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RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will meet Palestinian and Israeli negotiators in Berlin on Tuesday to try to move peace talks forward, Palestinian and Israeli officials said on Monday.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy put himself forward on Monday as a possible Middle East peace broker, offering in a speech to Israel's parliament to help reach agreement and mobilize French troops if necessary.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama offered new steps on Sunday to crack down on speculation in oil markets, saying his plan would help rein in runaway fuel costs.

KABUL (Reuters) - U.S.-led coalition troops killed some 55 Taliban insurgents who ambushed them in southeastern Afghanistan, close to the Pakistan border, the U.S. military said on Monday.

VIENNA (Reuters) - U.N. nuclear inspectors headed on Monday for an alleged nuclear site in Syria that the United States says housed a secretly built reactor nearing completion when it was bombed by Israel nine months ago, a diplomat said.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran said on Monday it was encouraged by common points between its and world powers' separate proposals aimed at defusing a nuclear dispute, but again dismissed any suggestion of suspending uranium enrichment.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council will declare on Monday that a free and fair run-off presidential election in Zimbabwe would be impossible due to violence and restrictions on the opposition, diplomats said.

TRIPOLI, Lebanon (Reuters) - Lebanese troops deployed in Lebanon's second largest city on Monday, bringing calm after two days of sectarian fighting that has killed at least nine and dented a deal to restore political stability.

LANDIKOTAL, Pakistan (Reuters) - Suspected pro-Taliban Militants kidnapped 17 Pakistani policemen from posts on the road through the Khyber Pass, the latest insecurity on the vital supply route for Western forces in Afghanistan.

DEDAYE, Myanmar (Reuters) - With a planting deadline looming, rice farmers in cyclone-hit parts of Myanmar's Irrawaddy delta have hit a problem -- donated oxen and water buffaloes are refusing to work because they are stressed.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese authorities in the restive far western region of Xinjiang have demolished a mosque for refusing to put up signs in support of this August's Beijing Olympics, an exiled group said on Monday.

PHOENIX (Reuters) - John McCain will push on Monday for car makers to build more environmentally friendly vehicles, threatening new legislation if they do not comply and proposing tax breaks to encourage consumers to buy "cleaner" cars.

SEOUL (Reuters) - Secretive North Korea wants to invite five foreign news companies to record the destruction of the cooling tower at its ageing nuclear complex in a show of its will to abide by a disarmament deal, media reported on Monday.

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - At least 10 people, including nine separatist militants, were killed in clashes between security forces and insurgents at the weekend in Indian Kashmir, police said.

ATHENS (Reuters) - A prominent Greek businessman who was kidnapped for ransom earlier in June was released early on Monday, police said.

BEIJING (Reuters) - The survival of China's ruling Communist Party rests on its ability to curb corruption, the government warned in a plan released on Monday that outlines the need to clean up sectors from land use to fiscal transfers.

SEOUL (Reuters) - A South Korean official said on Monday the country would move slowly in allowing back U.S. beef imports so as to calm an angry public that has staged mass street protests for weeks against the product.

SIBUYAN ISLAND, Philippines (Reuters) - Rescuers halted efforts on Monday night to find nearly 800 people missing from a capsized ferry in the Philippines as darkness fell and large swells prevented divers from drilling holes into the doomed vessel.

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombia's Cano Limon-Covenas oil pipeline has been closed by rebel bomb attacks carried out on Saturday and Sunday, a source at state petroleum company Ecopetrol told Reuters.

LAGOS (Reuters) - Militants in Nigeria's southern Niger Delta, whose campaign of sabotage has sharply cut the country's oil output, announced a ceasefire on Sunday but stopped short of agreeing to participate in peace talks.