School massacre survivors ready for class

STUDENTS at the elementary school where a gunman massacred 26 children and teachers last month were returning to class for the first time overnight in a new building adapted to look exactly like their old one.

Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut has been closed since the December 14 tragedy in which a 20-year-old local man shot 20 small children and six staff members before committing suicide.

Families were invited to inspect the new school in the nearby town of Monroe, where a disused facility has been prepared to resemble the old one, right down to the pictures on the walls and crayons on desks, US ABC television reported.

In a message to parents on the school website, acting principal Donna Page, who replaces the slain school head Dawn Hochsprung, insisted "the facility is safe, secure and fully operational."

Ms Page said parents would be allowed to stay in the school when it opens for classes today, to provide reassurance to their children, many of whom witnessed to the bloodbath.

"We understand many parents may need to be near their children on their first day(s) of school and you will be welcome. That being said, we encourage students to take the bus to school in order to help them return to familiar routines as soon as possible," she wrote.

The shootings, in which Adam Lanza wielded a semi-automatic assault-style rifle, provoked a major national debate on gun control and a promise from US President Barack Obama to back a bill outlawing military-type weapons.

The killer, Adam Lanza, was laid to rest over the weekend after his father, a tax executive, retrieved his body from the authorities last week, a family spokesman said.

Lanza's mother, whom he shot at their home just ahead of the school massacre, was buried in New Hampshire last month.

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Bieber offers prayers for dead photographer

POP idol Justin Bieber offered prayers - and called for tougher laws against paparazzi - after a photographer was killed on a freeway while trying to get a picture of his Ferrari.

Police in Los Angeles said the 18-year-old Canadian-born heart throb was not in the luxury sports car when it was pulled over for speeding on New Year's Day and the unidentified photographer was hit by an oncoming vehicle.

"While I was not present nor directly involved with this tragic accident, my thoughts and prayers are with the family of the victim," said Bieber in a statement relayed to several US showbiz websites.

"Hopefully this tragedy will finally inspire meaningful legislation and whatever other necessary steps to protect the lives and safety of celebrities, police officers, innocent public bystanders, and the photographers themselves," he added.

Los Angeles photographer Thibault Mauvilain told reporters at the scene that the fatality was a friend named Chris who was a photographer but "not a paparazzo - he was just another kid from New Mexico".

Bieber, who performed on New Year's Eve at Times Square in New York, has a history of run-ins with paparazzi. In May he allegedly kicked and punched a photographer in a parking lot, but no charges were filed.

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Dozens killed, wounded in Syria air strike

DOZENS of people have been killed or wounded in an air strike on a service station southeast of Damascus, many of them horribly burned, a watchdog and activists say.

The attack took place on Wednesday near the town of Maliha in the partly rebel-held Eastern Ghuta region of Damascus, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The watchdog said dozens were killed or wounded but could not immediately give a comprehensive breakdown.

It said the toll was likely to rise because bodies were still being pulled from the rubble, adding that "it is extremely difficult to count the dead because most of the bodies have been immolated".

The Local Coordination Committees, a grassroots network of activists, estimated at least 50 people were killed and dozens of others wounded.

It was not immediately clear if the bomb blasts caused the storage tanks to explode, but the scene was engulfed in fire, which suggests that might have happened.

"MIG warplane strikes on Eastern Ghuta! Dozens of martyrs!" a man shouted out as he and a fellow cameraman raced toward plumes of smoke to survey the damage in a gruesome video posted on YouTube.

A fire extinguisher lay in the street as dozens of men rushed to dig out any survivors from beneath heaping piles of metal and steel I-beams as fires raged beside them.

One man, his face covered in blood, was helped out from the rubble.

Some bystanders stood in shock, staring into space, surrounded by scattered burning vehicles, heaps of metal and pools of blood still wet on the pavement.

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Syria death toll spirals to 60,000

This image taken from video obtained from the Shaam News Network shows a Free Syrian Army fighter in Taftanaz village, northern Syria, yesterday. Rebels attacked a sprawling air base in an attempt to sideline President Bashar Assad's forces. Source: AP

MORE than 60,000 people have been killed in Syria since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad's regime erupted in March 2011, a top UN official says.

Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said an exhaustive analysis carried out by data specialists showed 59,648 people had died up to the end of November.

"Given there has been no let-up in the conflict since the end of November, we can assume that more than 60,000 people have been killed by the beginning of 2013," Mr Pillay concluded in a statement yesterday.

"The number of casualties is much higher than we expected, and is truly shocking," she said.

Mr Pillay had said in December 2011 that the UN was unable to provide a precise figure on the number of deaths, and media have been relying on the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based watchdog, which on Monday had put the total number of those killed at more than 46,000.

In reference to the UN figure, Mr Pillay said that "although this is the most detailed and wide-ranging analysis of casualty figures so far, this is by no means a definitive figure.

This citizen journalism image taken from video provided by Shaam News Network shows a wounded man being pulled from the site of a Syrian government airstrike on a gas station in the eastern Damascus suburb of Mleiha, Syria, yesterday.

"We have not been able to verify the circumstances of each and every death, partly because of the nature of the conflict and partly because we have not been allowed inside Syria since the unrest began in March 2011."

The UN High Commissioner added that "once there is peace in Syria, further investigations will be necessary to discover precisely how many people have died, and in what circumstances, and who was responsible for all the crimes that have been committed".

The analysts cited by the UN official noted 60,000 was likely to be an underestimate of the actual number of deaths, given reports containing insufficient information were excluded from the list, and a significant number of killings might not have been documented.

The analysis - which the UN High Commissioner stressed is "a work in progress, not a final product" - shows a steady increase in the average number of documented deaths per month since the beginning of the conflict, from around 1000 per month in the northern summer of 2011 to an average of more than 5000 per month since July 2012.

The greatest number of reported killings have occurred in Homs (12,560), rural Damascus (10,862) and Idlib (7686), followed by Aleppo (6188), Daraa (6034) and Hama (5080).

Smoke rises from buildings in Taftanaz village, Idlib province, northern Syria, yesterday after rebels attacked a sprawling air base in an attempt to sideline President Bashar Assad's forces.

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Egypt journo probed for 'insulting' Morsi

AN EGYPTIAN newspaper editor is under investigation for allegedly insulting President Mohamed Morsi, a prosecution source said, a day after a similar probe was launched against a comedian.

State prosecutor Talaat Ibrahim ordered the investigation into Abdel Halim Qandil, editor of the Sawt al-Umma newspaper and a critic of Mr Morsi, after a political activist sued him for allegedly insulting the president.

On Tuesday, the prosecutor ordered in investigation into satirical talk show host Bassem Yousef, also on charges of insulting Mr Morsi.

The prosecutor was also weighing a complaint filed by the presidency against the leading independent Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper, after it mistakenly reported on its website that Mr Morsi was to visit the hospital hosting ousted dictator Hosni Mubarak.

Last month, Mr Ibrahim ordered a probe into three top opposition leaders accused of trying to incite Mr Morsi's overthrow amid mass opposition rallies against the Islamist president.

A controversial new constitution, voted for by Egyptians in a December referendum, became the focus of Egypt's worst political crisis since Mr Morsi came to power in June.

Human rights activists and opposition groups said the new charter, drafted by an Islamist-leaning panel close the president, potentially curtailed freedom of expression and basic rights for minorities.

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Mubarak watched uprising on TV: commission

EGYPT'S Hosni Mubarak watched the uprising against him unfold through a live TV feed to his palace, despite his denial he knew the extent of the protests and crackdown against them, a member of a fact-finding mission says.

The finding could lead to the retrial of the 84-old ousted leader, who's already serving a life sentence.

In questioning for his trial for the deaths of some 900 protesters during the uprising, Mubarak said he was kept in the dark by top aides as to the gravity of the situation during the uprising, and fended off charges he ordered or knew of the deadly force used against the protesters.

Mubarak was still convicted in June of failing to prevent the deaths. But many Egyptians were angered he was not convicted for ordering or having a direct role in the crackdown.

Ahmed Ragheb, a human rights lawyer and a member of the commission, said state TV had designated a coded satellite TV station that fed live material from cameras installed in Tahrir and surrounding areas directly to Mubarak's Palace throughout the 18 days of the uprising.

