ISRAEL

Stocks rose on Tuesday as IBM's dividend boost and reassuring data that could point to a bottom in the slow economic cycle offset worries that major banks may need to raise more money.

U.S. stocks rose modestly on Tuesday as a dividend hike at IBM and reassuring data that could signal a bottom in the economic cycle offset concerns that major banks may need to raise more money.

Anxiety over a global flu crisis and the health of some U.S. banks rattled hopes on Tuesday that the financial system was stabilizing, but U.S. and other data suggested confidence was returning to consumers.

Iran's hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has damaged the country's relations with the international community, a moderate challenger to the president in the June presidential vote said on Tuesday.

New Zealand and Israel confirmed cases of swine flu on Tuesday, the latest countries hit by a new strain that has killed up to 149 people in Mexico and which threatens to become a pandemic.

Wall Street was set for a drop of about 1 percent at the open on Tuesday as a report that Bank of America Corp and Citigroup Inc may need more capital revived fears about the stability of the struggling financial sector.

Stock futures pointed to a lower open on Tuesday as a report that Bank of America Corp and Citigroup Inc may need more capital revived fears about the stability of the struggling financial sector.

Israel is a country in the Middle East, on the narrow region connecting Africa and Asia. The State of Israel occupies most of the region known as the Land of Israel.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton vowed on Sunday that the United States would never sell out Lebanon in any deal with Syria and she urged the Lebanese to hold an open and fair election in June.

A continent that has battled deadly viruses such as the H5N1 bird flu and SARS in recent years, has been taking steps to ward off the new swine flu virus.

The flu virus spreading around the world should not be called swine flu as it also contains avian and human components and no pig was found ill with the disease so far, the World Animal Health body said on Monday.

Governments around the world acted to stem a possible flu pandemic on Monday, as a virus that has killed 103 people in Mexico and spread to North America was confirmed to have reached Europe.

Fears that any tentative green shoots in the global economy could be trampled by a deadly outbreak of swine flu put markets on edge on Monday, after world policymakers said over the weekend that a recovery could begin later this year but plenty of downside risk remained.

Fears of a global swine flu pandemic grew with new infections in the United States and Canada on Sunday, and millions of Mexicans

Israel demolished a Palestinian house in Arab East Jerusalem on Wednesday, a day after U.S. President Barack Obama called on Israeli and Palestinian leaders to take measures to promote peacemaking.

Iran's president accused Israel on Wednesday of brutal acts and ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians, two days after his denunciation of the Jewish state as racist prompted a walk-out from a U.N. meeting on race.

The Pentagon and Lockheed Martin Corp, its top supplier, discounted a Wall Street Journal report that cyber spies had stolen secrets of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft being built for the United States and nearly a dozen allies.

President Barack Obama nudged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday to accept the goal of a Palestinian state, as he pressed Israel and the Palestinians to step back from the abyss.

President Barack Obama on Tuesday urged Israel and the Palestinians to step back from the abyss, saying he expected good faith gestures from both sides in coming months as part of a bid to revive stalled peace efforts.

France's Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner criticized the United States Tuesday for boycotting a United Nations conference where Iran's president launched a verbal attack on Israel.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon accused Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Tuesday of misusing a UN conference on racism at which he attacked Israel's policy toward the Palestinians as racist.