WORLD BRIEFS

SYRIA: Rebels invade army base

Rebels captured part of a sprawling army base outside Aleppo, tightening the opposition's grip on areas close to the Turkish border, activists said Monday. The rebels also killed 13 soldiers in an ambush near a town along a road linking Aleppo, the nation's largest city and business hub, with Damascus, and captured 20 soldiers and policemen at a post on the highway linking the central town of Salamiyeh with the northern city of Raqqa, activists said.

EGYPT: Military powers take effect

A decree issued by President Mohamed Morsi giving the military expanded authority to arrest civilians and protect "vital facilities of the state" took effect Monday as divisions between Morsi's Islamist supporters and his opponents could test how the armed forces might use their broadened powers. The Islamists and a coalition of liberal, secular and other opponents remain split over a referendum scheduled Saturday on a draft constitution. Both sides have called for demonstrations Tuesday.

BRITAIN: Man falls out of the sky

The suburban stillness of west London's Mortlake neighborhood was broken early on a Sunday morning in September when a man from Africa fell from the sky and landed with a loud thud onto the sidewalk. Police thought at first the man was a murder victim. But it was soon determined that he had been a stowaway who fell from a passenger plane when it lowered its landing gear. His identity remains a mystery. He carried no identification, but police say he may have been from Angola.

INDONESIA: Big quake strikes offshore

A 7.1-magnitude earthquake struck offshore Tuesday morning, the epicenter 147 miles northwest of Saumlaki, the U.S. Geological Survey said. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said that, at 96 miles down it was too deep to trigger a tsunami in the Indian Ocean.