"Mubarak knew of all the crimes that took place directly. The images were carried to him live, and he didn't even need security reports," Ragheb told The Associated Press. "This entails a legal responsibility" in the violence against the protesters, including the infamous camel battle, where men on horses and camel and other Mubarak supporters stormed the square trying to drive protesters out.

At least 11 people are said to be killed in that attack.

The finding came in a 700-page report on protester deaths the past two years, submitted on Wednesday to President Mohamed Morsi.

Morsi had formed this commission soon after he came to office in June, having promised during his election campaign he will order new retrials for former regime officials if new evidence were revealed.

The commission also found security forces and the military used live ammunition in crackdowns on protesters during the 18-day uprising against Mubarak and during the 17 months of rule by the military that followed his February 11, 2011 fall, Ragheb said.

The military repeatedly denied it used live ammunition against protesters, despite several death caused by bullets and pellets.

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Demand for bullet-proof kid clothes

MIGUEL Caballero has been making bullet-proof clothes for politicians and other bigwigs for 20 years, but not for kids. The latest US school massacre has changed that.

This year he plans a line for children - T-shirts, vests, and combination backpack-vests - and geared toward the US market.

Mr Caballero has made good money in his 22-year-old business with a factory on the outskirts of Bogota. He sells around 50,000 garments a year that go for about $2000 a piece, but the US market had been tough to crack.

Then, after a lone and deranged gunman killed 20 small children and six staffers at Sandy Hook Elementary School last month in Newtown, Connecticut, he started getting orders from very worried parents.

"We would answer that we do not make clothes for kids. But the emails kept coming," Mr Caballero said.

So, in just a week, he designed garments and subjected them to ballistic tests. Now his factory is fitted to churn out a first lot of 1800 bullet-proof garments for children and is waiting for firm orders.

Carolina Ballesteros, Mr Caballero's director of research and development, said the impact of the Newtown shooting was huge because of the age of most of the victims: just six and seven.

Asked how you explain to a child that simply going to school can be so dangerous you have to wear a bullet proof vest,  Ms Ballesteros explained that her company's garments are not designed for everyday use.

Rather, they are for emergencies, to be handed out by teachers when needed.

The new line is tailored for kids aged 8 to 16, with prices ranging from $200 to $400, depending on the garment and its size.

Mr Caballero's factory employs 235 people, and 95 per cent of its output is exported to 23 countries in the Middle East and Latin America.

The company makes uniforms for security forces and suits for public figures in many countries, she said.

"Three royal families in the Middle East are customers of ours. We made a bullet-proof kimono for the American actor Steven Seagal. Our experience is beyond question," Ms Ballesteros said.

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Iran claims it shot down more US drones

IRAN said it had shot down two US-made RQ-11 reconnaissance drones in the past 15 months, adding to a ScanEagle drone and RQ-170 Sentinel stealth aircraft it already claims to have captured.

"The army's air defence shot down two... RQ-11 drones," Rear Admiral Amir Rastegari told state television and Fars news agency, adding that the army was carrying out "research" on the downed unmanned aircraft.

He said the first had been brought down in Shahrivar 1390 (August-September 2011) and the second in Aban 1391 (October-November 2012), but gave no details of their location.

He did not offer proof for the claim.

Iran has in the past claimed to have hunted down a number of US drones, showing detailed images of the alleged spoils.

In December it said it had captured a small US ScanEagle drone in its airspace above the Gulf, which the US navy denied.

A year before that, it claimed to have captured a much bigger and more sophisticated CIA stealth drone, an RQ-170 Sentinel.

The AeroVironment RQ-11 type aircraft that Mr Rastegari said had been shot down is a small, hand-launched and remote-controlled drone used by US military intelligence, and has also been adopted by some US allies.

It has a range of over 10 kilometres and can fly at up to 95 kilometres per hour for 80 minutes.

Mr Rastegari made the announcement after a six-day Iranian naval exercise in the Gulf of Oman and the Strait of Hormuz, through which a third of the world's marketed oil passes.

Several surface-to-air missiles were fired as part of the manoeuvres, according to Iranian media.

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