Syria's PM survives assassination bid

A damaged bus at the scene of a car bomb explosion in Syria's western neighborhood of Mazzeh, in Damascus, Syria, April. 29, 2013. Source: AP

SYRIAN Prime Minister Wael al-Halqi has escaped an assassination bid, surviving a blast meant for his convoy in Damascus, in the latest attack on top members of President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

The attack came as Republicans in the United States stepped up calls for American action after claims Mr Assad's regime used chemical weapons against its population in a bid to repress the uprising now in its third year.

Syrian state television said Mr Halqi was unharmed in the blast on Monday in the Mazzeh district of the capital.

"The terrorist explosion in Mazzeh was an attempt to target the prime minister's convoy and Dr Wael al-Halqi was unharmed," state television reported, adding that the blast had caused casualties.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights watchdog said one of Mr Halqi's bodyguards had been killed.

"A second bodyguard and the driver are in critical condition," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said, adding that the convoy appeared to have been targeted by a remotely-detonated car bomb.

State television said the explosion happened near a public garden and a school in the neighbourhood, a well-secured district that is home to embassies, government buildings, intelligence facilities and several political figures.

"I was walking in the street when suddenly there was a very powerful explosion and I saw a car burning and people running," a young man told AFP at the scene.

Syrian fire fighters extinguishing burning cars after a car bomb exploded in the capital's western neighborhood of Mazzeh, in Damascus, Syria, April. 29, 2013.

"I heard glass shattering," he added, saying he had tried to hide for fear a second explosion would follow.

An AFP photographer at the scene said several vehicles were destroyed in the blast, including a bus burned out by the explosion. The windshields of other cars nearby were also blown out.

State television al-Ikhbariya broadcast footage of Mr Halqi attending a government meeting and giving a statement afterwards, but it was unclear whether the footage was from before or after the attack.

Mr Halqi, who was appointed prime minister in August 2012 after his predecessor Riad Hijab defected to the opposition, is the latest in a string of regime officials to be targeted for assassination.

In July 2012, a suicide bomb attack killed Syria's defence minister and deputy defence minister and left the country's interior minister seriously wounded.

The capital has also been targeted in several major bombings, including an explosion on April 9 in the centre of the city which killed at least 15 people.

The attack against Mr Halqi came as US Republican legislators piled pressure on the administration to take action over Syria's alleged use of chemical weapons.

But despite the criticism of US President Barack Obama's failure to do more, there was little agreement on precisely how the United States should act.

"We need to get involved. And there's a growing consensus in the US Senate that the United States should get involved," Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said on CBS's Face the Nation.

But he acknowledged that "Syria is difficult," and any action would be risky.

And international consensus remains elusive, with Russia standing by the Syrian regime and warning Monday that a search for weapons of mass destruction should not be used an excuse to oust Mr Assad.

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Man charged after son, 9, drives Ferrari

The boy's mother filmed him driving the sports car on his ninth birthday, with his seven-year-old brother in the passenger seat. Picture: YouTube Source: AP

CHARGES have been filed against a man who allowed his nine-year-old son to drive his Ferrari, police in the southern Indian state of Kerala say.

Mohammed Nisham was charged with endangering the life of a child and allowing a minor to drive, said Inspector M.V. Verghese on Monday.

Nisham's wife filmed the boy driving the sports car on his ninth birthday two weeks ago, with his seven-year-old brother in the passenger seat. The video went viral on YouTube and caused outrage across India, causing police to file charges.

India's economic boom has created a class of super-rich, whose excesses are frequently in the news.

Verghese said the boy's father, who has a thriving tobacco and real estate business, owns a stable of 18 cars worth an estimated $US4 million ($3.91 million).

Charges have been filed against Mohammed Nisham after allowing his nine-year-old son to drive his Ferrari, according to police in the southern Indian state of Kerala. Picture: YouTube

Nisham has applied for bail and is expected to turn himself in at the police station close to his home near the port city of Kochi, Verghese said.

He said police would likely impound the Ferrari while the case is ongoing.

The boy's parents are unabashed. "I am proud of him. He's been driving since he was five," said his mother, Amal Nisham.

She said the boy has also driven the family's Lamborghini and Bentley and other cars.

"It was his ninth birthday, and since he was insisting for months, we allowed him to drive the Ferrari. He is a cautious and confident driver," she told television channel NDTV.

