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BRUSSELS - Helped by a therapist, Rom Houben's outstretched finger tapped with surprising speed on a computer touchscreen, spelling out how he felt "alone, lonely, frustrated" in the 23 years he was trapped inside a paralyzed body.

KABUL, Afghanistan — The television set crackles with breaking news: Terrorists have smuggled a nuclear bomb into Kabul and are preparing to take out the Afghan capital.

AMPATUAN, Philippines - A few miles (kilometers) off the main highway, on a remote hilltop covered with waist-high grass, bodies lay with twisted hands reaching in the air. They had been shot point-blank.

BEIJING - China executed a dairy farmer and a milk salesman Tuesday for their roles in the sale of contaminated baby formula — severe punishments that Beijing hopes will assuage public anger, reassure importers and put to rest one of the country's worst food safety crises.

SHINKAY, Afghanistan - A battered taxi sped up a dusty road toward a squad of Afghan soldiers searching for bombs planted in the dirt. Army gunmen who had fanned out for protection readied for a suicide attacker. The car screeched to a halt.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - A flotilla of hundreds of icebergs that split off Antarctic ice shelves is drifting toward New Zealand and could pose a risk to ships in the south Pacific Ocean, officials said Tuesday.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Most of the Taliban fighters and all of their leaders apparently have escaped Pakistan's widely publicized six-week-old offensive in South Waziristan, forcing the army to begin pounding other parts of the country's lawless tribal area.

CAPE TOWN, South Africa - Visitors to South Africa's premier holiday destination who are worried about becoming victims of the country's high crime rate could find themselves instead robbed by a more furry kind of felon: baboons.

MELBOURNE, Australia - Formerly conjoined twin sisters Trishna and Krishna are enjoying a favorite DVD and trying new foods as they continue their recovery from marathon separation surgery, doctors said.

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.

BARIYAPUR, Nepal - The ceremony began with prayers in a temple by tens of thousands of Hindus before dawn Tuesday. Then it shifted to a nearby corral, where in the cold morning mist, scores of butchers wielding curved swords began slaughtering buffalo calves by hacking off their heads.

NUKU'ALOFA (AFP) - A strong earthquake with a magnitude of 6.8 hit off the Pacific island nation of Tonga on Wednesday, the US Geological Survey said.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to move Albert Camus' ashes to the famed PanthÉon in Paris as a way of revering the writer and philosopher. His critics, however, see more tactical motivations

RAMALLAH, West Bank - At the top of the list of Palestinian prisoners likely to be freed in a possible swap for an Israeli soldier is a firebrand politician many Palestinians believe is a likely future president who can pull them out of their current political deadlock.

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.

LONDON (AFP) - The first full-scale inquiry into Britain's role in the Iraq war opened with testimony suggesting Washington was gearing up for possible conflict two years before Tony Blair led London to war.

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.

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.

GLASGOW (AFP) - Rangers' Champions League hopes were extinguished for another season here on Tuesday as they slumped to a 2-0 defeat to Stuttgart at Ibrox.

LONDON (AFP) - Residents in the flood-hit northwest began returning to their homes Monday but police warned it could take years to recover from the devastation left by the heaviest rainfall on record.

LONDON (AFP) - A private detective, who allegedly disappeared after being paid to search for Madeleine McCann, and is wanted in the United States, was arrested in England, reports said Wednesday.

More outwardly reputable middle-class people are shoplifting to cope withthe economic downturn. And researchers say it may be hard to break them ofthe habit

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama met Monday evening with his national security team to finalize a plan to dispatch some 34,000 additional U.S. troops over the next year to what he's called "a war of necessity" in Afghanistan, U.S. officials told McClatchy.

MELBOURNE (AFP) - Bangladeshi twins Trishna and Krishna are out of intensive care and seeing each other for the first time as they make an "amazing" recovery from surgery to separate their conjoined heads, doctors said Tuesday.

GENEVA - The world's largest atom smasher used its accelerator Tuesday to speed up proton beams for the first time as scientists moved ahead in efforts to learn more about the universe.

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.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistani officials have arrested a retired Pakistani army major for his suspected role in an alleged plot that was hatched in the U.S. to assassinate the creator of controversial Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad, the Pakistani army said Tuesday.

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.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama rolls out the red carpet Tuesday for India in the first official state visit of his presidency, but the stresses of a key relationship in a tinderbox part of the world will lie just beneath the glitz and glamour of a state dinner.

VIENNA (AFP) - World powers have drafted a resolution to be voted on by the UN atomic watchdog later this week condemning Iran for concealing a second uranium enrichment site, diplomats said on Tuesday.