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BAGHDAD - A suicide car bomb flattened a court building and an explosives-rigged ambulance blew down walls like dominos near the Finance Ministry during a wave of coordinated attacks Tuesday that targeted high-profile symbols of Iraqi authority. At least 127 people were killed.

AACHEN, Germany - A former member of the Nazi SS being tried for murder admitted in court Tuesday that he killed three Dutch civilians during World War II, but insisted he was following orders.

SYDNEY - A coroner said Tuesday that participation in an intense self-help course led a woman to suffer a psychotic breakdown before she stripped naked and leaped to her death from an office window in front of horrified co-workers.

TEHRAN, Iran - Hard-line militiamen firing tear gas and throwing stones stormed a crowd of thousands of university students protesting for a second day Tuesday, as Iran threatened a tougher crackdown on the opposition after the biggest anti-government demonstrations in months.

MULTAN, Pakistan - A team of militants launched a gun, rocket and suicide attack on an intelligence office in central Pakistan on Tuesday, killing 12 people in a strike that showed the insurgents can hit deep in the heart of the country.

KABUL - After meeting Tuesday with U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said it may be five years before his army is ready to take on insurgents — a blunt warning that the planned exit strategy for U.S. troops from Afghanistan 18 months from now could grind slowly through 2014.

SYDNEY - An Australian coroner said Tuesday that participation in an intense self-help course led a woman to suffer a psychotic breakdown before she stripped naked and leaped to her death from an office window in front of horrified co-workers.

SEOUL, South Korea - An envoy dispatched by President Barack Obama launched a mission Tuesday to coax North Korea to rejoin international talks on ending its nuclear programs amid warnings of strong sanctions if Pyongyang refuses.

BEIJING - It was raining hard, and the hundreds of children leaving their evening classes raced down the narrow stairway closest to their dormitory. Somehow, someone stumbled — and the ensuing crush of bodies left eight children dead.

MOSCOW - The fire chief of a Russian city where a nightclub blaze killed 119 revelers was suspended along with five subordinates Tuesday and authorities said inspection records for the club appear to have been falsified.

MIRANSHAH, Pakistan (Reuters) - A suspected U.S. drone fired two missiles into an al Qaeda and Taliban sanctuary in a Pakistani region the Afghan border on Tuesday, killing at least three militants, Pakistani intelligence officials said.

WARSAW, Poland - A Polish historian says he made a surprising find when poring through World War I archives — the death certificate of Manfred von Richthofen, the German fighter ace known as the "Red Baron."

Eighteen months after the most ostentatious Olympics of all time, the organizers of the Beijing Games are finally facing a reckoning as they try to figure out how to keep their prized centerpiece stadium in the black

KABUL - The Afghan government said NATO forces killed six civilians during a pre-dawn operation Tuesday in eastern Afghanistan. NATO disputed the allegation, saying only militants died.

TOKYO - Talks on the relocation of a major American military base have been suspended, deepening a deadlock between the United States and Japan.

NAIROBI, Kenya - Kenyan police on Tuesday said they arrested a suspected weapons smuggler with up to 100,000 bullets and an assortment of guns, a huge cache in a country with stringent gun laws.

CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez said Monday that Venezuela has received thousands of Russian-made missiles and rocket launchers as part of his government's military preparations for a possible armed conflict with neighboring Colombia.

JOHANNESBURG (AFP) - South African actors want to stop Oscar-winner Jennifer Hudson from playing Winnie Madikizela-Mandela in a new film on the ex-wife of the nation's first black president, reports said Monday.

Tim Donaghy had never had it so good. A referee in the National Basketball Association, he loved the limelight, was considered one of the NBA's better refs and was making almost $300,000 a year.

Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is in Washington to discuss Iran's nuclear program, the war in Afghanistan and other issues. But the President also needs to convince him that Turkey must stay close to the U.S. and Europe even as it looks east

COX'S BAZAR, Bangladesh - Sixteen fishermen remained missing Tuesday off Bangladesh's southern coast after pirates attacked their vessel last week, survivors and the boat's owner said.

BAGHDAD - Iraq's presidential council on Tuesday again postponed nationwide parliamentary elections, setting March 7 as the date for the vote in what has become a seven-week delay likely to feed concerns about an increase in violence.

SHARIFF AGUAK, Philippines (AFP) - Philippine bomber planes staged a show of force Tuesday over a southern province placed under martial law, as helicopters dropped leaflets urging a warlord's militia to surrender.

SAO PAULO - Authorities arrested 11 people Monday in an alleged U.S. work-visa scam that raked in more than $50 million from thousands of Brazilians since 2002. Some of those scammed went to the U.S. and wound up as illegal aliens because promised jobs didn't exist.

BRUSSELS (AFP) - EU nations agreed on Tuesday that Jerusalem should be the capital of both Israel and a future Palestinian state, assuaging Israeli anger over earlier mention of east Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital.

SANTIAGO (Reuters) - A Chilean judge on Monday charged figures from Gen. Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship with the murder of former President Eduardo Frei Montalva, which could boost support for Frei Montalva's son in Sunday's presidential vote.

MANILA, Philippines - Amnesty International called on the Philippine government Tuesday to end martial law soon in a southern province, where troops cracked down on a powerful clan and its armed supporters blamed for the massacre of 57 people.

JERUSALEM - Israel's justice minister called for Jewish law to become binding in Israel, causing a stir Tuesday that cut to the heart of the country's simmering secular-religious divide.

ROME - The murder conviction of U.S. student Amanda Knox has not damaged U.S.-Italian relations, despite suggestions the verdict was tainted by anti-American sentiment, a top Italian diplomat said Monday.

The alleged homicidal liposuctioners made headlines throughout the world. But could they be an attempt to distract attention from a more sinister story?