Egypt: 'Concerned' Obama Calls Morsi

President Barack Obama has called the leader of Egypt to express his deep concern about the deaths and injuries of protesters in the country.

The US president welcomed President Mohamed Morsi's call for a dialogue with the opposition and urged opposition leaders to join in this dialogue without preconditions.

Egypt's president had appeared on national television in an attempt to defuse the worst violence seen in the country since last year's revolution, and he said a controversial decree granting him widespread new powers might be modified.

Anger over what is perceived as Mr Morsi's increasingly autocratic rule came to a head on Wednesday when at least six people were killed and almost 700 injured during clashes between his supporters and opponents.

Members of the main opposition coalition, the National Salvation Front, said they were assessing the offer of dialogue but it was immediately rejected by the pro-democracy movement "April 6".

The crisis was sparked by Mr Morsi's decree on November 22, giving himself wide powers and protecting himself from judicial review.

The opposition has previously demanded that the president scrap his decree, postpone the referendum and redraft the constitution.

As well as drawing up a political roadmap, President Morsi said the talks would aim to resolve the fate of the upper house of parliament after the Islamist-dominated lower house was dissolved in June, the election law and other issues.

"I call for a full, productive dialogue with all figures and heads of parties, revolutionary youth and senior legal figures to meet this Saturday," he declared.

Several thousand opposition protesters near the palace waved their shoes in derision after his speech and shouted "Killer, killer" and "We won't go, he will go" - another of the slogans used against Mubarak in last year's revolt.

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McAfee: Lawyers Bid To Prevent Belize Return

Lawyers for software guru John McAfee are making legal moves to prevent him being returned to Belize after he was released from hospital in neighbouring Guatemala.

McAfee had suffered chest pains and was rushed to hospital but a government doctor who examined him said his heart rhythm and blood pressure were normal and that he appeared to be suffering from high stress.

McAfee had been taken ill soon after Guatemalan authorities said his request for asylum had been denied. He was later returned to a detention centre.

McAfee has issued a plea on his blog for the public to petition Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina to let him stay.

"Please email the President of Guatemala and beg him to allow the court system to proceed, to determine my status in Guatemala, and please support the political asylum that I am asking for," the post read.

McAfee's legal team said they were preparing to appeal against the denial of asylum to the country's constitutional court, a process that could give McAfee perhaps another day or two in Guatemala.

He had been taken to the immigration centre after his arrest for illegally entering the country following a bizarre journey as a self-styled fugitive, with an active blog and constant contact with the press.

Belize police spokesman Raphael Martinez said officials expected McAfee to be flown back to his country.

Police want to question him about the killing of neighbour Gregory Viant Faull, who was shot in early November on the Belize island where both men lived.

The Faull family has said through a representative that the murder of their loved one on Ambergris Caye has become lost in the media frenzy provoked by McAfee's manipulation of the media through phone calls, emails and blog posts detailing his life on the run.

McAfee said US embassy officials had said they couldn't help him with a request to be returned to the US instead of Belize.

McAfee said he had formally requested asylum in Guatemala due to fears for his safety because he has sensitive information about official corruption and refused to donate to local politicians.

His Guatemalan lawyer, Telesforo Guerra, has said 67-yeard-old McAfee's life would be in danger if he is sent back to Belize.

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Japan Earthquake Sparks Tsunami Alert

A tsunami alert has been issued for Japan's northeast coast after a strong earthquake shook buildings as far away as Tokyo.

The tremor struck in the Pacific Ocean at a depth of 23 miles, and the epicentre was 285 miles from the capital.

The earthquake had a preliminary magnitude of 7.3, the US Geological Survey said, adding that there was no risk of a widespread tsunami.

An alert for a one-metre high tsunami was issued for the coast of Miyagi Prefecture in northeastern Japan, which was hit by a devastating earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011.

That quake triggered fuel-rod meltdowns at the Fukushima nuclear plant, causing radiation leakage, contamination of food and water and mass evacuations in the world's worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl in 1986.

Tokyo Electric Power Co, the operator of the Fukushima nuclear plant, reported no irregularities at its nuclear plants after the latest quake.

More follows...

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Philippines Typhoon: Deadly Scale Becomes Clear

By Mark Stone, Asia Correspondent

The number of people killed in the Philippines typhoon may rise as high as 500.

Rescuers and recovery teams are continuing to discover devastated communities in remote regions of Mindanao Island.

Typhoon Bopha hit the east of Mindanao, far south of the capital Manila, at dawn on Tuesday morning.

Initial reports suggested that no one had been killed and only a few people injured.

However, as communication was restored and remote regions accessed, the reality became clear.

TV footage shows scores of dead bodies all caked in mud. Those who survived sit, stunned, next to their dead relatives.

A family wash clothes surrounded by a devastated banana plantation

One young boy is carried to safety by his cousin. His father is in hospital but his mother and his brother are dead.

Hundreds of the injured across Mindanao will have the same stories. Many thousands more are homeless.

