Scott Fisher / Getty Images

People rescued after their boat capsized north of Australia arrive at Christmas Island Friday.

Officials in Australia said 109 people had been rescued after a boat carrying refugees apparently fleeing life in Afghanistan capsized more than 120 miles north of Christmas Island, but warned it was looking "increasingly grim" for up to 100 other people still in the water.

Merchant and navy ships and five aircraft were involved in the search for survivors a day after a crowded boat turned over far from land in the Indian Ocean. A 13-year-old boy was among those rescued.

However planes flying over the area spotted a number of bodies in the water.

Home Affairs Minister Jason Clare told Sky News Australia that people "should brace for more bad news" on the number of dead, The Australian newspaper reported.

"No good news... I can't report that (surveillance aircraft) have seen people alive in the water at this point in time," Clare added. "This is looking increasingly grim by the hour,'' he told Macquarie Radio.

He said the ocean was "pretty rough," but added "we are still in that critical window" for the rescue operation, The Australian said.

Clare said everyone on board the boat appeared to be from Afghanistan.

Authorities in Australia believe the boat started its journey in Indonesia, not Sri Lanka, as initially suggested by some in Indonesia, The Australian reported.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard, attending the United Nations Rio summit in Brazil, told reporters that "details are sketchy, but what is apparent is that there has been a large loss of life at sea."

'Perilous journeys'
Sky News Australia reported that the United Nations High Commission for Refugees had called on Australia to find safer ways for asylum seekers to seek protection.

The UNHCR said the boat's capsizing "reinforces the need for renewed international solidarity and cooperation to find protection options for people that would help to reduce the need for these perilous journeys by boat."

"UNHCR calls on Australia and countries in the region to redouble their efforts to provide safer and more secure options for people to find protection other than through these dangerous and exploitative boat journeys," it added in a statement.

Fears for 200 refugees as boat capsizes north of Australia

Refugees are a hot political issue in Australia. So far this year, more than 50 boats carrying more than 4,000 people have been detected by Australian authorities.

Refugees seeking asylum in Australia often set sail from Indonesia heading for Australia's Indian Ocean territory of Christmas Island in dangerous and overcrowded boats, with the help of people smugglers.

In December 2011, up to 200 died when an overcrowded boat sank off the coast of East Java.

In 2010, 50 asylum seekers died when their boat was thrown onto rocks at Christmas Island. In 2001, a crowded boat known as the SIEV X sank on its way to Australia with the loss of 350 lives.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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Erin A. Kirk-Cuomo / Department of Defense via EPA

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta (right) exchanges greetings with Saudi Defense Minister Crown Prince Salman bin Abd al-Aziz Al Saud.

Nearly one year ago, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta predicted the strategic defeat of al-Qaida was within reach if the United States could kill or capture up to 20 leaders of the core group and its affiliates.

In an interview with Reuters, Panetta disclosed that only a "small handful" of the individuals on that original list remained on the battlefield and that Saudi Arabia -- the birthplace of late al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden -- was reporting a drop-off in recruitment.

"We've not only impacted on their leadership, we've impacted on their capability to provide any kind of command and control in terms of operations," Panetta said Thursday.

The U.S. defense chief visited Saudi Arabia on Wednesday and, after paying U.S. condolences over the death of the late crown prince, spoke about al-Qaida with one of his sons, Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, who has run the kingdom's operations against the terror network as a deputy interior minister.

"I asked him the question, ‘As a result of the bin Laden raid, as a result of what we've done to their leadership, where are we with al-Qaida?’" Panetta recounted, adding that al-Qaida and bin Laden "came out of Saudi Arabia."

"Bin Nayef said, ‘For the first time, what I'm seeing is that young people are no longer attracted to al-Qaida in Saudi Arabia,'" he said.

Panetta did not single out which leaders from his target list last year remained, but current al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahri is one he named last year. He is still believed to be living in the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

SITE via AP

Al-Qaida's leader Ayman al-Zawahri in a still image from a web posting by al-Qaida's media arm, as-Sahab, Sunday, Feb. 12, 2012.

Asked how many targets remained, Panetta said, "It's a small handful and it's growing smaller all the time."

Panetta to Pakistan: 'Time to move on'
On other topics, Panetta in the interview:

• Defended the U.S. decision not to arm opponents of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, but said he was concerned that shoulder-fired missiles stolen from Libya last year could make their way to Syria. He said he had seen no direct intelligence yet suggesting they had.
• All but ruled out an apology over an air strike last year that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, as Islamabad has demanded, saying it was "time to move on" in the troubled U.S.-Pakistan relationship.
• Said Iraq had given assurances to the United States that it would not release a suspected Hezbollah operative accused of killing American troops, whom the United States turned over to Iraqi custody last December just before the last U.S. troops exited the country.

Drones, computers new weapons of US shadow wars

After addressing questions about the future of al-Qaida's top leadership, Panetta shifted his focus to the group's ability to survive as a movement at all.

"We'll keep the pressure on at the top and we'll keep going after their leadership," Panetta said.

"But the real issue that will determine the end of al-Qaida is when they find it difficult to recruit any new people,” he added.

The killing of bin Laden in a covert U.S. raid in Pakistan last year has been followed by a series of unmanned aerial attacks that have crushed al-Qaida's network along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan.

Taliban kill 9 hotel guests, take 50 hostage in Kabul attack

The latest high-profile al-Qaida leader killed in the U.S. campaign was Abu Yahya al-Libi, the group's second-in-command, who broke out of a high-security U.S. prison in neighboring Afghanistan in 2005 and was a key strategist.

