Boston Bomb Suspects 'Had Religious Motive'

The two brothers suspected of bombing the Boston Marathon appear to have been motivated by a radical brand of Islam, but they do not seem connected to any Muslim terrorist groups, US officials have said.

Authorities have interrogated and charged the surviving brother Dzhokhar Tsarnaev with crimes that could bring the death penalty.

The 19-year-old remains in a serious condition with a gunshot wound to his throat and other injuries suffered during his attempted getaway.

His older brother, Tamerlan, 26, died on Friday after a fierce gun battle with police.

Tsarnaev was charged in his hospital bed with using and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction.

He was accused of joining with his brother in setting off the shrapnel-packed pressure-cooker bombs that killed three people a week ago.

Tamerlan is seen here with little brother Dzhokhar and their sisters

The brothers, ethnic Chechens from Russia who had been living in the US for about a decade, practised Islam.

Two US officials said preliminary evidence from the younger man's interrogation suggests the brothers were motivated by religious extremism but were apparently not involved with Islamic terrorist organisations.

Dzhokhar is said to have communicated with his interrogators in writing due to his injuries.

They said they were still trying to verify what they were told by Tsarnaev and were looking at such things as his phone and online communications and his associations with others.

In the criminal complaint outlining the allegations, investigators said Tsarnaev and his brother each placed a backpack containing a bomb in the crowd near the finish line of the marathon.

The FBI said surveillance-camera footage showed Dzhokhar manipulating his mobile phone and lifting it to his ear just moments before the two blasts.

A silent tribute was held in Boston on Monday

After the first explosion, a block away from Dzhokhar "virtually every head turns to the east ... and stares in that direction in apparent bewilderment and alarm", the complaint says.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev "virtually alone of the individuals in front of the restaurant, appears calm".

He then quickly walked away, leaving a backpack on the ground; about 10 seconds later, a bomb blew up at the spot where he had been standing, the FBI said.

The FBI did not say whether he was using his mobile phone to detonate one or both of the bombs or whether he was talking to someone.

Meanwhile, Kazakhstan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement saying two foreign nationals arrested on Saturday in the Boston area on immigration violations are from Kazakhstan and may have known the two marathon bombing suspects.

The foreign ministry said US authorities came across them while searching for "possible links and contacts" to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Their names have not been released.

The aftermath of the Boston Marathon blasts

On Monday, Boston residents observed a moment of silence exactly a week after the first of two bombs went off near the marathon finish line.

A private funeral was also held for Krystle Campbell, a 29-year-old restaurant worker who was among the dead.

Later in the day, a memorial service was held at Boston University for another victim, Lu Lingzi, 23, a graduate student from China.

The youngest person to die was eight-year-old Martin Richard, while police officer Sean Collier was killed during a confrontation with the suspects in the early hours of Friday.

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Libya: French Embassy In Tripoli Attacked

The French embassy in Libya has been damaged after a car bomb attack in the capital of Tripoli.

Officials have confirmed that two French security officers on the premises were injured, one seriously, in the attack.

"There was an attack on the embassy. We think it was a booby-trapped car," a Libyan official said.

The blast happened at 7am in an upmarket residential area of the city

"There was a lot of damage and there are two guards wounded."

The blast destroyed a security wall and severely damaged the building when the blast occurred at about 7.10am local time.

The French mission is located in a two-storey villa in the uptown Gargaresh area of Tripoli.

Journalist William Crisp, who arrived at the scene, told Sky News: "The engine block of the car landed quite a way from the embassy so it was quite a strong blast.

The unprecedented attack occurred in Tripoli

"The attack was in a sleepy, wealthy part of town. It was a middle-class neighbourhood."

Buildings opposite the embassy were also damaged in the attack and two cars parked near the embassy were destroyed.

Jamal Omar, who lives across the street and whose face was slightly injured, said the car must have been parked only minutes before the explosion.

"I was sweeping outside my house, and there wasn't any car in front of the embassy. The explosion happened less than five minutes after I went back inside," he said.

