Most Emailed World News

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.

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.

AMPATUAN, Philippines - The Philippine president placed two southern provinces under emergency rule Tuesday as security forces unearthed more bodies from one of the worst incidents of election violence in the nation's history, pushing the death toll 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.

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.

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.

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran on Sunday began large-scale air defense war games aimed at protecting its nuclear facilities from attack, state TV reported, as an air force commander boasted the country could deter any military strike by Israel.

BUCHAREST, Romania - The third-place candidate in Romania's presidential election threw his support Monday behind the Western-backed socialist who faces the centrist president in a runoff seen as key to the country's emergence from political and economic crisis.

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

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.

KABUL - A remote-controlled bomb hidden in a water truck exploded in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, killing three people including two children, the Interior Ministry said.

JERUSALEM - Israel's prime minister is trying to temper expectations that a deal to free a long-held Israeli soldier is imminent.

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.

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.

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 - 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.

CAIRO - Angry soccer fans rampaged through a posh diplomatic neighborhood in Cairo over the weekend, smashing shop windows and shouting obscenities in a frenzy fed by venomous headlines that portrayed Algerians as barbaric terrorists with a history of violence.

TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran does not oppose sending its controversial low-enriched uranium abroad as long as there is a simultaneous exchange inside the country of nuclear fuel processed by world powers, a senior official said on Tuesday.

Talking with the Taliban

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - Eight women set out Monday from their base camp on Antarctica to ski to the South Pole in a trek to mark the 60th anniversary of the Commonwealth grouping of 53 former British colonies.

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


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.

BAGHDAD - A stepped-up campaign by Iraq's prime minister against Saddam Hussein loyalists is alienating Sunni Muslims and stoking tensions between them and the majority Shiites ahead of key national elections.

SYDNEY - A U.S. Navy serviceman was found not guilty Monday of sexually assaulting a prostitute at a brothel while on shore leave in Australia's biggest city.

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.

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.

BEIJING - Beijing on Monday criticized a U.S. government report that said Chinese spies are aggressively stealing American secrets, saying the report was "full of prejudice" and warning that it could damage US-China relations.

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.

NAZARETH, Israel - A Palestinian nun who co-founded a charity dedicated to educating Arab girls on Sunday took an important step toward sainthood.