Tomic and Stosur carry Australian hopes in Melbourne

men's final match at the Sydney International tennis tournament January 12, 2013. …more
MELBOURNE (Reuters) - Take a walk around the Grand Slam Oval at Melbourne Park and it is easy to see why Australia has such high expectations of tennis success.
A long semi-circle of bronze busts of the likes of Rod Laver, Margaret Court, Roy Emerson and Evonne Goolagong bear witness to an era when Australian winners at majors were the rule rather than the exception.
Those expectations have not been met by a homegrown Australian Open singles champion for three and a half decades, however, and in recent years the lively Melbourne crowds have had scant opportunity to barrack for local heroes.
That is unlikely to change this year, unless former U.S. Open champion Sam Stosur suddenly overcomes the injury woes that have beset her over the last few weeks and stage fright that strikes when she plays in Australia.
Warm-up tournament victories for Bernard Tomic and Lleyton Hewitt, though, have fired up hopes that the former can fulfill his potential or the latter can enjoy one last triumphant day in the sun.
Tomic's triumph at the Sydney International was probably more significant than Hewitt's at the Kooyong Classic exhibition but even so, it may still be a couple of years too early to talk about the 20-year-old as a potential Australian Open champion.
Tomic has thrown off the shackles of a miserable end to 2012 and started the new season with eight successive wins, including a stunning victory over world number one Novak Djokovic at the Hopman Cup.
Saturday's Sydney title success was his first on the ATP Tour and he was still basking in the afterglow when he arrived in Melbourne on Sunday.
"It's amazing. It's very important for tennis to have a lot of confidence, so I'm really confident. I'm going to use this as much as I can for Tuesday and this whole tournament," he told reporters.
"I'm playing really good tennis, feeling physically really well. That's why I think I've been playing good out there."
Tomic has a rest day on Monday before his first round tie against Argentine Leonardo Mayer, but most local eyes are fixed on a potential third round encounter with Roger Federer, who he played in the last 16 last year.
"I would love to get in that position to play Roger in the third round," he said. "He has to get there as well. You don't know what can happen. Tennis is a funny sport."
Tomic has been lauded as the next big thing in Australian tennis but former U.S. Open and Wimbledon champion Hewitt shows no sign of letting the light flicker out easily on his grand slam dreams.
The 31-year-old will drag his battered body into a 17th consecutive Australian Open on Monday with hope renewed after beating world number 15 Milos Raonic, number six Tomas Berdych and number seven Juan Martin del Potro at Kooyong.
Runner-up to Marat Safin in 2005, Hewitt was reluctant to indulge his compatriots about the state of men's tennis in Australia on the back of two titles at warm-up events.
"Obviously we're both hitting the ball well, but we're both unseeded, too," he said on Sunday.
"We probably had higher expectations when myself, (Mark) Philippoussis and (Pat) Rafter were in the top 10, top 15 in the world, and seeded at the majors.
"But we're both hitting the ball well, obviously confident coming in."
Hewitt did not have the best draw either, having been handed a first-round tie against eighth seed Janko Tipsarevic which will take place on Rod Laver Arena on Monday.
"I don't care," the feisty Australian said. "I'll knock him off, try to take his spot in the draw."
Stosur is again the Australian standard-bearer in the women's draw but admits she has not looked past Taiwan's Chang Kai-chen, who she meets on Monday, having crashed out in the opening round last year.
"I think this year I do feel better about things," said the ninth seed, who has never been beyond the fourth round at Melbourne Park.
"I don't feel as probably uptight or stressed or anything like that than last year. Last year I didn't handle it so well. I need to try to play a bit better than what I have been."
Stosur has been hampered by the effects of ankle surgery in the off-season and could hardly have started the year more poorly after falling at the first hurdle in both her warm-up events in Brisbane and Sydney.
"I'm hoping I can turn it around," said the 28-year-old. "I guess it's just one of those things. You don't always have the most ideal preparation, and even if you do, it doesn't mean you'll have the most ideal results."

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Cricket-Australia 170 all out in second ODI against Sri Lanka

ADELAIDE, Jan 13 (Reuters) - Australia stumbled to 170 all out after being asked to bat first in the second one-day international against Sri Lanka on Sunday, giving the tourists a chance to level the five-match series.
Rain in Adelaide delayed the start of the match by about an hour and Sri Lanka's bowlers made use of cloud cover and moisture in the pitch to tie down the batsmen with the swinging ball.
Brad Haddin (50) and Ben Cutting (27) rallied the home side from 83-6 with 57 runs for the seventh wicket but paceman Lasith Malinga halted the recovery by dismissing debut-makers Cutting and Kane Richardson with successive deliveries.
Malinga finished with 3-32 as Sri Lanka set about avenging Friday's 107-run defeat in Melbourne. (Reporting by Stuart Condie in Sydney; Editing by Alastair Himmer)

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UPDATE 2-Cricket-New Zealand batting in disarray again

PORT ELIZABETH, South Africa, Jan 12 (Reuters) - New Zealand collapsed again against the South Africa pace attack when they staggered to 47 for six in their first innings in reply to the hosts' 525 for eight declared on the second day of the second test at St. George's Park on Saturday.
The pace duo of Dale Steyn and Rory Kleinveldt ended the day with figures of two for 14 and two for 18 respectively while left-arm spinner Robin Peterson claimed two wickets in two balls.
After South Africa had declared 25 minutes into the evening session New Zealand, who were bowled out for 45 on the opening morning of the two-match series, were again in disarray.
Steyn, bowling with pace and aggression with the new ball, reduced the Kiwis to eight for two after he had Martin Guptill (1) and Kane Williamson (5) both caught in the slip cordon.
Kleinveldt then took over when he had Dean Brownlie (10) caught behind by keeper AB de Villiers and Daniel Flynn (0) lbw as New Zealand slumped to 27 for four inside 16 overs.
Captain Brendon McCullum battled his way to 13 off 61 balls before he edged a delivery from Peterson to Jacques Kallis playing an extravangant drive. Debutant Colin Munro was caught at short-leg from the next delivery.
Hashim Amla, Faf du Plessis and Dean Elgar all reached three figures for the world number one side.
Du Plessis, who began the day on 69, eventually scored 137 off 252 balls with 14 fours and two sixes before he became medium-pacer Munro's first test wicket when he was caught in the covers.
Elgar brought up his first ton, in his third test, off what turned out to be the last ball of South Africa's innings to end not out on 103 off 170 deliveries with 14 fours and a six.
Elgar and Du Plessis combined for a partnership of 131 off 38.5 overs, a South African sixth-wicket record stand against New Zealand, beating the previous best of 126 scored by Darryl Cullinan and Shaun Pollock at Auckland in 1998.
Amla added just four runs to his overnight total before he was caught down the leg-side by keeper Watling off a delivery from left-arm seamer Trent Boult.
He was out for 110 off 235 balls with his innings including eight fours while he and Du Plessis put on 113 runs for the fifth-wicket off 36.5 overs.