The bomb appeared to have been detonated directly outside the embassy

"In liaison with the Libyan authorities, the services of the state will do everything to establish the circumstances of this odious act and rapidly identify the perpetrators," Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said in a statement.

The motive for the attack, the first assault launched on an embassy in the Libyan capital, was not immediately clear.

Libyan foreign minister Mohammed Abdel Aziz condemned the attack on the embassy, calling it a "terrorist act".

"We strongly condemn this act, which we regard as a terrorist act against a brother nation that supported Libya during the revolution" of 2011 that ousted the regime of Moamer Kadhafi, Abdel Aziz told AFP news agency at the scene of the blast.

The embassy was daubed in anti-French graffiti in 2011

President Francois Hollande said: "France expects the Libyan authorities to shed light on this unacceptable act so that the perpetrators are identified and brought to justice."

In Paris, French foreign minister Laurent Fabius said his ministry was "in liaison with the Libyan authorities" and that France will "do everything it can to shed light on the circumstances of this abhorrent act and to quickly identify the perpetrators".

Mr Fabius is making a visit to Tripoli to discuss the situation with both Libyan officials and French diplomatic staff.

Sky News Foreign Affairs Editor Tim Marshall added: "It is another indication of how things are not doing well in Libya.

"The French would be a target, along with Britain, as they spearheaded regime change from the Gaddafi era."

Two years after the country's civil war, Libya has struggled to maintain security, build a unified army and reign in its militias.

The sprawling desert state has been awash with weapons and roving armed bands but violence in Tripoli has not targeted diplomats before in the way Western envoys have been shot at and bombed in the east of the country.

On the anniversary of the September 11 US attacks last year, armed men launched an assault on the US consulate in Benghazi, killing four US citizens including the ambassador to Libya.

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FBI's Most Wanted Child Porn Suspect Captured

One of the FBI's most wanted men has been arrested by police in Nicaragua.

Eric Justin Toth, who was sought on child pornography charges, was taken into custody in the northern city of Esteli on Saturday, police said.

The former schoolteacher and camp counsellor had been living under an assumed identity in the city since October, said national police chief Aminta Granera.

The suspect was transferred to Managua where he was presented to the press ahead of his extradition from the Central American nation.

Ms Granera said Toth resisted arrest, but she did not detail how, before he was subdued and then transferred to Managua.

The police chief said the suspect, who was wearing light-coloured trousers and a short-sleeved shirt, would be deported immediately.

He has been on the FBI's most wanted list since April 2012, when he replaced Osama bin Laden on the list.

He arrived in Nicaragua for the first time on October 24, 2012, left the country on January 27 of this year and then re-entered on February 12 with false identification belonging to another US national, police added.

The FBI said on its website that Toth was a computer "expert ... wanted for allegedly possessing child pornography in Washington, DC".

"It is alleged that in June of 2008, pornographic images were found on a school camera that had been in Toth's possession," the US federal police agency added.

"Toth also allegedly produced child pornography in Maryland."

A $100,000 (£65,000) FBI reward had been posted for information leading to his arrest.

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Deaths As Iraqi Forces Clash With Protesters

At least 26 people have been killed after Iraqi security forces and Sunni Muslim protesters clashed during an anti-government demonstration, according to military sources.

The shootings occurred after the raid of a demonstration camp near Kirkuk, on Tuesday morning.

Iraq's defence ministry said troops responded only after coming under fire from gunmen in the makeshift camp in a public square in Hawija, 100 miles north of the capital Baghdad.

Demonstrators and local officials gave conflicting accounts of the number of casualties, but the defence ministry said 20 people at the camp and three officers had been killed.

At least three military sources put the toll at six troops and 20 demonstrators killed.

"When the armed forces started ... to enforce the law using units of riot control forces they were confronted with heavy fire," the defence ministry said in a statement.

But protest leaders said they were unarmed when security forces stormed in and started shooting during the early morning raid on the camp.

"When special forces raided the square, we were not prepared and we had no weapons, they crushed some of us in their vehicles," said Ahmed Hawija, a student who had been taking part in the demonstrations.

The clashes were the bloodiest since thousands of Sunni Muslims began weekly protests in December in several Iraqi provinces.

