Updated at 3:34 p.m. ET: MOSCOW -- Russia further backed away from its support of Syrian President Bashar Assad on Monday, saying his government bears the main responsibility for the violence in the country and calling for a full investigation into its role in the deaths of more than 100 civilians in Houla. 

"Both sides have obviously had a hand in the deaths of innocent people, including several dozen women and children. This area is controlled by the rebels, but it is also surrounded by government troops," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said after talks in Moscow with visiting British Foreign Secretary William Hague. 

Meanwhile, international mediator Kofi Annan, who arrived in Damascus Monday for talks with senior Syrian officials, said he was horrified by the killings in Houla and urged the Syrian government to take bold steps to show it was serious about reaching a peaceful solution to the country's crisis.

Lavrov spoke a day after Russia agreed to join the rest of the U.N. Security Council in blaming the Syrian government for attacking residential areas in Houla, a collection of villages near the central city of Homs. The council, however, avoided saying who was responsible for the massacre of at least 108 men, women and children. 

Opposition activists said Assad's forces killed at least 41 people in an artillery assault on the city of Hama shortly after the U.N. Security Council condemned Friday's massacre in nearby Houla. The authorities in Damascus issued a denial that troops played any role at Houla, rejecting the U.N. version of events.

Lavrov said there was no doubt that government forces had used artillery and tanks to shell Houla, but he noted that many of the dead appeared to have been shot at close range or tortured. "The guilt has to be determined objectively," he said. "No one is saying that the government is not guilty, and no one is saying that the armed militants are not guilty." 

Yuri Kadobnov / AFP - Getty Images

Visiting British Foreign Minister William Hague (L) looks at Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov during their meeting on Syria in Moscow on Monday.

But Lavrov did issue some of Russia's harshest criticism of Assad to date, saying the Syrian  government "bears the main responsibility for what is going on" because it is failing to provide for the security of Syrian citizens. He hedged the criticism by claiming that Syria's government is facing an increased threat from terrorists, whose bombings have the "clear signature of al-Qaida." 

Alexei Malashenko, a Middle East expert with the Carnegie Moscow Center, said Russia can no longer defend Assad's government and may be warning him that he needs to change his approach. 

"Bashar Assad is driving himself and Russia into a corner," Malashenko said. "If this goes on, Russia will have no other option" but to pull its support. "Bashar has definitely gotten the sense that he may lose Russia's sympathy and he may step back a bit." 

Lavrov and Hague both called for greater efforts to implement special envoy Annan's six-point peace plan, which calls on both sides to respect a cease-fire. 

Speaking shortly after arriving in Damascus, Annan said he expected to have "serious and frank discussions" with Assad. The two men are due to meet on Tuesday, according to the Syrian Foreign Ministry.

Clinton: Syria leader's 'rule by murder' must end 

Annan said the massacre in Houla was "an appalling crime, and the (U.N.) Security Council has rightly condemned it." Western countries have blamed Assad's forces for the killings, a charge Damascus denies.

"I urge the (Syrian) government to take bold steps to signal that it is serious in its intention to resolve this crisis peacefully, and for everyone involved to help create the right context for a credible political process," Annan told reporters on his arrival in Damascus. 

Shaam News Network / Reuters

A resident of Houla shows a body to a UN observer as they stand near the bodies of people whom anti-government protesters say were killed by government security forces on Friday.

"It's right, as Sergey Lavrov has just done, to call on all parties to cease violence, and we are not arguing that all violence in Syria is the responsibility of the Assad regime, although it has the primary responsibility for such violence," Hague said. 

Lavrov added that "we don't support the Syrian government, we support Kofi Annan's plan." 

The Russian envoy called for everyone in the international community to exert more pressure on both sides to implement Annan's plan, saying it was not clear from talks with opposition members that they were getting the message that the plan had full international support.

He said talk about the need for Assad to step down cast doubt on the West's commitment to the Annan plan and encouraged the opposition to keep up the fight. 

Hague, however, confirmed that Britain still believes Assad should stand aside. 

"But the important thing is that the Annan plan is pursued in whatever way it can be pursued," he said. "The alternatives are the Annan plan or ever-increasing chaos in Syria, and a descent closer and closer to all-out civil war and collapse." 

'Boiling point': On Lebanon's Syria Street, a civil war brews

China on Monday also condemned the killings of civilians in Houla and called for an end to the violence, but gave no indication it was rethinking its strategy toward the fighting in Syria. 

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said that Beijing fully supports Annan's mediation efforts and the UN monitors. 

The protests against Assad began in March 2011 and turned into an uprising after his government responded with a violent crackdown on dissent. The U.N. estimated that at least 9,000 people were killed in the first year of the conflict, but hundreds more have been killed since then. 

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

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Jugend Forscht

Sixteen-year-old Shouryya Ray, a student from Dresden who was born in Calcutta, submitted a paper proposing analytical solutions to two problems in particle dynamics.

A research paper that claims to fill in a gap in Isaac Newton's formulas for the physics of falling objects has drawn worldwide attention to a 16-year-old student in Germany, but physicists are reserving judgment until they've seen the proof.

The focus of the buzz is Shouryya Ray, an Indian-born student who won second prize this month in the math and informatics category for Germany's Jugend Forscht student science competition. Ray tackled a couple of longstanding puzzlers for physics students: How do you account for air resistance in calculating the trajectory of ball thrown out at an angle? And precisely how does a ball thrown against the wall rebound?

The first question relates to Newton's law of universal gravitation: In his Principia Mathematica, published in 1687, Newton laid out how a gravitational field would affect a thrown object — but he didn't account for the effect of air resistance. Through the centuries, physicists have used numerical approximations to take drag into account, and when computers come into play, those approximations can be incredibly precise. But Ray said he wanted to come up with a set of formulas that could calculate the effect directly, even though his instructors said that had never been done.

