• Police: NY-born Bollywood starlet found dead by mother

    Parveen Negi / India Today via Getty, file

    Bollywood actress Jiah Khan was found dead at her home in Mumbai, India, at the age of 25.

    By Tony Tharakan and Belinda Goldsmith, Reuters

    MUMBAI - Bollywood actress Jiah Khan was found dead at her home in Mumbai in an apparent suicide, police said on Tuesday.

    Khan, 25, was found hanged in her room on Monday night by her mother, a Mumbai police official said.

    Khan made her Bollywood debut in 2007 with Ram Gopal Varma's "Nishabd," playing the 18-year-old female lead opposite one of India's leading actors, Amitabh Bachchan, in a film loosely based on Vladimir Nabokov's classic novel "Lolita."

    "Never ever seen a debutant actress with more spunk and more spirit than Jiah when i was directing her in Nishabd," filmmaker Varma wrote on Twitter.

    "I dont know the reason what led to this but jiah was very depressed about her career and scared for her future," he said in another tweet.

    Khan, whose real name was Nafisa Khan, was born in New York and grew up in London.

    "Nishabd" received mixed reviews and did not do well at the Bollywood box office but Khan went on to play supporting roles in two blockbusters, the psychological thriller "Ghajini" in 2008 and the comedy "Housefull" in 2010.

    Related:

    Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

  • Man commits suicide inside Paris' Notre Dame Cathedral

    Yoan Valat/EPA

    Notre Dame Cathedral is evacuated by the police in Paris on May 21, 2013.

    By Becky Bratu, Staff Writer, NBC News

    A man committed suicide inside Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris on Tuesday, prompting the clearing out of hundreds of tourists, who had been waiting in a snaking line to visit the 850-year-old landmark.

    Before pulling a gun and shooting himself in the head, the elderly man placed a letter on the altar, The Associated Press reported. Its contents were not known.

    The man said nothing before he pulled the trigger, Reuters reported. He died just after 4 p.m. local time.

    Europe 1 radio and French media identified the man as 78-year-old Dominique Venner, an activist and historian known in France for his far-right political essays.

    A May 21 post on Venner's blog criticized a law passed last week allowing same-sex marriage.

    Monsignor Patrick Jacquin, the cathedral's rector, told the AP this was the first suicide in decades at the historic site.

    "It's unfortunate, it's dramatic, it's shocking," Jacquin told the AP. The motives for the suicide were unclear.

    Police evacuated visitors out of the cathedral after the shooting, the AP reported, in an unusual move for a landmark site visited by about 13 million people every year.

    NBC News' Nancy Ing in Paris contributed to this report.

  • Ireland court rules paralyzed woman cannot get help to commit suicide

    Niall Carson/Press Association via AP

    Marie Fleming, a terminally-ill woman who suffers from multiple sclerosis, on Jan. 10, 2013.

    By Andrew Rafferty, Staff Writer, NBC News

    A paralyzed Irish woman who says she is living in severe agony cannot commit suicide with the help of her partner, Ireland's Supreme Court ruled Monday.


    The right to life in the country's constitution "does not import a right to die," the seven-judge court ruled.

    Marie Fleming, 59, suffers from multiple sclerosis and is paralyzed from the neck down. She testified that she suffers nearly unbearable pain and that she fears choking because she cannot swallow. 

    While suicide is no longer a crime in Ireland, Chief Justice Susan Denham ruled there is no constitutional right to it. The court noted that law makers could pass a law that would allow citizens to take their own lives, but thus far have not done so.

    Lawyers for Fleming, a former lecturer at the University College Dublin, argued that because suicide is not a crime in Ireland, a disabled person should be able to receive help to kill themselves. Fleming's attorneys also argued their client's rights under the European Convention on Human Rights were being violated.

    But in her ruling Denham said it is primarily for the states to administer their own laws on assisted suicide.

    Fleming is suffering from a chest infection and could not be in the courtroom for the ruling. But her partner, Tom Curran, was present along with  the couple's three adult children. As the Denham read the ruling, the family held hands and cried, the Associated Press reported.

    Despite the ruling, Curran told reporters outside the courthouse that he would help Fleming end her life if she chose to do so.
    "It’s very difficult to understand how a person with a disability can be deprived of something that’s legally available to everybody else, every able-bodied person," Curran said, according to the Irish Times. "And for that not to be discriminatory under the constitution. That’s something we fail to understand."