Mindanao has the perfect landscape for storm destruction - much of the population live in shacks along the coastline, but inland the island is dominated by mountains and rivers.

Many people and their homes were wiped away by flooding and landslides.

In the Compostela Valley in the island's south-east, communities were evacuated to a local school and a community centre which were then hit.

"We didn't think the winds would get that strong. The floods were rushing towards us. We didn't imagine it would turn out that way, so we didn't come here to evacuate," one villager said.

The recovery will continue and the repair work will now begin. However, forecasters predict another storm within the next two weeks.

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North Sea Ship Collision: Four People Killed

Four crew members have died and another seven are still missing after a cargo ship collided with another vessel and sank off the Dutch coast.

The 485ft (148m) Baltic Ace collided with the 440ft (134m) container ship Corvus J near busy shipping lanes some 40 miles off the coast of the southern Netherlands.

Baltic Ace, which was heading from the Belgian port of Zeebrugge to Kotka in Finland, sank shortly after the collision.

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

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

A major air and sea rescue operation involving several helicopters, planes and two navy patrol ships has resumed.

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

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

It is thought some of the crew may have gone down with the stricken vessel.

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

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

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

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

The cause of the collision is not known.

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

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John McAfee Arrested By Guatemalan Police

Anti-virus software pioneer John McAfee has been arrested by Guatemalan police for entering the country illegally.

The 67-year-old was detained at a hotel in Guatemala City with the help of Interpol agents.

He entered the country over the weekend with his 20-year-old girlfriend Sam Venegas after going on the run following the murder of his neighbour in Belize last month.

Police spokesman Pablo Castillo said the software pioneer could be deported within hours to Belize or repatriated to the US.

John McAfee with his 20-year-old Belizean girlfriend Sam Venegas

"We understand that he has permanent residency in Belize, where he could be deported in the next few hours," the spokesman said.

"His status is illegal and he is being made available to immigration authorities so they can decide whether to deport him to his country of origin."

After his arrival in Guatemala, Mr McAfee employed former Guatemalan attorney general Telesforo Guerra to manage his plea to stay in the country.

"[Mr McAfee] is persecuted in Belize, persecuted politically because he stopped financing the government," Mr Guerra said.

"They accuse him of a common crime. So what I have to obtain is an authorisation of asylum."

John McAfee during an interview

Mr McAfee has maintained his innocence since escaping the Belize police on the island of Ambergris Caye hours after his neighbour Gregory Faull was shot in the head on November 11.

The authorities in Belize say Mr McAfee is wanted for questioning as a "person of interest" and have urged him to give himself up.

Mr Faull, who was found with a 9mm bullet in his head, led neighbours in writing a letter to the mayor complaining that the millionaire's "vicious" dogs and aggressive security guards were scaring tourists and residents.

Before he fled after the murder, Mr McAfee shot dead his four dogs, which he said may have been poisoned by Mr Faull.

Ballistics experts have exhumed the animals and are examining them to see if the bullets match that found in the victim.

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Turkey Storms: Cargo Ship's Crew Missing

Nine crew members are missing after their boat sank off the coast of Istanbul in stormy conditions.

Turkish rescue workers are also involved in an operation to save 14 sailors from another cargo vessel after it suffered a mechanical failure.

Two people also died and three are still missing after a rescue boat crashed into the rocks off Turkey's Sile coast.

Sile lies about 25 miles east of the northern end of the Bosphorus Strait, the only maritime outlet for cargo from Black Sea countries, including Russian oil and grain.

Stormy weather conditions frequently force the strait's closure in winter, but officials have said it is still open.

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Gang Boss Shot Dead: Real IRA Member Held

A convicted member of the Real IRA is in custody following the murder of one of Ireland's most notorious criminals.

Eamon Kelly was shot dead after being chased down the road near his home in north Dublin, just two years after he escaped a similar attempt on his life when the attacker's gun jammed.

Dubbed "The Godfather" by Dublin's tabloid press, the 65-year-old was shot up to six times as he attempted to flee the gunman, according to police.

He was found injured on a footpath and died later in Beaumont Hospital.

A 32-year-old arrested near the scene on Furry Park Road in Killester is said to be a close associate of Real IRA leader Alan Ryan, who was murdered in September.

The suspect from south Dublin was previously jailed for Real IRA membership and his gang is suspected of being involved in a spate of shootings and pipebomb attacks. He is being questioned by police in Clontarf.

Kelly's crime empire has reportedly been at odds with Real IRA figures, who in recent years have demanded a slice of criminal gangs' drug-trafficking profits in exchange for not killing their members or burning down their business fronts.

Such killings have become regular occurrences in working-class parts of Dublin and the southwest city of Limerick, where two rival crime clans, the Keane-Collopy and McCarthy-Dundon gangs, have been killing each other - and occasionally innocent civilians - for a decade.

Fourteen other people have been shot dead in attacks linked to criminal gangs or disputes in the Irish capital this year.

