(12/06)

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - At least 18 people were killed in gang attacks on buses and police posts in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro in the early hours of Thursday, including seven who were burned to death in a bus, a state official said.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Eighteen people including a Japanese were killed and 19 injured in two traffic accidents in southwest China's mountainous Yunnan province, Xinhua news agency said on Friday.

(11/06)

CAIRO (Reuters) - Eighteen Egyptians were killed when a public bus and a truck collided on Tuesday on a highway south of the Egyptian capital, security sources said.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli newspapers were filled with a mixture of remorse and recrimination on Thursday, a day after the army shelled a town in the Gaza Strip, killing 18 civilians, including women and children.

(10/06)

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Russian cargo ship sank on Monday in the Sea of Japan off South Korea's northeastern coast and the fate of its 18-strong crew was unknown, Russian news agencies and television quoted officials as saying.

PANAMA CITY (Reuters) - A mystery illness in Panama claimed the life of another victim on Thursday, bringing to 18 the number of people who have died from it and baffled health officials said poison could be involved.

(8/06)

LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A suspected suicide bomber killed at least 17 people and wounded almost 50 in a crowded bazaar in southern Afghanistan on Monday, the latest attack in a surge of violence in the Taliban heartland.

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - At least 18 people died in violence in northern Iraq on Friday, police said, including a senior policeman in the country's third largest city Mosul.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - NATO and Afghan forces killed 18 Taliban guerrillas in a raid on a village in southern Afghanistan, where violence has escalated after NATO troops took over from U.S. forces.

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - Fifteen soldiers were killed in a rebel ambush in northern Colombia and three more people died in other attacks on Monday, a week before President Alvaro Uribe starts his second term.

(7/06)

COLOMBO (Reuters) - Eighteen soldiers were feared dead on Monday night when a fragmentation mine blew up their army bus in restive eastern Sri Lanka, shortly after a top Tamil Tiger accused the government of restarting the country's two-decade civil war.

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - Fifteen soldiers were killed in a rebel ambush in northern Colombia and three more people died in other attacks on Monday, a week before President Alvaro Uribe starts his second term.

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - A moderate earthquake in China's southwestern Yunnan province on Saturday toppled hundreds of houses and killed at least 18 people, official Chinese media reported.

BEIJING (Reuters) - A blast has killed 18 coal miners and trapped 39 at a colliery in northern Shanxi province, Xinhua news agency reported on Sunday.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (Reuters) - Brazilian police occupied two Rio de Janeiro slums on Wednesday in search of a drug kingpin suspected of ordering a massacre of up to 18 people whose bodies had been dumped on Rio streets this week.

(5/06)

TAL AFAR, Iraq (Reuters) -A suicide bomber killed 17 people and wounded 35 when he blew his car up in a market in the Iraqi northern city of Tal Afar on Tuesday, police said.

YANGON (Reuters) - Flash floods triggered by Cyclone Mala killed 18 people in central Myanmar, state media reported on Thursday, sharply raising the death toll from last week's storm.

(3/06)

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The bodies of 18 men, bound, blindfolded and strangled, were found in a Sunni Arab district of Baghdad, apparent victims of sectarian turmoil gripping Iraq and threatening the formation of a coalition government.

(1/06)

MANILA (Reuters) - The Philippine military killed at least 18 suspected members of the communist New People's Army (NPA) on Tuesday following a rebel attack on a mobile phone tower, officials said.

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - A Pakistani security official and residents of a border region said U.S. aircraft from Afghanistan killed 18 people, including women and children, when they fired

(11/05)

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - At least 17 insurgents and one U.S. Marine have been killed in a major offensive continuing near Iraq's border with Syria, the military said on Monday as violence flared elsewhere in Iraq.

(10/05)

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Rescue workers said on Monday there was no hope of finding seven French and 11 Nepali climbers missing after an avalanche in western Nepal last week.

KABUL (Reuters) - Eighteen Afghan policemen died in an ambush by insurgents in the southern province of Helmand, a government spokesman said on Tuesday, in the latest spate of violence by suspected Taliban militants.

BHOPAL, India (Reuters) - A crowded train sped through a railway station in central India, jumped the tracks and crashed into a signal cabin on Monday, killing 18 passengers and injuring about 100, authorities said.

(8/05)

KABUL (Reuters) - At least 17 Afghan insurgents and one U.S. soldier were killed in a fierce clash in southern Afghanistan near the troubled Pakistan border, the U.S. military said on Tuesday.

(7/05)

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (Reuters) - A fire swept through one of Costa Rica's main hospitals early on Tuesday, killing at least 18 people, mostly critically ill patients trapped in the five-story building's upper floors.

