Tiananmen Square: Three Killed In China Crash

Three people have been killed and 11 others injured after a Jeep crashed into a crowd in China's Tiananmen Square.

Tourists and police were hurt in the incident as the vehicle hit a barrier at the entrance to the Forbidden City and burst into flames.

Police have evacuated the square, which was the site of pro-democracy protests in 1989 that were brutally crushed by the authorities.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying declined to say whether the government believed it was a terror attack. She said she did not know the specifics of the case and refused to comment further.

Streets leading to the area were blocked off, with screens erected to stop people photographing the scene.

Two AFP journalists were forcibly detained close to the site when they went to report on the story.

Sky News China Correspondent Mark Stone said reports in China described it as an "accident".

But he said many people would find that hard to believe given the "politically-sensitive" location and the fact the road is straight for 40km.

Two hours after the incident, Sky News drove through the square to film the aftermath.

The square was the focus of a 1989 protest that was violently suppressed

"With the exception of a wet patch on the road, the whole area had been cleared up," Stone said.

"But in an indication of how sensitive the incident is, the Sky News vehicle was stopped by the authorities. They questioned the Sky team for 20 minutes and forced them to delete the video footage."

The driver and two passengers were killed in the vehicle. The official Xinhua news agency said 11 tourists and police officers were injured and taken to hospital.

Stone said: "The location of the incident couldn't be more significant. It's right underneath the portrait of Chairman Mao on the Tiananamen Gate at the entrance to the Forbidden City. It is the most symbolic location in China."

He added: "There are three likely scenarios. One: this was a car crash which, by astonishing coincidence, took place at the most politically-sensitive place in China.

"Or it was a form of protest; possibly a political protest against the communist leadership.

"The most probable scenario, however, is that this was an extreme form of petitioning: a family with a gripe, passed over by local authorities, take things to the extreme.

"We saw this with the airport bomber - a man who blew himself up at Beijing airport earlier this year to complain about police brutality in his province."

Tiananmen Square is heavily policed to guard against political protests as occasionally happens on sensitive dates. It was the focus of a 1989 pro-democracy movement that was violently suppressed by the military.

News of the incident first emerged on Chinese social media sites, with pictures showing the flaming wreck surrounded by police and emergency vehicles.

Chinese bloggers are speculating that the crash must have been intentional.

"Is this the 2013 Tiananmen self-immolation incident?" asked one poster. "There's still a person inside the car!"

Around 120 people have set themselves alight since February 2009 in Tibet and adjoining regions of China, in protests against Chinese oppression.

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Lou Reed: Legendary Singer Dies Aged 71

Legendary singer and songwriter Lou Reed has died in New York, aged 71.

The punk poet died of a liver-related ailment on Sunday morning, his literary agent Andrew Wylie said. The star had a liver transplant in May this year.

Reed shared a home in Southampton, New York, with his wife Laurie Anderson, who he married in 2008.

Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed was born in Brooklyn in 1942 and rose to fame as the frontman of the Velvet Underground in the late 1960s.

He moved to England to be a solo artist in the 1970s and worked with David Bowie among others.

It was during this time he produced his biggest hits, including Walk On The Wild Side and Satellite Of Love.

Another song - Perfect Day - was covered by a host of stars for a charity single.

Reed rose to fame in the Velvet Underground

In a tribute to the singer, Rolling Stone magazine said he "fused street-level urgency with elements of European avant-garde music, marrying beauty and noise, while bringing a whole new lyrical honesty to rock & roll poetry".

During his career as a solo artist, from the 1970s into the 2010s, he was "chameleonic, thorny and unpredictable", it said.

"Glam, punk and alternative rock are all unthinkable without his revelatory example. 'One chord is fine,' he once said, alluding to his bare-bones guitar style. 'Two chords are pushing it. Three chords and you're into jazz.'"

Reed met Welsh musician John Cale in the 1960s and they formed a band called the Primitives, then changed their name to the Warlocks.

