Israel rejects civil marriage proposal

Israel's Parliament maintained the religious monopoly on marriage Wednesday, rejecting a civil alternative.

"Israel is the only democracy in the world where Jews don't have freedom of religion," said leftist member Nitzan Horowitz, a sponsor of the measure. "There are currently hundreds of thousands of Israelis who are considered without religion and cannot marry in Israel."

But Justice Minister Yaacov Neeman said the bill violated "the norm in Israel since the establishment of the state," which placed marriage and divorce for Jews under Jewish religious law.

Neeman warned that if people married under Jewish law were allowed to divorce without a rabbinical court, the wives would become unable to remarry and the children bastards.

"This bill is an offense to the unity of the Jewish people," he said.

Centrist member Orit Zuaretz spoke wearing a white wedding dress but was forced to remove her veil.

"This bill isn't against anything, rather aimed at expanding the current arrangement, alongside Judaism, to those who cannot marry according to Jewish law. Some 3,500 Israelis marry in Cyprus each year; we need an alternative," she said.

Dozens die in Philippines tropical storm

Tropical storm Nock-ten pummeled Luzon in the Philippines, killing more than two dozen people so far, officials said Wednesday.

Gulf News reported the death toll from the storm, dubbed Juaning locally, that made landfall on the island Tuesday was at least 29, while The Manila Times put the count at 27.

The Times reported at least nine people were missing.

Most of the fatalities occurred in Luzon's Bicol Region and Quezon province. The deaths were attributed to drownings, landslides, fallen trees, electrocution and heart attacks.

Gulf News said 15 crew members of MV Henrik, which was swept away by rough waters off Balisan Island in Quezon, were found early Tuesday. Rescuers had saved 30 people, most of them fishermen, from the sea in the past three days, the news service said.

Luzon was immobilized by floods, power outages, impassable roads and broken bridges, Gulf News said.

The storm was already affecting several hundred thousand people and up to 12 million people were preparing for floods due to the swelling of rivers in suburban Marikina and Antipolo.

"The storm will remain in northern Luzon for a day before it goes away to the South China Sea," the weather bureau said.

The Times said the Department of Education suspended elementary and high school classes in Baguio City in Mountain and Benguet provinces Wednesday, and the Senate in Manila closed for the day.

"Those two provinces are under water," Benito Ramos, chief of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, said.

The province of Albay was placed under a state of emergency, the newspaper said.

Russia successfully tests missle

Russia successfully test fired a submarine-launched ballistic missile in the Barents Sea, officials say.

An RSM-54 Sineva missile was blasted from the Northern Fleet's nuclear-powered submarine Yekaterinburg Wednesday, RIA Novosti reported.

The missile hit an assigned target at Kamchatka's Kura test area in the Russian Far East.

The RSM-54 Sineva is a third-generation, liquid-propellant, submarine-launched ballistic missile the Russian navy adopted in July 2007, the news agency said. It has a range of up to 6m213 miles and can carry four to 10 nuclear warheads.

54 killed by storms in China

Heavy rain, strong winds and hail during severe storms across China have left at least 54 people dead in recent days, officials said Wednesday.

Thunderstorms have hit 267 counties throughout 18 provincial regions across China since Friday, Xinhua reported. Nearly 6.4 million people have been affected by the weather.

A total of $632 million in economic losses have been accrued since the beginning of the storms, a statement from the National Disaster Reduction Committee said.

The Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and the provinces of Shandong, Sichuan and Hubei were hit hardest, the statement said.

In Weihai, a coastal city in Shandong province, heavy rains and floods have destroyed 107,000 houses. More than 124,000 people have been forced to relocate since Sunday.

Disaster relief and a survey team have been sent to the flood zone in Shandong as part of the emergency responses to the rainfall.

Four injured in Yemen protest

Yemeni regime forces attacked a group of anti-government protesters Wednesday, injuring at least four, officials say.

The demonstrators were gathered peacefully in the southern city of Ibb for a protest march to deman the dismantling of President Ali Abdullah Saleh's government, Iran's PressTV reported. One of those injured was in critical condition.

Saleh's forces had also opened fire on protesters in Ra'da, a town in al-Baida province. No injuries had been reported from the Ra'da demonstration.

Hundreds of protesters have been killed by the Yemeni forces since the demonstrations began early this year.

Meanwhile, revolutionary youth groups have set up a transitional council that will put pressure on Saleh to give up power, govern the country during a transitional period and handle the prosecution of Saleh, his son and officials in his administration.

