For the first time in nearly half a century, Fidel Castro has stepped down as president of Cuba. The announcement caps a year and a half of limbo and speculation since Mr. Castro fell ill and temporarily ceded power to his younger brother, Raúl Castro.
"I will not aspire to nor accept – I repeat, I will not aspire to nor accept – the post of President of the Council of State and Commander in Chief," read a letter that appeared early Tuesday morning in the Community Party daily Granma.

It is a pivotal moment in the island nation's history. Castro rose to power on New Year's Day in 1959, and quickly became a nemesis of the United States as he turned Cuba into a communist country. Throughout the cold war – and since – US presidents have attempted to topple him with no success. Many Cubans have no memory of anyone other than Castro as the head of state. Even when he handed temporary power to his brother in July 2006, there was an expectation that he would return.

Christian Schmidt-Sommerfeld, Munich's chief prosecutor, said the raids were done in cooperation with investigators in Bochum who are looking into more claims of tax evasion, following the resignation of Klaus Zumwinkel, chief executive of Deutsche Post. Bochum prosecutors last week said Zumwinkel is suspected of evading about 1 million euros ($1.5 million) in taxes by transferring money to tax haven Liechtenstein.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel made clear Monday that she will press Liechtenstein for greater transparency, arguing that the tiny country's reputation is at stake.

So far, no other people suspected in the investigation have been named, but the government acknowledged over the weekend that its Federal Intelligence Service, or BND, had paid an informant some euro5 million ($7.3 million) for a list with the names of account holders from a Liechtenstein bank.

"The government received an unsolicited offer of information," Ulrich Wilhelm, Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman told reporters Monday.

The lawsuit was lodged in May against Jeppesen Dataplan by several men who say they were taken on secret flights to prisons in Morocco, Egypt, Afghanistan and Jordan, where they say they were tortured.

The lawsuit charged that Jeppesen was a leading supplier of logistics to planes used by US intelligence, and that it carried out 70 such flights in 2001.

The government asked the judge, James Ware in San Diego California, to throw out the case without considering it, arguing it involved secrets that could be neither confirmed nor denied.

After receiving a confidential statement from Michael Hayden, the current CIA director, the judge agreed.

"The Court's review of General Hayden's public and classified declarations confirm that proceeding with this case would jeopardize national security and foreign relations and that no protective procedure can salvage this case," his statement said.

"Thus, the Court finds that the issues involved in this case are non-justiciable because the very subject matter of the case is a state secret," he added.

The planes, which flew under the names of CIA front corporations, are suspected of having been part of the CIA's extraordinary rendition program.

Under the program, terror suspects were abducted and then illegally flown to countries such as Afghanistan, Egypt, Jordan and Romania for interrogation.

The European Union's Court of Justice ruled Thursday that Greece illegally ignored an EU order to recover millions of euros (dollars) in aid it gave to the ailing Olympic national airline.

The Luxembourg-based court said Greece "had not fulfilled its obligations" to take back the handouts from Olympic Airlines SA and its predecessor Olympic Airways.

EU officials said last November that Olympic would have to repay 130 million euros ($189.6 million) to the Greek government.

The ruling confirmed three previous EU court decisions since 2002, which backed the EU's executive Commission's arguments that the millions of euros (dollars) in direct aid and subsidies violated state aid rules and gave Olympic an unfair advantage over competitors.

Greece and Olympic Airlines still have an appeal pending in a lower EU court to annul earlier Commission decisions against restructuring aid and subsidies given to the airline.

Olympic Airlines won a small victory last year at the EU court when it said the Commission failed to prove some of the funds violated EU state aid rules. Those funds involved unpaid taxes on fuel and spare parts, as well as unpaid fees to Athens International Airport.

For years, Greece supplied subsidies to the struggling national airline, which in 2001 had debts totaling some 120 million euros ($166 million). In 2003, the government incorporated the assets of debt-ridden Olympic Airways and two subsidiaries into the newly named Olympic Airlines.

Exxon Mobil has gone after the assets of state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA in U.S., British and Dutch courts as it challenges the nationalization of a multibillion dollar oil project by Chavez's government.

A British court has issued an injunction "freezing" as much as $12 billion in assets.

