WORLD

Switzerland has already placed a freeze on Mubarak family assets as well as those of other former Cairo officials.

South Africa's rand fell more than 1.7 percent against the dollar on Monday, with dealers citing speculation of a cross-border deal between a local company and a Canadian firm as the driver.

Angola will export around 1.69 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil in December, trade sources said on Monday, down sharply from 1.84 million bpd originally scheduled to load in November.

Intense rains have disrupted operations at Kenya's only port, delaying the delivery of grain, sugar and coal, while a queue of vessels waiting to offload cargo is building up, its operator said on Monday.

Nigeria's new car imports jumped 40 percent in the first nine months of 2011 compared to the same period last year, although sales were expected to slow given rising interest rates and local currency weaknesses, import dealers said on Monday.

Guinness Ghana plans to boost its pretax profit in the 2011/2012 financial year by 30 pct on the back of a recovery in the West African nation's beer market, the company's finance director said on Monday.

Massmart Holdings, the South African retailer majority owned by Wal-Mart Stores, said on Monday first-quarter sales rose nearly 15 percent, and forecast a solid year ahead.

The South African operations of global miner Xstrata were disrupted on Monday after hundreds of workers joined a walk-out in protest over an employee share ownership programme, the company said.

A total of 1,027 Palestinians will ultimately be released as part of the unprecedented agreement between Hamas and the Israeli government.

Tanzania's food and energy costs pushed the inflation rate to 16.8 percent year-on-year in September from 14.1 percent in the previous month, and analysts expected consumer prices to continue accelerating at least until the turn of the year.

House Minority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., who earlier called the Occupy Wall Street coalition growing mobs, Sunday dropped that description of the activists, but he didn't apologize for his evaluation of the coalition seeking economic and fiscal policy reform.

Ugandan police said on Monday they have arrested 12 opposition activists for planning violent anti-government demonstrations, a move opposition leaders denounced as harassment.

The Supreme Court said on Monday it would decide whether companies can be liable in this country for international human rights law violations, a case involving allegations that Royal Dutch Shell Plc helped Nigeria violently suppress oil exploration protests in the 1990s.

Nigeria's trade unions have warned President Goodluck Jonathan there could be civil unrest if the go-ahead is given to remove the fuel subsidy the government says will cost 1.2 trillion naira this year.

On Friday, the California Medical Association became the first major medical association in the nation to officially support the legalization and regulation of marijuana in the U.S.

Libyan interim government forces said on Monday they had raised the country's new flag over Bani Walid, but it was not clear if they had captured the whole town, one of the last bastions of pro-Muammar Gaddafi loyalists.

In Nigeria, a member of parliament was shot dead by militants thought to be affiliated with Islamic group Boko Haram.

Al Qaeda linked al Shabaab militants rushed reinforcements to Somalia's southern border with Kenya on Monday in response to a Kenyan cross-border offensive and theatened to take the flames of war across.

GOP presidential frontrunner Herman Cain likely doesn't want you to see a video of him singing an ode to pizza to the tune of John Lennon's Imagine.

Zimbabwe's local ownership rules for foreign mining companies are too stringent, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai said on Monday.

As he seeks to build momentum for what will likely be an arduous re-election campaign in 2012, President Barack Obama is signaling that he'll try to tap into rising populist voter sentiment by distancing himself from Wall Street.

European leaders are running out of time to prevent euro zone debt problems turning into a full-blown global crisis, Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said on Monday after Germany warned a breakthrough was unlikely at a summit this weekend.

The number of murders fell by 6.5 percent over the 12-month period through the end of March 2011 to 15,940, the lowest figure in seventeen years.

Strauss-Kahn was on a list of politicians, lawyers and businessmen involved in a prostitution ring that extended from France to Belgium and may have included women under the age of 18.

Another performance, another headline; Lady Gaga stole the show at former Bill Clinton's 65th birthday as she took the guise of Marilyn Monroe, sang an unplugged version of Born this Way and made a pass at the former President and his wife, the Secretary of State.

Amid what appears to be increased support by a portion of the electorate for substantive economic and fiscal policy change, President Barack Obama begins a three-day, two-state bus tour through North Carolina and Virginia for what the administration hopes will be a momentum builder to pass a revised jobs bill.

Before his arrest at an Occupy Wall Street-style protest outside of the U.S. Supreme Court, Cornel West said Martin Luther King Jr. would be protesting alongside the group.

Rep. Ron Paul is expected to announce the details of his economic plan on Monday afternoon. The plan will purportedly balance the U.S budget in three years.

Last week, Israel rejoiced at the news that captured soldier Gilad Shalit would be released from a Hamas prison after five years. But now, many Israelis are angered by the lopsidedness of the prisoner exchange, in which Israel will send home 1,027 Palestinian detainees.