World

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – President Barack Obama,  facing waning confidence among Amer-icans in his economic  stewardship, plans to lay out a $300 billion job-creation  package tomorrow, CNN reported, citing Democratic sources.

KHOMS, Libya,  (Reuters) – Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi  deployed special squads which held suspected opponents in  shipping containers, tortured them for information about  insurgent networks and disposed of their bodies in unmarked  graves in a campaign to smash the revolt against his rule.

MONTEVIDEO,  (Reuters) – Uruguay will apologize to  Haiti and compensate an 18-year-old Haitian man allegedly raped  by Uruguayan U.N.

 OSLO, (Reuters) – Norway is blocking payments of 300  million crowns ($55.2 million) in aid to Afghanistan until  issues surrounding the collapse of the country’s biggest private  lender, Kabulbank, are resolved, a Norwegian newspaper said yesterday.

CAIRO (Reuters) – Police officers testifying at the trial of Hosni Mubarak said yesterday they were not aware of orders to shoot at protesters, as scuffles erupted inside and outside the courtroom between supporters and opponents of the ousted Egyptian president.

LONDON (Reuters) – Four former executives from News Corp’s UK newspaper arm will appear before a powerful parliamentary committee today in the ongoing hunt to establish who knew what about phone hacking and whether James Murdoch did enough to uncover the scandal.

TIJUANA, Mexico (Reuters) – Mexico’s famously seedy border city of Tijuana is enjoying a lull in drug murders as the country’s most powerful cartel gains the upper hand over its rivals.

NORTH OF BANI WALID, Libya (Reuters) – Libyan forces have massed outside a pro-Gaddafi desert town that has refused to surrender, building a field hospital in preparation for a possible last stand.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg declined to apologize on Sunday for how he handled the resignation of a former deputy mayor, who was arrested on a domestic violence charge.

NORTH OF BANI WALID, Libya, (Reuters) – Forces of  Libya’s interim ruling council are poised for an assault on the  desert town of Bani Walid after negotiators failed to persuade  Muammar Gaddafi loyalists to abandon one of their last remaining  bastions.

NEW ORLEANS,  (Reuters) – Tropical Storm Lee moved  slowly across southern Louisiana on Sunday as New Orleans’  flood defenses appeared to pass one of their biggest tests  since Hurricane Katrina devastated the city in 2005.

BERLIN, (Reuters) – Former German chancellor Gerhard  Schroeder yesterday called for the creation of a “United States  of Europe”, saying the bloc needed a common government to avoid  future economic crises.

VENICE, Italy, (Reuters) – Hollywood veteran Al  Pacino is honoured by the Venice film festival yesterday with a  special prize and the presentation of his latest directorial  project “Wilde Salome”.

LONDON, (Reuters) – Europeans are plagued by mental  and neurological illnesses, with almost 165 million people or 38  percent of the population suffering each year from a brain  disorder such as depression, anxiety, insomnia or dementia,  according to a large new study.

TRIPOLI (Reuters) – Documents found in the abandoned Tripoli office of Muammar Gaddafi’s intelligence chief indicate the US and British spy agencies helped the fallen strongman persecute Libyan dissidents, Human Rights Watch said yesterday.

HAVANA (Reuters) – General Julio Casas Regueiro, Cuba’s defence minister and longtime aide to President Raul Castro, died yesterday of heart failure at the age of 75, the Cuban government said.

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) – Slow-moving Tropical Storm Lee brought torrential rains to the Louisiana coast yesterday as the heart of the storm neared New Orleans, where flood defences were expected to be put to the test.

BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) – China is obstructing the release of Libya’s frozen assets, the head of Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC) Mustafa Abdel Jalil said in a news conference yesterday.

DUBAI (Reuters) – A group of Bahraini doctors jailed earlier this year during a crackdown on unrest in the Gulf kingdom have gone on hunger strike in protest against their detention, a human rights group said  yesterday.

TRIPOLI, (Reuters) – Libya’s new leadership  reaffirmed its commitment to democracy yesterday and worked on  its priorities for spending billions of dollars released from  the frozen assets of fugitive strongman Muammar Gaddafi.