Los Angeles (AFP) - Eighty fur seals have been found stranded or dead on California's coast so far this year, eight times more than normal, scientists said.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said 42 of the seals were found dead and the remainder were found alive but half-starving.

The NOAA said on Tuesday it was declaring an Unusual Mortality Event in light of the strandings and deaths, a designation that allows for more federal funds to be allocated for the threatened species.

Teneya Norris, of the Marine Mammal Center which is caring for some of the animals, attributed the strandings to changes in the availability of food due to ocean-warming trends.

"These stranded animals are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of animals affected by the unusually warm water temperatures we've been seeing off the coast," Norris said.

The fur seals were nearly brought to extinction in the late 1800s because of hunting and today about 10,000 remain.

They breed almost exclusively on Guadalupe Island, off the Mexican coast, and little is known about the species.

In 2013, the NOAA also sounded the alarm on California's sea lions after hundreds became stranded along the coast.

Norris said while the number of fur seals stranded is significantly lower than the 1,300 sea lions rescued this year, the influx was distressing.

"While these numbers might not sound like a lot, for a threatened species it's actually a big warning sign that we need to pay attention to what's happening in our oceans," she said.

Paris (AFP) - France has launched an inquiry into Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime for alleged crimes against humanity, saying it was forced to act in the face of "systematic cruelty".

The announcement Wednesday came after world powers sparred at the United Nations over the embattled Syrian leader's fate.

A judicial source told AFP that prosecutors in Paris, with the backing of the foreign ministry, had opened a preliminary inquiry on September 15 into alleged crimes committed by the Syrian government between 2011 and 2013.

The French investigation is largely based on evidence from a former Syrian army photographer known by the codename "Caesar" who fled the country in 2013, taking with him some 55,000 graphic photographs. He now lives in France under tight security.

Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said France had a "responsibility" to take action.

"Faced with these crimes that offend the human conscience, this bureaucracy of horror, faced with this denial of the values of humanity, it is our responsibility to act against the impunity of the killers," Fabius said in a statement.

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Syrian Army defector "Caesar," (in a blue hooded jacket) who has smuggled out of Syria more than 50, …

He said the "thousands of unbearable photos, authenticated by many experts, which show corpses tortured and starved to death in the prisons of the regime, demonstrate the systematic cruelty of the Assad regime".

The inquiry will be led by France's war crimes body.

The judicial source said the term "crimes against humanity" was used to include kidnappings and torture by the regime in the probe.

The Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) welcomed the announcement, saying the investigation was "a world first".

While Assad is unlikely to ever stand trial in a French court, the inquiry could add to political pressure on the Syrian leader in the midst of a diplomatic row between the West and Russia and Iran over his fate.

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A member of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent carries a girl as they rush away from a site hit by what ac …

The Syrian conflict has taken centre stage at the UN General Assembly in New York, where US President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin clashed over how to bring an end to Syria's civil war.

- 'Assad's secret killings' -

On Tuesday, Obama said removing Assad was a vital step to defeating Islamic State jihadists who have taken advantage of the chaos in Syria to bring large parts of the country and neighbouring Iraq under its rule.

French President Francois Hollande echoed Obama's call in his UN speech, but Putin -- a long-time Assad ally -- dismissed their pleas, saying they "should not be involved in choosing the leadership of another country".

Syria's four-year war has killed more than 240,000 people and Western diplomats have accused Assad's regime of killing more of their own people than the Islamic State group by dropping barrel bombs -- charges the government denies.

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French Foreign Affairs Minister Laurent Fabius (AFP Photo/Miguel Medina)

The brutal conflict has also displaced millions of people, a key driver behind Europe's refugee crisis.

The photographs that Caesar brought out of Syria show people with their eyes gouged out, emaciated bodies, people with wounds on the back or stomach, and also a picture of hundreds of corpses lying in a shed surrounded by plastic bags used for burials.

Entitled "Assad's secret killings," the dossier is being used by international bodies including the UN as part of an investigation into the regime's role in "mass torture".

