The U.N. refugee agency says that more than 100,000 people have been displaced as Iraqi forces clear territory ahead of the critical battle for the Islamic State-held city of Mosul.

Iraqi leaders have repeatedly promised that Mosul — in IS hands for more than two years — will be retaken from the militant group this year, though U.S. officials have said that timeline is unrealistic.

Saudi Arabia said Friday that three women and their seven children, including a one-year-old, had been stopped in Lebanon from entering Syria to join the Islamic State group.

The women, who are sisters, were stopped in Beirut after one of their husbands informed the Saudi authorities that his wife was heading to Syria, a Saudi interior ministry statement said.

The military campaigns in Iraq and Syria have taken 45,000 enemy combatants off the battlefield and reduced the total number of Islamic State fighters to as few as 15,000, the top U.S. commander for the fight against IS said Wednesday.

Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland said that both the quality and number of IS fighters is declining, and he warned that it is difficult to determine accurate numbers. Earlier estimates put the number of Islamic State fighters between 19,000 and 25,000, but U.S. officials say the range is now roughly 15,000 to 20,000.

South Sudan on Wednesday rejected a U.S. proposal for the U.N. Security Council to send 4,000 additional troops to the East African country to restore calm, saying it "seriously undermines" its sovereignty and threatens a return to colonialism.

Government spokesman Michael Makuei said the proposal gives the U.N. the ability to govern. The proposal also calls for a vote on an arms embargo on South Sudan if U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon reports within a month that authorities have blocked the regional force.

Workers on Eurostar trains that operate across the English Channel are planning seven days of strikes over two weekends in August — a peak summer tourist time.

The Rail, Maritime and Transport union says its members will stop work for four days starting Friday, Aug. 12. A second stoppage is planned for three days starting Aug. 27, which is the start of a bank holiday long weekend for the British.

Greek authorities say the country's coast guard has picked up 67 migrants found hiding in a sailboat sailing across the Aegean Sea.

The 60 men, five women and two children were picked up 8 nautical miles northeast of the Cycladic island of Amorgos.

Inside a huge walk-in freezer in suburban Denver, a college student in a thick parka shoots a jolt of electricity through a yard-long column of ice extracted from Antarctica.

Just outside the freezer, in a much warmer room, a computer wired to the ice registers a sudden spike in a jagged red line crawling across the screen.

The United States has delivered $50 million worth of military assistance to the Lebanese army to help it battle against jihadist extremists near the border with Syria.

The Indonesian capital's airport opened a new terminal Tuesday after years of operating at far above its passenger capacity.

Domestic flights for national carrier Garuda began operating in the morning from Soekarno-Hatta airport's steel and glass $560 million Terminal 3. Its international flights will shift to the new terminal next month.

The Israeli and Lebanese Olympics teams became involved in a heated argument about access to a bus to the opening ceremony of the Rio de Janeiro Games.