North Korea's military has threatened to reduce South Korea’s conservative government "to ashes" in "three or four minutes" – an escalation of its recent belligerent language.

It vowed Monday to launch unspecified "special actions" of "unprecedented peculiar means," an unusually specific warning.

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North Korea regularly criticizes Seoul and just last week renewed its promise to wage a "sacred war," saying South Korean President Lee Myung-bak had insulted the North's April 15 celebrations of the birth centennial of national founder Kim Il Sung.

Kim Jong Il's 'last will' to son: Make peace, build more weapons

Its latest threat follows U.N. condemnation of North Korea's launch of a long-range rocket that exploded shortly after liftoff April 13. Washington, Seoul and others called the launch a cover for testing long-range missile technology. Pyongyang said the launch was meant to put a satellite into orbit.

Despite launch failure, North Korea celebrates military-style

The North's special actions "will reduce all the rat-like groups and the bases for provocations to ashes in three or four minutes, (or) in much shorter time, by unprecedented peculiar means and methods of our own style," according to the statement by the special operation action group of the Korean People's Army's Supreme Command.

Terrorist attacks?
Some South Korean analysts speculated the North's statement was meant to unnerve Seoul; others that the North could be planning terrorist attacks.

It seemed unlikely that North Korea would launch a large-scale military attack against Seoul, which is backed by nearly 30,000 U.S. troops stationed in the South, said Kim Young-soo, a professor at Sogang University in Seoul.

However, Dr. Cheon Seong-whun, of the Korean Institute for National Unification, told NBC News that he "wouldn’t be surprised if the North takes some military actions against the South soon given the concrete words announced by the North today.”   

“I believe the North’s statements have passed the rhetoric stage,” he added.

The North's latest threat, which was carried by its state media, comes amid rising tensions on the Korean peninsula, with both Koreas recently unveiling new missiles.

The animosity has prompted worries that North Korea may conduct a new nuclear test — something it did after rocket launches in 2006 and 2009. South Korean intelligence officials have said that recent satellite images show North Korea has been digging a new tunnel in what appears to be preparation for a third nuclear test.

We may never know why North Korea rocket failed

South Korea's Unification Ministry said it was examining North Korea's intentions behind the statement; the Defense Ministry said no special military movement had been observed in the North. Officials spoke on condition of anonymity, citing office rules.

Relations between the Koreas have been abysmal since Lee took office in 2008 with a hard-line policy that ended unconditional aid shipments to the North.

In Beijing, North Korea's biggest ally, China's top foreign policy official met Sunday with a North Korean delegation and expressed confidence in the country's new young leader, Kim Jong Un. 

NBC News' Julie Yoo, msnbc.com staff and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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A Japanese teenager has identified himself as the owner of a soccer ball that washed up on an Alaska beach last week – the first traceable debris to arrive in the United States from last year's tsunami.

Misaki Murakami, who comes from the city of Rikuzentakata, where more than 3,000 homes were destroyed, came forward on Sunday after reading news reports about the find.

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Marker pen writing on the soccer ball identified the 16-year-old and the name of his school.

The soccer ball and a volleyball were discovered by David Baxter, a technician working at a radar station on remote Middleton Island in the Gulf of Alaska, Doug Helton of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration wrote ina  blog post last week.

Japan’s Kyodo news agency said Murakami was at home at the time of the tsunami disaster in March 2011 but managed to escape the waves by running to higher ground with his pet dog.

His family lost everything, including their home, and are currently living in temporary housing provided by the local government.

Ghost ship sinks to bottom of Gulf of Alaska 

Murakami told the news agency Sunday that he had been searching for his family's belongings but that until the ball was found he had had no luck.

Prized possession
The ball was a gift from his former homeroom teacher and his 13 classmates when he had to change schools in the same area seven years ago.

He said it was a prized possession, which he always kept hanging in a net next to his bed.

Murakami spoke with Baxter on the phone to thank him for finding his treasured ball.

The magnitude 9.0 earthquake off Japan's northeast coast on March 11, 2011, triggered a 75-foot wall of water that flattened waterfront towns, killing 16,000. About 3,000 people are still unaccounted for. The tsunami triggered a crisis at Tokyo Electric Power's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, forcing tens of thousands of people to flee in the world's worst nuclear accident in 25 years.

U.S. authorities were immediately aware that the clockwise circulation of the Pacific's northern waters would deliver some remnants of that destruction to American shores.

A Japanese ghost ship, Ryou-Un Maru, turned up earlier in the Gulf of Alaska off Southeast Alaska after a 4,500-mile journey. The U.S. Coast Guard sank the vessel April 5.

In January, a half-dozen large buoys suspected to be from Japanese oyster farms appeared at the top of Alaska's panhandle and may be among the first tsunami debris.

State health and environmental officials have said there's little need to be worried that debris landing on Alaska's shores will be contaminated by radiation.

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Attendance may have been low at the prestigious Formula One Grand Prix Race in Bahrain, but once Sebastian Vettel clinched the title, Bahraini officials took to Twitter to express their satisfaction with the race. They did not mention the violent, ongoing protests taking place around the island state.

"F1 cars will never Stop .. Neither will Bahrain inshAlla :)" Khaled H. Alkhalifa, Bahrain's foreign minister, tweeted. He has more than 78,000 followers and describes himself as a "reader" and "bon vivant." The general secretary of the Bahrain Olympic Committee posted a picture of the revelry.

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Outside the arena, however, protesters painted a less chipper portrait of a country in turmoil, where mostly Shiite protesters have been demanding more rights in this Gulf monarchy since last year. Their tweets, organized under the same #Bahrain hashtag that government officials were using, included pictures of protesters walking peacefully and a woman kneeling in traffic.

Their images were also gruesome -- of tear gas flooding streets and of men whose backs were ravaged with bruises, welts and wounds from being shot with shotgun pellets.

Non-protesters described a scene fraught with tension. A woman who identified herself as Fatima Haji wrote: "My 3yrs old son, my husband and I are suffocating in our flat in Bani Jamra as security forces are shooting tear gas in Duraz!!"

Dr. Ala’a Shelabi, a leader among the protesters, tweeted, ominously: "Under arrest. Surrounded by" without finishing her tweet. 

The foreign editor for Channel 4 News in England tweeted that he and his crew had been arrested, and that his driver had been dragged out by security forces, bleeding from slashes to his arms.

Alkhalifa, the foreign minister, took to Twitter to express his disdain: "Channel 4 news crew admit to working without accreditation .. Not acceptable. Laws of the land should be respected."

Non-sports reporters had been denied visas into the country.