    Fleming's testified in December, and told the court that three years earlier she had considered killing herself when she still had movement in her arms. But Curran persuaded her not to and she refrained — a decision she said she now regrets.

    Judges need to leave their benches and sit next to Fleming to hear her testimony since her voice is was so weak. 

    "When you have to be showered, toileted and fed, you start to feel like a nobody," she testified, according to the Associated Press. "I want to go peacefully, in my own home, with the people I love around me."

    Curran would face a maximum prison sentence of 14 years if convicted of assisting suicide.

    The Associated Press contributed to this report

  • Car maker Hyundai apologizes for commercial showing attempted suicide

    A still frame of the Hyundai advertisement, for which the car maker has apologized.

    By Alastair Jamieson, Staff writer, NBC News

    South Korean car maker Hyundai apologized Thursday for a U.K. advertisement that depicts a man trying to commit suicide in his garage but failing because of his zero-emission car.

    The ad, apparently designed for circulation on the Internet, was created by advertising agency Innocean and came to attention when it was featured in a review in the media section of The Guardian newspaper.

    It shows an actor playing a man, intent on ending his life, starting his car in a closed garage – a common method of suicide in which death is caused by carbon monoxide poisoning from exhaust fumes.

    The next scene shows the man opening the garage door followed by the tagline: "The new iX35 with 100% water emissions."

    The company said it had withdrawn the commercial, although clips of it were still available on YouTube [readers may find the video disturbing].

    Ian Tonkin, a UK public relations manager with the Hyundai – the world’s fifth-largest car maker – issued a statement that said: "Hyundai understands that the video has caused offence. We apologize unreservedly. The video has been taken down and will not be used in any of our advertising or marketing."

    A woman who answered the telephone at Innocean's U.K. office said the company did not have any comment to make.

    Holly Brockwell, an advertising industry worker whose father took his life when she was young, posted an emotional open letter to Hyundai and Innocean on her blog, Copyblot.

    "As an advertising creative, I would like to congratulate you on achieving the visceral reaction we all hope for. On prompting me to share it on my Twitter page and my blog. I would not like to congratulate you on making me cry for my dad.

    My dad never drove a Hyundai. Thanks to you, neither will I."

    Science journalist Ben Goldacre described the advertisement as “almost surreally misguided.”

    It was not immediately clear how widely the ad, which has the title “Pipe Job," was ever circulated by Hyundai.

     

  • Ten years after Iraq invasion, US troops ask: 'Was it worth it?'

    Courtesy IAVA

    Former U.S. Marine Sergeant Derek Coy says he still struggles "both mentally and physically, with the toll it took on me and countless others do as well."

    By Jim Maceda, Correspondent, NBC News

    Derek Coy hails from Baytown, Texas, and could be a poster child for American veterans of the war in Iraq as they look back and ask: "Was it all worth it?" 

    A former U.S. Marine sergeant based in the volatile Anbar province at the height of the conflict, Coy is proud of his service and believes the "invaluable tools" he gained as a Marine will ultimately help him succeed in life.

    But seven years since he left Iraq, he’s fighting a different battle — against anxiety, depression and emotional numbness — the effects of post-traumatic stress. 

    March 19, 2008: Speaking on the fifth anniversary of the start of the Iraq war, President George W. Bush said that while the costs had been high, "this is a fight America can, and must win."

    "I still struggle, both mentally and physically, with the toll it took on me and countless others do as well," he said.

    Tuesday will mark 10 years since the "shock and awe" invasion and more than a year since the last company of U.S. troops left Iraq. But only about 4 in 10 Americans who fought there — according to a Pew Research Center poll — believe the reasons for going to war justified the loss in blood and treasure.

    Almost 4,500 U.S. troops were killed and more than 32,000 wounded, including thousands with critical brain and spinal injuries.  Estimates of the number of Iraqi civilian fatalities are staggering, ranging from 100,000 to 600,000.

    The monetary cost could exceed $3 trillion.

    While the war in Iraq has ended, the sacrifice for vets continues back in a civilian world they often find "foreign" and isolating.

