Kiev, Ukraine (CNN) -- Protests. Talks. Violence. Protests. Talks. Violence.

By early Friday morning, the lone positive point was that -- for the time being -- Ukraine's cycle of political and physical infighting was not then at its bloodiest point, as it had been hours earlier.

Opposition medics said that 100 protesters died Thursday in clashes with police, when gunfire was unleashed.

The government places the toll much lower. The health ministry puts the total death toll since Tuesday at 77. Twenty-six of them had been previously reported for Tuesday alone.

Another 577 people have been injured; 369 of those were hospitalized, the ministry said.

The Foreign ministers of Germany, France and Poland met with Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and with the opposition overnight.

After dawn, Poland's top diplomat, Radoslaw Sikorski tweeted: "After negotiations through the night, talks ended at 7:20."

Prodded by the foreign diplomats, the key players were talking about not just a bandage for the violence but also a more long-term political solution and maybe the beginnings of healing.

Yet the facts of the last three months and, particularly, the last week show that it's way too early to celebrate or savor any peace. There have been two truces since Sunday. Each of them collapsed suddenly into carnage centered in Kiev's Maidan, or Independence Square.

The latest bloodshed was also the worst since the unrest began.

CNN crews at the scene reported that as security forces were moving away from the area after the latest truce, a group of protesters pursued them throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails.

Demonstrators did this all under a sky blackened by smoke from their burning barricades, with at least one of them firing toward police lines with a shotgun. Security forces appeared to fight back with automatic weapons and at least one sniper rifle.

In video shot by Radio Free Europe, men wearing what appear to be government uniforms fired at unseen targets with automatic rifles and a sniper rifle with a telescopic sight. CNN could not immediately confirm their target.

Another video shot by CNN shows a medic trying to help a man on the ground being felled by gunfire.

"I'm cleaning blood from the floor and I'm crying because this is really hard for me," said a man named Anton, who was volunteering at a protest medical clinic set up in a hotel.

Renewed violence

Interior Minister Vitali Zakharchenko said the violence had been "provoked exclusively by the opposition leaders," echoing an earlier statement from President Viktor Yanukovych's office accusing protesters of breaking the truce.

"The opposition used the negotiation period to buy time, to mobilize and get weapons to protesters," the statement from the President's office said.

However, a doctor volunteering to treat protesters, Olga Bogomolets, accused government forces of shooting to kill, saying she had treated 13 people she believed had been targeted by "professional snipers."

"They were shot directly to their hearts, their brain and to their neck," she said. "They didn't give any chance to doctors, for us, to save lives."

CNN could not independently confirm Bogomolets' claim of sniper fire.

At the hotel that had been converted into a triage center, bodies covered in bloodied sheets lay on the floor. Orthodox priests prayed over them.

The Interior Ministry admitted Thursday that its forces used firearms, explaining that it only did so to protect unarmed police who were in danger.

Ukraine's parliament later passed aresolution that security forces should stop using guns (something that's already illegal for protesters), back off from their positions around Maidan and denounce the "anti-terror" operation that had been announced earlier.

But whether this Thursday night resolution -- which doesn't need the president's signature -- has an impact remained to be seen.

In a statement that appeared to increase pressure on protesters, the Interior Ministry said it reserved the right to use force to free about 70 police officers it said had been taken hostage Thursday by protesters.

However, a number of people purporting to be police officers appeared on Ukrainian television saying they had joined protesters of their own free will. It wasn't clear whether those claiming to be police officers were among those allegedly taken hostage.

There was no sign of any captives when CNN crew went Thursday night to where they were thought to be held. A human rights group earlier claimed that any police who'd been held against their will had been released.

In one way, at least, Kiev got back to a semblance of normality Thursday. In addition to announcing his resignation from Ukraine's ruling party, the city's mayor Volodymyr Makeenko reopened the city's mass transit system -- which government officials had shut down to prevent protesters from reaching Independence Square.

But the unrest wasn't just in Kiev. Anti-government protesters have also hit the streets in Lviv -- about 540 kilometers west of Kiev, near the Polish border -- among other locales. Such sentiment is particularly prevalent in western Ukraine, which is more likely to side with Europe and against Yanukovych; Ukraine's east, meanwhile, has tended to support him and closer ties to Russia.

"The people gathering here represent every demographic of the city," said Jason Francisco, an Emory University professor who was one of many to submit CNN iReports from Lviv. "... It is fair to say that the city is virtually entirely behind the opposition. And this accounts for perhaps the most conspicuous thing about the situation here: The security presence is virtually nonexistent."