"It's not easy for a child to achieve such a feat at this young age," she said.

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CIA gave millions in cash to Karzai

Afghan President Hamid Karzai pictured with US President Barack Obama during a news conference at the White House in January. Source: AP

THE CIA has delivered tens of millions of dollars in cash packed in suitcases and backpacks to the office of Afghan President Hamid Karzai for more than a decade, the New York Times reports.

"We called it 'ghost money'," Khalil Roman, Mr Karzai's deputy chief of staff from 2002 to 2005, told the Times. "It came in secret, and it left in secret."

The money was aimed at obtaining influence, but instead fuelled rampant corruption, current and former officials told the newspaper.

"The biggest source of corruption in Afghanistan," an unnamed US official told the newspaper, "was the United States."

The United States has long been known to funnel cash to supporters in Afghanistan, as it also did in Iraq. However, the Times story is one of the first accounts that puts a figure on the amount of cash sent specifically to Mr Karzai's office.

There appears to be no oversight over the secret CIA money, which is aimed at gaining influence by paying off warlords and politicians including some linked to the drug trade and even the Taliban, the Times reported.

Iran earlier made cash payments to one of Mr Karzai's top aides, the Afghan president acknowledged in 2010. However, the Iranians have stopped such payments while the CIA payments continue, the Times reported.

Billions of dollars in aid have been pledged to help Afghanistan after NATO combat troops withdraw in 2014, but only on condition that corruption is brought under control.

Mr Karzai later confirmed his government received money from the CIA.

"Yes, the NSC of Afghanistan has received money from CIA in the past 10 years. The amount was not big, rather it was small," Mr Karzai said in a statement, referring to the National Security Council which is part of the president's office.

He said the money had been used for good causes in Afghanistan, where endemic corruption is one of the main problems undermining efforts to establish a stable state.

"The money was spent for different reasons: operation objectives, helping wounded and sick (people) and for house rents and others objectives," the president said.

"These assistances were very productive and we thank them."

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Four feared dead in Prague blast

A paramedic bandages a woman injured by a powerful gas blast on April 29, 2013 in Prague's historic center. Source: AFP

A POWERFUL blast has ripped through a multi-storey building in Prague's historic centre, leaving about 40 people injured and possibly up to four dead in the rubble, rescuers say.

The force of the explosion, which police said was believed to have been caused by a gas leak, blew out windows in nearby streets on Monday, and shook buildings across the Vltava river in the Czech capital.

Police have sealed off the popular tourist area and evacuated around 220 people from several nearby buildings, Prague police spokesman Tomas Hulan said.

Emergency services chief Zdenek Schwarz told the novinky.cz news website that three or four dead people may be buried in the rubble of the damaged building, which is near Prague's historic National Theatre.

"The gas company workers haven't allowed rescuers in the building where the blast occurred, but (detection) dogs have marked the place a few times so we suppose there might be three or four dead people there," he said.

An AFP photographer at the scene saw dozens of people with cuts, likely sustained by shattered glass from windows along the debris-covered Divadelni Street. Injured victims were treated on the spot for cuts, some with blood streaming down their faces and bandages on their heads and many of them in shock.

Prague emergency service spokeswoman Jirina Ernestova said that about 40 people had been taken to hospital for treatment.

Schwarz also told Czech TV that four people had suffered serious injuries, while other Czech media said up to 55 may have been hurt.

"A gas blast seems to be the most likely cause. The explosion was rather massive and damaged windows in several streets," Hulan told the television station, adding that several hundred Prague police officers were in action.

Czech media said the blast moved the wall of the building, a former block of flats now used as office space, by five centimetres (two inches) and quoted witnesses as saying they could smell gas in the street.

Prime Minister Petr Necas said in a statement that he was "deeply affected by the tragedy".

The buildings in the area were mostly built in the 19th century, including the ornate National Theatre, whose adjacent modern section was damaged by the blast.

Students and teachers from two nearby universities panicked and ran out when the blast shook their buildings, fearing a terrorist attack, an unnamed student told Czech TV.

"Blast in Divadelni (street), many injured. Windows broken at journalism faculty," Milos Cermak, a Czech journalist who was lecturing in an adjacent university building at the time, wrote on Twitter.

"Police say gas still leaking. Helicopter above us. Classes cancelled for rest of week," he added.