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Pakistan says 1 dead in border clash with India

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan and India traded accusations Sunday of violating the cease-fire in the disputed northern region of Kashmir, with Islamabad accusing Indian troops of a cross-border raid that killed one of its soldiers and India charging that Pakistani shelling destroyed a home on its side.
The accusation of a border crossing resulting in military deaths is unusual in Kashmir, where a cease-fire has held between these two wary, nuclear-armed rivals for a decade. Tensions over the disputed region are never far from the surface, however, as the countries have fought two full-scale wars over it.
Pakistan and India have been in the midst of a tentative rapprochement in recent months that could be upset by the cross-border raid. Just last month, the two countries announced a new visa regime designed to make cross-border travel easier. And they have been taking steps to facilitate economic trade as well. Neither action would have been possible without the backing of Pakistan's powerful military.
The developments show how tensions have eased a great deal since the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, in which 10 Pakistani terrorists killed 166 people. India claims the terrorists had ties to Pakistani intelligence officials, which Islamabad denies.
The Pakistani military's public relations office said in a statement that a Pakistani soldier was also critically wounded in the incident. It said troops exchanged gunfire after Indian forces crossed the "line of control" dividing the Indian and Pakistani sides of Kashmir in the Haji Pir sector and raided a post called Sawan Patra.
The remote area where the incident occurred is up in the Himalayan mountain peaks. The closest town of Bagh, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) away, is itself about 260 kilometers (160 miles) from the Pakistani capital of Islamabad.
Col. Brijesh Pandey, a spokesman for the Indian army in Kashmir, called the allegations that Indian troops crossed the border "baseless." Instead, he said that Pakistani troops "initiated unprovoked firing" and fired mortars and automatic weapons at Indian posts early Sunday morning. He said Pakistani shelling had destroyed a civilian home on the Indian side.
"We retaliated only using small arms. We believe it was clearly an attempt on their part to facilitate infiltration of militants," Pandey said
India often accuses Pakistan of sending militants into the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir, often under cover of these types of skirmishes.
The mostly-Muslim mountainous Kashmir region has been a flashpoint of violence between these two neighbors for decades. Both claim the entire region as their own, and the countries fought two full-scale wars over control of Kashmir and some minor skirmishes.
On Saturday, leaders of a Pakistan-based militant coalition held a rally in the city of Muzaffarabad near Kashmir, in which they pledged to continue the fight to gain control of the entire region.
The United Jihad Council is a coalition of 12 anti-India militant groups. Many of the groups were started with the support of the Pakistani government in the 1980s and 1990s to fight India for control of Kashmir. The rally was held to mark the Jan. 5, 1949 call by the United Nations for a referendum on Kashmir's fate.
A 2003 cease-fire ended the most recent round of fighting. Each side occasionally accuses the other of violating it by lobbing mortars or shooting across the LOC.
A number of Pakistani civilians were wounded in November due to Indian shelling, and in October the Indian army said Pakistani troops fired across the disputed frontier, killing three civilians.
But accusations that one side's ground forces actually crossed the LOC are rarer.

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Suicide bombers kill 5 at Afghan district compound

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) — Two suicide bombers penetrated a government compound in the country's south Sunday, killing five people, Afghan officials said. There were no reports of foreign troops or civilians at the site.
In neighboring Helmand province, a bomb planted at a bus station killed one policeman and wounded another person, a provincial official said.
The suicide attack was in the district of Spin Boldak in Kandahar province in one of the nation's most violent areas. The district is a major infiltration corridor for Taliban fighters from Pakistan as well as a smuggling route for weapons and narcotics.
A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, said the group was responsible for the Spin Boldak attack. He said the Taliban did not orchestrate the bombing in Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital of Helmand.
Mohammad Hashim, district chief of Spin Boldak, said the two militants were targeting a meeting of local officials at a compound in the district of Kandahar province near the Pakistani border. Hashim said the two attackers arrived in a car, killed a guard and entered the facility firing weapons before blowing themselves up along with their vehicle. The compound houses offices of the district chief and district council as well as other government buildings.
The head of the provincial council, Hafiz Abdul Haleem, said five people died including one policeman and four civilians. Fifteen were wounded.

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Philippine army, police kill 13 suspects in clash

ATIMONAN, Philippines (AP) — Philippine army special forces and police killed 13 suspected criminals in a fierce gunbattle in a northeastern province in the latest recent violence in the country.
A police officer was wounded in Sunday's shootout, which raged for about 20 minutes in the coastal town of Atimonan in Quezon province, about 140 kilometers (90 miles) southeast of Manila, the capital, according to the police and the army.
The gunmen, who were riding in two black SUVs, opened fire on more than 50 army soldiers and police when they were flagged down at a highway checkpoint, sparking the firefight, said Lt. Col. Monico Abang, who led the army platoon in the clash. More gunmen fired from a third vehicle, which turned around and fled, he said.
Two gunmen jumped out of one of the SUVs and fired from a roadside canal. The rest stayed in the two vehicles, which were raked by gunfire from troops in a sparsely-populated stretch of the highway, Abang said. The area was closed off to traffic and then reopened late Sunday, with the two bullet-riddled SUVS still partially blocking the dark highway.
Quezon provincial police chief Valeriano de Leon said 11 gunmen died at the scene of the clash. Two others died while being brought to a hospital, he said, adding that government forces recovered two assault rifles and 12 pistols used by the gunmen.
"They rolled down their windows and started firing, so we had to retaliate," Abang said by cellphone from the scene of the clash. "They were clearly outnumbered and outgunned."
A police colonel was shot in the hand and foot and taken to a hospital, de Leon said.
Abang said the army and police had set up the checkpoint after an informant told police that gunmen involved in illegal drugs, gambling and kidnapping for ransom would pass through Atimonan in mountainous Quezon, where communist guerrillas have a presence.
An initial investigation showed that the gunmen were likely members of a gun-for-hire group operating in provinces south of Manila, Abang said. One dead gunman had a police identification card and investigators were trying to confirm his identity, he said.
The shootout followed two other deadly shootings that have revived calls for tighter gun control in the Philippines, where there are more than half a million unlicensed firearms, according to police estimates.
A man who reportedly was drunk and high on drugs killed eight people before being gunned down by police on Friday in Kawit town in Cavite province, 16 kilometers (10 miles) south of Manila.
A 7-year-old girl died a day after being hit in the head by a stray bullet while watching fireworks with her family on New Year's Eve outside their home in Caloocan city, near Manila, despite a high-profile government campaign against powerful firecrackers and celebratory gunfire by Filipinos to welcome 2013.
Earlier Sunday, before the shootout, presidential spokeswoman Abigail Valte told reporters that President Benigno Aquino III, a known gun enthusiast, would study gun-control proposals with other officials. Among the proposals is a call by anti-gun groups to ban the carrying of firearms by civilians outside their homes.
The proliferation of firearms has long fueled crime, political violence and Muslim and communist rebellions that have raged for decades in parts of the Philippines. Previous attempts by authorities to clamp down on unregistered weapons have yielded few results in a country where several politically powerful clans and families control private armed groups in provincial strongholds outside Manila.

