The Lebanese military will begin implementing its plan to disarm Iran-backed Hezbollah, the government said on Friday following a cabinet meeting, amid opposition from the group and its allies.

The cabinet discussed the plan on Friday despite a walkout by Shiite ministers in protest at the proposals.

In August, the Lebanese government ordered the military to draw up plans to disarm the once-dominant militant group by the end of the year, having come under pressure from the United States and Israeli strikes.

KABUL (Reuters) -Two powerful aftershocks shook eastern Afghanistan in a span of 12 hours, the German Research Center for Geosciences (GFZ) said, triggering fears of more deaths and destruction on Friday in a region where about 2,200people died in quakes in four days.

They follow two earthquakes that have already ravaged the South Asian nation, crushed by war, poverty and shrinking aid. The Taliban administration estimated 2,205 deaths and 3,640 injuries by Thursday.

By Panarat Thepgumpanat and Martin Petty

BANGKOK (Reuters) -Thailand's parliament was set to choose a new prime minister on Friday, after days of political chaos, in a vote that could be overshadowed by the dramatic departure from the country of its most powerful politician Thaksin Shinawatra.

Polarising billionaire Thaksin, the central figure in a tumultuous two-decade battle for power in Thailand, left on his private jet for Dubai late on Thursday, with his family's ruling party Pheu Thai in disarray.

By Martin Petty

BANGKOK (Reuters) -Two rival camps in Thailand are in a dogfight for power after a court's dismissal of Paetongtarn Shinawatra as prime minister, with parliament set to vote on a new premier on Friday.

WHAT HAPPENED SINCE THE RULING?

The court's August 29 dismissal of the ruling Pheu Thai party's Paetongtarn for an ethics violation triggered a challenge from Bhumjaithai, a smaller, renegade party that had quit her alliance in June, leaving the coalition with a razor-thin majority and plummeting public support.

By Panu Wongcha-um

BANGKOK (Reuters) -When Sakda Vicheansil, a lawmaker from western Thailand, announced his resignation from the ruling Pheu Thai party in early September, his words reflected the extraordinary decline of the country's most dominant politician, Thaksin Shinawatra.

"Thai people across the country, and especially in my constituency - Kanchanaburi, Constituency 4 - are suffering," he said on Facebook.

"The government has completely failed to resolve their problems."

(Reuters) -The United States has imposed sanctions on three Palestinian human rights groups that asked the International Criminal Court to investigate Israel over allegations of genocide in Gaza, according to a notice posted to the U.S. Treasury Department's website on Thursday.

The three groups - Gaza-based Palestinian Centre for Human Rights and Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, and the Ramallah-based Al-Haq - were listed under what the Treasury Department said were International Criminal Court-related designations.

The Israeli military on Thursday said it controls 40 percent of Gaza City, the largest urban centre in the Palestinian territory which it is preparing to conquer after nearly two years of devastating war.

Israel has intensified in recent days its bombardments of the area of Gaza City, in the territory's north, ahead of the planned offensive, despite mounting international pressure to halt the campaign.

Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli strikes on Thursday killed more than 30 people in the city, out of at least 64 Palestinians killed across the Gaza Strip.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) -A senior European Union official said on Thursday that Israel's operations in Gaza constitute genocide, the first member of the bloc's commission to make that charge.

"The genocide in Gaza exposes Europe's failure to act and speak with one voice, even as protests spread across European cities and 14 U.N. Security Council members call for an immediate ceasefire," Teresa Ribera said at the opening ceremony of the academic year at the Sciences Po university in Paris.

QUITO (Reuters) -The United States has told other counties that recognition of a Palestinian state will cause more problems, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday.

"We told all these countries, we told them all, we said if you guys do this recognition stuff it's all fake, it's not even real, if you do it you're going to create problems," Rubio said from Quito, where he met with President Daniel Noboa and his Ecuadorean counterpart.

Rescuers have recovered 370 bodies from a landslide that wiped out a remote mountain village in Sudan's Darfur region, a local civilian leader said on Thursday.

The disaster struck the village of Tarasin, located high in the Jebel Marra range, on Sunday following one of the worst downpours of Sudan's rainy season, which peaks in August.

Up to 1,000 people may have been killed, according to the United Nations, but the full scale of the disaster in the isolated mountain region is unknown.