A man identifying himself as RedBelt boldly replied to the foreign minister: "Your excellency, that link says local driver was beaten and taken away. He had nothing to do with their accreditation."

To which Alkhalifa replied, "Well that’s what they say! Do you and I know the full story?"

The tension did reach at least one Formula One team. A bomb exploded next to a car carrying four team members of Force India on Wednesday. Two team members returned to the UK the next day.

Force India members became increasingly anxious when protester Salah Abbas, 37, was killed by shotgun pellets fired by riot police on Saturday.

The team felt the wrath of race organizer Bernie Ecclestone when they didn’t show up to a practice out of concern for their safety. Their car got little coverage on the main television feed, prompting angry calls to networks from around England, the Guardian of London reported.  

Ecclestone, irritated by the team’s decision, told the Guardian: "None of the other teams seem to have a problem." 

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KABUL, Afghanistan -- The U.S. and Afghanistan on Sunday reached on a long-delayed "strategic partnership" agreement that ensures Americans will provide military and financial support for at least a decade beyond 2014, the deadline for most foreign forces to withdraw.

The pact is key to the U.S. exit strategy in Afghanistan because it provides guidelines for any American forces who remain after the withdrawal deadline and for financial help to the impoverished country and its security forces.

For the Afghan government, it is a way to show its people that their U.S. allies are not walking away and leaving it exposed to the Taliban and even neighboring governments.

"The Iranians don’t like it because it shows the U.S. is going to be here for a long time," a European diplomat in Kabul told the New York Times. "So that must be good. And neither will the Taliban; this is important because they cannot tell their soldiers now just to sit it out and wait for 2014."

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After 10 years of U.S.-led war, insurgents linked to the Taliban- and al-Qaida remain a threat and as recently as a week ago, launched a large-scale attack on the capital Kabul and three other cities.

The draft agreement was worked out and initialed by Afghan National Security Adviser Rangin Dadfar Spanta and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker. It must still be reviewed in both countries and signed afterward by the Afghan and American presidents.

"Our goal is an enduring partnership with Afghanistan that strengthens Afghan sovereignty, stability and prosperity and that contributes to our shared goal of defeating al-Qaida and its extremist affiliates," said U.S. Embassy spokesman Gavin Sundwall. "We believe this agreement supports that goal."

U.S. forces have already started pulling out of Afghanistan, and the majority of combat troops are scheduled to depart by the end of 2014. But the U.S. is expected to maintain a large presence in the country for years after, including special forces, military trainers and government-assistance programs.

The agreement is both an achievement and a relief for both sides, coming after months of turmoil that seemed to put the entire alliance in peril. It shows that the two governments are still committed to working together and capable of coming to some sort of understanding.

"The document finalized today provides a strong foundation for the security of Afghanistan, the region and the world and is a document for the development of the region," Spanta said in a statement issued by President Hamid Karzai's office.

Neither Afghan nor U.S. officials would comment on the details of the agreement. A Western official familiar with the negotiations said it outlines a strategic partnership for 10 years beyond 2014.

Reaching any agreement is likely to be seen as a success given more than a year and a half of negotiations during which the entire effort appeared in danger of falling apart multiple times.

Since the beginning of the year, U.S.-Afghan relations have been strained by an Internet video of American Marines urinating on the corpses of presumed Taliban fighters, by Quran burnings at a U.S. base that sparked days of deadly protests and by the alleged killing spree by a U.S. soldier in a southern Afghan village.

Tensions were further heightened by a spate of turncoat attacks by Afghan security forces on their international counterparts.

Obama to sign in next few weeks
White House National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor said President Barack Obama expects to sign the document before a NATO summit in Chicago next month, meeting the deadline set by the two sides. Many had started to worry in recent weeks that Karzai and Obama would miss that goal as talked dragged on and Karzai continued to announce new demands for the document.

The late May summit will see Western leaders try to agree on future funding and support for the 352,000-strong Afghan police and army. That support is expected to amount to $4 billion a year, with the Afghan government contributing around $500 million a year of that.

Much of the disagreement was about how to handle activities that the Afghan government saw as threatening its sovereignty, in particular, night raids and the detention of Afghan citizens by international forces. Those two major issues were resolved earlier this year in separate memorandums of understanding.

But closed-door talks continued for weeks after those side-deals were signed. And then as recently as last week, Karzai said that he wanted the agreement to include a dollar figure for funding for the Afghan security forces — a demand that would be hard for the Americans to sign off on given the need for congressional approval for funding. U.S. officials have said previously that they expected the document to address economic and development support for Afghanistan more generally.

The final document is likely to be short on specifics. U.S. officials involved in the negotiations have said previously that the strategic partnership will provide a framework for future relations, but that details of how U.S. forces operate in the country will come in a later agreement.

Karzai recently said he wanted the United States to contribute $2 billion a year under the U.S.-Afghan SPA, but an Afghan government source said on condition of anonymity that the deal negotiated by Crocker and Spanta contained no firm numbers.

The initialing ceremony means that the text of the document is now locked in. But the countries will have to go through their own internal review processes, Sundwall said.

"For the United States, that will mean interagency review, consultation with Congress as appropriate and final review by the president," Sundwall said.

In Afghanistan, the agreement will have to be approved by parliament. The Afghan foreign minister will brief Afghan lawmakers about the document Monday, the Afghan president's statement said.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

A top Iranian official claimed on Sunday that his government was copying the top-secret American spy drone captured by Iran's armed forced last year.

Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, who is chief of the aerospace division of the powerful Revolutionary Guards, was quoted by a semi-official news agency as saying that Iranian experts are recovering information from the RQ-170 Sentinel captured in December in eastern Iran, al Arabiya News reported.

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"There is almost no part hidden to us in this aircraft. We recovered part of the data that had been erased. There were many codes and characters. But we deciphered them by the grace of God," Hajizadeh said. 

Drone that crashed in Iran risks secret U.S. technology

He said all operations carried out by the drone had been recorded in the memory of the aircraft, including maintenance and testing.

Expertsextracted data showing that the aircraft had spied on the compound where Osama bin Laden lived and was eventually killed, Hajizadeh reportedly said.

"In October 2010, the aircraft was sent to California for some technicalissues, where it was repaired and after flight tests, it was taken to Kandahar (in Afghanistan) in November 2010, when a series of technical problems still prevailed," he said, according to al Arabiya.

U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, a member of the Armed Services Committee, voiced doubts about the claim.

"There's a history here of Iranian bluster, particularly now when they're on the defensive because of our economic sanctions against them," Lieberman said in a television interview.  

