World Briefs

JERUSALEM – Israel hopes to pull all its troops out of the Gaza Strip by the time Barack Obama is inaugurated as president of the United States on Tuesday, Israeli officials said.

In Gaza's biggest city, streets brimmed with people and cars on Monday as residents began picking up the pieces of the lives they led before Israel's three-week air and ground onslaught.

Israeli tanks had been stationed on the rim of Gaza City, and destruction there was heavy. Tank shells turned some buildings into heaps of concrete while the tanks themselves rammed into the sides of others, peeling off pieces. Orange and olive groves were flattened. Further inside the city, the parliament building and other targets of Israeli warplanes and helicopter gunships were reduced to piles of debris.

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BA Cuba – Military judges in a Guantanamo war crimes court pressed forward Monday with hearings for five men accused of orchestrating the Sept. 11 attacks and for a Canadian accused of killing a U.S. soldier.

Several days of pretrial motions started a day before the inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama, who has said he will close the offshore prison at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba. The hearing for the Sept. 11 suspects began like many previous ones, with translators struggling to keep up with the legal skirmishing and the occasional rambling outbursts from the accused as the judge repeatedly warned the men not to interrupt. "We did what we did; we're proud of Sept. 11," one of the defendants, Ramzi Binalshibh, announced at one point. Many doubt the U.S. will go ahead with the Jan. 26 trial of Canadian Omar Khadr.

BEIJING – China is stepping up bird flu precautions on fears that the virus could spread more quickly in cold weather and as families gather for Lunar New Year feasts that often include poultry. Four new cases of the illness — two fatal — have been reported this month.

A flu expert at China's National Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Shu Yuelong, said new infections were likely because the H5N1 virus is more active in lower temperatures. "The situation urges us to further strengthen prevention and supervision," Shu was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua News Agency late Monday. The Agriculture Ministry said it is requiring tighter monitoring of disease outbreaks at all levels and proper vaccination of all poultry. It would also increase checks across the country and at borders. "With the Lunar New Year approaching, the volume of trade of live poultry is growing, and the risk of the emergence and spread of an epidemic is increasing," the ministry said.