Gunman shoots founder of sign business, 3 others, then shoots himself at Minn. office

 A man burst into a sign-making business in Minneapolis, fatally shooting the owner and three others in the office before turning the gun on himself, family and officials said Friday.

Police have not revealed the name or apparent motive of the shooter who injured at least four others in the Thursday afternoon attack, and say a search of the suspect’s home turned up nothing.

Reuven Rahamim, 61, was shot to death in “a senseless act of violence” at Accent Signage Systems Inc. in Bryn Mawr, a mainly residential neighborhood on the northwest side of the city, son-in-law Chad Blumenfield said in a statement.

“Other members of the Accent family tragically lost their lives as well, and we mourn their loss,” Blumenfield said. He provided no details.

UPS driver Keith Basinski was among those killed, the mail service said in a statement Friday. UPS Northern Plains District President Jill Schubert did not say why Basinski was at the Accent offices. She said the company was “profoundly shocked and saddened” at his death.

Authorities have not revealed the names of the others killed.

A police summary describes a chaotic scene with multiple 911 calls from the business and one caller saying someone had been shot. When police arrived, they found four people already dead. Dozens of police squad cars and SWAT officers swarmed the area. The first officers on the scene evacuated workers from the business and closed off several blocks.

Of the wounded, John Souter’s condition was upgraded from critical to serious as of Friday morning and Eric Rivers remained in critical condition, according to Christine Hill, a spokeswoman for the Hennepin County Medical Center where they were being treated. She had no information on the condition of a third man earlier listed in critical condition.

A fourth person injured has been treated and released, Hill said Friday.

Late Thursday, police searched a house in south Minneapolis where the suspected shooter had lived but found “nothing that we know of,” police spokesman Sgt. Stephen McCarty told the Associated Press. He confirmed the address of the suspect’s home but declined to confirm a newspaper report that named the gunman.

There was no evidence of life at that house early Friday except a light in the basement and a boarded-up window with pieces of broken glass nearby. No one responded to a knock on the door.

Thomas Pitheon, a neighbor who lives across the alley, said he came home just after dark Thursday and found “about a dozen” SWAT team members around the house. Pitheon said he had only exchanged pleasantries with the homeowner whom he described as “an average guy” in his 40s.

Rahamim started Accent Signage Systems, Inc. in the basement of his Minneapolis home in the early 1980s, according to the business publication Finance & Commerce. Rahamim said he chose that name because he wanted it to be the first sign company listed in the Yellow Pages.

The small interior signage company specializes in American with Disabilities Act-compliant signs after developing a patented method to create Braille signs for the blind. U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce Francisco Sanchez praised the company for its innovation during a visit to the facility in August, the paper reported.

Rahamim was born and raised in Israel and served as a soldier in the Israeli army before coming to the U.S., Blumenfield said.

“He loved his work and dedicated much of his energy to developing new and greener products,” he said by email. “He loved cooking and having people over at his home. He loved spending time with his children and grandchildren and especially loved to take his grandson for bike rides.”

Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton expressed his condolences.

“I deplore this senseless violence,” Dayton said. “There is no place for it anywhere in Minnesota.”

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Chavez's Oil-fed Fund Obscures Venezuela Money Trail

The site of what may someday be Venezuela's first newsprint factory today consists of little more than a warehouse, several acres of cleared tropical savannah, and two billboards bearing pictures of President Hugo Chavez.

More than five years after Chavez first hailed state-owned Pulpa y Papel CA as a vanguard "socialist business," there is little else to show here in rural southeastern Venezuela for the more than half a billion dollars that state investment fund Fonden set aside for the project.

As with many Fonden investments, tracking the money sent to Pulpaca, as the project is known, is difficult. A Pulpaca annual report for 2011 said the project was stalled for lack of funding. A manager at the dusty gates of the compound declined to comment. So did contractors involved. Requests for interviews with the industry ministry, charged with disbursing Fonden money for such projects, went unanswered.

Fonden is the largest of a handful of secretive funds that put decisions on how to spend tens of billions of dollars in the hands of Chavez, who has vowed to turn the OPEC nation's economy into a model of oil-financed socialism. Since its founding seven years ago, Fonden has been funneling cash into hundreds of projects personally approved by Chavez but not reviewed by Congress -- from swimming-pool renovations for soldiers, to purchases of Russian fighter jets, to public housing and other projects with broad popular appeal.

The fund now accounts for nearly a third of all investment in Venezuela and half of public investment, and last year received 25 percent of government revenue from the oil industry. All told, it has taken in close to $100 billion of Venezuela's oil revenue in the past seven years.

Fonden attracts scant attention beyond policy experts and Wall Street analysts. But it is at the heart of Chavez's promise to use Venezuela's bulging oil revenue to build new industries, create jobs and diversify the economy in the service of his self-styled revolution.

Finding out how much of that money Fonden has spent, and on what, is not easy. The most detailed descriptions usually come from Chavez himself, rattling off multimillion-dollar investments on television while chatting with workers and extolling the virtues of socialism. Fonden does not regularly release lists of projects in its portfolio.

Adversaries excoriate it as a piggy bank that lets Chavez arbitrarily spend billions of dollars with little more than the stroke of a pen and perhaps a celebratory Tweet, with accountability to no one. The secrecy also makes it impossible to determine what went wrong - at Fonden, or at the ministry level, or on the ground -- when a project like Pulpaca stalls.

"I'm shocked that we don't know exactly what has happened to $105 billion," said Carlos Ramos, an opposition legislator who has led a campaign to extract more information about the fund from the finance ministry. "That is not Chavez's money. That money belongs to 29 million Venezuelans and as such the information should be available to everyone."

Critics point out that since Fonden's creation, Venezuela's economy, rather than becoming more diversified, is even more dependent on its mainstay: In the first half of this year, oil accounted for 96 percent of export earnings, compared with about 80 percent 10 years ago.

The perception of secrecy has left investors unsure how to measure Venezuela's fiscal strength. Fitch Ratings this year warned it could downgrade the country's debt, in part because of transparency concerns. Those same concerns are also helping push up borrowing costs. Despite Venezuela's ample oil wealth, yields on the country's bonds are nearly equal to those of impoverished Pakistan, and higher than war-ravaged Iraq's.

"The visible portion that we can compare in Venezuela vis-à-vis other countries has declined considerably," said Erich Arispe, director in Fitch Ratings Sovereign Group. "I can't rate what I can't see."

CONTROL THE PURSE STRINGS

Chavez's control over the country's purse-strings -- unprecedented for any Venezuelan president in more than 50 years -- will be a key advantage in his bid for re-election on October 7. Projects successfully executed with billions of dollars in Fonden financing -- housing, hospitals and public transportation lines -- have improved the lot of Venezuela's poor, many of whom are already fans of Chavez's leadership.

