Bloomberg: Egypt’s presidency has initiated legal action against several journalists over alleged insulting and inaccurate reports about President Mohamed Mursi, the state- run Al-Ahram newspaper reported today.

Bloomberg: South Africa halted oil imports from Iran last month as the Middle Eastern nation faces sanctions over its nuclear development program.

Reuters: Seven Iranian aid workers were abducted on Tuesday by an unknown armed group in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, in the biggest operation of its kind against foreigners since the start of a revolt that toppled long-time ruler Muammar Gaddafi.

AFP: US President Barack Obama on Tuesday imposed new economic sanctions on Iran’s oil export sector and on a pair of Chinese and Iraqi banks accused of doing business with Tehran.

AP: A federal magistrate judge says al-Qaida, the Taliban and Iran should pay $6 billion to relatives of Sept. 11 victims for aiding in the 2001 terror attacks.

AFP: Al-Qaeda affiliates pose a rising threat exploiting poverty and upheavals in the world’s most vulnerable regions even as the core network is on the decline, the US State Department warned Tuesday.

Reuters: Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi has snubbed a visiting Iranian envoy to signal his “displeasure” with Tehran, a Foreign Ministry official said on Tuesday, only weeks after Yemen said it had uncovered an Iranian-led spy ring in the capital Sanaa.

Bloomberg: Iran views $100 as a “fair” price for crude oil, the state-run Mehr news agency reported, citing the OPEC-member nation’s oil minister.

Ap: Ahmadinejad told a group of oil officials that only “politically retarded” governments would use badly needed oil as a tool of “political warfare” in opposition to Iran’s nuclear program. His speech was broadcast on state TV on Tuesday.