Egyptian Protesters Keep Up Pressure

Tens of thousands of protesters have demonstrated overnight outside Egypt's presidential palace, calling on President Mohamed Morsi to step down.

The peaceful night-time demonstration followed a tense day in which Mr Morsi's opponents broke through a barbed-wire security barricade outside the palace, climbing on army tanks and waving flags.

The country's powerful military has urged political forces to solve the crisis through dialogue, saying in its first statement since the protests erupted that it would prevent violence.

"The armed forces affirm that dialogue is the best and only way to reach consensus," it said on Saturday. "The opposite of that will bring us to a dark tunnel ... which we will not allow."

The protesters say a new decree gives Mr Morsi pharaoh-like powers

Some protesters overnight chanted "Leave! Leave!" to Mr Morsi, who is backed by the Muslim Brotherhood, while others daubed walls with graffiti and cartoons.

One caricature portrayed Mr Morsi with blood on his mouth, another depicted him as a pharaoh – a reference to a recent decree that expanded his powers and barred court challenges to his decisions.

After the night of protests, the streets of Cairo were calm.

A referendum on a new draft constitution opposed by liberals is set for December 15, and Mr Morsi has called for talks with the opposition to discuss how Egypt should move forward after the vote.

Amid the protests, Mr Morsi's deputy has raised the possibility that the referendum might be delayed.

But major opposition leaders have rejected Mr Morsi's call dialogue.

Mohammed El Baradei, a Nobel peace laureate and opposition figure, dismissed the offer as "arm-twisting and imposition of a fait accompli".

Soldiers guard the presidential palace after the overnight protest

The unrest is the worst since last year's revolution, which toppled ex-president Hosni Mubarak, and the subsequent vote that made Mr Morsi the country's first freely elected leader.

At least six people have been killed and almost 700 injured in clashes around the palace.

"We will stay here for as long as it takes and will continue to organise protests elsewhere until President Morsi cancels his constitutional decree and postpones the referendum," said Ahmed Essam, 28, a computer engineer who took part in the overnight protest.

The upheaval in the most populous Arab nation worries the West, in particular the United States, which has given it billions of dollars in military and other aid since Egypt made peace with Israel in 1979.

US President Barack Obama called Mr Morsi on Thursday to express his "deep concern" over the deaths and injuries.

He welcomed the offer of talks but warned they should be entered into "without preconditions", a White House spokesman said.

Meanwhile, Egypt's election committee has postponed to Wednesday the start of expatriate voting in the constitutional referendum, originally planned for Saturday.

The committee did not say whether the delay would affect the date of the referendum.

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Gaza Marks Hamas Anniversary With Huge Rally

Tens of thousands of Palestinians are gathering in Gaza City for a rally marking the 25th anniversary of the militant group Hamas.

Leader Khaled Meshaal is due to address the crowd, a day after receiving a hero's welcome in his first ever trip to Gaza, which ended decades of exile.

Thousands of Hamas supporters, some of them flashing victory signs, others waving the movement's green flags, attended the Al-Qatiba complex, west of Gaza City.

Security was tight, with streets cordoned off and masked members of the group's military wing keeping watch from rooftops in the area.

At least 200,000 Palestinians are expected to attend.

The rally is likely to be used to proclaim victory in the recent eight-day conflict with Israel, which killed some 170 Palestinians and six Israelis and ended in an Egypt-brokered ceasefire.

Security forces are out in strength for the rally

Hamas has portrayed itself as the victor because Israel agreed to the truce instead of sending in ground troops, as it initially threatened.

At the rally, Mr Meshaal is also expected to promote Hamas's growing stature in the Arab world and push the case for reconciliation with its secular political rival, Fatah.

Local leaders of Fatah, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's faction, are expected to participate.

Hamas has governed Gaza since 2007.

Mr Meshaal left the nearby West Bank as a young boy in 1967

Mr Meshaal crossed the border from Egypt on Friday, kissing the ground as he got out of the car.

A veteran Hamas strategist, Mahmoud Al-Zahar, said: "All Palestinians will eventually return to their homeland. Khaled Meshaal is returning after a victory."

Founded in 1987 shortly after the start of the first Palestinian intifada, or uprising, Hamas was inspired by Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood.

Hamas is on the UK Home Office's list of proscribed groups, while the United States classifies it as a terrorist organisation.

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Syria: Rebel Prisoners On Their Religious War

Interviewing people who, under different circumstances, might kill you, is a strange experience.

To the soundtrack of multiple rocket launchers and small arms fire, I met six men who the Syrian authorities told us were jihadist rebel fighters captured by the army.

We were in a Ministry of Interior prison near Damascus in an area now close to the front lines.

The men, four Syrian, an Iraqi, and a Turk, said they had indeed been in the jihadist movement fighting President Assad's forces, but now renounced the armed struggle even though they continued to espouse Salafist ideology. All are awaiting court appearances.

Jamil Us Turk, Ahmed al Rabido, Hamid Hassan al Attar, Bahar al Bashah, Ali Hussein and Mahmoud al Ahab said they were happy to be interviewed and had not been badly treated.

At one point I asked the guards to leave, spoke with the men alone and checked them for obvious signs of mistreatment, which were not apparent. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International both accuse the Syrian regime of routinely torturing prisoners.

As far as I could ascertain, the men were who they said they were. The Turkish man spoke Turkish, the Iraqi had an Iraqi accent, they displayed religious knowledge of the sort taught to those with a Salafist mindset.

The captured fighters are from Turkey, Iraq and Syria

Most of the rebel militias are not radical jihadists, but in the last few months there appears to have been a sharp increase in the number of foreign fighters coming to Syria.

The Syrian authorities are keen to promote the view that they are fighting an al Qaeda type force which partially explains why, after much pushing, we were allowed rare access into the jail.

Mahmoud al Ahab, who described himself as a Palestinian Syrian, told me he was in the al Nusra Front which he said was an al Qaeda group. He had sworn an oath of allegiance to al Nursa but now felt this was a mistake.

Ahmed al Rabido, a 48-year-old Syrian, said he was a religious leader, a Mufti, in the Free Syrian Army.

"I joined because I wanted to demolish the secular state... I don't believe in this anymore because the country is being ruined," he said.

Bahar al Basah, 35, another Palestinian Syrian, told me he was influenced by the writings of Abu Qatada, the radical cleric currently under house arrest in the UK.

The men only became animated when I showed a little knowledge of Salafist ideology and brought up the works of Islamists such as the Egyptian Sayyid Qutb.

Sky's Tim Marshall interviewed the men awaiting trial

This led to a question about the future of Syria's minorities such as the Christians. Ahmed, Basah, and Hamid Hassan all agreed - Christians could only live there if they either converted, or paid the 'Jizyah' - a special tax levied on non-Muslims in previous centuries in the Middle East. If not said Bahar, they could be killed.

When asked why, the answer was, to them, quite simple - because the Prophet Mohammed said so. I was then invited to become a Muslim.

The conversation verged on the surreal. There we were talking in a quite friendly manner, with the occasional joke, about killing people because they wouldn't pay the Jizyah, which critics regard as effectively obtaining money through menaces.

The interview ended with Ahmed volunteering that eventually Muslims must reclaim Andalucia in Spain for the Islamic Caliphate.

His logic, that it was justified because Spain used to be under Islam, was somewhat undermined when he went on to say that Islam should move on to bring the UK under its control and indeed, eventually, the whole world.

Rebel fighters want an end to President Assad's regime

This was a rare first-hand glimpse into the jihadi mindset.

The men are not representative of the FSA, indeed many militia units are deeply suspicious of the jihadists' aims.

However, it appears that a lot of the best weapons are reaching the jihadist groups, and they are using these to gain influence and territory. 

Even if the rebels overthrow the government, they won't just have a problem dealing with militia from the minority groups, they will have problems with each other.

As the men left to go back to their cells, we shook hands.

Two of them were still trying to convert me, asking me, with a smile, to say the Shahada 'La ilaha il Allah' - there is no God but Allah.

Men like this scare Syria's Christians, Allawites, Shia, Druze, and Kurds, indeed they frighten many of the countries Sunnis, but the war here is now so steeped in blood that compromise seems almost impossible to achieve, and there are now people on both sides who reject compromise out of hand.