"It's magnificent. It means we can have access to health care, education. All of this is for the people," said Domingo Gonzalez, 58, after being treated for hypertension at a new Caracas hospital funded by Fonden. "People say Chavez is throwing the money away, but that's obviously a lie, because otherwise we wouldn't have hospitals like this one," he said at the hospital gate near the slum of Petare, where middle-class Caracas merges with a chaotic jumble of narrow winding streets and ramshackle homes.

At the same time, Chavez is under growing opposition fire over abandoned or half-built projects, including some that received millions of dollars from Fonden. A fleet of modern busses for a transit project in the city of Barquisimeto, which received $301 million from Fonden, were left sitting idle so long that vines started growing inside them.

Some information about Fonden's outlays can be found in annual reports of government ministries. The finance ministry last year released a partial list of projects, following pressure by Ramos, the opposition legislator. A link on Fonden's website apparently dating from 2007 also provided a partial list of projects, but was taken offline in the first week of September. A cryptically worded internal Fonden document leaked to the press provides an outline of its financial investments, though it omits key details, such as losses on holdings.

Other publicly available data is provided at irregular intervals and in formats that often do not allow for comprehensive comparisons. Public officials pressed for additional information are as laconic as Chavez is loquacious. A Reuters reporter at a Fonden event who approached the finance minister -- the fund's president - to ask questions was physically restrained by two security personnel.

CENTURY OF PLUNDER

Venezuela's public finances have never been particularly transparent, and much of the oil industry's proceeds have been squandered for more than 100 years.

Early 20th century dictator Juan Vicente Gomez passed out concessions to friends while enriching himself. The country became known as "Saudi Venezuela" during the 1970s oil boom, but corrupt politicians wasted and stole much of the bounty, and Venezuela's economy was in ruins by the 1980s, after oil prices crashed.

Chavez's vow to direct oil revenue to the poor was music to the ears of millions and helped propel him to the presidency in a landslide election victory in 1998.

Fulfilling that promise required years of struggle for control of state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA, a tussle that would be a major factor in sparking a bungled 2002 coup. A two-month oil industry walkout meant to force Chavez from power gave him the opportunity to sack PDVSA's opposition-linked management, as well as half the company's staff, leaving him firmly in control of oil revenue. He also sharply raised royalties and taxes on all producers operating in Venezuela.

In 2005, as oil prices were reaching new highs, Chavez found a way to sidestep bureaucracy and speed up spending.

Rather than creating a new state agency, Chavez founded a corporation: National Development Fund Inc, universally known as Fonden. Its status as a corporation owned by the finance ministry lets it disburse billions of dollars in state money while subject to few of the reporting and disclosure requirements that apply to government entities.

Money funneled through Fonden is ultimately spent by government agencies, similar to funding from Congress. But it doesn't require congressional approval. Instead, Fonden outlays begin with Chavez's approval and are viewed by a board of directors made up of his closest allies.

They include Finance Minister Jorge Giordani, a septuagenarian economist considered the brains behind the country's byzantine price and currency controls, and Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez, who is also president of PDVSA.

Industry Minister Ricardo Menendez, who oversees the Pulpaca pulp and paper project, also has a seat on the board, as does long-time Chavez ally Vice President Elias Jaua.

It is not clear how often the group meets, and it does not publish meeting minutes.

CITY OF ALUMINUM

In one of his many grand plans, Chavez has vowed to turn the geographic center of Venezuela, a sparsely populated savannah where lush vegetation grows out of reddish soil, into a vibrant "City of Aluminum."

The flagship project for the plan is an aluminum rolling mill called Servicios de Laminacion CA, or Serlaca, in the town of Caicara.

The company's most recent annual report shows Serlaca had spent at least $312 million on the project by 2011. A subsidiary of Italian company Salico had been tasked with building equipment for the plant, according to an aluminum industry trade publication dated October 2010 posted on Salico's website. Salico did not respond to a request for comment.

By 2011, construction of the equipment had been stalled for 18 months for lack of funding, and the project had piled up debts with construction contractors, according to Serlaca's annual report. A visit last month to the site showed only a clearing with a concrete foundation and structural skeleton for the main factory.

Two union leaders and a civil engineer interviewed at the gates of the site said the project was moving at a snail's pace and contractors were using their own money to keep it from grinding to a halt. They said infighting between unions had killed seven workers since construction began four years ago.

Complaints from the neighboring community grew as the project remained stalled, and Caicara's mayor accused Serlaca's president of using company funds to advance his political career. The industry ministry in 2011 named a committee to look into the project, but Serlaca's president - later sacked by Chavez - blocked the group's efforts.

In a televised broadcast in March from Havana, where he was receiving treatment for cancer, Chavez complained the project was moving too slowly and offered a plan to restart it: $500 million from Fonden.

Serlaca's current president did not respond to calls seeking details about the additional funding.

FINANCIAL ENGINEERING, SOCIALIST STYLE

With cash rushing into Fonden faster than it can build new roads and factories, the fund often has billions of dollars to invest in securities.

But as the leaked internal report shows, Fonden at various times bought risky, high-yield securities in efforts to expand its resources while helping Chavez's foreign allies. Its unusual portfolio has included bonds issued by ally Ecuador, high-yield derivative securities issued by Lehman Brothers, and Honduran bonds purchased to support then-President Manuel Zelaya.

By 2008, these investments had become problematic: Lehman went bankrupt, and Ecuador declared a partial debt default. In addition, Fonden unloaded the Honduran bonds -- purchased at a concessionary rate of 0.75 percent -- months after buying them because Zelaya was ousted in a military coup.

Fonden hasn't revealed whether it lost money in these operations and if so, how much it lost. The fund sold off some of the assets and swapped the remainder for $960 million worth of derivative securities called structured notes, according to the internal Fonden report obtained by Reuters.

But it offers no detail on the market value of those securities. The report does say that Fonden's auditors pointed out that the fund had not adequately valued some $1.8 billion in complex fixed-income securities. That represented close to a quarter of its liquid assets of $7.9 billion in late 2011, according to the finance ministry's latest annual report.

CASTING A WIDE NET

Government leaders bristle at the idea that Fonden is Chavez's slush fund. But Fonden appears to have violated its own internal rules about which investments it does and doesn't make.

A Fonden 2007 instruction sheet for agencies seeking funding says it does not finance the purchase of buildings, vehicles or shares in companies. But by 2010, it had disbursed nearly $700 million to buy shares in a retailer and two cement-makers -- payments generated by several nationalizations ordered by Chavez. It also set aside $46 million to buy an embassy building in Moscow, and $19 million to buy a fleet of busses for use during the 2007 America's Cup soccer championships.

The president's office received almost $10 million from Fonden, according to the leaked internal report. The office did not respond to requests for clarification.