Beyond the Afghan-Pakistan region, another key figure killed last year was Anwar al-Awlaki, an American imam who became a senior leader of al-Qaida's Yemen-based affiliate.

While successful tactically, the drone strikes have further poisoned U.S.-Pakistan relations and, critics say, raise questions about international law and could boost militant recruiting.

Only about eight hard-core al-Qaida leaders are still believed to be based in the lawless borderlands of Afghanistan and Pakistan, compared with dozens a few years ago.

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Updated at 7:38 a.m. ET Friday: KABUL – Guests swam for their lives after five Taliban gunmen attacked a lakeside hotel in Afghanistan, killing at least 18 people and taking 50 others hostage in a siege lasting several hours, according to reports.

The militants -- armed with rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine guns -- attacked the exclusive Spozhmai hotel in the Qargha Lake recreation area late Thursday, bursting into a private party and shooting dead hotel workers. 

The local police chief told NBC News that all five insurgents were killed. The Associated Press quoted local police as saying the civilian death toll was 18 - including hotel guards and a policeman - and likely to climb. 

Many terrified guests jumped into the lake in darkness to escape the carnage, according to Afghan officials and local residents.

More photos: Afghan, NATO forces fight back after Taliban gunmen take hostages at lakeside hotel

Ahmad Jamshid / AP

A soldier from NATO-led forces, center, outside the Spozhmai hotel after the attack came to an end on Friday.

Reuters journalist Hamid Shalizi reported that the guests were a party of wealthy Afghans.

NBC News producer Cheryll Simpson said on Twitter that heavy gunfire could be heard from the hotel, which is about six miles from the center of Kabul.

The Afghan Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying the hotel was used for "prostitution, alcohol and immorality," she reported.

For the deeply conservative Taliban, men and women who simply mingle, perhaps flirt, are condemned as pimps and prostitutes who deserve punishment sanctioned by God.

8-year-old cleaner tells of attack
Rasoul Khan, 8, who works as a cleaner at the hotel, told Reuters that Taliban gunmen “were asking everyone where the pimps were. They shot anyone who would not co-operate with them."

The young boy had a facial injury.

With a quavering voice, Ebadullah, 14, another cleaner at the hotel, described how one of his friends wet himself when an insurgent demanded information on the whereabouts of other guests.

Musadeq Sadeq / AP

People hide from militants outside the Spozhmai hotel on Lake Qurgha during an attack on the hotel on Friday.

"He cried and said that he was an orphan and was the only bread winner for his family," he told Reuters. 

At a military hospital in Kabul where the wounded were treated, engineer Salder Rahi recalled how he had gone to the hotel to meet his brother and three friends. By the end of the ordeal, his sibling was among the dead.

"They opened fire on everybody. Everybody just ran. There was a party outside and I saw the father shot dead and his wife wounded," Rahi told Reuters.

Massoud Hossaini / AFP - Getty Images

NATO UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters fly near the Spozhmai Hotel in Qargha lake in the outskirts of Kabul in the early hours of Friday.

Abdullah Samadi, 24, was just settling in at the hotel when he heard a huge blast from an RPG, followed by gunfire. "We tried to escape, but we were surrounded by suicide bombers. We hid ourselves beneath a tree until morning. God protected us," he said.

The gunmen, Samadi said, had been closely watching their prisoners and searching for illegal stocks of wine.

"Around dawn they came closer to us and we had to jump in the water," he said. "We were there until 9 a.m. and then the situation got better and we slowly, slowly swam toward security forces."

Elite Afghan quick-response police backed by NATO troops freed the remaining hostages and killed the gunmen in an operation that only began in earnest after sunrise to help security forces avoid unnecessary civilian deaths in night-time confusion.

Two NATO attack helicopters could be seen over the single-story hotel building and a balcony popular with guests for its sunset views.

'Crime against humanity'
The incident again highlighted the ability of the Afghan Taliban to stage high-profile attacks even as NATO nations prepare to withdraw most combat troops by the end of 2014, leaving Afghan forces to take the lead against the insurgency.

Authorities are about midway through a transition process during which security responsibility is being handed from NATO-led foreign troops to Afghan forces.

"This is a crime against humanity because they targeted children, women and civilians picnicking at the lake. There wasn't even a single soldier around there," said General Mohammad Zahir, head of the Kabul police investigation unit.

Qargha Lake is one of Kabul's few options for weekend getaways. Restaurants and hotels that dot the shore are popular with Afghan government officials and businessmen, particularly on Thursday nights.

Slideshow: Afghanistan: Nation at a crossroads

Ahmad Jamshid / AP

More than ten years after the beginning of the war, Afghanistan faces external pressure to reform as well as ongoing internal conflicts.

Launch slideshow

Guests at the Spozhmai must pass through hotel security before entering the hotel, where tables with umbrellas overlook the water, but security is relatively light for a city vulnerable to militant attacks.

Violence across Afghanistan has surged in recent days, with three U.S. soldiers and more than a dozen civilians killed in successive attacks, mostly in the country's east where NATO-led forces have focused their efforts during the summer fighting months.

Several well-planned assaults in Kabul in the past year have raised questions about whether the Taliban and their al Qaeda-linked Haqqani network allies have shifted tactics to embrace high-profile attacks targeting landmarks, foreigners and Afghanistan's elite, extending a guerrilla war once primarily waged in the countryside.

