BEIJING - Chinese authorities say 11 people have been killed in a gas explosion in a coal mine and 128 others remain trapped underground. A statement by the State Administration of Work Safety says another 389 people at the Xinxing mine in Heilongjiang province managed to escape after the explosion early Saturday morning. Earlier reports had no death toll.

MEXICO CITY - Mexico's top domestic security official said Friday that sectors of the general public have cooperated with drug cartels in the violent border city of Ciudad Juarez, and the government is about to launch new social programs there to combat gangs.

HAVANA - The husband of an acclaimed dissident Cuban blogger was punched and shouted down by a pro-government mob Friday after he challenged the presumed state agents who earlier roughed up his wife to a street corner debate.

MELBOURNE, Australia - The mother of recently separated conjoined Bangladeshi twins does not want custody of the daughters she gave up for adoption and wants them to have new lives in Australia, newspapers reported Saturday.

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia - U.S. Sen. John McCain predicted success in the Afghan war effort Friday if President Barack Obama makes a decision quickly to send the reinforcements requested by his top commander there.

GENEVA - Scientists circulated beams of protons in the world's largest atom smasher Friday night for the first time after a year of repairs caused by a spectacular failure after the $10 billion machine was heavily damaged by a simple electrical fault.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - Valuing truth over the right to privacy, Argentina's Congress has authorized the forced extraction of DNA from people who may have been born to political prisoners slain a quarter-century ago - even when they don't want to know their birth parents.

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia - The United States will do its part to reduce corruption in Afghanistan by examining its own contracts and projects, even as it is demanding the same from the Afghan government, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday. He said the U.S. can exert the most leverage when it is signing the checks.

MUMBAI, India - The walls that the rockets blew out have not been repaired, and the plaster is a dense scattershot of bullet holes. Dozens of holes, blasted by grenades, pockmark the linoleum floors.

LONDON - A British couple being held hostage by Somali pirates said in an interview broadcast Friday that they fear they will be killed or handed to a terrorist group if a ransom is not paid soon. Paul and Rachel Chandler were kidnapped by pirates on Oct. 22, who seized their 38-foot yacht - the Lynn Rival.

ROME - A Vatican researcher has rekindled the age-old debate over the Shroud of Turin, saying that faint writing on the linen proves it was the burial cloth of Jesus. Experts say the historian may be reading too much into the markings, and they stand by carbon-dating that points to the shroud being a medieval forgery.

MEXICO CITY - Authorities in the western Mexican state of Michoacan are investigating the disappearance of a journalist who wrote about organized crime. Michoacan state's attorney general says police are looking for people who had contact with Mexican reporter Maria Esther Aguilar before she disappeared on Nov. 11.

COCKERMOUTH, England - Raging floods engulfed northern England's picturesque Lake District on Friday following the heaviest rainfall ever recorded in Britain, killing a police officer and trapping dozens in their swamped homes.

SANA'A, Yemen - Yemen's coast guard says Somali pirates have hijacked a Panamanian cargo ship in the treacherous Gulf of Aden between the Arabian peninsula and the Horn of Africa. A coast guard official says the Red Sea Spirit was carrying an unknown number of crew when it was hijacked Friday morning 36 nautical miles from the Yemeni port of Balhaf.

ROME - Two fingers and a tooth removed from Galileo Galilei's corpse in a Florentine basilica in the 18th century and given up for lost have been found again, a Florence museum said Friday.

PERUGIA, Italy - An American student accused of fatally stabbing her British roommate in Italy had a growing hatred for the victim and killed her in retaliation during a drug-fueled sex game, a prosecutor contended Friday in closing arguments at her murder trial.

GUATEMALA CITY - Guatemalan officials on Friday announced the resumption of international adoptions after a nearly two-year suspension prompted by the discovery that some babies were being sold.

TORONTO - Canada's Federal Court says the country's refugee board must reconsider the case of a lesbian who deserted the U.S. Army and fled to Canada. Judge Yves de Montigny said Friday the board erred last February when it rejected Bethany Smith's bid.

KABUL - Underpaid, under-equipped and under-trained, Afghanistan's 93,000-member police force is the weak link in an ambitious security strategy to hand over defense of the country to Afghans so American and other foreign troops can go home.

GENEVA - The World Health Organization says it is investigating samples of mutated swine flu found in two Norwegians who died of the virus and one person who suffered severe illness. Norway's Institute of Public Health announced Friday that the mutation "could possibly...cause more severe disease" because it infects tissue deeper in the airway than usual.

