Palestinians are seeking

The United States promised $212 million in immediate assistance to the devastated Gaza Strip on Sunday yet urged Palestinians and Israelis to return to peace negotiations to break a cycle of violence that has yielded three wars in six years. People in Gaza "need our help desperately — not tomorrow, not next week, but they need it now," U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said at an international donor conference. He said more than 20,000 homes need to be rebuilt and 100,000 people remain displaced with winter fast approaching. The Palestinians are seeking $4 billion in aid from donors at a conference in Cairo to rebuild Gaza after this summer's 50-day war between Hamas and Israel. Kerry said the new U.S. money, which takes American aid to the Palestinians to more than $400 million this year, would go to security, economic development, food and medicine, shelter and water and sanitation projects. The Indian Ocean is a cyclone hot spot. Of the 35 deadliest storms in recorded history, 27 have come through the Bay of Bengal — and have landed in either India or Bangladesh. In 1999, a cyclone devastated Orissa's coastline and killed at least 10,000 people. While India has a disastrous record of response to natural calamities, it managed last October to safely evacuate nearly a million people out of the path of Cyclone Phailin, the strongest tropical storm to hit India in more than a decade. Phailin destroyed hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of crops after it made landfall in Orissa, but claimed only about 25 lives. Japan's Meteorological Agency said Typhoon Vongfong could reach the Tokyo area by Tuesday. Strong winds from the storm knocked out power lines and toppled traffic signals and signposts on Sunday, and bullet train service was halted for several hours on Kyushu island. Authorities issued landslide warnings. West Japan Railway Co., which operates trains in central Japan in the area surrounding the ancient capital of Kyoto, said that some train services would be shut down starting Monday afternoon because of the typhoon, and that the disruptions could continue through Tuesday. The U.S. military on Okinawa, where last week's typhoon killed three U.S. airmen who were washed out at sea, instructed personnel and their families to remain indoors Sunday until strong winds and rain subsided. Six months after the collapse of his Israeli-Palestinian mediation effort, the latest U.S. stab at forging a Mideast peace accord, Kerry renewed his call for a return to negotiations. Kerry praised Egypt for organizing the conference, Israel for pledging to facilitate greater Palestinian economic opportunities and the U.N. for creating a monitoring system so that aid to Gaza isn't plundered by the militant group Hamas or used to threaten the Jewish state's security. But Kerry said a lasting solution needs to be found and that the world doesn't want to see a return every two years or so to a war in Gaza, a cease-fire and another expensive reconstruction effort