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Pope pardons Vatican butler

Pope Benedict XVI granted his former butler a Christmas pardon Saturday, forgiving him in person during a jailhouse meeting for stealing and leaking his private papers in one of the gravest Vatican security breaches in recent times.
After the 15-minute meeting, Paolo Gabriele was freed and returned to his Vatican City apartment where he lives with his wife and three children. The Vatican said he couldn't continue living or working in the Vatican, but said it would find him housing and a job elsewhere soon.
"This is a paternal gesture toward someone with whom the pope for many years shared daily life," according to a statement from the Vatican secretariat of state.
The pardon closes a painful and embarrassing chapter for the Vatican, capping a sensational, Hollywood-like scandal that exposed power struggles, intrigue and allegations of corruption and homosexual liaisons in the highest levels of the Catholic Church.
Gabriele, 46, was arrested May 23 after Vatican police found what they called an "enormous" stash of papal documents in his Vatican City apartment. He was convicted of aggravated theft by a Vatican tribunal on Oct. 6 and has been serving his 18-month sentence in the Vatican police barracks.
He told Vatican investigators he gave the documents to Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi because he thought the 85-year-old pope wasn't being informed of the "evil and corruption" in the Vatican and thought that exposing it publicly would put the church back on the right track.
During the trial, Gabriele testified that he loved the pope "as a son loves his father" and said he never meant to hurt the pontiff or the church. A photograph taken during the meeting Saturday — the first between Benedict and his once trusted butler since his arrest — showed Gabriele dressed in his typical dark gray suit, smiling.
The publication of the leaked documents, first on Italian television then in Nuzzi's book "His Holiness: Pope Benedict XVI's Secret Papers" convulsed the Vatican all year, a devastating betrayal of the pope from within his papal family that exposed the unseemly side of the Catholic Church's governance.
The papal pardon had been widely expected before Christmas, and the jailhouse meeting Benedict used to personally deliver it recalled the image of Pope John Paul II visiting Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish gunman who shot him in 1981, while he served his sentence in an Italian prison.
The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said the meeting was "intense" and "personal" and said that during it Benedict "communicated to him in person that he had accepted his request for pardon, commuting his sentence."
Lombardi said the Vatican hoped the Benedict's pardon and Gabriele's freedom would allow the Holy See to return to work "in an atmosphere of serenity."
None of the leaked documents threatened the papacy. Most were of interest only to Italians, as they concerned relations between Italy and the Vatican and a few local scandals and personalities. Their main aim appeared to be to discredit Benedict's trusted No. 2, the secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.
Vatican officials have said the theft, though, shattered the confidentiality that typically governs correspondence with the pope. Cardinals, bishops and everyday laymen write to him about spiritual and practical matters assuming that their words will be treated with the discretion for which the Holy See is known.
As a result, the leaks prompted a remarkable reaction, with the pope naming a commission of three cardinals to investigate alongside Vatican prosecutors. Italian news reports have said new security measures and personnel checks have been put in place to prevent a repeat offense.
Gabriele insisted he acted alone, with no accomplices, but it remains an open question whether any other heads will roll. Technically the criminal investigation remains open, and few in the Vatican believe Gabriele could have construed such a plot without at least the endorsement if not the outright help of others. But Lombardi said he had no new information to release about any new investigative leads, saying the pardon "closed a sad and painful chapter" for the Holy See.
Nuzzi, who has supported Gabriele as a hero for having exposed corruption in the Vatican, tweeted Saturday that it appeared the butler was thrilled to speak with the pope and go home. "Unending joy for him, but the problems of the curia and power remain," he wrote, referring to the Vatican bureaucracy.
A Vatican computer expert, Claudio Sciarpelletti, was convicted Nov. 10 of aiding and abetting Gabriele by changing his testimony to Vatican investigators about the origins of an envelope with Gabriele's name on it that was found in his desk. His two-month sentence was suspended. Lombardi said a pardon was expected for him as well. He recently returned to work in the Vatican.
Benedict met this past week with the cardinals who investigated the origins of the leaks, but it wasn't known if they provided him with any further updates or were merely meeting ahead of the expected pardon for Gabriele.
As supreme executive, legislator and judge in Vatican City, the pope had the power to pardon Gabriele at any time. The only question was when.

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Aleppo's fledgling government reflects a society shaped by war

Members of the Syrian opposition in Aleppo are preparing to unveil what will be the most ambitious transitional government effort to come from inside Syria since the revolution began 21 months ago.
Aleppo’s Transitional Revolutionary Council, a civilian effort to provide government services in areas of northern Syria under opposition control, has created a 224-person Grand Assembly with representatives for every area of the province, even those still under government control. The new legislative body plans to have its first meeting within a month.
The creation of the opposition’s Grand Assembly comes on the heels of weeks of major rebel gains in northern Syria and is emblematic of their growing confidence in Aleppo. But the new legislature faces challenges finding sufficient funding and securing locations to meet, underscoring the challenges that remain despite recent progress.
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“What makes this project successful here in Aleppo is that most of Aleppo is liberated,” says Rafat Rifai, a freelance journalist who works as a consultant for the Transitional Revolutionary Council. Still, he adds, “the main financial resources are still with the regime so if the new assembly tries to take on the same role of the [Assad] government, it will need the same budget.”
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The assembly has only limited funding. It comes from a mix of sources including Syrian expatriates and local businessmen, and the new Syrian opposition coalition formed in Doha last month is said to be considering offering assistance. The modest budget will force the group to prioritize its efforts on essentials such as repairing the electric grid and addressing bread shortages.
Throughout opposition-controlled areas in Aleppo province, citizens have formed a variety of ad hoc councils to manage their villages and neighborhoods in the absence of a central government, but the Grand Assembly is the first attempt to create a representative body that can begin to operate more like a traditional government body.
The new legislators were chosen in town hall style meetings by their communities. In areas still under control of the Assad army, representatives were selected from residents of these areas who had fled to opposition-controlled territory.
“We try to push them to choose the best and most qualified person to be the representative, not just the most popular,” says Shekary, who does not use his full name to protect his identity and serves as the media coordinator for the General Assembly.
Organizers say that with fighting still ongoing in Aleppo and reliable communication by telephone or Internet often impossible, a popular election to choose the 224 representatives would not have been feasible.
SEATS APPORTIONED BY SACRIFICE
The number of representatives each district receives is proportional to both its population and level of participation in the revolution. The latter is determined by a matrix that uses measurements such as the number of residents killed in the uprising and the level of destruction the community experienced.
Responding to a question about whether giving less representation to those who did not participate as heavily in the revolution could appear as a punitive measure, Hakeem Halabi says this current council is meant to serve as a transitional revolutionary government, which, for the time being, is run by those who started the uprising.
“We agree in the future we will have to have a popular vote,” says Mr. Halabi, co-leader of the temporary presidential committee for the Transitional Revolutionary Council, adding that the goal of the forthcoming assembly is to help achieve the goals of the revolution. "There are people with guns on the street and they deserve to get representatives.... If they don’t have a big enough voice, it will be hard to convince them to put down their guns.”
The assembly will hold its first meeting in Gaziantep, Turkey, just north of the Syrian border. Originally the group wanted to hold the meeting in Syria along the border where government jets seldom bomb, but a recent air strike against a border town made them reconsider.
The group says that they will conduct their meetings in Turkey, but return immediately upon their conclusion. Opposition forces have long criticized their leadership based outside the country for being out of touch with realities on the ground. The newly created Syrian National Coalition for Opposition and Revolutionary Forces, founded in Doha, enjoys more support within Syria, but still faces criticisms for operating outside the country.
“We consider ourselves more legitimate than the Doha coalition itself because this transitional council is 100 percent in Syria,” says Halabi.
Currently, there are no other provinces firmly enough under rebel control to consider something like the Aleppo Grand Assembly there, and there are no plans to use it as a model for temporary government in provinces that come under opposition control in the future.