Afghan insurgents attacked Kabul's heavily protected diplomatic and government district on April 15 in an assault, eventually quelled by Afghan special forces guided by Western mentors, similar to one in September 2011.

President Hamid Karzai told a special session of parliament on Thursday that attacks by insurgents against Afghan police and soldiers were increasing as most foreign combat troops prepare to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014. 

Reuters contributed to this report.

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Farah Abdi Warsameh / AP

Deborah Calitz, left, and Bruno Pelizzari appeared at a news conference hours after they were released by their captors in Mogadishu, Somalia. The two South Africans were held hostage for 20 months.

Two South African sailors were released Thursday after being held captive by Somali pirates for 20 months, according to news reports.

Hussein Arab Isse, Somalia's defense minister, said the Somali army and security forces helped release Deborah Calitz and Bruno Pelizzari, both about 50. Reuters reported that the couple appeared gaunt and ashen at Isse’s side at a press conference hours after their release.

Calitz and Pelizzari were kidnapped by 12 pirates while working aboard the Choizil in October 2010, as the yacht was about to enter the Mozambique channel on its return trip to South Africa.

At the time of their capture, the pirates set a $10 million ransom, although Somali elders told the Agence France-Presse that the amount paid was closer to $750,000.

The couple's captivity is among the longest time hostages have been held by Somali pirates. A British couple, Paul and Rachel Chandler, were kidnapped from their yacht and held for more than a year; they were freed in November 2010.

Somali pirates free kidnapped UK couple after a year

Kidnapping sailors has proven to be a lucrative business for the pirates, many of whom are young Somali men whose prospects have become increasingly limited by two decades of famine and war. Last year, Reuters reported, pirates collected $150 million from ransoms.

The European Union launched a robust anti-piracy effort in Somalia in 2008; the EU Naval Force’s mission is, in part, to protect humanitarian vessels bringing food to war-torn Somalia.

EU forces attack Somali pirates on land for first time

Although the EU has dispatched 10 naval ships since 2008 to patrol the waters off the Horn of Africa, according to the BBC, the pirates still have 213 hostages. At Thursday’s press conference, Isse said more raids would follow.

"We know the whereabouts of the rest of the hostages, including the French agent, and if the kidnappers fail to free them, we will forcefully rescue them," Isse said, according to AFP, referring to an intelligence agent kidnapped in Mogadishu in 2009.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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MEXICO CITY - Jesus Alfredo Guzman, to be the son of Mexico’s most wanted drug gang boss “El Chapo,” it believed to have been captured, officials in the country said Thursday.

A man suspected to be Jesus Alfredo was held in the western state of Jalisco on Thursday morning, the Navy said in a statement.

His father Joaquin Guzman - nicknamed “Shorty,” or "El Chapo" in Spanish - escaped a Mexican jail in a laundry cart in 2001 and runs the Sinaloa cartel, arguably the country's most powerful gang. 

Drug violence in Mexico has exploded over the last decade, and there have been more than 55,000 drug-related killings since President Felipe Calderon took office in December 2006. 

One killed every half hour in Mexico drug-related violence

Thursday's arrest comes just over week before Mexico votes for a new president. The ruling National Action Party has lost support due to the drug violence ravaging the country. The constitution bars Calderon from running for re-election. 

The U.S. Treasury said last month Americans were banned from doing any business with two of Guzman's sons, who were identified as Ivan Guzman and Ovidio Guzman, under the terms of the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act. 

Cross-border methamphetamine trade booms amid Mexico's 'war on drugs'

Reuters contributed to this report

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Berit Roald/EPA

Confessed mass killer Anders Behring Breivik, right, gives a relaxed smile moments before prosecutors delivered their closing arguments in the Oslo courthouse, Thursday.

Prosecutors asked a Norwegian court on Thursday to declare far-right mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik insane and commit him to a mental institution.

While not certain that Breivik was not responsible for his actions, they chose to give him the benefit of the doubt in the face of conflicting psychiatric reports, and so to go against the view of most Norwegians that he should go to prison.

"In our opinion, it's worse to send a psychotic person to preventive detention than to send a non-psychotic person to mandatory care," prosecutor Svein Holden told the court.

"We are not convinced that Anders Behring Breivik is legally insane, but we are in doubt. So our petition is for a judgment that he shall be transferred to compulsory mental health care,” he added.

Held indefinitely
If the court agrees with the prosecution's request, Breivik could be held indefinitely, receiving treatment in a secure ward set up in a high-security prison. His presence there would come up for review every three years.

If the court opts for a prison term instead, prosecutors said their preference would be the maximum sentence of 21 years. A sentence can be extended beyond that if a prisoner is considered a menace to society, The Associated Press reported.

Norway prison seeks 'friends' to play hockey, chess with mass killer Breivik

Three out of four Norwegians consider Breivik sane enough for a jail term, according to a poll carried out for the public broadcaster NRK. Many find it hard to understand how someone could be insane and yet spend years planning such a spectacular attack so meticulously.

A pre-trial psychiatric report that found him to be insane created such an outcry that the court ordered another one, which came to the opposite conclusion.

Breivik: I'm sane
Breivik admits to killing 77 people in twin attacks last July, most of them teenagers at a Labour Party summer camp.

He says he should be declared sane, but acquitted on grounds that he was defending the Norwegian people by fighting the supporters of Muslim immigration.