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Nelson Mandela Admitted To Hospital

Former South African president Nelson Mandela has been admitted to hospital for routine tests.

The South African Government said 94-year-old Mandela had been taken to hospital in Pretoria for tests consistent with old age, adding that he "is doing well and there is no cause for alarm".

The anti-apartheid icon is known to be in frail health and has not made public appearances for a few years.

He was last taken to hospital in February after suffering from persistent abdominal pain.

In the face of his re-admittance to hospital, the office of South Africa's president, Jacob Zuma,  issued reassurance that all is well.

"Mandela will receive medical attention from time to time which is consistent with his age," said Mr Zuma's office in a statement.

Mandela spent 27 years in prison for his fight against white minority rule under apartheid, becoming the country's first black president in 1994 at the end of white minority rule.

He turned 94 in July and has not appeared in public since South Africa's Football World Cup final in 2010.

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Italy's Silvio Berlusconi Says He Will Run For PM

Former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has said he will run for PM again in a general election next year.

"I'm returning sadly to public service," the leader of the right-wing People of Freedom party said, speaking near the northern city of Milan.

"And again, I'm doing it out of a sense of responsibility."

Mr Berlusconi, 76, stepped down in disgrace last year as Italy was on the brink of financial disaster.

His resignation paved the way for a government of unelected technocrats led by Prime Minister Mario Monti.

Mr Berlusconi has since been convicted of tax fraud and now faces plunging poll numbers. He is also on trial on charges of paying for sex with an underage prostitute - an allegation he has denied.

But the ever-combative conservative leader was not deterred.

"I am running to win," he said. "The campaign is already on."

His centre-right camp has been in disarray recently, weakened by corruption scandals and infighting over who might succeed Mr Berlusconi as leader.

Italy is to hold a general election in 2013, though the date has not been set.

Mr Berlusconi has been increasingly critical of the government's austerity drive, and this week his party yanked parliamentary support for Mr Monti's government, increasing the likelihood of a snap election.

It will be the sixth national election that Mr Berlusconi contests since he stepped into politics in the mid-1990s on the back of a business empire that includes the country's largest private broadcaster, publishing interests and a football team, AC Milan.

He has won three times and is already the longest-serving prime minister in post-war Italy.

Mr Berlusconi will be up against Pierluigi Bersani of the Democratic Party, who has just won a strong endorsement in primary votes held among centre-left voters across Italy.

Mr Bersani is widely seen as a front-runner, though Mr Berlusconi is a formidable campaigner with a history of comebacks.

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Linesman Death: Fourth Teen Held In Holland

Dutch police have arrested a fourth teenager in connection with the beating to death of a football linesman.

The 16-year-old from Amsterdam was arrested on Thursday evening, police said. There are now two 15-year-olds and two 16-year-olds in custody.

Volunteer linesman Richard Nieuwenhuizen died on Monday, a day after he was attacked during a game at the ground of Amsterdam team Nieuw Sloten.

Mr Nieuwenhuizen's own son had been playing in the game, which was held in the town of Almere.

Prosecutors said they expected to charge at least some of the teenagers with manslaughter, assault and public violence.

Mr Nieuwenhuizen's team, Buitenboys, have not announced the exact cause of his death, but Dutch TV station RTL said he had brain damage.

Mr Nieuwenhuizen left after Sunday's match and was not aware anything was wrong. He returned to his club later that night and collapsed.

"You can't believe this could happen. That kids of 15 or 16 are playing football, you come to watch and see something like that," said Buitenboys chairman Marcel Oost.

"He did it every week. He enjoyed doing it. He was a real football man - he was always here."

FIFA president Sepp Blatter said in a statement he was "deeply shocked" by Mr Nieuwenhuizen's death.

Parents and other volunteers regularly referee and officiate at sports matches involving their children in The Netherlands.

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India: Britain Right To Cut Aid Payments

By Alex Rossi, India Correspondent

India's foreign minister has told Sky News he thinks Britain was right to cut financial aid.

Salman Khurshid was speaking in an exclusive interview following the British government's decision last month to stop direct foreign aid to the country.

"We've moved from the era of aid to the era of trade so we have to really concentrate now on economic relations," he said.

"The traditional concept of aid I think deserves to be eased out," he added.

Between now and 2015 aid will be phased out and Britain will then only provide 'technical assistance' to Asia's third largest economy.

India was the largest recipient of hand-outs from the UK, receiving on average £227m per year over the last three years.

But Mr Khurshid says future ties between the two countries must be based on improving economic relations - 'trade not aid'.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague and Salman Khurshid last month

British politicians are currently trying to court India in the hope of boosting trade at a time of austerity but so far results have been mixed.

Earlier this year India - to the disappointment of Downing Street – decided to buy French fighter jets rather than the Eurofighter Typhoon which is part made by BAE Systems.   

The contract is worth billions of pounds.

When asked about India's decision Mr Khurshid said: "These are things that will come and you have to take them in your stride.

"We do have a relationship with Europe and that is not at the cost of our relationship with the US and certainly not at the cost of our traditional relationship with the UK.

"But there is a relationship with other countries, bilateral as well as through the European Union, and I think you just need to find the right balance."

India has become the focus of anger over Britain's foreign aid bill because it has its own space programme and a booming economy that is growing at 8% a year.

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China Flattening 700 Mountains To Build City

By Mark Stone, China Correspondent

The Chinese are planning to move mountains to build a new city - literally.

According to one of the country's biggest construction firms, 700 mountains will be flattened at a cost of £2.2bn to make way for the new city.

Five hundred square miles of land in the Lanzhou New Area, 50 miles from the city of Lanzhou, will be developed into a massive new development zone.

An image from the video shows how the land looks now

Local government officials, quoted by the state-run China Daily newspaper, claim it will increase the Gross Domestic Product in the area to £27bn in the next 17 years.

China has put renewed focus into the development of the country's traditionally poor interior.

"The establishment of the Lanzhou New Area marks the country's latest effort to accelerate development of the western regions," Qin Yucai, a regional director for the National Development and Reform Commission, told a recent news conference in Beijing.

Lanzhou is 600 miles to the southwest of Beijing.

Lying on the Yellow River, it has long been described as the most polluted city in China. It retained that title last year in a World Health Organisation survey.

Mountains will be flattened to make way for skyscrapers

The city is also in an area of China which is particularly short of water, leading many critics to write the project off.

Unfazed by the criticism though, the developers have released a computer-animated video more than five minutes long in which their vision is realised.

The man behind the project is Yan Jiehe, a 52-year-old, who is one of China's top five richest people.

The mountain-moving plan does prompt a certain sense of deja vu.

Fifteen years ago, in November 1997, Sky News visited Lanzhou and reported on identical plans to move hills, fill in valleys and flatten the land for construction.

The scale was smaller but the idea behind it was identical.

The claim back then was that this would improve the environment by allowing the east wind to blow across the newly flattened land.

But it doesn't seem to have worked. The city was the most polluted place in China in 1997 and it still is.

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Hamas Chief Ends 45-Year Exile With Gaza Visit

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal has crossed into Gaza on his first ever trip to the territory marking the end of a 45-year exile from the Palestinian territories.

He will spend just 48 hours in Gaza, attending a "victory rally" on Saturday, which will also mark the 25th anniversary of the founding of Hamas.

Meshaal crossed the border from Egypt, accompanied by his deputy, Musa Abu Marzuk, and kissed the ground has he got out of the car. He then embraced the Hamas prime minister, Mussa Abu Marzuk.

The visit underscores the Islamist group's growing confidence following the recent conflict with Israel.

The veteran Hamas strategist, Mahmoud Al-Zahar, said: "All Palestinians will eventually return to their homeland. Khaled Meshaal is returning after a victory."

Shortly after arriving, Meshaal was taken to see the remains of the car in which the Hamas militant Ahmed Jaabari was travelling when he was killed in an Israeli airstrike.

Members of Hamas' militant wing prepare for the arrival of Khaled Meshaal

On seeing it, the Hamas leader said: "I hope God will make me a martyr on the land of Palestine in Gaza."