Cermak described the explosion as "a terrible blast."

"We don't know what happened. The firefighters helped some students covered in blood out of the building,"

Tomas, a student at the faculty, told the website of the Lidove noviny broadsheet.

The Czech capital welcomed more than 5.4 million tourists last year.

A man carries a young woman injured by a powerful gas blast in Prague's historic center on April 29, 2013.

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Town hunts man who killed girl, 8

Leila Fowler, 8, was stabbed to death in her home in Valley Springs, California, April 27, 2013. Picture: Facebook Source: Facebook

AFTER door-to-door sweeps proved fruitless, law officers urged residents of a small town in Northern California to lock their doors and keep a close eye on streets and yards for a man who stabbed an 8-year-old girl to death in her house.

The attacker, only described as wearing a black shirt and blue pants, was the subject of a broad search Sunday by the sheriff's departments of Calaveras and surrounding counties, the California Highway Patrol and the state Department of Justice.

Leila Fowler was stabbed to death on Saturday at the home in Valley Springs, Coroner Kevin Raggio said. Sheriff's officials say investigators have collected fingerprints and what they believe is DNA from the home.

Calaveras County Sheriff's Capt. Jim Macedo told the Modesto Bee authorities hope to have lab results on the evidence in a week.

"This is way too close to home," Julia Poland, who took her 13-year-old daughter to an afternoon news conference on the search, told the Bee. "This kind of thing does not happen here."

Leila was found by her brother - reported by local media to be 12 years old - after he encountered a male intruder in the home. When the intruder ran away, the boy found his sister stabbed. She was pronounced dead at a local hospital, officials said.

Authorities spent Saturday night and into Sunday conducting a door-to-door sweep of homes scattered across hilly terrain, checking storage sheds and horse stables, and even searching attics.

"It is a difficult area to search, it's rural, remote," sheriff's Capt. Jim Macedo said.

Mass notifications alerted residents about the attack and the search for the suspect, officials said.

"I was working on my tractor and a CHP copter kept flying over my house," Roger Ballew, 35, told The Associated Press on Sunday.

A SWAT team showed up at his house Saturday night and told him to stay inside.

"It was nerve-racking, I didn't sleep well," Mr Ballew said.

Investigators on Sunday were interviewing several people, but no suspects had been named by late afternoon.

Detectives were checking out tips that had come in to the sheriff's office, including possible leads from outside the county, officials said.

"It's just terrible," resident Paul Gschweng told Sacramento television station KCRA. "What can I say about it, it's just a tragedy."

The station reported that a neighbor told police that a man was running from the girl's home after the attack.

Investigators were asking area residents to call authorities if they had any information, knew of anyone who had unexplained injuries or may have left the area unexpectedly after the girl was killed.

Valley Springs is a community of about 2,500 people in an unincorporated area of Calaveras County, known as "Gold Country," in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, about 60 miles southeast of Sacramento.

The county became world-famous in 1865 with Mark Twain's short story, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," according to the Calaveras County Chamber of Commerce website.

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Eight children found home alone

Eight children, aged 3 to 12, left at home by their mother, could not tell investigators how long they had been alone.

CHILD Protection Services in Dallas are attempting to solve the mystery of how eight children came to be left alone at home for an unknown period.

Police say two women who described themselves as acquaintances from church went to the house on Sunday morning to check on the children, aged three to 12, NBCnews.com reports.

When they found the children at home without their mother, the women dropped them to a local fire station at 7am. Firefighters fed the children and kept them company until police and Child Protection arrived.

The children could not tell investigators how long they had been on their own.

The children have been placed in foster care and their mother has been located but authorities have made no comment on any explanation offered by her for leaving the children or if she will face charges.

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Man charged in church stabbings

An Albuquerque Police officer on the scene at St. Jude Thaddeus Catholic Church, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, after a man attacked the choir during Sunday Mass. Picture: AP Source: AP

AN ALBUQUERQUE man has been formally charged with stabbing several members of the choir at Sunday Mass.

Authorities say 24-year-old Lawrence Capener was booked late on Sunday on three counts of aggravated battery. The Albuquerque resident was ordered held on $US75,000 ($73,000) bail.

Police say worshippers screamed as Mr Capener stabbed several people just as Mass was ending at St. Jude Thaddeus Catholic Church. Authorities say he continued the onslaught until he was tackled and held by church members until officers arrived.

