The world in brief

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“We should not be giving credit to a regime just for providing food for a few days to

people who are starving, given that’s the right moral thing to do.”

U.S. State Department spokesman Jen Psaki, after the Syrian government announced a deal to permit aid convoys to enter the besieged city of Homs Article, this page

France sees longer C. African mission

PARIS - France is likely to extend its military mission in Central African Republic, Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Thursday, a day after local soldiers turned on a man in their midst and stabbed and stomped him to death.

Le Drian said on RTL radio that seeking an extension to the United Nations-mandated six-month mission was probably the best way to ensure a peaceful political transition. France has had 1,600 soldiers in Central African Republic since Dec. 5.

France said the goal is “a minimum of security” but even that has been hard-won as Christian militias clash with mostly Muslim Seleka rebels.

In a statement Thursday, the defense minister firmly condemned the “act of cruelty” a day earlier when soldiers broke ranks after a formal gathering and stomped, stabbed, dragged and dismembered the man. He was suspected of being a Seleka infiltrator. Selekas overthrew the government in 2013 but have since stepped aside in favor of an interim president heading a transitional government.

Six-thousand African peacekeepers have also been deployed alongside the French to try to control the chaos that has enveloped the country.

Dodging guards, 7 drown off Morocco

RABAT, Morocco - Seven people drowned Thursday trying to evade border guards who blocked hundreds of migrants attempting to force their way into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta on the Moroccan coast, Spanish and Moroccan officials said.

The Spanish Interior Ministry said some 250 people tried at dawn to make their way along the land crossing to Sebta which juts out from the coast on the fortified peninsula and were driven back by border guards, prompting many to attempt to swim around the frontier fence.

Moroccan guards intercepted 150 of them and emergency services recovered seven who drowned, including one woman. Another 13 were sent to a hospital, the Moroccan state news agency said, citing local authorities.

With two Spanish enclaves on its coast, Morocco is a magnet for migrants from all over Africa seeking jobs in Europe.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews protest Israeli draft

JERUSALEM - Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews blocked highways across Israel on Thursday to protest attempts to draft them into the army, clashing with club-wielding police who aimed water cannons and fired stun grenades at large crowds of men dressed in black.

The violent protests came just days after a Supreme Court ruling ordered funding halted to ultra-Orthodox seminaries whose students dodge the draft. The ruling sparked angry reactions from ultra-Orthodox leaders who claim the military will expose their youth to secularism and undermine their devout lifestyle.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews have for years been exempt from military service, which is compulsory for other Jewish Israelis. The arrangement has caused widespread resentment and was featured prominently in last year’s election, after which the ultra-Orthodox parties lost ground and found themselves outside the governing coalition.

The new government immediately began pushing a bill that will alter the existing system to gradually reduce the number of exemptions and require all to register for service.

News story leads to arrests of 5 in Burma

RANGOON, Burma - Burma has arrested four reporters and the chief executive officer of a private weekly journal for disclosing what it said are “state secrets” after the publication of a story about the construction of a defense factory, state-run media reported.

The Rangoon-based Unity journal quoted villagers as saying the sprawling factory in Pauk, a township in central Burma’s Magway region, was for production of chemical weapons - a claim the government called “totally baseless.”

According to roadside vendors, police took all Jan. 25 editions of the journal off the shelves.

Burma only recently emerged from a half century of brutal military rule. Since a nominally civilian government was installed in 2011, it has implemented changes, including releasing political prisoners to freeing up the press. But media watchdogs said reporters still face intimidation and arrests, especially in rural areas.

Front Section, Pages 6 on 02/07/2014

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