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The authorities in Saudi Arabia say they have arrested more than 100 militants suspected of links to Al-Qaeda who were planning to attack oil installations in the kingdom. The Saudi Interior Ministry says half of those detained are Saudis and the others are from Yemen, Bangladesh, Somalia and Eritrea. Officials say security forces seized weapons, cameras, computers and documents. Shahzeb Jillani has more.

The latest round of arrests suggest(s) that militants are crossing from neighboring Yemen and using Saudi connections to plot attacks. The Saudi Interior Ministry spokesman Mansur al-Turki said that two cells dismantled by the security forces were cooperating with Al-Qaeda in Yemen. In addition, he said a network of militants specializing in targeting security personnel has been broken. Mr. Turki said that militants from network and the two cells were in contact with Al-Qaeda in Yemen and planning to attack oil facilities.

President Barack Obama has called on Israel to take confidence-building steps so that the indirect peace talks with the Palestinians can resume. The White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said discussions between Mr. Obama and the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were ongoing. “They spoke for over two hours last night face to face. So I think we have a strong relationship with a strong ally. There are areas they discussed last night, some of which they agree, some of which they disagree. As I’ve said, those talks are ongoing, but the conversation was honest and straightforward. The White House wants Israel to clarify why it had announced the construction of a further 20 Israeli homes in occupied East Jerusalem.

More than a million slings used to carry babies have been recalled in North America after three children died in them. The consumer safety agency in the US says two models of baby sling made by Californian company Infantino shouldn’t be used to carry infants younger than four months because of a risk they could suffocate. Rajesh Mirchandani has more.

The soft-fabric straps have become popular amongst parents who like to have closer contact with their babies. But now the US Consumer Products Safety Commission has warned people to stop using slings after three babies, the youngest just six days old, died last year. A million of the carrying straps have been recalled in the US along with 15, 000 more in Canada. They are all made by the same company Infantino based in the city of San Diego. It says its top priority is the safety of infants and that it’s working to develop safety standards for slings.

A car bomb has exploded in the Colombian port city of Buenaventura, killing at least four people and wounding more than 30. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but the head of the armed forces Freddy Padilla said he suspected the left-wing guerilla group, the FARC. Last week, five oil workers were kidnapped in FARC’s first multiple kidnapping for several years.

World News from the BBC.

The Euro, the single currency used by 16 European Union states, has fallen sharply on foreign exchanges because of concern about government debt in Portugal and Greece. The Euro dropped to one dollar 33 cents, its lowest level for ten months. More from our economics correspondent Andrew Walker.

The Euro is now about 12% lower than four months ago when the concerns about the Greek government’s finances began to mount. Those worries have ebbed and flowed along with changing signals about whether other Euro countries might be willing to provide financial help if Greece needed to avoid defaulting on its debts. In the last week, German resistance to the idea of a rescue appears to have hardened. And one of the credit rating agencies has downgraded Portugal, another Euro area government with severely stretched finances. The currency has weakened further as a result.

The British government has announced a 3.75-billion-dollar package to help small businesses just weeks before a general election. Presenting the last budget before the vote, the Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling said the task now was to bring down borrowing in a way that didn’t damage the economic recovery.

The Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner says she is prepared to use International Court to resolve cases related to the country’s last period of military rule if they cannot be settled by the Argentine justice system. President Fernandez said in particular she wanted to speed up the identification of children who were taken as babies from mothers who had been tortured and murdered in prison for their left-wing views during the 70s and 80s.

Police in Turkey say 46 people have been detained as part of a Europe-wide investigation into alleged football match fixing. The arrests were made in several towns and cities and include some well-known Turkish players and coaches. Arrests for match fixing are rare in Turkey as there is no law against it.