"Made In China Now Being Made In Africa

The cost of labor in China is going up, so Chinese manufacturers are moving to Africa, and they’re playing all the angles.

HONG KONG (Brendon Hong, The Daily Beast)— Sun Qiaoming is a trader from Jiangsu. He operates his import-export business on the Eastern coast of China, where there is plenty of space for a man with his drive and skills to prosper. Already fairly successful, he recently set his sights beyond his country’s borders. “There’s been much talk about the Chinese Dream in the past few years, but I have an African Dream.” he said. “African gold will fill my next bucket of gold.”

He wasn't referring to the natural resources that President Obama recently hinted as the reason for China’s presence on the African continent. After all, Sun is a private entrepreneur, and receives no direct support from the government in his business endeavors. His “gold” is the labor in Africa—cheap, trainable, abundant, and ready to work. They may not have the decades of know-how that the Chinese developed during their meteoric rise in global production, but Sun is confident that with time and proper training, they will be able to match the efficiency and productivity of workers in China.

With rising labor and energy costs, as well as tightening environmental restrictions, it is becoming increasing difficult for Chinese industrialists to churn out cheap goods at a massive scale in their own country. Even as fresh university graduates suffer a high unemployment rate, few want to take jobs on factory floors. “The post-90s generation wants office jobs, not blue collar work,” Sun explains. “It’s understandable. Life is much easier now. Factory work is stable but I want my children to have other options.”

The result is an exodus of Chinese manufacturing to places where labor is cheaper and financial incentives like capital subsidies are offered to foreign-owned factories.

But vibrant industry requires solid infrastructure, which is where the Chinese government enters the equation. Last year, over 214,000 workers were posted in Africa to build highways, bridges, dams, and power plants. That’s about a quarter of all Chinese workers who are sent abroad to work for state-owned enterprises.

“As much as I want to work there,” says a Chinese entrepreneur, “I can’t look for a wife—marrying an African is marrying down—so I will need to do that here.”

For decades, the Chinese government has had a foothold on the African continent. During the Mao era, the Chinese government funded and executed massive infrastructure projects like a railway connecting Tanzania and Zambia, reaping benefits on multiple levels. Not only does China have access to the wealth of natural resources in a multitude of African countries, the support from those nations was necessary for the People’s Republic of China to gain membership to the United Nations, opening up a plethora of opportunities in international diplomacy and trade.

Chinese support in Africa has been on a steady rise in the past 25 years. Trade between China and Africa rose by 700 percent in the 1990s. China’s foreign direct investment in Africa has increased by over 50 percent per year since 2001. Aside from the highly visible presence of state-owned enterprises that take on massive projects, privateers like Sun Qiaoming have been carving out their own commercial fiefdoms as well.

In the early 2000s, an acquaintance told Sun about the possibility of doing business in Ethiopia. At the time, Ethiopians still relied on imports from Western Europe for many commodities, most of which were costlier than goods produced in China. As a test, Sun shipped over a container stuffed with apparel made in his home province. After it reached Ethiopia, the contents were distributed and sold out in under two weeks. That marked the beginning of a fruitful long-term relationship with his Ethiopian clients. By utilizing those existing connections, and partnering with another entrepreneur from his hometown, he is in the final stages of planning for a new textile factory near Addis Ababa, joining other Chinese industrialists who have made the move.

Even though Sun and his partner plan on using materials and equipment imported from China, all of his factory staff will be Ethiopian. “It’s about adding value locally,” he explained. “Once we hit the 20 or 30 percent mark, our clothes will officially be ‘Made in Ethiopia.’ Then it will be easier for us to sell to the US and EU.” The west puts limits on commodity imports from China. Production relocation to Africa and South America have allowed Chinese enterprises to circumvent trade caps.

Sun is one of a small segment of Chinese businessmen willing to take the risk to establish new businesses in far-off lands, but prejudice is still an issue. “My family thinks all of Africa is the same. Just because Libya was evacuated and West Africa is dealing with Ebola, it doesn’t mean business is affected everywhere else,” he said. “But then, as much as I want to work there, I can’t look for a wife—marrying an African is marrying down—so I will need to do that here.”

It took a long time for the US government to realize that it is falling behind China when it came to economic engagement with Africa, whether between governments or private enterprises. Eager to catch up, President Obama hosted the recent US-Africa Leadership Summit, but positive attention on cooperation and renewed ties was overshadowed by statements suggesting that China was the elephant in the room.

Last week, during an interview with NPR’s Morning Edition, National Security Advisor Susan Rice attempted to point out the differences in how Americans and Chinese do business in Africa, suggesting that Chinese (state-owned) businesses bring in their own workers for projects in Africa, while American enterprises give those opportunities to locals and builds their capacities to maintain the infrastructure once construction is complete. However, Howard French, author ofChina’s Second Continent, contested those words and pointed out that American engagement on the ground in Africa is nearly absent, bringing up examples of American construction projects in Africa that were outsourced to a Chinese firm.

