AP - Pakistan's top leaders were to dine at the Marriott hotel devastated by a truck bombing over the weekend, but changed the venue at the last minute, a senior official said Monday. A hotel official, however, denied there were any plans for a government dinner.

AFP - A change in the leadership of Australia's opposition conversatives paid dividends Monday, with new leader Malcolm Turnbull increasing his party's standing in opinion polls.

AFP - Heavy fighting across Sri Lanka's war-torn north has left at least 59 rebels and eight soldiers dead, the defence ministry said Monday.

AP - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez began a five-nation tour Sunday with a stop in Cuba to visit ailing former leader Fidel Castro.

AP - Exactly one month before the bombing that would take her life, a young Yemeni-American left an upstate New York city with her trousseau and wedding dress to marry a man she'd never met and eventually settle down in the ancestral country she'd never visited.

AFP - The FTSE rose 0.18 percent in initial trade on Monday, as investors responded to a massive US rescue plan for the distressed financial sector.

AP - South African President Thabo Mbeki told the nation Sunday that he had resigned, having lost a power struggle to a rival tainted by allegations of corruption but poised now to lead the country.

AP - The number of children in China sickened by dairy products tainted with the banned industrial chemical melamine has jumped to nearly 53,000, the government said as it vowed to crack down on those responsible for one of China's worst food safety scandals in years.

AP - World leaders meeting at the U.N. General Assembly this week face a global financial crisis that threatens the United Nation's efforts to generate billions of dollars to fight poverty, especially in Africa.

AP - Pakistani troops and tribesmen opened fire when two U.S. helicopters crossed into the country from neighboring Afghanistan, intelligence officials said Monday.

AFP - Qantas landed its first A380 superjumbo here on Sunday, hopeful that its arrival will boost the Australian carrier, which has recently faced a series of mechanical problems including a mid-air blast.

AFP - One year after Myanmar's brutal crackdown on protests led by Buddhist monks, the world remains divided on how to handle the regime, leaving democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi alone against the generals.