A deal to release a U.S.-Israeli joint national held in a Cairo prison in exchange for 81 Egyptians held in Israel is imminent, unnamed Israeli officials told public radio on Monday.

Ilan Grapel, who has been in custody since June 12, is accused of being an agent of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency and of sowing sectarian strife and chaos in Egypt during the uprising which ousted president Hosni Mubarak in February.

Libyan fighters raised the new government's flag over the oasis of Bani Walid Monday and hoped for the swift fall of the other remaining redoubt of Moammar Gadhafi loyalists, Sirte, as relatives of his henchmen fled.

Cries of Allahu Akhbar (God is Greatest) and bursts of celebratory machinegun fire filled the desert air over the centre of Bani Walid, as the new regime troops feted their capture of the loyalist bastion after a six-week siege.

Iran plans to produce the first of its own enriched nuclear fuel within five months, Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said on Monday, the official IRNA news agency reported.

"We hope to produce the first domestic-made nuclear fuel plate within the next four to five months," Salehi, former head of Iran's atomic energy organization, was quoted as saying.

Tunisia, which launched the "Arab Spring" when its outraged citizens ousted a seemingly entrenched dictator in January, again takes the lead with a historic vote Sunday for the drafters of a new constitution.

"It is a historic turning point. Tunisians do not have the right to make mistakes, the world is watching this first test on the road to democracy," a European diplomat said, amid an election campaign dotted with violent outbursts, some by Islamists.

Syrian soldiers fought gunmen suspected to be army defectors in the flashpoint central province of Homs on Monday in clashes that left five troops dead, a human rights group said.

"Five soldiers were killed and others wounded as a result of clashes pitting the army and security forces against gunmen believed to be defectors at a checkpoint near the town of Qurayn in Homs province," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told Agence France Presse.

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon on Monday urged Syrian President Bashar Assad to immediately stop the killings of civilians and to accept an international probe on human rights violations.

"There are continuous killings of civilian people. These killings must stop immediately," said the U.N. chief in Bern.

Afghan security forces are showing "significant progress" with a swell of new recruits and better training, NATO's head of training said Monday before leaving his post.

Lieutenant General William Caldwell said he was optimistic about the country's ability to "sustain the force we've built them... over the long term" after NATO troops hand over security responsibility to Afghan forces by the end of 2014.

Families of former Libyan regime officials streamed out of Sirte on Monday, including the mother and brother of Moammar Gadhafi's spokesman Moussa Ibrahim, an NTC field commander said.

"These are families of regime officials; there is Moussa Ibrahim's mother and brother among them," said Wessam bin Hamaidi gesturing at seven cars loaded with men, women and children fleeing a disputed pocket of Gadhafi's hometown.

More than 200 protesters awoke in the heart of London's financial district on Monday for a third day of demonstrations against corporate greed and state spending cutbacks.

After a second night camped on the pavement near St Paul's Cathedral, they huddled with cups of tea in the cold autumn sunshine as bankers, lawyers and business people flooded into the area for the start of the working week.

L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt, 88, is to be placed under the guardianship of family members, the lawyer of her estranged daughter Francoise Bettencourt-Meyers said Monday after a court hearing.

Billionaire Bettencourt, whose mental health is reportedly declining, will be placed under a grandson's guardianship and her wealth and property under that of her daughter Francoise and two grandsons, Charlotte Robbe-Phan said.