Witnesses claim soldiers who disobeyed orders in Banias were shot by security services as crackdown on protests intensifiesSyrian soldiers have been shot by security forces after refusing to fire on protesters, witnesses said, as a crackdown on anti-government demonstrations intensified.

Witnesses told al-Jazeera and the BBC that some soldiers had refused to shoot after the army moved into Banias in the wake of intense protests on Friday.

Human rights monitors named Mourad Hejjo, a conscript from Madaya village, as one of those shot by security snipers. "His family and town are saying he refused to shoot at his people," said Wassim Tarif, a local human rights monitor.

Footage on YouTube shows an injured soldier saying he was shot in the back by security forces, while another video shows the funeral of Muhammad Awad Qunbar, who sources said was killed for refusing to fire on protesters. Signs of defections will be worrying to Syria's regime. State media reported a different version of events, claiming nine soldiers had been killed in an ambush by an armed group in Banias.

A nurse is under investigation after she allegedly gave a child the MMR jab without his mother's consent.

Practice nurse Rashiela Parekh failed to ask permission before injecting the three-year-old and did not inform his parents that he had been given the jab until it was too late, his mother claims.

Robina Siddique has accused the nurse of giving her son the injection simply to meet Government targets.

She said she had decided not to give her toddler Mohammed the combined measles, mumps and rubella jab because she believes it may be unsafe.

But when she took her son to a surgery for the diphtheria, tetanus and polio vaccines, Miss Parekh also gave him the MMR injection without asking permission, she claims.

A young doctor who was refused treatment under the NHS 'postcode lottery' is winning the battle against her life-threatening cancer.

Becky Smith was told she had only a short time to live after her breast cancer was missed four times.

She was refused a breakthrough treatment freely available from 40 other trusts in the country.

But after her story was revealed in the Daily Mail, kind-hearted members of the public and a wealthy donor came forward within days to fund part of the £23,000 treatment.

And facing public uproar, local NHS chiefs on the Isle of Wight - who were at that time prepared to fund obesity operations and breast enlargements - were forced to back down.

The 31-year-old, who has since married her childhood sweetheart Simon Morton, said the Selective Internal Radiation Therapy, used to tackle tumours in her liver and spine, appeared to be working.

A transgender employee hired to oversee urine tests administered to men has filed a discrimination lawsuit against a Camden drug treatment center that fired him after it confronted him about his gender last summer.

El'Jai Devoureau, 39, said Urban Treatment Associates questioned him about his gender a day after he started working in the position, which had been open only to male candidates.

"Is El'Jai a male? The employer says no, and El'Jai says he is," said Michael Silverman of the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund in New York, which filed the lawsuit Friday. "He's undergone hormone treatment and surgery."

The number of possible victims of a serial killer rose to 10 on Tuesday after authorities confirmed that two sets of remains found along a New York highway a day earlier are human.

Authorities have not definitively linked all the remains found in the past five months to the same suspect, but they have said four Craigslist escorts found in December were likely victims of a serial killer.

Police happened upon the first set of four remains while searching for a missing New Jersey prostitute last seen in a nearby community nearly a year ago. That woman has yet to be found.

Police searching late last month along Ocean Parkway discovered a fifth body, which prompted authorities to commence a widespread search involving dozens of officers, dogs, helicopters, mounted units and volunteer firefighters. That effort led to the discovery April 4 of three more sets of remains and two more on Monday near Jones Beach State Park.

Police investigating the deaths have kept many details of the killings to themselves, but the revelations have shaken some veteran officers.

Japanese officials struggled through the day on Tuesday to explain why it had taken them a month to disclose large-scale releases of radioactive material in mid-March at a crippled nuclear power plant, as the government and an electric utility disagreed on the extent of continuing problems there.

The government announced Tuesday morning that it had raised its rating of the severity of the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station to 7, the worst on an international scale, from 5. Officials said that the reactor had released one-tenth as much radioactive material as the Chernobyl accident in 1986, but still qualified as a 7 according to a complex formula devised by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Japan's new assessment was based largely on computer models showing very heavy emissions of radioactive iodine and cesium from March 14 to 16, just after the earthquake and tsunami rendered the plant's emergency cooling system inoperative. The nearly monthlong delay in acknowledging the extent of these emissions is a fresh example of confused data and analysis from the Japanese, and put the authorities on the defensive about whether they have delayed or blocked the release of information to avoid alarming the public.

Seiji Shiroya, a commissioner of Japan's Nuclear Safety Commission, an independent government panel that oversees the country's nuclear industry, said that the government had delayed issuing data on the extent of the radiation releases because of concern that the margins of error had been large in initial computer models. But he also suggested a public policy reason for having kept quiet.

"Some foreigners fled the country even when there appeared to be little risk," he said. "If we immediately decided to label the situation as Level 7, we could have triggered a panicked reaction."

Two men arrested in Canada have been charged with killing two women in New Hampshire 22 years ago.

Authorities in New Hampshire say 43-year-old Anthony Barnaby and 49-year-old David Caplin were arrested Monday.

They are accused of killing Charlene Ranstrom and Brenda Warner, who died in their home in Nashua, N.H., in October 1988.

Barnaby was prosecuted three times in connection with the killings, but the three trials ended in mistrials, the last in 1990.

It was not immediately known where in Canada the suspects were arrested.

A United Nations diplomat charged with investigating claims of torture said Monday that he is "deeply disappointed and frustrated" that U.S. defense officials have refused his request for an unmonitored visit with Pfc. Bradley Manning, the Army intelligence analyst accused of passing classified material to WikiLeaks.

Juan E. Mendez, the U.N. special rapporteur on torture, said his request for a private interview with Manning was denied by the Defense Department on Friday. Instead, he has been told that any visit must be supervised.

Mendez has been seeking to determine whether Manning's confinement at a military brig at Quantico amounts to torture, following complaints about his treatment and an incident in which the private was forced to strip in his cell at night and sleep without clothing.

"My request . . . is not onerous: for my part, a monitored conversation would not comply with the practices that my mandate applies in every country and detention center visited," Mendez said in a statement Monday, noting that at least 18 countries have allowed unmonitored interviews.

Police May Clear Cut Thick Brush Before Spring Growth to Ease Search


The serial killer who dumped his victim's bodies in the thick brush along several miles of New York's breathtaking beachfront may have dismembered several of them, law enforcement authorities have told ABC News.

The grisly twist was the latest revelation as police continued to uncover the murderous path carved along Long Island beaches by at least one killer.

Investigators have determined that bones found Monday were human, bringing the body count to nine and possibly 10 victims. It's still not clear whether a skull found alone Monday was part of victim number 9 or would be victim number 10.

The bodies were strung out over a 3.5 mile stretch of beach with five of the bodies spaced out about 500 feet apart, police said.

The fatal crash that took the life of a mother and her three children is being ruled a suicide by City of Newburgh investigators.

An unidentified woman drove her vehicle into the Hudson River early Tuesday evening drowning herself and three children. Police have not released the names of the victims but have confirmed there were 2 boys ages 5 and 2 and an 11 month old infant girl.

A fourth child was able to escape the vehicle and made a frantic call for help. He told the Newburgh Fire Department that his mother had driven into the river with 3 of her children. City of Newburgh Police and Fire Departments responded to the call but it was too late.

The vehicle was recovered from the river near the boat launch in Gull Harbor next to Gully's with all 4 occupants still inside.

The names of the victims have not been released as an ongoing investigation into a domestic violence call made shortly before the incident is being followed up.

One Newburgh City Firemen said, "This is the worst call I've been on in 12 years."