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CHICAGO (Reuters) - Presidential foes John McCain and Barack Obama clashed on Monday over the U.S. role in Iraq, with McCain questioning his rival's judgment as Obama pushed for a new strategy to boost troop levels in Afghanistan.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government would withdraw 500,000 barrels of oil a day from an emergency reserve over six months to help lower retail gasoline prices under legislation being sought by a key Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The U.S. military commander in Iraq said on Monday that security conditions would determine whether he makes recommendations for further troop withdrawals in the coming months.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice heads to Singapore next week for a meeting of Southeast Asian countries and will also visit Australia, New Zealand and Samoa, the State Department said on Monday.

CALABAR, Nigeria (Reuters) - A Nigerian court annulled the election of a state governor on Monday in the tenth such ruling since nationwide polls more than a year ago that were deemed not credible by international observers.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush on Monday lifted a White House ban on offshore drilling to try to drive down soaring energy prices, a largely symbolic bid unlikely to have any short-term impact on high gasoline costs.

HADARIM PRISON, Israel (Reuters) - Israel prepared on Monday for a prisoner swap with Hezbollah by moving four Lebanese guerrillas in its custody to a holding facility ahead of Wednesday's U.N.-mediated exchange.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has approved a plan to hand control of hundreds of state-owned assets to a single Kremlin corporation despite resistance from inside his government.

PHOENIX (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate John McCain said on Monday he backed U.S. actions aimed at saving mortgage finance giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae from financial collapse.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Democratic leader of the U.S. House of Representatives on Monday said he does not expect housing finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will need to draw on additional liquidity or capital from the Treasury Department or the Federal Reserve.

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South African President Thabo Mbeki and the African Union's top diplomat will meet on Friday to discuss the political crisis in Zimbabwe, an Mbeki spokesman said on Monday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush planned to lift a ban on oil exploration in the Outer Continental Shelf on Monday as part of an effort to ease record high oil prices, the White House said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States said on Monday it had tightened security at its embassy and offices in Sudan after an international prosecutor sought the arrest of the country's president on genocide charges in Darfur.

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Middle East envoy Tony Blair is expected to travel to the Gaza Strip on Tuesday in what would be the highest-level visit by a Western official since Hamas took control a year ago, Hamas and Western officials said.

LONDON (Reuters) - Three British Muslim men pleaded guilty on Monday to conspiring to cause explosions, part of a plan prosecutors say would have involved smuggling liquid bombs onto airliners with the intention of blowing them up mid-flight.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Migrant workers in eastern China rioted and protested for three days last week, officials said, vowing tough steps to quell the latest ripple of unrest ahead of the Beijing Olympics.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - White House hopeful Barack Obama will outline his views on Iraq and U.S. national security in a speech Tuesday before a planned trip there, his campaign said.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia made no commitment at last week's Group of Eight summit to back United Nations sanctions on Zimbabwe so it cannot be accused of a U-turn, a senior Russian diplomat said on Monday.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hit back at a senior adviser to Iran's top authority who had criticized his "provocative" speeches about the country's nuclear work, which the West says is a cover to build bombs.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Eighty-six people were indicted on charges of plotting the violent overthrow of Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's government, which is accused by militant secularists of Islamist subversion.