World - Reuters

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's parliament on Monday approved an amended law needed to hold an election next year, but the new text risks being vetoed a second time -- which could delay both the vote and next year's partial U.S. troop withdrawal.

MANILA (Reuters) - Gunmen abducted and killed at least 21 people in the southern Philippines Monday, apparently to prevent a woman filing her husband's nomination to run for provincial governor in elections next year, the military said.

THE HAGUE (Reuters) - The world's first permanent war crimes court opens its second trial on Tuesday when two Congolese warlords face charges they ordered subordinates to attack civilians, rape women and enlist child soldiers.

ALMATY (Reuters) - The government of the Central Asian state of Tajikistan is failing to protect women from violence and abuse, human rights group Amnesty International said in a report on Tuesday.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Khartoum's U.N. envoy, rejecting a bleak U.N. assessment of the situation in Sudan's conflict-torn western Darfur region, said on Monday it was time for international peacekeepers to prepare to leave.

AMMAN (Reuters) - Jordan's King Abdullah has dissolved parliament halfway through its four-year term and called for early elections, state television reported Monday.

HEGANG, China (Reuters) - Relatives of victims of a gas blast at a mine in northeastern China scuffled with police and demanded answers from the owners on Monday as state media put the toll from the country's latest mine disaster at 104.

RIYADH (Reuters) - More than two million Muslims gather this week for the annual haj pilgrimage to Islam's holy city of Mecca, where Saudi authorities hope to minimize spread of the H1N1 virus and prevent any political demonstration.

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.

KABUL (Reuters) - Two Afghan cabinet ministers are being investigated under suspicion of embezzlement, a deputy attorney general said on Monday, at a time when President Hamid Karzai faces tough Western pressure to clean up his government.

HANGU, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistani security forces, backed by tanks and artillery, attacked Taliban positions in the northwest of the country, killing 22 militants, a senior police official on Monday.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Eight soldiers were killed and two injured Monday when munitions exploded at a Russian navy arms depot, 10 days after a series of blasts ripped through the same complex, the Defense Ministry said.

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - The Khmer Rouge's chief torturer ran a camp "dedicated to death" with broad autonomy, a lawyer said on Monday in closing arguments at the U.N.-backed "Killing Fields" tribunal in Cambodia.

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.

JAKARTA (Reuters) - An overloaded ferry sank in bad weather off Indonesia's Riau islands on Sunday, killing 29 people, while 245 passengers survived the accident, officials said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi authorities are investigating large-scale fraud at Baghdad municipality where employees have stolen millions of dollars, officials said on Monday.

BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese dissident who tried to help victims of last year's Sichuan earthquake was jailed for three years on Monday on charges of illegally possessing state secrets, his wife said, decrying the sentence as "revenge."

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - The Pakistan-based militant group that attacked the Indian city of Mumbai a year ago remains an implacable Indian foe and could strike again despite Pakistani efforts to rein it in.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's parliament passed an investment law on Monday that would allow foreigners to own land for housing projects, and is designed to streamline regulations and applications for foreign investment, lawmakers said.