    Ann Weeby, a native of Boyne City, Michigan, was deployed at the beginning of the war, attached to the 101st Airborne under then-Major General David Petraeus , in the northern Iraqi town of Mosul.

    The pain of the burning and the screams of his family are the memories Ali Abbas carries from the Iraq War. Then, as a 12 year old boy injured by the U.S. missile that killed his family, Ali's plight moved the world.  ITV's Paul Davies reports. 

    "Our goal was to find weapons of mass destruction and Saddam Hussein," she said.

    "After WMDs were not found and Saddam was captured, I didn’t expect [such a] prolonged U.S. military presence in Iraq," she added.

    As the only person her family and friends know who fought in the war, Weeby tries to educate them about the scourges of depression and suicide that U.S. vets face after Iraq. 

    "American troops are suffering, and in some cases dying, because a Veterans Affairs' claims backlog is preventing them from getting [mental] health care. Twenty-two U.S. veterans commit suicide every day!" Weeby said, citing a troubling statistic recently published by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

    Courtesy IAVA

    Ann Weeby, who was attached to the 101st Airborne, went in to look for WMDs and Saddam Hussein. "I didn't expect [such a] prolonged U.S. military presence in Iraq," she said.

    'The cost was high'
    When Leon Panetta, then secretary of defense, addressed U.S. troops in Baghdad before they pulled out of Iraq, he argued that their core mission had been accomplished.

    "To be sure, the cost was high," he said. "But those lives were not lost in vain. They gave birth to an independent, free, and sovereign Iraq."

    Today, however, Iraq’s Shiite Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, heads what looks more like an authoritarian regime, propped up by a coercive secret service.

    Toby Dodge, an analyst at U.K.-based think tank Chatham House, claimed Iraq had morphed into a pro-Iran police state, where Sunni gunmen and al Qaeda’s suicide bombers seem to strike at will, killing hundreds each week. 

    His conclusion: 10 years after regime change in Iraq, little has changed.

    "The lives of ordinary Iraqis, in terms of the relationship to their state and their economy, are comparable to the situation they faced in the country before regime change," he said in a report written for Chatham House.

    Many Iraq War veterans admit they were fighting more for their battle buddies than for any "island of democracy" in the Arab world.

    Courtesy IAVA

    Robert Contreras, who had two tours of duty in Iraq, returned to California to finish a college degree, where he has struggled to relate to other students. "The most common question I get … is if I've ever killed someone," he said.

    Robert Contreras, from Sylmar, California, left the military after 10 years in the Navy, including two tours of duty in Iraq, and returned to California to finish a college degree.

    "Personally, I was not there fighting for Iraq," he said when asked if the war was won or lost.

    "I was there to protect those who served alongside me to the best of my abilities," he said.

    He’s struggled to relate to his student peers who know little about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    "The most common question I get … is if I’ve ever killed someone," he said.

    Contreras also developed symptoms of PTSD. "I was anxious in crowded places and unable to feel at ease anywhere but at home."

    Veterans like Weeby and Coy have found a therapeutic way to generate positives from their Iraq War experiences — and better deal with some of the nagging uncertainties about Iraq’s future: They’ve reached out to their fellow vets.

    Weeby is an outspoken advocate for San Francisco Bay Area veterans, while Coy is an associate at the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, or IAVA, the first and largest non-profit group representing U.S. vets from those wars.

    Both are currently in Washington, D.C., part of the "Storm the Hill" offensive, pressuring Congress to address key veterans’ issues, like 9.4 percent unemployment and a bottle-necked health-care program.

    NBC News' Kerry Sanders and Mike Taibbi, along with Kimberly Dozier of the Associated Press, reflect on their experiences on the ground in Iraq 10 years ago.

    "Coming home with a renewed appreciation for my life and freedoms, I’ve committed my career to helping others," reflected Weeby.

    U.S. military commanders would argue that the war in Iraq brought important changes there:  Iraqis are better off without Saddam Hussein and have at least gained a fledgling democracy and national elections.

    But 10 years since “shock and awe” was supposed to clear the path for a liberated Iraq and a "forward strategy of freedom" that would sweep across the Middle East, Iraqis are instead falling victim to wave upon wave of sectarian violence.

    And many of their American "liberators" are fighting for their own survival — back home.

    Jim Maceda has covered Iraq since the 1980s.