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Uruguay postpones vote on 'state as dealer' approach to drug regulation - but not for long?

Uruguay has been on the vanguard of drug policy reform in the Americas, proposing a state regulatory market for the cultivation and consumption of marijuana. (See our cover on “Latin America reinventing the War on Drugs” here).
But last week the project’s No. 1 proponent – and perhaps the globe’s most trailblazing reformer – Uruguayan President Jose Mujica, told Parliament to postpone the vote.
President Mujica always said he would not go forward with the proposal if a majority of Uruguayans did not accept it. And a new poll by the firm Cifra shows 64 percent of those surveyed remain opposed.
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“Don’t pass a law because it has a majority in Parliament,” the president was quoted as saying in the local press. “The majority has to be in the streets.”
His words will generate a cheer from those opposed to such a radical rethink of the “war on drugs,” from United States drug officials to functionaries at the United Nations.
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But few think it means the project has been forever shelved, including those who don't explicitly favor it. In fact, Pablo Stratta, who is the secretary of the Mothers of the Plaza, an organization that fights against drug addiction, says that the polls do not reflect that people are necessarily against Mujica’s project but that it is simply not their top priority – an opinion his organization shares.
“Before we talk about legalizing any substance, whether it’s marijuana or any other, we have to start talking about addiction from a health perspective,” Mr. Stratta says. “There are many other problems to be talking about, such as the families of drug addicts, or the number of addicts living on the streets.”
Still, the news surprised those who support the increasingly bold moves around drug reform. Many proponents have looked at Uruguay’s proposal as a model for the globe; from new ballot initiatives in Washington and Colorado that make recreational marijuana use legal, to presidents in Mexico and Colombia calling for new solutions to the US “war on drugs.”
Martin Jelsma, a foremost drug policy reform proponent at the Transnational Institute, was attending a drug reform meeting in Bangkok when he read an article insinuating that Mr. Mujica’s motive in delaying the parliamentary vote on the subject stemmed from doubt.
He called his colleagues from the Uruguayan drug commission, where he is an adviser. And he says he, like Mr. Stratta, is convinced that it will pass in the future – the timing is just not right.
"There have been several other quite controversial and difficult issues to deal with,” Mr. Jelsma says, including abortion and gay rights.
“And there was still the clear hope from the president’s side that this project would be carried through with a clearer majority of support population wise. In that context there are still deep details to sort out … like the details of the proposal, how it relates to UN treaties, legal issues,” Jelsma says.
"I don’t have doubts myself that a good communication strategy and a good poll that does not reduce [the issue] to overly simplistic questions will show that there is a majority support for the direction in which Mujica and his government wants to go.

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South Korea charges North building missile that could reach US

South Korean defense officials say they have evidence showing a recent North Korean missile launch was to test an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).
South Korean navy divers have recovered more than three tons of debris from the first stage of a missile Korean analysts say was fueled by a type of nitric acid developed in the former Soviet Union over 40 years ago for firing missiles with warheads more than 6,000 miles. The rocket, fired from a pad in northwestern North Korea on December 12, managed to put a small satellite into orbit, but officials offer the discovery of nitric acid as evidence of the real reason why North Korea was anxious to test it.
The defense ministry released a photograph of a truck carrying the most conspicuous piece of the debris – the gleaming white casing for the first stage. The word Unha in Korean lettering, the name of the rocket, was clearly visible.as it was in North Korean pictures of the rocket before the launch.
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“Definitely their main purpose is to have the capability of reaching the US west coast,” says Kim Tae-woo, former president of the Korea Institute for National Unification. “North Korea this time proved the capability of their ICBM."
The evidence of the rocket’s mission as a test of an ICBM, according to the defense ministry, was that the main piece of the wreckage was a container for “redfuming nitric acid” that’s not ordinarily used in missiles for launching satellites.
A member of the team that examined the rocket was quoted by Yonhap, the South Korean news agency, as saying they had found the rocket “was intended for testing ICBM technology rather than developing a space launch vehicle.” He said the team based this conclusion on the fact that “red fuming nitric acid” was used “as an oxidizer” and could “be stored for a long time at normal temperature.”
Navy divers reportedly found still more wreckage on Sunday and are still scouring the seabed of the Yellow Sea off the southwestern coast of South Korea.
The major piece picked up from a depth of 250 feet measured more than 25 feet long and nearly 8 feet in diameter. Mr. Kim, who worked for many years as a senior North Korea analyst at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, says the success of North Korean scientists and engineers in launching the rocket “does not mean an immediate threat.”
“They are successful this time,” he says, but “it was just a simple test.” He adds that “their satellite technology is very primitive” – so much so that analysts here believeNorth Korea has lost touch with the 200-pound object as it circles the earth.
Mr. Kim is quick to add, however, that putting a satellite into orbit “is not their main target.” Rather, he says, the North Koreans want to develop the technology for firing a warhead a long distance – a highly complicated feat..
The great question is when and how North Korea will test the response of the incoming administrations of both the United States and South Korea. Park Geun-hye, daughter of the long-ruling dictator Park Chung-hee, assassinated by his intelligence chief in 1979, was elected as South Korea’s president last Thursday and is to be inaugurated in February.
“North Korea might be tempted to test John Kerry either by long-range missiles or another nuclear test,” says Lee Chang Choon, a retired South Korean diplomat whoserved as ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. President Obama has nominated Senator John Kerry to replace Hillary Clinton as secretary of state.
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North Korea has conducted two previous underground nuclear tests – in October 2006 and again in May 2009 – soon after test-firing long-range missiles.
Kim Tae-woo agrees with that assessment. “Traditionally North Korea may be preparing to test the will of the second Obama government,” he says. “North Korea definitely wants to test Mr. Kerry.”
North Korea has been celebrating the launch of the rocket – and the satellite – with exuberant displays in Pyongyang. North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un, reported by Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency to have visited the launch site and personally penned the hand-written order to go ahead with the launch, urged more launches at a dinner Friday honoring scientists, engineers and technicians responsible for the launch 11 days ago. KCNA quoted the North Korean leader as urging them to develop “carrier rockets of bigger capacity” in order to put “a variety of more working satellites” into orbit.
The rocket is believed capable of carrying a payload of 1,200 pounds.
South Korea, says Kim Tae-woo, is developing ballistic missiles with a maxium range of 500 miles – enough to reach any target in the North, including the launch site of the Unha. “We can have a much greater deterrence,” he says, “but it takes time.

