Cairo - Refaat al-Sheikh, like many of the shop owners in Cairo's Medieval Khan al-Khalili bazaar, on Monday sat idly on a wooden chair in front of his shop with a sad look on his face.

"The situation is as you can see," he told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa, gesturing at normally bustling market streets now populated mostly by police and journalists.

"First the financial crisis, and now this bomb?"

New York  - Ford Motor Company and union leaders reached an agreement Monday designed to lower health care costs in the ailing US car industry.

The deal would allow the carmaker to make contributions to the United Auto Workers (UAW) health care plan for retirees with up to 50 per cent stock instead of cash, a move the manufacturer said would help it meet its obligations. Ford owes 13.6 billion dollars to the Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association, as the health care trust is known.

Brussels  - The European Union flirted with chaos Monday as top diplomats complained about a "cliquey" response to the recession and failed to agree on the use of community funds to aid economic recovery.

"I must admit I'm extremely worried about the EU's institutional chaos. Never in the EU's history has there been a period like this with so many cliques," Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb said after regular talks in Brussels with his EU counterparts.

Washington  - US President Barack Obama is urging states to spend the government's money wisely despite a deepening recession, ahead of his annual address to Congress Tuesday that will outline the long-term budget priorities for his administration.

Addressing a meeting of the country's governors Monday in Washington, Obama said he was relying on states to quickly implement the 787-billion-dollar stimulus package that became law last week and is aimed at halting the country's disastrous economic slide.

Frankfurt - The 30-share DAX, the main German stock index, slipped to 3,936.45 at close in Frankfurt on Monda

Zurich  - Shares in the Swiss bank UBS continued their fall on Monday, dropping 9.09 per cent to 10 francs (8.59 dollars), setting a new low for the stock on the Zurich exchange.

On Friday, the stock lost 14 per cent, closing at 11 francs.

The decline in value was seen as a reaction to the investigation in the United States into allegations that UBS employees helped clients commit tax fraud and concerns about the fate of the Alpine country's secret banking laws.