EGYPT

Kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit and hundreds of Palestinians will return home Tuesday in an exchange with the Hamas movement that rules Gaza that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called a historic deal.

A long-awaited prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas began before dawn Tuesday when the first of hundreds of Palestinian inmates were bused from their jails to border crossings where they will be swapped for captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

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

The number of subscribers cancelling their Mobinil subscriptions has tumbled from a peak earlier this year when some customers took offence at a cartoon posted online by the company's founder, its chairman said on Sunday.

British artist Marc Quinn's creative depiction of supermodel Kate Moss has reportedly been sold for a staggering $900,000 at a Sotheby's auction.

Both bloggers and the military played important roles in the Egyptian uprising of 2011, but the two groups are not at odds. In Iran, there is a similar silencing of opposition voices. Actress Marzieh Vafamehr was sentenced to a year in prison and 90 lashes for appearing in the film My Tehran for Sale.

The state-run Korean Central News agency, which acts as the mouthpiece of the North Korean government, has released a report about the Occupy Wall Street protests that is actually a reasonable account of the movement.

The Occupy Wall Street movement is spreading around the world. There are now protests in Spain, England, Hong Kong. Italy is next in line. Can the international movement be sustained?

George Soros says he isn't a financial backer of the Wall Street protests, despite speculation by critics including radio host Rush Limbaugh that the billionaire investor has helped fuel the anti-capitalist movement.

Israeli President Shimon Peres told media that he was “pleasantly surprised” by Erdogan's help in winning Shalit’s release,

Egypt's central bank said it kept its benchmark interest rates on hold after a monetary policy meeting on Thursday, as headline inflation eases and political uncertainty delays an economic recovery.

Egypt said on Thursday it would launch a review of disputed permits for churches in a bid to head off sectarian violence, days after 25 people were killed at a demonstration by Christians over one such dispute.

Occupy Wall Street has much more in common with a growing European unrest in France and Spain than the Arab Spring and Tahrir Square

To some Egyptians, a weekend demonstration that led to the deaths of two dozen mostly Coptic Christian protesters illustrated the continuity between the ruling military regime and the dictatorship of former president Hosni Mubarak.

Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit will be released by Hamas in exchange for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.

Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier held captive in the Gaza Strip for five years, will be released after Israeli and Hamas officials agreed on a prisoner swap deal.

Tahrir Square in Cairo, Green Square in Tripoli, Syntagma Square in Athens and now Zuccotti Park in New York -- popular anger against entrenching power elites is spreading around the world.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a meeting with his 29 cabinet ministers in Jerusalem on Tuesday, after which he announced that an agreement was finally summarized and both sides signed.

HSBC cut its weighting on Egypt to "neutral" from "overweight," on increased political risks, and upgraded Poland to "overweight" from "underweight," on macroeconomic stability and valuation.

Egypt's Finance Minister Hazem el-Beblawi has quit after less than three months in the post over the government's handling of a protest by Coptic Christians on Sunday night, an aide to Beblawi said on Tuesday.

Twenty-eight people were arrested on suspicion of attacking soldiers and burning military vehicles during clashes between the army and demonstrators, state media reported on Tuesday.