If the court finds him to have been insane, he has said that it will be "worse than death", and he will appeal.

Earlier in the trial, Breivik said the psychiatric dimension of the case was a way for Norwegian authorities to ridicule him and divert attention from his ideology.

Tears as victim's brother throws shoe at Norway mass killer Anders Breivik

Breivik claims Norway and Europe are being colonized by Muslims, who make up about 2 percent of Norway's population. 

He first detonated a bomb outside government headquarters in Oslo to create a diversion, then systematically gunned down 69 people, mostly teenagers, at a summer camp run by the ruling Labour Party on the island of Utoeya.

"What is most incomprehensible is how unaffected he was by his acts," prosecutor Inga Bejer Engh said. "He described without remorse or feeling how these young people begged for their lives, and how he shot them in the head to make sure they were dead."

The trial ends with closing defense arguments on Friday. The two professional and three lay judges are due to reach a verdict by August 24.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Greg Wood/AFP-Getty Images

The Australian Museum exhibits a reconstructed model of a "diprotodon", an ancient rhino-sized mega-wombat on Thursday.

A mass grave of prehistoric “giant wombats” – a marsupial the size of a rhinoceros – has been discovered in Australia, according to reports.

The discovery of about 50 diprotodon skeletons was the biggest to date and could shed light on why the animal become extinct, BBC News reported.

Diprotodon, a relative of the modern wombat, was the largest marsupial that ever lived and had a pouch that was large enough to carry an adult human.

According to the Australian Museum, it was “widespread across Australia when the first indigenous people arrived, co-existing with them for thousands of years before becoming extinct about 25,000 years ago.” Fortunately for the people, diprotodon ate plants.

“Exact reasons for the extinction of Diprotodon remain unclear. It seems to have co-existed with Aboriginal people for over 20,000 years, so the 'blitzkrieg' model (extinction upon the arrival of humans) does not hold for Diprotodon,” according to a post on the Museum’s website.

“Human activity may have had an effect, either through habitat change ('firestick farming') or perhaps via a slow decrease in numbers through selected hunting of juveniles. Aboriginal people did not have 'big game' weapons, and most likely did not target adult Diprotodon,” it says.

“Climate change may have also been a significant factor. During the Pleistocene, Australia experienced droughts that were much worse than today's, and much of inland Australia was barren, inhospitable and waterless,” it adds.

'Blown away'
The fossils were discovered at the South Walker Creek mine site  in central Queensland by the Barada Barna people, according to the Queensland Museum, where the lead scientist on the project, Scott Hocknull, is based.

"When we did the initial survey I was just completely blown away by the concentrations of these fragments,” Hocknull told BBC News.

"It's a paleontologists' goldmine where we can really see what these megafauna were doing, how they actually behaved, what their ecology was,” he added. "With so many fossils it gives us a unique opportunity to see these animals in their environment, basically, so we can reconstruct it."

He said it was thought the animals died after they became trapped in a bog. The remains of other species, such as 20-foot lizards called megalania and giant crocodiles, were also found at the site.

"We're almost certain that most of these carcasses of diprotodon have been torn apart by both the crocodiles and the lizards, because we've found shed teeth within their skeletons from both animals,” Hocknull told the BBC.

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BEIJING – They say working with animals on screen can be maddeningly unpredictable, even with Zen-like patience. 

So there could be no better person to test that theory than a Buddhist monk, right? 

Yen Shen, a monk who serves as a director of the Cangzhou Buddhist Association in China’s Hebei province was at Mount Emei – a popular tourist site and home to a well-known Buddhist temple – in western Sichuan shooting a little video about the beauty of the region.

With lush forest and fog draped valleys behind him, Yen was speaking poetically about the beauty of the region and the need to take time to connect with nature. “As the years pass, let us bless our friends, let us bless everything,” he waxes on poetically in the video, “when the year’s pass let us bless spring and the autumn.”

That’s when the monkey business starts. (Click to watch the video above). 

Just 10 seconds into his monologue, what looks like a Tibetan macaque next to him starts grabbing Yen’s robes and playing with them. Showing incredible TV professional poise though, Yen continues talking about Buddhist spirituality without skipping a beat.

Then 1:30 into the video, two macaques run up and jump onto Yen, turning him into a human jungle gym. Yen appears momentarily frozen in panic, but recovers and then continues talking; ignoring the growing giggles and chatter of onlookers.

A third monkey joins in on the fun at 1:58, before someone hands one of the macaques what appears to be a cookie and pulls Yen out of the way.

Further attempts to continue the video are derailed as one monkey who will not be denied his 15 minutes of fame, perches itself next to Yen and starts clutching his robe, only letting go long enough to devour more biscuits handed to him just off screen by a helper.

As biscuit after biscuit is handed over to the ravenous monkey, Yen simply looks at him with seeming amusement, all while passersby yell advice on how to deal with the monkeys and urge him to look back up at the camera and continue.

The video has racked up almost 1 million hits since it was posted on Sina, the Chinese web site, Wednesday. Online commentators mostly express admiration for Yen’s ability to keep talking despite the distraction. Strangely though, many more commentators seemed interested in discussing the monk’s “strange” accent as much as the rambunctious macaques.

Regardless, a marvelous big screen debut by both man and monkeys. 

Reuters TV

Survivors from a boat that capsized in Indonesian waters lie on stretchers on the jetty at Christmas Island in this still image taken from video on Friday.

