Officials: Israeli Strike Kills 11 Civilians in Gaza

An Israeli missile ripped through a two-story home in a residential area of Gaza City on Sunday, killing at least 11 civilians, including four young children and an 81-year-old woman, in the single deadliest attack of Israel's offensive against Islamic militants.

A similar scene unfolded elsewhere in the city early Monday, when an airstrike leveled two houses belonging to a single family, killing two children and two adults and injuring 42 people, including children, said Gaza heath official Ashraf al-Kidra. Rescue workers were frantically searching for 12 to 15 members of the Azzam family under the rubble.

While the airstrikes relentlessly targeted militant rocket operations, Israeli gunboats unleashed a steady tattoo of heavy machine gun fire and shells at militant facilities on Gaza's coastal road.

The bloodshed was likely to raise pressure on Israel to end the fighting, even as it pledged to intensify the offensive by striking the homes of wanted militants. High numbers of civilian casualties in an offensive four years ago led to fierce criticism and condemnation of Israel.

In all, 81 Palestinians, half of them 37 civilians, have been killed in the five-day onslaught and 720 have been wounded. Three Israeli civilians have died from Palestinian rocket fire and dozens have been wounded..

Is Ceasefire Possible for Israel and Hamas? Watch Video

President Barack Obama said he was in touch with players across the region in hopes of halting the fighting, while also warning of the risks of Israel expanding its air assault into a ground war.

"We're going to have to see what kind of progress we can make in the next 24, 36, 48 hours," Obama said during a visit in Thailand.

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon urged the two warring parties to achieve an immediate cease-fire. He said he was heading to the region to appeal personally for an end to the violence, but no date was given in the U.N. statement for his arrival.

On the ground, there were no signs of any letup in the fighting as Israel announced it was widening the offensive to target the military commanders of the ruling Hamas group.

The Israeli military carried out dozens of airstrikes throughout the day, and naval forces bombarded targets along Gaza's Mediterranean coast. Many of the attacks focused on homes where militant leaders or weapons were believed to be hidden.

Palestinian militants continued to barrage Israel with rockets, firing more than 100 on Sunday, and setting off air raid sirens across the southern part of the country. Some 40 rockets were intercepted by Israel's U.S.-financed "Iron Dome" rocket-defense system, including two that targeted the metropolis of Tel Aviv. At least 10 Israelis were wounded by shrapnel.

Israel's decision to step up its attacks in Gaza marked a new and risky phase of the operation, given the likelihood of civilian casualties in the densely populated territory of 1.6 million Palestinians. Israel launched the offensive Wednesday in what it said was an effort to end months of intensifying rocket fire from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

In the day's deadliest violence, the Israeli navy fired at a home where it said a top wanted militant was hiding. The missile struck the home of the Daloo family in Gaza City, reducing the structure to rubble.

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Petraeus scandal puts four-star general lifestyle under scrutiny

Then-defense secretary Robert M. Gates stopped bagging his leaves when he moved into a small Washington military enclave in 2007. His next-door neighbor was Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, who had a chef, a personal valet and — not lost on Gates — troops to tend his property.

Gates may have been the civilian leader of the world’s largest military, but his position did not come with household staff. So, he often joked, he disposed of his leaves by blowing them onto the chairman’s lawn.

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Obama to tell Hun Sen of "grave" rights concerns

BANGKOK: US President Barack Obama will raise "grave concerns" over human rights and the need for political reform in Cambodia when he meets Prime Minister Hun Sen on Monday, the White House said.

Obama, who opens a Southeast Asia swing in Thailand on Sunday, which also includes a historic trip to Myanmar, will meet Hun Sun before he takes part in the East Asia Summit in Phnom Penh.

"We are going to Cambodia to attend a summit, and I think it's fair to say that we would not be having a bilateral visit in the absence of the multilateral business that we're doing in Cambodia," said Ben Rhodes, a deputy US national security advisor.

"As it relates to Cambodia's human rights situation, we have very grave concerns about human rights within Cambodia," Rhodes said aboard Air Force One, as Obama flew to Asia.

"The president will raise that certainly when he sees Hun Sen. We'll raise it publicly in every opportunity that we have to address it.

"We'll continue to make clear that we want to see greater political freedom in Cambodia. We want to see a movement towards an election that is credible and fair. We want to see the release of political prisoners there as well."

Obama will be the first sitting US president to visit Cambodia, where human rights groups accuse the government of stepping up a crackdown on dissidents and on protests, many linked to land disputes.

A dozen US senators and members of the House of Representatives last month urged Obama to speak out over Cambodia's "deteriorating human rights situation."

Phil Robertson, the deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch, earlier said that if Obama does not speak out over concerns "his visit will be seen by the government as an endorsement and deepen the sense of inviolability."

