World News - ABC News Radio

• World’s Biggest Mortars ‘Weapon of Choice’ Against Homs?
  

  JOSEPH EID/AFP/Getty Images(LONDON) -- For almost three weeks, Syria’s central city of Homs has been pounded by shelling from the forces of President Bashar al-Assad, leaving hundreds dead, according to opposition activists. Judging from a video clip posted online, one weapons analyst says Assad’s forces are using the biggest mortars in the world.
  
  The video was first flagged in the Christian Science Monitor, which was told by a Human Rights Watch official that the regime forces are using the Russian-made 240mm “Tulip.” In the clip, two men are standing in rubble holding up the fanned tails of the exploded ordnance.
  
  Peter Falstead of Jane’s Defence Weekly says the tail fins look, “very much like the tail fins from SM-240,” also known as the “Tulip Tree” developed by the Soviets in the 1970s. Today it is the largest mortar system used by any military in the world, and the Syrian army is believed to have up to 10 in service.
  
  “If you wanted to strike at rebel-held positions in a built-up area to which you had no line of sight, and you had no regard whatsoever for the killing of innocent civilians, then I guess the SM-240 would be a weapon of choice,” Falstead told ABC News.
  
  Few of the self-propelled SM-240s -- also known as the M-1975 -- remain in service, Jane’s says, due to its short range and slow firing (around one shell per minute). All-told, the system weighs 60,000 pounds, its range is between 2,600 and 5,900 feet, and it can fire shells weighing between 300 and 500 pounds.
  
  By comparison, Falstead says the largest mortars used by the U.S. Army are 120mm, noting that they do have howitzers of a larger caliber.
  
  Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

  
  
  
• Argentina Train Crash Leaves Dozens Dead, Hundreds Injured
  

  JUAN MABROMATA/AFP/Getty Images(BUENOS AIRES, Argentina) -- At least 49 people were killed and another 600 injured when a packed commuter train crashed into a retaining wall at the terminal in Argentina’s capital city at the height of rush hour Wednesday morning.
  
  The crash at the Once train station in Buenos Aires happened around 8:30 a.m. local time when the train, carrying approximately 1,200 passengers, reportedly had braking problems and crashed into a barrier. The train is said to have been traveling from anywhere between 12 to 20 miles per hour at the time of the accident.
  
  "There are people still trapped, people alive," Argentina’s transportation secretary J.P. Schiavi told reporters Wednesday, according to the BBC.
  
  The first two cars -- and the passengers in them -- took the brunt of the crash. Traditionally, commuters pack the first few cars and move up as the train approaches its final stop, so as to get a head start in exiting the approaching station.
  
  Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

  
  
  
• Anti-US Protests Pop Up in Afghanistan over Accidental Koran Burning
  

  iStockphoto/Thinkstock(KABUL, Afghanistan) -- Several anti-American protests sprung up across Afghanistan Wednesday in response to the inadvertent burning of Korans and other religious materials by coalition forces there.
  
  The books were mistakenly thrown out with the trash at Bagram Air Field north of Kabul and were on a burn pile Monday night before Afghan laborers intervened around 11:00 p.m., according to NATO and Afghan officials.
  
  Upon hearing the news, hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside of Bagram and on the outskirts of Kabul Tuesday morning.  The protests continued the following day, growing in intensity and size.
  
  In Jalalabad, demonstrations began in two different locations on Wednesday.  After the situation became a little heated, police opened fire and, according to health officials, one person was killed and eight others were injured.
  
  Over in Kabul, people gathered in front of U.S. base Camp Phoenix started burning tires and tried to burn public assets before the Afghan National Police arrived and got the situation under control.  One person died and 10 got hurt, according to officials from the Ministry of Public Health.

  Protests were also reported in the provinces of Laghman and Parwan.
  
  Meanwhile, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul tweeted on Wednesday, "The Embassy is on lockdown; all travel suspended. Please, everyone, be safe out there."
  
  Camp Phoenix and all other U.S. installations in Kabul were also placed on lockdown.
  
  Afghan President Hamid Karzai has formed a commission to investigate the matter and has asked parliament for a special meeting on Thursday to discuss the incident.

