ROME (AFP) - Italy's economy shrank by 0.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009, a slightly bigger contraction than forecast, national statistics agency ISTAT said on Wednesday.

BAMAKO (AFP) - A Spanish aid worker and an Italian woman were being freed Wednesday after their November kidnapping by an Al-Qaeda branch and being taken to Burkina Faso from Mali, a Malian negotiator said.

KABUL (AFP) - Iran does not consider the presence of foreign troops a solution for peace in Afghanistan, visiting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in Kabul on Wednesday.

CAIRO (AFP) - Sheikh Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar -- Sunni Islam's highest seat of learning -- died on Wednesday in the Saudi Arabian capital after a heart attack, the official MENA agency reported.

MADRID (AFP) - Spanish aid worker Alicia Gamez, 39, one of three kidnapped in Mauritania by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in November, is "being freed" an anti-terrorist source in Madrid said Wednesday.