Iran flaunted the capture of the Sentinel, a surveillance drone with stealth technology, as a victory for Iran and a defeat for the United States in a complicated intelligence and technological battle. 

While American officials acknowledged Iran's capture of the drone, they have said that Tehran would find it hard to exploit data and technology aboard.

Iran said the unmanned aircraft was shot down, but Washington disputes that and says the security systems mean Iran is unlikely to get valuable information from the Lockheed Martin Corp. drone.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report. 

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The church of England's only black bishop, tipped to become the new leader of the 80-million strong worldwide Anglican Communion, is the victim of blatant racism, a former aide told a British newspaper.

"At its best, the besmirching of (Archbishop of York) John Sentamu has revealed that strand of snobbery which views outsiders as lacking class, diplomacy or civility — in other words 'not one of us,'" Rev Arun Arora told The Sunday Telegraph newspaper.  "At worst, it has elicited the naked racism which still bubbles under the surface in our society, and which is exposed when a black man is in line to break the chains of history."

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Outgoing Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, who has agonized about schisms in the Anglican Communion, a federation of 38 national and regional churches, is over women and gay bishops and same-sex unions, announced unexpectedly last month that he would step down at the end of the year.

He presided over a church split between progressives ready to allow women bishops and bless same-sex unions, and conservatives opposed to such modern reforms.

Rowan Williams quits: could Anglican church have its first black spiritual leader?

The resignation of Willliams, a white-bearded and bushy-browed theologian, appeared to spell the end for his faltering project to forge more unity in the federation.

Arora's charges of an "anonymous whispering" campaign against Uganda-born Archbishop of York John Sentamu came as an anonymous bishop compared Sentamu's temperament to that of an "African chief," according to the Telegraph. 

Sentamu was born in Uganda and  fled to Britain in 1974 to escape from dictator Idi Amin. 

A second unnamed bishop told the newspaper:

"I think Sentamu is clearly going to be a very strong front-runner, although I think there are also the people who are not quite sure that he is suitable in terms of the way he behaves, because he is quite tribal and the African chief thing comes through ... There is something in Sentamu which retains his African views and approach, which can be at one time an asset and another time can be a problem."

When he announced his decision to step down, Williams said it was time to move on after a decade as archbishop and a his new post as master of Magdelene College at Cambridge University would give him the time "which I have longed for" to think and write about the Church.

"I would hope that my successor has the constitution of an ox and the skin of a rhinoceros," he said at the time.

Sentamu has praised Williams as "God's apostle for our time," a courageous and holy man who had been "much maligned by people who should have known better." 

Elizabeth Hunter, director of the London-based religious think tank Theos, described Sentamu as more conservative than Williams. But she did not see him making a sharp break in the Church or the Communion. 

"Anyone who gets this post will not take a radical diversion from the path that Archbishop Rowan has been treading simply because there really isn't any other choice," she told Reuters.  

Other possible contenders to replace Williams reportedly include: Richard Chartres, the Bishop of London who gave the address at the marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton last year; Bishop of Bradford Nick Baines, known as the ''blogging'' bishop, in recognition of his enthusiasm for new media; and Tim Stevens, the Bishop of Leicester.

Msnbc.com and Reuters contributed to this report.

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China and Russia began their first-ever joint naval exercises on Sunday, focusing on air defense, anti-submarine tactics, search and rescue, as well as joint efforts to rescue hijacked vessels, Chinese media reported.

The large-scale war game is scheduled to run through Friday off the resort city of Qingdao in the Yellow Sea, Xinhua said. Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said the six days of drills would include electronic countermeasures and other sensitive technologies.

China has deployed 16 ships and two submarines, and Russia sent the guided-missile cruiser Varyag, three Udaloy class destroyers and three support ships, the Russian news agency Ria Novosti reported.

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Chen Bingde, Chief of the General Staff of the People's Liberation Army, said the drill would strengthen the naval forces' ability to jointly confront regional threats.

Since 2005, China and Russia have conducted several joint military exercises within the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which includes the Central Asian countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. But this is the first time the nations' navies have conducted joint exercises.

The new drill comes after President Barack Obama last November signaled a "return to Asia" by the United States following a decade of conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Formerly Cold War rivals for leadership of the communist world, China and Russia have since found common ground in countering liberal democratizing trends across Asia and Eastern Europe and frequently vote against Western initiatives in the United Nations Security Council.

Most recently, they have united to block any U.N. actions on Syrian violence that could lead to some form of humanitarian intervention, a prospect both nations abhor.

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Also, China is competing with the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei for control of parts of the South China Sea.

China and the Philippines are in a standoff over fishing rights in the area. China's most advanced fishing patrol vessel, the Yuzheng 310, arrived Friday to patrol waters off the coast of Scarborough Shoal, China and Voice of America said. The Philippines recently tried to arrest Chinese fishermen in the shoal, but Chinese surveillance ships intervened.

Late Friday, China said authorities released 21 Vietnamese fishermen whom they had detained for more than a month after intercepting their boats near the disputed Paracel islands, known in China as the Xisha Islands.

The Paracels are occupied by China but also claimed by Vietnam.

This article includes reporting by The Associated Press.

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Australian Parliament Speaker Peter Slipper stepped down temporarily Sunday amid charges of fraud and claims he sexually harassed a male staffer, national media reported.

Slipper, 62, in a prepared statement upon his return to the country from Los Angeles, said he “emphatically” denied the charges, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

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“The allegations include both a claim of criminal behavior and claim under civil law,” Slipper said.

To keep the integrity of Australia’s democratic institutions, he said, “I believe it is appropriate for me to stand aside as speaker while this criminal allegation is resolved."

Allegations of criminally misusing taxi payment vouchers were brought by openly gay adviser James Ashby, 33, who is suing the government and Slipper in a civil case over claims Slipper made unwanted sexual advances toward Ashby and had sent him sexually explicit text messages.

Slipper is married and has two adult children from a previous marriage.

Deputy Speaker and Labor Parliament Member Anna Burke will take Slipper’s role, the Herald reported.

Slipper’s move threatens Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s hold on power, as her government will lose its single-seat majority in Parliament's 150-member House of Representatives.

Slipper resigned from the Liberal Party to become speaker in a November 2011 move engineered by Gillard.

The prime minister was under pressure to force Slipper out before parliament returns May 8 if he wouldn’t leave on his own, the Australian Associated Press reported.

"It is appropriate that Mr. Slipper has stood aside as Speaker whilst alleged criminal conduct is investigated," Gillard said in a statement.

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Far-rightist Marine Le Pen threw France's presidential race wide open on Sunday by scoring nearly 20 percent in the first round -- votes that might determine the runoff between Socialist favorite Francois Hollande and conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Hollande got 27.5 percent, compared to Sarkozy's 26.6 percent, and the two will meet in a head-to-head decider on May 6.