As the spin continues, it seems like the scales are tipped in China’s favor. The nation’s investment in Africa polishes its soft power image, and the improved infrastructure benefit the African nations and the many Chinese businessmen they host. Sun is confident about his new venture, and genuine enthusiasm and excitement are packed into his words when he speaks of his upcoming journey. “I love spicy food, and my friends tell me that Sichuan hotpot has become very popular in Addis Abeba,” he said. Even with new beginnings, he won’t be missing some of the comforts of home.

Russian Aid Trucks Begin To Leave Ukraine

Trucks marked as being from a bitterly disputed Russian aid convoy to Ukraine stand in line as they return to Russia in the Russian town of Donetsk, Rostov-on-Don region, Russia, Saturday, Aug. 23, 2014. An Associated Press reporter counted 67 trucks entering the border crossing in the Russian city of Donetsk before noon Saturday. Another AP reporter on the Ukrainian side of the border said a line of trucks about 3 kilometers (2 miles) long was waiting to cross. The checkpoint on the Ukrainian side was being operated by separatist rebels, who inspected the trucks.

DONETSK, Russia (AP) — Hundreds of trucks from a bitterly disputed Russian aid convoy to rebel-held eastern Ukraine rolled back across the border into Russia on Saturday.

An Associated Press reporter counted 225 of the white tarp-covered trucks as they drove from Ukraine into a Russian border town called Donetsk, which bears the same name as the largest rebel-held city in Ukraine. A second AP reporter on the Ukrainian side of the border was able to look inside about 40 of the tractor-trailers side and confirmed they were empty.

One driver who declined to give his name said the rest of the 260-truck convoy was expected to return within hours to Russia. The state news agency RIA Novosti cited the Russian customs service as saying the trucks were moving in six groups.

The trucks had crossed Friday into Ukraine bound for Luhansk, another rebel-held city in eastern Ukraine hard-hit by weeks of fighting between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian rebels. The Ukrainian government and Western countries denounced the move as a violation of Ukraine's sovereignty and accused Russia of using the convoy to smuggle supplies and reinforcements to separatist fighters.

Russia said the trucks carried only food, water, generators and sleeping bags. When some of the trucks were inspected by reporters a few days previously, some of those items were visible in the cargo.

In a separate development, NATO said it has mounting evidence that Russian troops are operating inside Ukraine and launching artillery attacks from Ukrainian soil. Russia also rejected that accusation.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has advocated a measured European Union response to Russia's aggressive policies in Ukraine, arrived Saturday in Kiev to meet Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.

In a statement, Merkel said she would advise Poroshenko "that the conflict can only be resolved politically and that a cease-fire must be reached as soon as possible." It remained unclear Saturday what the Russian convoy had actually delivered, or how. Unloading hundreds of trucks in less than a day in a war-battered region represents a sizeable task. AP journalists who followed the convoy to Luhansk on Friday said rattling sounds from some trailers indicated they were not fully loaded.

The convoy's entry caused Russia-Ukraine tensions to spike. The trucks had languished on the Russian side of the border for nearly two weeks as Ukraine refused permission for entry and the Red Cross sought security guarantees from all sides.

Russia sent the trucks in Friday, saying it had lost patience and Luhansk was on the edge of a humanitarian catastrophe. Ukraine condemned it as a "direct invasion." At the United Nations in New York, Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin rejected NATO's accusations that Russian troops were inside Ukraine. Russia has steadfastly denied supporting and arming the rebels.

In the Ukrainian city of Donetsk, residents reported artillery strikes throughout Friday night and Saturday morning. The mayor's office said three people were killed, including two who had been waiting for a bus.

Ukraine has retaken control of much of its eastern territory bordering Russia, but fighting for Donetsk and Luhansk persists. Unrest in eastern Ukraine began in mid-April, one month after Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimean peninsula. The United Nations says more than 2,000 people have been killed and 340,000 forced to flee their homes during the fighting.

Paris To Celebrate End To Nazi Rule

French civilians with their hastily made American and French flags singing the "Star Spangled Banner" as they greet U.S. and Free French troops entering Paris, France, after Allied liberation of the French capital from Nazi occupation in World War II.

PARIS (AP) — Her code name was Rainer and she had a gun she called Oscar. Not yet 20, she aimed her weapon at a Nazi officer and shot him to death on a Paris bridge on a Sunday afternoon.

That deed on July 23, 1944, was Madeleine Riffaud's summons to Parisians to rise up. "Everyone saw that a young girl on a bicycle can do this," she recalled in an interview with The Associated Press. Riffaud's solitary act represented an opening salvo for a popular uprising in Paris, which was spurred by the Allied landings in Normandy following four years of Nazi occupation. When American and French troops liberated the City of Light on Aug. 25, 1944, it came against a backdrop of jubilation and chaos.

On Monday, Paris will mark the 70th anniversary of its freedom from Hitler's Third Reich with a day of tributes, including an outdoor ball, a speech at City Hall by President Francois Hollande, and a sound and light show re-enacting the day of liberation.

