Most Recommended World News

GENEVA - A spokesman says the world's largest atom smasher has used its accelerator for the first time to speed up the proton beams in an initial test of its ability to reach much higher energy later.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

BRASILIA, Brazil - Iran's leader got a welcoming bear hug from the Brazilian president, who urged Western nations to drop threats of punishment over the Iranian nuclear program and instead negotiate a fair solution.

BRASILIA (AFP) - Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday began a controversial visit to Brazil, the key leg of a tour to sympathetic Latin American and African countries he sees backing Tehran's vision of "a new world order."

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.

JERUSALEM (AFP) - The man named as Israel's new ambassador to Egypt is the son of a spy who had been sentenced to death in Lebanon but was eventually part of a prisoner swap, a foreign ministry official said on Monday.

BEIJING (AFP) - Two men were executed in China on Tuesday for their roles in a contaminated milk powder scandal that led to the deaths of at least six infants and sickened up to 300,000, state media said.

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Two rockets were fired from the Islamist Hamas-run Gaza Strip into southern Israel on Monday, without causing casualties or damage, an Israeli military spokesman told AFP.

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


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

Palestinians said Monday that negotiators were close to exchanging an Israeli soldier held by Gaza militants for 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. Israel has carried out such swaps in the past:

JERUSALEM (AFP) - An Israeli minister said on Tuesday that a deal with the Islamist Hamas movement to swap a Gaza-held soldier in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners was "very close."

LONDON (AFP) - A long-awaited public inquiry into Britain's role in the Iraq war opens on Tuesday, with former civil servants first to appear in hearings set to climax with Tony Blair taking the stand.

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.

LONDON - In the most sweeping inquiry by any nation involved in the Iraq war, a panel investigating Britain's role in the conflict begins questioning witnesses Tuesday in hearings that critics hope will humble former Prime Minister Tony Blair and expose alleged deception in the buildup to conflict.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh offered a hand to the United States to help build an "open and inclusive" Asia as President Barack Obama prepared to toast him Tuesday with his first state dinner.

MANILA (AFP) - Hundreds of extra troops have been deployed in the southern Philippines after gunmen believed linked to a local politician kidnapped and killed at least 22 people, a military spokesman said Tuesday.

BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany on Monday criticized Israeli plans to expand settlements in the occupied West Bank, in unusually explicit terms a week before the two countries' leaders meet in Berlin.

BEIRUT (Reuters) - A forensics team has found the remains of a British journalist kidnapped by Palestinian militants in Lebanon 24 years ago, the British embassy said on Monday.

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.

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.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - Ships in the south Pacific Ocean have been alerted that groups of icebergs believed to have split off Antarctic ice shelves are drifting north toward New Zealand, officials said Tuesday.