Roots of the crisis

The violence inflames a crisis that started in November, when Yanukovych reversed a decision to sign a trade deal with the European Union and instead turned toward Russia. Ukraine's population has long been divided between historic loyalties to Europe and its eastern neighbor.

The political strife has since ballooned well beyond that one issue, however, including the opposition's pressing constitutional reforms and to shift powers away from the president and to parliament.

And the bloodshed this get week has gotten the world's attention.

British Prime Minister David Cameron, for instance, talked by phone Thursday with his Polish counterpart as well as Russian President Vladimir Putin. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and U.S. President Barack Obama also discussed the Ukraine.

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden talked late Thursday with Yanukovych, who has also been in touch with Putin and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. In comments Thursday, the U.N. leader called for "genuine dialogue" and said he was "appalled by the use of firearms by both the police and protesters" -- even as he stressed it is crucial, especially, that authorities exercise restraint.

Russia, for one, has said it will send a mediator there at Yanukovych's request to negotiate with the opposition.

But the Russian ambassador to the U.N., Vitaly Churkin, said his government doesn't believe the opposition wants a dialogue. He accused protest leaders of invading government facilities as a buildup to a takeover of parliament.

"We think that this attempt to execute a violent coup should stop," he said.

Contrast that opinion to those expressed by Western officials, who have generally put more of the blame, and the responsibility, on the Ukrainian government.

U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt told CNN on Thursday that "extremes on both sides are gathering strength" because of the instability. 

Even then, Pyatt said, "It's very clear that, for the United States, the preponderance of the responsibility rests with the President Yanukovych."

"Our position is (that) President Yanukovych needs to lead his country into a new future, and he needs to do so through the vehicle of a new government, change to the constitution and the political order."

The instability extends, too, to Ukraine's military, after its leader was replaced Wednesday by Yanukovych.

There have been no indications Ukrainian troops have been involved in the violence, having rather moved to protect their own facilities and weaponry, 

U.S. military spokesman John Kirby said. At the same time, the Ukrainian military's new leadership has been "unresponsive" to U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel's attempts to communicate with them, according to Kirby.

Diplomatic efforts under way

After meeting in urgent session in Brussels, European Union officials agreed to freeze the assets of Ukrainians deemed responsible for the violence, and to prevent them from traveling into the European Union, the organization said in a statement.

"There is widespread horror in the European Union as well as in the United Kingdom at the scale of the loss of innocent life and the events of the last 48 hours," British Foreign Minister William Hague said.

The move comes a day after the United States announced it wouldn't give visas to 20 people, including government officials, tied to the unrest. Washington is also preparing an order to freeze assets of Ukrainians who are believed to be involved in the crackdown, a senior administration official said Thursday.

It's likely President Barack Obama will sign the order later in the day, but his administration is closely watching diplomatic efforts on the ground to make sure such a move won't be counterproductive, the administration official said.

Late Thursday, Secretary of State John Kerry called for the violence to stop and placed the bulk of the blame on one side.

"We unequivocally condemn the use of force against civilians by security forces, and urge that those forces be withdrawn immediately," he said in a statement.

He said Washington had already started implementing sanctions over the violence and directed an admonition at Yanukovych.

"There is no time for brinksmanship or gamesmanship," Kerry said. "President Yanukovich must undertake serious negotiations with opposition leaders immediately...."

The State Department also issued a travel warning to U.S. citizens, advising them to defer travel to the Ukraine due to the violence.

The foreign ministers of Germany, France and Poland met Thursday in Kiev with opposition leaders and Yanukovych. They had planned to attend the 

Brussels meeting, but talks went longer than expected, a German foreign ministry spokeswoman told CNN.

Late Thursday, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said via Twitter that the hourslong talks involving all sides had led to some "progress ... but important differences remain."

This comment came as Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said there is a proposal before Yanukovych for elections this year, the formation of a new government within 10 days of that election and revisions to the constitution by this summer, according to a statement from Tusk's office.

Pyatt, the U.S. ambassador, also said it was his understanding that Yanukovych had opened up to the idea of early elections.

Russia's foreign ministry appeared to criticize Western diplomatic efforts, according to a report by Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.

"The ongoing attempts to obtrusively intervene from outside, threat with sanctions or trying to influence the situation in any other ways are inappropriate and can't lead to anything good but can only aggravate the confrontation," the report quoted spokesman Aleksandr Lukashevich.

