The Japanese government expects total damage from a devastating earthquake that struck northeast Japan this month to hit 15 trillion to 25 trillion yen ($185-308 billion), the Nikkei newspaper reported on Wednesday.

A compromise is emerging that would see NATO take a key role in the military operation in Libya guided by a political committee of foreign ministers from the West and the Arab world.

Yemen's president said on Tuesday his country would descend into civil war if he were forced to quit and Washington voiced concern about instability in the Arab state that has become an al Qaeda stronghold.

Israel's parliament passed a measure on Tuesday enabling the denial of state funding to institutions that question the country's existence as a Jewish state, in a move criticized as targeting an Arab minority.

Eight Gazans were killed on Tuesday, among them two minors and four militants, as tensions soared on the border with Israel after days of rocket fire and retaliatory air strikes.

A US warplane has crash-landed in Libya, says a US military spokesman.

The international community was deeply divided over Libya on Monday, just days after the United Nations passed a no-fly resolution that allowed Western air strikes to protect civilians from Muammar Gaddafi's forces.

Muammar Gaddafi's Tripoli compound was rocked by blasts for a second night, his southern strongholds targeted and a navy base bombed as international criticism mounted over the air assault on Libya.

Engineers battled to get cooling systems at a crippled Japanese nuclear plant back up Tuesday after smoke and steam escaping from stricken reactors delayed the operation.

Israel launched air strikes in the Gaza Strip on Monday, wounding at least 19 people, after militants fired mortar shells and rockets into the Jewish state, witnesses and militant groups said.