World

 BEIRUT (AP) - Activists are reporting a worsening of humanitarian conditions in Syria's biggest city, Aleppo. 

 

     They say supplies of food and cooking gas are dwindling, and power cuts are plunging homes into darkness.

 

     Government helicopters have been pounding rebel neighborhoods across the city, which has seen 11 days of intense clashes between rebels and regime forces.

 

     Activists say rebels have seized two police stations, while Syrian ground forces joined the helicopters in pummeling two opposition strongholds in the city's southwest.

 

     As the bloodshed increases, the head of the Arab League is accusing President Bashar Assad's regime of atrocities. He calls them "war crimes that are punishable under international law."

 

     The battle for Aleppo is among the most significant of the 17-month-old Syrian uprising. If the regime loses its grip on the city of 3 million people, that could be a tipping point in the civil war. 

 

 

  QUITO, Ecuador (AP) - Ecuador's foreign minister says there will be no decision until after the Summer Olympics on the political exile request of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

 

     Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino told reporters Wednesday it would be imprudent to announce a decision during the London Games, which begin Friday and end Aug. 12.

 

     Assange sought refuge in Ecuador's London embassy on June 19 to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning about allegations of sexual misconduct. 

 

     Assange contends the sexual misconduct claims are trumped up and that he's being persecuted politically for publishing secretive U.S. documents including diplomatic cables.

 

     WikiLeaks announced Tuesday that it has hired the Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon to head the legal team representing Assange.

 

     

 

     PARIS (AP) - The Paris premiere of the new Batman movie "The Dark Knight Rises" has been canceled after a gunman killed 12 people at a Colorado opening of the same film.

 

     Workers were pulling down the red carpet display in front of a movie theater on the French capital's famed Champs-Elysees after the Friday premiere was canceled. Some could be seen carrying away a large mask that had adorned the facade of the theater.

 

     A man wearing a gas mask released an unknown gas into a crowded movie theater and opened fire early Friday at a movie theater in Aurora, a Denver suburb. Twelve people were killed and at least 50 wounded. The shooter, a man in his 20s, has been arrested.

 ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) - Ethiopia's federal court has sentenced a prominent dissident blogger to 18 years in prison. 

 

     The court on Friday also handed the deputy leader of the Unity for Democracy and Justice opposition party Andualem Arage a life sentence on terror charges. 

 

     The journalist Eskinder Nega, who was known for his critical stance on Ethiopia's government, received a prestigious press freedom award from PEN America in May. 

 

     The two were among 24 people found guilty on terror charges last month, though critics of the prosecution said the government was improperly labeling dissent as terrorism. 

 

     Mohamed Keita of the Committee to Protect Journalists said the sentences make clear that Ethiopia's growth and stability are dependent on an iron fist from leadership intolerant of critical reporting.

 

     

 

 BEIRUT (AP) - Opposition activists in Syria are reporting what could be one of the deadliest offensives yet by Syrian forces, but their accounts and death tolls vary.

 

     The reports say government forces shelled a poor farming village in central Syria before pro-regime gunmen moved in.

 

     Some activists say they have the names of about 30 people killed. Others say 200 are dead, but they can't provide names. Amateur videos show the bodies of 17 people.

 

     It's also not clear how many of the dead are civilians. One activist group said dozens of the dead were rebel fighters.

 

     The version offered by the Syrian government is that more than 50 people were killed when Syrian forces clashed with "armed gangs" that were terrorizing village residents. 

 

     The head of the U.N. monitoring mission says observers a few miles away saw helicopters and heavy weapons attacking from the air and the ground.

 

     He says his team is ready to investigate if a cease-fire occurs. But the nearly 300 U.N. observers in Syria have largely stopped moving around because of continued violence. Government forces have also prevented them from visiting sites of past massacres.

 

 CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (AP) - The Mexican army says killings by criminal gangs in the northern border city of Ciudad Juarez have fallen 42 percent in the first six months of 2012 as compared to the same period of 2011.

 

     Local army commander Gen. Emilio Zarate says there were 952 such killings in the first half of the year, compared to 1,642 in the first half of 2011.

 

     Zarate says the drop is due to the weakening of the local Juarez drug cartel and its rivals in the Gente Nueva gang, which is allied with the Sinaloa drug cartel.

 

     The two cartels have fought turf battles since 2008 that made Ciudad Juarez Mexico's most violent city.

 

     Zarate said Wednesday the Juarez cartel has become so weak it is having trouble paying its members.

 

 

 SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - The U.S. military hopes to install a $40 million underwater fiber-optic cable to improve communications at Guantanamo Bay.

 

     A spokesman for the Guantanamo military commissions says the cable would run 800 miles (1,290 kilometers) from Guantanamo Bay to South Florida. Army Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale said Thursday that the system could start operating within two years.

 

     The base currently relies on a single satellite and technicians have to constantly reroute bandwidths to meet the needs of various organizations based in Guantanamo.

 

     Cuban authorities have been notified about the project, and the survey ship USNS Zeus is expected to arrive at the naval base in upcoming weeks.

 

     The fiber-optic cable project is proposed in the fiscal 2013 budget and would require congressional approval.

 

 

  MEXICO CITY (AP) - Giant panda Xin Xin will be artificially inseminated next year in hopes of adding to the panda family at the Mexican capital's Chapultepec Zoo.

 

     Mexico City Environment Secretary Martha Delgado announced Thursday that two Chinese experts on panda reproduction will arrive in the coming days. The 22-year-old female panda is expected to be inseminated next April.

 

     Pandas are notoriously difficult to breed in captivity. Females are in heat for only a few days a year and male pandas often fail to respond.

 

     No baby panda has been produced at the Chapultepec zoo since Xin Xin was born in 1990.

 

     Xin Xin, whose name means Hope, is the third generation born from a pair of pandas given to Mexico by China in 1975 as a symbol of friendship between the countries.

 

 

 CAIRO (AP) - The head of Libya's Tabu tribe says his people will boycott this week's election if the government does not withdraw tanks from a southern city where deadly clashes have killed dozens.

 

     African Tabu leader Issa Abdel-Majid told The Associated Press by telephone Sunday that government troops have used deadly force against Tabu fighters battling a rival Arab tribe in the city of Kufra.

 

     The clashes have intensified over the past week. No exact death toll could be determined.

 

     The July 7 election is for an assembly that would draw up a constitution and name a government. It's the first nationwide vote since the ouster of longtime ruler Moammar Gadhafi last year.

 

     Some leaders in eastern Libya are also calling for an election boycott, pushing for semi-autonomy instead.

 

  TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran's official news agency reports the powerful Revolutionary Guards are planning war games this week, including drills with surface-to-surface missiles.

 

     The IRNA agency said the maneuvers would begin Monday in Iran's central desert and last three days.

 

     The Sunday report quotes Gen. Ami Ali Hajizadeh, chief of the airspace unit of the Guards. He said missiles would target bases modeled after those of foreign armies.

 

     He said the maneuver is aimed at assessing the accuracy and effectiveness of warheads and systems. 

 

     Iran's Shihab-3 missile has a range of 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) and can reach Israel and southern Europe.

 

     The announcement coincides with the beginning of a European Union oil embargo mean to pressure Iran over its nuclear program. Iran denies Western suspicions that it wants to build nuclear weapons.