The 56-year-old Meshaal left the nearby West Bank as a young boy in 1967 and, until now, had never set foot in Gaza, which has been governed by Hamas since 2007.

Hamas laid on extensive security for his arrival, with heavily armed men, some wearing black masks, patrolling the border area. Meshaal was the target of an assassination mission by Israel's Mossad in 1997 in Jordan.

Meshaal ran Hamas from exile in Damascus from 2004 until January this year when he quit the Syrian capital because of Iranian-backed President Bashar al-Assad's war against Sunni Muslim rebels. He now divides his time between Qatar and Cairo.

The centrepiece of his visit will be the open-air rally on Saturday, which Hamas will use to proclaim victory in the recent eight-day conflict with Israel that killed some 170 Palestinians and six Israelis and ended in a ceasefire.

Hamas is on the UK Home Office's list of proscribed groups. The US classifies Hamas as a terrorist organisation.

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Egypt: Opponents Refuse President Morsi Talks

The main opposition group in Egypt says it will not take part in talks with the country's president aimed at ending unrest.

Ahmed Said, one of the leading members of the National Salvation Front, said the coalition had rejected a dialogue with Mohamed Morsi.

In a televised address, the president offered a meeting to discuss how Egypt should move forward after a referendum on a new constitution set for December 15.

Thousands of protesters have staged demonstrations against President Morsi

Prominent reformist Mohamed ElBaradei also urged politicians to shun the talks, while the state news agency reported that the liberal Wafd party said it would not take part. Both are members of the Front.

The call for talks came amid the worst violence seen in the country since last year's revolution.

Opponents of Mr Morsi have taken to the streets in their thousands to protest against a decree by Mr Morsi on November 22, giving himself extra powers and protecting himself from judicial review.

Hundreds of Egyptians have been injured in clashes in Cairo

At least six people were killed and almost 700 injured in clashes around the presidential palace on Wednesday.

US President Barack Obama called Mr Morsi on Thursday to express his "deep concern" about the deaths and injuries.

He welcomed the offer of talks but warned they should be entered into "without preconditions", a White House spokesman said.

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North Sea Ship Collision 'Human Error'

"Human error" may have caused a cargo ship to collide with another vessel and sink off the Dutch Coast, killing at least five crew members, its Greek manager has reportedly said.

The Dutch defence ministry said the North Sea was treacherous when the 485ft (148m) Baltic Ace collided with the 440ft (134m) container ship Corvus J near busy shipping lanes, some 40 miles off the coast of the southern Netherlands.

However, Panagiootis Kakoliris, operations manager at Stamco Ship Management Co Ltd, said the conditions were normal at the time of the collision.

"You cannot control some things. This happened in good weather, normal weather. There was good visibility, so I feel most probably there was a human error," he said.

Baltic Ace, which was heading from the Belgian port of Zeebrugge to Kotka in Finland with a crew of 24, sank shortly after the collision in 15 minutes.

The 23,500 tonne ship was carrying more than 1,400 new cars, most of them Mitsubishis from Japan and Thailand.

The collision occurred in one of the North Sea's busiest shipping lanes

Corvus J was on its way from Grangemouth in Scotland to Antwerp, Belgium, and was also damaged but assisted in the search for the missing crew of the sunken ship immediately afterwards.

"We can confirm that four bodies have been found, along with 13 people rescued alive," said coastguard spokesman Marcel Oldenburger.

A major air and sea rescue operation involving several helicopters, planes and two navy patrol ships resumed on Thursday and recovered another body from the waters, bringing the confirmed death toll to five..

The Dutch coastguard said it had given up any real hope of recovering any more survivors. Six people are still missing.

"Given the water temperature and the amount of time that's passed, we don't have any hope for more survivors, said coastguard spokesman Peter Westenberg.

It is thought some of the crew  - from Poland, Bulgaria, Ukraine and the Philippines - may have gone down with the stricken vessel.

Earlier, rescuers pulled four bodies from the sea, before suspending the search overnight.

A Royal Dutch navy ship involved in the rescue operation

Some 13 crew members were also rescued from the Baltic Ace despite strong winds and waves of up to 9.8ft (3m) hampering the operation.

Four were flown to a hospital in Rotterdam, seven taken by rescue helicopter to a hospital in Belgium and two were being treated on board a ship that found them.

Mr Oldenburger said they were "all in shock" and suffering from hypothermia, but their lives were not in danger.

Eleven crew members on board the Baltic Ace were Polish, according to Janusz Wolosz, second secretary at the Polish Embassy in The Hague.

Four Poles including the captain had been taken to hospital in Belgium, another to Rotterdam, and the sixth was being treated on a rescue ship, he said, adding that five were still missing.

The foreign ministry in Sofia said one Bulgarian national had been aboard the Baltic Ace but was among the 13 rescued sailors and was in good health.

The Philippines and Ukrainian embassies could not say how many of their nationals had been aboard.

The Dutch marine gendarmerie has launched a probe to determine the cause of the collision, while the police are in talks with the state prosecutor's office about whether the collision falls part of their jursisdiction.

"This incident took place out of our territorial waters," said Jos Klaren, a spokesman for the Dutch police.

The shipping lane where the accident happened is one of the busiest in the North Sea and an important passing point for ships sailing into Rotterdam port, Europe's largest and the fifth-largest in the world.

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Egypt: Tanks Move In As Protesters Ordered Out

The Egyptian army has issued an ultimatum to protesters to move away from the presidential palace, or they will clear the area.

The announcement follows the deployment of tanks around the complex after a night of running street battles in which five people were killed and as many as 600 injured.

The decision followed a meeting between the President, Mohamed Morsi, his defence minister and other members of the government.

In a statement, the Republican Guard said that after "unfortunate events" around the palace it was "banning the gathering of any demonstrations in the vicinity of establishments belonging to the president of the republic."

Supporters of Mr Morsi and his opponents attacked each other with firebombs, rocks and sticks in the worst outbreak since Egypt's new crisis erupted two weeks ago.

Riot police were injured as they tried to break up the fighting

The violence broke out on Wednesday after thousands of Mr Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood supporters marched on the palace where 300 of the president's opponents were staging a sit-in.

Riot police were sent in and fired tear gas but were unable to stop the fighting at the complex in the north of Cairo, which continued until early morning.

Three tanks and three armoured vehicles have been moved outside the palace as the army prepares to clear the area.

Opposing sides used lasers against their rivals in the clashes

According to the state news agency: "The Republican Guard began a deployment around the headquarters of the presidency ... to secure the headquarters of the presidency in its capacity as a symbol of the state and the official headquarters of government."

Violence between the president's supporters and opponents has escalated rapidly since the first protests on November 22, after Mr Morsi assumed sweeping new powers, leading critics to brand him the "new pharaoh".

It has been exacerbated by the hasty drafting of a new constitution.

Mr Morsi's supporters stand by a tank outside the presidential palace

Despite the fighting, the president appears to be pressing ahead with plans for a constitutional referendum to pass the new charter.

Violence has spread to other parts of the country and protesters have set fire to the offices of Mr Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood party in Suez and Ismailia, east of Cairo.

In Alexandria, the country's second biggest city, security officials said a senior Muslim Brotherhood official was taken to hospital after being severely beaten.

The offices of Mr Morsi's Muslim brotherhood was set on fire in Ismailia

Four of the president's advisers resigned on Wednesday, joining two other members of his 17-member advisory panel who have abandoned him since the crisis began.

The opposition is demanding that Mr Morsi rescind the decrees giving him nearly unrestricted powers and shelve the controversial draft constitution, which was rushed through last week.

The opposition is demanding that Mr Morsi rescind the decrees giving him nearly unrestricted powers and shelve the controversial draft constitution, which was rushed through last week.

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Iran Earthquake: Six Dead As Buildings Flattened

An earthquake has shaken eastern Iran, killing at least six people and injuring more than a dozen others.

The quake of 5.5 magnitude  hit Iran's Zohan district at 8:38 on Wednesday evening.

Five villages were destroyed and at least 11 others damaged, according to Hassan Qadami, head of Iran's crisis management organisation.

Streets in Khorasan province were crowded with panicked locals after buildings collapsed.

Many others were trapped under rubble waiting for help.