Fonden also gave $156 million to a social program called Mothers of the Barrio that provides cash stipends to mothers in extreme poverty, contradicting its stated mission to make "productive investments" that create jobs and spur development.

The national comptroller's office noted that in 2009 it detected "presumed irregularities" by Mothers of the Barrio, including payments to women who were not registered in the program and did not meet the conditions for participation. The women's ministry, which oversees the program, did not respond to requests for comment.

Fonden has also become a conduit for financing joint projects with Cuba, bankrolling at least $6.1 billion and disbursing at least $5.1 billion for some of the hundreds of ventures the two allies had signed as of 2010.

Fonden does not say what the projects are.

Press releases from bilateral meetings mention only several of the projects signed at each one, which run the gamut from a software development firm to a scrap-metal recycling operation. An agency overseeing the projects called the Cuba-Venezuela Joint Commission, which reports to the oil ministry, did not respond to requests for information.

For Pulpaca, the two billboards at the site provide details on what has been visibly completed to date: around $43 million to clear land and build the warehouse. Its last annual report says that as of 2011, it had spent nearly $530 million.

On a visit in August, silence hung over the compound. Trucks and bulldozers sat idly parked in rows. There was no sign of activity, or of the football-field-size machines that will be needed to turn Caribbean pine into paper.

Even so, it continues to enjoy financial support from the government. Around the time Pulpaca said it was struggling to move forward, Congress approved an additional $305 million for the project. That, combined with the Fonden outlays, brings total funding to $845 million.

And that's not all. Pulpaca said in a recent presentation that it will need $1.4 billion to complete the newsprint factory.

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Rajoy Inches Toward Aid As Protests, Regions Seethe

Violent protests in Madrid and growing talk of secession in wealthy Catalonia are piling pressure on Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy as he moves closer to asking Europe for rescue money.

Rajoy has been resisting calls from influential domestic bankers and the leaders of France and Italy to move quickly to request assistance, but a series of events this week will drive him closer.

With protesters stepping up anti-austerity demonstrations, Rajoy presents more painful economic reforms and a tough 2013 budget on Thursday, aiming to persuade euro zone partners and investors that Spain is doing its deficit-cutting homework despite a recession and 25 percent unemployment.

Fresh data on Tuesday suggested Spain will miss its public deficit target of 6.3 percent of gross domestic product this year, as the central government deficit reached 4.77 percent at the end of August, already higher than the year-end target.

By front-loading the reforms Rajoy hopes to sell them to voters as home-grown rather than conditions imposed from outside. Diplomats reported intense last-minute pressure on Madrid from key euro zone policymakers to take tougher measures, notably on freezing pensions.

On Friday, Moody's will publish its latest review of Spain's credit rating, possibly downgrading the country's debt to junk status.

On the same day, an independent audit of Spain's banks will reveal how much money Madrid will need from a 100 billion euro ($129.62 billion) aid package that Europe has already approved for the euro zone's fourth biggest economy.

Spain's reluctance to seek a sovereign bailout - a condition for European Central Bank intervention to cut the country's borrowing costs - could propel the euro zone into deeper trouble.

Rajoy moved one step closer to requesting aid, suggesting in an interview with the Wall Street Journal published on Wednesday that he would make the move if debt financing costs remained too high for too long.

"I can assure you 100 percent that I would ask for this bailout," he told the newspaper, calling the situation he faces right now "fascinating."

He also said he had not made his mind up on whether to maintain inflation indexation of pensions, which could cost the state an extra 6 billion euros this year.

"We need to be sufficiently flexible in order not to create any further problems," he said when asked about pensions.

His comments helped drive the premium investors demand to hold 10-year Spanish debt rather than benchmark German bonds up to 445 basis points on Wednesday, the highest level since early September.

Markets were also reacting to a letter from Germany, Finland and the Netherlands on Tuesday that implied that rescue funds Spain receives for its banks will remain on its public debt. The three said any future direct recapitalization of banks by the euro zone's bailout fund should not cover "legacy" problems.

CATALONIA INDEPENDENCE MOVEMENT

The government's drive to rein in regional overspending as part of its austerity measures has prompted a flare-up in independence fervor in Catalonia, the wealthy northeastern region that generates one-fifth of Spain's economic output.

Just as the euro zone crisis has strained relations between wealthier nations of the north and heavily indebted countries to the south, Spain's crisis has aggravated tensions between the central government and its self-governing regions.

Catalonia is broke and needs a 5 billion euros bailout from the central state to meet debt payments this year, but Catalans are convinced they bear an unfairly large share of the country's tax burden.

More than half say they want independence from Spain, the highest level ever.

Artur Mas, the conservative president of Catalonia, announced on Tuesday he would hold early elections in November after Rajoy rejected his call for more tax autonomy.

The vote, likely to be presented politically as a referendum for secession, is a challenge to Rajoy, who's People's Party has threatened to take central control over the budgets of regions like Catalonia that fail to meet deficit reduction targets.

Catalonia would face a number of constitutional hurdles to secede, and such an outcome is seen as unlikely any time soon.

Analysts say Mas is using the growing independence sentiment as a threat over Madrid to secure more fiscal autonomy.

"At a time when the PP could use the crisis to limit autonomy in the regions, Mas is engaged in a defensive move to try to shift things the other way," said Enric Juliana, Madrid bureau chief for Catalan newspaper La Vanguardia.

COMMUNICATION PROBLEMS

Anti-austerity groups planned a fresh demonstration on Wednesday evening in Madrid, a day after police fired rubber bullets at thousands of protesters who tried to form a human chain around the parliament building.

Police arrested 28 protesters on Tuesday and 64 police and demonstrators were injured in the clashes.

The relatively small but intense protests this week have added to Rajoy's image problems abroad.

Officials in Brussels and Berlin have accused him of failing to sell his reforms effectively, partly because of confusing messages from his separate treasury and economy ministers and from his own office.

"The problem in the structure of his economic cabinet is transmitting a confused, improvised image," said an economist, who did not want to be named and who said Rajoy will have to name a powerful economic deputy by the end of the year to sort out his communications issues.

The governments of Ireland, Portugal and Greece were all voted out of office after they sought bailouts from Europe.

But Rajoy may have more staying power, especially if he negotiates a bailout "lite", such as a precautionary credit line from the European bailout fund that would not involve taking Spain out of the credit markets.

The uncharismatic conservative has more than three years left to his term and his People's Party has firm control of parliament, with no signs so far of party splits that might force him out early.

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Google Says Maps Not Waiting In Wings For iPhone 5

Google Inc has made no move to provide Google Maps for the iPhone 5 after Apple Inc dropped the application in favor of a home-grown but controversial alternative, Google's Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt said.

Apple launched its own mapping service earlier this month when it began providing the highly anticipated update to its mobile software platform iOS 6 and started selling the iPhone 5.

