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Syrian rebels battled President Bashar al-Assad's forces in and around the northern city of Aleppo on Sunday, seeking to reverse gains made by loyalist forces in the commercial hub over the last two months, activists said. The fighting, by a variety of insurgent groups, happened as France urged moderate rebels to wrest territory back from radical Islamists whose role in the fight to topple Assad poses a dilemma for Western countries concerned that arms shipments could fall into the hands of people it considers terrorists.   The 11 Western and Arab countries known as the "Friends of Syria " agreed on Saturday to give urgent military support to the rebels, channeled through the Western-backed Supreme Military Council in a bid to prevent arms getting to Islamist radicals. But radical forces showed they remained formidable on Sunday when the Islamist Ahrar al-Sham brigade detonated a car bomb at a roadblock at an entrance to Aleppo killing at least 12 loyalist soldiers,

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ruling bloc swept to victory in a weekend Tokyo election, a sign it's on track for a hefty win in a July national vote that could strengthen Abe's hand as he aims to end economic stagnation and bolster defense. Politicians and pundits had been eyeing the outcome of the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly election for clues to how well Abe's Liberal Democratic Party and its junior partner, the New Komeito, will fare in a July 21 election for parliament's upper house that opinion polls suggest they will win handily. "We have received a good evaluation of our handling of the government over the past six months," Abe, who campaigned heavily for the local vote, told reporters. "We would like to do our very best so people can feel that the economy is recovering as soon as possible." All of the LDP's 59 candidates won seats in the 127-member Tokyo assembly to regain the top spot. It was the party's biggest victo

Australia's Prime Minister Julia Gillard hit out at critics of her record on Monday as speculation intensified of a fresh challenge to her leadership and opinion polls showed her divided Labor Party headed for a catastrophic September election defeat. With Labor on track for a record low vote following months of tensions between Gillard and her main rival, Kevin Rudd, senior backers of the prime minister called for an end to the impasse.   "We certainly can't have this go on. It's just got to be resolved," said Climate Change Minister Greg Combet, one of Gillard's most senior ministers, calling for opponents to come clean and mount a party leadership ballot this week. "We can't have this kind of speculation continuing on through the election." A Newspoll in the Australian newspaper was the latest to show conservative opponents leading the government, with 57 percent support compared to 43 percent for Labor. Opposition leader Tony Abbott ha

It seemed like a bright idea at the time. By linking the choice of president of the executive European Commission to the European Parliament elections in the 2009 Lisbon Treaty, EU leaders hoped to reverse rising abstentionism and overcome Europe's widely bemoaned "democratic deficit".   If voters around the soon-to-be-28-nation European Union were given a real policy choice personified by a single candidate, they would identify more easily with "Europe" and vote in greater numbers, the theory went. That in turn would give greater legitimacy to the European Commission, which proposes and enforces EU laws but which critics often denigrate as unelected and undemocratic. "For the first time these could be genuine 'European' elections, the outcome of which will shape European politics for at least the next five years," said Simon Hix, professor of European governance at the London School of Economics. "It will be the first time we, as E

Israel carried out air strikes in the Gaza Strip on Monday in response to Palestinian militant rocket fire that broke weeks of relative calm along the frontier. _0"> No casualties were reported in the incidents. Six rockets were fired into Israel overnight, causing no damage, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. Two of them were shot down by Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system, the military said.   Israeli aircraft later struck targets in the Gaza Strip, including two weapons storage facilities, the military said, and Israel closed one of its the crossings with the coastal territory, which is controlled by the Islamist movement Hamas. No group claimed responsibility for the Palestinian rocket fire. Officials in Gaza said two of six Israeli air strikes struck training camps for the militant group Islamic Jihad. In a separate incident, tires were slashed on 21 cars in the Arab neighborhood of Beit Hanina in East Jerusalem in what appeared to be another in a ser

The United States on Monday increased pressure on Russia to hand over Edward Snowden, the American charged with disclosing secret U.S. surveillance programs, and said it believed he was still in Moscow despite reports he was leaving for Cuba . Earlier Snowden, until recently a contractor with the U.S. National Security Agency, had been expected to fly to Havana from Moscow, perhaps on the way to Ecuador, but he was not seen on the plane and Russian officials declined to say where he was.   The U.S. State Department said diplomats and Justice Department officials were engaged in discussions with Russia , suggesting they were looking for a deal to secure his return. "Given our intensified cooperation working with Russia on law enforcement matters ... we hope that the Russian government will look at all available options to return Mr. Snowden back to the U.S. to face justice for the crimes with which he is charged," spokesman Patrick Ventrell told reporters. Snowden flew t

Russian President Vladimir Putin appointed Andrei Belousov as his top economic adviser on Monday, beefing up his Kremlin staff with an advocate of a big state role in the economy as part of a wider rotation of his policy team. _0"> As economy minister, Belousov came under fire from Russia's liberal policy establishment by calling for the state to determine bank lending rates, which he argues would unblock the flow of affordable credit to the economy.   Belousov will be replaced by Alexei Ulyukayev, who is moving from the central bank after being beaten to the top job there by Elvira Nabiullina, who formally assumed her role on Monday after a year as the Kremlin's 'chief economist'. The job moves, which had been flagged in advance, set the scene for a shift towards a more activist approach to managing Russia's economy as policymakers seek to engineer a recovery at a time of still-high inflation. "This is all being done to embark on a dynamic stimul