Analysts warned there was little that outside pressure could do, especially if the Ukrainian military gets involved on the side of the government cracking down on protesters.

"My own hunch," said Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haass, "is this is going to continue to escalate."

China court jails general's son Li Tianyi for rape

 A court in China has convicted the son of a high-profile army general and 

sentenced him to 10 years in jail for rape, state media say.

The court said Li Tianyi, 17, and four others raped the woman at a Beijing hotel in February after having drinks.

He had denied any sexual relations with the woman, whom he alleged was working as a prostitute, previous reports say.

Li Tianyi is the son of army Gen Li Shuangjiang, known for his renditions of patriotic songs on television.

Li Tianyi's mother Meng Ge is also a well-known singer in China's People's Liberation Army.

The case was heard at the Haidian Court in north-west Beijing. The other defendants also received jail terms ranging from three to 12 years.

This was not the first time that Li Tianyi, also known as Li Guanfeng, was involved in an incident that sparked public outcry. In 2011, he was sentenced to detention for a year over a road rage incident.

He was behind the wheel of a BMW car with no licence plates in Beijing when he confronted a middle-aged couple in another vehicle blocking his way.

He assaulted the couple and shouted at shocked bystanders, telling them not to "dare to call the police".

His father apologised to the couple over the incident.

The case of Li Tianyi inflamed public anger at the children of the political elite, who are often seen as spoilt and above the law, correspondents say.

Strong earthquake in Pakistan's Balochistan province kills more than 200 people

Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) -- An earthquake in Pakistan, powerful enough to prompt the appearance of a small island off the coast, has killed more than 200 people, Pakistani officials said.

The 7.7-magnitude quake struck in a remote area of southwestern Pakistan on Tuesday, but it had severe consequences.

At least 238 people were killed in Balochistan province, Jan Muhammad Buledi, a spokesman for the provincial government, said Wednesday.

In addition to the fatalities, around 400 people have been injured, he said. And more people are still feared to be trapped in rubble.

Rescue efforts are under way in the heavily hit districts of Awaran and Kech in Balochistan. But severely damaged communications networks are hindering the operation, Buledi said.

Thousands of survivors from the earthquake are facing difficulties in the two districts, he added, saying that authorities have received offers of support from Iran and Turkey.

The quake was strong enough to cause a mass 20 to 30 feet high to emerge from the Arabian Sea like a small mountain island off the coast of Gwadar, local police official Mozzam Jah said. A large number of people gathered to view the newly formed island, he said.

Large quakes can cause significant deformation to the earth's crust, particularly visible along coastlines.

The island is about 100 feet in diameter and about one mile off the coast, GEO TV reported.

Zahid Rafi, principal seismologist for the National Seismic Monitoring Center, confirmed the island had formed. He said it was "not surprising," considering the magnitude of the earthquake.

But John Bellini, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey, said that generally it would be unlikely for such a large island to emerge from a quake like Tuesday's.

Many things, such as the tide, could come into play regarding the rise of the island, he said.

More than 1,000 troops will be sent to the area to provide aid, including rescue teams and medical teams, Maj. Gen. Asim Bajwa said.

With a depth of about nine miles (about 15 kilometers), the quake struck 43 miles (69 kilometers) northeast of Awaran and 71 miles (114 kilometers) northwest of Bela, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

Some mud-walled homes fell in Awaran, said Latif Kakar, director of the Provincial Disaster Management Authority in Balochistan.

The tremors lasted two minutes. People flocked out onto the streets of Quetta, the provincial capital.

Aftershocks could be felt in Karachi, hundreds of miles to the southeast.

Gunmen still inside besieged Kenyan mall, sources say

Nairobi, Kenya (CNN) --It's now day four, and the nightmare still isn't over.

No one knows how many hostages might still be trapped inside Nairobi's Westgate mall, the posh shopping center that has been littered with bullets and blood since Saturday. At least 62 people have already been killed, and that number could rise.

An explosion and gunfire were heard coming from mall on Tuesday, but was not immediately clear if the blast was a controlled explosion or part of an exchange.

Several gunmen -- including snipers -- are still inside the mall, two senior officials said. And the Kenyan Red Cross said more than 60 people are unaccounted for.

But Kenya's Interior Ministry reassured a nervous public late Monday that there was little chance of escape for any surviving Al-Shabaab gunmen. It tweeted that authorities had the upper hand at the scene.