"I asked myself: Why can't it work?" he told the German newspaper Die Welt.

That's what Ray tried to do in his prize-winning paper, titled "Analytical Solution of Two Fundamental Unsolved Problems of Particle Dynamics" ("Analytische Lösung von zwei ungelösten fundamentalen Partikeldynamikproblemen"). In addition to the falling-ball problem, Ray took on a puzzler of more recent vintage, having to do with the description of a particle's collision with a wall, as described by 19th-century theory. But it was the "kid-trumps-Newton" angle that really stirred up a buzz.

Die Welt's report came early in the game: The Daily Mail and The Sunday Times of London picked up the story, adding to the sensation. The idea that a teenager could figure out something that Newton didn't is irresistible — particularly when the teen is an immigrant from Calcutta who says he's no genius. But the story just sparked more questions among inquiring minds in such online hangouts as Physics Forum, Slashdot and Reddit: What exactly did Ray do? And were these problems really such mysteries to solve?

That's a challenge, because Ray's paper was a school project submitted for a contest, and thus not subject to the publication process and peer review that professional work typically goes through. For that reason, the experts are reluctant to weigh in.

"This story seems rather suspicious," Richard Fitzpatrick, a physicist at the University of Texas in Austin, told me in an email. "None of the news reports give any details of the calculation. None of the people who hailed Shouryya Ray as a genius are scientists, and none of them give the impression that they have seen the calculation in question. It is impossible to gauge the scientific merit of the calculation until it is made public."

Syracuse University physicist Simon Catterall said in an email that calculating the trajectories of falling objects hadn't been seen as a particularly grand puzzle of physics. "The background given in the article seems genuine enough, so it may indeed be true, but I haven't heard anything about a new solution to a Newtonian problem on the grapevine," he told me.

Based on what's come out about the work so far, the consensus seems to be that Ray has done amazing work for his age — and if he had to choose between his passion for science and his passion for soccer, he'd be well-advised to pick math and physics. His paper putting forth an "analytical solution to two fundamental unsolved problems" may not be the breakthrough that some of the reports have made it out to be, but that doesn't take anything away from the teenager's achievement.

"What Ray has worked out, almost certainly independently, would definitely put him in the 99th percentile amongst his peers and maybe even more," one Redditor observed.

By the way, the first-place winner in the math and informatics category, Julius Kunze, wrote a paper on relativistic ray tracing. But that's a different story... 

Update for 5 p.m. ET: Other experts on Newtonian physics have replied to my follow-up queries via email:

Oxford University physicist James Binney: "Doesn't sound too interesting to me. The resistance of air to the ball won't be susceptible to simple analytic formulae — if the ball is of ordinary size, [greater than a centimeter] radius — the flow around it will be in the high Reynolds-number regime and involve a thin boundary layer. Such flows were extensively studied from the last part of the 19th century, so it's true that they lie beyond Newton's knowledge. A good approximation will be to take the drag force as pi r^2 rho v^2, where r is the radius of the ball, v its speed and rho the density of air. I'm unaware of a puzzle regarding bouncing balls. In detail the bounce will depend on the physical properties of the ball — as any squash player knows. Usually one adopts a coefficient of restitution. To be impressed we need to know details."

University of Bristol physicist Michael Berry: "Without seeing the details of what Ray has claimed, it's impossible to comment intelligently. It depends crucially on how he has modeled the air resistance. But a falling body with air resistance (however modeled) is hardly a 'fundamental unsolved problem,' as he seems to think. There's a powerful aroma of hype."  

More about physics:

• Laws of physics get bent to produce ... coneheads!
• Subatomic discovery pushes the limits of physics
• The fish that nearly sank Newton's career
• Cosmic Log archive on physics

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding Cosmic Log's Google+ page to your circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.

A mother and stepfather who forced their 11-year-old son to live in a filthy converted coal cellar have each been jailed for two years by a British court.

The couple told police they locked the boy in the tiny windowless room as punishment for stealing food from the family refrigerator.

The child, who cannot be identified because of his age, was left to sleep on a dirty mattress with a sleeping bag for a blanket.

The rubbish-strewn room had no heating, a bare lightbulb and concrete walls and floor.

The couple in their 40s, who also cannot be named, both admitted a single charge of cruelty by wilful neglect at an earlier hearing at Preston Crown Court.

See the full story at ITV News

He was forced to spend nights in the outhouse, which was linked to the living room of the family home in Blackpool, Lancashire.

Judge Norman Wright said that the experience of being locked in a windowless room in "appalling conditions" had taken a physical and psychological toll on the child victim.

"It is bound, in my judgment, to be profound," he said.

The traumatized boy was made to live and sleep in the room, described as a "cell" by social workers, and reduced to using a potty as he was locked up each night until morning.

ITV News is the UK partner of NBC News.

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By Clare Duffy and Sopan Deb
Rock Center

She’s already one of the fastest women on the planet, but Jamaican Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce hopes to make history as the fastest at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.

“The thing with success is, when you get it you want it,” Fraser-Pryce told Rock Center with Brian Williams. “I think that the last couple of years have actually made me more hungry than I was, and now that I realize my potential and I realize that I can do so much … once I push myself to the limit, maybe I can do that much better.”

Fraser-Pryce, 25, won the Olympic gold medal at the 2008 summer games in Beijing, China, where she crushed her competition in the 100-meter race. Her winning time –10.78 seconds – was the fastest winning time since 1988. She was also the first Jamaican woman to win gold in the 100 meter dash.

Fraser-Pryce’s win helped Jamaica become the first country to claim all the individual sprinting gold medals since the United States in 1912. However, her success was not a foregone conclusion.

“When I got to the Olympics, I wasn’t thinking about winning a gold medal,” she said. “They were saying I should not run because I am too young, and I am new and I need more experience.”