(6/05)

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Three car bombs, which went off almost simultaneously about a kilometer (half a mile) apart, killed 18 people and wounded 48 in a mainly Shi'ite district of west Baghdad on Wednesday, police said.

KABUL (Reuters) - The U.S. military said it killed 15-20 militants with air strikes in southern Afghanistan on Sunday after a joint patrol of U.S. and Afghan troops came under attack in the latest in a wave of violence to rock the country.

(5/05)

KINSHASA (Reuters) - Militia fighters have shot or hacked to death 18 people and kidnapped about 50 others in an attack on a group of villages in eastern Democratic Republic Congo, a provincial governor said on Tuesday.

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - About 18 people were killed and dozens wounded when Sudanese police clashed with refugees from southern Sudan in a camp near Khartoum on Wednesday, witnesses said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A suicide bomber killed at least five people at a customs post near Iraq's border with Syria on Monday and authorities discovered 12 more bodies of people shot execution-style in escalating violence.

(3/05)

BEIJING (Reuters) - Eighteen miners have been confirmed dead after a gas blast ripped through a coal mine in China's southwest Chongqing municipality, the Xinhua news agency reported on Friday.

(2/05)

LA TODOLELLA, Spain (Reuters) - Spain was plunged into mourning on Monday after 18 friends at a birthday party were found dead, apparently due to a gas leak at a mountain hostel they rented.

(1/05)

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - The bodies of 18 Iraqi Shi'ite men killed last month on their way to work at a U.S. base in Mosul have been found in farmland near the northern city, police sources said on Thursday.

(11/04)

MONROVIA (Reuters) - At least 18 people died and more than 200 were injured during riots in Liberia's capital last week, the worst outbreak of violence in the West African country since the end of civil war last year.

(9/04)

KIRKUK, Iraq (Reuters) - A suicide car bomber detonated his vehicle near a police academy in the Iraqi city of Kirkuk on Saturday, killing at least 17 people and wounding 32, police said.

(8/04)

BEERSHEBA, Israel (Reuters) - Palestinian suicide bombers killed at least 16 people in simultaneous attacks on two Israeli buses on Tuesday, breaking a long lull in such violence and threatening to disrupt an Israeli plan to pull out of Gaza.

(7/04)

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A fresh wave of separatist violence hit Russia's Chechnya on Tuesday when a land mine blasted a convoy carrying its interim leader and elite security forces said they lost 18 men in a battle with rebels.

TUNCELI, Turkey (Reuters) - Eighteen people were killed and 27 injured when an earthquake hit remote villages in the eastern Turkish province of Agri on Friday, devastating the local stone and earth houses.

(3/04)

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (Reuters) - At least 18 people drowned and dozens more were missing after an overcrowded ferry capsized off the Maldives in the worst ferry disaster for the tiny Indian Ocean island nation, official media said Thursday.

(2/04)

MOSCOW (Reuters) - An explosion from a suspected gas leak tore through a cafe in Russia's Siberia region Thursday, killing 18 people and injuring 18 others, the Emergencies Ministry said.

(1/04)

BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters) - A series of explosions across Iraq killed at least 18 people on Saturday as the United States predicted an upturn of violence ahead of a Muslim holiday.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico has been hit by an unusually high number of drug-related killings this year, with at least 18 people gunned down in the past week in gangland-style hits blamed partly on turf wars over drug crops.

BERGEN, Norway (Reuters) - Rescuers called off a search for survivors from a capsized cargo ship in icy waters off the Norwegian coast Tuesday, leaving most of the 18 seamen presumed dead trapped inside the hull.

(11/03)

BAQUBA, Iraq (Reuters) - Suicide bombers blew up cars packed with explosives outside two police stations north of Baghdad Saturday, killing at least 18 people in the latest deadly strikes on Iraq's U.S.-backed police force.

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - More than 18 people were killed and 25 wounded in fighting between rival clans in central Somalia Friday, residents said Saturday.

BAISA, Iraq (Reuters) - Eighteen Americans died in guerrilla attacks in Iraq on Sunday, including 15 soldiers killed when a helicopter was downed in the deadliest single strike on U.S. forces since they invaded to oust Saddam Hussein.

(9/03)

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - Eighteen people including 14 Muslim rebels have been killed in the latest clashes in Indian Kashmir where violence has surged recently, threatening peace moves between India and Pakistan.

(1/03)

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - At least 18 people were killed near the southern Afghan city of Kandahar on Friday when a minibus packed with civilians hit an anti-tank mine rigged to a mortar bomb, officials said.

(12/02)

HYDERABAD, India (Reuters) - An express train jumped the tracks in southern India early on Saturday, killing at least 18 people and injuring 80, railway authorities said.

