MOGADISHU, Somalia – Heavy fighting between Somali insurgents and pro-government troops has killed at least 43 people over two days, as African Union peacekeepers used tanks to help the beleaguered government beat back an insurgent attack, officials said Thursday.

Militants attacking from the north on Wednesday reached to within a mile (2 kilometers) of the presidential place in the heart of the capital, Mogadishu, before African Union peacekeepers in tanks reinforced government troops, residents said.

Ali Muse, the head of Mogadishu’s ambulance service, said he saw 40 bodies lying in the streets over the two days of fighting Wednesday and Thursday. Nearly 150 were wounded, mostly civilians, he said.

“The fighting was heavier than that of yesterday,” said Muse. “Our ambulances are sometimes caught in the crossfire. Our ambulance crews use dangerous streets and they have to dodge mortars and bullets. Sometimes it takes us hours to reach injured civilians and because of that they bleed to death.”

Three of the wounded brought in Wednesday died overnight, said Abdi Mahad, a doctor at Medina Hospital.

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PHILADELPHIA – Colleen LaRose spent long days caring for her boyfriend’s father in a second-floor apartment in Pennsburg, a small town north of Philadelphia.

But online, federal authorities say, the devoted caretaker developed a daring alter ego, refashioning herself as “Jihad Jane” while helping recruit and finance Muslim terrorists — and eventually moving overseas to try to kill an artist she perceived as an enemy to Islam.

LaRose, 46, was charged Tuesday with conspiring with jihadist fighters and pledging to commit murder in the name of a Muslim holy war, or jihad. The indictment was announced hours after authorities arrested seven suspected terrorists in Ireland allegedly linked to LaRose, who has been in prison since her Oct. 15 arrest while returning to the United States.

In e-mails recovered by the FBI over 15 months, LaRose agreed to marry an online contact from South Asia so he could move to Europe. She also agreed to become a martyr, the indictment said.

But perhaps she felt like one already.

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JOS, Nigeria (AFP) –
Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday denounced the “atrocious” bloodshed in Nigeria after a massacre of Christian villagers, as police said 49 people would be charged over the killings.

As new gunfire added to the tensions around the flashpoint city of Jos, the head of the Roman Catholic Church added his voice to a chorus of international revulsion over the weekend slaughter which police now say left 109 people dead.

About 8,000 Nigerians have also fled their homes around Jos after the violence, the International Committee of the Red Cross said.

In his weekly general audience, the pope offered condolences to the victims of the “atrocious violence causing bloodshed in Nigeria” and urged civil and religious leaders “to work towards security and peaceful co-existence”.

“Violence does not resolve conflicts but only increases the tragic consequences,” he added.

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RAMALLAH, West Bank – An open diplomatic row during the visit of Vice President Joe Biden has shined a spotlight on the U.S. failure to rein in Israeli settlement ambitions and deepened Palestinian suspicions that the United States is too weak to broker a deal.

Biden’s handshakes and embraces gave way to one of the strongest rebukes of Israel by a senior U.S. official in years after Israel’s announcement during his visit that it plans to build 1,600 homes in disputed east Jerusalem. Israel apologized for the poor timing but is sticking to its plan to build the homes, enlarging one of the settlements that have impeded negotiations with Palestinians.

The vice president on Wednesday assured Palestinians the U.S. is squarely behind their bid for statehood and urged the sides to refrain from actions “that inflame tensions or prejudice the outcome of talks.”

“It’s incumbent on both parties to build an atmosphere of support for negotiations, and not to complicate them,” Biden said, standing alongside Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Israel’s announcement was widely seen as a slap in the face to its all-important U.S. ally. It stirred significant anger among U.S. officials and widespread skepticism about whether the Obama administration would have the courage or the backing to take Israel to task as the U.S. relaunches long-stalled peace negotiations. The future of those talks was called into question late Wednesday when the Arab League recommended withdrawing support for them.

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PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – They kept the books, had the training and fixed the computers. They were the educated few of Haiti, an up-and-coming generation of nurses, technicians, office managers and college students.

Now they’re gone — just when their struggling country needs them most.

The Jan. 12 earthquake struck just before 5 p.m., destroying office buildings and disproportionately killing the young professionals who were going the extra mile to make Haiti work. Many were crushed at their desks.

“It is a generation that decided not to leave the country. They chose to work for the country,” said Dieusibon Pierre-Merite, a Haitian sociologist with a United Nations anti-gang program that lost several staffers in the quake. “They are the ones who died.”

Compounding the loss is a quickening brain drain, as people with the ability and means to leave abandon a ravaged country where more than 1.2 million people have lost their homes.

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