World News Update, what you need to know

Iraqi troops, Kurdish fighters and Shi'ite militiamen backed by US air strikes have pushed back jihadist-led militants, buoyed by breaking the siege of a town.

ELSEWHERE:

WASHINGTON - Israel is facing increasing international pressure after saying it plans to seize 400 hectares of Palestinian land in the Bethlehem area in the south of the occupied West Bank.

KIEV - Ukrainian forces have ceded a strategic eastern airport to pro-Russian insurgents as the government in Kiev accused Moscow of launching a "great war" that could claim tens of thousands of lives.

LONDON - British Prime Minister David Cameron has announced tougher measures against Britons planning to fight in Iraq and Syria, and battle-hardened jihadists who could return to launch attacks on home soil.

BELFAST - Children in institutions in Northern Ireland were exported to Australia like "baby convicts", a witness has told a public inquiry into historical abuse.

MADRID - A Spanish judge has extended the detention of a British couple arrested for taking their seriously ill five-year-old son out of a hospital in England without medical consent, amid growing sympathy for their situation at home.

JAKARTA - A tiger that was rescued from Indonesia's "zoo of death" and inspired global concern for the troubled park has died.

WELLINGTON - Scientists from New Zealand's Landcare Research department have identified a new species of parrot, from Chatham Islands fossil bones, but it has been extinct for several hundred years.