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Muslim scholars and clerics: suicide bombings are un-Islamic.

Suicide bombers in Afghanistan have shown little restraint: Wedding parties and even mosques and children have witnessed gruesome targeting by the Taliban against civilians.
But as attacks soared in the summer and fall, killing scores of civilians every week – including at least 40 Muslim devotees at a mosque in late October –public revulsion has turned into unprecedented condemnation.
For the first time in late January, Muslim scholars and clerics from around the world will come to Kabul specifically to condemn suicide bombings as un-Islamic. The conference will be the first to focus on suicide bombing, and its framers hope the result will reverberate beyond Afghanistan.
"Many times, scholars in Pakistan and Afghanistan have made statements but had no influence," says Mufti Shamsur Rahman Firotan, a religious scholar in Kabul. "This one will have influence, and will give the idea to the people that suicide attacks are forbidden. The message is for all: in Iraq, in Pakistan, all these [militant jihadist] groups."
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Senior United Nations officials have challenged religious officials to speak more loudly against attacks carried out in the name of Islam, while Afghan religious scholars have long decried suicide attacks, with little response by the ultra-conservative Taliban. An official gathering this summer resolved that suicide attacks "have no legitimate foundation in Islam."
It had little effect at the time. But those declarations have now been further bolstered. Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti, the highest religious authority in the birthplace of Islam and respected by the Taliban, explicitly condemned suicide bombing.
Yet since Sheikh Abdulaziz bin Abdullah Al al-Sheikh issued such a high-profile public statement in late October, Taliban suicide attacks have continued, some with multiple bombers. But Afghan religious scholars say momentum is building against them.
One reason is because Mr. Abdulaziz “does have influence on the Taliban," says Mr. Firotan, who is a member of Afghanistan's Ulema Council of Islamic scholars, which has long campaigned against civilian deaths.
"The Taliban think we are their enemies, so they don't respect our declarations," says Mr. Firotan. "But Mufti Aziz is respected by them, and all around the Islamic world…. It has influence."
INVOKING MUHAMMED
The newsletter of Afghanistan’s religious scholars, called Al-Islam, publicized the Grand Mufti’s high-profile pronouncement against suicide bombing.
Invoking the Muslim prophet Mohammed, Abdulaziz noted that killing innocents has been forbidden for 14 centuries. He said justifying suicide attacks in the name of religion was a "misuse" of Islam.
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"Attacks, suicide attacks, and killing of the innocent have no place in Islam, and whoever conducts these are not just deprived of Paradise, but they will go to hell," Abdulaziz said according to Al-Islam. "There is jihad in Islam, but it is very different from killing of the innocent and suicide attacks [which does] not benefit the people and humanity."
The Taliban claims it has not "officially" received Abdulaziz's fatwa (or religious decree), says Firotan, but only heard about it.
'THIS IS NOT THE WAY'
The Quran makes clear that self-defense is acceptable, says Firotan, providing "there is no other way to live, but that is not the situation now."
For those who want to fight US forces, says Firotan, there are methods. "But this is not the way – to go to mosques, banks, bazaars, or shops. There, are 100 percent, some Taliban who are [also] against these actions."
As the Taliban has waged its insurgency in recent years, it has also increasingly targeted civilians, along with US and NATO military forces, Afghan security, and the government. By early summer, the toll caught the attention of the UN Special Representative Jan Kubis, who lamented in a speech that every morning started with “very sad news” of civilian deaths.
Addressing an Islamic cooperation conference in June, he said the previous “typical” week had 200 civilian casualties, with 57 dead. The week before registered 244 casualties, with 90 killed. One day saw three suicide bombings; another single day left 107 casualties.
Such a soaring toll was "unacceptable," Kubis said. "We keep hearing reports of suicide bombings, intimidation, targeted killings, assassination of elders, religious leaders, teachers, and scholars, burning of schools – all done in the name of Islam."
Yet Kubis noted that different interpretations are also heard, based on the Quran, that show such acts to be un-Islamic. The result has been confusion and questions in the minds of many Afghans.
"They are not anymore sure what is the truth, what is right, what is wrong, what is Islamic, what is non-Islamic," said Kubis. He challenged the religious scholars to magnify their voices: "You have a major role, a major responsibility to help."
That message has been transmitted many times by many religious scholars and officials, over many years. But it has yet to break through to those who favor such attacks, as “religious” as their ideology is meant to be.
EASIER SAID, THAN DONE
Even the writ of Taliban chiefs is limited, as shown by the example of fugitive leader Mullah Omar. In 1998 he condemned the use of anti-personnel landmines as "un-Islamic" and "anti-human."
Despite that, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) notes that improvised explosive devices (IEDs) placed by Taliban operatives are "by far the biggest killer of civilians" in Afghanistan. In the first nine months of this year, they caused 340 deaths – a nearly 30 percent increase from the same period the previous year.
Likewise, suicide attacks remain a pernicious killer, despite the volume of religious scholarship against it.
"Practically every family has suffered some form of attack by these suicide bombings or IEDs, and they don't look at it very kindly," says Massoumeh Torfeh, the director of strategic communications for UNAMA in Kabul.
Abdul Hakim Mujahid, a former Taliban ambassador to the UN who is now a member of the High Peace Council, tasked by the government of President Hamid Karzai with talking to the Taliban, says the opinions of religious figures can have an impact.
"Afghanistan is a religious country, and absolutely the majority are listening to their religious scholars," says Mr. Mujahid. About the Taliban, he says: "They are human beings, and also they have their religious scholars."
Mujahid quotes the Quran, saying: "You have to fight against those who are fighting against you. But do not cross the limit."
That limit is beyond "proportional reaction," says Mujahid: "It means that when someone is fighting against you with their fists, you should not use a Kalashnikov."
The Taliban see themselves as "being attacked, that war is being waged against [them]," adds Mujahid. The High Peace Council is "trying our best to convince them that war is not to the benefit of any party [and to] settle everything by negotiations, not by fighting."