Some 13 gunmen died carrying out subsequent revenge attacks on army positions, high-ranking army officers said.

The demonstrators have demanded an end to perceived marginalisation of their minority sect by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Shi'ite-led government.

A Sunni member of the Iraqi cabinet resigned after the clashes in the north of the country, an official said.

"The minister of education, Mohammed Ali Tamim, resigned from his post after the Iraqi army forces broke into the area of the sit-in in Kirkuk" province, the official from deputy prime minister Saleh al-Mutlak's office said.

"The resignation is final, and there will be no going back."

Since the last US troops left in December 2011, Iraq's government has been mired in crises over how to share power among the Shi'ite, Sunni and ethnic Kurdish parties.

Mr Maliki's critics accuse him of amassing power at their expense.

Many Iraqi Sunnis say they have been sidelined after the US-led 2003 invasion that ousted Sunni strongman Saddam Hussein and allowed the Shi'ite majority to gain power through elections.

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Richie Havens: Woodstock Folk Hero Dies

US musician Richie Havens, star of the historic 1969 Woodstock festival, has died at the age of 72.

Havens, who emerged from the New York folk scene in the 1960s and went on to sing for the Dalai Lama and President Bill Clinton, died after a heart attack at his home in Jersey City, New Jersey.

"Beyond his music, those who have met Havens will remember his gentle and compassionate nature, his light humour and his powerful presence," his family said in a statement.

Havens, the eldest of nine children, began his singing career in neighbourhood doo-wop groups before moving to Greenwich Village in the late 1950s where he performed as a poet and an artist and immersed himself in the folk music scene.

Havens at the New York site of the original Woodstock festival, 40 years on

Known for his acoustic guitar-playing and soulful covers of songs by The Beatles, Bob Dylan and The Who, Havens used his music to champion the causes of personal freedom and brotherhood.

The musician's improvised version of gospel song Motherless Child evolved into Freedom at Woodstock to become an anthem of the 1960s hippie generation.

His performance there - where he opened the festival and played for three hours - wowed the crowd and proved a breakthrough, with the inclusion of the song on the Woodstock concert film broadening his audience appeal.

A different version of Freedom was included on the soundtrack of Quentin Tarantino's award-winning 2012 slavery era movie Django Unchained.

Havens sang at Mr Clinton's 1993 inauguration, performed several times for the Dalai Lama, and gave a show-stopping performance of Just Like A Woman at the all-star Bob Dylan 30th Anniversary Concert in 1992.

Other hits included versions of Beatles classics Here Comes The Sun and Strawberry Fields Forever, and The Who's Won't Get Fooled Again.

The singer branched out into acting in the 1970s, appearing in The Who's rock opera Tommy and taking the lead role in the Othello-inspired 1974 movie Catch My Soul.

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World War One Soldiers Laid To Rest In France

The remains of two First World War soldiers have been laid to rest in a cemetery in northern France, almost 100 years after they were killed in action.

Lieutenant John Harold Pritchard and Private Christopher Douglas Elphick, of The Honourable Artillery Company (HAC), were re-interred in the HAC Cemetery at Ecoust-St Mein near Arras.

Relatives of both men, who were killed on May 15, 1917, during an enemy attack near Bullecourt, while serving with the NAC's 2nd Battalion, attended the ceremony, where the men were accorded full military honours.

Prince Michael of Kent also attended in his capacity as HAC Royal Honorary Colonel.

The men's remains were found in a field near Bullecourt in 2009.

Lt Pritchard was identified by a silver bracelet and Pte Elphick by a signet ring bearing his initials.

Two further sets of remains could not be identified, but they were re-interred at the same time as "HAC soldiers known unto God".

The HAC, the oldest regiment in the British Army, was incorporated by Royal Charter in 1537 by King Henry VIII.

Lt Pritchard, born in Wandsworth, southwest London, in 1886, was the eldest of three boys in a family of seven.

He attended St Paul's Cathedral School and was a chorister at the cathedral.

He worked as an inspector at the Alliance Assurance Company before joining the HAC in 1909.