But users have complained that Apple's new map service, based on Dutch navigation equipment and digital map maker TomTom NV's data, contains glaring geographical errors and lacks features that made Google Maps so popular.

"We think it would have been better if they had kept ours. But what do I know?" Schmidt told a small group of reporters in Tokyo. "What were we going to do, force them not to change their mind? It's their call."

Schmidt said Google and Apple were in constant communication "at all kinds of levels." But he said any decision on whether Google Maps would be accepted as an application in the Apple App Store would have to be made by Apple.

"We have not done anything yet," he said.

Google and Apple were close partners with the original iPhone in 2007 and its inclusion of YouTube and Google Maps. But the ties between the two have been strained by the rise of Google's Android mobile operating system, now the world's leading platform for smartphones.

Schmidt said he hoped Google would remain Apple's search partner on the iPhone but said that question was up to Apple.

"I'm not doing any predictions. We want them to be our partner. We welcome that. I'm not going to speculate at all what they're going to do. They can answer that question as they see fit," he said.

Google provides Android free of charge and allows developers to add applications on an open basis, betting that by cultivating a bigger pool of users - now at over 500 million globally - it can make more money by providing search functions and selling advertising.

"Apple is the exception, and the Android system is the common model, which is why our market share is so much higher," Schmidt said, adding that success was often ignored by the media, which he said was "obsessed with Apple's marketing events and Apple's branding."

"That's great for Apple but the numbers are on our side," he said.

At one point, Schmidt, who was in Japan to announce the launch of Google's Nexus tablet here, used the device to show off a new function of Google Maps.

The feature allows users to shift their view of an area by moving the device in the air without touching the screen, similar to the effect of looking around.

"Take that Apple," he said, adding quickly, "That was a joke by the way."

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China Carrier A Show Of Force As Japan Tension Festers

China sent its first aircraft carrier into formal service on Tuesday amid a tense maritime dispute with Japan in a show of force that could worry its neighbors.

China's Ministry of Defense said the newly named Liaoning aircraft carrier would "raise the overall operational strength of the Chinese navy" and help Beijing to "effectively protect national sovereignty, security and development interests".

In fact, the aircraft carrier, refitted from a ship bought from Ukraine, will have a limited role, mostly for training and testing ahead of the possible launch of China's first domestically built carriers after 2015, analysts say.

China cast the formal handing over of the carrier to its navy -- attended by President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao -- as a triumphant show of national strength at a time of tensions with Japan over islands claimed by both sides.

"The smooth commissioning of the first aircraft carrier has important and profound meaning for modernizing our navy and for enhancing national defensive power and the country's overall strength," Xinhua news agency cited Wen as saying at the commissioning ceremony in the northern port of Dalian.

Sino-Japanese relations deteriorated sharply this month after Japan bought the East China Sea islands, called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, from their private owner, sparking anti-Japan protests across China.

"China will never tolerate any bilateral actions by Japan that harm Chinese territorial sovereignty," Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Zhijun told his Japanese counterpart on Tuesday as the two met in a bid to ease tensions.

"Japan must banish illusions, undertake searching reflection and use concrete actions to amend its errors, returning to the consensus and understandings reached between our two countries' leaders."

In a sign of the tensions, China has postponed a ceremony marking the 40th anniversary of the resumption of diplomatic ties with Japan. But an official at the Japan-China Economic Association said Toyota Motor Corp Chairman Fujio Cho and Hiromasa Yonekura, chairman of Japanese business lobby Keidanren, and other representatives of Japan-China friendship groups would attend an event on Thursday in Beijing.

The risks of military confrontation are scant, but political tensions between Asia's two biggest economies could fester and worries persist about an unintended incident at sea.

"If blood is shed, people would become irrational," Koichi Kato, an opposition lawmaker who heads the Japan-China Friendship Association and will travel to Beijing, told Reuters.

"NOT CUTTING EDGE"

For the Chinese navy, the addition of carriers has been a priority as it builds a force capable of deploying far from the Chinese mainland.

China this month warned the United States, with President Barack Obama's "pivot" to Asia, not to get involved in separate territorial disputes in the South China Sea between China and U.S. allies such as the Philippines.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in turn urged China and its Southeast Asian neighbors to resolve disputes "without coercion, without intimidation, without threats and certainly without the use of force".

Narushige Michishita, a security expert at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo, said he thought the timing of the launch was unrelated to the islands dispute.

Rather, experts said it might be associated with China's efforts to build up patriotic unity ahead of a Communist Party congress that will install a new generation of top leaders as early as next month.

"China is taking another step to boost its strategic naval capability," Michishita said. "If they come to have an operational aircraft carrier, for the time being we are not super-concerned about the direct implications for the military balance between the U.S. and Japan on the one hand, and China on the other. This is still not cutting edge."

The East China Sea tensions with Japan were complicated on Tuesday by the entry of Taiwan, the self-ruled island that Beijing calls an illegitimate breakaway, which also lays claim to the islands.

Japanese Coast Guard vessels fired water cannon to turn away about 40 Taiwan fishing boats and 12 Taiwan Coast Guard vessels. Six Chinese patrol ships were also near the islands but four left, leaving two nearby but not in waters Japan considers its own.

Japan protested to Taiwan, a day after lodging a complaint with China over what it called a similar intrusion by Chinese vessels.

Taiwan has friendly ties with Japan, but the two sides have long squabbled over fishing rights in the area. China and Taiwan both argue they have inherited China's historic sovereignty over the islands.

The flare-up in tension comes at a time when both China and Japan confront domestic political pressures. Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's government faces an election in months, adding pressure on him not to look weak on China. China's Communist Party is preoccupied with the leadership turnover, with President Hu Jintao due to step down.

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Clinton Reassures Egypt's Mursi On U.S. Assistance

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reassured Egypt's new Islamist president on Monday that the United States would forge ahead with plans to expand economic assistance despite anti-American protests that cast new shadows over U.S. engagement with the region.

Clinton met Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi in New York, where both are attending this week's U.N. General Assembly meeting, and reinforced the Obama administration's continued commitment to provide both military and economic aid for Cairo, a senior State Department official said.

"What he heard from the secretary is that she is committed to following through on what she has said we will do," the official said following the 45-minute meeting.

U.S. officials said earlier this month they were close to a deal with Egypt's new government for $1 billion in debt relief to help Cairo shore up its ailing economy in the aftermath of its pro-democracy uprising, which ousted autocratic President Hosni Mubarak.

The aid package had languished during Egypt's 18 months of political turmoil and progress appeared to reflect a cautious easing of U.S. suspicions about Mursi, who was elected in June.

Egypt was among the countries swept by violent anti-American protests over an anti-Islam video made in California, and some U.S. lawmakers have raised questions about the future of U.S. assistance to the region, particularly given sharp budget constraints at home.