Iran's Red Crescent Society dispatched 15 rescue teams to the villages overnight.

A family walks through the wreckage of a building

Survivors had no clean water or means of communication and were bracing for below-zero temperatures when rescue teams found them.

At least 12 aftershocks have been registered since the quake.

Iran sits astride several major fault lines and has experienced devastating earthquakes in the last 10 years.

The south-eastern city of Bam was flattened by a quake in 2003 with 25,000 fatalities and in August this year 300 were killed in north-west Iran.

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Taliban In Afghan Spy Chief Assassination Bid

By Mustafa Kazemi, in Kabul, Afghanistan

A Taliban suicide bomber has attempted to assassinate Afghanistan's intelligence chief, leaving him with significant injuries.

Asadullah Khalid, the chief of National Directorate of Security (NDS), was receiving visitors at his guesthouse in Kabul when an explosion targeted him.

He suffered injuries to the lower half of his body and had to be taken to the NDS medical hospital for surgery.

Within two hours of the attack, the Taliban had claimed responsibility for the attack on Mr Khalid, saying it had caused "numerous deaths and injuries including Asadullah Khalid".

Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman, claimed that a number of intelligence officials were injured in the blast and that Mr Khalid was in a coma.

Asadullah Khalid (File pic)

An NDS official said: "The head of NDS escaped a cowardly attempt on his life today. He is thankfully fine and under treatment.

"Mr Khalid received moderate injuries on his lower body as the result of a minor explosion in one of our guest houses."

According to security officials in Kabul, the NDS guesthouse is located in 4th Police District in the downtown Kabul.

President Hamid Karzai visited Mr Khalid in hospital, where medical staff said his health was improving.

In a statement, President Karzai said there was "a lot of hope for improvement of his health".

Mr Khalid is a former governor of Kandahar province, and a former minister in President Karzai's cabinet.

He was a minister when Mr Karzai appointed him to lead the country's intelligence agency in August 2012, after firing the former NDS chief in a sudden cabinet reshuffle.

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Travolta And Newton-John Grease Video Panned

John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John have recreated scenes from Grease in a video for their new Christmas album.

But this time around their singing and dancing has been widely panned - even being labelled "creepy" and "odd".

The pair, who starred as Danny and Sandy in the 1978 musical, released This Christmas last month honouring Travolta's late son Jett.

It is the first time the stars have recorded together in more than 30 years.

The first single from the album, I Think You Might Like It, was written by John Farrar, who penned their famous pop duet You're The One That I Want.

The pair line dance in the video

But the Grease-inspired video for their new track has been ridiculed since its release earlier this week.

Guardian columnist Sali Hughes said on Twitter: "This has blown my mind. Oddest video ever."

US radio host Kelly Collis tweeted: "This is the most awkward Christmas Song with Olivia Newton and John Travolta."

New York Magazine's entertainment section Vulture has published a list called: "Ten Things That Creep Us Out About John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John's New 'Music Video".

But the clip does have its fans.

Travolta and Newton-John said they were still close friends

Emily, who tweets as cpfcrox, said: "I can't lie, I absolutely love the John Travolta & Olivia N-J album. It is fantastic. Camp, cheesy and Christmassy, all I need!"

Proceeds from the album, which also features Barbra Streisand, Tony Bennett and James Taylor as guest artists, are going to charities The Jett Travolta Foundation and the Olivia Newton-John Cancer and Wellness Centre in Melbourne.

Mashable writer Brian Anthony Hernandez said: "The pair's dance moves in the new music video aren't very reminiscent of the swagger they exuded as Danny Zuko and Sandy Olsen in Grease, but the good thing is proceeds from This Christmas benefit charities."

The Grease co-stars said they remained close friends since the 1978 hit, and were delighted to be working together again.

"My desire was to make This Christmas an intimate album, not something too ostentatious or showy," 58-year-old Travolta said in the press release for the album.

A promotional flyer for Grease

"From the moment we decided to do this, magic happened," said the US star of Pulp Fiction, Get Shorty and Hairspray.

Newton-John, 64, said she was still surprised at the success of Grease, which is about the love affairs of 1950s high school students.

"We still have little kids coming up to us who are discovering the movies. It's like three generations who love the movie, who are going to be thrilled to see Danny and Sandy, as they think of us, together again," the Australian said.

Jett Travolta died in 2009 aged 16 after suffering a seizure. His father said Christmas could be a difficult time for his family.

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Cancer Girl Safer In Mexico, Say Parents

A young cancer patient was removed from a Phoenix hospital and taken to Mexico for her own safety, according to her parents.

Emily Bracamontes, who was being treated for leukaemia and recently had an arm amputated and a heart catheter fitted, was taken from her ward exactly a week ago by her mother.

Her disappearance triggered an urgent search, amid fears the cardiac device could become infected and lead to serious complications.

However her parents, Norma and Luis Bracamontes, have told Mexican TV that they simply wanted to protect their 11-year-old daughter from what they called bad medical treatment.

"It was the only way because they had threatened and intimidated her," her mother told Telemundo.

Luis Bracamontes spoke to Mexican TV station Telemundo

Emily's father, who was detained as he crossed back into the US on Monday, alleged her arm became infected and was partially amputated because of hospital negligence.

"They told my wife that she already had it," Luis Bracamontes said.

"That's not true. Her arm was healthy."

Emily, who is with her mother at an undisclosed location in Mexico, also spoke briefly to her father during the interview on his mobile phone.

She told him she was feeling fine.

Neither parent is charged with a crime yet, but authorities in the US want the child brought back to the hospital before it is too late.

The girl's father is a Mexican citizen with US residency. Emily and her mother are US citizens.

Authorities had speculated they might have been concerned about paying the bill at the Phoenix Children's Hospital.

Staff there say they are ready to talk to the child's family at any point.

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New York Barefoot Homeless Man 'Not Homeless'

The barefoot homeless man, whose gift of a new pair of boots from a New York cop turned into a web phenomenon, may not be homeless after all.

Jeffery Hillman has been living for over a year in an apartment in the Bronx according to the New York Daily News - with his rent paid by social security and veterans benefits.

But despite this, the 54-year-old has continued to be spotted shoeless around Manhattan since the cold November night when Officer Larry DePrimo bought him the $100 shoes, in the widely-lauded random act of kindness.

"Outreach teams from the Department of Homeless Services continue to attempt to work with him, but he has a history of turning down services," Barbara Brancaccio, a spokeswoman for the New York City agency, told the newspaper.

After the image was taken by a tourist from Arizona and posted on the NYPD Facebook page, more details about the then-anonymous vagrant emerged.

Mr Hillman was in the army and has two adult children.

He has family and old friends in New Jersey and Pennsylvania who are shocked by his plight, but also keen to help him.

"Jeffrey has his own life, and he has chosen that life, but he knows that our hearts and home are always open to him," his niece Alegra Hall told the New York Post.

Mr Hillman lived in city transitional housing sites called Safe Havens from 2009 until 2011, before securing his current apartment through a Department of Veterans Affairs programme, the Daily News said.

The story behind the mobile phone image may not be quite the fairytale many wanted to believe.

While New Yorkers still applaud the young policeman's gesture, opinion is sharply divided over whether Mr Hillman deserves sympathy or criticism.

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Alaska Serial Killer Chopped Up Barista Victim

A suspected serial killer, who committed suicide in jail earlier this week, sexually assaulted and then chopped up one of his victims in Alaska.

Israel Keyes strangled Samantha Koenig a day after abducting her from an Anchorage coffee kiosk in February, then left her body in a shed while he went on a two-week cruise, the FBI has revealed.

Once back from New Orleans, Keyes posed the 18-year-old's body to make it appear she was still alive and took a Polaroid photo of her tied up.

He typed a ransom note demanding $30,000 (£18,640) from her family on the back of a photocopy of the photo.

In reality, the 34-year-old builder went on to dismember Ms Koenig's body and dispose of the remains after cutting a hole in a frozen lake.

He was only arrested in March in Texas, after using her stolen debit card.

Keyes subsequently confessed to her murder and seven other murders across the US over the past decade.

Investigators fear there could be even more victims. 