But Le Pen's record score of 20 percent was the sensation of the night, beating her father's 2002 result and outpolling hard leftist Jean-Luc Melenchon, in fourth place with 10 percent. Centrist Francois Bayrou finished fifth with nine percent.

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Le Pen, who took over the anti-immigration National Front in early 2011, wants jobs reserved for French nationals at a time when jobless claims are at a 12-year high. She also advocates abandoning the euro currency and restoring monetary policy to Paris.

Her score reflected a surge in anti-establishment populist parties in many euro zone countries from Amsterdam to Athens as austerity and the debt crisis bite.

Voter surveys show about half of her supporters would back Sarkozy in a second round and perhaps one fifth would vote for Hollande, making her a potential kingmaker in the runoff.

Jean-Marie Le Pen's 16.9 percent score in the 2002 first round caused a political earthquake, knocking then Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin out of the runoff and forcing left-wing voters to rally behind conservative Jacques Chirac.

Sarkozy, 57, has painted himself as the safest pair of hands to lead France and the euro zone in turbulent times, but Sunday's vote appeared to be a strong rejection of his flashy style as well as his economic record.

If Hollande wins on May 6, joining a small minority of left-wing governments in Europe, he has promised to lead a push for a bigger focus on growth in the euro zone, mainly by adding pro-growth clauses to a European budget discipline treaty.

The prospect of a renegotiation of the pact is causing some concern in financial markets, as is Hollande's focus on tax rises over austerity at a time when sluggish growth is threatening France's ability to meet deficit-cutting goals.

France's sickly growth, along with its stubbornly high unemployment, are major factors hampering Sarkozy's battle to win a second term, despite an energetic campaign against the blander but more popular Hollande.

Sarkozy would be the 11th euro zone leader to be swept out since the start of the bloc's debt crisis in late 2009 and the first French president to lose a re-election bid in more than 30 years. A deep dislike of a manner many see as arrogant and too informal has also driven many people to vote against him.

"France needs a radical change of direction, mainly on the economy," said Jean-Noel Harvet, a public sector worker voting earlier on Sunday in the northern town of Cambrai.

Hollande, 57, promises less drastic spending cuts than Sarkozy proposed and wants higher taxes on the wealthy to fund state-aided job creation, in particular a 75 percent upper tax rate on income above 1 million euros ($1.32 million).

He would be only France's second left-wing leader since the founding of the Fifth Republic in 1958, and its first since Francois Mitterrand, who beat incumbent Valery Giscard-d'Estaing in 1981 and ruled until 1995.

Hollande had called on his supporters to take nothing for granted, mindful of the fiasco for the left in 2002 when record abstention saw the Socialist Jospin pushed out in the first round by the elder Le Pen.

Turnout ended up at a healthy 70.6 percent three hours before polls closed, just below 73.9 percent recorded in the 2007, which was the highest in two decades.

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A volleyball and soccer ball that washed ashore on an Alaskan island may be the first pieces of debris to arrive in the United States from last year's tsunami in Japan.

The sports balls were spotted by radar technician David Baxter on treeless, windswept Middleton Island in the Gulf of Alaska, Doug Helton of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Seattle said in an agency blog post.

Baxter’s wife translated writing on the soccer ball and traced it back to a Japanese school in an area hit by the tsunami, Helton said.

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He told the Anchorage Daily News the balls were the first tsunami debris retrieved in Alaska.

 

"There have been other items that were suspected, but this is the first one that we're aware of that has the credentials that may make it possible to positively identify it."

Helton, in the NOAA post, said the agency, the State Department and the Japanese Embassy and its Seattle consulate are working to confirm details and set up the return of other debris that comes ashore.

A magnitude 9.0 earthquake off Japan's northeast coast on March 11, 2011, triggered a 75-foot wall of water that flattened waterfront towns, killing 16,000. Three thousand people are still unaccounted for. The tsunami triggered a crisis at Tokyo Electric Power's Fukushima Daiichi atomic power plant, forcing tens of thousands of people to flee in the world's worst nuclear accident in 25 years.

U.S. authorities were immediately aware that the clockwise circulation of the Pacific's northern waters would deliver some remnants of that destruction to American shores.

A Japanese ghost ship Ryou-Un Maru turned up earlier in the Gulf of Alaska off Southeast Alaska after a 4,500-mile journey. The U.S. Coast Guard ended sank the vessel April 5.

In January, a half-dozen large buoys suspected to be from Japanese oyster farms appeared at the top of Alaska's panhandle and may be among the first tsunami debris.

State health and environmental officials have said there's little need to be worried that debris landing on Alaska shores will be contaminated by radiation.

This article contains reporting by Reuters and The Associated Press.

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Tens of thousands of Czechs on Saturday staged one of the biggest protests since the fall of communism, marching in Prague against spending cuts, tax increases and alleged corruption and calling for the end of a center-right government already close to collapse.

Police estimated that 80,000 to 90,000 workers, students and pensioners snaked through the capital to rally in Wenceslas Square. Chanting and whistling, the crowd held banners proclaiming "Away with the government" and "Stop thieves." Organizers put the crowd at 120,000, the BBC reported.

Rallies of such a scale are rare in the country of 10.5 million people.

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The demonstration against Prime Minister Petr Necas's government is the third such trade union-led protest in 12 months against austerity measures, and the turnout underscored rising public frustration after a series of graft scandals.

 

"This government is devastating state structures and is demeaning the unprotected with its asocial reforms," Jaroslav Zavadil, the head of the Confederation of Trade Unions, told the crowd.

The protest comes as the government is working to reaffirm its majority in parliament ahead of a Monday deadline.

The turmoil was triggered by the defection of Deputy Prime Minister Karolina Peake and her allies from the scandal-ridden junior ruling party Public Affairs.

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Peake has pledged her faction will continue to support the cabinet, but on Saturday it remained uncertain whether she could muster the 10 votes the government needs for the "safe majority" that Necas wants from her to avoid early elections.

An early election, two years after the last vote, would be likely to hand power to the opposition Social Democrats, who have a nearly 20-point poll lead over Necas' Civic Democrats.

The Social Democrats have pledged to undo some of the government's reforms of the pensions, health care and welfare sectors, and to tax companies and the rich to keep the budget under control.

"The reforms are not thought-out. The reforms are chaotic," party leader Bohuslav Sobotka said before marching on Saturday.