The group alleges more than 300 people have been killed in politically motivated attacks in over two decades of authoritarian rule by Hun Sen.

-AFP/ac

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Bal Thackeray: In his Pawar games, he played friend and foe

Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray, veteran trade union leader George Fernandes and Maratha strongman Sharad Pawar were arch-rivals for several years. However, the 1982 textile workers' strike united them against trade union leader Datta Samant. The trio addressed a large public rally at the historic Shivaji Park, where they said a strike would have an adverse impact on the textile industry and ruin the metropolis's economy. The trio wanted to stop Samant from gaining followers. They did not succeed, as a record number of textile workers joined the strike. But the strike was unsuccessful.

In subsequent years, while Thackeray's and Pawar's personal relations peaked, they became the biggest rivals on the political front. Veteran journalist Vasant Deshpande said, "They never mixed personal relations and politics. As a result, even today Pawar has very cordial relations with the Thackeray family." For over four-anda-half decades, relations between Pawar and the Thackeray family, particularly Thackeray Sr, soured on several occasions due to political issues, but both these stalwarts ensured there was no strain on their personal relations. The Sena's mouthpiece, Saamna, wrote very critically about Pawar several times, but he never reacted too sharply to the stringent observations.

Another veteran journalist, Dinkar Raikar, agreed that Pawar and Thackeray had a soft corner for each other. "In 1972, Pawar was the minister of state for home and the Shiv Sena had just begun to spread its tentacles in the metropolis. There were moments of tension, but Pawar always dealt with the situation diplomatically. They were political rivals, but their personal equations were like family members," Raikar said.

Maharashtra witnessed a public spat between Pawar and Thackeray on at least three occasions. First, when Chhagan Bhujbal, as a Sena legislator , launched a frontal attack on Pawar over an alleged plot scam. Second, when Bhujbal engineered a split in the Shiv Sena. Thirdly, when Bhujbal, as home minister in the Congress-NCP government, got Thackeray arrested in a decade-old case.

In 1989, when Pawar was the Congress chief minister, Bhujbal, the lone Sena legislator in the assembly, single-handedly launched a campaign against Pawar over an alleged plot scam in the metropolis. "We were expecting that the senior Thackeray would step in and halt the campaign against Pawar, but Thackeray did not come to the rescue of Pawar. As a result, Pawar's image was massively damaged," said a senior Shiv Sena leader.

Shockingly, a year later, Bhujbal led the biggest-ever split in the Sena, when a record 14 legislators quit to join the Congress. "It was one of the biggestever setbacks for Thackeray, who expected that Pawar would halt the split. But this time there was no response from Pawar," the Sena leader said.

Later in 2000, when Bhujbal was state home minister and deputy chief minister, he dug out a decade-old case under Section 153 of the Indian Penal Code — creating communal enmity — and ensured that Thackeray was arrested . The Sena made an all-out effort to thwart Bhujbal's attempt, but Pawar did not step in. As a result, the senior Thackeray had to face an embarrassing arrest. A month ago, Bhujbal told a public meeting that he had not sought the permission of Pawar or then chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh to arrest Thackeray.

Thackeray drafted an ambitious plan to dislodge the Congress government in 1990, but did not succeed. However, prior to the 1995 assembly polls, Thackeray, accompanied by BJP leader Gopinath Munde and Sena leader Manohar Joshi, launched a statewide campaign against Pawar, saying it was high time that the people of Maharashtra dislodged the Pawar-led Congress government. "It was a setback for Pawar when the saffron combine assumed power. Till then it was assumed that Pawar was the undisputed leader of Maharashtra . A question mark then came over Pawar's leadership," a senior Congress minister said.

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Lonesome George Not the Last of His Kind, After All?

The tide may be turning for the rare subspecies of giant tortoise thought to have gone extinct when its last known member, the beloved Lonesome George, died in June.

A new study by Yale University researchers reveals that DNA from George's ancestors lives on—and that more of his kind may still be alive in a remote area of Ecuador's Galápagos Islands.

This isn't the first time Chelonoidis nigra abingdoni has been revived: The massive reptiles were last seen in 1906 and considered extinct until the 1972 discovery of Lonesome George, then around 60 years old, on Pinta Island. The population had been wiped out by human settlers, who overharvested the tortoises for meat and introduced goats and pigs that destroyed the tortoises' habitat and much of the island's vegetation.

Now, in an area known as Volcano Wolf—on the secluded northern tip of Isabela, another Galápagos island—the researchers have identified 17 hybrid descendants of C.n. abingdoni within a population of 1,667 tortoises.

Genetic testing identified three males, nine females, and five juveniles (under the age of 20) with DNA from C.n. abingdoni. The presence of juveniles suggests that purebred specimens may exist on the island too, the researchers said.