The commemoration underscores how much has changed in a Europe, and wider world, that is confronting new dangers with echoes of the past. "I think there is a certain degree of forgetting precisely what the right wing across Europe in the 1930s actually meant," said University of Nottingham historian Karen Adler, who draws a parallel between that dark time and the rise of far-right parties across much of Europe today.

Some Parisian elders who lived through the occupation now advocate unity and dialogue among Europeans to ensure that extremism can never take hold of the continent again. "What happened was monstrous," said Jacqueline Courret, now 85 and living at the Liberty rest home in Paris.

During the occupation, Courret lived in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood on the Rue de Rivoli. She recalled how the Nazis' regular roundups of Jews meant that her school eventually closed because so many pupils had disappeared, including a friend. Some 77,320 Jews were deported from France during the war.

From 1940 to 1944, a European capital that had epitomized culture, bounty and the sweet life fell to its knees as humiliation, hunger, cold and distrust became the measures of daily life. Long food lines, black markets and coveted ration tickets marked the memories of those years.

Courret and two other women at the Liberty care home described how age-based food tickets determined their daily rations. Potatoes, rutabagas, soup and milk for the children were standard fare. Meat was a delicacy. Sometimes, Courret said, her parents served up cat meat.

"There wasn't a cat left in Paris at the end of the war," she said, chuckling. Understanding how ordinary life goes on in an occupied country can be hard for outsiders to grasp. "Ordinary things go on as well as the terrible things and the spectacular things," Adler said. "People are still getting married. ... They're still having arguments with their spouse." Life, she said, "is not always being lived at an incredibly high pitch."

With fuel scarce, bicycles provided taxi services. The family of 83-year-old Michele Le Meleder tried warming up in winter around an electric toaster. Scarcity bred a thriving black market for goods, some smuggled from the countryside. Parisians honed their bargaining skills.

"One person had shoes; another had butter. We bartered," said Josepha Bercau, 93. Her family's fabric store helped put food on the table by trading fabric or clothes, some made from curtains. When their silk stockings failed, ladies resorted to using make-up on their legs to imitate the look of the stockings.

Yet worries about whom to trust tainted relations and snuffed out the legendary ambiance of the city. Fears that neighbors could be collaborating with the Germans restrained conversations. Identifying the collaborators was no easy task.

"Collaboration works at so many levels. It was every state agency, if you like, every ministry, every government agency," Adler said. Paris police carried out the Nazis' dastardly tasks until they rebelled on Aug. 19 as the uprising spread six days before the liberation.

Women who consorted with Germans, derided as "horizontal collaborators," were paraded through the streets with shaved heads after the liberation. Adler offered a rough estimate that at least 20,000 women suffered this humiliation, even though some of them simply had a "visible" relationship with a German, even as a maid.

Small-scale sabotage was part of life for some, from giving incorrect directions to a German soldier to drawing on a wall the Cross of Lorraine, the sign of Free French Forces leader Gen. Charles de Gaulle, then based in London.

Riffaud, who turned 90 on Saturday, carried out more daring feats. As a member of a Paris resistance group of medical students, she put pamphlets in mailboxes and passed secret messages using the numbers on Metro tickets as a code.

When Riffaud shot the German officer, she said, she waited until he turned — so that he wouldn't be shot in the back. She was arrested, tortured and eventually freed in a prisoner exchange. "We always knew we couldn't win alone," she said.

The D-Day invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944, fueled the fervor of Parisians and opened the way for American troops of the 4th American Infantry Division to march on Paris alongside the 2nd French Armored Division.

"All the emotions suppressed by four years of German domination surged through the people," veteran AP correspondent Don Whitehead wrote on Aug. 25, 1944, in the first eyewitness account of the liberation. That joy was immortalized in iconic photos showing young ladies kissing American soldiers.

Whitehead's dispatch describes the liberation as messy, chaotic and dangerous with shooting from Germans making their last stand. "Machine guns and rifles cracked on all sides as the column I was with drove within a block of the Luxembourg (Gardens)," Whitehead wrote.

Riffaud saw one of her comrades fall dead from a gunshot wound at the Place de la Republique. "Everyone was hugging and kissing," she said. "People were happy. All the while, we were picking up dead bodies."

CDC Director To Visit Ebola Outbreak Countries

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Dr. Tom Frieden testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington before the House subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations hearing on "Combating the Ebola Threat." A CDC spokesman said Friday, Aug. 22, 2014, that Frieden wants to meet the African and international health leaders trying to control the outbreak, and to hear what help they need.

NEW YORK (AP) — A top U.S. health official plans to travel to West Africa to see firsthand how the Ebola outbreak is unfolding.

Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is scheduled to visit Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea next week. A CDC spokesman Friday said Frieden wants to meet the African and international health leaders trying to control the outbreak, and to hear what help they need. He also plans to visit hospitals treating Ebola patients.

The Atlanta-based CDC has sent nearly 70 scientists and staff to help in those three countries, as well as Nigeria. More than 1,400 people have died so far in the largest Ebola outbreak on record.