Police allege that Kelly was a leading member of a gang which, working with the IRA, robbed banks and armoured-car cash shipments in Dublin in the 1980s and became a pioneer of Ireland's burgeoning cocaine trade.

In 1993, he became Ireland's first gangland boss to be convicted of possessing cocaine and received a 14-year prison sentence.

Since leaving prison a decade ago, Kelly has overseen a sharp rise in tit-for-tat violence, according to authorities.

Police allege his longtime associate, Eamon "the Don" Dunne, oversaw at least 17 murders from 2005 to his own death in 2010, when he was shot eight times in the head as he sat drinking in a Dublin pub.

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Nasa Plans To Send New Rover To Red Planet

Nasa has announced plans to send a new rover to Mars in 2020 as it prepares for a manned mission to the Red Planet.

The news comes a day after results of the first soil tested by the Curiosity rover found traces of some of the compounds like water and oxygen that are necessary for life.

President Barack Obama's administration "is committed to a robust Mars exploration programme", Nasa Administrator Charles Bolden said.

"With this next mission, we're ensuring America remains the world leader in the exploration of the Red Planet, while taking another significant step toward sending humans there in the 2030s."

Nasa was forced to pull out of some joint missions with the European Space Agency after its budget was slashed earlier this year. 

It hopes to save money on the next rover - currently estimated to cost $1.5bn (£900m) - by using spare parts left over from Curiosity and sticking to the same successful design.

Curiosity landed on Mars on August 6

The new rover brings the number of Nasa missions currently operating or being planned for Mars to seven.

The Opportunity rover has been exploring the Martian surface since 2004.

The much more sophisticated Curiosity rover landed in Gale Crater on August 6. Two other spacecraft are currently orbiting Mars to study the planet from above and help relay signals from the rovers.

A new craft - the Maven - is set to launch next year to study the Martian upper atmosphere.

Nasa also plans to send a craft dubbed InSight to dig the planet's depths in 2016 to determine whether its core is solid or liquid like Earth's.

"The challenge to restructure the Mars Exploration Programme has turned from the seven minutes of terror for the Curiosity landing to the start of seven years of innovation," said astronaut John Grunsfeld, Nasa's associate administrator for science.

While the rover's name and actual mission must still be worked out, Mr Grunsfeld said he hoped it would improve on Curiosity with the addition of a 3D camera.

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Syria: Obama Warns Against Chemical Warfare

Barack Obama has warned Syrian President Bashar Assad of the "consequences" if he were to make the "tragic mistake" of using chemical weapons against his own people.

The US President's remarks came as security officials said they had detected activity at chemical weapons depots.

"I want to make it absolutely clear to Assad and those under his command, the world is watching. The use of chemical weapons is and would be totally unacceptable," he said.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton echoed Mr Obama's caution that such action would cross a "red line" for the United States that would prompt action.

She did not, however, address the reports of movement at Syrian chemical weapons depots - or go into detail about what the response might be - but insisted that Washington would address any threat that arises.

Buildings destroyed by regime missiles in the village of Houla, near Homs

"We have made our views very clear: This is a red line for the United States," she said on Monday while in Prague for meetings with Czech officials.

"I'm not going to telegraph in any specifics what we would do in the event of credible evidence that the Assad regime has resorted to using chemical weapons against their own people. But suffice it to say, we are certainly planning to take action if that eventuality were to occur."

She added: "We once again issue a very strong warning to the Assad regime that their behaviour is reprehensible, their actions against their own people have been tragic.

"But there is no doubt that there's a line between even the horrors that they've already inflicted on the Syrian people and moving to what would be an internationally condemned step of utilising their chemical weapons."

White House, press secretary Jay Carney added: "We are concerned that in an increasingly beleaguered regime, having found its escalation of violence through conventional means inadequate, might be considering the use of chemical weapons against the Syrian people."

Hillary Clinton says chemical warfare would be a "red line" for the US

The warning came as Lebanese security officials said Syria's Foreign Ministry spokesman had left the country and was heading to the UK on a flight from Beirut.

However, it was unclear whether Jihad Makdissi had defected from Mr Assad's regime.

Syria has been careful never to confirm that it has any chemical weapons - any use of which would draw international condemnation.

Its ministry of foreign affairs said Syria "would not use chemical weapons - if there are any - against its own people under any circumstances".

Syria is believed to have several hundred ballistic surface-to-surface missiles capable of carrying chemical warheads, and there are concerns its chemical and biological weapons could fall into the wrong hands should the regime in Syria collapse and lose control of them.

The US has opposed military intervention or providing arms support to Syria's rebels for fear of further escalating a conflict that activists say has killed more than 40,000 people since March 2011.

Meanwhile, the United Nations said it was suspending its aid operations in Syria and withdrawing all non-essential international staff due to attacks on humanitarian aid convoys and the hijacking of goods or vehicles in recent weeks.

The European Union said it too was scaling back its activities in the Syrian capital Damascus due to the worsening security situation.

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