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Correction: Peru Quake Unreadiness Story

In a story that moved Dec. 9 and 23 about earthquake readiness in Lima, Peru, The Associated Press incorrectly listed the year and the magnitude of a quake that killed about 70,000 people. The 7.9-magnitude Peru quake occurred in 1970.
A corrected version of the story is below:
The earthquake all but flattened colonial Lima, the shaking so violent that people tossed to the ground couldn't get back up. Minutes later, a 50-foot (15-meter) wall of Pacific Ocean crashed into the adjacent port of Callao, killing all but 200 of its 5,000 inhabitants. Bodies washed ashore for weeks.
Plenty of earthquakes have shaken Peru's capital in the 266 years since that fateful night of Oct. 28, 1746, though none with anything near the violence.
The relatively long "seismic silence" means that Lima, set astride one of the most volatile ruptures in the Earth's crust, is increasingly at risk of being hammered by a one-two, quake-tsunami punch as calamitous as what devastated Japan last year and traumatized Santiago, Chile, and its nearby coast a year earlier, seismologists say.
Yet this city of 9 million people is sorely unprepared. From densely clustered, unstable housing to a dearth of first-responders, its acute vulnerability is unmatched regionally. Peru's National Civil Defense Institute forecasts up to 50,000 dead, 686,000 injured and 200,000 homes destroyed if Lima is hit by a magnitude-8.0 quake.
"In South America, it is the most at risk," said architect Jose Sato, director of the Center for Disaster Study and Prevention, or PREDES, a non-governmental group financed by the charity Oxfam that is working on reducing Lima's quake vulnerability.
Lima is home to a third of Peru's population, 70 percent of its industry, 85 percent of its financial sector, its entire central government and the bulk of international commerce.
"A quake similar to what happened in Santiago would break the country economically," said Gabriel Prado, Lima's top official for quake preparedness. That quake had a magnitude of 8.8.
Quakes are frequent in Peru, with about 170 felt by people annually, said Hernando Tavera, director of seismology at the country's Geophysical Institute. A big one is due, and the chances of it striking increase daily, he said. The same collision of tectonic plates responsible for the most powerful quake ever recorded, a magnitude-9.5 quake that hit Chile in 1960, occurs just off Lima's coast, where about 3 inches of oceanic crust slides annually beneath the continent.
A 7.9-magnitude coastal quake in 1970 a day's drive north of Lima killed about 70,000 people as landslides it triggered buried two villages in the Cordillera Blanca mountain range. In 2007, a quake of like magnitude struck even closer, killing 596 people in the south-central coastal city of Pisco.
A shallow, direct hit is the big danger.
More than two in five Lima residents live either in rickety structures built on unstable, sandy soil and wetlands, which amplify a quake's destructive power, or in hillside settlements that sprang up over a generation as people fled conflict and poverty in Peru's interior. Thousands are built of colonial-era adobe.
Most quake-prone countries have rigorous building codes to resist seismic events. In Chile, if engineers and builders don't adhere to them they can face prison. Not so in Peru.
"People are building with adobe just as they did in the 17th century," said Carlos Zavala, director of Lima's Japanese-Peruvian Center for Seismic Investigation and Disaster Mitigation.
Environmental and human-made perils compound the danger.
Situated in a coastal desert, Lima gets its water from a single river, the Rimac, which a landslide could easily block. That risk is compounded by a containment pond full of toxic heavy metals from an old mine that could rupture and contaminate the Rimac, said Agustin Gonzalez, a PREDES official advising Lima's government.
Most of Lima's food supply arrives via a two-lane highway that parallels the river, another potential chokepoint.
Lima's airport and seaport, the key entry points for international aid, are also vulnerable. Both are in Callao, which seismologists expect to be scoured by a 20-foot (6-meter) tsunami if a big quake is centered offshore, the most likely scenario.
Mayor Susana Villaran's administration is Lima's first to organize a quake-response and disaster-mitigation plan. A February 2011 law obliged Peru's municipalities to do so. Yet Lima's remains incipient.
"How are the injured going to be attended to? What is the ability of hospitals to respond? Of basic services? Water, energy, food reserves? I don't think this is being addressed with enough responsibility," said Tavera of the Geophysical Institute.
By necessity, most injured will be treated where they fall, but Peru's police have no comprehensive first-aid training. Only Lima's 4,000 firefighters, all volunteers, have such training, as does a 1,000-officer police emergency squadron.
But because the firefighters are volunteers, a quake's timing could influence rescue efforts.
"If you go to a fire station at 10 in the morning there's hardly anyone there," said Gonzalez, who advocates a full-time professional force.
In the next two months, Lima will spend nearly $2 million on the three fire companies that cover downtown Lima, its first direct investment in firefighters in 25 years, Prado said. The national government is spending $18 million citywide for 50 new fire trucks and ambulances.
But where would the ambulances go?
A 1997 study by the Pan American Health Organization found that three of Lima's principal public hospitals would likely collapse in a major quake, but nothing has been done to reinforce them.
And there are no free beds. One public hospital, Maria Auxiliadora, serves more than 1.2 million people in Lima's south but has just 400 beds, and they are always full.
Contingency plans call for setting up mobile hospitals in tents in city parks. But Gonzalez said only about 10,000 injured could be treated.
Water is also a worry. The fire threat to Lima is severe — from refineries to densely-backed neighborhoods honeycombed with colonial-era wood and adobe. Lima's firefighters often can't get enough water pressure to douse a blaze.
"We should have places where we can store water not just to put out fires but also to distribute water to the population," said Sato, former head of the disaster mitigation department at Peru's National Engineering University.
The city's lone water-and-sewer utility can barely provide water to one-tenth of Lima in the best of times.
Another big concern: Lima has no emergency operations center and the radio networks of the police, firefighters and the Health Ministry, which runs city hospitals, use different frequencies, hindering effective communication.
Nearly half of the city's schools require a detailed evaluation to determine how to reinforce them against collapse, Sato said.
A recent media blitz, along with three nationwide quake-tsunami drills this year, helped raise consciousness. The city has spent more than $77 million for retention walls and concrete stairs to aid evacuation in hillside neighborhoods, Prado said, but much more is needed.
At the biggest risk, apart from tsunami-vulnerable Callao, are places like Nueva Rinconada.
A treeless moonscape in the southern hills, it is a haven for economic refugees who arrive daily from Peru's countryside and cobble together precarious homes on lots they scored into steep hillsides with pickaxes.
Engineers who have surveyed Nueva Rinconada call its upper reaches a death trap. Most residents understand this but say they have nowhere else to go.
Water arrives in tanker trucks at $1 per 200 liters (52 gallons) but is unsafe to drink unless boiled. There is no sanitation; people dig their own latrines. There are no streetlamps, and visibility is erased at night as Lima's bone-chilling fog settles into the hills.
Homes of wood, adobe and straw matting rest on piled-rock foundations that engineers say will crumble and rain down on people below in a major quake.
A recently built concrete retaining wall at the valley's head lies a block beneath the thin-walled wood home of Hilarion Lopez, a 55-year-old janitor and community leader. It might keep his house from sliding downhill, but boulders resting on uphill slopes could shake loose and crush him and his neighbors.
"We've made holes and poured concrete around some of the more unstable boulders," he says, squinting uphill in a strong late morning sun.
He's not so worried if a quake strikes during daylight.