Facts About US Racial Unrest

Rodney King, right, accompanied by his attorney Steven Lerman, making his first statement, pleading for an end to the rioting in South Central Los Angeles, in Los Angeles. The St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, Missouri, was roiled by racial unrest after 18-year-old Michael Brown, who was black, was shot and killed by Darren Wilson, a white police officer, on Aug. 9. The street clashes there mirrored past, larger-scale riots in multiple US cities, most of them triggered by perceived racial injustice, or an incident involving police, in already tense communities.

National Guardsmen patroling Newark, July 14, 1967, after a Newark detective was shot by sniper’s bullet. They stand at the corner of Springfield Avenue and Mercer Street, an area hit by looting and rioting in the past two days. 

Illinois National Guardsmen with an angry crowd gathered near apartment in Cicero, Ill. where a black family had rented an apartment. Earlier vandals stripped the apartment and burned the furniture.

A bulldozer clearing debris during cleanup in the Watts section of Los Angeles after riots. The St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, Missouri, was roiled by racial unrest after 18-year-old Michael Brown, who was black, was shot and killed by Darren Wilson, a white police officer, on Aug. 9. The street clashes there mirrored past, larger-scale riots in multiple US cities, most of them triggered by perceived racial injustice, or an incident involving police, in already tense communities.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, Missouri, was roiled by racial unrest after 18-year-old Michael Brown, who was black, was shot and killed by Darren Wilson, a white police officer, on Aug. 9. The street clashes there mirrored past, larger-scale riots in multiple U.S. cities, most of them triggered by perceived racial injustice, or an incident involving police, in already tense communities.

As calm begins to take hold and Ferguson takes its place alongside past urban riots, here are some details about racial unrest in the United States: THE ST. LOUIS AREA RIOTED BEFORE In July 1917, Gov. Frank O. Lowden sent in troops to maintain order after there was an influx of black laborers into St. Louis' factories while white workers were on strike. Once the troops left on July 2, a group of whites shot at blacks' homes, and blacks retaliated by killing two white police officers. Over the next 24 hours, 39 blacks and nine whites were killed. More than 300 buildings, including many shanties where blacks lived, were destroyed by white rioters. After a state grand jury investigation, 144 men, including five police officers, were indicted on charges ranging from arson to murder. There were no convictions. The grand jury blamed agitators from both races and officials who allowed slums to be overcrowded.

OTHER RACE RIOTS —On July 27, 1919, while swimming with friends, a black teenager, Eugene Williams, drifted across an unofficial barrier between segregated beaches in Chicago. A group of white youths stoned him and he drowned. Police refused to arrest the white man who witnesses said caused the death. That touched off a week of riots on the city's South Side that left 15 whites and 23 blacks dead, more than 500 people injured and roughly 1,000 black families homeless due to fires set by rioters.

—In June 1943, mostly white sailors and Marines targeted Latinos in East Los Angeles and Long Beach, California, in what became known as the "Zoot Suit Riots," a reference to the style of clothing favored by Latino youth of that era. More than 500 people were injured in those riots. The violence sparked similar attacks against Latinos in eight other cities around the nation.

— On July 11, 1951, thousands of white people congregated outside a Cicero, Illinois, apartment newly rented by black bus driver Harvey Clark and his wife, Johnetta. The crowd, angry that a black family had moved in, pelted the windows with rocks and bricks, then stormed inside, tossed out the Clarks' belongings and set the building on fire. The violence ended three days later with 118 arrests and $20,000 in property damage. U.S. Attorney General J. Howard McGrath launched a federal investigation. Four Cicero officials and three police officers were indicted on charges of violating Clark's rights. The apartment building owner and the agent who rented to the Clarks were indicted on charges of inciting a riot. Cicero marked the first time a U.S. riot was broadcast on local television.

—On Aug. 11, 1965, white police officers tried to arrest black motorist Marquette Frye for alleged drunken driving in the Watts section of south central Los Angeles. A scuffle ensued, and Frye, his mother Rena, and stepbrother Ronald were arrested. A crowd that gathered to watch soon swelled, and several young men began hurling rocks at the officers. The riots raged for six days and nights through a 50-square-mile swath of the city. Fires, looting and pitched battles between rioters, police and National Guardsmen left 34 dead, brought 4,000 arrests and destroyed $40 million worth of property.

—In April 1992, one of the nation's largest bouts of racial violence came behind the acquittal of four Los Angeles police officers who were videotaped beating unarmed Rodney King in April 1992. When that unrest subsided, 53 people had been killed and more than 2,000 had been injured. Property damage was estimated at $1 billion.

— In 2012, the fatal police shooting of two Hispanic men in Anaheim, California, sparked four nights of unrest, with nearly 600 demonstrators hurling rocks and bottles at police, who made dozens of arrests.

KERNER COMMISSION AND MLK ASSASSINATION Riots broke out in several U.S. cities in the summer of 1967. The deadliest of them flared back-to-back in Newark, New Jersey, and Detroit that July, killing 26 people in Newark and 43 in Detroit. President Lyndon Johnson formed the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, chaired by Illinois Gov. Otto Kerner, to identify causes for the unrest. In its 1968 report, the commission said frustration with racism and lack of economic progress had led blacks to believe they had to resort to violence "as a means of achieving redress," and famously warned that the U.S. was "moving toward two societies, one black and one white — separate and unequal."