A boat carrying about 200 refugees capsized in Indonesian waters 120 nautical miles north of Australia's Christmas Island and many are feared drowned, authorities said Thursday.

Western Australia police commissioner Karl O'Callaghan said a ''large number'' of the people on the boat were feared dead, The Australian newspaper reported.

''There were about 200 refugees on board we think. Currently there's about 40 on the hull and the rest are in the water,'' O'Callaghan told the paper.

''Some of the very early reports suggest that up to 75 people may have drowned, but I do stress that they are unconfirmed at this stage,'' he added.

The Australian cited an Indonesian official as saying 100 people from Sri Lanka were reportedly on board the ship.

People-smugglers?
An Australian customs spokesman said border protection had detected what was believed to be a people-smuggling boat in distress earlier on Thursday.

"Indonesian navy ships are on their way there now," Indonesia's National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) spokesman Gagah Prakoso told Reuters.

The sinking occurred within Indonesia's search and rescue zone and Australian authorities were offering assistance, Australia's Maritime Safety Authority said.

Refugees seeking asylum in Australia often set sail from Indonesia heading for Christmas Island in dangerous and overcrowded boats.

As many as 200 died when an overcrowded boat sank off the coast of East Java in December, 2011. Fifty asylum seekers travelling from Indonesia to Christmas Island died when a storm dashed their boat onto rocks in December 2010. In 2001, a crowded boat known as the SIEV X sank on its way to Australia with the loss of 350 lives.

 Australia's Indian Ocean territory of Christmas Island, south of Indonesia, is a popular destination for asylum seekers, who travel by often crowded boats from Indonesia, with the help of people smugglers.

So far this year, more than 50 boats carrying a total of more than 4,000 asylum seekers have been detected by Australian authorities. 

Reuters contributed to this report.

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- / AFP - Getty Images

A handout picture obtained from Ammon News and supplied by Syrian activists shows the Syrian air force Russian-made MiG-21 plane that a pilot landed with in the King Hussein military base in Mafraq in northern Jordan on Thursday.

Updated at 10:45 a.m. ET: A Syrian fighter pilot flew his plane to Jordan on Thursday and was granted political asylum, the first defection of an air force pilot with his plane during the 15-month uprising against President Bashar Assad.

Jordanian Information Minister Sameeh Maaytah confirmed that the pilot had defected, with the plane landing in Jordan at 10:45 a.m. local time (3:45 a.m. ET), The Associated Press reported.

Maaytah later told Reuters that the pilot had been granted political asylum by the Jordanian authorities.

Initially, three Jordanian officials said the Russian-made MiG-21 made an emergency landing at the northern King Hussein Air Base in Mafraq, 43 miles north of the Jordanian capital and near the Syrian border, while Syrian state TV reported its authorities had lost contact with the jet during a training mission.

Syrian state TV, the rebel Free Syrian Army, and a Jordanian security official all said the pilot was a colonel named Hassan Merei Hammadeh.

Reports: West may offer Syria's Bashar Assad immunity if he gives up power

The Jordanian official -- who insisted on anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the matter -- said the pilot took off his air force tag and kneeled on the ground in prayer at the air base after he landed his aircraft.

A spokesman for the rebel Free Syrian Army, Ahmad Kassem, said the group had encouraged the pilot to defect and monitored his activity until the jet landed safely in Jordan.

The defection could have serious repercussions on relations between Jordan and Syrian, which so far have maintained their business ties despite political tensions between them.

Jordan has taken in 125,000 Syrian refugees, including hundreds of army and police defectors, which Syria has desperately sought their extradition.

Since an uprising against Assad's regime began in March last year, Syrian troops have refrained from using military warplanes against rebels.

Evacuated thwarted by gunfire
Meanwhile, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said Thursday that its aid workers were forced to turn back as they tried to begin the evacuation of wounded and sick people from the city of Homs.

PhotoBlog: Syrian army shells Homs and Qusayr

The independent aid agency said on Wednesday that Syrian forces and rebel militants had agreed to its request for a humanitarian truce to evacuate trapped civilians and the wounded after more than 10 days of intense fighting.

"An ICRC and Syrian Arab Red Crescent team was heading to the old city of Homs early this morning, however we had to turn back due to the shooting," ICRC spokesman Hicham Hassan told Reuters. "We will attempt to go back to the area today (Thursday) in order to evacuate persons wounded and sick, women and children."

NBC News, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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LONDON -- British doctors staged their first strike in nearly 40 years Thursday over plans to increase the amount they pay into their pension fund and make them work until they are 68, ITV News reported.

The government says doctors would receive more than $105,000 a year after the age of 68 under its proposals.

However the British Medical Association, which represents doctors, says the highest earning doctors will have to pay 14.5 percent of their pay into the pension fund by 2014, compared with 8.5 percent in March 2012.

They also claim the new deal would actually leave retired doctors worse off.

Read more stories from ITV News

ITV News reported that early polls suggested as few as 22 percent of the BMA's more than 100,000 members were taking part in the strike.

"Nobody is happy about taking any kind of action that impacts adversely on patients. There has been a lot of soul searching in the BMA, but we have to represent our members' views and nearly three-quarters of those who voted wanted to take this kind of action because they were so angry about what was happening to their pensions," Hamish Meldrum, chairman of the BMA, told ITV News.

U.K. Health Secretary Andrew Lansley told the station that up to 1.25 million doctor appointments could have to be delayed.

