Madrid  - An advertising battle between atheists and believers expanded Monday in Spain as buses advocating the existence of God began running in Barcelona.

"When everyone abandons you, God stays with you," the Catholic association E-cristians said in an ad it had placed on a public bus. Two similar buses were due to start running shortly.

The buses were the answer of believers to two "atheist buses" carrying ads reading: "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."

Baghdad  - Two civilians were killed and eight others wounded in separate bomb attacks in central and northern Iraq on Monday, local media cited police sources as saying.

Two people were killed in a bomb attack in the al-Eishaqi region south of the town of Tikrit, located 175 kilometres north of the capital Baghdad, the Voices of Iraq (VOI) news agency reported.

In Baghdad, four civilians were injured by a bomb that was stuck to a civilian vehicle and was detonated in the Saeeda area in the city's south-east, a police source told VOI.

Sana'a, Yemen  - Around 170 passengers are still missing after a ship loaded with around 300 Somali and Ethiopian migrants capsized off the coast of Yemen Saturday, Yemeni coast guard officials said.

A coast guard official in Red Sea port of Houdieda said 130 people managed to swim ashore or were rescued by coast guard teams and local fishermen.

Three bodies have been recovered so far, the official, who asked not to be identified, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

He said the wooden ship hit a reef in a storm, tearing a hole in its hull.

Sana'a, Yemen  - At least 130 passengers managed to swim ashore after a ship loaded with around 300 Somali and Ethiopian migrants capsized off the coast of Yemen Saturday, Yemeni coast guard officials said.

A coast guard official in Red Sea port of Houdieda said 130 people managed to swim ashore or were rescued by coast guard teams and local fishermen.

Three bodies have been recovered so far, the official, who asked not to be identified, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

He said the wooden ship hit a reef in a storm, tearing a hole in its hull.

Paderborn, Germany  - The remains of an eight-year-old girl who was abducted, sexually assaulted and murdered in Germany were being flown to her ancestral home in Turkey Friday as police admitted they had no idea yet who killed her.

In biting cold, residents of the German city of Paderborn, many of them Turkish, joined in a procession Friday evening to mourn for the girl, Kardelen. Her surname has been withheld to protect her family's privacy.

Tel Aviv  - A Palestinian doctor from Gaza who was a regular guest on Israeli television Friday called a reporter who had interviewed him many times, screaming frantically that his house had just been bombed by the military.

"My girls, oh god, they've killed my girls," cried Ezz al-Din Abu al-Aish, the doctor, as the Israeli reporter held his mobile phone to the microphone during a live broadcast.

Abu al-Aish's home in Beit Lahiya, in the northern Gaza Strip, had just been hit by a shell, fired by Israeli soldiers.