Most Emailed World News

SYDNEY (AFP) - More than 100, and possibly hundreds, of Antarctic icebergs are floating towards New Zealand in a rare event which has prompted a shipping warning, officials said on Monday.

MELBOURNE, Australia - A kangaroo startled by a man walking his dog attacked the pair, pinning the pet underwater and slashing the owner in the abdomen with its hind legs. The Australian, Chris Rickard, was in stable condition Monday after the attack, which ended when the 49-year-old elbowed the kangaroo in the throat.

MANILA, Philippines - Gunmen ambushed a caravan of political supporters and journalists on their way to file election papers, killing at least 24 people in a massacre considered shocking even for a region notorious for violence between rival clans.

BERLIN - A German newspaper is reporting that Adolf Hitler's original Mercedes has been sold to an unidentified Russian billionaire for several million euros.

MONTREAL - A Canadian woman on sick leave for depression said Monday she would fight an insurance company's decision to cut her benefits after her agent found photos on Facebook of her vacationing, at a bar and at a party.

KABUL - Bombings and shootings killed 12 people across Afghanistan, including four American troops and three children, as President Barack Obama convened his war council again Monday to fine-tune a strategy to respond to the intransigent violence.

NAIROBI, Kenya - The bullet hit mother and son as they walked through Somalia's capital. She felt a sharp pain in her palm. Then she saw her 8-year-old: The bullet tore through his cheekbones, nose and mouth. Blood gushed down to his waist.

BEIJING - A veteran dissident was sentenced Monday to three years in prison after casting a spotlight on poorly built schools that collapsed during China's massive earthquake last year, killing thousands of children — an apparent government attempt to squelch such information.

JERUSALEM - Hamas leaders raced to Egypt on Monday amid signs of progress on a deal to swap hundreds of Palestinian prisoners for a captive Israeli soldier held by the Islamic militant group for more than three years.

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia - A cutting-edge French warship sailed into St. Petersburg Monday to show off its capabilities to potential buyers in the Russian navy, whose pursuit of an amphibious assault capacity is frightening some neighboring countries.

BRUSSELS - For 23 torturous years, Rom Houben says he lay trapped in his paralyzed body, aware of what was going on around him but unable to tell anyone or even cry out.

Opposition activists want the U.S. to focus more on human rights, and they fear a nuclear deal with the West will boost the regime's domestic standing


GENEVA - The world's largest atom smasher made another leap forward Monday by circulating beams of protons in opposite directions at the same time and causing the first particle collisions in the $10 billion machine after more than a year of repairs, organizers said.

CANBERRA, Australia - A man who blames the Church of Scientology for his brother's suicide added his voice Monday to calls for an Australia Senate inquiry into the religion.

BAGHDAD - Iraq's parliament failed Monday to produce an election law that pleased minority Sunni Arabs, prompting U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to say that nationwide balloting scheduled for January "might slip" to a later date.

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras - The coup last summer in this tiny, Central American country blew up into an international incident, with thousands of Hondurans taking to the streets while everyone from Barack Obama to Fidel Castro lined up behind ousted President Manuel Zelaya.

MANILA (AFP) - At least 21 people were murdered in the lawless southern Philippines on Monday in a massacre that the military and relatives of the victims said was likely linked to a political rivalry.

BEIRUT (AFP) - Brimming with style, Beirut is regaining its reputation as a shoppers' paradise, with luxury labels such as Christian Dior and Louis Vuitton among a slew of shops opening in the city's renovated souks.

BELFAST (AFP) - Northern Ireland's leaders closed ranks Monday to denounce weekend attacks including a huge car bomb which only just failed to go off, in a new threat to the long-troubled province's fragile peace process.

JERUSALEM - Israel TV reports that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is proposing a 10-month freeze in construction in Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India issued solar power targets on Monday, with plans to boost ouptut from near zero to 20 gigawatts (GW) by 2022, but tied chances of the plan's success to availability of international finance and technology.

Talking with the Taliban

LONDON - Leaked British government documents call into question ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair's public statements on the buildup to the Iraq war and show plans for the U.S.-led 2003 invasion were being made more than a year earlier, a newspaper reported Sunday.

KATHMANDU (AFP) - Thousands of Hindu devotees have flocked to a village in Nepal ahead of the planned sacrifice of more than 300,000 animals in a ceremony condemned by animal rights activists, including French actress Brigitte Bardot.

TEHRAN, Iran - Iranian authorities have banned the country's largest-circulation newspaper for publishing a photo of a Baha'i temple, state media reported Monday.

JAKARTA, Indonesia - Rescuers plucked a woman from choppy waters Monday, some 25 hours after she jumped from a crowded ferry that sank in a storm off Indonesia's Sumatra island. At least 29 people drowned, and 20 others were missing.

CAIRO (Reuters) - Israel has softened its terms for a prisoner swap with Hamas and the two are nearing a deal to exchange hundreds of jailed Palestinians for an Israeli soldier held in the Gaza Strip, officials said on Monday.

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia - Gunfire hit the home of two American lecturers in Indonesia's western province of Aceh on Monday, but no one was injured.

SAN'A, Yemen - A Japanese engineer seized by Yemeni tribesmen seeking to swap him for a prisoner with al-Qaida links was released Monday after a week in captivity.

BHUBANESWAR, India (Reuters) - India's army tested a nuclear-capable Agni missile after sunset on Monday for the first time to demonstrate it could be fired whenever required, defense officials said.