Now, seasoning is not a question. In 2009, Fraser-Pryce won gold in Berlin at the World Track & Field Championships with a time of 10.73 and was for a short while the "World's Fastest Woman" until Carmelita Jeter of the United States ran the fastest time of the modern era in 2011 at the Shanghai Golden Grand Prix with a 10.64.

The track star hopes to regain that title this summer in London.

Almost continuously flashing a bright smile, Fraser-Pryce told Rock Center that she rose from poverty on the street of Waterhouse, an inner city in Kingston, "where a lot of crime and everything bad you can think about happen there."

She became a serious track runner as a young adult while attending the University of Technology in Jamaica and credits her "strong-headed" mother as a positive presence in her life.

“What I liked about my mother was the fact that she made do with what she had,” Fraser said.

“There were times I wanted to wear nice sneakers to school but I couldn’t afford to wear [them],” she said, adding that her friends would laugh at her when she showed up at school wearing her church shoes with jeans.

“I’d be like, ‘OK,’ and I’d tell them that was the style,” Fraser-Pryce said. “I tell them it’s my style.”

To qualify for a spot on the team that will attend the Olympics, Fraser-Pryce will first battle several strong Jamaican female sprinters, including two-time Olympic 200m gold medalist Veronica Campbell-Brown. Fraser-Pryce is expected to make the team and join a strong contingent of Jamaican sprinters, all of whom are capable of winning gold. 

Vincenzo Pinto / AFP - Getty Images

Paolo Gabriele (bottom left), the pope's butler, was arrested three days ago for allegedly feeding documents to Italian journalists.

VATICAN CITY -- The worst crisis in Pope Benedict's pontificate deepened on Monday when Italian media said at least one cardinal was among those suspected of leaking sensitive documents as part of a power struggle at the top of the Catholic Church. The pope's butler, who has been arrested, has pledged to cooperate in the probe. 

Leading Italian newspapers Corriere della Sera and Il Messaggero reported Monday that the pope's butler — arrested three days ago for allegedly feeding documents to Italian journalists — clearly did not act alone, and that an unidentified cardinal is suspected of playing a major role. 

The scandal exploded last week when within a few days the pope's butler was arrested, the head of the Vatican's own bank was abruptly dismissed and a book was published alleging conspiracies among the cardinals or "princes of the Church."

Vatican cops arrest pope's butler over leaked papers alleging corruption

However, the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, denied the reports that a cardinal might be the next target of the "Vatileaks" probe. He said many Vatican officials were being questioned but insisted: "There is no cardinal under suspicion." 

Meanwhile, the lawyer for the pope's butler says his client has pledged "full cooperation" in the investigation and wants the truth to come out. 

The commitment by butler Paolo Gabriele to cooperate raises the specter that higher-ranking prelates may soon be named in the scandal. Leaks of confidential Vatican correspondence have shed light on power struggles and intrigue inside the highest levels of the Catholic Church. 

Gabriele, the pope's personal butler since 2006, was arrested Wednesday evening after documents he had no business having were found inside his Vatican City apartment. He remains in detention in a Vatican detention facility, accused of theft, and has met with his wife and lawyers. 

The 46-year-old father of three was always considered extremely loyal to Benedict and his predecessor, John Paul II, for whom he briefly served. Vatican insiders said they were baffled by his alleged involvement. Gabriele's lawyer, Carlo Fusco, reported Monday that Gabriele was "very serene and calm." 

So far, Gabriele has been the only one arrested, but Lombardi stressed that the investigation was continuing. 

Pope at Easter vigil: Technology without God is dangerous

The probe is working on two separate tracks. Vatican magistrates are pursuing the criminal investigation, and Gabriele was arrested as part of that. Separately, Pope Benedict appointed three cardinals to form an investigative commission to look beyond the narrow criminal scope of the leaks. 

Those cardinals have the authority to interview broadly across the Vatican bureaucracy, Lombardi said, and can both share information with Vatican prosecutors and receive information from them. 

They report directly to the pope, who Lombardi said, was being kept informed of the investigation. 

Like a Dan Brown book? Vatican allows mobster to be exhumed

Benedict has not commented directly on the scandal. 

Meanwhile, hundreds of demonstrators marched to St. Peter's Square on Sunday to demand information on Emanuela Orlandi, the daughter of a Vatican messenger who disappeared in 1983 at the age of 15. 

Various theories have surrounded her disappearance, linking her kidnapping to an attempt to free the Turkish gunman who shot John Paul in 1981, or to alleged Vatican financial dealings with a Rome criminal gang. 

The march came a day after an Italian prosecutor told CNN that a priest who used to run a church in Rome is under investigation on suspicion of complicity in her abduction.

Reuters and The Associated Press Press contributed to this report.

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By Ian Williams and Rory Kress
Anand, India

Robyn and Jason Wright are learning the dusty streets of their son's birthplace, where spluttering rickshaws weave around abandoned cows with bright painted faces, piles of trash smoldering on the sidewalk.

This is Anand, half a world away from their American home, where amid all the chaos, passersby strain to catch a glimpse of the tiny bundle Robyn is cradling in her arms.

Baby Jake Wright, seven weeks old and weighing just four pounds is the baby they thought they would never have, as Robyn was unable to carry a child after a hysterectomy.

“We’d written it off, thought we’d never have kids,” Robyn told us. “Someone had mentioned doing surrogacy in India. I thought they were crazy.”

Crazy as it seemed, the Wrights flew from their home in Wyoming to the Akanksha Infertility Clinic here in Anand: the reproductive tourist hub for an international baby boom. They supplied the egg and sperm for baby Jake and he was carried in the womb of an Indian surrogate mother called Usha, who gave birth to him in December.

NBC News

Robyn and Jason Wright with their son Jake, walking through Ananad, India.

“We’ve traveled half way round the world to have him,” Robyn said. “He was very much wanted, very much loved - by Usha too.”

But Robyn and Jason are not such a strange sight in Anand.

