UK - Spanish bank Santander has agreed a deal to buy UK lender Alliance & Leicester (A&L) for about £1.26bn.
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO - China's modern-day "Scramble for Africa" to buy up the continent's mineral wealth enters a new phase this week.
WASHINGTON - A US government plan to shore up mortgage finance firms Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac helped calm markets on Monday but did little to allay fears about the health of the US financial system.
USA - As home prices continue to decline and loan defaults mount, U.S. regulators are bracing for dozens of American banks to fail over the next year.
ENGLAND - More than 20,000 serious knife crimes were committed last year, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal. They show that almost 60 people are stabbed or mugged at knife-point every day.
TEHRAN - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran would "cut off the hands" of any foreign enemy that attacked the country, the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency reported.
LONDON - There will be "spectacular casualties" in the airline industry over the next 12 months, billionaire Richard Branson, the owner of Britain's No. 2 long-haul airline Virgin Atlantic, was quoted as saying on Saturday.
PARIS - French President Nicolas Sarkozy launched a 43-nation Union for the Mediterranean on Sunday with a plea for Middle Eastern countries to emulate Europe's model of reconciliation and integration.
GIENGEN AN DER BRENZ, GERMANY - Wafts of golden fluff whirl in the air as Irene Basan wedges a bundle of material onto a spike and gently turns it inside-out, right ear, left ear, then a snout, to reveal a Steiff teddy bear head.
USA - An openly gay US bishop has said the Archbishop of Canterbury is in an "almost untenable" position as he tries to retain unity in the Church.
JERUSALEM - A three-foot-tall tablet with 87 lines of Hebrew that scholars believe dates from the decades just before the birth of Jesus is causing a quiet stir in biblical and archaeological circles, especially because it may speak of a messiah who will rise from the dead after three days.
LONDON - Rarely in political history can there have been such a rapid and dramatic reversal of a received wisdom as we have seen in the past 18 months over biofuels - the cropping of living plants, such as soya beans, wheat and sugar cane, to generate energy.
WESTMINSTER - The government is aiming to pull the vast majority of British troops out of Iraq by the middle of next year, defence sources have revealed.
BAGHDAD - US and Iraqi negotiators have ended efforts to reach a formal security pact before President George W. Bush leaves office in favor of an interim deal, the Washington Post said on Sunday, citing senior US officials.
DARFUR - The BBC has found the first evidence that China is currently helping Sudan's government militarily in Darfur. The Panorama TV programme tracked down Chinese army lorries in the Sudanese province that came from a batch exported from China to Sudan in 2005.