The senior official said Clinton, who has personally lobbied lawmakers to keep U.S. aid to Egypt and other Arab countries on track, believed these concerns had been laid to rest.

"Of course we understand that there may be (of Congress) who have questioned (the aid), but there is strong bipartisan support for Egypt being a democratic success because it's in our national security interest that that occur," the official said.

The United States was a close ally of Egypt under Mubarak and gives $1.3 billion in military aid a year to Egypt plus other assistance

NO OBAMA MEETING PLANNED

Mursi will use his New York trip to appear at former President Bill Clinton's annual philanthropic summit but has no plans to meet U.S. President Barack Obama, who is forgoing individual meetings with world leaders during his own brief stop at the United Nations on Tuesday.

In his talks with Clinton, Mursi outlined his government's plans to enact economic reforms as part of a broader push to win a $4.8 billion loan package from the International Monetary Fund, which the United States supports, the official said.

"The Egyptians have a lot of tough road in front of them to take the budget reforms that will be necessary and to do it in a way that helps them to move their democratic process forward," the official said.

Clinton and Mursi also discussed security issues including a rising militant threat in the Sinai Peninsula, a region critical to relations with neighboring Israel.

The U.S. official said Clinton and Mursi also touched on the issue of Iran but indicated the United States would be slow to support Mursi's proposal that Iran, Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia form a new group to try to find a solution to the violence in Syria.

"The Egyptians themselves would say that it's a new initiative and no one is sure whether it is going to head toward an end point or not," the official said. "We always have concerns when Iran is engaged."

Obama's rival in the U.S. presidential race, Republican Mitt Romney, called for a tougher line with Egypt after protesters scaled the Cairo compound wall and tore down the U.S. flag in one of series of protests that also saw the U.S. consulate attacked in the Libyan city of Benghazi, killing the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans.

Obama created doubts this month when he told a Spanish-language television network that the United States considered the new Islamist government neither an ally nor an enemy.

The U.S. official said Clinton's meeting with the Egyptian leader was relaxed and warm and waved away suggestions that the president's "ally" comment reflected broader uncertainty in the relationship.

"We've moved past that," the official said.

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Syria Helicopter Clips Jet Tail

A Syrian passenger jet with 200 people aboard has landed safely after a military helicopter clipped its tail in mid-air, reports say.

The helicopter crashed near the capital of Damascus, though it was not clear if there were any casualties in that crash or what had led the two aircraft to touch in mid-air.

No one on board the passenger jet was hurt, state TV said.

The close call came at a time when Syria is embroiled in a civil war between the supporters of President Bashar Assad and those trying to topple him. The 18-month rebellion has claimed the lives of more than 23,000 people, according to activists, and Syria has descended into chaos.

The Syrian government has increasingly been using helicopters and other aircraft in its fight against the rebels. Rebels have claimed to have shot down helicopters and warplanes in the past, although the regime has blamed most of the problems on mechanical difficulties.

In today's incident, the helicopter's rotor clipped the tail of a Syrian Arab Airlines jet, the state TV said. The passenger plane "landed safely at the airport and none of the 200 passengers were harmed," the report said.

The helicopter crashed south-east of Douma, a Damascus suburb that has witnessed repeated military crackdowns to purge fighters seeking to topple Assad. No further details were made available.

"We heard the sound of several explosions and some gunfire, and a few minutes later, we were told that a helicopter had crashed," said Mohammad Saeed, an activist in Douma.

Source: AP

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51 Dead In Afghan Bus, Oil Tanker Crash

A passenger bus collided with a fuel tanker in Afghanistan on Friday, killing 51 people and injuring several others, with women and children among the victims, officials said.

The incident happened in Ab Band district of Ghazni province, on the highway from Kabul to Kandahar, the capital of the south and Afghanistan's second largest city, on what is one of the most dangerous roads in the country.

One official said the fuel tanker belonged to an Afghan trader and Ghazni is part of the supply route for NATO goods coming into Afghanistan from the north and heading south.

"At around 6:30 am (0200 GMT) a passenger bus collided with a fuel tanker in the Spin Band area of Ab Band," Mohammad Ali Ahmadi, the deputy governor of the province, told AFP.

"As a result, the fuel tanker and the passenger bus caught fire and 51 people were killed and six others were wounded in the collision. There are women and children among the victims," he said.

He said most of the dead were burnt beyond recognition. Four women were among the 50 killed on the bus and the driver of the fuel tanker was also killed, he said.

Interior ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said 50 people had died.

Baz Mohammad Himmat, the head of the main hospital in Ghazni city, said only that five wounded had been brought in after the accident, but had no information about the dead.

Sardar, an 18-year-old survivor with head injuries, told AFP what happened.

"I was sitting in the back row and the driver was driving very fast when it crashed with the tanker. The bus caught fire, the passengers were screaming," he said in hospital.

"I managed to throw myself out of the bus because I was sitting in the last row. I saw people burning, it was terrible," he added.

High-casualty road accidents are common in Afghanistan, where roads are perilous and many vehicles are old.

Officials said there was no immediate suggestion that insurgents had been involved in Friday's accident, although Ghazni is a flashpoint for Taliban attacks.

"I believe reckless driving and the narrow road are to be blamed for this tragic accident," said Ghazni police chief Zerawer Zahid.

The Taliban is leading a 10-year insurgency against the US-backed government and 117,000 NATO troops who by the end of 2014 are due to withdraw and hand over security responsibility to Afghans.

In Ghazni on Thursday, a military spokesman said an insurgent attack killed a NATO soldier.

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Assault On U.S. Consulate In Benghazi Leaves 4 Dead, Including U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens

U.S. Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens was among four Americans killed in an attack by Muslim protesters on the U.S. consulate compound in Benghazi the previous evening, the U.S. government confirmed Wednesday.

"I strongly condemn the outrageous attack on our diplomatic facility in Benghazi, which took the lives of four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens," President Obama said in a written statement released Wednesday morning. The U.S. government had confirmed one American death on Tuesday.

President Obama said he had ordered heightened security at all U.S. diplomatic offices around the world in the wake of the attack in Benghazi and a similar but less violent incident in Cairo on Tuesday. Both incidents were sparked by hardline Muslims protesting a film made in the U.S. which insults the Muslim prophet Muhammad.

Military officials told CBS News an anti-terrorism team of U.S. Marines was being deployed to Libya to help secure U.S. interests in the country following the attack. The State Department said, however, that no Americans were remaining at the facility in Benghazi. State officials would not confirm how many Americans were evacuated, or to where.

Wanis al-Sharef, a Libyan Interior Ministry official in Benghazi, said the four Americans were killed when the angry mob, which gathered to protest a U.S.-made film that ridicules Islam's Prophet Muhammad, fired guns and burned down the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.