Pte Elphick was born in Dulwich, south London, in 1889 and attended Alleyn's School before becoming a clerk at the Prudential Insurance Company in 1904, then joined the HAC in 1916.

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Space Shots: Chris Hadfield Reveals Top Tips

The commander of the International Space Station (ISS) has been showing how he and his team have managed to take so many amazing pictures of Earth.

In a four-minute video called Snapshots From Space, Chris Hadfield points out the ISS is in orbit 400km (250 miles) above the blue planet.

That being the case he says a camera with a powerful lens is absolutely essential.

The other key thing, he says, is to "focus, frame and fire!"

With the ISS travelling so quickly (8km or 5m per second), he informs viewers, you cannot afford to waste a single moment.

Cmdr Hadfield, who arrived at the station on December 21 last year, says one of the most striking spectacles on Earth is the Sahara Desert.

"Huge, barren, colourful rock ... no vegetation covering it up. You can see all the textures and varying shades of the world. The Sahara is beautiful," he says.

"We're coming up on it now " he adds, and proceeds to take a series of breathtaking snaps.

Cmdr Hadfield points out it is "lunchtime" on the Sahara and "the sun is shining right down, which means it is strong on the surface and it's good to get the detail".

Something he looks for he says is "edges and borders and changes", which the Sahara has in abundance.

The beauty of taking photos from space, he concludes, is that "if something is not here this time, tomorrow it might be ... or maybe next week or maybe a month from now.

"There's not a race to get a picture ... you can be patient."

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Fresh China-Japan Tension Over Disputed Islands

Tensions have flared up again between Tokyo and Beijing after Chinese ships and a flotilla of Japanese activists both arrived in the waters near a group of disputed islands.

The two countries have been at odds over the small rocky islands in the East China Sea after Japan purchased some in September, drawing anger from Beijing and anti-Japanese demonstrations across China.

No clashes were reported between the flotilla of 10 boats carrying about 80 nationalist activists, escorted by Japan's Coast Guard vessels, and the Chinese ships.

But the Chinese Foreign Ministry said the trip by the activists was "illegal" and "trouble-making" while Japan has summoned the Chinese ambassador to Tokyo.

The Japanese Coast Guard said eight Chinese maritime surveillance ships had entered the waters near the uninhabited islands.

China's State Oceanic Administration said three of its ships were on "regular patrol duty" in the area when they encountered several of the Japanese ships.

It said five more Chinese ships were sent to the region in order to respond.

An anti-Japan protest in China last September

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe insisted the island chain remains under the "active control" of Tokyo and vowed to "expel by force" any Chinese landing on the islands.

However, Japan's Coast Guard appeared keen on avoiding confrontation, urging the activists' boats to leave and escorting them away.

The territorial dispute has brought Chinese-Japanese relations to their lowest points since normalisation over 40 years ago.

It has escalated to the point where both countries have scrambled fighter jets while patrol ships shadow each other, raising fears that an unintended collision could lead to a broader clash.

Japan's coast guard in a previous confrontation with Taiwanese ships

The islands, known as Senkaku in Japan and as Diaoyu in China, are surrounded by rich fishing grounds and thought to be located near untapped energy reserves. 

They are also claimed by Taiwan, where they are known as Tiaoyutai.

Adding to the tensions, a group of Japanese lawmakers on Tuesday visited a shrine in Tokyo seen by Asian neighbours as a symbol of Tokyo's militaristic past.

The 168 lawmakers attended the Yasukuni Shrine, which honours Japan's war dead, including 14 leaders convicted as war criminals.

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Faith-Healing Couple In Trouble For Child Death

A faith-healing Philadelphia couple serving probation for the death of their two-year-old son are in trouble again following the death of another of their children.

A judge said Herbert and Catherine Schaible have violated the terms of their probation following the death last week of their eight-month-old son Brandon.

The couple belong to a fundamentalist Christian church that believes in faith-healing rather than modern medicine.

In 2010 they were convicted of involuntary manslaughter over the death of their two-year-old son Kent from pneumonia, and sentenced to 10 years' probation.

The couple had prayed over Kent and called a funeral director when he died.

