The World in Brief

6.9 earthquake kills 3 on Pacific Coast

GUATEMALA CITY -- A magnitude-6.9 earthquake on the Pacific Coast jolted a wide area of southern Mexico and Central America on Monday, killing at least three people while damaging homes, hospitals and churches.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake hit at 6:23 a.m. on the Pacific Coast, 1 mile north-northeast of Puerto Madero, Mexico, near the Guatemala border. It initially calculated the magnitude at 7.1 but later lowered the figure to 6.9.

The national spokesman for local fire departments, Raul Hernandez, said at least two people died in their homes from collapsed walls in the Guatemalan town of Pati, in the border province of San Marcos, and another woman in Quetzaltenango died from a heart attack.

But Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina said later in a news conference that the only officially confirmed death so far was of a newborn hit by a piece of false ceiling in a San Marcos hospital. He said it wasn't clear if the woman's heart attack was earthquake related. He also said 33 were hurt.

Civil protection officials in the Mexican state of Chiapas raised the toll to two dead and said at least a dozen people were injured by falling tiles and other debris.

Syrian troops advance on Aleppo rebels

BEIRUT -- Syrian troops advanced in and around the northern city of Aleppo on Monday, in what appears to be an attempt to lay siege to opposition-held parts of the country's largest city, activists said.

The troops faced rebels stretched thin by a two-front fight against government forces and Islamic militants encroaching on opposition-held areas. If rebels are driven out of Aleppo, it will be a huge blow to an uprising that began in March 2011 as largely peaceful protests against President Bashar Assad's rule, but later turned into a full-fledged civil war.

Aleppo is the last large urban area that Syrian rebels hold, and it lies close to the border with Turkey, an important friendly supply route for rebels.

"If Aleppo falls, the Syrian revolution falls," said an Aleppo-based activist who uses the name Baraa Halabi, speaking over Skype.

Bahrain orders U.S. diplomat to leave

MANAMA, Bahrain -- Bahrain ordered a top U.S. diplomat to leave the country Monday after he met with a leading Shiite opposition group.

The Foreign Ministry said in a statement that U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Tom Malinowski is not welcome in Bahrain. It said he intervened in the country's domestic affairs by holding meetings with some groups at the expense of others.

Bahrain, a tiny island nation that is home to the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, has had near-daily protests by Shiites seeking greater political rights since early 2011.

Malinowski was ordered to leave after meeting with Bahrain's Shiite opposition group, Al Wifaq. He arrived in the country Sunday and had been scheduled to stay for three days.

U.K. to look at handling of abuse claims

LONDON -- The British government vowed Monday to discover whether public institutions have exposed vulnerable children to sexual abuse -- and whether authorities suppressed abuse allegations to protect politicians and other powerful people.

Home Secretary Theresa May said a panel of legal and child-protection experts would investigate how public agencies, including governments and hospitals, handled child-abuse allegations. She said she set up the inquiry after "appalling cases of organized and persistent" sexual abuse, including decades of assaults by the late TV host Jimmy Savile.

"Some of these cases have exposed a failure by public bodies to take their responsibilities seriously," May told the House of Commons.

May said a related investigation, led by National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children Chief Executive Peter Wanless, would examine whether abuse claims handed to authorities in the 1980s were lost or destroyed to protect wrongdoers.

Last year, an internal government inquiry found that 114 files relating to allegations of child abuse that were handed to officials had been lost or destroyed.

-- COMPILED BY DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE STAFF FROM WIRE REPORTS

A Section on 07/08/2014

Upcoming Events