JERUSALEM - Israeli Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu's party secured its first coalition partner on Sunday, reaching an initial agreement with the ultra-right Yisrael Beiteinu party, an official said.
LONDON - More than three quarters of British adults believe immigrants should be asked to leave the country if they do not have a job, a survey for the Financial Times showed on Monday. The FT/Harris survey said a majority of those questioned also opposed the right for other European Union citizens to work in Britain.
QUILLAGUA, CHILE - During the past four decades here in Quillagua, a town in the record books as the driest place on earth, residents have sometimes seen glimpses of raindrops above the foothills in the distance. They never reach the ground, evaporating like a mirage while still in the air.
ISTANBUL - Humanity is facing "water bankruptcy" as a result of a crisis even greater than the financial meltdown now destabilising the global economy, two authoritative new reports show. They add that it is already beginning to take effect, and there will be no way of bailing the earth out of water scarcity.
LONDON - A Christian minister who has had heated arguments with Muslims on his TV Gospel show has been brutally attacked by three men who ripped off his cross and warned: "f you go back to the studio, we'll break your legs."
ROME - When police arrested two Romanians for the rape of an Italian teenager in Rome, Il Giornale, a paper owned by the family of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, reported: "The Romanian beasts have been caught."
LAHORE, PAKISTAN - Anti-government protesters fought street battles with police in the Pakistani city of Lahore on Sunday in clashes that deepened concern about the deteriorating situation in the country.
WASHINGTON DC, USA - At least 3 percent of District residents have HIV or AIDS, a total that far surpasses the 1 percent threshold that constitutes a "generalized and severe" epidemic, according to a report scheduled to be released by health officials tomorrow.
UK - Germany's Chancellor receives French backing as she uses a London meeting to warn against proposals to pump billions more into the global economy.
LONDON - Pope Benedict XVI will visit Britain next year, according to senior Vatican sources. The German pontiff will make the first Papal visit to this country in nearly three decades. It is understood that the historic event is being timed to coincide with the beatification of Cardinal John Henry Newman, who is on the path to becoming the first British saint for 40 years.
GERMANY - On Thursday, it was Liechtenstein and Andorra. On Friday, Austria, Luxembourg and Switzerland likewise decided to change their banking laws to allow for more cross-border cooperation. The days of European tax havens are numbered.
HORSHAM, UK - G20 finance ministers promised money on Saturday to rescue troubled emerging market economies and said they would use their full fiscal and monetary firepower to combat the worst downturn since the 1930s.
RUSSIA - Russia could use bases for its strategic bombers on the doorstep of the United States in Cuba and Venezuela to underpin long-distance patrols in the region, a senior air force officer said Saturday.
AUSTRIA - The far right is on the march again: In Austria's recent general election, nearly 30 per cent of voters backed extremist right-wing parties. Fascism is once again threatening to erupt across Europe.
TEHRAN - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Friday that pressure from Western powers trying to keep Iran in economic isolation have in fact spurred the country to become a space and nuclear power.