IBT Staff Reporter

Iran has no missile or nuclear cooperation with North Korea, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Monday, after North Korea conducted a second and far more powerful nuclear test.

India's home minister said on Monday Pakistan had been given enough evidence to prosecute those behind last November's attack in Mumbai that killed 166 people and led to renewed tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals.

Heavy flooding and landslides have killed 94 people and left thousands of families homeless in northern Afghanistan since May 20, the United Nations said on Monday.

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday rejected a Western proposal for it to freeze its nuclear work in return for no new sanctions and ruled out any talks with major powers on the issue.

President Barack Obama on Monday expressed grave concern over North Korea's nuclear test.

Italy would be willing to help the United States take some prisoners from the Guantanamo Bay prison but it will act in harmony with other European Union countries, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said.

Sri Lanka on Monday took the first step toward holding elections in areas formerly held by the rebel Tamil Tigers, who for the first time acknowledged the death of their founder and leader.

Pakistani soldiers were moving from house to house on Monday as they battled militants in the main town in the Swat valley and were expected to take at least a week to secure it, the military said.

Army-ruled Myanmar will open the trial of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Tuesday, diplomats said, when the Nobel Peace laureate is expected to take the stand in a case that has drawn international outrage.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) chief urged the United States and India to start talks as soon as possible to tackle protectionism and called on Gulf Arabs to open up to international business.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak faces a challenge this week on how to soothe political rancor that spilled out on Monday after the suicide of his predecessor Roh Moo-hyun and could threaten his economic reforms.

President Barack Obama said on Monday that nuclear and missile tests conducted by North Korea were a grave concern to all nations and a legal violation that warranted action by the international community.

An internal company letter from Sprint letter that discusses its launch plans for the highly-anticipated Palm Pre has been leaked online.

A moderate challenger to hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad condemned the authorities on Monday for blocking access to the Facebook social networking site ahead of the June 12 presidential election.

Germany will decide on a preferred bidder for General Motors unit Opel by the middle of the week, after holding a final round of talks with suitors Fiat, Magna and RHJ.

Top emitters of greenhouse gases tried on Monday to break a deadlock about sharing the burden of cuts in a U.N. climate pact, and Washington rejected charges that it was lagging Europe in fighting global warming.

World leaders condemned North Korea for carrying out nuclear and missile tests and U.S. President Barack Obama said Pyongyang's actions were a reckless challenge warranting action from the international community.

Solar power plants in deserts using mirrors to concentrate the sun's rays have the potential to generate up to a quarter of the world's electricity by 2050, a report by pro-solar groups said on Monday.

Chinese power giant Huaneng will launch its second pilot carbon capture project in Shanghai at the end of this year, but high costs are holding back further progress, an executive with the company said.

Dallas Federal Reserve President Richard Fisher said there was no sign of a problem with U.S. inflation at the moment, and revealed that Chinese officials had quizzed him on the Fed's purchases of U.S. government bonds.

A key measure of German business sentiment rose in May and Japan raised its economic outlook for the first time in three years in further signs the worst of the global recession may be over, with stability seen later in 2009.

Oil prices fell toward $61 a barrel on Monday, giving away some of last week's gains, ahead of OPEC's meeting in Vienna, where the group was widely expected to agree not to cut oil output further.

North Korea conducted an underground nuclear test on Monday, stoking tension across the regional economic powerhouse of East Asia and prompting U.N. Security Council members to call an emergency meeting.

The German government will likely settle on a preferred bidder for Opel, the German unit of General Motors, by the middle of the week, Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman said on Monday.

China's official foreign exchange manager is still buying record amounts of U.S. government bonds, in spite of Beijing's increasingly vocal fear of a dollar collapse, the Financial Times reported.

General Motors' Opel unit could go bankrupt but this would be the worst possible scenario, the premiers of North-Rhine-Westphalia and Opel's home state of Hesse said on Monday.

Susan Boyle, the frumpy Scottish spinster whose amazing voice has become a global YouTube sensation, stunned audiences again on Sunday as she was voted through to the final of Britain's Got Talent.

An Australia woman's account of a late night shooting in Sydney has turned her into an Internet sensation with T-shirts, mugs and a dance remix made in her honor but there's just one problem -- she made it up.

Oil prices fell toward $61 a barrel on Monday, shedding some of the previous session's gains, on risk aversion after North Korea said it had conducted an underground nuclear test.