    Related:

    Concern grows about military suicides spreading within families

    The enemy within: Soldier suicides outpaced combat deaths in 2012

    Full Iraq coverage from NBC News


  • Authorities: Alleged ringleader in India gang rape hangs himself

    Manan Vatsyayana / AFP - Getty Images

    Media representatives surround an ambulance as it leaves the main entrance of Tihar Jail in New Delhi on Monday.

    By Annie Banerji and Anurag Kotoky, Reuters

    NEW DELHI -- The alleged ringleader in the gang-rape and death of a young Indian woman in December hanged himself in jail on Monday, officials said, a dramatic twist in a case that has provoked outrage across India.

    Ram Singh's lawyer said his client had been composed and calm when he spoke to him on Friday and that there were other inmates in his cell in New Delhi's Tihar jail, raising questions about whether it was a suicide and how it could have gone unnoticed by staff in India's highest security prison.

    Officials at a prison in India say a man accused in the gang rape of a woman killed himself in his jail cell. NBCNews.com's Dara Brown reports.

    The lawyer and a prison official said Singh had not been on suicide watch.

    Police have described Singh as the ringleader of five men and a juvenile on trial for the December 16 attack on the 23-year-old trainee physiotherapist on a bus in the Indian capital. Singh was driving the bus.

    All six accused have pleaded not guilty to rape and murder.

    The assault triggered nationwide protests, a toughening of rape laws and an intense debate about rampant crime against women in India.

    Tihar prison authorities ordered a magisterial inquiry after Singh was found hanging in his cell at around 5 a.m. (7 p.m. ET Sunday), prison spokesman Sunil Gupta said.

    Singh's lawyer, V.K. Anand, told Reuters that his client did not appear to be distressed when he spoke to him on Friday.

    "I believe he was satisfied with the way the trial was proceeding because we had a very strong case against the prosecution's claims," he said.

    "This is not suicide, this is something else. I know he had a few complaints of jail authorities torturing him, but nothing that would make him take his own life. We can't rule out foul play. Nothing is adding up," he said.

    Manish Swarup / AP

    The mother of Ram Singh cries as she speaks to journalists inside the family's home in New Delhi on Monday.

    Anand has previously always denied that his client was being maltreated in prison. He did not elaborate on the "torture".

    Singh had been kept in a cell with other inmates, he said.

    A former director of the jail, Kiran Bedi, said Singh should have been kept isolated from the main prison population.

    The trial of the five adult men started last month while the juvenile's trial began last week. Ram Singh's brother Mukesh Singh, gym assistant Vinay Sharma, bus cleaner Akshay Kumar Singh and fruit vendor Pawan Kumar are the other men on trial.

    Under Indian law, the juvenile cannot be named.

    The attack generated headlines around the world, but the case has since largely disappeared from public view, in large part because authorities have barred reporting on the trial, which was due to resume in a fast-track court on Monday.

    Police allege the six attacked the woman and a male companion on the bus as the couple returned home after watching a movie on December 16. The woman was repeatedly raped and tortured with a metal bar. The couple were also severely beaten before being thrown onto a road.

    The woman died of internal injuries in a Singapore hospital two weeks later.

    The police report used to charge the accused draws a picture of Ram Singh as the ringleader. On the night of December 16, the accused gathered at his house for dinner, where he came up with the plan of taking the bus out to look for a victim to rape, the report said.

    The police say they found him sitting in the blood-stained school bus, wearing a bloodied T-shirt, the morning after the crime. A DNA test revealed that the blood belonged to the rape victim, the report said.

    Related:

    5 accused men plead not guilty in India gang rape

    India gang-rape victim's father: Hang the 'monsters' responsible

    India gang-rape victim dies in hospital; case focuses attention on sexual violence

    This story was originally published on Sun Mar 10, 2013 11:22 PM EDT

    Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

  • Car bombs rip through Baghdad shops, restaurants, killing 26

    By Kareem Raheem, Reuters

    BAGHDAD - Several car bombs exploded in Shi'ite Muslim neighborhoods across Iraq's capital Baghdad on Sunday morning, killing at least 26 people in blasts that tore into shops, restaurants and busy commercial streets.

