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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.

AMPATUAN, Philippines - A police official says 11 more bodies have been unearthed from a mass grave in the southern Philippines, bringing the death toll from a massacre of political supporters and journalists to 46.

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 - 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

GENEVA - Scientists running the world's largest atom smasher used the $10 billion machine's accelerator to speed up proton beams for the first time Tuesday, in a step toward experiments about the makeup of the universe.

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.

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


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.

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.

MONTERREY, Mexico - The mayor of a wealthy suburb of this northern industrial city said Monday that he has sent his family to the United States for their own safety as he pursues his campaign against extortion and kidnapping gangs.

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.

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.

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.

MOSCOW (AFP) - Eight soldiers died in a munitions blast Monday in central Russia, a defence ministry spokesman said, at the same arms depot where two died in a huge accidental weapons explosion 10 days earlier.

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras - Honduran President Manuel Zelaya said Monday the United States has weakened efforts to reverse the coup that ousted him, while a U.S. envoy says his country has clearly opposed the ouster and will examine upcoming elections closely for fairness.

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

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.

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.

LONDON (AFP) - Former prime minister Margaret Thatcher returned to her old offices in Downing Street on Monday for the unveiling of a new portrait of the "Iron Lady" at a reception hosted by Gordon Brown.

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

CHICAGO (AFP) - A group of Somali-American youth recruited to fight for an Islamist militia in Somalia were told it would be "fun," court documents have shown.

MANILA (Reuters) - Philippine police found 15 more bodies on Tuesday at the site of a massacre in the south of the country, taking the toll in the election-related killings to 39 dead, national police chief Jesus Verzosa said.

BEIJING - Renowned Chinese literature translator Yang Xianyi has died, China's official Xinhua News Agency said Tuesday. He was 94.

MEXICO CITY - A U.S. consular official said Monday that an American woman has died of a gunshot wound she reportedly suffered in the Mexican border city of Matamoros.

LONDON - Residents of flood-battered northern England are struggling back to work, school and homes after swollen rivers inundated roads and caused several bridges to collapse.

TEHRAN, Iran - Former Iranian Interior Minister Ali Kordan, who was dismissed after being accused of faking a law degree from the University of Oxford, has died, reports said Monday. He was 51.