Locals spot Americans on the street and know they're here for the Akanksha Clinic. So far, the clinic has produced more than 500 surrogate babies and their biggest overseas market is the United States. Most would-be parents are drawn by the price. In India, a surrogate baby costs around US$25,000. In the US, the cost can exceed US$100,000.

“We knew we couldn’t afford it in the US,” Robyn told us.

“Sixty, sixty-five surrogates are pregnant at any time, carrying babies for couples from all over the world,” says Dr. Nayna Patel, the director of the Akanksha Infertility Clinic.

Dr. Patel showed us around the hostel where the surrogates live for most of their pregnancy. There, the clinic monitors their health and nutrition around the clock.

“So many American citizens growing here,” she said, pointing to a group of heavily pregnant women in saris sitting in the shade, sewing. Ten of the women are carrying babies for American couples, including one set of twins. To Dr. Patel, the ever-expanding business is a win-win for all involved - a childless couple goes home with a baby, an impoverished surrogate earns US$7,000 to build a house and a new life.

“These surrogates are coming to us because they have no other way of earning--apart from labor--so we want to groom them and change their lives,” said Patel.

The Wrights' surrogate, Usha is already mother to three boys of her own. The clinic carefully screens potential surrogates, selecting only women with children of their own. Dr. Patel says it gives the clinic security, choosing a woman she knows can carry to term and one who may be less likely to become emotionally attached to the child that will one day fly thousands of miles away.

Once Usha was pregnant with Jake, the Wrights returned to their home in Hoback Junction, Wyoming, where Jason works as a tour guide and Robyn runs a beauty salon.

Baby Jake with his mom, Robyn Wright (left) and his surrogate mother, Usha.

“You are very removed,” Jason told us. It was a very strange feeling to go through a pregnancy and not be involved in it, so to speak.”

The Wrights quickly learned they had twins, and waited with excitement for the regularly emailed reports and scans from Anand. But on Thanksgiving last year they learned that Usha had gotten sick. One of the twins had died and Jake came early at twenty seven weeks.

In early December they rushed back to Anand.

“He was so small and frail that I was afraid to touch him,” Jason recalls. “I didn’t want to do any damage.”

“He was so tiny,” said Robyn. “He almost didn’t seem real.”

For a while, both Jake and surrogate Usha clung to life--an experience that the Wrights say makes them only more grateful to Usha's sacrifice. For Robyn and Jason, their relationship with their surrogate was vital. Some clinics discourage the biological parents from even meeting the surrogate mother, wanting to keep it all business. To Robyn and Jason, that was inconceivable.

“She’s ultimately his mother too. I truly feel that way: that he has two moms," says Robyn. "My goal is to get him to understand that she cares for him as much as we do.”

While the Akanksha Clinic has pioneered surrogacy in India, the business of babies has exploded across the country. Surrogacy is now estimated to be a $2 billion dollar industry with one thousand clinics across India offering the service.

Type in “surrogacy India” to Google and you’ll face countless ads from clinics offering to “make babies possible” for couples like the Wrights, but also increasingly same sex couples.

The explosive growth in the industry has raised serious concerns about abuse and exploitation of the surrogates, and new legislation is slowly making its way through parliament to register and better regulate the industry.

The new law would give legal muscle to current voluntary regulations limiting such factors as the recruitment and age of surrogates and the number of times they can volunteer.

Among the fiercest critics of the industry is Dr. Ashok Mehta, a family doctor, whom we met in one of Mumbai's biggest slums, where he was doing his rounds.

“The crooks, the middlemen, the brokers, at times they cheat these people and deprive them of money,” he says. The slums are a prime recruiting ground for that city’s surrogacy clinics.

At the Indian Council of Medical Research in New Delhi, medical experts are drawing up the new law.

“There are doctors who are not following the (old) guidelines properly, and that’s where the problem comes,” explains Dr. R.S. Shah who is working on the legislation. “Until there is a law we cannot take any action. That’s why its very important this bill gets passed as early as possible.”

At Akanksha Clinic, Dr. Patel largely welcomes the new law as giving protection to legitimate clinics and clients, but she’s fiercely critical of those who want to curtail the business.

“All they want to do is just criticize and stop this, and let the poor suffer and let the infertile couple suffer,” she says.

After seven weeks in Anand, the Wrights take baby Jake for a final check-up at a crowded public hospital. There, he gets the all clear to fly home. And it can't come soon enough: after so much time and extra care for the premature child, the expense and time away from work has strained their finances. But they don't regret their choices. In the US, Jake's same medical problems would have cost ten times more.

“He’s doing really, really well,” said Robyn, before pointing out the neonatal intensive care unit where Jake spent the first four weeks of his fragile life.

“He was right there,” said Robyn, pointing to the incubators that now contain two tiny new babies - both surrogates.

But before they can leave, there's one thing left that they must do: it's time to say goodbye to Usha. She travelled all morning by train from her village. With her husband by her side, she cradles the baby she'd carried for nine months, and might never see again. The language barrier between the two mothers belies the bond they share, as Robyn watches Usha holding the baby in silence for hours.

When it's time to go, Usha has only one request: that Robyn and Jason should not forget her. The Wrights vow to return with Jake when he's older.

“It makes you appreciate Jake so much more,” says Jason. “It really seems such a miracle. I mean I really appreciate life a whole lot more, just seeing him battling through and making it.” They leave: passing the smoldering rubbish, the foraging cows, and those same curious passersby.

The proud parents firmly grip the final piece of paperwork, a pristine new American passport and exit permit for US Citizen Jake Wright. Born in India.

Two men engulfed themselves in flames outside a temple popular with tourists in Lhasa – the first time such protests at Chinese rule have reached the tightly-guarded Tibetan capital.

The self-immolations are thought to be the first in Lhasa and the second inside Tibet, the BBC reported Monday.