ROME - A Florence museum says two fingers and a tooth believed to belong to Galileo Galilei have been found and will go on display next spring. Three fingers and a tooth were taken from the astronomer's body in 1737 and placed in a container.

KAMPALA, Uganda - Ugandan officials say the army has killed 34 tribesmen who were stealing cattle in Uganda's volatile northeastern region.

SALVADOR, Brazil - Brazil's President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva is joining his Palestinian counterpart in calling on Israel to stop building new settlements in areas claimed by Palestinians.

MOSCOW - Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev criticized Kremlin policies Friday and toyed with the ambitious idea of attempting a political comeback.

RAMALLAH, West Bank - Palestinian officials announced Friday that a new date for parliamentary and presidential elections will be set next month now that President Mahmoud Abbas has agreed to postpone the January vote, though the Gaza Strip's Hamas rulers maintain they will boycott the voting.

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan expressed fear Friday that a large increase in foreign troops in Afghanistan could push militants across the border into its territory and called on the U.S. to factor in that concern as part of its new war strategy.

LONDON - Catherine Ashton: International woman of mystery Ashton is Europe's first foreign policy chief, the international representative of half a billion people, with a 7 billion euro ($10.5 billion) budget and a salary of more than $300,000 a year - but in her homeland, it's hard to find many who have heard of her.

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia - Defense Secretary Robert Gates says the United States will do its part to reduce corruption in Afghanistan, along with the efforts the U.S. is demanding from the Afghan government. He says the U.S. will examine its own contracts and projects in Afghanistan. He says the U.S. has the most leverage where it's signing the checks.

PERUGIA, Italy - An American student accused of murdering her British roommate in Italy had a growing hatred for the victim and killed her in retaliation during a drug-fueled sex game, a prosecutor said Friday in closing arguments at her murder trial.

BRUSSELS - Representatives of six world powers urged Iran on Friday to accept a U.N. plan aimed at delaying its ability to build a nuclear weapon, as the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency warned Tehran not to miss the opportunity to resolve the dispute.

LONDON - A British man who said he strangled his wife during a nightmare about fighting off an intruder has been found innocent in her death.

LONDON - Buckingham Palace says the queen and her husband Prince Philip are celebrating 62 years of marriage quietly - without the fanfare of two years ago, when they marked their diamond anniversary. Princess Elizabeth married Lt. Philip Mountbatten in Westminster Abbey on Nov. 20, 1947, in front of 2,000 guests. They now have four children and eight grandchildren.

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran plans to launch a communications satellite by late 2011 with no outside help, a top Iranian official said Friday, after Italy and Russia declined to put it into orbit.

MOSCOW - Russia lacks a viable program for developing a new spacecraft and will likely fall behind in the space race, a veteran Russian cosmonaut said in an interview published Friday. Efforts to build a successor to the 40-year old Soyuz spacecraft have dragged on with no end in sight, Mikhail Tyurin told the Novaya Gazeta newspaper.

GOMA, Congo - Conservationists say Congolese schoolchildren will soon be able to take a closer look at baby mountain gorillas. Virunga National Park spokeswoman Samantha Newport says the park is building a sanctuary where schoolchildren and tourists can observe the 2 1/2-year-old orphan gorillas from hidden platforms.

BEIJING - Washington's ambassador to Beijing hit out Friday at negative U.S. media coverage of President Barack Obama's visit to China, saying it failed to take into account important progress on many issues. Although producing no breakthroughs on key issues, Obama's first state visit to the Asian giant that ended Wednesday was heralded by both sides as a success.

RAMALLAH, West Bank - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has agreed to postpone parliamentary and presidential elections that had been set for January. The Palestinian Election Commission said Friday it would meet in December to set a new date, though the Gaza Strip's Hamas rulers maintain they will boycott the vote.

ROME - A Vatican researcher claims a nearly invisible text on the Shroud of Turin proves the authenticity of the artifact revered as Jesus' burial cloth. The claim made in a new book by historian Barbara Frale drew immediate skepticism from some scientists, who maintain the shroud is a medieval forgery.

PERUGIA, Italy - An American student and her Italian boyfriend staged a burglary in the apartment where they had just killed a British student in an attempt to sidetrack the investigation, prosecutors said Friday in closing arguments at their murder trial.