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Updated 3:25 a.m. ET Sunday: Clashes between anti-government protesters and police broke out in Bahrain Sunday just hours before Formula One Grand Prix drivers were due start their race, witnesses told AFP, the French news agency.

Police fired tear gas and stun grenades at Shiite protesters who responded by hurling rocks and fire bombs while chanting "Down with Hamad," in reference to Sunni King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, witnesses told AFP.

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The king, who will attend Sunday's race, said in a statement overnight that he wanted "to make clear my personal commitment to reform and reconciliation in our great country. The door is always open for sincere dialogue amongst all our people.''

Demonstrators also called for the release of Shiite activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, who began a hunger strike in early February and whose deteriorating health has raised fears he may die in prison.

In a Twitter message posted Sunday, Bahrain's interior ministry said Khawaja was in "good health" and would meet Denmark's ambassador today." Khawaja is a dual citizen of Bahrain and Denmark.

On Saturday, activist Salah Abbas Habib, 36, was found dead outside the capital, Manama. Habib's body was splayed on a corrugated iron rooftop, Reuters reported. Activists said he and other protesters had been beaten by police Friday night ahead of the auto race.

The auto race was canceled last year due to protests but Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa refused to be deterred this year as he unfurled a banner, "Unified: One Nation in Celebration." The government has spent $40 million to host the prestigious race, which has drawn 100,000 visitors.

The decision to hold the race despite ongoing protests made it the most controversial Grand Prix in the sport’s 60-year history.

NBC Sports: Formula One returns to divided Bahrain

Bahrain streets turned into a battle zone Saturday as masked protesters hurled gas bombs at police who fired back tear gas, Reuters reported. About 7,000 protesters took to the streets, carrying banners calling for democratic reforms. Some depicted Formula One race car drivers as police beating up protesters. Hundreds took refuge from the tear gas at a shopping mall.

Officials at the racetrack said they weren’t concerned by the violence.

"I am not sure that all that has been reported corresponds to the reality of what is happening in this country," International Automobile Federation president Jean Todt told reporters at the Bahrain circuit.

Sports reporters were invited to cover the race, but non-sports reporters were denied visas.  

Hunger strike
Anti-government protesters last year emulated other Arab Spring revolutions but were immediately quashed by the government. Activists in Bahrain, a small island off Saudi Arabia, didn’t stand much of a chance when Bahrain called in Saudi Arabian troops.  

Bahrain, a financial hub and modest oil producer, is an important U.S. military ally and host to the Fifth Fleet, the U.S. Navy's main outpost in the region. U.S. officials have remained mostly mum on the protests here.

The country is the only one of the Gulf's Arab monarchies with a Shiite majority, and the only one that was seriously threatened by last year's Arab Spring, which swept away the long-serving rulers of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen.

Habib's death infuriated the Shiite community, who say they have been marginalized by the Sunni ruling family. Habib’s funeral will likely take place Sunday, the day of the big race, which sets the stage for more riots.

This article includes reporting by Reuters. 

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AMSTERDAM -- Almost 125 people were injured, many seriously, when two Dutch commuter trains crashed head-on in Amsterdam on Saturday, police said.

There were no immediate reports of fatalities, but of those injured, 13 suffered major injuries while 43 or 44 were badly injured, a spokesman said. About 70 suffered minor injuries.

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A trauma helicopter was used to bring the injured to hospital, a spokesman for railways group NS said.

The trains did not serve Schiphol international airport, the NS spokesman added, but the accident disrupted airport train service.

Some people were lifted from the wreckage by cranes while others were led away from the crash site in protective wraps to dozens of waiting ambulances, while police cars and fire trucks stood by.

"We heard a loud bang. I went outside and saw people on the street in panic," a woman at the scene told broadcaster AT5.

"We then saw what had happened. Quite quickly there were emergency services at the scene. It was managed well. Some people had head wounds, others were limping."

Watch the most-viewed videos on msnbc.com

One of the trains involved in the crash serves the cities of Den Helder and Nijmegen, while the other runs between Amsterdam and Uitgeest, the railways spokesman said.

Netherlands public broadcaster NOS aired video footage showing two trains that had collided.

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Updated 11:48 a.m. ET: The United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution Saturday morning to deploy 300 unarmed military observers to Syria for three months to monitor a fragile, week-old ceasefire in a 13-month old conflict.

The council's resolution noted that the cessation of violence by the government and opposition is "clearly incomplete."

The resolution was approved within hours of the arrival of the first ceasefire monitors in the battered Syrian city of Homs and just a day after opposition activists said shelling and gunfire had stopped for the first time in weeks.

But activists in Homs said that the shelling paused only to make it look as if the government was abiding by a truce, mediated by international Peace Envoy Kofi Annan. They said shelling would resume as soon as the monitors left.

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"It is very clear that the Syrian government can stop the violence whenever it wants at anytime in the country," Walid al-Fares, an opposition activist living in Homs told Reuters.

Today: Diplomats' wives plea to Asma Assad -- "Stop your husband"

On Friday, 10 people were killed in Syria's third largest city and epicenter of a year-old revolt against President Bashar al-Assad, after heavy bombardment from government forces.

Syrian authorities say they are fighting "armed terrorist" groups and that they are still allowed to respond to acts of aggression to maintain security despite having agreed to a ceasefire.

Amateur video posted online on Friday appeared to show heavy shelling and explosions in residential neighborhoods of Homs.

Meantime, on Saturday near the Syrian capital of Damascus, a "massive explosion" was heard near a military airport.

"I heard a massive explosion and some smoke rising," said a resident, who lives in the Mezze district of the city near the airport. He said he was not sure what had caused the explosion.

The pro-government Ikhbariya television channel said there was no gunfire in the area, denying a report by Arabic-language satellite channel al-Jazeera, but did not confirm or deny that an explosion had taken place.

The advance team of eight U.N. observers had been denied permission by the Syrian authorities to go to Homs last week - purportedly for security reasons.

Syria: Nation at a crossroads

On Thursday, Syria and the United Nations signed an agreement setting out the working conditions of ceasefire observers. The agreement stipulates "unfettered access" and freedom for monitors to travel and contact people.

Top U.N. humanitarian official John Ging said on Friday he hoped Syria would also grant permission in the coming days to send more aid workers to the country, where at least 1 million people are in need of urgent assistance.

He told reporters in Geneva that Syria had recognized there were "serious humanitarian needs" and that action was required, but logistical issues and visas for aid workers are still being discussed.

After a month-long shelling campaign in the central Homs district of Baba Amr, the Syrian government prevented the International Committee for the Red Cross from entering the area for several days. Opposition activists living in Homs said the government wanted to remove evidence of war crimes.

