CAIRO (Reuters) – Red and white banners along Nile bridges and Cairo streets this month were Egypt’s latest effort to curb an increasingly pressing problem: a population growing faster than the economy can support.

LAGONISSI, Greece (Reuters) – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas expressed hope of reaching a lasting peace accord with Israel before the end of the year, ahead of a meeting with Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak on Tuesday.

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkish authorities detained at least 21 ultra-nationalists, including two prominent retired generals, on Tuesday in a widening police investigation into a suspected coup plot against the government.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – The U.S. military has begun withdrawing from Iraq the last of the five additional combat brigades that were deployed to the country in 2007, a U.S. military spokesman said on Tuesday.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – The man suspected of killing Russian reporter Anna Politkovskaya in 2006 is hiding in Western Europe, Russia’s chief criminal investigator was quoted as saying on Tuesday.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Lebanon said on Tuesday a prisoner swap deal reached between Israel and Hezbollah marked a “big failure” for the Jewish state which had earlier refused to agree to such a plan.

KABUL (Reuters) – NATO troops in Afghanistan and Pakistani soldiers together killed a number of militants along the rugged border, the NATO force said on Tuesday, in a rare show of close cross-border military cooperation.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Four Iraqi men are suing U.S. military contractors who they say tortured them while they were detained in Abu Ghraib prison, according to lawsuits being filed at U.S. federal courts on Monday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The Iraqi government sued dozens of companies, including oil giant Chevron Corp., for more than $10 billion on Monday, saying they paid kickbacks to former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s government under the U.N. oil-for-food program.

The Estonian delegation headed by the country’s President, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, has left a forum for Finno-Ugric nations in protest at comments made by the Chairman of Russian Duma’s (Parliament’s) International Affairs Committee, Konstantin Kosachev, who said that Estonia’s ethnic policies are “unprincipled”.