He said the BMA was "out on their own" because other trade unions in the U.K.'s public health service had agreed to a new deal "even if they didn't want to increase contributions for their pensions."

ITV News is NBC's U.K. partner.

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SANA via EPA, file

Syrian President Bashar Assad is accompanied by his wife Asma while casting his vote during a referendum on a new constitution on Feb. 26 in in Damascus.

The U.S. and U.K. are considering letting Syria’s President Bashar Assad have immunity from prosecution if he agrees to relinquish power, according to reports.

The Guardian newspaper reported that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was aiming to convince former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan to host a peace conference to discuss the idea further.

The paper said Yemen President Ali Saleh’s departure from power – in which he was given immunity from prosecution despite the killing of civilians – was seen as a potential model.

The Telegraph newspaper said Assad would be given safe passage to Switzerland to take part in the peace talks under the plan.

The paper said British officials believed it was “worth having a go” with the idea, but added that a well-placed British government source admitted it was a “very optimistic” scenario.

'Transitional process'
The plan was drawn up following bilateral talks between the U.S./U.K. and Russia at the G-20 meeting in Mexico, where the British source said Russian president Vladimir Putin had “indicated that they were not hooked on Assad staying in power indefinitely."

“Of course they go on to say that it’s not up to the international community to decide. But those of us who had bilaterals with Putin thought there was just enough out of these meetings to make it worth pursuing the objective of negotiating some sort of transitional process in Syria,” the source added, according to The Telegraph.

The Telegraph said the official was asked if this might involve immunity for Assad.  “It is hard to see a negotiated solution in which one of the participants agrees voluntarily to go to the International Criminal Court,” the source replied.

The paper said Western officials hoped the peace talks in Switzerland would take place in “the next few weeks.” The summit would be attended by Assad or other Syrian government officials, opposition figures, U.N. Security Council members, and other countries such as Turkey, Saudia Arabia and possibly Iran.

 “The Russians argue that the Iranians should be invited,” the British source said, according to The Telegraph. “As far as we are concerned, the answer is no. We have no illusions: it could capsize just on whether Iran is invited or not, but it is worth a try given the gravity of events.”

Three Russian ships headed for Syria, US says

A U.K. Foreign Office said in an email sent to msnbc.com and other media that the British government was continuing “to do everything we can to bring an end to the violence in Syria.”

“If Assad accepts a political transition then there is a range of options that could be considered, but there is no new offer, and the longer the killing goes on, the fewer options Assad will have,” the statement said.

“The details of any transition need to be agreed, including with the Syrian opposition, and we will continue to collect evidence so there can be no expectation on the part of those killing that they can avoid justice and accountability,” it added.

However, a Foreign Office spokesman told msnbc.com that the U.K. would not be able to intervene if Assad was given a safe haven by another country.

AFP - Getty Images

Damage and destruction litter a street in the battered city of Qusayr, southwest of Homs in western Syria, on Wednesday.

As the diplomats looked for a solution to the crisis, the death toll continued to mount Thursday.

Activists told The Associated Press that two people were killed during the shelling of rebel-held areas in the city of Homs. 

PhotoBlog: Syrian army shells Homs and Qusayr

Oscar Fernandez-Taranco, the U.N. assistant secretary-general for political affairs, warned on Tuesday that time was running out for the current U.N.-backed peace process for Syria.

"The Secretary-General (Ban Ki-moon) remains gravely concerned about the intensification of violence and rising death toll, as well as continued human rights abuses and unmet humanitarian needs," Fernandez-Taranco said, according to Reuters.

UN suspends Syria monitoring due to rising violence

Ban said last month that at least 10,000 people have been killed in the Syria conflict, but U.N. diplomats say the actual number is likely much higher. 

"The situation in Homs is particularly alarming," Fernandez-Taranco told the 15-nation Security Council during a discussion on the Middle East, Reuters reported. "The tragic human suffering from the escalating conflict calls for urgent and concerted efforts to avoid a full-scale civil war." 

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Slideshow: Life of a queen

Carl Court / AFP - Getty Images

After more than five decades on the throne, view images from the extraordinary life of Queen Elizabeth II.

Launch slideshow

LONDON - Britain's Queen Elizabeth has another reason to be cheerful in her Diamond Jubilee year - her annual pay is about to jump by 20 percent to 36 million pounds ($56 million).

Her property holdings, known as the Crown Estate, posted a record profit of 240.2 million pounds ($377.4 million), a net rise of 4 percent in the year through March 2012 largely due to strong tenant demand for its shops in the upmarket Regent Street and St James's districts of London.

At a time when Britain is in recession and many families are feeling the pinch of higher household costs and taxes, the Queen's allowance will rise to 36 million pounds from 30 million pounds, the level at which it was frozen in October 2010 under new laws which peg her pay to the estate's profits.

Slideshow: Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee

Her Majesty celebrates 60 years on the throne.

Launch slideshow

"It's a great set of results and I'm sure everyone's going to be happy," Crown Estate Chief Executive Alison Nimmo said.

The 85-year-old queen celebrated her 60th year on the throne this month with a 1,000-vessel flotilla on London's River Thames and nationwide street parties.

Read more news about Britain's royal family on TODAY.com

She has been paid by taxpayers through an allowance set by Parliament and via other government grants since King George III ceded all property profits to the Treasury in 1760.

The Crown Estate pays all of its profit to the Treasury, or finance ministry. Under new laws that come into effect in 2013-14, the monarch's pay is calculated as 15 percent of the estate's profits from two years prior.