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  Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

  
  
  
• Two Western Journalists Killed in Syria
  

  Dave M. Benett/Getty Images(PARIS) -- A U.S. and a French journalist were killed in the central Syrian city of Homs on Wednesday, the 19th day of intense shelling by the forces of President Bashar al-Assad bent on quashing a growing opposition.
  
  The deaths of American Marie Colvin and Frechman Remi Ochlik were confirmed by French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe.  They come less than a week after New York Times correspondent Anthony Shadid died in northern Syria from an apparent asthma attack and a day after well-known Syrian opposition journalist Rami al-Sayed died in Homs.
  
  A Long Island native, Colvin wrote for the British Sunday Times.  Like Shadid, she was considered one of the best foreign correspondents in the world, covering global conflicts for decades.  Ochlik was a freelance photographer who recently won a 2012 World Press Photo prize for a photo from the Libyan revolution.

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  In a statement, the editor of the Sunday Times called Colvin an "extraordinary figure."
  
  "She believed profoundly that reporting could curtail the excesses of brutal regimes and make the international community take notice," John Witherow wrote.  "Above all, as we saw in her powerful report last weekend, her thoughts were with the victims of violence."
  
  Colvin and Ochlik were in a house in the Baba Amr neighborhood of Homs, the district hit hardest by what residents have described as almost three weeks of relentless shelling that has left hundreds dead.  Video posted to YouTube purported to show their bodies in a house destroyed by tank shelling.
  
  Activists say 10 Syrians were also killed and three other journalists were injured, including Colvin's photographer Paul Conroy, who the Times believes is "not too seriously hurt."
  
  Colvin filed a report for the BBC on Tuesday, saying Baba Amr and its residents are besieged.
  
  "It's absolutely sickening," she said. "The Syrians will not let them out, and are shelling all the civilian areas.  There's just shells, rockets and tank fire pouring into civilian areas of this city.  It is just unrelenting."
  
  Colvin lost an eye from a shrapnel wound in Sri Lanka in 2001, an injury that she said "is worth it" in a 2010 speech on the dangers of conflict reporting.
  
  "Covering a war means going to places torn by chaos, destruction, and death...and trying to bear witness," she said at a memorial for fallen journalists.  Someone has to go there and see what is happening.  You can't get that information without going to places where people are being shot at, and others are shooting at you."

  Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

  
  
  
• Balkans Lurch from Killer Blizzards to Destructive Floods
  

  ALEXA STANKOVIC/AFP/Getty Images(BELGRADE, Serbia) -- The Arctic cold is over for now, but that does not mean the Balkans are out of the woods yet. In fact, if the weather gets too warm too fast, the troubles may only be beginning.
  
  Already hundreds of boats and barges have been crushed by cascading ice on the Danube River, and fears are growing that a thaw accompanied by spring rains will cause massive flooding and even landslides. The snow through much of the region is still five times its normal depth.
  
  "We've got a situation that could be problematic," Aleksandar Prodanovic, flood control expert in Serbia told ABC News. "You have to take into consideration March and April rain as well as couple of weeks of winter left."
  
  When a freeze gripped Europe in the end of January and first half of February, a thick layer of ice was formed on the Danube -- in some places as thich as 18 inches. Ship traffic was halted in many areas of Europe's busy waterways.

  But now, with temperatures climbing, the ice has begun breaking up around the Serb capital of Belgrade, and damage has already been significant.
  
  In Belgrade, huge ice chunks crashed into hundreds of anchored boats and swept away a number of barges. A couple of Belgrade's most popular floating restaurants have sunk. Now the U.N. is warning that parts of central and eastern Europe, until recently paralyzed by heavy snow, could face another catastrophe.
  
  Margareta Wahlstroem, the U.N. secretary-general's special representative for disaster risk reduction, said in a statement in Geneva that there are warning signs that, "destructive floods will add to the loss of life and economic assets" as temperatures rise. In addition to the flood warnings, Serbian emergency officials warned of a risk of landslides in some 2,300 locations, where the heaviest snow has fallen in the lowlands.
  
  In neighboring Bosnia, emergency crews are preparing for a fresh battle with winter when rivers overflow with snowmelt. Bosnians are also being warned of the danger of possible landslides and citizens are asked to contribute to the country's recovery by removing snow around their homes and trying to control of melting water.
  
  Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio