Iraq US aircraft and artillery strikes pound suspected weapons warehouses in the insurgent bastion of Fallujah, while hundreds of British troops prepared to move closer to Baghdad to help crush rebel strongholds. US John Kerry literally went hunting for the support of gun-lovers and traded shots with President George W. Bush on health, as the two scouted votes that could swing their tightening presidential race. UN UN Secretary General Kofi Annan fired another shot across the bow of US President George W. Bush in backing cloning for medical research, which the United States wants to ban worldwide. Mideast Israel carried out another air strike on Gaza City overnight Thursday, as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon sought to maximise his apparent majority in a crucial upcoming vote on his plan to pull out of the territory. EU Incoming European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso stuck by his controversial pick for EU justice chief despite opposition from lawmakers threatening to veto the new EU executive next week. Sudan Sudanese rebels and government envoys restarted their stalled peace conference after the African Union confirmed it would multiply its truce-monitoring force in the region seven-fold. Guantanamo The overseer of a US military commission trying suspected Al-Qaeda prisoners ordered three panel members, but not the presiding officer, removed because of defense objections that they were unfit to serve because of a perception of bias, the Pentagon said. Nigeria Nigerian prosecutors charged three senior military officers and a Lagos businessman with plotting to shoot down President Olusegun Obasanjo's helicopter and topple his government in a violent coup. China An underground gas explosion which ripped through a mine in central China killed at least 60 workers and left 88 missing in one of the country's worst mining disasters in recent memory, officials said. Japan Japan was searching for survivors after the country's deadliest typhoon in more than a decade killed at least 61 people as it crushed houses, overturned trains and stranded passengers on flooded highways.