One of the men died and the other was hospitalized after they set themselves on fire Sunday outside the Jokhang Temple, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

From March: Tibetan man sets himself on fire

At least 34 Tibetans have set themselves on fire since March 2011 in protest against China's six-decade rule over Tibet, according to Tibetan rights groups. At least 24 have died, Reuters reported.

Turmoil builds in Tibet

China has branded the self-immolators "terrorists" and criminals and has blamed exiled Tibetans and the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, for inciting them.

Grisly videos of the self-immolation are regularly posted on activist websites such as Free Tibet.

Beijing considers the Dalai Lama, who fled into exile in India in 1959 after an abortive uprising against Chinese rule, a separatist. The Dalai Lama says he merely seeks greater autonomy for his Himalayan homeland.

Slideshow: The Dalai Lama

Harish Tyagi / EPA

See images of the life of Tenzin Gyatso, the 14 Dalai Lama and exiled spiritual leader of Tibet's Buddhists.

Launch slideshow

China says Tibet has always been part of its territory, but many Tibetans say the Himalayan region was virtually independent for centuries until Chinese troops invaded in the 1950s.

Protests have become rare in remote Tibet and Lhasa in particular because of tight police security that has blanketed the area since anti-government riots erupted in Lhasa in 2008, the Associated Press reported.

China struggles to contain wave of defiance in Tibet

Chinese authorities have confirmed some of the self-immolations over the past year but not all.

The twin immolations in the heart of Tibetan capital are certain to embarrass the region's communist leadership, who have pledged to make social stability and ethnic unity top priorities. That mandate is especially pressing this year as China prepares for a once-a-decade leadership transition in the fall and doesn't want the occasion undermined.

U.S.-funded radio broadcaster Voice of America said the two men worked at a Lhasa restaurant called Nyima Ling. It identified one of the men as 19-year-old Dorjee Tseten but was unable to give the name or age of the other.

Dalai Lama donates $1.7 million prize to charity

"This was the first time it has happened in Lhasa — and right in the middle of Lhasa," said Tenzin Tsundue, a Tibetan poet and one of the most prominent activists living in India.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Updated at 10:49 a.m. ET: LONDON - Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair was accused of being "a war criminal" by a heckler who burst into a courtroom as he testifed at an U.K. inquiry into media ethics on Monday. 

The protester, who gave his name as David Lawley-Wakelin, shouted that Blair should be arrested -- but only seconds later he was bundled away by security staff.

He yelled at Blair, who is a $2.5-million-a-year adviser to U.S. investment bank JP Morgan: "This man should be arrested for war crimes. JP Morgan paid him off for the Iraq war, three months after he invaded Iraq." 

In response to the outburst, Blair said: "Can I just say on the record what he said about Iraq and JP Morgan is completely and totally untrue. I have never had a discussion with them about that."

Lawley-Wakelin describes himself online as a documentary film-maker working on a project called the "The Alternative Iraq Enquiry", for which he has traveled to Iraq.

ITV News reported he was being questioned by police, but later released.

Sky News reported that an investigation was immediately launched into how he entered the secure area of the court - an embarrassing breach of security less than a year after Rupert Murdoch was hit by a custard pie at a inquiry into the same subject at Britain's parliament.

Prior to the interruption, Blair was facing questions about his relationship with Murdoch.

Blair, who served as prime minister between 1997 and 2007, was the latest senior politician to appear at the investigation set up last year in the wake of a phone-hacking scandal when it emerged that reporters at the Murdoch-owned News of the World tabloid had routinely hacked into the phones of public figures. Other witnesses have included actor Hugh Grant, as well as Murdoch and his son James.

More coverage from Britain's ITV News

Blair is godfather to one of the powerful News Corp. chairman and CEO.'s children.

Ordered by Prime Minister David Cameron, the inquiry has tarnished Britain's elite by laying bare the collusion between politicians, the police and the media.

While Blair is no longer active in British politics, the inquiry may still prove uncomfortable as it examines issues such as his decision after stepping down as prime minister to become a godfather to Murdoch's daughter Grace at a ceremony on the banks of the River Jordan.

"Blair led the way in having no shame about courting Murdoch," said Ivor Gaber, professor of political journalism at City University. "He set the style and the standard and if you regard Cameron as the 'heir to Blair' then it's not exactly surprising that he followed suit."

The BBC reported that, giving evidence earlier in May, one of Mr Blair's former Cabinet ministers told the inquiry he felt the relationship had "arguably" become "closer than wise".

Murdoch told the inquiry last month that he had never asked a prime minister for anything.

Blair set the tone for his relationship with Britain's press when he flew to Australia in 1995 to speak before a gathering of Murdoch's executives who had previously used their British tabloids to vilify his Labour Party predecessors.

'Into the lion's den'
The decision infuriated much of his left-of-center party who saw the Australian-born tycoon as a right-winger who had helped to keep them out of power for years.

"People would be horrified," Blair said later in his autobiography. "On the other hand ... not to go was to say 'carry on and do your worst,' and we knew their worst was very bad indeed."

"The country's most powerful newspaper proprietor, whose publications have hitherto been rancorous in their opposition to the Labour party, invites us into the lion's den. You go, don't you?"

With the backing of Murdoch's top-selling Sun tabloid, Blair swept to power in 1997 and again in 2001 and 2005. But with an ever-increasing reputation for public relations "spin", he started to face questions over his sincerity.

"Tony Blair quickly became famous in Fleet Street for inviting in one group of newspaper people and telling them how skeptical he was about Europe; and then inviting in another lot and telling them how keen he was on Europe," Andrew Marr, a senior BBC journalist, told the inquiry.

"But the different groups compared notes, and his reputation was not hugely enhanced."

Much of that came to a head when Blair and then President George W. Bush agreed to invade Iraq, going against the public opinion in Britain.

Blair is likely to be asked why he spoke to Murdoch three times in the days leading up to the Iraq war and whether this had any impact on the fact that all Murdoch's papers supported the unpopular invasion.

