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BERLIN (Reuters) - The Dalai Lama hailed the fall of the Berlin Wall as a symbol of peaceful protest in an address to some 20,000 supporters which strove to reassure China he was not seeking independence for Tibet.

RAFAH, Egypt (Reuters) - Leaders from the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas arrived in Egypt on Monday to hear Israel's response to a six-month truce offer between Palestinians in Gaza and the Jewish state.

DUBLIN (Reuters) - The United Nations urged the world on Monday to back a global ban on cluster bombs, calling the munitions unreliable and indiscriminate.

ROME (Reuters) - Soaring food prices, a devalued currency and drought mean millions of people in Somalia cannot feed themselves, the United Nations said on Monday.

NASSIRIYA, Iraq (Reuters) - A local Iraqi police chief was killed on Monday when a bomb placed under his bed in the local police headquarters exploded as he slept, police said.

JENIN, West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinian forces loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas have arrested two Islamic Jihad leaders, a Palestinian security official said on Monday, in a U.S.-backed law-and-order campaign in the occupied West Bank.

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's opposition accused military intelligence agents on Monday of a plot to kill party leader Morgan Tsvangirai that it said forced him to postpone his return to the country over the weekend.

SIRARO, Ethiopia (Reuters) - Ethiopian mother Ayantu Tamon has lost a child to hunger every year for the last four and now cradles her severely malnourished and weakened three-year-old son Hirbu in her arms.

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan's President-elect, Ma Ying-jeou, will take office on Tuesday with a pledge to improve ties with China, symbolically sending his party's chairman to Beijing as one of his first acts in power.

GHAZNI, Afghanistan (Reuters) - The Taliban in Afghanistan are getting weaker, the U.S. ambassador tells local councilors in the eastern city of Ghazni, but he is met by a wall of shaking heads and tutting noises; 'no, no', some reply.

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - A wave of xenophobic attacks spread through South African townships on Monday and mobs beat foreigners and set some ablaze in scenes reminiscent of apartheid era violence.

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi rejected calls to step down after his predecessor quit Malaysia's main ruling party on Monday, a move that could undermine its hold on power.

YANGON (Reuters) - Southeast Asian nations will take the lead in an international aid effort for cyclone-hit Myanmar, but the military junta will not give Western relief workers unfettered access to disaster areas, Singapore said on Monday.

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombian authorities on Sunday rejected charges from Venezuela that their troops had crossed the frontier in the latest incident to test fraying relations between the Andean neighbors.

MANILA (Reuters) - Several Philippine men sprayed houses in a farming village outside Manila with bursts of automatic weapon fire, killing nine people, most of them sleeping children, police said on Monday.

CHENGDU, China (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of panicked residents rushed into the streets of Chengdu in southwest China early on Tuesday, alarmed by a television report that predicted another powerful earthquake would hit the region.

DOHA (Reuters) - Qatari-led Arab mediators stepped up efforts to salvage talks aimed at ending Lebanon's crisis on Monday after negotiations between the U.S.-backed government and the Hezbollah-led opposition suffered a setback.

MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan (Reuters) - When 19-year-old Fatima returned to her home in northern Afghanistan after years as a refugee in Iran, she struggled desperately to earn a living.

DUBAI (Reuters) - Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has urged Muslims to break the Israeli-led blockade of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and fight Arab governments that deal with the Jewish state, according to an audio recording.

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - The new head of the African Union said on Sunday he was optimistic tensions between Chad and Sudan would ease, after holding talks in both countries.