Cross-border police agency Interpol issued an alert Tuesday to police worldwide for 47 Saudis with suspected links to al-Qaida wanted on terrorism charges.

"Interpol has published at the request of Saudi Arabia Red Notices for 47 internationally-wanted individuals sought by Saudi authorities in connection with alleged terrorism offences," it said in a statement.

Australia suffered an "inland tsunami" as flash floods killed nine and left 66 missing, and the city of Brisbane was braced for disaster Tuesday with 6,500 properties under threat.

A somber Prime Minister Julia Gillard, dressed in black, warned the country to prepare for more deaths after the flash floods smashed the mountainside town of Toowoomba, sweeping away cars and entire houses.

Iran said on Tuesday it has arrested 10 people linked to the Mossad and that the Islamic republic had delivered the Israeli spy agency a "severe blow" after deeply infiltrating it.

Intelligence Minister Heyder Moslehi told reporters the arrests were the result of covert operations successfully carried out by the Iranian secret services.

U.S. President Barack Obama has expressed concern over the crisis that has erupted in Lebanon over the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.

"I think we are all deeply concerned with the special tribunal there (Lebanon) and making sure that justice is appropriately served," Obama said Monday following talks with French President Nicolas Sarkozy at the Oval Office.

World oil prices eased Tuesday as traders awaited the U.S. government's monthly assessment for the global energy market, and the focus turned away from supply worries in Alaska, analysts said.

New York's main contract, light sweet crude for February delivery, slipped 11 cents at $89.14 a barrel.

Jordan's government is preparing to take urgent steps to reduce prices of commodities amid rising popular discontent around the country, a senior official said on Tuesday.

"King Abdullah II has instructed Prime Minister Samir Rifai to take immediate and effective measures to mitigate the impact of rising prices of commodities on citizens," the official told Agence France Presse, speaking on condition of anonymity.

A Saudi court has dismissed an $8-million lawsuit filed against tobacco companies by a cancer-sufferer who blamed smoking for his damaged health, a newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Al-Hayat said the General Court in Jeddah on Monday dismissed the legal action against tobacco distributing companies in Saudi Arabia and denied the plaintiff his claim of 30 million riyals (around $8 million) compensation.

The U.S. national archives occupy more than 500 miles (800 kilometers) of shelving; France's archives stretch for more than 100 miles of shelves, as do Britain's.

Yet a group of students at Hong Kong's Chinese University are making strides towards storing such vast amounts of information in an unexpected home: the E.coli bacterium better known as a potential source of serious food poisoning.

Archaeologists said Tuesday they had found the world's oldest known winery in a cave in Armenia, indicating that humans were distilling grapes during the Copper Age, more than 6,000 years ago.

"This is, so far, the oldest relatively complete wine production facility, with its press, fermentation vats and storage jars in situ," said Hans Barnard, the lead author of an article about the study published Tuesday in the peer-reviewed Journal of Archaeological Science.

Brazilian author Paulo Coelho, who wrote the worldwide bestseller "The Alchemist," accused Iran Monday of banning his books.

"My books have been published in Iran since 1998, in different publishing houses," Coelho wrote on his website http://paulocoelhoblog.com, noting estimates that over six million copies of his books have sold in the country.