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The US Supreme Court refused Monday to reverse a lower court’s ruling that deemed photos of former Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden’s corpse were properly classified as top-secret by the CIA, thus barring them from public release. The high court decided not to hear an appeal from conservative watching organization Judicial Watch, which had sought the release of the photos via a Freedom of Information Act request. The Obama administration argued that releasing the images would cause threats to US national security. In May, a federal appeals court unanimously agreed that the US government was right to classify top secret more than 50 images of Bin Laden taken after he was killed in 2011 by US special operations forces at his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

Internet Giant Google plans to purchase Nest Labs, a smart- home automation company for $3.2 billion. Google Chief Executive Larry Page described Nest as a company that's "delivering amazing products you can buy right now--thermostats that save energy and smoke/CO alarms that can help keep your family safe," the statement read. Nest will continue to operate under co-founder Tony Fadell, a former Apple executive who launched the startup in 2010. Google plans to complete the deal in the next few months pending regulatory approval.

Two Britons have been arrested at London's Heathrow Airport in connection with terrorist activities in Syria, police announced. Both 21-year-old males were detained after arriving in Britain from a flight originating in Istanbul, Turkey. They are believed to have travelled to Syria in May 2013. Currently the two men are being questioned about their time spent in the warzone and any possible connection they might have with jihadists militants. UK’s Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Monday that "hundreds" of Britons are suspected of fighting in Syria while security forces are doing their utmost to monitor the situation and prevent attacks in the UK.

Two German diplomats have survived an attack on their vehicle in Saudi Arabia, authorities announced. The attack occurred in the town of Awwamiyya at around 6 pm local time when unknown assailants opened fire at the vehicle, eventually burning it down. Locals helped the German nationals escape, local media reports. Authorities are investigating the incident.

Two people have been shot in a movie theater, in Wesley Chapel, north of Tampa early Monday afternoon. Both victims were flown to hospital. However, there were no immediate reports on the severity of their condition. A male suspect has been taken into police custody for questioning.

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has signed a bill prohibiting both same sex marriage and the organization of any LGBT societies, alongside a raft of other measures targeting homosexuality. The bill, which was approved by parliament last year, was signed in secret on January 7, according to documents obtained by Associated Press. Homosexual acts had already carried a sentence of 14 years behind bars in the country, and participating in same sex marriage now results in the same penalty.

At least 21 have been killed and nearly 30 wounded in a series of car bomb attacks across Baghdad on Monday. The deadliest blast killed 11 in a commercial area in the predominantly Shi'ite district of Shaab, in the east of the city. The violence coincided with a visit from the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon.

Gaza militants fired two projectiles which struck an area close to the ranch where former Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, was laid to rest on Monday, the military said. “Two projectiles landed in an open area in the Shaar HaNegev region,” AFP quoted an army spokesman as saying. He was referring to the area around the northern border with Gaza, without specifying exactly where they struck. Media reports said the projectiles landed near the town of Sderot, which lies a few kilometers from Sycamore Ranch.

An explosion on Monday at an illegal gambling hall in a village in southern China killed 14 people and injured seven others. The blast struck at around 2:30pm (0630 GMT) outside the city of Kaili in the poor southern province of Guizhou, Xinhua said. Police initially said it was detonated deliberately and are treating the incident as a crime.

Former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was laid to rest in a state funeral in Israel on Monday. The funeral, attended by leaders from Israel and around the world, began at 9:30am on Monday, the Haaretz daily reported. President Shimon Peres, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US Vice President Joe Biden delivered keynote speeches. At the conclusion of the Knesset ceremony, the funeral cortege departed from Jerusalem for Sycamore Ranch, Sharon's farm in the Negev, the site of his burial.

Ex-NBA star Dennis Rodman who has just returned from Pyongyang after presenting his controversial"basketball diplomacy", said “he's sorry about what's going on inside North Korea, a nation renowned for its human rights abuses.” He may have been referring to Kenneth Bae, an American missionary sentenced to 15 years imprisonment in North Korea on charges of planning to overthrow the country’s government. “I’m not a president. But I think Americans and North Koreans can actually get along,” said Rodman. The former NBA star returned from N. Korea on Monday. This is his fourth trip to Pyongyang in the past 12 months.

EU governments will implement all sanctions relief for Iran covered by a nuclear deal on Jan. 20, the day the agreement takes effect, Reuters reported. The move includes lifting a ban on insuring its oil, officials said on Monday. Under the November-24 accord, the EU will suspend a ban on insuring and transporting Iranian oil for six months, as well as a trade ban affecting the country's petrochemicals, gold and other precious metals.

The Russian Investigative Committee says opposition leader, Aleksey Navalny, has violated the terms of his restriction notice in the Ives Rocher case, RIA Novosti reported on Monday. Investigators now have the right to ask for harsher restrictions to be imposed on Navalny, the committee said. Earlier reports said that Navalny was spotted in the Moscow region’s town of Odintsovo. However, Navalny himself and lawyer Vadim Kobzev said that the Moscow region was included in the travel restrictions.

The treatment of a US national, Shezanne Cassim, 29, who spent nine months in a UAE jail for posting a 20-minute parody video mocking Dubai youth culture on YouTube was unfair, said the prime minister of the United Arab Emirates. “We are not perfect and we are trying to change …we are doing our best,” Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum told the BBC. Cassim, who was also fined 2,700 dollars, was released last week and returned home to the United States.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif will travel to Moscow on Thursday for a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the IRNA news agency reported on Monday. “Zarif will meet the Russian president as well as Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov during his one-day trip to Moscow on Thursday,” said Iran's ambassador to Moscow, Mehdi Sanaei.

