country's constitution enough to allow democratic elections later this year.
LIBYA - There are reports of protests by hundreds of people in the Libyan city of Benghazi. Eyewitnesses told the BBC that the unrest had been triggered by the arrest of a lawyer who is an outspoken critic of the government. The lawyer was later said to have been released but the protests continued.
ALGERIA - Internet providers were shut down and Facebook accounts deleted across Algeria on Saturday as thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators were arrested in violent street demonstrations.
EGYPT - He is a hypermarket of dogma, dispensing advice on subjects ranging from mother's milk to suicide bombing. But few have as much influence on Sunni Muslims as the Muslim televangelist Youssef al-Qaradawi. He says what the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt thinks - and he provides clues to how they might act.
UK - The UK Consumer Prices Index (CPI) annual inflation rate rose to 4% in January, up from 3.7% in December, as the effects of the VAT rise were felt. Higher oil prices also meant inflation remained well above the 2% target. Retail Prices Index (RPI) inflation - which includes mortgage interest payments - rose to 5.1% from 4.8%.
USA - The US Federal Reserve's journey to the outer limits of monetary policy is raising concerns about how hard it will be to withdraw trillions of dollars in stimulus from the banking system when the time is right.
BAHRAIN - As protests continue in the tiny gulf state of Bahrain, home to the US Fifth Fleet, the Americans and Saudi Arabia are monitoring events there very closely. The country, with an indigenous Shia-majority population, is ruled by a Sunni royal family, the al-Khalifas.
UK - Britain is to give more than 1 billion pounds in aid to India over the next four years, even though it has almost three times as many billionaires as we do. Ministers defended handing around 280 million pounds a year in taxpayers' cash to one of the world's biggest economies. They insist it will re-energise the relationship with the former colony and claim it still needs international aid.
GERMANY - Bundesbank head Axel Weber's resignation has made one thing clear: The debate about the future of the euro has become intense - and bitter. Indeed, Chancellor Angela Merkel's efforts at mandating strict monetary discipline for the euro zone may ultimately fail. And German euro skeptics may be gaining ground.
SUDAN - A Chinese company has won a 900 million euro ($1.21 billion) contract to build a new international airport in the Sudanese capital Khartoum, underscoring the close links between China and sanctions-hit Sudan.
USA - Few believed the housing market here would ever collapse. Now they wonder if it will ever stop slumping. The rolling real estate crash that ravaged Florida and the Southwest is delivering a new wave of distress to communities once thought to be immune - economically diversified cities where the boom was relatively restrained.
SOUTH KOREA - The heaviest snowfall in more than a century on South Korea's east coast is causing widespread chaos. Hundreds of houses have collapsed under the weight of the snow. One newspaper described it as a snow bomb. The South Korean government has deployed 12,000 soldiers to rescue stranded residents.
ISRAEL - The Israeli military is "ready for all eventualities" as the Arab and Muslim world undergoes "an earthquake," Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday just days after Egypt's regime collapsed.
USA - President Obama's budget, released Monday, was conceived as a blueprint for future spending, but it also paints the bleakest picture yet of the current fiscal year, which is on track for a record federal deficit and will see the government's overall debt surpass the size of the total US economy.
EGYPT - Fresh protests and strikes have flared in Egypt as demonstrators demand better pay and conditions from the country's new military rulers. Bank, transport and tourism workers all demonstrated in Cairo after 18 days of protests succeeded in removing President Hosni Mubarak. In a TV statement, the military urged all Egyptians to go back to work.