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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.

GENEVA - The world's largest atom smasher made another leap forward Monday by circulating beams of protons in opposite directions at the same time in the $10 billion machine after more than a year of repairs, organizers said.

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.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Israel and Hamas are close to a deal to swap 1,000 Palestinian prisoners for an Israeli soldier held for more than three years by the Islamic militant group, a Palestinian familiar with the talks said Monday.

KABUL - Bombings and shootings killed 12 people across Afghanistan, including four American troops and three children, as President Barack Obama convened his war council again Monday to fine-tune a strategy to respond to the intransigent violence.

BRASILIA, Brazil - Engaging, not isolating Iran is the way to push for peace and stability in the Middle East, said Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva as he headed into private talks Monday with his increasingly alienated Iranian counterpart.

MANILA, Philippines - Dozens of gunmen hijacked a convoy carrying journalists, and family and supporters of a candidate for provincial governor, killing at least 21 of the travelers Monday in the southern Philippines' worst political violence in years.

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.

HEGANG, China (AFP) - Relatives of victims angrily demanded answers Monday as the death toll from China's worst mining disaster in two years climbed to 104 and hopes of finding more survivors faded.

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 (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."

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.

LONDON (AFP) - Hostility between US and British military leaders in Iraq ran deep, with one describing his US counterparts as "group of Martians," the Daily Telegraph reported Monday, citing leaked government documents.

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


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.

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.

BEIJING - A veteran dissident was sentenced Monday to three years in prison after casting a spotlight on poorly built schools that collapsed during China's massive earthquake last year, killing thousands of children — an apparent government attempt to squelch such information.

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israel said on Monday there was no deal yet on a prisoner swap with Hamas, as efforts appeared to gather pace on an accord that could see a Gaza-held soldier exchanged for hundreds of Palestinians.

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.

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.

SYDNEY (AFP) - Australia moved to tighten security at its main immigration centre on Monday after a riot by 150 asylum-seekers, reportedly wielding pool cues, broomsticks and tree branches, left 37 wounded.

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.

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras - The coup last summer in this tiny, Central American country blew up into an international incident, with thousands of Hondurans taking to the streets while everyone from Barack Obama to Fidel Castro lined up behind ousted President Manuel Zelaya.

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:

LONDON (AFP) - Arsene Wenger has played down the significance of his side's first defeat in 14 matches and challenged his players to prove him right in Tuesday's Champions League clash with Standard Liege.

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.

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.

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - The genocide trial of a prison chief for Cambodia's Khmer Rouge entered its final stage Monday, as closing arguments began in the historic effort to assign responsibility for the deaths of 1.7 million people three decades ago.

MOGADISHU, Somalia - A Somali businessman says a ship hijacked by pirates off East Africa two weeks ago has been released.

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.