    No-one claimed responsibility for the attacks but Sunni Muslim insurgents have stepped up their operations since the beginning of the year in a bid to undermine the Shi'ite-led government and trigger deeper intercommunal fighting.

    One blast tore off shop fronts in Qaiyara district while another left the remains of a car and its twisted engine littered across a high street in the busy, commercial Karrada district packed with restaurants and shops.

    "I was buying an air conditioner and suddenly there was an explosion. I threw myself on the ground. Minutes later I saw many people around, some of them dead, others wounded," said Habibiya district salesman Jumaa Kareem, his jacket spattered with blood.

    Sunday's blasts followed the assassination of a senior Iraqi army intelligence officer on Saturday, the latest in a wave of suicide bombings since January. No one claimed responsibility for that attack.

    Many Iraq Sunnis feel they have been sidelined and unfairly targeted by security forces since the fall of Saddam Hussein and the rise of the country's Shi'ite majority through the ballot box.

    Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's fragile power-sharing government, made up of Shi'ite, Sunni and ethnic Kurds, has been paralyzed by political infighting since American troops, who invaded the OPEC country to oust Saddam in 2003, withdrew more than a year ago.

    Violence is still far from the mass sectarian bloodletting that killed tens of thousands in 2006-2007, though insurgents have carried out at least one big attack a month since the last U.S. troops left.

    More than 10 suicide attackers have struck security forces, Shi'ite targets and a Sunni lawmaker since the start of January.

    In the most recent attacks, a suicide bomber killed the head of the army's intelligence school on Saturday after storming his home in a northern town. Another suicide bomber killed 26 at a Shi'ite funeral at the start of the month.

    There are fears the war in neighboring Syria - where Sunni rebels are fighting to oust President Bashar al-Assad, an ally of Shi'ite Iran - could further destabilize Iraq's delicate sectarian and ethnic balance. 

    Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

  • Report: Suicides increase in UK because of pushy debt collectors

    By Costas Pitas, Reuters

    LONDON -- Irresponsible lending and intimidating debt collectors are pushing thousands of people in Britain into depression and suicide, a report said Wednesday. Separate data showed more people are taking their own lives.


    Many, already struggling with the economic slowdown, wage freezes and benefit cuts, were overwhelmed by tactics used by some money lenders, including persistent phone calls and threatening letters, the report by researchers at England's University of Brighton found. 

    "Debt clients frequently feel humiliated, disconnected and entrapped, with the process of debt collection having a clear impact on people's mental health," the report said. 

    "The government must take urgent action to tackle the problem of irresponsible lending and intimidatory collection tactics which has left thousands of people trapped in a spiral of debt and at risk of depression and even suicide," it said. 

    Separately, figures from the Office for National Statistics released on Tuesday showed a "significant" rise in suicides in 2012. 

    The Brighton report, launched on Wednesday by British parliamentarian Molly Meacher, said there were cases of individuals not eating properly and asking their young children for money to tide them over. 

    One individual who owed money described the effect of his wife's credit card lapsing. 

    "I was very close to calling the doctor to her because she is that close to breaking because of ... these continual phone calls," the man was quoted as saying.

    The total number of suicides in the U.K. hit 6,045 in 2011, a 7.8 percent increase over 2010 with deaths among men accounting for the largest proportion, according to figures from the national statistics office.

    A total of 4,552 men took their own lives in 2011 compared with 1,493 women.

    British mental health charity SANE said the downturn in Britain, which is struggling to maintain economic growth, was behind a "significant" rise in the number of suicides, reflecting a trend seen in other Western countries.

    "These figures ... reveal the profound human consequences of the economic downturn, in which unemployment, debt and the relationship breakdowns that often follow can push people who may be already vulnerable to take their own lives," said Marjorie Wallace, SANE's chief executive.

    Suicide rates in the United States have also risen more steeply in recent years.

    "It is also worrying that the group most at risk should be middle-aged men, who are not usually perceived to be at risk," said Wallace, commenting on the statistics office figures.

    Among men aged between 45 and 59 years old, the suicide rate increased significantly between 2007 and 2011 to 22.2 deaths per 100,000 people, the statistics office said. 

     

    Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

  • Officials: Serbian ambassador to NATO jumps to his death in Belgium

    AFP - Getty Images

    Serbian Ambassador to NATO Branislav Milinkovic, seen at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Dec. 14, 2006, was described as a "skilled diplomat" and "an intellectual."