After meeting guitarist Sterling Morrison and drummer Maureen Tucker, they became the Velvet Underground.

The band caught artist Andy Warhol's attention who incorporated them into his Exploding Plastic Inevitable.

"Andy would show his movies on us," Reed once said. "We wore black so you could see the movie. But we were all wearing black anyway."

Reed's trademarks were a monotone of surprising emotional range and power - slashing, grinding guitar, and lyrics that were complex, yet conversational.

Known for his cold stare and gaunt features, he was a cynic who seemed to embody downtown Manhattan culture and was as essential a New York artist as Martin Scorsese or Woody Allen.

Reed's New York was a jaded city of drag queens, drug addicts and violence, but it was also as wondrous as any Allen comedy, with so many of his songs explorations of right and wrong and quests for transcendence.

Reed pictured a few months before his death

He had one top 20 hit, Walk On the Wild Side, and many other songs that became standards among his admirers, from Heroin and Sweet Jane to Pale Blue Eyes and All Tomorrow's Parties.

An outlaw in his early years, Reed would eventually perform at the White House, have his writing published in The New Yorker, and win a Grammy in 1999 for Best Long Form Music Video.

He was one of rock's archetypal tough guys, but he grew up middle class - an accountant's son raised on Long Island.

He hated school, loved rock 'n' roll, fought with his parents and attacked them in song for forcing him to undergo electroshock therapy as a supposed "cure" for being bisexual.

"Families that live out in the suburbs often make each other cry," he later wrote.

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Obama 'Aware Of Merkel Tapping Since 2010'

A German newspaper has claimed Barack Obama knew three years ago that his intelligence service was eavesdropping on Angela Merkel - contradicting reports that he had told his counterpart he did not know.

Bild am Sonntag claimed the US President allowed US intelligence to continue listening to the German Chancellor's calls, after being briefed on the operation by the National Security Agency in 2010.

It also alleged that Mr Obama personally authorised the monitoring of Mrs Merkel's mobile phone.

Germany received information last week that the US National Security Agency (NSA) had bugged Mrs Merkel's phone, prompting Berlin to summon the US ambassador - a move unprecedented in post-war relations between the close allies.

The NSA denied Mr Obama had been informed about the operation by the NSA chief in 2010, as reported by the newspaper, but the agency did not comment on whether Mr Obama knew about the bugging of Mrs Merkel's phone.

Both the White House and the German government declined to comment.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that the NSA ended the programme that involved Mrs Merkel after the operation was uncovered in an Obama administration review that began this summer.

The programme also involved as many as 35 other world leaders, some of whom were still being monitored, according to the WSJ report, which was attributed to US officials.

Activists in Washington DC staged a weekend protest over the NSA's tactics

Citing a source in Mrs Merkel's office, some German media have reported that Mr Obama apologised to the Chancellor when she called him on Wednesday, and told her that he would have stopped the bugging happening had he known about it.

But Bild am Sonntag, citing a "US intelligence worker involved in the NSA operation against Merkel", said NSA chief General Keith Alexander informed Mr Obama in person about the matter in 2010.

"Obama didn't stop the operation back then, but let it continue," the newspaper quoted the source as saying.

The NSA said, however, that Gen Alexander had never discussed any intelligence operations involving Mrs Merkel with Mr Obama.

"Alexander did not discuss with President Obama in 2010 an alleged foreign intelligence operation involving German Chancellor Merkel, nor has he ever discussed alleged operations involving Chancellor Merkel," said NSA spokeswoman Vanee Vines.

"News reports claiming otherwise are not true."

On Sunday, another German media publication, Der Spiegel magazine, claimed the US may have bugged Mrs Merkel's phone for more than 10 years.

It said the Chancellor's mobile had been listed by the NSA's Special Collection Service since 2002 and had still been on the list weeks before Mr Obama visited Berlin in June.