He will also be asked whether his reliance on Britain's press meant that he did not properly scrutinize their role in society and whether any group, such as Murdoch's UK arm, News International, had too much control of the market.

"There was a desperation to get the Sun onside and to get News International on side, basically at all costs," Liverpool University's political professor Jonathan Tonge, told Reuters. "And if that meant sacrificing a serious analysis of the relationship and the health of the relationship, then so be it." 

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Iran is to build a second nuclear power plant in the southern city of Bushehr, by early 2014, state television reported Sunday, according to news reports.

"Iran will build a 1,000-megawatt nuclear power plant in Bushehr next year," state television quoted Fereydoon Abbasi Davani, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation, as saying, according to a report on Afghanistan news site Tolo News.

He was referring to the Iranian calendar year, running from March 2013 to March 2014, the site said.

The current Bushehr nuclear plant was started by German engineers in the 1970s, before Iran's Islamic Revolution, and was completed by Russia, which continues to help keep it running and provides fuel for it, Tolo News said.

Iran has repeatedly said in recent years that it is planning to build more nuclear power plants but nothing has been offered to show that any work is under way, according to a report by The Associated Press.

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Two Americans have been arrested in connection the death of a female Irish exchange student in Japan, police in Tokyo were reported as saying on Sunday.

Nicola Furlong, 21, from County Wexford, Ireland, was found unconscious in a hotel room early on Thursday, hours after attending a concert by the rapper Nicki Minaj, the Irish Times said.

She was later confirmed dead at a hospital, where an autopsy indicated she may have been strangled.

The Irish Times said Furlong is believed to have gone to Keio Plaza Hotel in Shinjuku, a business and shopping hub in central Tokyo, after midnight with her female friend after the two met the American pair.

The Daily Yomiuri in Japan said police arrested two American men - a musician, 19, and a dancer, 23 - on suspicion of sexually assaulting Furlong's friend and fellow student, 21, in a taxi on the way to the hotel.

It said police suspect the men know how Furlong subsequently died.

The Japan Times said the 19-year-old suspect was alone in a room with Furlong when hotel staff went up to probe a complaint about loud noise.

None of the reports could be confirmed by msnbc.com.

Furling was attending Takasaki City University of Economics in Gunma Prefecture.

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Dita Alangkara / AP

Muslim men shout slogans during a rally against U.S. pop singer Lady Gaga outside the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, Friday.

Lady Gaga has canceled a sell-out concert in Indonesia amid security fears following threats from Muslim hardliners over her provocative outfits, it is reported.

Questions were raised about the ‘Born This Way Ball’ in Jakarta after the extremist Islamic Defenders Front predicted violence if it went ahead, calling the singer a “devil’s messenger” who wears only a “bra and panties” on stage, according to an Agence France-Presse report published by Al-Arabiya.

Concert promotion lawyer Minola Sebayang confirmed Sunday that the June 3 show had been canceled, The Associated Press reported.

Lady Gaga refused permit for Indonesia show following religious protests

He said: "With threats if the concert goes ahead, Lady Gaga's side is calling off the concert. This is not only about Lady Gaga's security, but extends to those who will be watching her." 

Indonesia is a secular nation, but with a population of 240 million has more Muslims than any other country in the world.

Pat Roque / AP

American pop singer and songwriter Lady Gaga waves to the crowd upon her arrival in Manila, Philippines, earlier this month.

The Jakarta show would have been the biggest performance on Lady Gaga's Asian tour, and more than 50,000 tickets had been sold, the BBC reported.

Promoters said they would offer refunds.

According to music news site NME.com, the singer’s tour kicked off in controversy in April after authorities in Seoul, South Korea implemented a strict adults only policy at her show, banning anyone under the age of 18 from attending her first tour date.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

KABUL - Eight civilians in one family, including six children, were killed in a NATO air strike after a field operation in Paktia province, local government officials told NBC News.

The incident took place at 8pm on Saturday in the Garda Serrai district, according the Paktia government spokesman Rohullah Samoon.

They were all members of one family, he said.

NATO said told NBC News it was taking the reports of the incident seriously and was investigating.

Samoon told Reuters said the air strike was not coordinated with Afghan security forces on the ground in the area.

Civilian casualties have been a major source of friction between President Hamid Karzai's government and U.S.-led NATO forces in Afghanistan, Reuters reported.

NATO is preparing to hand over all security responsibilities to Afghan forces and most foreign combat troops are scheduled to leave the country by the end of 2014.

Khyber Shinwari, NBC News, contributed to this report.

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Australia teenager Shaun Wilson-Miller died Saturday, just weeks after posting his emotional "My Final Goodbye" message that went viral on YouTube.

In the 17-year-old's video, intended for family and friends but seen by 1.9 million people by Sunday morning, the Melbourne schoolboy revealed he was suffering chronic heart rejection after his second transplant and that there could not be a third.

"I won't be here for as long as I thought,'' he said in the video.

"This has been an awesome ride. I have no regrets,” he said. “Live life to the fullest because you never know what's going to happen.''

Dad Cameron Miller said his son's positive outlook had never faltered, with Shaun giving him constant hugs in recent days, the Herald Sun reported Sunday.

"He passed peacefully with me holding his hand; that is something the family will hold with us,'' he told the Herald Sun.

Tributes immediately began flowing in from around the world and from his beloved Essendon Football Club, the newspaper said.

Shaun Wilson-Miller, as seen in his YouTube video, "My Final Goodbye."

He had also found love with a fellow heart patient, the Herald Sun reported.

Shaun had sighed: "The hardest thing for me is leaving her, knowing that I won't get to marry her. To have kids together. To grow old together. That is what makes me sad.''

He recently filmed a guest appearance on the Australian TV show “The Neighbors” and met Essendon captain Jobe Watson.
Condolences message on his parents Facebook pages include, "You showed so much courage for so long,'' ninemsn TV reported. "Fly high sweet angel."