It was not immediately known what sparked the bizarre attack at the 11am Sunday Mass on the city's west side.

Four parishioners were injured and were listed in stable condition at a nearby hospital.

Court records do not list an attorney for Mr Capener.

Just as the St. Jude Thaddeus Catholic Church choir began its final hymn, Mr Capener vaulted over pews and lashed out at the singers, sending four churchgoers to the hospital with stab wounds, authorities said.

Worshippers screamed as the shocking and chaotic scene unfolded on Sunday with the attacker continuing the onslaught until he was tackled and held by church members for officers, who raced to the scene, police said.

Four parishioners were injured, including church choir director Adam Alvarez and flutist Gerald Madrid, police spokesman Robert Gibbs said. All four were being treated at hospitals and listed in stable condition.

Investigators don't yet know whether Capener had ties to the victims or whether he regularly attended the church, Mr Gibbs said earlier.

An off-duty firefighter and others at the church held Mr Capener down until police arrived.

Mr Madrid told KOB-TV that he tried to stop Mr Capener by placing him in a bear hug but was stabbed in the neck and back.

"I bear-hugged him. We were chest on chest. I was wrapping about to take him down to ground, but I didn't have his arms. I had just my arms around his chest, so his arms were free. So that's when he started stabbing me," he said.

Mr Madrid said he thought the suspect was punching him. It wasn't until other parishioners rushed the man, that Mr Madrid realised he had been stabbed five times.

The choir's pianist, Brenda Baca King, told KRQE-TV that the attacker was looking at the lead soloist. "I just remember seeing him hurdle over the pews, hurdle over people and run (toward) us and I thought, 'Oh my God, this is not good,'" Ms Baca King said.

Father John C. Daniel, who was celebrating the Mass, told The Albuquerque Journal that the stabbing was "random.

He said he had seen Mr Capener in the church before but did not recognise him as a regular parishioner.

Father Daniel said he didn't see the attack because he had turned his back away from the congregation in order to return the sacrament in the tabernacle.

Archbishop of Santa Fe Michael Sheehan released a statement Sunday afternoon saying he was saddened by the attack.

"This is the first time in my 30 years serving as archbishop in the Archdiocese of Santa Fe and as Bishop of Lubbock, that anything like this has occurred," Archbishop Sheehan said.

"I pray for all who have been harmed, their families, the parishioners and that nothing like this will ever happen again."

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Mum 'forced girl to get pregnant'

A woman who was denied another adoption forced her teenage daughter to get pregnant using sperm purchased online. Thinkstock Source: Supplied

A BRITISH judge says a woman who was desperate for another child forced her 14-year-old daughter to get pregnant using syringes of donor sperm.

High Court judge Peter Jackson said the mother had behaved in "a wicked and selfish way" that almost defied belief.

The judge said the woman, an American divorcee living in Britain with three adopted children, hatched the plan after she was prevented from adopting a fourth.

The scheme involved getting her oldest daughter to inseminate herself with syringes of sperm purchased over the internet from a Denmark-based company, Cryos International.

Judge Jackson said the daughter, identified only as A, "became pregnant at the mother's request, using donor sperm bought by the mother, with the purpose of providing a fourth child for the mother to bring up as her own".

In his ruling, the judge quoted the teenager as saying she was shocked by the suggestion, but thought, "If I do this...maybe she will love me more."

"My mum is a very determined person and she does her best not to let anything get in her way if she wants it," the teenager added.

The judge said the mother also made the teenager use douches of vinegar or lemon and lime juice in hopes of increasing her chances of having a girl.

The judge said it was likely but not certain that the daughter soon became pregnant and suffered a miscarriage. After six more attempts with the donor sperm, she gave birth to a baby boy in July 2011, when she was 17.

But midwives at the hospital became alarmed by the odd behaviour of A's mother. Her daughter wanted to breastfeed the baby, but her mother said: "We don't want any of that attachment thing."

The hospital alerted the authorities, and the children were taken into foster care. The mother is now serving a five-year jail term for child cruelty.

Details of the case were heard during proceedings at the family division of the High Court over the children's future last year. They were reported for the first time on Monday after several British media organisations, including the publisher of The Guardian newspaper, challenged reporting restrictions.

A court order bars identifying the family members in order to protect the children.

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