Israel Keyes admitted strangling Samanatha Koenig in February

Video footage also released by the FBI on Tuesday shows Keyes climbing through the window of the coffee bar.

Ms Koenig is seen putting her hands up several times, and turning off the light.

She is then tied up and led out at gunpoint.

"He knew all along he was going to kill her," Anchorage detective Monique Doll said.

The authorities believe Keyes travelled extensively in the US, targeting victims randomly hundreds of miles away.

His travels even included trips to Hawaii, and Mexico and Canada.

Investigators said he buried caches of weapons, money and tools for disposing of bodies to use in future crimes.

In the case of Ms Keonig, he stuck to his own town.

"He broke his own rule," Officer Doll said.

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Dewani Murder: 'Trigger Man' Jailed For Life

A South African man has been sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Swedish woman Anni Dewani on her honeymoon.

Xolile Mngeni, 25, was convicted by a court in Cape Town of firing the shot that killed the 28-year-old woman in 2010.

Judge Robert Henney called the shooter "a merciless and evil person" who deserved the maximum punishment for his crime.

"He had no regard to her right to freedom, dignity, and totally disregarded and showed no respect to her right to life by brutally killing her with utter disdain," Judge Henney said.

Mngeni, who had surgery to remove a brain tumour while facing trial, maintained his innocence.

Two of the men accused of being his accomplices are already serving lengthy prison sentences after entering into plea bargains.

Zola Tongo and Mziwamadoda Qwabe both implicated Mngeni and said they had been hired by Mrs Dewani's British husband, Shrien, to kill his wife.

Shrien Dewani pictured last year

A motive has never been clearly explained for why Dewani, a businessman from Bristol, would want his new bride killed.

He has denied he hired anyone to kill his wife and was allowed by authorities to leave South Africa for the UK, where he was later arrested.

He is currently being treated in a secure mental health hospital for depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

In March, a High Court ruled that it would be "unjust and oppressive" to extradite Dewani to South Africa, as his mental condition had worsened since his arrest.

Mrs Dewani was shot when a taxi the couple were travelling in was hijacked in Gugulethu township on the outskirts of Cape Town.

Prosecutors said Mngeni, Qwabe and Tongo were paid 15,000 rand (£1,066) for the killing.

Mngeni's left palm print was found on the car in which Mrs Dewani's body was recovered, the court heard during his trial.

Her watch, bracelet and mobile phone were also discovered in Mngeni's friend's shack.

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Typhoon Bopha: Philippines Storm Kills Over 270

By Mark Stone, Asia Correspondent

More than 270 people have been killed by the latest typhoon to hit the Philippines, according to local officials who have warned more could die as rescuers reach outlying areas.

Typhoon Bopha hit Mindanao Island's east coast at dawn on Tuesday with winds of more than 130mph.

At least 66 of the victims were killed in New Bataan when torrents of water dumped by the typhoon on a nearby mountain flowed through the town's streets. A school and a village hall were both destroyed by the water.

In a separate incident, villagers and soldiers who formed part of the rescue effort all died when the truck they were in was washed away in the flooding.

Thousands of people have been forced to take shelter where they can

Local governor Arturo Uy said the victims included children who had fled with their parents from their homes to a community centre which was swamped by a flash flood.

Nearby Davao Oriental Province was also badly affected with 51 people left dead and a further 98 missing.

The storm is one of the strongest to hit the country this year. Given that many of the buildings are basic and badly constructed, many of the deaths are the result of flooding and landslides triggered by the storm.

The typhoon has also devastated crops like banana trees

Last year, Typhoon Washi killed more than 1,500 people in the country's south. Entire villages were washed away and the death toll was compounded by the fact that the storm hit at night.

Bopha is now battering the western Palawan province popular with tourists.

It is likely to move out into the South China Sea - but forecasters predict more severe storms will hit the country before the end of the month.

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George Zimmerman Photo Shows His Bloody Nose

A newly-released photograph of George Zimmerman shows him with a bloody, swollen nose on the night he shot and killed black teenager Trayvon Martin.

The image was made available by the defence team for the Florida neighbourhood watch volunteer, who is charged with murdering the unarmed 17-year-old in February this year.

Zimmerman claims he shot the teenager in self-defence during a struggle, but the case sparked a national debate and protests on racial profiling, guns and Florida's controversial Stand Your Ground law.

His lawyers say the photo is significant because it shows vividly the injuries that he incurred.  

"It's not a game changer," lawyer Mark O'Mara admitted.

But he added: "Does it really show what happened that night to George? Yes."

Previous police images of George Zimmerman and his wounds

However Ben Crump, who represents Trayvon's family, said the photo taken by police in Sanford adds nothing new to the case.

"Trayvon Martin was defending himself. He had every right to stand his ground to defend himself," Mr Crump said.

A grainy, black and white version of the photo was released previously, along with other evidence that Zimmerman was hit in the nose during the fight with the teenager.

Mr O'Mara said he only received the new clearer digital image from prosecutors after repeated demands by his office.

He pledged to make all public documents related to the case available on the defence team's website ahead of the trial set for June next year.

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US Navy: No Drones Missing After Iran Claim

The US Navy has denied Iran's claim that it has captured one of their drones that was flying in the country's airspace and gathering intelligence over Gulf waters.

The Iranian Fars news agency reported that the ScanEagle drone was captured "in the last few days" by the naval unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

It offered no details on the location or how it had been seized.

Ali Fadavi, the Revolutionary Guards' naval commander, was quoted by state TV as saying the unmanned aircraft was now in Iran's possession.

He said the drone "was conducting a reconnaissance flight and gathering data over the Persian Gulf" and "was captured by the Guard's navy air defence unit as soon as it entered Iranian airspace".

He said such drones are normally launched from large warships.

A member of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard

But a US Navy spokesman said no US drones were missing in the Middle East despite Iran's claims.

"The US Navy has fully accounted for all unmanned air vehicles (UAV) operating in the Middle East region. Our operations in the Gulf are confined to internationally recognised water and air space," Commander Jason Salata, from the US Navy's 5th Fleet, said.

"We have no record that we have lost any ScanEagles recently."

He added that US ScanEagles have been lost into the sea in the past.

The US says all of its drones are accounted for

The 5th Fleet is based in Bahrain.

If it is confirmed, the incident is likely to escalate tensions between the US and Iran.

The two countries are locked in a dispute over Tehran's nuclear programme, which Washington and its allies believe is aimed at developing an atomic bomb.

Iran says its programme is peaceful, but the country has come under tough international sanctions.

Last month, Iran said a US drone had violated its airspace. The Pentagon said the unmanned aircraft had come under fire at least twice but was not hit, and insisted the Predator drone was over international waters.

In 2011 Iran said it had brought down a CIA spy drone after it entered Iranian airspace from its eastern borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Tehran later said it had retrieved data from the RQ-170 Sentinel, a top-secret drone equipped with stealth technology.

The ScanEagle, manufactured by Boeing Co, is significantly smaller than the stealth drone.

According to the firm's website, the drone is 4ft (1.2 metres) long and has a 10ft (three-metre) wingspan.

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Cancer Patient Taken From Hospital By Mother

Fears are mounting for an 11-year-old girl with leukaemia and a heart catheter who was removed from a Phoenix hospital by her parents.

The child, Emily, had been receiving chemotherapy up until last week after an infection forced doctors to amputate her right arm and insert a catheter in her heart.

The device was due to be taken out when her mother unexpectedly changed her clothes and walked her out of the hospital last Wednesday night.

Police have said if the catheter is left in too long, it could lead to serious complications.

"If she contracts an infection, it really could just be a matter of days that could result in the young girl's death," Sgt Steve Martos said. "It's pretty serious."

The authorities had been held back initially by US health privacy laws that kept them from releasing the parents' names.

But police said on Monday that the US Border Patrol stopped the girl's father, Luis Bracamontes, 46, as he crossed into Arizona from Mexico over the weekend.

But he provided no clues to the girl's whereabouts and denied having any involvement in removing her from the hospital.

Police also released his wife's name, Norma Bracamontes, 35.

Neither parent is charged with a crime yet, but authorities want the child brought back to the hospital before it is too late.