"If you end up freezing (Venezuelan assets) and it harms us, we're going to harm you," Chavez said during his weekly radio and television program, "Hello, President." "Do you know how? We aren't going to send oil to the United States. Take note, Mr. Bush, Mr. Danger."

Chavez has repeatedly threatened to cut off oil shipments to the United States, which is Venezuela's No. 1 client, if Washington tries to oust him. Chavez's warnings on Sunday appeared to extend that threat to attempts by oil companies to challenge his government's nationalization drive through lawsuits.

"I speak to the U.S. empire, because that's the master: continue and you will see that we won't sent one drop of oil to the empire of the United States," Chavez said Sunday.

"The outlaws of Exxon Mobil will never again rob us," Chavez said, accusing the Irving, Texas-based oil company of acting in concert with Washington.

A U.S. Embassy spokeswoman did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Venezuelan Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez has argued that court orders won by Exxon Mobil have "no effect" on the state oil company PDVSA and are merely "transitory measures" while Venezuela presents its case in courts in New York and London.

Exxon Mobil is also taking its claims to international arbitration, disputing the terms it was granted under Chavez's nationalization last year of four heavy oil projects in the Orinoco River basin, one of the world's richest oil deposits.

Other major oil companies including U.S.-based Chevron Corp., France's Total, Britain's BP PLC, and Norway's StatoilHydro ASA have negotiated deals with Venezuela to continue on as minority partners in the Orinoco oil project.

The court overturned an April 2007 ruling by a lower court that forbade the 12 Muslims from returning to Christianity on the grounds that Islamic law would consider that apostasy.

There is no Egyptian law against converting from Islam to Christianity, but in this case tradition had taken precedent. Under a widespread interpretation of Islamic law, converting from Islam is apostasy and punishable by death — though the state has never ordered or carried out an execution on those grounds.

Judge Mohammed el-Husseini sidestepped the issue by saying the 12 should not be considered apostates since they were born Christian, said a judicial official on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The judge also ordered the Ministry of Interior to list converts' former and current religious status on identification cards, which the government body had previously refused to do.

A French trader was ordered to be jailed Friday while investigations continue into the billions in losses he allegedly caused at Societe Generale bank.

A probe into the case broadened as well, with police taking into custody a brokerage employee who reportedly had been in contact with Jerome Kerviel, the 31-year-old futures trader.

Prosecutors sought to jail Kerviel to keep him from contacting accomplices, if he had any, and from jeopardizing what promises to be a long and complex investigation.

Judges allowed Kerviel to go free last month after his lawyer argued he did not pose a flight risk.

It was unclear if Kerveil had been taken into custody Friday.

News that police had arrested a second person, an employee at a brokerage arm of Societe Generale, again raised questions about whether Kerviel acted alone.

Societe Generale, one of France's biggest banks, has said Kerviel did not appear to have accomplices when he made massive unauthorized bets on European futures markets that the bank said cost it more than $7 billion to unwind.

The daily newspaper Le Monde reported Friday, however, that the bank has turned over new evidence, including a message sent to Kerviel through the bank's computer system by the broker now in custody.

The message, sent Nov. 30, read: "You have done nothing illegal in terms of the law," the newspaper reported.

The employee from brokerage Newedge, a 50-50 joint venture between Societe Generale and bank Calyon, was taken into custody Thursday and was still being held Friday, according to a judiciary official who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the case.

Societe Generale spokeswoman Joelle Rosello confirmed the employee was in custody. "We are cooperating closely with police," she said.

Le Monde said Kerviel passed some trades through the brokerage, and that police suspect that the brokerage employee was aware of Kerviel's activities. It said the brokerage was searched Thursday.

Societe Generale announced Jan. 24 that it lost 4.82 billion euros ($7.09 billion) cleaning up Kerviel's unauthorized transactions. It said Kerviel overstepped his authority and bet 50 billion euros ($73 billion) -- more than the market value of the entire bank -- on futures in European equity markets. It also said he did not appear to have profited personally from the trades.

Since the scandal become public, Societe Generale has faced speculation that it could be bought out or broken up, and about how Kerviel's activities went unnoticed or ignored.

Investigating judges have filed preliminary charges against Kerviel for forgery, breach of trust and unauthorized computer activity.