World - AP

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.

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.

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.

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia - French officers on Tuesday showed off a cutting-edge warship to a potential buyer — the Russian navy, whose pursuit of an amphibious assault capacity is frightening some neighboring countries.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

LONDON - An inquiry into Britain's role in the Iraq war kicked off Tuesday with top government advisers testifying that some Bush administration officials were calling for Saddam Hussein's ouster as early as 2001 — long before sanctions were exhausted and two years before the U.S.-led invasion.

BAGHDAD - A senior official said Tuesday that Iraq must delay a national vote scheduled for January because of a political dispute, and the vice president who triggered the crisis indicated he would veto a key election law for a second time.

NEW DELHI - An Indian government investigation released Tuesday into the 1992 demolition of a mosque by a raging mob reportedly accused top Hindu nationalist politicians of complicity in the attack that sparked nationwide ethnic riots, leaving 2,000 people dead.

MOBILE, Ala. - A Belgian arms dealer has pleaded guilty to illegally exporting airplane engines and parts from the U.S. to Iran for use in aging F-5 fighter jets sold to the Islamic nation before its 1979 revolution.

LONDON - European and U.S. stock markets fell Tuesday after government figures showed the U.S. economy did not grow as fast in the third quarter as previously estimated, stoking fears that the recovery in the world's largest economy will be slow.

VIENNA - Six world powers have readied a resolution critical of Iran's nuclear program, diplomats said Tuesday, as Tehran suggested it was still ready to discuss a U.N.-backed plan meant to delay the Islamic Republic's ability to make a nuclear weapon.

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.

KABUL - Three Afghan Cabinet officials and 12 former ministers are under investigation for alleged corruption, the attorney general's office said Tuesday, announcing cases that could signal whether the government is serious about fighting graft in its ranks.

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.

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.