PATNA, India (Reuters) - Maoist rebels killed 18 policemen in an ambush in a dense forest in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand, a police official said Friday.

(11/02)

(AP) - In a twin attack reminiscent of al-Qaida's well-coordinated 1998 assault on the U.S. embassies in East Africa, suicide bombers in Kenya killed 12 people at an Israeli-owned beach hotel and two missiles narrowly missed an airliner carrying home Israeli holidaymakers. In apparently unrelated violence, six Israelis died in another bloodletting at home as gunmen open fire on a bus station and a crowd waiting to vote in the Likud Party primary in northern Israel.

(9/02)

QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) - Eighteen people were killed and 20 injured when a bus collided with an oil tanker in southwestern Pakistan Sunday, police said.

(8/02)

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Fresh clashes in Indian-controlled Kashmir have killed 18 people in the past 24 hours, police said on Thursday.

KRISTI NACHNE CHOUR, Nepal (Reuters) - A plane carrying foreign tourists slammed into a mountain in bad weather in Nepal on Thursday, killing all 18 people on board.

(7/02)

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Eighteen people, including five children, burned to death after their bus hit a cow and crashed in South Africa's Eastern Cape, police said Monday.

(6/02)

LAGOS (Reuters) - At least 18 people have been killed in an attack by students belonging to a secret society at a university in southeast Nigeria on a rival group, the independent newspaper Vanguard reported Wednesday.

(4/02)

(AP) - An expelled student dressed in black and carrying two guns opened fire in his former school Friday, killing 17 people before shooting himself as commandos closed in, police and witnesses said.

(3/02)

GAZA (Reuters) - Israel stormed a refugee camp and pounded security targets in the Gaza Strip on Monday in fighting that killed 18 Palestinians and set back peace hopes raised by the ending of Yasser Arafat's confinement in the West Bank.

(6/01)

(AP) - As floodwaters from Tropical Storm Allison began to recede, crews scrambled to open roads Monday that were clogged by a weekend deluge that left 18 people dead and did an estimated $1 billion in damage.

(3/01)

ASPEN, Colo. (AP) - A chartered airplane crashed into a hillside Thursday at an airport in this ski resort town, killing 18 people, authorities said. The Gulfstream III plane was en route to Aspen from Los Angeles International Airport, said Allen Kenitzer, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman in Seattle. He said 15 passengers and three crew were on board. Kenitzer said he did not know whether any distress calls were made before the crash.

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) -- They were part-time soldiers, men who gave up weeks every year to prepare for their mission of construction work on short notice anywhere in the world for military and humanitarian purposes. But the 18 members of the Virginia Air National Guard's 203rd Red Horse Flight who died in a plane crash Saturday in Georgia also were very much part of their communities.

(2/01)

BEIJING (AP) -- A gas explosion in a central China coal mine killed 18 people and left three missing, a local official said Saturday. The blast at the Doulishan coal mine in Hunan province occurred Thursday when 23 workers were in the shaft, said a local government spokesman who identified himself as Mr. Yan.

(10/00)

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania (Reuters) - Eighteen people died and 39 were injured when a bus hit a crowd as it swerved to avoid the presidential motorcade in Tanzania Thursday, police and witnesses said.

(11/99)

MEXICO CITY -- The explosion of a DC-9 jetliner in central Mexico killed all 18 people on board, but the toll could have been much worse. TAESA flight 725 had taken off Tuesday from the western border city of Tijuana with 91 passengers aboard. After stopping in Guadalajara and Uruapan, it had only 13 passengers and five crew members aboard as it headed to Mexico City, 180 miles (290 kilometers) to the east.

(8/99>

AMBON, Indonesia (AP) -- Muslim and Christian mobs fought street battles in eastern Indonesia, killing at least 18 people and injuring about 120, police and hospital workers said today. Riot police shot and killed some people, witnesses said. Mobs stabbed or beat others.

(6/99)

Number of those killed by Mexico quake rises to 18 // MEXICO CITY -- Mexican soldiers cleared debris Wednesday from the streets of the colonial city of Puebla, which bore the brunt of a powerful earthquake a day earlier that left nearby Mexico City virtually unscathed.

(11/98)

MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Two helicopters crashed Wednesday morning over the southern Gulf of Mexico, killing at least 18 people, the government oil monopoly Petroleos Mexicanos reported. The accident occurred as the private helicopters were flying between two oil platforms, Pemex said in a news release.

(9/98)

MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Gunmen in northern Mexico pulled 21 people from their beds early today, lined them up against a wall and opened fire. Eighteen people were killed and three were seriously wounded, police said.