The girl's father is a Mexican citizen with US residency. Emily and her mother are US citizens.

Authorities speculated they might have been concerned about paying the hospital bill.

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Man Who Threw Rabbit In River Is Jailed

A man has been jailed for snatching a homeless man's rabbit and hurling it into a river.

The animal's owner, John Byrne, had been begging on Dublin's O'Connell Bridge when his pet Barney was taken from his arms and thrown into the River Liffey.

The 37-year-old jumped into the water after his beloved pet and gave him the kiss of life, but was unable to save the rabbit. Both were pulled from the river by firefighters.

Gary Kearney pleaded guilty at Dublin District Court to cruelly torturing or terrifying an animal and was sentenced to four months in prison.

The 20-year-old, who is originally from the Crumlin area of Dublin and was brought up in care, also admitted breach of the peace during the incident on July 3, 2011. He has 138 previous convictions.

Outside the court, Mr Byrne, who has been living on the streets for 23 years, said he was in shock when he saw Barney swimming around in circles, looking up at him.

John Byrne was scared a seal would eat his rabbit

"I wasn't going to leave him there," he said.

"I had to get him, I had to jump in to get him. Barney died in my arms. I got him under the bridge and gave him the kiss of life."

Mr Byrne said the sentence sent out a clear message to people who abuse animals that they will not walk out of court laughing.

He said: "I was scared. Wouldn't anybody (be scared) going into freezing cold water? And there is a seal there that would have eaten Barney.

"I can swim and I'd done life-saving before. Only for that I was gone. The current would have pulled me under."

He added that one of his three dogs, Lily, would not go out begging with him after witnessing the incident.

Within days of his pet's death, Mr Byrne was given a Compassionate Citizen Award for going above and beyond the call of duty to help an animal in need.

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Typhoon Bopha: 40 Dead In Philippines

More than 40 people have been killed in a powerful typhoon in the Philippines, including soldiers and villagers who were in an army truck that was washed away.

Typhoon Bopha, packing winds of up to 130mph, hit land on Mindanao island's east coast at dawn on Tuesday.

At least 33 of the victims drowned in the town of New Bataan when torrents of water dumped by the typhoon rampaged down a mountain. 

Governor Arturo Uy said the victims included villagers who had fled from their homes to a village hall, which was swamped by the flash flood, and those on board the army truck that was swept away.

The typhoon made landfall on Mindanao island

The dead included three children who were buried by the wall of mud and boulders that plunged into the village of Marapat.

Their bodies were wrapped in blankets by their grieving relatives and placed on a stage in a basketball court.

"The only thing we could do was to save ourselves. It was too late for us to rescue them," Valentin Pabilana, who survived the landslide, said.

The death toll could rise further because several other bodies could not immediately be retrieved from floodwaters strewn with huge logs and debris, governor Uy said.

Army troops and police were not able to reach the town because access roads were blocked by landslides and fallen trees, he said.

Trees were brought down across a wide area hit by the typhoon

Eight people have died elsewhere on Mindanao island in the country's south.

About 60,000 people fled their homes to escape what was the strongest storm to hit the country this year.

Two entire provinces lost power and more than 100 domestic flights were cancelled.

Residents evacuated high-risk coastal villages and along rivers, including in southern provinces that were devastated by a deadly storm a year ago.

Typhoon Bopha, which has a 370-mile wide rain band, was expected to barrel across southern and central provinces before blowing out into the South China Sea on Thursday, forecasters said.

:: The Philippines is battered by about 20 typhoons a year, with 1,500 deaths recorded last year from storms.

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Japan Tunnel Collapse: Only Visual Checks Done

The company in charge of a collapsed tunnel in Japan has admitted workers only carried out visual checks on metal bolts used to anchor concrete slabs in the tunnel roof.

Central Nippon Expressway Co faces a police investigation after at least nine people were killed in Sasago Tunnel, 50 miles west of Tokyo, when ceiling slabs fell on to moving vehicles inside the tunnel.

Transport minister Yuichiro Hata has instructed companies to check all 49 tunnels in Japan that have similar concrete slab structures.

Rescue efforts were suspended on Monday morning while work is carried out to support the remaining slabs and prevent further collapses.

An inspection of the tunnel's roof in September found nothing amiss, according to company official Satoshi Noguchi.

But company officials told Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun workers only carried out visual checks on whether bolts were securely in place, rather than tapping parts with a hammer to detect signs of corrosion.

They also said the September inspection only involved the use of torches and binoculars to check the panels.

The tunnel opened in 1977 and the collapse has been blamed on the ageing of the metal bolts.

Ryoichi Yoshikawa, executive officer of Central Nippon Expressway, said: "Based on the fact that the accident occurred 35 years after the tunnel was completed, we believe ageing was the reason."

The accident happened at the Sasago Tunnel in Yamanashi prefecture

Some of the nine-inch bolts were found near the site of the collapse, officials said.

Two vehicles caught fire inside the tunnel after the collapse on Sunday morning, with heavy smoke initially hampering rescue efforts.

The location of the collapse, around one mile into the three-mile tunnel, also made recovery difficult.

It is unclear if there are survivors inside.

An estimated 270 concrete slabs - each weighing 1.4 metric tons - collapsed over a stretch of around 110 metres.

Drivers described narrow escapes from falling debris, and a long walk through the darkness after abandoning their cars.

"When I was driving in the tunnel, concrete pieces fell down suddenly from the ceiling," a man in his 30s told public broadcaster NHK.

"I saw a crushed car catching fire. I left my car and walked for about an hour to get out of the tunnel."

Another said: "I could hear voices of people calling for help, but the fire was just too strong."

Rescuers had to first deal with a fire in the tunnel

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Louisiana: Explosives Find Sparks Evacuation

A whole town in northwest Louisiana has been been evacuated after more than 2,500 tons of explosive material was discovered being stored illegally.

State police have launched a criminal investigation into how the boxes and small barrels of M6 artillery propellant came to be stacked outdoors and crammed into unauthorised buildings leased by Explo Systems at Camp Minden, a former military ammunition plant.

"That's a lot of product, a lot of dangers in there. There are a lot of worst case scenarios, we need to work through those safely," Louisiana State Police Colonel Michael Edmondson said.

Officers had originally estimated there was around 450 tons (1,000,000lb) of the explosive material, which is used in howitzers and other artillery. But it turned out that there was just under 2,700 tons (6,000,000lb).

The weekend operation to move and secure the black powder into authorised storage facilities on the site is now expected to last until Tuesday.

About half of the 800 residents of Doyline left their homes on Friday. The authorities have now issued an order to evacuate the rest.

Police began investigating the company after an explosion at the site on October 15.

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Israel Settlement Row 'Risks Apartheid State'

Avenues of palm trees. Air conditioned shopping malls. European coffee shops humming with chatter in Russian, French, English - and Hebrew. This could be California.

It isn't. It's the vanguard of Israel's permanent occupation of parts of the West Bank.

Maale Adumim, a Jewish settlement which cascades down the hillsides of the Judean Desert towards the Dead Sea, is illegal under international law.

That detail has not stopped Israel from building homes for some 500,000 Jews in settlements on Palestinian land captured in 1967.

The accelerating pace of settlement construction grew into an international controversy over the weekend following revelations that Israel planned to build a new town in an area known as E1.

The area, currently a forest park on the eastern edge of Jerusalem behind the Mount of Olives, would seal the Holy City off from the rest of the Palestinian areas of the West Bank.

Joined with Maale Adumim, it would also cut the West Bank in half.

In the words of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, the construction of a settlement at E1 would be "fatal" to peace talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

An Israeli man in a street of Maale Adumim

A quick look at any of the maps produced by Israeli campaigners against the settlements reveals just how far Israel is already planning to go with this scheme to chop the West Bank in two.

The planned extent of the separation wall that cuts through the West Bank and was built to protect Israel from terror attacks, would fence a vast tract of land far bigger than E1 or Maale Adumim into Israeli-held territory.

But a wall can be pulled down. A settlement is a fact on the ground.

One as big as Maale Adumim or E1 is for all practical purposes beyond negotiation.

Once built, it is Israel - and no future government of the Jewish state is likely to say otherwise.