A June 15 fundraiser Shaun was planning for Heartkids has now been turned into a tribute for the teen, ninemsn reported.

Follow Jim Gold at msnbc.com on Facebook here.

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A Dutch-born man who was on the Simon Wiesenthal Center's list of most-wanted Nazi criminals has died at age 90, the BBC reported.

Klaas Carel Faber, who served in an SS unit, was sentenced to death in 1947 for the deaths of 22 Jews at the Westerbork transit camp, the BBC said. Westerbork was the transit point to concentration camps for thousands of Dutch Jews, including Anne Frank.

Faber's term was commuted to life, but he escaped in 1952 and fled to Germany. There, he received German citizenship and avoided multiple attempts to extradite him.

He died in the southern Bavarian town of Ingolstadt, The Associated Press reported, citing a hospital official. The cause reportedly was kidney failure.

Germany refused to extradite him, and a prosecutor in Ingolstadt recently filed a motion to have him serve his sentence in Germany, the BBC said.

Watch World News videos on msnbc.com

Faber was from the western Dutch city of Haarlem. He served in an SS unit known as Kommando Feldmeijer -- which killed about 50 Dutch civilians in reprisal for resistance attacks, the BBC said.

The BBC said a member of the same SS unit, Heinrich Boere, was given a life sentence by a court in the German city of Aachen in 2010 for the murder of three civilians in 1944. Faber's brother, Pieter, was executed for war crimes in 1948.

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Toshiaki Shimizu / AFP - Getty Images

Goshi Hosono, Japan's environment minister, shows reporters the fuel rod pool at Fukushima's No. 4 reactor on Saturday.

FUKUSHIMA, Japan -- Amid concerns of a new disaster should a quake destroy the pool cooling off radioactive nuclear fuel rods at Fukushima's Reactor No. 4, Japan on Saturday arranged a tour for journalists and declared the situation manageable -- but also very long term.

"I don't think the situation is unstable," said Goshi Hosono, Japan's environment minister and the man in charge of the cleanup. He was speaking to reporters after his first tour of the twisted and partly destroyed building that houses the reactor.

Hosono said he expected workers to begin removing fuel from the reactor's storage pool next year.

Work began last month to raise what amounts to a giant tent over the building to keep radioactive dust from scattering during the transport of the fuel rods, which now are under just a tarp at the top of the building.

Hosono said his biggest concern was ensuring Japan could secure the labor and talent to finish the decommissioning of the Fukushima reactors over the coming decades. 

"This may take 30 or even 40 years to complete and extremely difficult work is still ahead of us," he said.

Tokyo Electric Power, the utility that operates the Fukushima Daiichi plant, says its analysis shows the No. 4 reactor building would hold up in a strong earthquake even after being badly damaged by a hydrogen explosion when three nearby reactors suffered meltdowns in March 2011.

Japanese safety regulators on Friday ordered Tepco to recheck its findings after measurements showed the west wall of the reactor building was buckling out by about 1.2 inches.

Some experts believe the fuel in the pool is now too weak to generate much radioactivity, but others are still worried.

"The No. 4 reactor is visibly damaged and in a fragile state, down to the floor that holds the spent fuel pool," Hiroaki Koide, an assistant professor at Kyoto University’s Research Reactor Institute, told the New York Times. "Any radioactive release could be huge and go directly into the environment." 

Hosono said the government accepted Tepco's estimate that the No. 4 reactor could withstand an earthquake measuring a "strong 6" on the Japanese scale.

The magnitude 9 quake last March that triggered a tsunami and overran Fukushima's backup power systems was measured at 7 on the Japanese scale.

Some environmental critics charge the No. 4 reactor presents a particular risk of a knock-on disaster if a subsequent earthquake were to topple it or puncture its fuel storage pool and allow the 65 feet of water now covering and cooling 1,535 uranium fuel assemblies to drain away.

Such an accident, they say, could release far more radiation than the leaks of radioactive water Tepco has battled since improvising a system for cooling reactor cores last year.

Hosono climbed a narrow and dark staircase built with scaffolding to take reporters to the top of the No. 4 building where the fuel pool has been covered with a tarp.

Tepco has taken steps to shore up support for the pool, which measures  30 feet by 60 feet across, by adding a cement column underneath.

Officials from the utility demonstrated how they were using water in the pool as a kind of level to confirm the building was not tipping. They also showed a grid of floats holding up the tarp they said could support a person if a worker fell in.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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BEIJING -- The brother of blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng who was reported to have gone missing has returned to his village in northeastern China, a lawyer said on Saturday.

The short disappearance of Chen Guangfu had sparked concerns he was the latest target of government reprisals against the family of the activist, who escaped from his village in late April after 19 months of detention at home.

Shandong-based lawyer Liu Weiguo told Reuters Chen Guangfu had returned to Dongshigu village. Liu earlier said the activist was "very worried" about his brother's disappearance and was contacting friends to look for him.

 "Brother Fu is now home," Liu said, adding he had received a text message from Chen Guangfu on Saturday night.

Chen Guangfu had left his village on Tuesday and arrived in Beijing on Wednesday to seek legal help for his son who is detained on a charge of attempted murder. Friends and family had tried to contact him since Friday evening after it appeared he did not return to his hotel room in Beijing that night.

His son Chen Kegui, 32, was charged with "intentional homicide" for using knives to fend off local officials who burst into his home on April 27, the day after they discovered his uncle had escaped.

Blind Chinese activist Chen in US: 'Promote justice and fairness in China'

He could face the death penalty. His lawyers, denied access to him last week, said he did not kill anyone.

On Wednesday, Chen Guangfu had recounted to Reuters details of his own torture and reprisals by authorities since his brother's escape.

He said he was restricted from leaving his village, and police in Shandong warned him they would increase his son's sentence if he gave interviews.