He said Stevens, 52, and other officials were moved to a second building - deemed safer - after the initial wave of protests at the consulate compound. According to al-Sharef, members of the Libyan security team seem to have indicated to the protesters the building to which the American officials had been relocated, and that building then came under attack.

Stevens, 52, was the first U.S. ambassador to be killed in the line of duty since 1979. A Libyan doctor who says he treated Stevens told the Associated Press Wednesday that the diplomat died of severe asphyxiation and that he tried for 90 minutes to revive him.

Ziad Abu Zeid said Stevens was brought to the Benghazi Medical Center by Libyans Tuesday night with no other Americans, and that initially no one realized he was the ambassador. Abu Zeid said Stevens had "severe asphyxia," apparently from smoke inhalation, causing stomach bleeding, but had no other injuries.

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Al-Sharef said two U.S. Marines sent to Benghazi when the clash erupted were shot and killed by the well-armed protesters. It was not immediately clear whether the Marines were part of Stevens' security detail. The American whose death was confirmed on Tuesday also died of a gunshot wound. He was identified by the State Department on Wednesday as Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith.

Deputy Libyan Prime Minister Mustafa Abushagur said on his Twitter account that, "Amb. Stevens was a friend of Libya and we are shocked at the attacks on the U.S. consulate." The Libyan Prime Minister also expressed grief and condemned the attack.

According to his biography page on the U.S. Embassy's website, Stevens "was the American representative to the Transitional National Council in Benghazi during the revolution," in Libya. Benghazi was the capital of rebel-held Libya during the uprising to oust Qaddafi.

According to al-Sharef, the angry mob stormed the consulate after the U.S. troops who responded fired rounds into the air to try and disperse the crowd. Al-Sharef said there had been threats that Islamic militants might try to take revenge for the death of al Qaeda's No. 2 commander Abu Yahya al-Libi, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan in June, and he said the U.S. consulate should have been better protected.

Confirming al-Libi's death for the first time in a video posted online Monday, al Qaeda chief Ayman Al-Zawahri called on Muslim's in al-Libi's native Libya to take revenge for his death.

Al-Sharef said the Libyan guards employed to guard the consulate building were far outgunned by the protesters, and thus retreated when the building was stormed.

Hours before the protest erupted in Benghazi, protesters scaled the walls of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, Egypt, tearing down and replacing the American flag with an Islamic banner.

CBS News' Alex Ortiz reported from Cairo that about 40 or 50 protesters had again gathered in front of the U.S. Embassy on Wednesday, but they were far outnumbered by Egyptian security personnel.

Tuesday's attacks were the first such assaults on U.S. diplomatic facilities in either country, at a time when both Libya and Egypt are struggling to overcome the turmoil following the ouster of their longtime leaders, Muammar Qaddafi and Hosni Mubarak, in uprisings last year.

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7 Poisoned In Czech Republic By Bootleg Liquor

At least four more people have died in the Czech Republic after drinking bootleg alcohol tainted with toxic methanol, bringing the death toll to seven in the worst such poisoning in three decades, officials said on Tuesday.

Police spokeswoman Miluse Zajicova said a 45-year-old man died in a hospital in the eastern town of Prerov, and a 21-year-old woman was found dead in nearby Osek nad Becvou.

Petra Pekarova, spokeswoman for Prague's General University Hospital, said Tuesday that a 38-year-old man had died there of methanol poisoning, while the public radio and television both said a 28-year-old woman from the eastern part of the country was found dead in her house.

Prime Minister Petr Necas called the situation "very serious" and said he has asked his ministers of agriculture, health and interior to inform him about the steps they have taken to prevent any further health damage of citizens.

Methanol, or wood alcohol, is mainly used for industrial purposes. It is sometimes misused to illegally produce cheap liquor.

Authorities announced Monday that three deaths in the country's east had been linked to the illicit liquor. About two dozen other people have been hospitalized, some in critical condition.

Authorities have launched a nationwide check of restaurants, bars, liquor stores and street markets in an effort to discover the origin of the bootleg booze.

Senior police officer Vaclav Kucera said police believe all the cases have been connected.

Over the weekend, police arrested a 36-year-old suspect but declined to provide details.

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Pakistan Factory Fires Kills More Than 310

More than 310 Pakistanis have perished in horrific fires that destroyed two factories in Pakistan, an unprecedented industrial tragedy that has prompted calls for an overhaul of poor safety standards.

At least 289 people died at a garment factory in Karachi, Pakistan's biggest city, just hours after 21 died at a shoe factory in Lahore, close to the Indian border.

In scenes of horror, relatives watched as loved ones jumped from windows of the four-storey Karachi building where hundreds were working in a bid to escape the blaze, which began late on Tuesday.

The city's top administration official, Karachi Roshan Shaikh, told AFP that more victims were being recovered and that he expected the toll to rise.

The toll rose rapidly during the day as firefighters extinguished smouldering embers and found dozens of dead huddled together in the basement and ground floor of the factory, where they suspect that the fire began.

"We didn't find bodies in ones or twos, but in the dozens, which is why the death toll is increasing so alarmingly," said Karachi fire chief Ehtesham Salim.

Many of those on the upper floors of the building were rescued or jumped to escape the inferno, although dozens broke limbs on impact with the street.

Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik said he had ordered an inquiry into both fires. Officials said the factory in Karachi in particular was in poor condition and lacked emergency exits.

"The building has developed cracks and there is a danger it can collapse any time," Shaikh told Pakistan's private Geo TV channel. "Owners of the factory have been absconding and raids are being conducted for their arrest," he said.

Officials said two brothers who owned the company have been barred from leaving the country. "Their names have been put on exit control list," a senior government official told AFP.

Irfan Moton, chairman of the Sindh Industrial Trading Estate (SITE) told AFP he believed there were 600 to 700 people in the factory when the fire broke out. "We believe many people have come out, but still there are fears the final toll could be higher," he said.

In January 2009, 40 people were killed, more than half of them children, when a fire engulfed dozens of wooden homes in Karachi's impoverished Baldia neighbourhood, but Tuesday's tragedy was considered the deadliest in Pakistani industry.

"It was terrible, suddenly the entire floor filled with fire and smoke and the heat was so intense that we rushed towards the windows, broke its steel grille and glass and jumped out," said Mohammad Saleem, 32, who broke a leg after jumping out of the second floor.

"I saw many people jumping out of windows and crying in pain for help," he said.

According to workers, the factory produced underwear and plastic utensils.

The garment trade is vital to Pakistan's shaky economy.

According to central bank data, the textiles industry contributed 7.4 per cent to Pakistan's GDP in 2011 and employed 38 per cent of the manufacturing sector workforce. It accounted for 55.6 per cent of total exports.

Noman Ahmed, from the NED University of Engineering and Technology in Karachi, said few industries and businesses implement the law on safety and fire exits, finding it easy to avoid because of lack of effective monitoring.

