WORLD BRIEFING

GAZA STRIP

Border closure depletes U.N. food aid centers

Gazans seeking food aid walked away empty-handed from locked United Nations distribution centers after a strict Israeli border closure depleted U.N. food reserves.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on Israel to open the crossings to humanitarian aid. Measures that increase the suffering “are unacceptable and should cease immediately,” he said in a statement.

In the Shati refugee camp, hundreds of people sought food at a U.N. distribution center but were disappointed. A note taped to the center’s gate said handouts were put off until Dec. 13 “because of a lack of food to distribute.”

The U.N. Relief and Works Agency usually distributes food to about 750,000 Gazans, nearly half the territory’s population. Israel sealed Gaza’s borders recently in response to renewed Palestinian hostilities.

SOMALIA

Islamic rebels take port town

A radical Islamic group seized another Somali port town, consolidating its control over a southwestern region that borders the capital.

Amin Adan, a resident of the port town of Baraawe, 110 miles southwest of Mogadishu, the capital, said insurgents from the group, Shabab, took control without a fight because the government’s allies left as soon as they heard the insurgents were on their way.

Baraawe is near Marka, a key port town with an airstrip that Shabab, which means “the youth,” seized this week.

IRAN

State TV says 10 spies detained

Iran detained 10 spies carrying $500,000 in cash who had entered the Islamic Republic illegally from neighboring Pakistan, state television said.

Modern espionage cameras and maps of sensitive regions in Iran were found when the group was detained in Iran’s southeastern Sistan-Baluchistan province, the report said.

MEXICO

1,500 protest Tijuana violence

More than 1,500 demonstrators marched through the violence-plagued border city of Tijuana to protest recent killings and kidnappings.

Participants carried placards reading “God Save Us.”

But the killing continued. Two people were shot to death at a taco restaurant, a man was shot to death at a pool hall, and two men were found shot to death on a street.

-- times wire reports