Roughly a month later, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. His death triggered more riots in more than 100 cities nationwide, notably in Washington, D.C., Baltimore, and Chicago. Riots over King's death were avoided in New York City, where mayor John Lindsay went to Harlem, expressed regret over what happened to King and explained his vision for fighting poverty. Similarly, Robert F. Kennedy delivered a speech about King in Indianapolis that is credited with preventing a riot there.

WHAT DEFUSES OR PREVENTS RACIAL UNREST? The calming influences in past racial turbulence have been varied. Sometimes it just ended, but sometimes outside forces helped ease tensions. — The 1965 report of the Governor's Commission on the Los Angeles Riots suggested that the massive show of law enforcement that flooded the Los Angeles streets was a major contributing factor in calming the unrest. By the end of the riots, 13,900 guardsmen, 934 Los Angeles police officers and 719 officers were dispatched.

Ironically, that report also identified police brutality as an issue in seven other riots in 1964: "The fact that this charge is repeatedly made must not go unnoticed, for there is a real danger that persistent criticism will reduce and perhaps destroy the effectiveness of law enforcement."

—Following the King assassination, officials in Boston wanted to cancel soul singer James Brown's scheduled performance at Boston Garden. Mayor Kevin White let the concert go on and had it broadcast free on public television. During the concert, Brown issued a call for calm in the city. His and White's actions are credited with sparing Boston from the unrest seen elsewhere.

— After Los Angeles exploded in 1992, a central figure in what led to the unrest, Rodney King, stepped out of seclusion to make his now-famous plea for peace. "People, I just want to say, can we all get along?" The riots ebbed soon thereafter.

Follow Jesse J. Holland on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/jessejholland

Pentagon Cites 'Dangerous " Chinese Jet Intercept

A Chinese fighter jet that the Obama administration said Friday conducted a "dangerous intercept" of a U.S. Navy surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft off the coast of China in international airspace.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration on Friday accused a Chinese fighter jet of conducting a "dangerous intercept" of a U.S. Navy surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft off the coast of China in international airspace — the fourth such incident since March.

The Pentagon press secretary, Rear Adm. John Kirby, said Washington protested to the Chinese military through diplomatic channels, calling the fighter pilot's actions "unsafe and unprofessional." And U.S. officials said this is at least the second formal complaint American diplomats have filed with the Chinese over these military actions in recent months.

At a news briefing at Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, where President Barack Obama is vacationing, Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, called the intercept "a deeply concerning provocation" and suggested it could set back efforts to improve relations.

"What we've encouraged is constructive military-to-military ties with China, and this kind of action clearly violates the spirit of that engagement," Rhodes told reporters. U.S. officials said it appears that the same Chinese military unit out of a base on Hainan Island was responsible for similar aggressive "close intercepts" in March, April and May. The officials refused to provide any details of the previous incidents but said the U.S. filed a similar formal complaint with the Chinese in May.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the previous incidents publicly. Kirby said the Aug. 19 maneuvering by the Chinese jet posed a risk to the safety of the U.S. air crew, was "inconsistent with customary international law," and complicates efforts to improve military-to-military relations, which are often strained.

Kirby said the Chinese jet made several close passes by the Navy P-8 Poseidon plane, coming within 30 feet of it at one point. He said the Chinese jet did a "barrel roll" maneuver over the top of the Poseidon at one point and also passed across the nose of the Navy plane, exposing the belly of the fighter in a way apparently designed to show that it was armed.

Kirby said it happened about 135 miles east of China's Hainan Island. In 2001 a Chinese jet collided with a U.S. Navy surveillance aircraft off Hainan Island, killing the Chinese pilot and forcing the Navy plane to make an emergency landing on the island. Washington severed military relations with China after that episode.

The Navy's P-8 Poseidon aircraft are designed for long-range missions including intelligence collection and reconnaissance.

Hamas Kills 18 Suspected Informers To Deter Leaks

Supporters of Hamas hold posters of three senior commanders of the Hamas military wing, Mohammed Abu Shamaleh, Raed Attar and Mohammed Barhoum, who were killed in Thursday's Israeli strikes, during a demonstration to protest against Israel and to support people in Gaza, in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Friday, Aug. 22, 2014.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Gaza militants Friday gunned down 18 alleged spies for Israel in an apparent attempt to plug security breaches and deter others, a day after Israel killed three top Hamas military commanders in an airstrike likely guided by collaborators.

In one incident, masked gunmen lined up seven men, their heads covered by bags, along a wall outside a Gaza City mosque and shot them to death in front of hundreds of people, witnesses said. A note pinned on the wall said they had leaked information about the location of tunnels, homes of fighters and rockets that were later struck by Israel.

In Israel, a 4-year-old boy was killed when a mortar shell hit two cars in the parking lot of Nahal Oz, a small farming community near Gaza. Five Israelis were hurt, one seriously, in several rocket strikes, the military said. One rocket damaged a synagogue.