    By NBC News staff and wire reports

    BRUSSELS – Serbia’s ambassador to NATO jumped to his death from a multi-story building in Belgium, officials said Wednesday.


    Brussels prosecutor's office told Reuters that they “can be sure that it was a suicide, therefore we are not investigating any further."

    However, Serbia said it was investigating the death of Branislav Milinkovic, 52, which happened at a parking garage at Brussels airport during a conference of NATO foreign ministers.

    A Serbian Foreign Ministry official, who asked not to be named, said they were “shocked.”

    "We have no clues about what could prompt Milinkovic to do that. He was a good man," the official said.

    'A noble man'
    The ministry praised him as a distinguished diplomat and jurist who would be "remembered as a skilled diplomat, an intellectual and a noble man."

    Serbian tabloid newspaper Kurir reported that Milinkovic jumped about 30 feet in the presence of Serbia's assistant foreign minister for security policy, Zoran Vujic.

    Serbia inches closer to European Union candidacy

    A diplomat described the death to The Associated Press, saying she had spoken to a member of the delegation who saw what happened.

    She said Milinkovic was chatting and joking with colleagues in the garage when he suddenly strolled to the barrier and jumped.

    Milinkovic was a former author and activist who opposed the authoritarian regime of Serbia's former strongman, Slobodan Milosevic.

    According to diplomats and acquaintances, he was outgoing, had a warm sense of humor and worked to keep good ties with ambassadors from other ex-Yugoslav countries.

    West watches nervously as ex-Milosevic aide becomes Serbia's new PM

    But Milinkovic had mentioned to colleagues at diplomatic functions that he was unhappy at living apart from his wife, a Serbian diplomat based in Vienna, and their 17-year-old son. 

    He was appointed ambassador to NATO in 2009 but had already been based in Brussels since 2004 as an envoy from the now defunct state union of Serbia and Montenegro.

    NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen was "deeply saddened by the tragic death of the Serbian ambassador," an alliance spokeswoman said.

    James Appathurai, NATO deputy assistant secretary general for political affairs, said Milinkovic was “deeply respected here and very well liked.”

    “He did a very professional job … there are really no good words to say things like this but certainly he will be missed here on a personal basis and on a professional basis as well,” he said.

    “We have absolutely no information beyond what is in the media and what the police reports,” he added. “NATO had no contact, no personnel at all involved in this so we were very, very, as I said, surprised and shocked.”

    Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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  • Foreign workers killed in suicide attack on minibus near Kabul airport

    According to reports citing local officials in Afghanistan, a female suicide bomber attacked a minibus near Kabul, killing at least nine people in what may be the deadliest act of retribution over an anti-Islam film produced in the U.S. NBC's Richard Engel reports.

     

    By NBC News staff and wire reports

    Updated at 9:25 a.m. ET: A suicide bomber attacked a minibus near Kabul airport in Afghanistan on Tuesday, killing at least nine people including eight foreign civilians working for an international aviation company, according to reports citing local officials.

    Afghan militants claimed responsibility, saying the attack was carried out by a young female in retaliation for a film mocking the Prophet Muhammad.

    The South African International Affairs Ministry said that eight of the victims were South African citizens.

    Spokesman Nelson Kgwete told The Associated Press that the victims are believed to have been employed by a South African aviation company based at Rand Airport in Johannesburg. 

    Earlier, Reuters reported that Russians were also among the foreign workers killed. Unidentified police sources put the total death toll higher than the local officials, saying 12 had died.

    The attack underscored growing anger in Afghanistan over the film, which has enraged much of the Muslim world and led to the killing last week of the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans.

    US-Afghan military operations suspended after attacks

    Thousands of protesters clashed with police in the Afghan capital on Monday, burning cars and hurling rocks at security forces in the worst outbreak of demonstration-related violence since rioting in February over the inadvertent burning of Qurans by U.S. soldiers.

    The death toll from the suicide attack was the highest on foreigners in the city since April 2011 when an Afghan air force pilot gunned down eight U.S. military flight instructors and an American civilian adviser after an argument at Kabul International Airport.

    Crowds of angry protesters showed up in Kabul, Afghanistan and Jakarta, Indonesia. The violent uprising followed a deadly weekend marking the deaths of eight International Security Assistance Force members. NBC's Atia Abawi reports.

