Berlin - A cabinet minister ruled out a government bailout for the German auto industry on Monday as Chancellor Angela Merkel prepared to meet the management of Opel to discuss state aid.

The troubled carmaker has requested credit guarantees from Berlin to counter a financial squeeze, triggered by dwindling sales and problems with its parent company General Motors.

London - A leading convicted member of the militant Basque separatist group ETA wanted by Spain appeared in court in Northern Ireland Monday for an extradition hearing.

Ignacio de Juana Chaos, 53, arrived at the court in Belfast, flanked by his lawyer and cheered by flag-waving supporters.

Stockholm - Several forms of sexual behaviour including cross-dressing and transvestism are to be removed from a list of medical "diagnoses" in Sweden, the National Board of Health and Welfare said Monday.

The agency has in recent years been approached by various organizations including the Swedish Association for Sexuality Education (RFSU) that have been concerned over the classification system, which is used mainly to compile healthcare statistics.

"We know that the classification codes are often regarded as diseases, regardless of what they mean," agency director general Lars- Erik Holm said in a statement.

Tel Aviv - An explosion ripped through a car in North Tel Aviv Monday morning, killing an alleged underworld kingpin, and lightly wounding two bystanders, Israeli media said.

Police would not confirm the identity of the fatality, who media reports said was Yakov Alperon, the head of one of Israel's reputed largest crime families.

Nor were police prepared to say that the blast was the result of a bomb planted in the rented car in which Alperon was.

Geneva - An organization representing 900 Swiss companies has signed an agreement to crack down on commercial child sex tourism, an official with the Swiss Federation of Travel Agencies said Monday.

"We want our members to inform their clients and partners in different countries about the protection of children there," Sandra Gonzales with the SVR, the federation's German initials, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

The organization also called on tourists to report any illegal activities at their holiday destinations to the Swiss Federal Police, via an online form that was first made available over the summer.

Jerusalem - Israeli caretaker Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met in Jerusalem Monday, with a collapsing Gaza truce high on their agenda.

The two leaders have been meeting regularly since they revived Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations for the first time in seven years at an international summit in Annapolis, Maryland, a year ago.

At the summit, they set out to reach a deal by the year's end, but

meeting that deadline became increasingly unlikely after Olmert resigned in September to fight corruption allegations, paving the way for early elections in Israel in February.