The United Nations estimates Assad's forces have killed more than 9,000 people in the uprising. Syria says foreign-backed militants have killed more than 2,600 soldiers and police.

The U.N. Security Council is due to vote on a draft resolution on Saturday to authorize the deployment to Syria of up to 300 unarmed military observers.

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WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Army has investigated 56 soldiers in Afghanistan on suspicion of using or distributing heroin, morphine or other opiates during 2010 and 2011, newly obtained data shows. Eight soldiers died of drug overdoses during that time. 

While the cases represent just a slice of possible drug use by U.S. troops in Afghanistan, they provide a somber snapshot of the illicit trade in the war zone, including young Afghans peddling heroin, soldiers dying after mixing cocktails of opiates, troops stealing from medical bags and Afghan soldiers and police dealing drugs to their U.S. comrades.

In a country awash with poppy fields that provide up to 90 percent of the world's opium, the U.S. military struggles to keep an eye on its far-flung troops and monitor for substance abuse.

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But U.S. Army officials say that while the presence of such readily available opium — the raw ingredient for heroin — is a concern, opiate abuse has not been a pervasive problem for troops in Afghanistan.

"We have seen sporadic cases of it, but we do not see it as a widespread problem, and we have the means to check," said Col. Tom Collins, an Army spokesman.

PhotoBlog: Lifting the veil on Afghanistan's female addicts

The data represents only the criminal investigations done by Army Criminal Investigation Command involving soldiers in Afghanistan during those two years. The cases, therefore, are just a piece of the broader drug use statistics released by the Army earlier this year reporting nearly 70,000 drug offenses by roughly 36,000 soldiers between 2006-2011. The number of offenses increased from about 9,400 in 2010 to about 11,200 in 2011.

The overdose totals for the two years, however, are double the number that the Defense Department has reported as drug-related deaths in Afghanistan for the last decade. Defense officials suggested that additional deaths may have been categorized as "other" or were still under investigation when the statistics were submitted.

The data was requested by conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch and obtained by The Associated Press. The Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps have not yet responded to the request for similar information. The Army reports blacked out the names of the soldiers who were under investigation as well any resolution of their cases or punishments they may have received.

Danger not 'fully acknowledged' by military
Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, said the numbers signal the need for the military leadership to be more vigilant about watching and warning troops in Afghanistan about drug abuse. He said the worry is that "the danger, including the danger of dying, hasn't been fully acknowledged by the military and it needs to be." 

Army officials say they do random drug testing through the service and the goal is that every soldier is tested at least once a year. Top Army leaders have said they have not met that goal, but have been working steadily to substantially increase the number of those tested each year. 

The officials also say the Army's Criminal Investigative Division has quarterly drug statistics that show that drug use by troops in Afghanistan is not greater than that of troops in installations back in the United States and there is less of a variance in drugs used by troops in Afghanistan. 

According to Army data, an average of 1.38 million urine samples have been tested annually over the past five years, while an annual average of 106,000 soldiers were not tested at all. Officials said that regular testing is even more difficult in the war zone because the testing facilities are often far away.

The cases reflect a broad range of incidents, describing accidental overdoses as well as soldiers buying drugs from Afghan troops, stealing morphine from medical aid bags or, in some cases, taking steroids, using drugs prescribed to someone else or taking medications long after their prescriptions had expired.

Drugs bought from Afghan Army, police
In one overdose case, a member of the Kentucky National Guard was found dead of "acute heroin toxicity" at his Afghanistan base after a soldier, also in the Kentucky Guard, bought heroin from a civilian contractor and used it with him. The report found that he also had morphine and codeine in his system. 

Others more often involved soldiers who were found dead and were later determined to have taken a mix of prescription and other opiate drugs.

 

The nonlethal cases range from a soldier failing a random drug test to more organized abuse.

In one case, seven members of the 3rd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division were found to have smoked hashish and/or ingested heroin numerous times, including some bought from members of the Afghan Army and police. The investigation found that one other brigade soldier acted as a lookout while others used the drugs.

Afghan farmer: I tried, but have to grow poppies to survive

Opium is a key revenue source in Afghanistan, both for the farmers and the insurgency, which can make money selling, transporting or processing the drugs. According to a U.N. report, revenue from opium production in Afghanistan soared by 133 percent in 2011, to about $1.4 billion, or about one-tenth of the country's GDP. 

Associated Press writer Pauline Jelinek contributed to this report.

 

Updated at 8:15 a.m. ET: Afghan security forces on Saturday arrested five insurgents suspected of planning massive attacks on crowded areas of the capital Kabul, an intelligence spokesman said.

National Directorate of Security (NDS) spokesman Shafiqullah Tahiri said the five men were seized on Kabul's outskirts with 10,000 kilograms of explosives (11 tons) stuffed in 400 bags and hidden beneath a cargo of potatoes in the back of a Pakistan-registered truck.

The group also planned to assassinate the country's second vice-president Abdul Karim Khalili, the BBC reported.

---

The BBC's Bilal Sarwary reported on Twitter that a video detailing the insurgents' plan had been found.

"It could have caused large-scale bloodshed," Tahiri told a news conference in Kabul.

"Three Pakistani terrorists and two of their Afghan collaborators who placed the explosives under bags of potatoes in a truck were caught."

Tahiri said the five men confessed to receiving training from Noor Afzal and Mohammad Omar, whom he identified as key commanders of the Pakistani Taliban and Pakistan intelligence.

Video footage released by NDS to media showed the detained men, including the alleged Pakistanis, talking about where they came from while sitting against a blank white wall.

A Pakistani intelligence official declined comment on the accusations, while Afghan officials were not immediately available to give additional information.

Coordinated assault
The alleged connection to militants in Pakistan will likely step up the pressure on Islamabad, after a recent assault by insurgents on diplomatic and government areas in Kabul and elsewhere put the spotlight on the South Asian nation. 

Afghan officials have long accused Pakistan of using insurgent groups like the Afghan Taliban as proxies in Afghanistan. 

Pakistan's government denies supporting or giving sanctuary to insurgents on its territory. 

Insurgents this week launched a coordinated assault on four provinces, targeting diplomatic and government areas of Kabul with rockets and gunfire in what they said was retaliation for abuses of Afghans by U.S. soldiers.

Kabul fighting ends after 18 hours of intense gunfire

The attacks showed the insurgency's resilience nearly 11 years since the Afghan Taliban were toppled.

The Afghan Taliban claimed responsibility for the attacks and said it planned similar assaults in coming months.

Reuters contributed to this report.

The Russian guided-missile cruiser Varyag arrived at an east Chinese naval base Saturday ahead of a planned joint exercise with the Chinese navy, news agency Xinhua reported.

