Chinese police opened fire on Tibetans marking the Dalai Lama's 78th birthday, shooting at least one monk in the head and seriously wounding several other people, two overseas groups said Tuesday.

Security forces disrupted Tibetans in Sichuan province's Daofu county as they carried out rituals to honor their exiled leader, whom Beijing denounces as a separatist, said the US-based International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) and India-based phayul.com.

A Titan Arum, one of the world's largest, rarest and smelliest flowers, is in bloom in a Brussels hothouse for the third time in five years in a rare botanical feat for a plant that generally goes years without blooming.

Variously known as a "corpse flower" in Indonesia where first found, or "huge deformed penis" under its scientific name, "Amorphophallus titanum", the strange but spectacular specimen began to bloom Sunday in the national botanical gardens, the Jardin de Meise, on the outskirts of the Belgian capital.

Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni was due in Moscow on Tuesday for talks over Russia's plans to supply S-300 anti-aircraft missiles to the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, army radio said.

During the visit, Livni, who also serves as Israel's chief negotiator with the Palestinians, was to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in a bid to convince Moscow not to go through with the promised delivery.

Somalia's Shebab insurgents killed at least one person Tuesday when they set off a homemade bomb in the capital's main market, busy with shoppers preparing for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Shebab spokesman Abdulaziz Abu Musab said its fighters had set off an improvised explosive device targeting security officials in Mogadishu's Bakara market, claiming to have killed three officials and wounded three others.

Authorities have raised to 5,500 the estimated number of people who perished in devastating floods that swept the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand last month.

At least 1,000 residents, Hindu pilgrims and tourists have been confirmed killed by the surging waters caused by heavier than normal monsoon rains that washed away homes, hotels, highways and cars.

An Italian mayor and his council members have decided to fight the economic crisis proactively, picking up paintbrushes and re-painting the walls of their offices themselves to spare the town budget.

They worked overtime and even chipped in for the material themselves.

Hundreds of migrants were intercepted by Italian, Libyan and Maltese border guards on Tuesday on several boats leaving from Libya, a day after Pope Francis called for more solidarity with the refugees.

Italy's coast guard said in a statement it had scrambled cargo vessels that were in the area to help out during the nighttime operation to rescue 303 migrants on three boats that were in difficulty.

A journalist in Russia's restive Dagestan region was killed in a shooting Tuesday that investigators have linked to his professional work.

Akhmednabi Akhmednabiyev, a journalist with Novoye Delo newspaper based in Makhachkala was struck by "many shots" fired by an unidentified gunman early Tuesday and died on the spot in the outskirts of Makhachkala, Russia's Investigative Committee said in a statement.

Death Valley National Park has asked tourists not to test out the reputation of the world's hottest spot by frying eggs on the ground, citing a growing litter problem at the popular U.S. landmark.

"An employee's posting of frying an egg in a pan in Death Valley was intended to demonstrate how hot it can get here, with the recommendation that if you do this, use a pan or tin foil and properly dispose of the contents," the park said on its Facebook page last week.

The ex-boyfriend of global pop star Shakira has failed in a bid to get a slice of tens of millions of dollars in a Swiss bank account, in the latest chapter of the former couple's legal battle, lawyers said Monday.

A Geneva judge rejected attempts by Antonio de la Rua to win control of a $50-million bank account held by the Colombian-born megastar's offshore company.