BRISBANE, Australia -- A man found asleep in a motorized wheelchair on a highway in northern Australia was charged with drunk driving, police said Monday.

The officers breath-tested the 64-year-old man, who registered a blood alcohol reading of 0.301 -- more than six times the legal driving limit. He was charged with operating a vehicle while drunk and ordered to report to court on July 7, where he faces a stiff fine if convicted.

"The vehicles that we normally hear about with drink driving are the family car, the truck, the motorbike," Waters said. "But there are also other classes of vehicles that are subject to drink-driving laws," including horses, bicycles, and motorized wheelchairs.

BAGHDAD -- Two U.S. soldiers were killed and three others were injured in a shootout Monday that took place outside a local council building southeast of Baghdad, the military said.

News of the attack came as Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki promised to extend a military crackdown to Diyala province, north and east of the capital, after at least 25 people were killed and scores injured there the previous day in a suicide bombing and mortar fire.

A gunman ambushed the soldiers and their interpreter, who also was wounded in the exchange, as they left the Madaen municipality building, U.S. military officials said in a statement.

The Iraqi Interior Ministry in Baghdad identified the shooter as a local official, who emerged from the building with the Americans, pulled a Kalashnikov from the trunk of his car and sprayed them with bullets. The man's colleagues sought cover as the Americans returned fire and killed him, according to the ministry, which oversees police.

But witnesses said the assailant was a former council member who joined the Sunni Muslim insurgency after he was ousted from his job in sectarian fighting in 2006.

BEIJING -- With the debris of more than 50 years of climbing -- oxygen canisters, tents, backpacks and even some bodies -- Mount Everest has been called the world's highest garbage dump.

Now China is moving to clean up its northern side of the mountain and protect its fragile Himalayan environment, announcing a trash collection campaign that could limit the number of climbers and other visitors in 2009.

"Our target is to keep even more people from abusing Mount Everest," Zhang Yongze, Tibet's environmental protection chief was quoted Monday as saying by the Xinhua News Agency.

Everest's 29,035-foot peak -- the world's tallest -- lies on the border between China and Nepal, with climbers providing a large source of income for both countries.

BERLIN -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Monday urged a renewed focus on Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts with time running down on the Bush administration's goal of reaching an agreement this year.

Rice said that nascent indirect Turkish-brokered talks between Israel and Syria and signs of a possible Israeli-Lebanese warming should not be allowed to distract from the Israeli-Palestinian push, which she suggested had greater chances for success in the short term.

En route to a conference in Berlin on Palestinian security, legal and penal reform, she allowed that there was an "intersection" between the three tracks. But she warned against compromising the Israeli-Palestinian effort with too much attention to the other two.

MANILA, Philippines -- Two teams of rescuers prepared Monday to dive into typhoon-roiled waters off the Philippines to find a way inside a capsized ferry in a desperate effort to locate some 800 people believed to be aboard.

If Tuesday's planned underwater missions fail, a tugboat will be on standby with gear to cut through the ferry's hull as a last resort -- a prospect complicated by a cargo of bunker oil that could leak and turn the human disaster into an environmental one.

Experts were studying the ferry's schematics in case they have to drill the access hole. The divers, however, will get the first shot, coast guard chief Adm. Wilfredo Tamayo said.

"[They will be] looking for open hatches or doors on the side of the ship, diving underneath, breaking cabin glass windows if we can break them or cut an opening."

"We'll do this at the earliest opportunity, weather permitting," Tamayo said.

On Sunday, divers heard no response when they hammered on the hull, but officials refused to give up.

"We're not ruling out that somebody there is still alive," Tamayo said. "You can never tell."

BEIJING -- Half of all cars belonging to the government and Communist Party were ordered off Beijing's clogged roads Monday, part of an effort to help clean the city's air ahead of the Olympics.

Despite the ban, the skyline remained shrouded in smog, and traffic was bumper-to-bumper during afternoon rush hour on freeways and Chang An Avenue, which cuts through the heart of the city.

Under the edict, announced on the city's Web site, half of all government and Communist Party cars were not being used from Monday until July 19.

On July 20, another rule begins that will ban half of Beijing's 3.3 million cars on alternate days, depending on whether their license plate numbers end in odd or even numbers.

In addition, 300,000 heavy polluting vehicles -- aging industrial trucks, many of which operate only at night -- will be banned from July 1.

The auto ban is part of an anti-pollution plan that also will halt construction and heavy industry during the Olympics.

"To meet the air quality standards and to realize safe and smooth traffic is our solemn promise to the international community," the Beijing government notice said.