The large-scale war game, the navies’ first bilateral drill, is scheduled Sunday through Friday off the resort city of Qingdao in the Yellow Sea, Xinhua said.

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Russia also sent from Vladivostok three Udaloy class destroyers and three support ships, said Russian news agency Ria Novosti.

China will use 16 ships, including destroyers, frigates and two submarines, in the drill called Maritime Cooperation-2012, Ria Novosti said.

A Chinese aircraft carrier may also participate, the International Business Times said.

“The exercises will involve several simulated missions, including the rescue of a hijacked ship, the escort of a commercial vessel, and the defense a convoy from air and sea attacks,” a Russian military spokesman told the news agency.

The exercise will promote strategic coordination and mutual trust between the two militaries, said Chen Bingde, Chief of the General Staff of the People's Liberation Army (PLA). Chen also said the drill would strengthen the naval forces' ability to jointly confront new regional threats and maintain peace and stability in the region and world.

Since 2005, China and Russia have conducted several joint military exercises within the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which also includes the Central Asian countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

The new drill comes after President Barack Obama last November signaled a "return to Asia" following a decade of conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.

On Monday, the U.S. and Philippine military launched joint exercises involving in the South China Sea between the Philippines and China. The exercise includes 4,500 U.S. troops and 2,300 Filipino troops in a two-week event called "balikatan," or shoulder-to-shoulder, the Voice of America reported.

The Philippines, China, Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei all have competing claims in the South China Sea, Voice of America said.

China and the Philippines are in a standoff over fishing rights in the area. China's most advanced fishing patrol vessel, the Yuzheng 310, arrived Friday in waters off the coast of Scarborough Shoal, China and VOA said.

Xinhua reported the vessel will conduct routine patrols in the area to “protect China's sea rights and ensure the safety of Chinese fishermen.” The Philippines tried to arrest Chinese fisherman in the shoal, but Chinese surveillance ships intervened.

Late Friday, China said authorities released 21 Vietnamese fishermen whom they had detained for more than a month on a disputed island in the South China Sea.

Chinese security forces intercepted the fishermen’s two boats in early March near the Paracel islands, known in China as the Xisha Islands.

The Paracels are occupied by China but also claimed by Vietnam.

This article includes reporting by The Associated Press.

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A U.S. government contractor sentenced to 15 years prison reached out from prison in Havana to plead for help on Friday.

"Get me the hell out of here," Brian Gross said, using his one phone call for the week to reach out to a reporter rather than his family.

The Maryland native, who has served two and a half years, was convicted of crimes against the state for bringing satellite and other communications equipment onto the island as part of a USAID-funded democracy-building program. Cuba considers such programs an attempt to destabilize the government.

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Gross has been pleading for parole to visit his 90-year-old mother before she dies of lung cancer.

"It is no longer about Cuban-U.S. relations," Gross said. "It's about my family and me."

Gross gets one call a week, and usually he reserves that for his wife, Judy, but this week he called a reporter instead because he wanted to get the word out about his plight.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., was allowed to visit Gross at the prison on Feb. 24, and he later met with Cuban President Raul Castro to seek his release.

Leahy said Castro agreed that Gross "was no spy" The Associated Press reported.

Gross spoke virtually no Spanish and traveled to Cuba five times under his own name before his arrest in December 2009, according to AP.

But Leahy came home with little optimism for Gross' release.

The Gross affair has chilled relations between the U.S. and Cuba, diminishing chances for near-term rapprochement.

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A group of bears escaped from their enclosure at a park in northern Japan and mauled two women to death before they were tracked down and killed, police said Friday.

The two victims, employees in their 60s and 70s at the Hachimantai bear park near Kazuno City in Akita prefecture, were believed to have been feeding the bears from outside the concrete fence before several of the animals escaped, The Associated Press reported. The animals may have taken advantage of high-piled snowdrifts to climb over the fence.

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The women's mangled bodies were found hours after a third employee escaped and called for help, according to AP.

Local hunters shot and killed six of the animals, all within the gated park.

Akita prefectural police spokesman Haruki Itou told ABC News there was no chance to simply tranquilize the bears.

"We could not get anywhere near the animals, but could not afford to let them escape," Itou was quoted as saying. 

It wasn’t immediately clear how many bears escaped. The park held 38 animals, most of them brown bears, and was closed to the public at the time of the escape. Itou told ABC he believed all the animals had been accounted for.

Police had advised area residents and schoolchildren to stay indoors while authorities searched for the loose bears.

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BEIJING – Overseas tourists often find the menus here befuddling, for good reason.

After all, what Westerner has experience with foods like these? “Cowboy leg,” “Hand-shredded ass meat,” “Red-burned lion head,” “Strange flavor noodles,” “Blow-up flatfish with no result,” or “Tofu made by woman with freckles.”

As proud as the Chinese people are of their thousands of years of gastronomic culture, even a Chinese native can feel disoriented when going to another province, given all the different styles of cooking. Many of the food names, often unique to different provinces, get lost in translation, especially in booming cities starting to embrace overseas tourists.

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With few English speakers, restaurants usually translate their menus word by word directly from an English-Chinese dictionary. Or they just Google the Chinese characters. A photo that made the rounds online a few years ago got a chuckle from a lot of people: a restaurant with a large “page not found” sign above its door as its English name.

But the Beijing Municipal government hopes to end such unintended jokes with its new guidebook intended for the public and restaurants alike, “Enjoy Culinary Delights: The English Translation of Chinese Menus.”

The effort began in 2006 with a “Beijing speaks English” campaign. By the 2008 Summer Olympics, officials had created a draft guide with translations for major restaurants to meet the demand for arriving athletes and tourists.

“After 2008, we felt like the book was in a good demand, so we kept working on it and collected more menus. Finally we translated over 2,000 Chinese dish names,” said Xiang Ping, deputy chief of the “Beijing speaks English” committee, in an interview with NBC News.

Some of the dishes kept their original names, which people familiar with Chinese food may understand: jiaozi, baozi, mantou, tofu or wonton.

Some more complicated dishes come with both Chinese pronunciations and explanations: “fotiaoqiang” (steamed abalone with shark’s fin and fish maw in broth); “youtiao” (deep-fried dough sticks); “lvdagunr” (glutinous rice rolls stuffed with red bean paste),
and “aiwowo” (steamed rice cakes with sweet stuffing).

Chen Lin, a 90-year-old retired English professor from Beijing Foreign Language University, was the chief consultant for the book.
He told NBC News that about 20 other experts – like English teachers and professors, translators, expats who have lived in China for a long time, culinary experts and people from the media – helped develop the final version.  

