LONDON Abu Qatada, a radical Muslim cleric whom British officials say is an al-Qaida figurehead and a threat to national security, will be freed from an English prison into virtual house arrest, judicial officials said Monday.

LONDON Locked in a cellar where she was allegedly raped and beaten for nearly a decade, a young deaf and mute Pakistani woman told a U.K. court on Monday how she was trafficked into Britain and forced to work as a virtual slave.

LONDON A former senior British police officer was sentenced to jail on corruption charges Monday for falsely arresting a business rival over a financial dispute.

LUSAKA, Zambia With an escort of jet fighters screaming above and tens of thousands of screaming fans on the ground, Zambia's victorious soccer team flew home Monday to a hero's welcome.

NEW DELHI Assailants targeted Israeli diplomats in India and Georgia in near-simultaneous strikes Monday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed on archenemy Iran, and its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah. Iran denied responsibility for the attacks.

BUCHAREST, Romania Military planes and police helicopters flew in tons of emergency food to snowbound villages and ships in the Balkans on Monday, after blizzards so fierce that some people had to cut tunnels through 15 feet (4 meters) of snow to get out of their homes.

TEHRAN, Iran A senior Iranian military official said Monday that Tehran's nuclear and other industrial facilities suffer periodic cyber attacks, but that the country has the technology to protect itself from the threat, an official news agency reported.

JAKARTA, Indonesia The Muslim militant suspected of building the bombs used in the 2002 Bali attack went on trial Monday on terrorism charges, a year after he was captured in the same Pakistani town where Osama bin Laden was hiding.

JERUSALEM Israeli settlers from an unauthorized West Bank outpost said Monday they have accepted an offer from the government to stay put for two more years, despite Israeli Supreme Court orders to evacuate them next month.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti The U.S. State Department is sending to Haiti a team of legal experts to look at ways to strengthen the Caribbean nation's beleaguered judiciary, Haitian Prime Minister Garry Conille said Monday.

LONDON British Prime Minister David Cameron will hold talks with Scotland's leader this week on plans for an independence ballot, his office said Monday, with the two expected to wrangle over the timing of a vote that could break up Britain.

ALGIERS, Algeria Gen. Mohammed Lamari, who led Algeria's military during a decade of civil war that crushed the nation's Islamic rebel groups, died Monday. He was 73.

MALE, Maldives The United Nations on Monday backed Maldives' new leader's proposal for a national unity government though the ousted leader is calling for a snap poll to resolve a political crisis.

KADUNA, Nigeria Police say security officers have foiled an attack in central Nigeria after gunshots were heard near a government building.

MOGADISHU, Somalia Hundreds of Somalis are gathering at a militant-organized demonstration on the outskirts of Mogadishu in support of the merger of the Somali militant group al-Shabab with al-Qaida.

SINGAPORE Oil prices are rising after Greece took a key step toward avoiding a bankruptcy that could hurt Europe's economy.

GIGLIO, Italy Relatives of people still missing one month after the Costa Concordia capsized off the Tuscan coast have tossed bouquets of red roses in the sea near the luxury liner.

LONDON Queen Elizabeth II has a new sidekick for royal events: The Duchess of Cambridge.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka The United States will support a U.N. human rights council resolution asking Sri Lanka to implement recommendations its commission made on the island nation's civil war, an American diplomat said Monday.

MANAMA, Bahrain Security forces in Bahrain fired tear gas and stun grenades at protesters trying to occupy a landmark square in the nation's capital on Monday ahead of the one-year anniversary of the Gulf kingdom's Shiite-led uprising.

JERUSALEM A lawyer for a Palestinian on his 58th day of a hunger strike says Israel has rejected an appeal to reduce the man's jail term.

LAGOS, Nigeria Hurricane-strength winds and rain tore through the islands of Nigeria's commercial capital on Monday, killing at least one person and downing trees across major roadways.

BAGHDAD Iraqi officials say a police commander who for years hunted militants was ambushed and killed in a former insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad.

KAMPALA, Uganda Women and children abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army guerrilla group are suffering from hunger because the wanted band of fighters has stopped stealing food from villages to avoid being detected by a military manhunt, Ugandan military officials said Monday.