"Even the parents of some of the older individuals may still be alive today, given that tortoises live for so long and that we detected high levels of ancestry in a few of these hybrids," Yale evolutionary biologist Danielle Edwards said.

(See pictures of Galápagos animals.)

Galápagos Castaways

How did Lonesome George's relatives end up some 30 miles (50 kilometers) from Pinta Island? Edwards said ocean currents, which would have carried the tortoises to other areas, had nothing to do with it. Instead, she thinks humans likely transported the animals.

Crews on 19th-century whaling and naval vessels hunted accessible islands like Pinta for oil and meat, carrying live tortoises back to their ships.

Tortoises can survive up to 12 months without food or water because of their slow metabolisms, making the creatures a useful source of meat to stave off scurvy on long sea voyages. But during naval conflicts, the giant tortoises—which weighed between 200 and 600 pounds (90 and 270 kilograms) each—were often thrown overboard to lighten the ship's load.

That could also explain why one of the Volcano Wolf tortoises contains DNA from the tortoise species Chelonoidis elephantopus, which is native to another island, as a previous study revealed. That species is also extinct in its native habitat, Floreana Island.

(Related: "No Lovin' for Lonesome George.")

Life After Extinction?

Giant tortoises are essential to the Galápagos Island ecosystem, Edwards said. They scatter soil and seeds, and their eating habits help maintain the population balance of woody vegetation and cacti. Now, scientists have another chance to save C.n. abingdoni and C. elephantopus.

With a grant from the National Geographic Society's Committee for Research and Exploration, which also helped fund the current study, the researchers plan to return to Volcano Wolf's rugged countryside to collect hybrid tortoises—and purebreds, if the team can find them—and begin a captive-breeding program. (National Geographic News is part of the Society.)

If all goes well, both C.n. abingdoni and C. elephantopus may someday be restored to their wild homes in the Galápagos. (Learn more about the effort to revive the Floreana Galápagos tortoises.)

"The word 'extinction' signifies the point of no return," senior research scientist Adalgisa Caccone wrote in the team's grant proposal. "Yet new technology can sometimes provide hope in challenging the irrevocable nature of this concept."

More: "Galápagos Expedition Journal: Face to Face With Giant Tortoises" >>

The new Lonesome George study was published by the journal Biological Conservation.

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GOP Mourning for Mitt Romney? Not So Much

Republicans are over it.

And most of them aren't doing much mourning for Mitt Romney.

Just over a week since the two-time Republican presidential hopeful failed to deny President Obama a second term, instead of offering up condolences for a candidate who garnered 48 percent of the popular vote, GOP leaders seem to be keeping Romney at arm's length.

"I've never run for president -- I've lost elections but never for the presidency -- and I'm sure it stings terribly," New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie said in an interview Friday morning with MSNBC, but added: "When you lose, you lost."

New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte, an early endorser and a frequent presence by Romney's side on the campaign trail, echoed Christie.

"The campaign is over," she said in an MSNBC interview on Thursday, "and what the voters are looking for us to do is to accept their votes and go forward."

A period of blame and soul-searching was inevitable for Republicans after Nov. 6, but Romney hastened it with his candid comments on a conference call with donors this week in which he attributed President Obama's win to the "gifts" he gave to key voting blocs.

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Specifically, Romney told some of his top campaign contributors that he lost because, in his words, "what the president's campaign did was focus on certain members of his base coalition, give them extraordinary financial gifts from the government, and then work very aggressively to turn them out to vote, and that strategy worked."

According to Romney, some of the best "gifts" went to Hispanic voters, who overwhelmingly supported President Obama.

"One, he gave them a big gift on immigration with the Dream Act amnesty program, which was obviously very, very popular with Hispanic voters, and then No. 2 was Obamacare," Romney said on a conference call, audio of which was obtained by ABC News.

It took almost no time for GOP leaders to disavow Romney's assessment.

"I don't think that represents where we are as a party and where we're going as a party," Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a potential 2016 GOP presidential contender, said at a press conference at a meeting of the Republican Governors Association in Las Vegas earlier this week. "If we're going to continue to be a competitive party and win elections on the national stage and continue to fight for our conservative principles, we need two messages to get out loudly and clearly: One, we are fighting for 100 percent of the votes, and second, our policies benefit every American who wants to pursue the American dream."

Ayotte also refused to give Romney any cover: "I don't agree with the comments."

Neither did former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, one of Romney's primary rivals who went on to become one of his most ardent surrogates.

"I don't think it's as simple as saying the president gave out gifts," he said in an interview with C-SPAN's "Newsmakers" program that is set to air this weekend.

Pawlenty said that President Obama "just tactically did a better job getting out the vote in his campaign" and "at least at the margins, was better able to connect with people in this campaign."

His view is backed up by the national exit polls, which show that 53 percent of voters said that President Obama was "more in touch" with people like them compared with 43 percent who said the same of Romney.

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