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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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


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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuela has no interest in talking directly to Colombia to end a monthslong crisis but would support an effort by other South American nations to broker a solution, a top government official said Sunday.

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.

Talking with the Taliban

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.

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.

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - The genocide trial of a prison chief for Cambodia's Khmer Rouge entered its final stage Monday, as closing arguments began in the historic effort to assign responsibility for the deaths of 1.7 million people three decades ago.

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.

KATHMANDU (AFP) - A Nepalese climber who scaled Everest aged 76 has finally been named by Guinness World Records as the oldest man to do so, following a lengthy battle for recognition.

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.

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.

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.