CARACAS, Venezuela Now that Henrique Capriles has easily won Venezuela's first-ever opposition presidential primary, he's not just up against any other incumbent. The young governor will have to defeat a veritable political phenomenon.

TEHRAN, Iran Many Iranian web users say their access to foreign email services such as Gmail, Yahoo mail and Hotmail appears to have been restored after a four day outage.

JERUSALEM A spokesman for ex-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says a Tel Aviv court will hold its first hearing into a wide-ranging real estate scandal involving the former leader.

BAGHDAD Iraq's capital is embracing Valentine's Day this year with a huge public display of affection in what its residents say is the nation's most amorous celebration of the holiday ever.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia Malaysia's government on Monday defended its decision to deport a young Saudi journalist who may face persecution at home for allegedly insulting the Prophet Muhammad on Twitter.

KABUL, Afghanistan The Taliban's former defense minister died in a Pakistani jail in 2010, a spokesman for the insurgent group said Monday.

MADRID Spain's Supreme Court has thrown out a case against recently barred magistrate Baltasar Garzon in which he was suspected of improperly receiving money while on sabbatical in New York.

TEHRAN, Iran An Iranian news agency says President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's press adviser has been sentenced to six months in jail.

MADRID Police are conducting a homicide investigation regarding the death of an American college student in Spain and have detained a suspect.

MEXICO CITY The U.S. Geological Survey says a magnitude 5.8 earthquake shook the central and Pacific coastal regions of Costa Rica early Monday morning. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.

BEIRUT Syrian rebels repelled a push Monday by government tanks into a key central town held by forces fighting President Bashar Assad's regime as the country's 11-month-old uprising looked increasingly like a nascent civil war.

TEHRAN, Iran A senior Iranian military official has claimed the country's nuclear facilities are immune to cyber attack.

Don't tell Michael W. McLanahan that manufacturing in the United States is dead. His family-owned, privately held company has made mineral processing and farm equipment since its founding way back in 1835 — and is enjoying a boom.

Pakistan's Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani was charged Monday with contempt of court in a case that could lead to him being disqualified from office if found guilty.

LAGOS, Nigeria A piracy monitoring official says pirates off Nigeria's coast have attacked a cargo ship and shot dead its captain and chief engineer.

For the first time ever, political parties have started campaigning for votes in the militant-infested tribal areas of Pakistan that border Afghanistan, ahead of a general election likely within the next 12 months.

Pakistan's prime minister will be charged with contempt of court and was ordered Thursday to appear in person before the Supreme Court on Feb. 13, in proceedings that could lead to him being jailed and disqualified from office.

The Arab League voted Sunday to seek a joint U.N. peacekeeping force for Syria as regional diplomats met in Cairo to discuss their dwindling options for stopping the bloodshed in a nearly year-old uprising against President Bashar Assad.

NEW DELHI An explosion tore through an Israeli diplomat's car on the streets of New Delhi on Monday, Israeli officials said. The driver and a diplomat's wife were injured, according to Indian officials.

LONDON A retired British businessman accused of plotting to sell missile components to Iran will be extradited to the United States, his lawyer said Monday.

MOSCOW A fire at a drydocked Russian nuclear submarine in December could have sparked a radiation disaster because it was carrying nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles and other weapons, despite official statements to the contrary, a Russian news magazine reported Monday.

JERUSALEM Israel's Foreign Ministry is confirming a pair of attempted car bombings against Israeli diplomats in India and Georgia.

The Iraqi branch of al Qaida, seeking to exploit the bloody turmoil in Syria to reassert its potency, carried out two recent bombings in the Syrian capital, Damascus, and likely was behind suicide bombings Friday that killed at least 28 people in the largest city, Aleppo, U.S. officials told McClatchy.

ISLAMABAD The Supreme Court charged Pakistan's prime minister with contempt Monday for defying its order to reopen an old corruption case against the president, sharpening a political crisis that has shaken this already volatile country.

Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping arrives in the United States on Monday for a high-profile visit where he'll be feted as if he were the president of China — the post he's expected to take next year.

ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan Turkmenistan's President Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov won a new five-year term by capturing 97 percent of the vote, election officials said Monday, but a Western expert called the vote a democratic sham.