    Haroon Zarghoon, a spokesman for Hizb-i-Islami -- a radical militant group that shares some of the Taliban's anti-foreigner, anti-government aims -- told the Associated Press that the attack was carried out by a 22-year-old woman named Fatima. However, the AP noted that suicide bombings carried out by women are extremely rare in Afghanistan — and few if any women drive cars. 

    Another spokesman for the group, Zubair Sediqqi, told Reuters: "A woman wearing a suicide vest blew herself up in response to the anti-Islam video."

    Gen. Abdul Zahir, director of the local Criminal Investigation Department, told NBC News there was no way of confirming yet if the bomber was a male or female.

    Reuters cited unidentified police sources saying the bomber was a woman, possibly driving a Toyota Corolla car rigged with explosives, which she triggered.

     

    Local photojournalist Massoud Hossaini who posted a picture of the blast scene on Twitter, said all the foreign bodies he saw were "without any uniform."

    Protesters in Kabul and several other Asian cities have vented their fury over the film at the United States, blaming it for what they see as an attack on Islam. The outcry saddles President Barack Obama with an unexpected foreign policy headache as he campaigns for re-election in November. His administration has condemned the film as reprehensible and disgusting.

    In response to the violence in Benghazi, Libya, where U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed, and elsewhere lastweek, the United States has sent ships, extra troops and specialforces to protect U.S. interests and citizens in the Middle East, while a number of its embassies have evacuated staff and are on high alert for trouble.

    The identity of those directly responsible for the film remains unclear.

    Clips posted online since July have been attributed to a man named Sam Bacile, which two people connected with the film have said was probably an alias.

    Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, 55, a Coptic Christian widely linked to the film in media reports, was questioned in California on Saturday by U.S. authorities investigating possible violations of his probation for a bank fraud conviction.

    NBC News producer Akbar Shinwari in Kabul, Reuters and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

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  • Woman rescued during suicide attempt from roof in China

    China Daily via Reuters

    Rescuers and relatives stop a woman from committing suicide by jumping off a building in Zhanjiang, Guangdong province August 14, 2012.

    By Eric Baculinao, NBC News

    A Chinese woman tried to commit suicide over a tragic family dispute.

    According to a local source who did not wish to be identified, the woman whose last name is Luo attempted to jump off a building around 7 a.m. on Aug. 14. The source, who works with the woman's brother, told NBC News that Luo, about 50 years old, had a tense relationship with her sister-in-law.

    According to local media reports, the woman had once felt sick after being served soup by her sister-in-law. As a result, Luo believed she was being poisoned, and decided to take her revenge on her 4-year-old nephew.

    Early one morning, while the other family members were out buying groceries, Luo killed the boy in the bathroom and later disposed of the body. The source said the woman had a history of mental disorder.

    Luo tried to jump off a building belonging to an agricultural company in Zhanjiang city, Guangdong province.  Family members, friends and a police officer named Zhao An tried to talk her out of it. 

    China Daily via Reuters

     

    Around noon, Luo’s daughter tried to persuade her not to jump by threatening her mother that she'd join her and jump off, too.

    While Luo appeared to reconsider her decision, the policeman quickly grabbed her, and in the struggle he was almost thrown off the rooftop. Luo is now under police custody.

    China Daily via Reuters

    Photos of the incident went viral, eliciting varied responses. 

    "The intensification of family conflict could lead to tragedies. As the saying goes, even an upright official will find it hard to settle domestic disputes. The management of family disputes should become an important topic in society," commented one blogger.

    China Daily via Reuters

     

    "The kid was innocent!"  commented another.

    "Nowadays, news is more dramatic than TV dramas," said another.

     

    Editor's note: The photos were taken Aug. 14, and we received them on Monday, Aug. 20, but held off publishing for more information surrounding the circumstances.

    NBC's Lorraine Liu contributed to this report.

  • 1,000 suicides linked to hard economic times in Britain?

    © Luke Macgregor / Reuters / Reuters, file

    A man looks at advertisements posted in the window of a recruitment agency in London on March 14, 2012. Britain's economy has shrunk for the last nine months and now produces 4.5 percent less than before the economic crisis.