"Taken control of all the floors. We're not here to feed the attackers with pastries but to finish and punish them," Kenyan police Inspector General David Kimaiyo said on Twitter.

While the mall remains an active crime scene, authorities have also zeroed in on an airport and border crossings. More than 10 suspects were arrested at an airport for questioning in relation to the attacks, the Interior Ministry tweeted Tuesday.

"Security at all entry and exits across the country has being heightened," the ministry said.

Gunfire echoed from the mall sporadically during the Monday, sending journalists and aid workers scrambling for cover. Thick heavy smoke -- from a fire set by terrorists, according to Kenyan authorities -- billowed into the air much of the afternoon.

At least three terrorists have been killed since Saturday, the Interior Ministry said Monday. And 11 Kenyan soldiers are among the roughly 175 people wounded.

But more than 200 civilians have been rescued, the military said.

Americans involved?

Kenyan Foreign Minister Amina Mohamed told "PBS NewsHour" that some of the attackers had come from the United States. She said they were originally from Minnesota and Missouri, PBS reported Monday.

"As you know, both the victims and the perpetrators came from Kenya, the United Kingdom and the United States," Mohamed said. "From the information that we have, two or three Americans, and I think so far I've heard of one Brit" as being among the attackers.

"The Americans, from the information we have, are young men, about between maybe 18 and 19, of Somalia origin or Arab origin," she told PBS. She offered no other specifics.

Gen. Julius Karangi, chief of Kenya Defense Forces, also said the attackers came from different countries.

"We have an idea who these people are, and they are clearly a multinational collection from all over the world," he told reporters in Nairobi. "This is not clearly a local event. We are fighting global terrorism here."

U.S. officials don't have any confirmation of Americans having been involved in the attack, Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said.

Intelligence analysts are poring over electronic intercepts in an effort to verify the terror group's claims, two law enforcement sources told CNN.

The siege

The terrorist attack began midday Saturday in Nairobi time, with an estimated 10 to 15 gunmen taking over the mall.

Witnesses said the gunmen went from store to store, shooting people, and then took hostages.

Survivor Bendita Malakia, a North Carolina woman who moved to Nairobi in July, told CNN affiliate WAVY that she took refuge behind the closed metal gates of a store with dozens of others.

The Kenyan spirit cannot be broken, says eyewitness resident

"While we were back there, you could hear them methodically going from store to store, talking to people and asking questions," she said. "They were shooting, screaming. Then it would stop for a while and they would go to another store."

Al-Shabaab has claimed that the attackers targeted non-Muslims and vowed they would not negotiate for the hostages' lives. CNN security analyst Peter Bergen said the terrorists apparently took hostages only to prolong the siege and win more media attention.

The dead

Officials said most of the 62 dead are Kenyans. Six British citizens, two French nationals, two Indians and two Canadians, including a diplomat, also died, their governments said.

Those killed include:

-- Dutch national Elif Yavuz, a senior vaccines researcher for the Clinton Health Access Initiative based in Tanzania. Yavuz was pregnant and expecting her first child in October, according to Julio Frenk, dean of faculty at the Harvard School of Public Health. "Elif was brilliant, dedicated, and deeply admired by her colleagues, who will miss her terribly," the Clinton family said in a statement.

-- Yavuz's husband, Australian-British architect Ross Langdon. Langdon moved to Nairobi to build sustainable architecture for Africa, volunteering to build hospitals and clinic free of charge.

-- Kofi Awoonor, a renowned African poet, author and Ghanian statesman. Awoonor earned his Ph.D. from New York's Stony Brook University and was a professor of literature there in the 1970s.

-- A nephew of Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, along with the nephew's fiancee.

-- A Peruvian doctor, Juan Jesus Ortiz, who had previously worked for the United Nations Fund for Children and lived in Kenya doing consulting work.

-- Sridhar Natarajan, an Indian national and employee of a local pharmaceutical firm, and 8-year-old Paramshu Jain, the son of a bank branch manager, CNN sister network CNN-IBN reported, citing officials in India.

The terrorists

The Somalia-based Al-Shabaab terror group said on Twitter that it had sent the gunmen to the mall in retaliation for Kenya's role in an African Union military effort against the group -- which is al Qaeda's proxy in Somalia.

Last year, the Kenyan military was part of a peacekeeping force that defeated Al-Shabaab forces to liberate the key Somali port of Kismayo.

The mall attack was the deadliest terror attack in Kenya since al Qaeda blew up the U.S. Embassy there in 1998, killing 213 people.