Prince William turns 30, gets $15.5 million Diana inheritance

The changes were designed to ensure the queen's pay would rise and fall with the health of the British economy, which this year entered its second recession since the start of the global financial crisis.

Used mainly to pay the Royal household's staff as well as for items like laundry, stationery and official functions, her 2013-14 pay will be the highest since 2008 though still less than half of her 1991 pay of 77.3 million pounds ($121.2 million).

The Crown Estate, which owns a mix of wind farms, retail parks and most of Britain's seabed in addition to its central London properties, outperformed the industry's Investment Property Databank (IPD) benchmark index due to strong international interest in the London property market and the country's growing dependency on renewable energy.

The value of its property portfolio rose 7.4 percent to 7.6 billion pounds from the previous year, while the total return, which includes rental income, was 16.8 percent, outperforming the IPD index by 10.4 percentage points.

Its London projects include the 500 million pound ($784 million) regeneration of the St James's district, where it will redevelop almost 300,000 square feet of new shops, offices and homes.

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Agung Surya / EPA

Rescuers search for victims at a plane crash site near Halim Perdana Kusuma airport in Jakarta on Thursday.

JAKARTA -- An Indonesia air force plane crashed into a housing complex in the capital Jakarta Thursday, setting houses on fire and killing at least 10 people, including two young children.

The Jakarta Post reported that all seven crew members and three people on the ground, two boys aged six and two and a woman, were killed.

Alwi, an official at the East Jakarta Fire Brigade, said the Fokker 27 turboprop aircraft went down near a street within Halim Perdanakusuma air base. The accident happened at 2:45 p.m. local time (2:45 a.m. ET).

Media reports quoted witnesses as saying at least eight houses were burning.

Several of the aircraft’s crew were taken to a nearby hospital alive, but the Post said the last survivor, a lieutenant, died Thursday evening local time.

Indonesia Air Force spokesman Colonel Agung Sasongkojati told a news conference that the civilian casualties included the son and nephew of an air force major and his maid, the Post reported. The major’s wife was in critical condition, he added.

"The communication from the airplane to the tower was normal. They only asked for permission to take off and land," Agung said.

A senior air force official said an investigation was likely to take three months.

Last month a Russian-made airline crashed into a mountain while flying south of Jakarta, killing 45 people.

The new Sukhoi Superjet-100 hit Mount Salak during a demonstration flight for potential Indonesian airline buyers on May 9.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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Bjorn Larsson Rosvall / Scanpix via EPA

A view of the Ringhals nuclear power plant in Varberg, Sweden, on Thursday.

STOCKHOLM -- The threat level was raised at all of Sweden's nuclear sites after security personnel found suspected explosives during a routine vehicle search at a nuclear power station on Wednesday, according to reports.

"In the afternoon, a suspected explosive was discovered in a truck on its way in to Ringhals' operating facility," the plant's operator Vattenfall said in a statement. "A sample of the material was sent during the evening to the Swedish National Laboratory of Forensic Science for analysis."

The Local reported cited an official as saying the material had been placed near a fire extinguisher "under the first step onto the truck." It was said to be the size of a "small fist," according to The Local.

"The assessment is that the situation is under control," police spokesman Lars Grimbeck told MarketWatch.

Ringhals' four reactors, on the southwest coast of Sweden near the city of Gothenburg, produce nearly 20 percent of the country's electricity.

State-owned Vattenfall has a 70 percent stake in the plant and Germany's owns nearly 30 percent.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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Egypt's elections authorities say they will delay announcing who won Egypt's presidential election but have not given a new date.

The Supreme Elections Commission said in a statement Wednesday that results won't be announced on Thursday as scheduled because the commission is looking into complaints presented by rival candidates.

A panel of judges must examine some 400 complaints over voting submitted by both Ahmed Shafiq, ousted leader Hosni Mubarak's prime minister, and the campaign of Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Morsi.

"We cannot announce when exactly the timing of the announcement of the election results will be because now we are at the stage of listening to the representatives," Committee Secretary-General Hatem Bagato told Reuters.

Egypt's Hosni Mubarak reportedly clinging to life in military hospital

"The committee will meet afterwards to decide on whether to accept the appeals or not. After that there will be a time set to announce the final result," Bagato added, speaking by phone.

He issued an official statement later in the day with more detail.

"The committee has decided to continue to examine the appeals, which involves looking at records and logs related to the electoral process, and this will necessitate more time before announcing the final results," the statement said.

Any lengthy delay in disclosing the results risks prolonging uncertainty and stoking tension at a time when it is unclear how big a role the military will continue to play in leading the country. No official figures have been announced, but candidates had representatives at polling stations and were able to make their own tallies.

"We must give both sides all the time they need to ensure that the process is fair and prevent any claims later on that not enough time was given to both sides," Bagato explained.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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Andy Wong / AP

Ai Weiwei, second from left, stopped by a plain clothes policeman while he argues with another policeman, foreground, outside his home in Beijing on Wednesday.

BEIJING – While Ai Weiwei didn’t get his day in court Wednesday, he did get his case heard.

The Chinese artist and social activist was noticeably absent from opening arguments at a Beijing courtroom after he was warned off by police. Instead, Ai, 54, stayed home at his studio while his wife, Lu Qing, represented their design company, Beijing Fake Cultural Development Ltd., with a team of lawyers.

