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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 - The Philippine president placed two southern provinces under emergency rule Tuesday as security forces unearthed more bodies, pushing the death toll to 46 in some of the deadliest election violence in the nation's history.

BEIJING - China executed a dairy farmer and a milk salesman Tuesday, the only two people sentenced to death in a scheme to water down infant formula with an industrial chemical that left at least six children dead and sickened more than 300,000.

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.

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.

ROME - The prostitute at the center of Premier Silvio Berlusconi's sex scandal claims in a new book that she slept with him on the understanding he would help her set up a countryside inn but she got "nothing" in return.

NUKU'ALOFA, Tonga - A 6.8-magnitude earthquake struck off the Pacific island nation of Tonga, sending panicked residents into the streets at night, but there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

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.

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.

KATMANDU, Nepal - Hundreds of thousands of Hindus gathered at a temple in southern Nepal on Tuesday for a ceremony involving the slaughter of more than 200,000 animals, a festival that has drawn the ire of animal-welfare protesters.

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.

JERUSALEM - Israel's prime minister tried on Tuesday to temper expectations that a deal to free an Israeli soldier held by Hamas militants was imminent.

LONDON - In the most sweeping inquiry on the Iraq war, a panel investigating Britain's role in the conflict began questioning witnesses Tuesday in hearings that critics hope will humble ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair and expose alleged deception in the buildup to fighting.

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.

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

KABUL - A remote-controlled bomb planted in a water station exploded in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, killing six members of a family, including four children, authorities and a relative said.

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran said Tuesday it was ready to exchange its low-enriched uranium with a higher enriched material, but only on its own soil, to guarantee the West follows through with promises to give the fuel.

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


BAGHDAD - Iraq cannot hold a national vote scheduled for January on time, Iraq's election panel said Tuesday, even as a vice president signaled he would again veto an election law in a dispute whose roots lie in Iraq's ethnic and sectarian divisions.

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - The former prison chief whose trial by Cambodia's genocide tribunal is coming to an end was a willing, even enthusiastic, participant in atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge, prosecutors charged Tuesday.

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.

ISLAMABAD - Five Pakistani army officers have been detained for questioning over possible links to two U.S. terror suspects accused of plotting an armed attack on a Danish newspaper, intelligence officials said Tuesday.

BAGHDAD - Google is documenting Iraq's national museum and will post photographs of its ancient treasures on the Internet early next year, Google chief Eric Schmidt announced Tuesday.

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.

ABUJA (AFP) - Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua is due to travel to Saudi Arabia late Monday for a medical check-up, his office said.

NEW DELHI - A government investigation released Tuesday reportedly implicated dozens of Hindu nationalist politicians — including a former prime minister — in the 1992 demolition of a mosque that sparked deadly communal riots.

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.

BANGKOK - Samak Sundaravej, a firebrand right-wing politician and TV cooking show host who served a brief and tumultuous term last year as Thailand's prime minister, died of cancer Tuesday. He was 74.

HEGANG, China - The coal mine that exploded in northern China, killing 104, had too many workers underground in an effort to increase output, a government official said Monday, exposing the risks often taken to meet the country's insatiable energy demands.

PHNOM PENH (AFP) - Prosecutors called on Tuesday for the former Khmer Rouge prison chief to get a lengthy jail term, saying he embodied the ruthless efficiency of the regime behind the "Killing Fields" atrocities.