On Monday, Kenya's foreign minister told CNN it's clear that Al-Shabaab was not acting alone.

"This bares the hallmarks of al Qaeda," Mohamed said. "This is not just Al-Shabaab. In fact, the leaders are not Somali, as you may have heard. This was al Qaeda. It was a very well-coordinated effort."

But the attackers' national origins are irrelevant, she said.

"It doesn't matter where they come from. There are some Americans. There are some Brits. There are some others. It has nothing to do with the nationality of people.

They are all evil and we must deal with them as such."

International adoption: I was stolen from my family

Editor's note: TarikuwaLemma, 19, was "adopted" from Ethiopia seven years ago by a U.S.family along with her two younger sisters after being deceived that they were headed to America on a study trip. She now lives in Maine and has just entered college with the goal of becoming a human rights advocate.

(CNN) -- When I was 13, I was sold.

Friends of my father worked for a corrupt adoption agency operating in my homeland of Ethiopia -- friends my father trusted. In 2006 they coerced him into believing he was sending my younger sisters and me to America for an educational program during which we would come home every summer and on school breaks.

Little did my father know that his "friends" were being paid to recruit children for an American adoption agency. In fact, he didn't even know what "adoption" meant. Instead of an educational program, we found ourselves caught up in an international adoption scandal.

We weren't the only ones lied to. The family who adopted us, who lived in the southwestern United States, were told that they were taking into their family three AIDS orphans, the oldest of whom was nine years old. The truth was that our mother had died from complications during childbirth, and our father was alive and well. Instead of nine, I was 13 years old; my sisters were 11 and six.

Tarikuwa Lemma

Our new "parents" changed our names and told us we could no longer speak to each other in our own languages; we were punished if we disobeyed. Eventually, we forgot how to speak our native languages, Amarigna and Wolaytta.

I was so young and naïve. I actually believed that if I ran away, I could walk back to Ethiopia.


Tarikuwa Lemma

I was so young and naïve. I actually believed that if I ran away, I could walk back to Ethiopia. I wanted to escape from the people I felt had kidnapped us from our homeland, our culture, and our family. I was angry, hurt and grieving.

After eight months, I was "re-homed," without my sisters, to live with my adoptive mother's parents in the Midwest. I have only seen my sisters a handful of times since.

Living in the Midwest was difficult. I had been taken from my family in Ethiopia, and then separated from my sisters. But instead of getting caught up in my depression, I threw myself into finding ways to let the world know the hard truths about corruption in international adoption.

My second adoption placement did not work out either, and at 18, while still in high school, I found myself staying on a friend's floor. A family in Maine, who I met through adoption reform work, offered to take me in. So I moved my few possessions and myself across the country again.

Supporters of international adoption frequently mention the enormous numbers of orphans in the world -- UNICEF estimates there are 151 million orphans. What most people don't realize is that when the United Nations determines the figures for orphans, they include children who have lost just one parent (the U.N. estimates only 18 million have lost both parents).

I assure you that I did not consider myself an orphan. My sisters and I had a father, a brother and older sisters, plus a large extended family that cared for us and loved us. We were middle class by Ethiopian standards, not poor. We, and many other adoptees like us, should never have been placed for adoption.

Had my father's friends not made money from the placement of my sisters and me for adoption, none of this ever would have happened.


Tarikuwa Lemma

All the lies and deception comes down to money. I have discovered since my adoption, the price paid by adoptive parents is exorbitant and feeds the corruption. Had my father's friends not made money from the placement of my sisters and me for adoption, none of this ever would have happened. They were basically paid to create orphans. Depending upon the country, an adoption can cost upwards of $50,000. Imagine what that kind of money could do to help struggling families in developing nations keep their children!

Adding the horror of being sold for profit, I now know that parents pay far more to adopt a white child than an African-American child. A 2010 study by Caltech, the London School of Economics, and New York University showed that parents are willing to pay an average of $38,000 more for a non-African American baby. Let me call that what it is: Racism.

In spite of everything I have suffered, I am determined to make something good out of my life. I just started college and I am writing a book about my experiences. I am fighting to change the way adoption agencies do business. I am fighting to make sure that families and adoptive families know the truth about the possibilities of fraud and human trafficking in adoption.

I am fighting to make sure that no other child will have to endure what I have been through. And I am saving up money so that I can reunite with my family in

Ethiopia, whom I haven't seen for seven years.

And I went to court and got my real name back.