World - AP

PESHAWAR, Pakistan - Pakistani troops killed 18 militants in a fresh offensive Tuesday against insurgents blamed for a wave of recent bombings in the main northwestern city of Peshawar.

BEIJING - China executed two people Tuesday for their roles in a tainted milk powder scandal in which at least six children died and more than 300,000 became sick.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - For years just an obscure fight raging in remote desert mountains, Yemen's war with Shiite rebels has been dragged up to a new level, inflaming the rivalry between the Middle East's two powerhouses Saudi Arabia and Iran.

BANGKOK - Samak Sundaravej, a firebrand right-wing politician and TV cooking show host who briefly served as Thailand's prime minister and considered himself a proxy of ousted leader Thaksin Shinawatra, died of cancer Tuesday. He was 74.

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - Prosecutors in the genocide trial of a former Khmer Rouge prison chief demanded a lengthy jail term Tuesday, calling him the personification of ruthless efficiency in the killing of thousands of Cambodian prisoners.

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.

BAGHDAD - Iraq's parliament failed Monday to produce an election law acceptable to 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

UNITED NATIONS - The remains of British hostage Alec Collett, who disappeared in 1985 during Lebanon's civil war while working for the United Nations, have been positively identified, the U.N. announced Monday.

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.

BERLIN - McDonald's is going green — swapping its traditional red backdrop for a deep hunter green — to promote a more eco-friendly image in Europe.

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.

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.

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.

BRASILIA, Brazil - Iran's president says it's up to his nation's judicial system to determine whether three American hikers detained in his country will be released or punished.

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.