Israel had promised its ally the United States that it would not go ahead with E1 plans.

Washington took this undertaking at face value, and then received a slap to the face when Israel announced that it was considering opening the settlement area up again, along with 3,000 other Jewish homes in Arab East Jerusalem.

The US had been one of only nine countries to vote against a UN motion to admit Palestine to the body with non-member observe state status last week.

Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, and William Hague, her British equivalent, have both condemned the Israeli plans for E1.

On Monday Daniel Taub, the Israeli ambassador to London, was summoned by Alistair Burt, the Foreign Office Minister, for a warning.

The controversial E1 zone of East Jerusalem

Among the sanctions being considered if Israel does not drop its E1 plans are withdrawing the British ambassador to Israel -  at least for a short time - and asking the European Union to reconsider trade agreements with Israel which give it access to European markets.

The international view is simple.

The chances of a two-state solution to the long-running conflict, which means an independent Palestine, are fast dwindling because Israel is chewing up so much Palestinian land so quickly that a viable state cannot be established.

Israel rejects this and demands that the Palestinians return to peace talks without conditions, which so far include the demand that Israel stops building settlements.

This impasse means that, in the view of many Europeans, Israel must freeze settlement building or face international censure.

The drift of opinion, even among staunch allies of Israel such as the UK, is not in Israel's favour.

Not least because no-one quite knows what looms on the horizon.

If there is no two-state solution, does this mean that there can be a single-state solution? In a Jewish state, what place would there be for the Palestinians?

Few, outside the Israeli left, will say the word but the implication is there: a single state could usher in an apartheid state.

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Foreign Office Summons Israel's Ambassador

Apartheid Risk Looms On Settlements

Updated: 1:57pm UK, Monday 03 December 2012

By Sam Kiley, Middle East Correspondent

Avenues of palm trees. Air conditioned shopping malls. European coffee shops humming with chatter in Russian, French, English - and Hebrew. This could be California.

It isn't. It's the vanguard of Israel's permanent occupation of parts of the West Bank.

Maale Adumim, a Jewish settlement which cascades down the hillsides of the Judean Desert towards the Dead Sea, is illegal under international law.

That detail has not stopped Israel from building homes for some 500,000 Jews in settlements on Palestinian land captured in 1967.

The accelerating pace of settlement construction grew into an international controversy over the weekend following revelations that Israel planned to build a new town in an area known as E1.

The area, currently a forest park on the eastern edge of Jerusalem behind the Mount of Olives, would seal the Holy City off from the rest of the Palestinian areas of the West Bank.

Joined with Maale Adumim, it would also cut the West Bank in half.

In the words of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, the construction of a settlement at E1 would be "fatal" to peace talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

A quick look at any of the maps produced by Israeli campaigners against the settlements reveals just how far Israel is already planning to go with this scheme to chop the West Bank in two.

The planned extent of the separation wall that cuts through the West Bank and was built to protect Israel from terror attacks, would fence a vast tract of land far bigger than E1 or Maale Adumim into Israeli-held territory.

But a wall can be pulled down. A settlement is a fact on the ground.

One as big as Maale Adumim or E1 is for all practical purposes beyond negotiation.

Once built, it is Israel - and no future government of the Jewish state is likely to say otherwise.

Israel had promised its ally the United States that it would not go ahead with E1 plans.

Washington took this undertaking at face value, and then received a slap to the face when Israel announced that it was considering opening the settlement area up again, along with 3,000 other Jewish homes in Arab East Jerusalem.

The US had been one of only nine countries to vote against a UN motion to admit Palestine to the body with non-member observe state status last week.

Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, and William Hague, her British equivalent, have both condemned the Israeli plans for E1.

On Monday Daniel Taub, the Israeli ambassador to London, was summoned by Alistair Burt, the Foreign Office Minister, for a warning.

Among the sanctions being considered if Israel does not drop its E1 plans are withdrawing the British ambassador to Israel -  at least for a short time - and asking the European Union to reconsider trade agreements with Israel which give it access to European markets.

The international view is simple.

The chances of a two-state solution to the long-running conflict, which means an independent Palestine, are fast dwindling because Israel is chewing up so much Palestinian land so quickly that a viable state cannot be established.

Israel rejects this and demands that the Palestinians return to peace talks without conditions, which so far include the demand that Israel stops building settlements.

This impasse means that, in the view of many Europeans, Israel must freeze settlement building or face international censure.

The drift of opinion, even among staunch allies of Israel such as the UK, is not in Israel's favour.

Not least because no-one quite knows what looms on the horizon.

If there is no two-state solution, does this mean that there can be a single-state solution? In a Jewish state, what place would there be for the Palestinians?

Few, outside the Israeli left, will say the word but the implication is there: a single state could usher in an apartheid state.

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Russia: Drivers Stuck In 120-Mile Traffic Jam

Thousands of cars, lorries and motorists became stuck for up to three days in a huge traffic jam on a motorway northwest of Moscow after Russia was hit by heavy snowfall.

The length of the queue on the M-10 highway, which is one of the busiest in the country, was put at up to 120 miles (200km), according to media reports.

Some 4,000 trucks were thought to be involved.

Unusually severe conditions for early winter and heavy snow were blamed for the gridlock, which paralysed circulation over the weekend and into Monday.

Drivers waited for hours without moving in temperatures of -5 degrees Celsius, with one motorist reported as saying he had travelled just "one kilometre over 24 hours".

Field kitchens were set up along stretches of the road, which is surrounded by a forest, in an attempt to ensure people had food and drink.

But many of those stranded came close to running out of fuel as they kept their engines and heating running in the sub-zero temperatures.

Field kitchens have been set up along the route

"Drivers help one another and that's it, the problems are on the side of the authorities. There are no gasoline tankers, no water, nothing. We are just stuck here," a truck driver called Sergei said.

Officials said that traffic had been moving normally again since the early hours of Monday but acknowledged more needed to be done to prevent a repeat of the problems.

Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said it was clear road services had not worked effectively.

"At the start of the snowfall, not even a half of the available technical hardware was used.

"Many drivers were stuck without provisions and fuel in the middle of a forest. This is not a European road but a Russian one, a forest road," he said.

Emergency Situations Minister Vladimir Puchkov described the problems as "a good lesson for all the services".

"They need to work on the roads and not in their warm offices," he warned.

The M-10 links Moscow with Russia's second largest city St Petersburg

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said that the road services needed to work efficiently and prevent such incidents from happening.

But he also appeared to admit that such problems were inevitable given Russia's harsh climatic conditions.

"Drivers need to be prepared for the fact that the weather in our country is very, very complicated and there is always going to be snow," Mr Medvedev said on television.

Russian authorities have been accused of sluggish responses to weather-related problems, including deadly wildfires in 2010 and flooding in the south this summer.

The M-10 highway links Moscow with Russia's second largest city St Petersburg, some 435 miles (700km) from the capital, and stretches on to the border with Finland.

Russia's roads have been the butt of criticism since Tsarist times and its infrastructure has been plagued with problems since the Soviet era when defence spending was high at the expense of roads, housing, healthcare and other civilian needs.

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John McAfee: Anti-Virus Pioneer 'Captured'

Anti-virus software pioneer John McAfee, who is wanted by police over his neighbour's murder, appears to have been found after weeks in hiding, his blog has said.

The website set up by Mr McAfee after he went on the run said there was an unconfirmed report that he was apprehended on the Belize-Mexico border.

The website whoismcafee.com has carried updates of Mr McAfee's progress since the murder of Gregory Faull, a 52-year-old retired American builder, on November 11. He has also taken to Twitter to promote his posts.

Under the title Breaking: John captured? a post, on December 1, said: "We have received an unconfirmed report that John McAfee has been captured at the border of Belize and Mexico.

"More information as it is received."

Mr McAfee has written entries describing how he has disguised himself as a beggar, a street trader and a drunken German tourist in order to watch police as they searched his Belize home.

At one point he claimed he was actually hiding out on his compound on the island of Ambergris Caye.

Police take away the body of Gregory Faull

He said he set up the website to counter claims made about him by the media and the Belize authorities and to assert his innocence shortly after his disappearance.

In an early post Mr McAfee said that he had given enough information to a friend to keep the website going should he be captured.