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Merkel's Phone 'Bugged For Decade By US'

The United States may have bugged Angela Merkel's phone for more than 10 years, it has been claimed.

Der Spiegel magazine said the German chancellor's mobile telephone had been listed by the NSA's Special Collection Service (SCS) since 2002 and was still on the list weeks before Barack Obama visited Berlin in June.

Germany's outrage over reports of bugging of Ms Merkel's phone by the NSA prompted it to summon the US ambassador for the first time in living memory.

In an SCS document cited by Der Spiegel, the agency said it had a "not legally registered spying branch" in the US embassy in Berlin, the exposure of which would lead to "grave damage for the relations of the United States to another government".

Mr Obama met with Ms Merkel in Berlin earlier this year

From there, NSA and CIA staff were tapping communication in the Berlin's government district with high-tech surveillance.

Quoting a secret document from 2010, Der Spiegel said such branches existed in about 80 locations around the world, including Paris, Madrid, Rome, Prague, Geneva and Frankfurt.

The magazine said it was not clear whether the SCS had recorded conversations or just connection data.

Mr Obama apologised to Merkel when she called him on Wednesday to seek clarification on the issue, Der Spiegel wrote, citing a source in Ms Merkel's office.

Ms Merkel's spokesman and the White House declined comment.

The rift over US surveillance activities first emerged earlier this year after reports that Washington had bugged European Union offices and had tapped half a billion phone calls, emails and text messages in Germany in a typical month.

But it appeared close to resolution after Ms Merkel's government said in August - just weeks before a parliamentary election - the United States had given sufficient assurances they were upholding German law.

Mr Obama ordered a review of US surveillance programmes after former NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked documents that raised alarm in the United States and abroad.

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Al Qaeda-Linked Syrian Rebel Leader 'Killed'

The leader of the powerful Syrian rebel group the al Nusra Front has been killed, according to Syrian state-run TV.

According to the one-line report, Abu Mohammad al Golani was killed in the coastal province of Latakia.

It did not say when or give further details.

However the rebel group said in a statement on Saturday that its leader was in good health.

"What was claimed by one channel alone, regarding what it claimed was the killing of the emir of al Nusra Front, was a lie," said the group.

The extremist front has become one of the most effective among the rebel groups fighting President Bashar Assad's forces.

The al Nusra Front played a key part in the Battle of Aleppo

However, it has links to al Qaeda and is classed by the US, the UK and the UN as a terrorist organisation.

If al Golani's death is confirmed it will be a significant blow to rebels, who consider the group to be the "special forces" of the battle against the regime.

The group, whose goal is to overthrow Mr Assad and establish an Islamist state under Sharia law, announced its creation in January 2012 and were key players in the Battle of Aleppo.

But they have an uneasy alliance with the National Coalition for Opposition Forces and many rebel groups consider them to be too extreme.

Al Nusra is opposed to western intervention in the nearly three-year-long Syrian civil war and many members consider the US to be an enemy of Islam.

The news of al Golani's death came as a car bomb outside a mosque in Damascus killed at least 40, including seven children.

Dozens of people were wounded in the car bombing in the rebel-controlled town of Suq Wadi Barada, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Anti-regime activists blamed the attack on government forces, while state news agency SANA said "the car exploded while the terrorists were packing it with explosives".

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Brooklyn Stabbings: Five Dead Including A Baby

Five people - including a baby - have been stabbed to death at a house in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.

New York Police Department said on Sunday that the ages of the victims ranged from one to 20.

Police did not immediately disclose the gender of the victims, or their relationships to one another.

Authorities were alerted to a stabbing at a home on 57th Street near Ninth Avenue at around 11pm on Saturday.

New York Fire Department spokesman Jim Long said emergency crews found three people dead at the scene.

Two others were taken to hospitals - one to the Lutheran Medical Centre and another to Maimonides Medical Centre - where they were pronounced dead.

Police provided no further details and would not say if anyone was in custody.

More follows...

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