Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak came under fresh pressure Monday to step down immediately as opponents said concessions made in landmark talks were not enough to halt a revolt against his 30-year reign.

As a winter sun began to peep through a chill morning mist, thousands of demonstrators emerged from under blankets and tarpaulins in central Cairo's Tahrir Square, which over two weeks has begun to resemble a tented camp.

Actress and music diva Jennifer Lopez will top the bill at U.S. President Barack Obama's annual Super Bowl party on Sunday, as the Green Bay Packers take on the Pittsburgh Steelers for the NFL championship.

J-Lo will be joined by husband Marc Anthony at the White House party, also featuring top officials including Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, a senior U.S. official said.

U.S. President Barack Obama has told his beleaguered Egyptian counterpart Hosni Mubarak not to stand for re-election in upcoming September balloting, the New York Times said Tuesday.

The message from Obama was conveyed by former U.S. ambassador to Egypt, Frank Wisner, who was dispatched to Cairo on Monday by the U.S. administration, the influential U.S. daily said, quoting American diplomats.

U.S. ambassador to China Jon Huntsman resigned Monday, amid reports that he may seek the Republican nomination in 2012 and try to deprive his boss, President Barack Obama, of a second term.

Huntsman, a smooth former Utah governor, wrote to Obama to announce he would resign effective from April 30, after the White House noted he had told several officials he planned to leave in the first part of this year.

Speaker Nabih Berri snapped back at former Premier Saad Hariri on Monday rejecting accusations that Syria and Iran have brought down his government.

Hariri said Saturday that "enormous" pressure from outside Lebanon was to blame for the collapse of his cabinet earlier this month.

Saudi King Abdullah has told U.S. President Barack Obama that there should be no bargaining on Egypt's stability and the security of its people, the Saudi press agency said Sunday.

SPA said that Obama phoned the king in Morocco, where he is recuperating from surgery, and that both leaders were not happy with the chaotic situation and looting.

Russia's upper house of parliament Wednesday ratified the new U.S. nuclear disarmament treaty, the final step in approving the first nuclear pact between the two former Cold War foes in 20 years.

All 137 senators in the Federation Council upper house approved the new START treaty, which U.S. President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev signed in Prague on April 8, 2010.

Pleading for unity in a newly divided government, President Barack Obama implored Democratic and Republican lawmakers to rally behind his vision of economic revival for an anxious nation, declaring in his State of the Union address Tuesday night: "We will move forward together or not at all."

The president unveiled an agenda of carefully balanced political goals: a burst of spending on education, research, technology and transportation to make the nation more competitive, alongside pledges, in the strongest terms of his presidency, to cut the deficit and smack down spending deemed wasteful to America. Yet he never explained how he'd pull that off or what specifically would be cut.

U.S. President Barack Obama passed the halfway point of his four-year term Thursday and revealed he is already plotting to win a second, boosted by a sudden upswing in popularity.

Obama's spokesman Robert Gibbs divulged the worst-kept secret in Washington, saying that his boss would "likely" ask voters to send him back to the White House in 2012.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy's visit to Washington Monday highlighted the difficulty G20 members face in questioning the dollar's supremacy among reserve currencies.

Sarkozy and his finance minister, Christine Lagarde, made a brief visit to the U.S. capital to sound out the White House and the Treasury on France's reform agenda as it heads the Group of 20 this year.