Read more news about China on NBC's Behind the Wall

Activist Chen Guangcheng took refuge in the U.S. embassy last month, where he stayed for six days and sparked a diplomatic crisis between China and the United States.

That crisis, which overshadowed a visit by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, was finally defused last Saturday when China allowed Chen to fly to the United States to study.

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Updated 5:39 a.m. ET Sunday: The perpetrators of a massacre that left more than 92 dead – including 32 young children – in Houla, Syria “must be identified and held to account," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Sunday.

The United Nations said the victims died in what activists described as an artillery barrage by government forces in the worst violence since the start of a peace plan to slow the flow of blood in Syria's uprising.

The bloodied bodies of children, some with their skulls split open, were shown in footage posted to YouTube purporting to show the victims of the shelling in the central town on Friday. The sound of wailing filled the room.

Clinton issued a statement early Sunday saying the United States condemned the attack “in the strongest possible terms”. She also issued a warning for the country's leader, President Bashar Assad.

“Those who perpetrated this atrocity must be identified and held to account,” she said. “And the United States will work with the international community to intensify our pressure on Assad and his cronies, whose rule by murder and fear must come to an end.

“We stand in solidarity with the Syrian people and the peaceful marchers in cities across Syria who have taken to the streets to denounce the massacre.”

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said he was coordinating a "strong response" to the killings and would call for the U.N. Security Council to meet in the coming days. 

Activists said Assad's forces shelled  Houla after security forces killed a protester and following skirmishes between troops and fighters from the Sunni Muslim-led insurgency fighting Syria's rulers, who belong to the minority Alawite sect.

However, Syrian authorities denied responsibility. "Women, children and old men were shot dead. This is not the hallmark of the heroic Syrian army," the country's foreign ministry spokesman Jihad Makdesi told reporters in Damascus on Sunday, according to Reuters.

Earlier, Syrian state television aired some of the footage disseminated by activists after the killing, calling the bodies victims of a massacre committed by "terrorist" gangs.

The carnage underlined just how far Syria is from any negotiated path out of the 14-month-old revolt against Assad. 

Reuters

These were among the bodies being prepared for burial in Houla, Syria, on Saturday.

The U.N. first reported the massacre on Friday. "The observers confirmed from examination of ordinances the use of artillery tank shells," Maj. Gen. Robert Mood said in a statement, without elaborating. "Whoever started, whoever responded and whoever carried out this deplorable act of violence should be held responsible."

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said residents continued to flee the town, in central Homs province, in fear that artillery fire would resume.

Syria calls the revolt a "terrorist" conspiracy run from abroad, a veiled reference to Sunni Muslim Gulf powers that want to see weapons provided to an insurgency led by Syria's majority Sunnis against Assad, a member of the minority Alawite sect.

The U.N. says more than 9,000 people have been killed, most of them civilians, in the uprising. 

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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PAKISTAN -- A U.S. drone strike killed three suspected militants early Saturday in Pakistan’s North Waziristan region near the Afghan border, NBC News reports.

Pakistani security officials based in the area said the drone fired two missiles and hit a small building at Razmak Adda in Miranshah bazaar. Officials told NBC News three people were killed and two others had been injured.

"Two of the injured taken to hospital were in critical condition," a security official told NBC News.

The security official said there was no immediate information regarding identities or nationalities of the victims, but added that many foreigners have been living in the Miranshah market area, where they have access to electricity and telephone service.

The United States has been urging Pakistani officials to mount an offensive in the area to pursue members of the Haqqani militant network, one of Washington's most feared foes in neighboring Afghanistan.

The controversial drone program, a key element in U.S. counter-terrorism efforts, is highly unpopular in Pakistan, where it is considered a violation of sovereignty that causes unacceptable civilian casualties.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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Tanya Brown

Peter Ross, seen here holding a harbor seal off southern Vancouver Island, is one of 75 staff losing their jobs with the closure of Canada's marine pollution program.

Canada has been sending letters to government scientists notifying them that their jobs will be eliminated or affected by the closure of the country's marine pollution program -- but at least one isn't going without making some noise.

"It's perplexing that we face the loss of this program, given the 25,000 chemicals on the market and the ever-increasing threats posed by shipping and oil and gas exploration and development in temperate and Arctic waters," Peter Ross told msnbc.com. Ross is perhaps Canada's best known marine scientist for his work on identifying killer whales as the most contaminated marine mammals on the planet. 

"As can be expected when one is told their position is being terminated, one is shocked and saddened," he added. "However, when told that the entire pollution research and monitoring program for Canada's oceans is being eliminated, I was speechless."

The program, which employs 75 staff, is set to be shut down by April 1, 2013, the Victoria Times Colonist reported. 

"I cannot think of another industrialized nation that has completely excised marine pollution from its radar," Ross said.

The program is under the Department of Fisheries, which is shedding a total of 400 jobs. More than 600 others will be "affected." Of the some 1,000 jobs impacted, three quarters are with the Canadian Coast Guard.

A Department of Fisheries spokesperson told the Colonist that the cuts would produce $79 million in savings and that an advisory group from academia and the private sector would instead provide advice.

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Ross countered that those groups wouldn't be as accountable as government agencies are. "I can't think of any scientist or agency outside of government that is held to account on issues related to public health, the health of marine fish or mammals, or the identification of emerging pollution concerns in the coastal environment," he said.

Ross also published an opinion piece, titled "Silent Summer," on environmentalhealthnews.org. He concludes:

"It is with apprehension that I ponder a Canada without any research or monitoring capacity for pollution in our three oceans, or any ability to manage its impacts on commercial fish stocks, traditional foods for over 300,000 aboriginal people and marine wildlife. 

"Canada's silence on these issues will be deafening this summer and beyond."

So what's the plan for Ross? "My personal and professional hope," he said, "is to transfer somehow to a university where I will be able to continue to work on ocean pollution priorities."

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