| Gaza toll passes 100; Israel to counter rockets 'with all power' Posted: 11 Jul 2014 04:06 PM PDT  By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Ori Lewis GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - An airstrike outside a family home early Saturday pushed the Palestinian death toll past 100 in four days of cross-border fighting as Israel showed no sign of pausing despite international pressure to negotiate a ceasefire with the militants. Asked if Israel might move from the mostly aerial attacks of the past four days into a ground war in Gaza to stop militant rocket fire, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu replied, "We are weighing all possibilities and preparing for all possibilities." "No international pressure will prevent us from acting with all power," he told reporters in Tel Aviv a day after a telephone conversation with U.S. President Barack Obama about the worst flare-up in Israeli-Palestinian violence in almost two years. On Friday Washington affirmed Israel's right to defend itself in a statement from the Pentagon. A rocket seriously wounded one person and injured another seven Israelis when a fuel tanker was hit at a service station in Ashdod, 30 km (20 miles) north of Gaza.
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| Kerry urges Afghanistan to focus on audit to resolve disputed vote Posted: 11 Jul 2014 04:27 AM PDT  By Lesley Wroughton KABUL (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told Afghanistan on Friday its transition to a self-reliant state hung in the balance after a contested presidential election, urging officials to focus on investigating all fraud allegations to prove its legitimacy. The deadlock over the vote has quashed hopes for a smooth transition of power in Afghanistan, a concern for Washington as most U.S.-led forces withdraw from the nation this year. Kerry rushed to Kabul from meetings in China on Friday in a hastily arranged visit for talks with the two presidential contenders, Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani, as well as incumbent Hamid Karzai and other senior officials. "The election legitimacy hangs in the balance, the future potential of the transition hangs in the balance, so we have a lot to do," Kerry said after a meeting with U.N. special envoy to Afghanistan Jan Kubis.
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| Magnitude 6.8 quake, small tsunami hit east Japan, no damage Posted: 11 Jul 2014 03:05 PM PDT A magnitude 6.8 earthquake hit off eastern Japan on Saturday morning, the Japan Meteorological Agency said, with minor tsunami of up to 20 cm but no reports of damage along the northeast coast that was ravaged by the catastrophic March 2011 tsunami. No irregularities were reported at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which was damaged in the 2011 disaster in the worst nuclear accident since Ukraine's Chernobyl in 1986. The quake registered a moderate 4 on the Japanese seismic scale of 1-7, meaning that major damage was unlikely. |
| Ukraine says rebels will pay as missiles kill 23 soldiers Posted: 11 Jul 2014 08:54 AM PDT  By Natalia Zinets and Maria Tsvetkova KIEV/DONETSK Ukraine (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko vowed to "find and destroy" pro-Russian rebels who killed 23 servicemen and wounded nearly 100 in a missile attack on Friday. Poroshenko issued his angry statement following an emergency meeting of his security chiefs called in response to the early morning strike by Russian-made Grad missiles on an army motorised brigade near the border with Russia. The attack, which came as government forces seemed to be prevailing in the three-month conflict, appeared to be the deadliest on government troops since the Ukrainian military ended a unilateral ceasefire on June 30. "All those who used the Grad against the Armed Forces of Ukraine will be found and destroyed," Poroshenko said in a statement on his website.
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| Underage fighters drawn into Iraq sectarian war Posted: 11 Jul 2014 10:47 AM PDT  "We were kind of nervous, not because we are cowards, because it was our first fight and we were still young," said the youth, a former teen soccer star from Baghdad. He spent his 16th birthday four months ago in Syria fighting on the frontline near Damascus. Now, he says he is back in Iraq fighting against Sunni insurgents. "We got some military experience in Syria with raiding, and skills we learned in Syria help us in Samarra," he said, referring to a frontline Iraqi city where Shi'ite paramilitaries helped government forces halt an advance by Sunni militants.
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| U.N. asks Europe to take Syrian refugees as region saturated Posted: 11 Jul 2014 12:06 PM PDT  By Tom Miles GENEVA (Reuters) - Europe must open its doors to more Syrian refugees, having welcomed only a "miniscule" number while Syria's neighbors have reached "saturation point", the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said on Friday. Syrian refugees, whose numbers are set to pass 3 million in the next few weeks, are almost all in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey, with smaller numbers in Iraq and Egypt.
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