    By NBC News wire services

    LONDON -- A painful economic recession, rising unemployment and biting austerity measures may have already driven more than 1,000 people in Britain to commit suicide, according to a study published on Wednesday.

    The study, a so-called time-trend analysis which compared the actual number of suicides with those expected if pre-recession trends had continued, reflects findings elsewhere in Europe where suicides are also on the rise.

    "This a grim reminder after the euphoria of the Olympics of the challenges we face and those that lie ahead," said David Stuckler, a sociologist at Cambridge University who co-led the study, published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ).

    UK slides back into recession in first double dip since 1970s

    The analysis found that between 2008 and 2010 there were 846 more suicides among men in England than would have been expected if previous trends continued, and 155 more among women.

    Between 2000 and 2010 each annual 10 percent increase in the number of unemployed people was associated with a 1.4 percent increase in the number of male suicides, the study found.

    The analysis used data from the National Clinical and Health Outcomes Database and the Office of National Statistics.

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    Stuckler, who worked with researchers from Liverpool University and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, stressed while this kind of statistical study could not establish a causal link, the power of the associations was strong. Its conclusions were strengthened by other indicators of rising mental health problems, stress and anxiety, he added.

    Hundreds of anti-austerity protesters in Greece have been remembering one of their own. In front of the parliament in Athens, a 77-year-old retired pharmacist killed himself. In a note he said government cuts wiped out his pension and robbed him of his dignity. ITV's Martin Geissler reports.

    He also pointed out the study showed a small reduction in the number of suicides in 2010 which coincided with a slight recovery in male employment.

    A survey of 300 family doctors published by the Insight Research Group on Tuesday found that 76 percent of those questioned about the effects of the economic crisis said they thought it was making people unhealthier, leading to more anxiety, abortions and alcohol abuse.

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    Data this month from the government's Health and Social Care Information Centre showed the number of prescriptions dispensed in England for antidepressants rose 9.1 percent in 2010.

    A study published last July, also by Stuckler, found that across Europe, suicide rates rose sharply from 2007 to 2009 as the financial crisis drove unemployment up and squeezed incomes.

    The countries worst hit by severe economic downturns, such as Greece and Ireland, saw the most dramatic increases in suicides.

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    In Britain, there's little doubt times have been getting harder. The economy has shrunk for the last nine months and now produces 4.5 percent less than before the economic crisis.

    Great Britain has been struggling to find a way to recover from a deep double-dip recession. Could recovery be sparked by the Olympic Games? NBC's Stephanie Gosk reports.

    Government debt is well above a trillion pounds and is predicted to rise above 90 percent of GDP even with austerity policies being pushed through by the government.

    'The country is on its knees': Ireland grapples with economic collapse

    Many Britons have had the worst squeeze in living standards for 40 years and the crisis has hit young people hard, with youth unemployment soaring above 20 percent.

    'Income, status, importance'
    Stuckler's BMJ study found that the number of unemployed men rose on average across Britain by 25.6 percent each year from 2008 to 2010, a rise associated with a yearly increase in male suicides of 3.6 percent.

    "Much of men's identity and sense of purpose is tied up with having a job. It brings income, status, importance..." Stuckler said in a telephone interview.

    "And there's also a pattern in the U.K. where men are three times more likely to commit suicide than women, while women are much more likely to report being depressed and seek help."

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    The World Health Organisation estimates that every year, almost a million people die from suicide -- a rate of 16 per 100,000, or one every 40 seconds.

    The U.N. health body also estimated that for every suicide, there are up to 20 attempted ones.

    New figures released on Tuesday also showed that Europe is edging closer to recession, dragged down by the crippling debt problems of the 17 countries that use the euro.

    "Things are getting worse and worse in Greece. There is no future for the next few years there," says Christos Christoglou, a Greek inspection engineer, who moved to Germany to find work.

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    Eurostat, Europe's statistics agency, said that the economies of both the eurozone and the European Union, which has 27 countries, shrank by a quarterly rate of 0.2 percent in the second quarter of the year. In the first quarter, output for both regions was flat. 

    "Austerity measures are sending us into poverty," said Armando Farias, executive committee member of the Confederation of Portuguese Workers. "We need development and investment, and we can't get them this way. We need to change path. Something needs to be done, and quickly."

    Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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