"Most of our shopping centres and markets too have no safety mechanism, which the authorities should review seriously, otherwise it could cause graver tragedies in future," he said.

Officials said the cause of the fire was unknown but Rauf Siddiqi, the industry minister for the southern province of Sindh, of which Karachi is the capital, said the owner could face negligence charges.

"We have ordered an inquiry into how the fire erupted and why proper emergency exits were not provided at the factory so that the workers could escape," Siddiqi said.

In Lahore, flames also trapped dozens of workers in a shoe-making factory, killing 21 and injuring 14 others, where Tariq Zaman, a government official, blamed a faulty generator.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan expressed "grave concern" over the fires and demanded immediate attention to ensuring safe working conditions for factory workers.

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Iraq's Sunni Vice President Sentenced To Death

Iraq's fugitive Sunni vice president was sentenced to death Sunday after a Baghdad court found him guilty of masterminding the killings of a lawyer and a government security official.

Tariq al-Hashemi, who has denied the allegations, fled the country after Iraq's Shiite-led government leveled the terror charges against him in December. The politically charged case sparked a crisis in Iraq's government and has fueled Sunni Muslim and Kurdish resentment against Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite who critics say is monopolizing power.

The Baghdad courtroom was silent Sunday as the presiding judge read out the verdict convicting al-Hashemi and his son-in-law of organizing the murders of a Shiite security official as well as lawyer who had refused to help the vice president's allies in terror cases.

The court sentenced both men to death by hanging in absentia. They have 30 days to appeal the verdict.

The judge said al-Hashemi, who is currently in Turkey, was acquitted in a third case linked to the killing of a security officer due to a lack of evidence.

The case has fueled resentment among Iraq's Sunni minority, and al-Hashemi himself has dismissed the charges against him as a political vendetta pursued by his longtime rival, al-Maliki.

Sunday's closing session of the trial provided a window into the politically charged nature of the case.

The defense team began its closing statement with a searing indictment of the judicial system, accusing it of losing its independence and siding with the Shiite-led government.

"From the beginning and through all procedures it has become obvious that the Iraqi Judicial system has been under political pressure," attorney Muayad Obeid al-Ezzi, the head of the defense team, told the court.

The presiding judge immediately interjected, warning that that the court would open legal proceedings against the defense team if it continued to heap accusations on the court or the judicial system.

The trial, which opened this spring, held a total of 10 hearings and featured testimony from the vice president's former bodyguards, who said they were ordered, and then paid, to launch the attacks. Government forces who found weapons when they raided al-Hashemi's house and that of his son-in-law also testified in the case, as did relatives of the victims.

A spokesman for al-Hashemi did not have an immediate comment and said the vice president would release a statement Sunday evening.

Iraq's Shiite-led government has accused al-Hashemi of playing a role in 150 bombings, assassinations and other attacks from 2005 to 2011 — most of which were allegedly carried out by his bodyguards and other employees. Most of the attacks the government claims al-Hashemi was behind targeted the vice president's political foes, as well as government officials, security forces and Shiite pilgrims.

The charges against the vice president span the worst years of bloodshed that followed the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq as retaliatory sectarian attacks between Sunni and Shiite militants pushed the country to the brink of civil war. He has been in office since 2006.

Al-Hashemi has claimed that his bodyguards were likely tortured or otherwise coerced into testifying against him.

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New York City Hammered By Two Tornados

Damaging storms that spawned tornadoes in New York City, darkened tens of thousands of homes in the Washington, D.C., area and flooded New England streets turned a normal day of rest into a day of cleaning up for many East Coast residents on Sunday.

No serious injuries were reported when a twister hit a beachfront neighbourhood Saturday on the edge of New York City and a second, stronger tornado followed moments later about 16 km away. Residents got advance notice but still the storm took people by surprise.

“I was showing videos of tornadoes to my four-year-old on my phone, and two minutes later, it hit,” said Breezy Point neighbourhood resident Peter Maloney. “Just like they always say, it sounded like a train.”

The unsettled weather, part of a cold front that crossed over the Eastern Seaboard, toppled trees and power lines and damaged buildings as it passed through. Wind gusts reached 70 mph in some places.

Tornado-like funnel clouds were reported in Fairfax County, Va., and in Prince George’s County, Md., but had not been confirmed by Saturday evening, meteorologist Andy Woodcock of the National Weather Service said.

One person suffered minor injuries during a partial stage collapse at the Rosslyn Jazz Festival in Arlington County, Va., and six people were evacuated from a Washington apartment building when a tree fell on it. Fairfax County officials reported three home cave-ins because of downed trees, a water rescue in the Potomac River and dozens of electrical wires down.

By Sunday morning, about 15,000 customers were without electricity in northern Virginia, according to Dominion Virginia Power. Pepco reported outages to more than 5,000 customers in the District of Columbia and Maryland’s Prince George’s and Montgomery counties. BGE reported about 1,500 outages, most in Prince George’s and Anne Arundel counties.

In New York City, videos taken by bystanders showed a funnel sucking up water, then sand, and then small pieces of buildings as the first tornado moved through the Breezy Point section of the Rockaway peninsula in Queens.

At the Breezy Point Surf Club, it ripped the roofs off rows of cabanas, scattered deck chairs and left a heavy metal barbecue and propane tank sitting in the middle of a softball field, at least 100 yards from any home.

“It picked up picnic benches. It picked up Dumpsters,” said the club’s general manager, Thomas Sullivan.

In the storm’s wake, broken flower pots, knocked-down fences and smashed windows littered the community of seaside bungalows. Half an hour later, the weather was beautiful, but Sullivan had to close the club to clean up the damage.

The roof of Bob O’Hara’s cabana was torn off, leaving tubes of sunscreen, broken beer bottles and an old TV set exposed to the elements.

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Clashes Across Syria Kill 28

Syrian troops have bombarded a string of districts in the northern city of Aleppo and launched attacks across the country as 28 people were killed nationwide in clashes and shelling, a watchdog says.

Shelling in Aleppo destroyed houses in the Midan district, a regime bastion that rebels have been trying to seize from their stronghold in Bustan al-Basha since Saturday, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

"The bombardment of Bustan al-Basha has stopped but could start up again any time," a resident told AFP, after a day of fierce clashes.

A main water pipe in Bustan al-Basha was destroyed on Saturday, either by air strikes or the fighting, according to the Britain-based watchdog, while residents reported severe water shortages in the city.

The governor of Aleppo province, Mohammed Akkad, blamed "terrorists" for breaking the Midan water main as well as two other pipelines in Suleiman al-Halabi district.

"Maintenance crews are in the process of repairing them and we hope that the water will return Sunday," he told pro-regime daily Al-Watan.