The Syrian government has branded the report "political".

Ceasar said in an interview with French magazine L'Obs released Wednesday that he wanted to "show the real face of Bashar al-Assad -- that of a dictator who has caused a lot of blood to flow".

Fabius said the opening of the French probe should not prevent the United Nations and particularly its International Commission of Inquiry on Syria to press on with their own investigations.

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MOSCOW (AP) — Russian jets carried out a second day of strikes in Syria Thursday, and some activists claimed that the targets included rebels backed by the United States as concerns grew about a conflict that has now drawn in warplanes from the world's two most powerful militaries.

Russian President Vladimir Putin denied reports that civilians were killed in any Russian airstrikes.

"We are ready for such information attacks," he said in a live broadcast from the Kremlin. "The first reports of civilian casualties came even before our jets took off."

Russian Defense Ministry Igor Konashenkov said Russian aircraft damaged or destroyed 12 targets in Syria belonging to the Islamic State group including a command center and two ammunition depots. Officials acknowledged, however, that other unidentified groups were being targeted as well.

Konashenkov said Russian Su-25M and Su-25 jets flew 20 sorties between Wednesday and Thursday morning, and he insisted that civilian areas were not targeted.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said airstrikes in the central province of Hama on Thursday hit locations of the U.S.-backed rebel group, Tajamu Alezzah, as well as the province of Idlib, which is controlled by a coalition of rebel groups that include al-Qaida's affiliate in Syria, Jabhat al-Nusra.

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This image taken in Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2015 posted on the Twitter account of Syria Civil Defence, …

The British group said Tajamu Alezzah was also targeted on Wednesday.

Russia's air campaign in support of Syrian government forces began Wednesday in what Putin called a pre-emptive strike against militants. Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said Russia was going after IS militants as well as a "list" of other groups.

"These organizations are well known and the targets are chosen in coordination with the armed forces of Syria," he said Thursday, without specifying.

On Wednesday, however, Sergei Ivanov, Putin's chief of staff, said "the operation's target is solely air support for the Syrian government forces in their fight against the ISIS."

Putin has said Russia would be fighting "gangs of international terrorists." The Syrian government considers all rebel groups terrorists.

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This image taken in Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2015 posted on the Twitter account of Syria Civil Defence, …

In Paris, Russian Ambassador Alexander Orlov insisted that Russian warplanes in Syria were hitting at the same extremists targeted by the U.S. and denied American claims that its military failed to coordinate the airstrikes.

Orlov said the targets were installations for IS and Jabhat al-Nusra, "two terrorist organizations recognized as such."

The U.S. and Russia agree on the need to fight IS but not about what to do with President Bashar Assad. The Syrian civil war, which grew out of an uprising against Assad, has killed more than 250,000 people since March 2011 and sent millions of refugees fleeing to other countries in the Middle East and Europe.

With American and allied airstrikes daily, and now Russian warplanes in the Syrian airspace, the war is taking on a dangerous new dimension.

Orlov said Russian officials warned the Americans "via confidential channels" of where they planned to strike. He also noted a coordination center was being set up in Baghdad that would include Syrians, Iraqis, Iranians and Russians — and any other country that wants to participate.

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UPDATES; Map locates Homs in Syria.; 1c x 3 inches; 46.5 mm x 76 mm;

Khaled Khoja, head of the Syrian National Council opposition group, said at the U.N. that Russian airstrikes in four areas, including Talbiseh, killed 36 civilians, with five children among the dead. The claim could not be independently verified.

Iran's Foreign Ministry said it fully supports Russian airstrikes against "terrorist groups" in Syria.

The ministry's spokeswoman, Marzieh Afkham, said the "Islamic Republic of Iran considers military action by Russia against armed terrorist groups to be a step toward fighting terrorism and toward resolving the current crisis" in Syria.

Her statement was carried by the official IRNA news agency.

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Hinnant reported from Paris. Sarah El Deeb contributed from Beirut.

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