Riyadh  - A Saudi rights organization has freed two women held captive by their half-brother in a small room in their parents' home for 10 years, local media reported Tuesday.

The Saudi National Association for Human Rights said it discovered the two women in their early 20s after receiving an anonymous tip, the Saudi newspaper Okaz reported.

The two women were immediately hospitalized after their liberation from the house located in the southern city of Jazan.

"The two girls are in a very bad physical and psychological condition. They need utmost care and total rehabilitation," Dr Ahmad Yehia, a regional supervisor at the rights organization told Okaz.

Budapest  - Thousands of motorists chose to ignore an order to stay of the roads on Monday, the first working day since Budapest issued a full scale smog alert that should have cut traffic by half.

The smog alert was issued on Sunday morning, bringing into effect Budapest City Council regulations passed in December that ban half of cars from the roads.

While an alert is in force on a odd numbered date, only cars with an odd registration number can drive in Budapest. On an even numbered day, only even numbered cars can drive in the city. That, at least, is the theory.

San Jose  - Rescue teams had found the bodies of 18 people killed in last week's earthquake in Costa Rica by Monday, while over 100 others who suffered injuries have been rescued.

The quake measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale left a further 47 people missing, the Red Cross said Monday.

More than 1,300 people had to be taken to emergency accommodations in the area affected by the quake, 60 kilometres northwest of Costa Rican capital San Jose.

Beirut  - Lebanese Defense Minister Elias Murr said Monday material confiscated from a garbage truck near a UNIFIL post in the southern town is a "non-explosive material."

"After examining the material which were disovered in a carbage truck trying to enter a UNIFIL base in southern Lebanon the tests showed they contain no explosive material," Murr said as he entered a cabinet session.

He added the Lebanese security forces have released the suspects arrested in connection with the incident.

Maputo  - The death toll from recent flooding in Mozambique has risen to 15, with heavy rains continuing, reported local officials.

The death toll increased by five as deaths from Thursday in the central Mozambican provinces of Sofala and Manica provinces were reported, officials said Friday.

"Four people died and four were injured in the city of Chimoio, Manica province, and one person drowned in the district of Nhamatanda, Sofala province," a source at the National Disaster Management Institute told DPA.

Washington  - The United States lost 2.6 million jobs in 2008, the most for a single year in over six decades, as employers in December shed more than 500,000 jobs and the unemployment rate soared to 7.2 per cent, the US Labour Department reported Friday.

The jobless rate was at its highest level in 16 years as the recession has hit employers across most major industries, and as president-elect Barack Obama hurries to have a stimulus plan ready to stave off the freefall, when he takes office January 20.