The child's death was bound to raise pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from an increasingly impatient public to put an end to rocket and mortar fire from Gaza — something Israel's military has been unable to do after 46 days of fighting with Hamas.

Netanyahu's office said he expressed his condolences and vowed that Hamas would pay a "heavy price." The Israeli military said in a statement the deadly mortar shell had been fired from next to a U.N. school currently serving as a shelter for displaced Gazans. It said it had conveyed a "severe message" to the U.N. refugee agency UNRWA. Israel has repeatedly said Hamas uses schools, mosques and residential areas as cover from which to stage attacks, putting civilians at risk by drawing Israeli retaliation.

By early evening, Gaza militants had fired at least 117 rockets and mortar shells at Israel, while Israel carried out at least 35 airstrikes in Gaza, the military said. In a new warning from Israel's military, automated phone messages told Gaza residents that "Hamas has decided to go to war again" and that people must "get away immediately from areas where Hamas conducts terror activities."

At about the same time, an airstrike hit a house in Gaza City, and a huge orange ball of fire from the explosion rose into Gaza's night sky. At least 45 people were wounded, health officials said. Ayman Sahabani, head of the emergency department at the city's Shifa Hospital, said only a minute passed before the firing of a warning missile and the bombing.

Since Israel-Hamas fighting began July 8, at least 2,092 Palestinians have been killed, said Gaza health official Ashraf al-Kidra. According to U.N. figures, at least 478 Palestinian children and minors were among the dead, including 320 who were 12 or younger.

On the Israeli side, the boy's killing Friday raised the death toll to 68, including 64 soldiers, three civilians and a Thai worker. Friday's escalation came three days after Israel-Hamas truce talks collapsed in Cairo.

At the talks, Hamas had rejected an Egyptian proposal under which Israel would gradually ease its border blockade of Gaza in exchange for a period of extended quiet. Hamas said Israel offered nothing specific, and says it will only halt fire if Israel and Egypt agree to open Gaza's borders to trade and travel.

The border blockade was imposed in 2007, after the violent Hamas takeover of Gaza. Israel has said it cannot lift the closure unless Hamas stops trying to smuggle or manufacture weapons and agrees to disarm, a demand the Islamic militants have rejected.

Mahmoud Zahar, a Hamas leader in Gaza, signaled Friday that Hamas would also reject any U.N. Security Council resolution that seeks to disarm the group. Britain, Germany and France are working on a cease-fire resolution that calls for opening Gaza's borders, in exchange for restoring the rule of Western-backed President Mahmoud Abbas' Palestinian Authority in Gaza. Abbas lost control of Gaza in the Hamas takeover.

Zahar wrote in a text message that "Hamas will not accept any international resolutions that try to touch the weapons of the resistance and don't fully lift the blockade." Abbas, meanwhile, met with the top Hamas leader in exile, Khaled Mashaal, to push for Hamas to accept the Egyptian cease-fire proposal. The talks took place in Qatar, a regional backer of Hamas, but it was not clear if Abbas made headway. He left Friday for Egypt, ahead of talks with the Egyptian president Saturday.

In Gaza, the killing of the 18 alleged spies for Israel followed the deaths of three top Hamas military commanders in an Israeli airstrike, reportedly with the help of local informants. Even after Israel's withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, Israel's Shin Bet security service continued to run a network of informers, recruiting them through blackmail, the lure of exit permits or money.

Hamas media said the shootings signaled the start of a new crackdown, under the rallying cry of "choking the necks of the collaborators." It was the largest number of suspected informers killed in a single day under Hamas rule.

The Al Majd website, which is close to the Hamas security services, said suspects would now be dealt with "in the field" rather than in the courts in order to create deterrence. Hamas said it would not release the names of those killed because it wanted to protect the reputation of their families.

In the morning, 11 alleged informants were shot by a firing squad at Gaza City police headquarters. Two of the 11 were women, according to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights. The group urged an immediate halt to what it called "extrajudicial executions."

Later in the day, seven people were killed outside the downtown al-Omari mosque as worshippers wrapped up noon prayers. Photos from the incident posted on several Palestinian websites showed several hundred people gathered near the scene.

The photos showed masked, black-clad gunmen leading several men with bags over their heads to a wall. Witness Ayman Sharif, 42, quoted one of the gunmen as saying the seven "had sold their souls to the enemy for a cheap price" and had caused death and destruction. The commander of the group then gave the order to the others to open fire with automatic rifles. He said the bodies were collected by an ambulance and the gunmen left.

The Hamas-run Al Rai news website said that after the public killings, several suspected collaborators "surrendered to the resistance and declared that they repented." It did not provide details. Friday's killing marked the third time since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war six weeks ago that Hamas announced the killing of alleged collaborators. On Thursday, Al Majd said seven people were arrested on suspicion of working with Israel and that three of them were killed.