At the time, prosecutors said the boy could have been saved with basic medical care - possibly even over-the-counter medication. Defence lawyers said their clients did not know how sick the child really was and that their beliefs had no impact on their care.

Brandon died last week after he suffered diarrhoea and breathing problems for days.

The Schaibles, who have seven other children, have not been charged pending an autopsy to ascertain the cause of death.

But a judge has ruled that the couple violated a condition of their probation requiring them to seek medical care for their children.

"I am sorry for your loss. Deeply sorry," Judge Benjamin Lerner told the couple.

"But in all honesty, I am more sorry for the fact that this innocent little child will not be able to grow up to be what he wanted to be."

The Schaibles were required to arrange medical examinations for each of their children, to immediately consult with a doctor when a child became sick and to follow the doctor's treatment recommendations.

In court on Monday, Assistant District Attorney Joanne Pescatore said the couple acknowledged that Brandon was crying, experiencing diarrhoea and having trouble sleeping and breathing before he died at home on Thursday.

The family called a funeral director after Brandon died.

The Schaibles gave statements to investigators last week, the judge said, both saying they believed that prayer was the best remedy for the boy's suffering.

Charges could be filed after the post-mortem.

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Canada: 'Al Qaeda Train Terror Plot' Foiled

Canadian police have foiled an al Qaeda-backed "major terrorist plot" to attack a passenger train on a railway line between New York and Toronto.

Two people have been arrested and charged with conspiring to carry out the attack and murder people in association with a terrorist group, police revealed at a news conference in Toronto.

The suspects - Chiheb Esseghaier, 30, and Raed Jaser, 35 - had been under surveillance since August 2012 after authorities were tipped off about one of the men.

Jaser made a brief appearance in a Toronto court room and was told to appear in court again on May 23. He sported a long beard, wore a black shirt with no tie and was accompanied by his parents and brother.

The court granted a request by his lawyer for a publication ban on future evidence and testimony.

Esseghaier was scheduled to appear in court in Montreal later on Tuesday.

The pair were allegedly planning to target and derail a Via Rail passenger train in the Toronto area, and are alleged to have received "direction and guidance" from al Qaeda "elements" in Iran.

Raed Jaser arrives at court in Toronto

Police said there was "no indication that these attacks were state-sponsored" and declined to say where the suspects were from.

They confirmed they were not Canadian citizens but had been in the country "a significant amount of time".

The suspects' plans were "not based on their ethnic origins but on an ideology," police said.

"This is the first known al Qaeda-planned attack that we've experienced in Canada," Superintendent Doug Best said.

Iran's Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said the claim that the men were backed by Tehran-supported al Qaeda was "ridiculous".

"This is the most hilarious thing I've heard in my 64 years," he said.

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews warned later that the "arrests demonstrate that terrorism continues to be a real threat to Canada".

Canadian authorities, the FBI and US Homeland Security police and agents have been involved in a year-long cross-border operation that led to the arrests in Toronto and Montreal.

Assistant Commissioner James Maliza, of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, said: "Had this plot been carried out it would have resulted in innocent people being killed, or seriously injured."

Canadian police hold a news conference to reveal details of the arrests

His colleague Chief Superintendent Jennifer Strachan added: "We are alleging that these two individuals took steps and conducted activities to initiate a terrorist attack.

"They watched trains and railways in the Greater Toronto area. It was definitely in the planning stage but not imminent."

Sky's US correspondent Amanda Walker said: "They are really hailing this as a successful operation, something that they have managed to prevent.

"It does seem they have treated this as a very serious and major threat which was certainly well on in the planning.

"But not far enough for the public or railway staff to be in any immediate danger.

"So obviously they had a difficult act here to actually balance the timing of when they made these arrests - getting enough intelligence, enough information, but not taking that up to the point when the public would have been in real danger."

The news comes one week after twin bombings at the Boston Marathon killed three people and wounded 180 - and as Canada's parliament debates a proposal to beef up anti-terror measures.

A US Justice Department official in Washington said there was no connection between the thwarted terrorist plot and last Monday's attacks in Boston.

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