AP - North Korea requested a shipment of rice, cement and heavy equipment days after South Korea offered relief aid to its communist neighbor to help it recover from recent flooding, the Unification Ministry said Tuesday.

AP - Searchers on Monday pulled five more bodies from a mud-covered highway where back-to-back landslides buried bus passengers and then the people trying to save them. The deaths raised the confirmed toll from mudslides in Guatemala to 45 as torrential rains pounded the country.

Reuters - Asian stocks hovered near one-month highs on Tuesday as investors awaited Chinese data, while the euro took a hit after a newspaper report rekindled fears about the weakness of European banks.

AP - Tropical Storm Hermine slammed into Mexico's northern Gulf coast near the U.S. border late Monday with winds of 65 mph (100 kph), threatening heavy rains that could cause flash flooding in Mexico and Texas.

AFP - The government will review its extradition agreements with the United States and European nations amid concerns that the current system is failing to protect British citizens, a report said Tuesday.

AP - An imam who has become the public face of a proposed Islamic community center and mosque near ground zero has returned to the United States following a taxpayer-funded tour of the Middle East, his wife said Monday.

Reuters - Australia's agonizing wait for a new government is expected to end on Tuesday when independent lawmakers reveal who they will back, but there is still no clear favorite for who will head the minority government.

AP - An Indonesian volcano shot black ash three miles (5,000 meters) into the air early Tuesday — its most powerful eruption since springing back to life after four centuries of dormancy.

AFP - The head of South Korea's second-largest automaker Kia Motors has resigned to take responsibility for mass vehicle recalls caused by defective electrical wiring, the company said Tuesday.

Reuters - President Barack Obama, scrambling to spur job creation, proposed a six-year plan on Monday to rebuild infrastructure with an initial $50 billion investment and prepared new business tax cuts.

AFP - A senior culture ministry official and the head of a Cairo museum from which a Van Gogh painting was stolen will stand trial on charges of negligence, a judicial source said on Monday.

AP - A sharp series of about 20 aftershocks rattled New Zealand's earthquake-hit city of Christchurch overnight, and earthquake experts warned Tuesday that another powerful tremblor might hammer the region in coming days.

AP - Former Surinamese dictator Desi Bouterse shrugged off questions about his past during his first overseas trip as elected president, saying Monday that he will not interfere in his ongoing murder trial and dismissing a 1999 drug conviction as "almost a joke."

AP - Egypt's leading democracy advocate made a forceful call Monday for the nation to boycott November's parliamentary election, saying they were certain to be rigged and urging his young supporters to be patient and plan for a lengthy struggle.

AP - The lawyer for an Iranian woman sentenced to be stoned on an adultery conviction said Monday that he and her children are worried the delayed execution could be carried out soon with the end of a moratorium on death sentences for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

AFP - Plans to radically re-draw cross-border economic government across Europe hit a stumbling block on Monday 10 days from a deadline for concrete action set by European Union leaders.

AP - The Justice Department won't say if the blowout preventer that failed to stop oil from gushing from BP's undersea well into the Gulf of Mexico is on its way to shore.

AFP - The World Trade Organization will issue its long-awaited opinion on Europe's challenge to American subsidies to US aerospace giant Boeing next week, a source close to the matter said Monday.

Reuters - Increasingly erratic rainfall patterns related to climate change pose a major threat to food security and economic growth, water experts said on Monday, arguing for greater investment in water storage.

AFP - Brazil's Petrobras unveiled one of the world's biggest share offerings Friday, a sale of up to 64 billion dollars in new stock to finance oil exploration aimed at turning Brazil into a leading oil exporter of the 21st century.

AP - Summer is rarely a hot sales season for Campbell Soup Co., and this year's sweltering June and July made that even more true, but the company said Friday that cost-cutting and strong drink sales helped its net income climb.