Alhlou reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press writers Ibrahim Barzak in Gaza City and Josef Federman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

MH17 Remains Return Home As Govt. Battles Fallout

Family members of Nur Shazana, a Malaysia Airlines crew member who was among the victims onboard Flight MH17, cry during a burial ceremony at Taman Selatan Muslim cemetery in Putrajaya, Malaysia, Friday, Aug. 22, 2014. Carried by soldiers and draped in the national flag, coffins carrying Malaysian victims of Flight MH17 returned home Friday to a country still searching for those onboard another doomed jet and a government battling the political fallout of the twin tragedies.

KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA (AP) — Carried by soldiers and draped in the national flag, coffins carrying Malaysian victims of Flight MH17 returned home Friday to a country still searching for those onboard another doomed jet and a government battling the political fallout of the twin tragedies.

The bodies and ashes of 20 victims from the Malaysia Airlines jet that was shot down over eastern Ukraine in July were given full military honors and a day of national mourning was declared, the first in the country's history.

Many people in offices in the nation of 30 million observed a minute's silence as the hearses were driven from the tarmac of Kuala Lumpur International Airport to private funerals. Some public trains in the capital, Kuala Lumpur, stopped operating.

All 298 people onboard died when the jet was shot down over an area of Ukraine controlled by pro-Russia separatists on a flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. The victims included 43 Malaysians and 195 Dutch nationals. An international investigation is ongoing, but no one has been arrested.

The return of the bodies also represented a political triumph for Prime Minister Najib Razak, whose already shaky popularity ratings were hit by his handling of the still unsolved disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 and its 239 passengers and crew in March.

"Today we mourn the loss of our people. Today, we begin to bring them home," Najib said in a statement. "Our thoughts and our prayers are with the families and friends of those who lost their lives. Today we stand with you, united as one."

Najib claimed personal credit for negotiating a deal with pro-Russian separatists for the return of all the bodies of the 298 people on board. Few details have been released over what the separatists were given in return, and some critics have said that the negotiations with people many regard as terrorists set a dangerous precedent.

"Everyone wants closure for the families, there is no question," said Bridget Welsh, a research associate at the National Taiwan University. "But on the other hand, they (Najib's advisers) saw this as an opportunity for him to look good. It was critical for the government to be seen as responsive and differentiate itself from the handling of MH370."

The victims were carried aboard a specially chartered Malaysia Airlines jet from Amsterdam, where they were taken from the crash site. Three had already been cremated. The coffins were individually lowered from the plane and slowly carried by teams of eight soldiers to waiting hearses.

"They were casualties of war, unfortunately, and the world community needs to work toward a solution to these conflicts," said Abdul Mueiem, a Malaysia Airlines pilot who attended the ceremony. "Everyone is feeling sad and depressed, but the important thing is that Malaysia Airlines is one big family, and we are together with the nation."

The repatriation was the first of the Malaysian passengers and crew on the flight. The government has said that the bodies of the remaining Malaysians would follow soon. The country may never witness a similar homecoming for the victims on board Flight 370. The plane went missing on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing and is believed to have crashed somewhere in the southern Indian Ocean.

After several surface and underwater searches have turned up nothing, a new underwater search is expected to begin in September and take up to a year to search 60,000 square kilometers (23,000 square miles) of the Indian Ocean seabed.

Assuming the plane is found, the depth of the ocean will make recovery of any bodies difficult. Relatives might also prefer the bodies to stay where they are.

Associated Press videojournalist Syawalludin Zain contributed to this report. Brummitt reported from Singapore.

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Supreme Court Case To Shape Ferguson Investigation

Police wait to advance after tear gas was used to disperse a crowd during a protest for Michael Brown, who was killed by a police officer on Aug. 9, in Ferguson, Mo. The national legal standards that govern when police officers are justified using force against people trace their lineage to a 1984 case from Charlotte, N.C. Brown's shooting has prompted multiple investigations and triggered days of rioting reflecting long-simmering racial tensions in a town of mostly black residents and a majority white police force.

WASHINGTON (AP) — It started with a bottle of orange juice 30 years ago.

The national legal standards that govern when police officers are justified in using force against people trace their lineage to a 1984 case from Charlotte, North Carolina. In that case, a diabetic man's erratic behavior during a trip to a convenience store for juice to bring up his low blood sugar led to a confrontation with officers that left him with injuries from head to foot.

Dethorne Graham's subsequent lawsuit against police for his injuries led to a 1989 Supreme Court decision that has become the prism for evaluating how police use force. As soon as Ferguson, Missouri, police officer Darren Wilson shot Michael Brown on Aug. 9, the Graham v. Connor case became the foundational test for whether Wilson's response was appropriate or criminal.

To most civilians, an 18-year-old unarmed man may not appear to pose a deadly threat. But a police officer's perspective is different. And that is how an officer should be judged after the fact, Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote in the 1989 opinion.

"The 'reasonableness' of a particular use of force must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight," Rehnquist wrote. The sequence of events that led to the death of Brown, a black man shot by a white officer, remains unclear. An autopsy paid for by Brown's family concluded that he was shot six times, twice in the head. The shooting has prompted multiple investigations and triggered days of rioting reflecting long-simmering racial tensions in a town of mostly black residents and a majority white police force.