So next time you're in Beijing and you are confronted with a menu item like "hand shredded ass meat," hopefully you can crack open the book to get some guidance. It means "hand shredded donkey meat."

By Meghan Frank
Rock Center

Just days after we aired “Last Stand,” a Rock Center story on the epidemic of illegal rhino poaching in South Africa, we received horrible news. Poachers had attacked three of the rhinos featured in our report.

Our Rock Center investigation that aired in February looked at the dramatic spike in rhino poaching in South Africa. The rise in illegal poaching stems from a growing demand for rhino horn in Asia, where the horn is believed to be a miracle cure.

On the night of March 2, poachers targeted several rhinos that belonged to Graeme Rushmere, the owner of Kariega Game Reserve in South Africa. Veterinarian Will Fowlds, who was also featured in our story, rushed to the scene to try to save the injured rhinos. Fowlds found one of the rhinos dead at the scene, but the two others were still alive, clinging to life. Poachers had shot the rhinos with tranquilizer darts, hacked through their skulls with a machete to get every inch of their horns and left them to bleed to death.

Fowlds and the Kariega team began working around the clock to try to save the two surviving rhinos, a female rhino named Thandi and a male named Themba. Fowlds cleaned their wounds, injected them with antibiotics and gave them medicine to try to ease their pain. For weeks Fowlds and the game reserve staff monitored and tended to the rhinos, but after surviving for nearly a month, Themba died from his injuries. Thandi is still alive.

The traumatic experience of trying to save these severely injured rhinos has been heartbreaking for Fowlds, but it’s also been a call to arms.

“I made a promise to a dead rhino, his name was Themba, that I would make every single day, all 24 days of suffering, count, that I would do everything in my ability to turn suffering into a pain-free future for other rhino,” Fowlds said.

Themba’s death is part of a scourge that’s threatening the rhinos in South Africa and the species as a whole. Already this year poachers have slaughtered more than 170 rhinos for their valuable horns.

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Rhino horn has long been prescribed to cure fevers and colds in traditional Asian medicine, but demand in recent years has skyrocketed, and some experts believe this is due to a rumor circulating in Vietnam that rhino horn cures cancer. Scientists have found rhino horn’s medicinal value to be next to nonexistent, but demand continues to grow and the price of rhino horn rises with it. Gram for gram, rhino horn can be more valuable than gold or cocaine.

South Africa is trying every means possible to protect the species, but poachers are wiping out rhinos at a rate of more than one a day and conservationists fear the poaching will continue to rise. Already the killing this year is poised to outpace last year’s record death toll of 448 rhinos.

Fowlds says he is trying not to get thrown into a state of despair by the figures.

“The fear of where this is heading could quite easily paralyze us if we don't remain focused on that which we are able to do. In this war, being fought on so many sides, the most important thing is for each one of us to take care of our portion of the frontline,” Fowlds said.

At the moment, Will Fowld’s frontline is tending to the wounds of Thandi, who is still fighting against all odds to stay alive.

Editor's Note: Click here to watch Harry Smith's full report, Last Stand, that aired on Rock Center Feb. 22.

More From Rock Center:

• South African town dehorns rhino in attempt to ward off poachers
• On Assignment: Getting face to face with a rhinoceros
• Spike in rhino poaching threatens survival of species

ROME – Among the many derogatory nicknames Silvio Berlusconi’s detractors came up, one was "Burlesconi," a way to emphasize his propensity for gaffes and tendency to adopt sexist and inappropriate humor.

But as usually happens with the flamboyant former Italian prime minister, truth is stranger than fiction.

On Friday Berlusconi, 75, made a rare appearance at the trial in which he stands accused of having sex with an under-aged prostitute known as “Ruby the Heart-Stealer” during one of his now infamous “Bunga Bunga” parties, sex-fueled revelries that allegedly took place at his private residence in Milan.

And suddenly, burlesque had a lot more to do with him than his detractors could have ever dreamed of. 

While the trial officially started at the end of last year, it has already offered a fly-on-the-wall peek into Berlusconi’s scandalous private life, with lurid details revealing an impressive partying lifestyle that would be trying for a man a third his age.

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On Monday Imane Fadil, one of the models who was invited to Berlusconi’s “elegant dinners,” as he called them, testified in court. She said that she personally saw women dressed as nuns don their habits and crucifixes before they jumped on a pole where they performed some very unholy dance moves.

Another model, Fadil said, wore a mask of Ronaldinho, a famous soccer player from AC Milan, the Italian team owned by Berlusconi, before she kicked off her skirt down to her G-string.

Witness: Italian ex-PM Berlusconi hosted strippers dressed as nuns

Gifts from Gadhafi
On Friday, the former prime minister, and currently still the leader of the biggest political coalition in the Italian lower house of parliament, clarified once and for all some of what happened.

Speaking to journalists in Milan's High Court after the hearing, Berlusconi described what he saw in detail. "I remember seeing a woman dressed as a policeman, one as a nurse and another one as Father Christmas ... those were dresses that I received as presents from Gadhafi," Berlusconi said. (See a video published on the website of Italy's Corriere della Sera newspaper. He's speaking in Italian).

"[Gadhafi] gave them to me when I went to Tripoli for an expo on Libya's fashion. I saw those dresses and told him I liked them, so he sent them to me," he said.

A little later, he again spoke with journalists, this time outside the courtroom in Milan. “They were dressed up, some as policemen, but it was only a burlesque contest.” 

He insisted that the girls were guests of innocent dinners dominated by an atmosphere of joy, serenity and conviviality.

“Sometimes,” he specified, “the girls would follow me to the house theater room,” a room formerly used by his sons as a private discotheque.

“Women are exhibitionists by nature,” Berlusconi said. “And if they work in show business, they are even more exhibitionists. They like putting up shows and they decided to compete in a burlesque show.”

When asked if he was a judge of the show, he replied: “No, but I watched with interest. I had a lot of fun, and will continue to have fun.”

(See video of Berlusconi’s comments to journalists outside the courtroom. He’s speaking in Italian).

And there is the irony of it all.

While the admission by any current or former prime minister of a European country that they held a burlesque contest with half-naked women dressed as nuns and policemen would be enough to end their political career shamefully, Berlusconi seems somehow different. His list of alleged felonies, including sex scandals, tax frauds and abuse of office, has now become so long that confessing to organizing a strippers competition, at the end of the day, seems not so bad.

The trial continues, and with more revelations expected from witnesses, the former prime minister’s private life will soon be stripped naked. Nothing more appropriate, for a man dubbed Burlesconi.