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Chilean street dogs are protesters' best friends

They don't have demands, but they're loyal to the cause and are always on the front lines of the fight. They run with protesters, lap up shots from water cannons, bark at police in riot gear and sometimes even bite officers.
Stray dogs are truly Man's Best Friend for thousands of students and workers who demonstrate and clash with police nearly every day to press demands for education improvements, redistribution of Chile's wealth and environmental protections. As the protests become fixtures in this modernizing capital, normally unnoticed street dogs have become stars in their own right, with the Facebook fan pages and fawning media coverage to prove it.
"Blacky," a mutt adopted by young protesters, has become the most visible mascot, with rival fan pages totaling more than 7,000 subscribers or "likes." Blacky's admirers constantly upload pictures of him, many showing the mutt with a checkered kaffiyeh around his neck symbolizing the Palestinian resistance movement, dodging tear gas or growling at baton-wielding officers.
"Dogs are super loyal. They stand with the people and I think they support the students," said Catalina Echenique, 17, who is planning to study psychiatry.
Free-roaming dogs number in the millions in Chile in a situation the nation's Humane Society has called alarming. Dog owners rarely spay or neuter their pets, and commonly leave them outside when they go to work in the morning. Many roam the streets all day.
Dogs lurk around the presidential palace, take naps in parks and always seem in search of a bite to eat or the next protest.
While strays are feared in countries such as India, where tens of millions of street dogs have a reputation for biting people and spreading rabies, Chileans often feed and take care of strays. Protesters, for one, are glad to have the dogs on their side of the fight.
Students have been hitting the streets for more than a year and a half demanding overhauls to a school system that's been privatized since the 1973-90 dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. Protesters say families must struggle with underperforming public schools, expensive private universities and education loans at impossible interest rates.
Two military officers in impeccable white uniforms walked out of a subway station recently as two blackened mutts followed them ahead of a crowd of young protesters who booed and shouted insults.
More dogs followed the sounds of sirens — and the promise of a water jet some blocks away. Police fired tear gas and the hounds ran to chew on the canisters. From a plume of smoke, Blacky dashed out, this time wearing an orange bandanna.
A mass of students and hooded members of anarchist groups loitering at nearby parks flooded into the streets for yet another confrontation.
Meanwhile, Echenique sat in a circle with other students, a stray napping next to them while they prepared to clash with police.
"With a good education we can generate conscience to protect animals," she said.
Despite the propensity of dog packs to join protesters, they're not at constant war with the police.
Just a few blocks from the recent confrontation, police and pooches appeared to be enjoying a peaceful timeout. One stray snoozed under the noon sun next to a traffic officer at a busy intersection, while another quietly napped in the shade cast by paintings propped on artist easels in Santiago's main square, the Plaza de Armas.
"I see the ritual everyday: police dogs patrolling the streets and strays watching over their territory," said Mario Guitierrez, a 52-year-old artist at the square who plans to make the protest dogs the subject of his next work.
"They meet, they stare, and it seems like the police dogs get scared. The street dogs are brave!"
Police officer Eduardo Basaez of the department's canine training unit strolled by with Lola, his 7-year-old German shepherd. They have both been part of street clashes, but Basaez said police dogs and horses are being used less these days to keep them safe.
"Dogs go to the protests because of a pack instinct. They play with the water jets, they're happy and don't know what's going on," Basaez said. "I'm a dog lover and I feel sorry for the street dogs. I live in an apartment but if I had a tract of land I would take them all home with me.

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Bolivia's Morales visits Cuba after Chavez surgery

 Bolivian President Evo Morales has made a lightning trip to Havana where key ally Hugo Chavez is convalescing after cancer surgery.
Morales did not speak to foreign journalists during his weekend visit. Cuban state-run media didn't confirm that he visited Chavez, but said he came "to express his support" for the Venezuelan president. The Cuban government had invited media to cover Morales' arrival Saturday and departure Sunday but withdrew the invitation with no explanation.
Photos released by Cuban media showed President Raul Castro greeting Morales at the airport in Havana.
Morales aides said Monday he planned to make a statement later about Chavez.
Chavez underwent on Dec. 11 his fourth cancer-related operation since last year, two months after winning reelection to a six-year term. Venezuelan officials say his condition is stable.

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Prosecutor killed in Guatemala along with 6 others

 Guatemala's attorney general dispatched a special team Monday to investigate the slaying of a federal prosecutor and six other people in an attack near the Mexican border.
Attorney General Claudia Paz y Paz said she was sending prosecutors and investigators to the area of northern Guatemala where Irma Yolanda Olivares, who worked in one of the prosecutor's regional officers, was slain along with an official working for a government social service agency and five others on Sunday night.
President Otto Perez Molina blamed the attack on drug traffickers, who have taken over swathes of territory along the border with Mexico.
The Interior Ministry said that a group of armed, masked men had intercepted the sport-utility vehicle carrying Olivares and three other passengers, who were returning from the inauguration of a hotel in the city of La Mesilla. The attackers opened fire, then burned the victims' bodies, officials said. Three other people were found fatally shot and burned in another vehicle nearby, official said.
Officials were not immediately able to determine the identities of the three or whether they were killed by the same attackers, said Ricardo Guzman, sub-secretary general in the prosecutor's office.
"The death of a member of the attorney general's team is a serious attack against the institution and against the work done by each prosecutor's office to fight impunity in this country," Paz said.

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FBI question Benghazi consulate attack suspect

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — After months of asking, agents from the FBI questioned the only known suspect in the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi that killed four diplomats, the suspect's Tunisian lawyer told The Associated Press Saturday.
Ali Harzi, a Tunisian, was detained in Turkey and extradited to Tunisia in October where authorities have said he is "strongly suspected" of being involved in the attack.
His lawyer, Anwar Oued-Ali, added that Harzi was also questioned about an attack on the U.S. embassy in Tunisia, a few days later, suggesting the American authorities are looking into if there is a connection between the two attacks.
The Sept. 11 assault by armed men in the Libyan city of Benghazi killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stephens and three other American diplomats. Members of an Islamist militia, Ansar al-Sharia are suspected in the strike, but there has been little progress in the Libya-based investigation into the attack.
A few days later, a mob attacked the U.S. embassy in Tunis, destroying property and an American school in the area, resulting in four deaths. The attack was believed to be instigated by a local group also called Ansar al-Sharia, but it is unclear if it is connected to the Libyan organization.
In early November, Republican senators Lindsey Graham and Saxby Chambliss announced that Tunisia had agreed to allow the FBI to interview Harzi, but it took another month and a half to organize the interview due to legal questions over any infringements on Tunisian sovereignty.
In the end, three FBI investigators using a Moroccan translator posed questions to Harzi for three hours through the Tunisian judge presiding over the case.
Harzi's defense team was not allowed to attend the questioning on the grounds that he was being interviewed as a "witness" rather than a defendant.
Harzi is being charged by the Tunisians for "membership in a terrorist organization." Harzi denies the charges.