Police have said they simply want to question Mr McAfee over the murder of Mr Faull, who was found dead in a pool of blood at his home. He had suffered a single gunshot wound to the head.

Mr McAfee has denied he was responsible for the murder and says he went into hiding only because the Belize authorities have a vendetta against him. He believes he was the intended victim of the shooting, not Mr Faull.

Mr McAfee amassed a $100m (£63m) fortune from his software business but said he lost all but $4m of it in the financial crisis. He moved to Belize in 2008.

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Egyptian Protesters Scare Away Court Judges

A group of senior judges in Egypt has halted all work after crowds of protesters surrounded their building, delaying what is set to be a controversial ruling on a new constitution.

They had been due to decide on the legitimacy of an Islamist-dominated panel that drafted the disputed constitution last week.

But the ruling has been delayed "indefinitely" after several thousand supporters of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi gathered outside the Supreme Constitutional Court in Cairo.

The judges said they had been put "under psychological pressure" and the court said in a statement that it cannot work in a "climate filled with hatred".

Officials cited "administrative reasons" for the delay.

The protesters held up placards denouncing the judges and preventing them from entering, and the officials were forced to admit the judges had stayed away due to fears for their safety.

The postponement and protest are part of a worsening political crisis pitting the largely secular opposition and powerful judiciary against Mr Morsi and his fellow Islamists.

A supporter of the Islamist President holds up a copy of the Koran

In the past, Islamists have assaulted secular politicians, lawyers and activists outside court complexes as judges inside deliberated rulings they anticipated would be against their interests.

In turn, the Islamists say the courts are filled with judges loyal to former president Hosni Mubarak's ousted regime.

The Supreme Constitutional Court ruled in June to dissolve the Islamist-dominated People's Assembly, parliament's lower chamber, on the grounds that a third of its members were illegally elected.

Besides ruling on the legitimacy of the constituent assembly, the court had also been expected to rule on parliament's upper chamber, which is also dominated by Islamists.

A ruling from the court - regardless of which way it goes - would be a direct challenge to Mr Morsi.

Last month he gave himself near-absolute powers, placing himself and the assembly above any oversight, including by the judiciary.

Mr Morsi's decrees caused an uproar among the nation's secular-led opposition.

The Islamist-led constituent assembly fuelled the anger last week when it rushed through a vote on the charter's 230 clauses in an all-night session.

The panel's secular and Christian members have withdrawn from the panel, claiming the process has been hijacked by the Islamists.

But Mr Morsi, who has been in power since June, praised the draft as a giant step towards democratic rule and ordered a nationwide referendum on the document to be held on December 15.

The opposition is now considering a call for civil disobedience to force Mr Morsi to rescind his decrees.

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Teacher Shot With Arrow By Son At US College

A British-born college teacher fatally injured after being shot in the head with an arrow by his own son has been hailed a hero after giving his students time to flee the classroom.

James Krumm, 56, was taking a computer science class at Casper College, in Casper, Wyoming, when his son Christopher barged in and shot him using a high-powered bow.

The 25-year-old had already stabbed to death his father's live-in girlfriend Heidi Arnold, 42, at their home two miles from the college.

As Mr Krumm fought with his son during the attack on Friday, the students in the classroom were able to escape to safety.

When police arrived at the World Physical Science Centre building, James Krumm was dead and his son was bleeding from self-inflicted knife wounds, Casper police chief Chris Walsh said.

He said: "I can tell you the courage that was demonstrated by Mr Krumm was absolutely without equal."

Christopher Krumm killed his father on the college campus

Authorities believe six students were in the classroom when the attack took place.

Mr Walsh said Christopher Krumm stabbed himself after shooting his father, then fatally stabbed his father in the chest during a struggle.

Ms Arnold, a maths teacher, died from multiple stab wounds and her body was found in the gutter near their home in Hawthorne Avenue.

He had smuggled the powerful compound bow on to the campus under a blanket, and was also carrying two knives.

Police carried out a search warrant at Christopher Krumm's last known address in Vernon, Connecticut, on Friday.

Andra Charter, a 20-year-old student, said she heard screams outside her biology class.

She said: "As we were walking out, there was a girl screaming 'there's somebody stabbing Mr Krumm!'"

James Krumm, who was born and grew up in the UK but is understood to have left the country by the time he was an adult, was head of the college's computer science department.

The college has planned a candlelight vigil and memorial service on Tuesday.

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Afghanistan: Taliban Suicide Bombers Hit US Base

Taliban suicide bombers have attacked a US base in Afghanistan, killing at least five people, and sparking a two-hour battle with American forces.

Militants drove two vehicles packed with explosives at the gates of Jalalabad Airfield before American helicopters fired on the attackers.

A guard said that after the initial explosion the airport had come under fire from rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and small arms.

According to an Afghan security official, three Afghan guards were killed in the fighting along with two university students who were caught up in the battle.

A number of Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) troops were wounded.

A local police official said nine militants were involved in the raid, three were killed by the car explosion and the remaining six were gunned down in the fire-fight that followed.

Lt Col Hagen Messer, a spokesman for Isaf, said:  "We can confirm insurgents, including multiple suicide bombers, attacked Jalalabad Airfield this morning. None of the attackers succeeded in breaching the perimeter.

"The final assessment of what happened this morning is not yet complete, but initial reports indicate there were three suicide bombers,"

A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, claimed responsibility for the attack on Sunday morning.

On its website, the Taliban said: "First a fedayee (suicide bomber) mujahid ... detonated a car bomb causing the enemy heavy casualties and losses and removed all the barriers.

"After the attack other fedayee mujahids entered the base ... and started attacking the invading forces in the base."

Afghan National Army soldiers arrive at Jalalabad following the attack

The airport complex has multiple layers of security, with the Nato base set well back from the first entrance.

A senior Afghan security official said: "First there was a car bombing next to the entrance followed by gun attack by the insurgents.

"They couldn't reach Nato forces and they were killed in the area between the first and second gates."

It was the largest clash at the Jalalabad air base since February, when a suicide car bombing at the gate triggered an explosion that killed nine Afghans, six of them civilians.

The attack highlights the problems facing the coalition forces ahead of the pull-out of more than 100,000 Nato troops in 2014.

The country's president, Hamid Karzai, insists that Afghan security forces have made good progress and will be able to control the country when the troops leave.

However, there are concerns that the Taliban has managed to survive more than a decade of fighting and will stage a surge once foreign forces leave.

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Japan Tunnel Collapse: Five People Dead

By Mark Stone, Asia Correspondent

Police say at least five people have died after being trapped inside their burning vehicle in a highway tunnel that collapsed in Japan.

The Sasago tunnel on the busy Chuo Expressway, about 50 miles (80 km) west of Tokyo, caved in just after 8am local time.

CCTV footage from inside the tunnel shows large sections of the roof lying across the road. 

Several cars are understood to have been crushed and a fire in the tunnel has complicated the rescue effort.

A fire in the tunnel complicated the rescue

Motorists described narrow escapes from falling debris, and a long walk through the darkness after abandoning their cars.

"When I was driving in the tunnel, concrete pieces fell down suddenly from the ceiling," a man in his 30s told public broadcaster NHK.

"I saw a crushed car catching fire. I left my car and walked for about an hour to get out of the tunnel."

Aerial footage showed black smoke billowing from the 2.8-mile (4.7-km) tunnel in Yamanashi prefecture.

The fire was extinguished about 11am local time but the rescue and recovery operation has been delayed by concerns that there could be further collapses.

The cause of the collapse is not yet clear. There are no reports of earthquakes in the region though there is a suggestion that a landslide could have contributed to the incident.

Given the frequency of earthquakes in the region, the authorities will have access to rescue equipment which will prove useful for this sort of operation.

NHK reporter Yoshio Goto, caught in Sunday's accident, hit the accelerator and managed to drive out.

"But it was a bit too late and pieces of ceiling fell on my car. I kept pressing the pedal and managed to get out," he said.

"Then when I looked around, I saw half of the car ceiling was crushed."

It was the worst such accident in Japan since 1996, when a tunnel collapsed and falling rocks crushed cars and a bus, killing 20 people.

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