Meanwhile, the Observatory reported at least two peopled killed in Hanano after heavy shelling hit a building in the eastern Aleppo neighbourhood, while clashes broke out in the adjacent district of Sakhur. The nearby neighbourhoods of Tariq al-Bab and Shaar were also shelled.

In Damascus, clashes broke out at the Yarmuk Palestinian refugee camp as troops bombarded the adjacent Tadamun district in the southeast, and the nearby suburbs of Al-Hajar Al-Aswad and Sayyida Zeinab, the Observatory said.

An activist video posted to YouTube showed plumes of black smoke billowing into the sky in the south of the capital, purportedly from a massive fire that broke out in Tadamun during shelling attacks.

Shelling was also reported in northwestern Idlib province, in central Homs province, and in the southern province of Daraa where seven soldiers were killed in an ambush by rebels at a military checkpoint, the Observatory said.

In Homs two bombs blew up a bus carrying civilians and troops, killing at least four people and wounding dozens more.

At least 1267 people have been killed since September 1, Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP by phone.

More than 27,000 people have been killed the uprising began in March last year, according to the Observatory, which collects its data from a network of activists, medical sources and others on the ground.

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Wave Of Attacks Kills 56 In Iraq

A Series of more than 20 attacks across Iraq have killed 56 people and wounded more than 250 others, security and medical officials say, with targets including security forces and markets.


The latest violence brings the number of people killed in attacks so far this month to 86, according to an AFP tally based on security and medical sources.

In the deadliest attack on Sunday, two car bombs exploded in a market near the shrine of Imam Ali al-Sharqi in southern Iraq, a security official said.

Dr Ali al-Alaa, a Maysan province health department official, said the blasts killed 14 people and wounded 60.

Before midnight on Saturday, gunmen opened fire on an army checkpoint near Balad north of Baghdad and a roadside bomb exploded when additional soldiers arrived at the scene.

Eleven soldiers, including two officers, were killed and eight others wounded, an army colonel and a medical source at Balad hospital said.

A police captain was also shot dead on Saturday night in the town of Garma, security and medical officials said.

Early Sunday morning, a car bomb exploded in a car park at the rear gate of state-owned North Oil Company, near the northern city of Kirkuk, killing seven people and wounding 17 others.

In Kirkuk itself, two bombings killed three people and wounded 70 others.

Three car bombs exploded in Taji, north of the capital, killing one person and wounding at least seven others, an interior ministry official and a medical source said.

And five roadside bombs exploded in and around Baquba, killing a soldier and wounding 17 others, a police colonel and a doctor said.

In the former insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, a sniper shot dead a soldier, army Captain Saadun al-Mohammedi and Dr Hamed Iyad from Fallujah hospital said.

In Nasiriyah, 305 kilometres south of Baghdad, a bomb exploded on Sunday near a French honorary consulate, causing material damage and wounding an unspecified number of people, a French diplomat said.

The city's website put the toll from the bombing at one dead and one wounded.

Meanwhile, a car bomb exploded in front of a hotel in Nasiriyah, killing two people and wounding two others, according to the head of Nasiriyah hospital, Ahmed Abdul Saheb, and a security source.

Attacks in Tuz Khurmatu, north of Baghdad killed four people, including a police captain and wounded 31, among them a police second lieutenant, its mayor Shalal Abdul and police Lieutenant Colonel Khaled al-Bayati said.

In the southern port city of Basra, a car bomb in a market killed three people and wounded at least 20 others, police and a medical official said.

In Tal Afar, northwest of Baghdad, a car bomb exploded killing two people and wounding seven, police First Lieutenant Abed Ghayib and Dr Waad Mohammed from Tal Afar hospital said.

And south of Samarra, a city north of Baghdad, another car bomb killed two police, including Colonel Thair Idris, and wounded two others, a police lieutenant colonel and a medical source said.

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Girl Hid Under Bodies After Alps Shootings

A four-year-old British girl spent eight hours cowering among the bodies of three adults, thought to be her mother, father and grandmother, who were shot dead in a car in the French Alps.

The child, apparently on a family camping holiday from Britain, was found by police unhurt shortly before midnight on Wednesday huddled on the floor behind the front seats of the car, hidden under the legs and skirt of one of the dead women.

A second girl of about eight, thought to be her sister, had been found earlier with serious injuries having been shot in the shoulder and severely beaten on the head.

A French cyclist was also found shot dead at the scene on a mountain road near the village of Chevaline, close to the Annecy lake and the Swiss border. The man, a young father who lived in the area named Sylvain Mollier, "just happened to be riding by" at the time of the attack, officials said.

"I do not call this the work of professionals. I call it an act of enormous savagery," public prosecutor Eric Maillaud, who was visibly shaken, told a news conference in the town of Annecy, southeastern France. Police had no idea of the motive, he said.

The owner of the UK-registered car, who was found dead at the wheel, was Iraqi-born Briton Saad al-Hilli from Surrey, southern England, a source close to the investigation told Reuters. Police arrived at the scene at about 4 p.m. on Wednesday--shortly after the attack--after another cyclist, a British former air force officer, raised the alarm after coming across the car with its engine still running and the older girl stumbled out from behind it and collapsed at his feet.

The younger girl, too terrified to move or make a sound, went unnoticed for eight hours because investigators did not open the car doors in order not to disturb any evidence pending the arrival of forensic experts from Paris. They finally opened up the vehicle after a man at the campsite who had met the group alerted police to the fact there was a second girl in the party.

"She started smiling and speaking English as soon as a gendarme from the Chambery search brigade took her in his arms and got her out of the car," Maillaud said.

The cyclist and two of the adults in the car were killed by gunshots to the head, Maillaud said. About 15 bullet casings were found at the scene and the weapon may have been an automatic pistol, he added.

Both children are in hospital in Grenoble under police protection. The older girl, who is in a stable condition, had been placed in an artificial coma pending a second operation following emergency surgery overnight. "She was struck very violently and apparently has skull fractures," Maillaud said.

The British cyclist who called police said he had been overtaken on the road, shortly before the killing, by the French cyclist found dead at the scene.

Police stood guard outside the al-Hilli's detached, half-timbered family home in Claygate, a small, quiet village on the southwestern outskirts of London. Neighbour Lorna Davy, whose children attend the same school as the two al-Hilli girls, described their parents as "chatty and involved with the community" and their daughters as "really lovely little girls."

"It seems incredible--my first thought was that they must just have been in the wrong place at the wrong time, but now it's hard to know what to think," Davy said.

Another neighbour, Jack Saltman, said al-Hilli was kind and helpful, and came to Britain from Iraq 20 years ago and had lived in the Claygate house for a decade. "The two girls were adorable, they'd play together for hours and chat to me over the fence about their holidays and things," Saltman told Reuters. "It's absolutely heartbreaking that this has happened."

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