Ai and his wife are challenging a ruling by the tax office that rejected their appeal against a steep fine imposed for alleged tax evasion, a charge roundly rejected as false and trumped up by Ai and his supporters.

NBC News spoke to Ai Weiwei by phone late Wednesday afternoon, but he could not comment on how legal proceedings had gone.

The government previously ordered Ai’s company to pay a staggering 15 million yuan ($2.4 million) in alleged back taxes and additional fines. Surprisingly, Ai raised the money needed to pay an 8.45 million yuan ($1.3 million) bond needed to contest the tax charges through donations and contributions from around 30,000 supporters after he called for assistance through social media, a favored tool of his and other activists in China.

Stunts like these as well as his pokes at authority – see the photo he posted yesterday on Twitter sporting a too-tight Chinese police uniform – anger authorities who view Ai as a troublemaker. 

In April 2011, Ai was detained without charge during a national roundup of activists and dissidents following the many pro-democracy uprisings in the Middle East.

It was only after his 81-day detention that tax-evasion charges against Ai and his company were made, lending credence to claims made by human rights watchers and Ai supporters that the move was retaliation by the government.

The case against Ai has been shrouded in secrecy due to the government’s unwillingness, or inability, to reveal any original tax documents as evidence of tax evasion they purport to have.

Slideshow: The artist strikes a nerve

Sharron Lovell / Polaris

Click to see a slideshow of photos of projects done by the Chinese artist and activist Ai Wei Wei.

Launch slideshow

A hearing held last July during which the government’s evidence would ostensibly have been revealed was closed and the company’s lawyers were barred from attending, a decision Ai’s lawyers claim was illegal.

It is a sensitive time politically in China as President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao are poised to step down later this year. Despite the political drama swirling around the fleeing of dissident Chen Guangcheng to the United States and the ongoing Bo Xilai scandal, Beijing desperately wants to make the transition peaceful and is doing everything possible this year to mitigate sensitive stories.

Yet, as has sometimes proven the case when it comes to Ai, attempts to muzzle or contain him can backfire.

While Beijing police have discouraged local dissidents from going to the courthouse to support Ai, security was said to be intense around the court with a ring of police cars around it and officers telling foreign press to stay away as well. Still, supporters of Ai were seen outside holding small signs that said “Ai Weiwei, we love you” and “No justice without a fight.”

Meanwhile, the detention of Ai’s legal consultant, Liu Xiaoyuan, by security forces Tuesday outraged Ai, who announced it on Twitter and called for Liu’s immediate release. Ai told NBC News that Liu’s phone had been turned off and that he had been “taken away to the countryside for some sort of treatment by the police.”

Additionally, Ai has also been using Twitter to call attention to the heavy police presence outside his home. He pointed to a bust up at his home yesterday when someone in his studio took a photo of what Ai described as “30-40 police cars.” Ai alleges that police rushed the photographer to grab the camera, causing some minor scratches and bruises which were tweeted here.

As part of his conditional release late last year, Ai’s travel rights were taken away and he was told to refrain from criticism of the government through social media.

Friday was supposed to be the day those restrictions would be lifted, but in lieu of Ai’s continued defiance, it is hard to believe local authorities won’t extend these restraints in order to rein him in. 

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KHOST, Afghanistan -- Three U.S. service members, their Afghan interpreter and 17 Afghan civilians were killed by an apparent suicide bomber on a motorbike in the eastern Afghan city of Khost Wednesday, officials said.

The United States Embassy in Afghanistan issued a statement saying it "strongly condemns this cowardly attack," which is the second on foreign forces in the troubled province this month. 

A U.S. official, speaking anonymously to The Associated Press, said the foreign troops killed were Americans.

However, a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), said the nationality of the troops would not immediately be confirmed.

A local official told NBC News that women and children were among the civilian casualties in the attack, aimed at an American-Afghan military convoy passing through the town.

The official said the death toll was likely to rise, and that 32 Afghans suffered injuries.

Msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.

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AP Photo/Kostas Tsironis

Greece's newly sworn-in Prime Minister Antonis Samaras gestures to supporters after taking over from caretaker Prime Minister Panayiotis Pikramenos at Maximos Mansion in Athens.

ATHENS - A conservative-led Greek government has been agreed and will form a team to "renegotiate" the international bailout deal that would save the country from bankruptcy, the leader of one of the coalition parties said Wednesday.

Socialist PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos said his party would enter a three-way alliance with the larger conservative New Democracy and that cabinet posts would be decided by Wednesday evening.

He said the key issue would be to form a team to renegotiate the $164.79 billion bailout deal from the European Union and International Monetary Fund.

Greece avoids 'Drachmageddon' but Europe debt crisis remains

"Greece has a government and this is the message that the outgoing finance minister [George] Zanias will take to the Eurogroup," Venizelos told reporters.

Reuters said Antonis Samaras would meet President Karolos Papoulias later on Wednesday to announce the coalition deal, after which he expected to be sworn in as prime minister.

The opposition radical leftist bloc SYRIZA came second in the election and strongly opposes the bailout. A graph illustrating the results was published on the BBC website.

A Greek exit from the euro joint currency zone is still viewed as a possibility, despite a narrow majority for parties who are broadly in favor of a bailout, despite the inevitable tough austerity measures.

The Daily Telegraph reported that although public sector wages and pensions have been cut by 25-30 per cent since the country’s economic crisis took hold, thousands of redundancies have not taken place as promised, a privatization program has barely got off the ground and tax evasion remains endemic.

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