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Rebels threaten to storm 2 Syrian Christian towns

BEIRUT (AP) — Rebels have threated to storm two predominantly Christian towns in central Syria if residents do not "evict" government troops they say are using the towns as a base to attack nearby areas.
A video released by rebels showed Rashid Abul-Fidaa, who identified himself as the commander of the Ansar Brigade for Hama province, calling on locals in Mahrada and Sqailbiyeh to rise up against President Bashar Assad's forces or prepare for an assault.
"Assad's gangs in the cities are shelling our villages with mortars and rockets destroying our homes, killing our children and displacing our people," said Abdul-Fidaa, who wore an Islamic headband and was surrounded by gunmen. "You should perform your duty by evicting Assad's gangs," he said. "Otherwise our warriors will storm the hideouts of the Assad gangs."
Abdul-Fidaa accused regime forces of taking positions in the two towns in order to "incite sectarian strife" between Christians and the predominantly Sunni opposition. Assad belongs to the Alawite minority sect, an off-shoot of Shiite Islam.
The threat comes just two days after a U.N. team investigating human rights abuses in Syria accused anti-Assad militants of hiding among the civilian population, triggering strikes by government artillery and the air force.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the activist group which reported the rebel ultimatum on Saturday, said such an attack by rebels could force thousands of Christians from their homes.
Russia's foreign minister, meanwhile, said that Moscow would welcome any country's offer of a safe haven to Assad, but underlined that Moscow itself has no intention of giving him shelter if he steps down.
Sergei Lavrov also said that Syria has consolidated its chemical weapons into one or two locations to protect them from a rebel onslaught. Russia, which has military advisers training Syria's armed forces, has kept close watch over Damascus's chemical arsenal, Lavrov added.
Syria refuses to confirm or deny if it has chemical weapons but is believed to have nerve agents as well as mustard gas. It also possesses Scud missiles capable of delivering them.
Concerns over the arsenal have escalated as the Assad regime suffers losses on the battlefield. U.S. intelligence officials have said it may be readying chemical weapons and could be desperate enough to use them. Both Israel and the U.S. have also expressed concerns the weapons could fall into militant hands if the regime crumbles.
Syria's conflict started 21 months ago as an uprising against Assad, whose family has ruled the country for four decades. But the bloody crackdown that followed led rebels to take up arms, and the ensuing fighting transformed into a civil war. According to activists, more than 40,000 people have been killed since March 2011.
Christians, who make up about 10 percent of Syria's population, say they are particularly vulnerable to the violence sweeping the country of 22 million people. They are fearful that Syria will become another Iraq, with Christians caught in the crossfire between rival Islamic groups.
Clashes between troops and rebels in the central city of Homs, Syria's third largest, have already displaced tens of thousands of Christians, most of whom either fled to the relatively safe coastal areas or to neighboring Lebanon.
Rami Abdul-Rahman, who heads the Observatory, said some Christians and Alawites have also left Hama province in the past several days to escape violence. He said some of them found shelter in the coastal city of Tartus.
In Damascus, the new head of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch said that Christians in Syria had deep roots in the country and were not part of the conflict. Speaking to reporters in the capital, Patriarch John X. Yazigi, urged rival factions to negotiate a settlement.
Violence continued elsewhere in the country on Saturday.
The Observatory said a car bomb went off in the Damascus neighborhood of Qaboun, killing at least five people and wounding others. A Syrian official in the capital confirmed the blast but had no immediate words on casualties.
Elsewhere, the Syrian army said in a statement carried on state-run TV that it had repelled a rebel attack on a military base that killed a regimental commander in the Damascus suburb of Chebaa.
And in Damascus, the state-run news agency SANA said gunmen assassinated Haider al-Sammoudi, a cameraman for the government's TV station. Several journalists working for state media have been assassinated over the past months.
In another development, 11 rebel groups said they have formed a new coalition, the Syrian Islamic Front.
A statement issued by the new group, dated Dec. 21 and posted on a militant website Saturday, described the group as "a comprehensive Islamic front that adopts Islam as a religion, doctrine, approach and conduct."
Several rebel groups have declared their own coalitions in Syria, including an "Islamic state" in the embattled northern city of Aleppo.
The statement said the new group will work to avoid differences or disputes with the other Islamic groups.
Syrian authorities meanwhile handed over to Beirut three Lebanese citizens who were killed last month in a clash with Syrian troops shortly after they crossed the border. Syria has so far returned 10 bodies to the Lebanese authorities and says it has no more.

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Egypt's vice president quits

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt's state TV says Vice President Mahmoud Mekki has resigned.
Mekki's Saturday resignation was announced with more than five hours to go of voting in the second and final phase of a referendum on a disputed, Islamist-backed constitution. Mekki, a career judge, has said he intends to quit once the charter is adopted. The new constitution eliminates the post of vice president.
However, a statement by Mekki read on state TV hinted that the motive of his hurried departure could be linked to the policies of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi.
He said he first submitted his resignation last month but events forced him to stay on.
"I have realized a while ago that the nature of politics don't suit my professional genesis as a judge," he wrote.

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Ex-Tunisian dictator's property goes under hammer

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — Tunisian authorities are putting property confiscated from ousted Tunisian dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali up for auction. That includes a pair of miniature gold sphinxes, a diamond-encrusted pen and a staggering 39 luxury cars.
Officials hope the sale, which was inaugurated by Tunisia's Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali in Tunis Saturday, will fetch some 20 million dinar ($12.9 million) for the state.
One of the rarities up for grabs is a super-pricy Mercedes that belonged to Ben Ali's nephew. Mohammed Lassaad Hamayed of Tunisia's confiscation committee calls the car "a handmade gem made of carbon fibers that costs more than €2 million ($2.6 million)."
He says "only Mohamed VI (the King of Morocco) has a similar one."
Ben Ali was ousted by a popular uprising in January 2011.

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Egypt's central bank governor quits

CAIRO (AP) — State television says Egypt's central bank governor has resigned.
Farouq el-Oqdah's resignation is the second such high profile move on Saturday. Earlier on the day, Vice President Mahmoud Mekki resigned, saying he realized that politics did not suit his professional background as a judge.
The brief TV report did not say why el-Oqdah quit, but it ends days of media speculations about his intentions. Islamist President Mohammed Morsi and his Prime Minister Hesham Kandil met with el-Oqdah earlier this week in what media reports said was an attempt to dissuade him from leaving.
His departure comes at a time when Egypt's pound has been losing value against the U.S. dollar and the postponement of a deal with the IMF for a much needed loan of $4.8 billion.

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