A bomb blew up at the Budapest branch of the Hungarian CIB Bank in the early hours of Monday morning, Reuters reported. No one was injured, police said. The bomb went off shortly after 4am (0300 GMT), and the blast ripped off a large part of the wall of the building. The explosion was caused by an explosive device of unknown structure and substance, police said, giving no indication of any possible motive for the attack. A motorcyclist reportedly drove off from the scene. CIB Bank comes under the wing of Italy's Banca Intesa.

India's health minister, Ghulam Nabi Azad, on Monday hailed the country's success in eradicating new cases of polio as a “monumental milestone”. In 2009 India accounted for over half of the global polio burden “and today is the historic day when we have completed three years without a single case of wild polio,” AFP quoted Azad as saying. On Monday India marks three years since its last reported polio case. The country will soon be declared as having defeated polio.

Russian divers recovered the bodies of six people on Monday who were killed after a van fell into the Novo-Ladoga Canal in the north-western Leningrad region. There were six people in the van when it smashed through a barrier and careered into the canal, Itar-Tass reported, citing rescuers. The incident took place in the region’s Kirovsky District.

The British government will announce on Monday that it will take responsibility for all British government debt should Scotland vote to leave the UK this year, Reuters reported citing its sources. “Essentially we would be the counterparty on any debt that was owed,” the source said. In the event of a vote for independence in September's referendum, the UK government would seek a bilateral arrangement with the Scottish government about its share of the UK debt. Scotland will vote in September on whether to keep the 306-year union intact.

Beijing on Monday expressed “resolute dissatisfaction” with a Japanese official's comments at the weekend on new fishing restrictions imposed by China in the South China Sea. “The person who made these remarks, if he's not ignorant, then he has ulterior motives,” Reuters quoted Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, as saying. “This Japanese official, before making remarks, should first do some basic research and understand fully China's laws and regulations,” she said. The new rules require foreign fishing vessels to obtain approval to enter disputed waters in the South China Sea. Japan's Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera said Sunday that the regulations had left the international community jittery.

Hundreds of Israeli VIPs and international dignitaries attended a state memorial ceremony for the late Ariel Sharon on Monday. Later on Monday, Sharon's body was due to be taken from the Knesset to his farm in southern Israel for burial, AP reported. President Shimon Peres described the controversial politician Sharon as “a man of the land.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Sharon “one of the big warriors” and said “his pragmatism was rooted in deep emotion.” Netanyahu resigned from Sharon's government to protest the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005. The move uprooted soldiers and settlers from the territory after a 38-year presence in a move that Sharon said was necessary to ensure Israel's security.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem will visit Moscow ahead of the Geneva 2 international conference, the Syrian Ambassador in Moscow, Riyad Haddad, has said. The minister will be in Moscow before the conference, the envoy told Interfax on Monday. Earlier media reports stated Muallem will visit the Russian capital on Thursday, en route to Geneva.

The ruler of Dubai said on Monday that the international community should ease sanctions on the Islamic Republic. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, who is also the Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates, told the BBC that “everybody will benefit” if sanctions are lifted. During a decade of sanctions, Iran has got most of the commodities and goods it needs via Dubai's re-export market. Under a November deal, Tehran is expected to curb its nuclear activity in exchange for a limited easing of the sanctions.

Israel is boosting security for former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's funeral near the Gaza border on Monday, Reuters reported. A memorial service will be held on Monday in parliament in Jerusalem and an afternoon funeral will be held near the Sharon family farm some 10km from Gaza. The former prime minister died at the age of 85 on Saturday after eight years in a coma caused by a stroke. Eighteen countries have sent delegations to the state ceremony for Sharon in Jerusalem. US Vice President Joe Biden will attend the burial at Sycamore Farm's Poppy Hill, in the southern Negev desert.

The Unification Ministry in Seoul has announced that more than 1,500 North Koreans fled to South Korea last year. Five years ago the annual number of escapees was close to 3,000, but the number dropped sharply after Kim Jong-un came to power in December 2011. The number of those fleeing to the South slumped to 1,502 in 2012, and last year the figure was 1,516, AFP reported. The majority of refugees secretly cross the border to China before traveling to South Korea. Kim Jong-un’s government has tightened border security and stepped up diplomatic campaigns to have refugees hiding in China repatriated.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has urged the head of the Syrian National Coalition (SNC), Ahmad Jabra, to secure the organization’s participation in the Geneva 2 international conference on Syria. Lavrov and Jabra met in Paris on Sunday as preparations for the conference are continuing, RIA Novosti reported. SNC’s participation in the conference could contribute to ending armed confrontation in Syria, the Russian Foreign Ministry said. Moscow supports the start of dialogue between Syria’s factions at the conference scheduled for January 22, with the participation of delegations from the Syrian government and opposition without any preconditions.

A Southwest Airlines Flight 4013, carrying 124 passengers and five crew members that was scheduled to arrive on Sunday night at Branson Airport in southwest Missouri instead landed at an airport 7 miles north. The runway at Taney County Airport, which is also known as M. Graham Clark Downtown Airport, is half the size of the intended destination. All customers and crew are safe. Airline spokesman, Brad Hawkins, did not have information on why the plane went to the wrong airport. The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the incident.

Egyptian police fired tear gas at supporters of ousted President Mohamed Morsi during clashes at Cairo's main universities on Sunday. Nineteen protesters have been detained and several injured. The fresh outbreak of violence comes just two days before a planned vote on a draft constitution, which will be the first vote in Egypt since the army ousted Morsi in July.