Attorney General Eric Holder said Thursday the incident had opened a national conversation about "the appropriate use of force and the need to ensure fair and equal treatment for everyone who comes into contact with the police."

A grand jury is hearing evidence to determine whether Wilson, 28, who has policed the St. Louis suburbs for six years, should be charged in Brown's death. The key question will be: Would a reasonable police officer, with a similar background as Wilson, have responded the same way?

The answer is typically yes. "Except in the most outrageous cases of police misconduct, juries tend to side with police officers and give them a lot of leeway," said Woody Connette, the attorney who represented Graham.

In Graham's case, his behavior as he was experiencing low blood sugar looked similar to that of a belligerent drunk. On Nov. 12, 1984, Graham, 39, felt the onset of an insulin reaction, and asked a friend to drive him to buy orange juice that would increase his blood sugar, Connette said.

According to the Supreme Court, Graham rushed into the store and grabbed the orange juice but saw the line was too long, so he put the juice down and ran back to the car. Charlotte police officer M.S. Connor thought this was suspicious and followed him. When Connor stopped Graham's friend's car, Graham explained he was having a sugar reaction. But Connor didn't believe him.

As Connor was following up with the store to see whether anything had happened, Graham left the car, ran around it twice, then sat down and passed out for a short time. Other police officers arrived, and Graham was rolled over and handcuffed. The officers lifted Graham from behind and placed him face down on the car.

When Graham asked the officers to check his pocket for something he carried that identified him as a diabetic, one of the officers told him to "shut up" and shoved his face against the hood of the car. Then four officers grabbed Graham and threw him head-first into the police car. Once police confirmed no crime had been committed inside the convenience store, they dropped Graham off at his home and left him lying in the yard, Connette said.

Graham ended up with a broken foot, cuts on his wrists, a bruised forehead and an injured shoulder. Graham, who died in 2000, lost in his first jury trial, and appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, which set out the standards still used today. He then had a new trial, which he also lost.

The Graham decision found that an officer's use of force should be considered on the facts of each case. Officers are to weigh the seriousness of the crime, whether the suspect poses a threat to the safety of police or others and whether the suspect is trying to resist arrest.

Since then, police officers across the U.S. have been trained to use force in that context. States and police departments have their own policies, but the standards set in the Graham case are always the minimum. Some departments, like the Los Angeles Police Department, even reference Graham v. Connor in their manuals.

The police force in St. Louis, where officers shot and killed a knife-wielding robbery suspect 10 days after the Ferguson shooting, also alludes to the Graham standards. The jury that acquitted four Los Angeles police officers in the beating of Rodney King in the early 1990s was instructed to consider the Graham standards — the officers' "reasonable perceptions" — as they deliberated.

Officers are to be judged by those standards — even if things look different to people who weren't involved. "What a police officer, what she perceives at the moment of application of force, may seem very different in the hard light of the following Monday morning," said Ken Wallentine, a recently-retired police chief and former law professor in Utah. "And there's the rub."

Associated Press writers Alan Scher Zagier in St. Louis, Nancy Benac and researcher Monika Mathur in Washington contributed to this report.

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Boko Haram Takes Over Another Nigerian Town: Witnesses; Official

A grab made on May 5, 2014 from a video obtained by AFP shows the leader of the Islamist extremist group Boko Haram Abubakar Shekau (C) delivering speech. (AFP Photo)

KANO, NIGERIA (AFP):  Boko Haram has seized control of a town in northeastern Nigeria, the latest to fall into Islamist hands in the crisis-hit region, witnesses and a local official said on Thursday.

Several residents who fled the Boko Haram assault on Buni Yadi in Yobe state said it began late last month, with the insurgents ultimately taking over the main government building.

They have reportedly raised their flag above the building and have carried out summary executions, including of two people who were caught smoking cigarettes.

Abdullahi Bego, the spokesman for Yobe's Governor Ibrahim Geidam, could not confirm the executions.

But he told AFP: "As I speak there are no military in Buni Yadi and locals say that Boko Haram come and go as they please.

"So many people from Buni Yadi have fled to the state capital Damaturu," he added.

Residents said the rebels, who massacred dozens of students at a boarding school in Buni Yadi in February and kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls from neighbouring Borno state in April, had set up roadblocks.

They were also robbing people as they tried to flee.

"I left Buni Yadi yesterday (Wednesday) because it was no longer safe for me and my family," said trader Surajo Muhammad.

The gunmen "shot dead two men for smoking and they also killed a known drug peddler", he added.

Tijjani Bukar, who also fled, reported the same executions.

"I couldn't stay any longer because I came to realise these people have come to stay," he said.

"I thought they would be there for a few days but from our understanding they have turned the town into their (territory)."

The United Nations has confirmed that Boko Haram had seized control of the towns of Damboa and Gwoza in Borno state in recent weeks.

There are indications that Damboa was retaken by the military in an offensive earlier this month but details are not clear.