The Youth Revolution Council will have 17 members, who would include former Yemeni President Ali Nasser Mohammed, former Defense Minister General Abdullah Ali Aleiwa and leaders of several other opposition groups, including those in exile.

Saleh and five other officials are currently in Saudi Arabia, allegedly receiving treatment for injures sustained during a rocket attack on the Yemeni presidential palace on June 3.

Protesters say this will continue to rally through the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan until their demands are met.

"We will continue our sit-in through Ramadan, not just during Ramadan, until all of Saleh's regime and their elements are removed. We have now removed the root but we are left with the stem, the corrupt elements who control the oil and petroleum facilities, gas and water," an anti-government protester said.

Palin Tea Party keynote raises speculation

Reinstating U.S. goodness and strength is key to its future, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said in a statement, fueling speculation she'll run for president.

"We don't need a 'fundamental transformation' of America. We need a restoration of all that is good and strong and free," Palin said in a Tea Party of America statement announcing she'll deliver the keynote address at the political action committee's Sept. 3 "Restoring America" rally in Waukee, Iowa, near Des Moines.

The 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee's Labor Day weekend appearance would take place as the 2012 Republican nomination fight begins in earnest.

She did not say whether she would declare if she was running for president. But Real Clear Politics, a political news and polling data aggregator that first reported her appearance, said "all signs now point to September as the month when Palin would throw her hat into the ring."

Palin earlier said she would likely make her decision known in August or September.

"Gov. Palin embodies the spirit of public service that our founders believed was essential to the survival of our liberties and our republic itself," Tea Party of America co-founder Charlie Gruschow said in the statement. "We couldn't be more delighted to have this citizen leader who represents the values that Iowans and Americans hold so dear."

The Iowa group was founded in May.

The visit would be Palin's second to the key election state this year. She attended the Pella, Iowa, premiere of the laudatory documentary about her governorship, "The Undefeated," last month -- a day after Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., announced her GOP presidential candidacy elsewhere in the state.

Palin's keynote address would come two days after "The Undefeated" is released on pay-per-view and video-on-demand, ABC News reported.

Palin started her "One Nation" bus tour of Northeastern U.S. historical sites Memorial Day weekend. "The Undefeated" had its general premiere just before the Fourth of July weekend.

A June Des Moines Register poll of likely Iowa caucus-goers indicated Palin was tied for second, at 58 percent, with former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty in highest percentage with a favorable opinion.

Bachmann was first with 65 percent favorable, the poll indicated.

More than a third of likely Republican caucus-goers viewed Palin unfavorably, the Register poll indicated.

Qaida: U.S. Syrian-activist support a lie

The United States is insincere in showing solidarity with activists seeking to topple Syria's president, but al-Qaida is genuine, al-Qaida's new leader said.

"America, which cooperated with [President] Bashar Assad during his whole regime, claims today that it stands with you when it saw him floored by the earthquake caused by your fury," Ayman al-Zawahiri said in a video titled "Glory of the East Starts in Damascus" posted on extremist Web sites.

It was his first video message since al-Qaida announced June 16 it named him its leader after Osama bin Laden was killed May 2 in a U.S. commando raid in Pakistan.

Washington may appear to support anti-Assad activists, whose uprising began March 15, but the United States actually wants to replace his rule "with another regime that squanders your revolution and jihad [holy war] in a new regime that follows America, takes care of Israel's interests and grants the Ummah [Muslim community or nation] some freedoms," Zawahri said in remarks translated by the Search for International Terrorist Entities Intelligence Group and cited in The Washington Post.

SITE of Bethesda, Md., tracks terrorist organizations' online activities.

Zawahri is believed to speak Arabic, French and English.

The U.S. State Department offered a $25 million reward for information leading to his capture after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

"Tell both America and [U.S. President Barack] Obama ... our powerful uprising will not stop until we raise the victorious banner of jihad ... over Jerusalem," Zawahri said in the video showing him dressed in a white robe, turban and large glasses and seated next to an assault rifle.

Zawahri, 60, blamed the U.S. war against al-Qaida for preventing him from joining the activists, whom he called "mujahedin," or "holy warriors," in their anti-Assad uprising.

"If it were not for that, my brothers and I would have been amongst you and with you, defending you with our lives," he said in the video, which contained the word Rajab, the seventh Islamic month, which began June 3 and ended July 1.

Rajab is regarded as one of the four sacred months in Islam in which battles are prohibited.

Zawahri accused Assad of being both a corrupt tyrant and "America's partner in the war on Islam."