Damascus blames "terrorists" for petrol station blast

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syria on Friday said a car bomb at a crowded petrol station in Damascus on Thursday night was set off by "terrorists", a term it uses for rebels seeking to topple President Bashar al-Assad.

The bomb killed 11 people and wounded 40 at a station packed with Syrians queuing for fuel, which has become scarce in the 21-month insurgency against Assad, in the second petrol station attack in the capital this week, opposition activists said.

"Terrorists ... blew up an explosive device at Qassioun Petrol Station near Hamish Hospital in Barzeh, Damascus, martyring several civilians," state news agency SANA said.

The United Nations says more than 60,000 people have been killed in the civil war, the longest, bloodiest conflict born from uprisings across the Arab world in the past two years.

Dozens of people were incinerated in an air strike as they waited for fuel at another Damascus petrol station on Wednesday, according to opposition sources.

The semi-official al-Ikhbariya television station aired its own footage from Barzeh, indicating the attack struck a government-held area. Barzeh's residents include members of the Sunni Muslim majority and religious and ethnic minorities.

The rebels hold a crescent of suburbs on the southern and eastern edges of Damascus, which have come under bombardment by government forces. Rebel forces also seized territory in Syria's north and east during advances in the second half of 2012.

The war pits rebels, mainly from the Sunni Muslim majority, against a government supported by members of Assad's Shi'ite-derived Alawite sect and some members of other minorities who fear revenge if he falls. Assad's family has ruled for 42 years since his father seized power in a coup.

Fighting has forced 560,000 Syrians to flee to neighboring countries, according to the U.N.

Lebanon, a country which has so far tried to distance itself from the conflict next door for fear it will inflame sectarian tensions, approved a plan to start registering 170,000 Syrian refugees and ask international donors for $180 million in aid.

"The Lebanese state will register the refugees...and guarantee aid and protection for the actual refugees in Lebanon," Social Affairs Minister Wael Abu Faour said after a six-hour cabinet session on Thursday night.

Most Sunni-ruled Arab states, as well as the West and Turkey have called for Assad to step down. He is supported by Russia and Shi'ite Iran.

ARMY WITHDRAWAL?

A Lebanese citizen who crossed into Syria through a mountainous frontier region said the army appeared to have withdrawn from several border posts and villages in the area.

Rebels controlled a line of border towns and villages north of the capital Damascus, stretching about 40 km (25 miles) from Yabroud south to Rankus, said the man, who did not want to be named and visited Syria on Wednesday and Thursday.

Rebels in the area reported that some of Assad's forces have pulled back to defend the main north-south highway linking Syria's main cities of Damascus, Homs, Hama and Aleppo, while others were sent to reinforce the northern approach to Damascus.

"The border is controlled by the Free Syrian Army rebels," he said on Friday, adding he had crossed through mountainous terrain, covered in parts by more than a meter of snow.

(Additional reporting by Dominic Evans in Beirut and Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Amman; Editing by Jason Webb)

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Why Some Facebook Users Constantly Update Status

Scientists have found what compels people to constantly update their Facebook status. College students who posted more status updates than they normally did felt less lonely over the course of a week, even if no one “Liked” or commented on their posts, researchers found.

“We got the idea to conduct this study during a coffee-break sharing random stories about what friends had posted on Facebook,” psychology researcher Fenne große Deters, of the Universitat Berlin, told LiveScience in an email. “Wondering why posting status updates is so popular, we thought that it would be thrilling to study this new form of communication empirically.”

Deters and her colleague recruited about 100 undergraduates (all Facebook users) at the University of Arizona. All participants filled out initial surveys to measure their levels of loneliness, happiness and depression, and they gave the researchers access to their Facebook profiles by friending a dummy user created for the experiment.

The students were sent an analysis of their average weekly status updates (online wall-memos) and some of the participants were then told to post more statuses than usual over the next seven days. During that week, all completed a short online questionnaire at the end of each day about their mood and level of social connection.

Compared with the group of students who didn’t adjust their social media habits, those who went on a status-writing blitz felt less lonely over the week, the team found. Their happiness and depression levels went unchanged, “suggesting that the effect is specific to experienced loneliness,” the researchers wrote. And a drop in loneliness was linked to an increase in feeling more socially connected, which the researchers believe is the cause behind the positive effects of status updating. [6 Personal Secrets Your Facebook Profile Isn't Keeping]

Interestingly, the team found that loneliness levels did not depend on whether the students’ status updates garnered any comments or “Likes” from Facebook friends. One might assume that a lack of response could be considered a form of rejection, but the act of writing a status update itself might help people feel more connected, the researchers said. When crafting a clever status, Facebook users have a target audience in mind. Simply thinking about their friends (or at least their Facebook friends) can have a “social snacking” effect.

“Similar to a snack temporarily reducing hunger until the next meal, social snacking may help tolerate the lack of ‘real’ social interaction for a certain amount of time,” the researchers wrote in a paper published last month in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science.

Now with over a billion users, Facebook has become the focus of an increasing number of studies trying to uncover the real-life social side effects that can accompany using the social media site.

For example, research presented last year at the meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) showed how the site offers a dangerous medium for social comparison. People in that study with lots of Facebook friends had lower self-esteem, feeling worse about their place in life and their achievements if they’d just viewed their friends’ status updates, compared with people who hadn’t recently surfed the site. But for people with just a few Facebook friends, viewing status updates wasn’t a problem.

Another study, detailed in the Sept. 13 issue of the journal Nature, found such Facebook friends can influence real-life actions of one another. In that study, one “get out the vote” message sent to 61 million Facebook users on Election Day 2010 led to 340,000 people casting ballots when they otherwise would not have.

Follow LiveScience on Twitter @livescience. We’re also on Facebook & Google+.

Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Ryan Seacrest, Julianne Hough Go Paddleboarding in St. Barts

01/04/2013 at 11:35 AM EST

Ryan Seacrest and Julianne Hough

FameFlynet

Talk about a great escape.

While much of the nation shivered in frigid temperatures, Ryan Seacrest and Julianne Hough stripped down to their swimsuits and took time to paddleboard during their vacation on the Caribbean island of St. Barts.

This secluded shot in the bright, blue waters – St. Barts temps this week hovered in the 80s – was taken Wednesday, after the American Idol host, 38, spent his Monday night and Tuesday morning in New York's crowded Times Square, ringing in ABC's New Year's Rockin' Eve with chipper co-host Jenny McCarthy.

Actress and former Dancing with the Stars contestant Hough, 24, meanwhile, made headlines of her own this week, by revealing that she had been mentally and verbally abused as a child.

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Indian court to rule on generic drug industry

NEW DELHI (AP) — From Africa's crowded AIDS clinics to the malarial jungles of Southeast Asia, the lives of millions of ill people in the developing world are hanging in the balance ahead of a legal ruling that will determine whether India's drug companies can continue to provide cheap versions of many life-saving medicines.

The case — involving Swiss drug maker Novartis AG's cancer drug Glivec — pits aid groups that argue India plays a vital role as the pharmacy to the poor against drug companies that insist they need strong patents to make drug development profitable. A ruling by India's Supreme Court is expected in early 2013.

"The implications of this case reach far beyond India, and far beyond this particular cancer drug," said Leena Menghaney, from the aid group Doctors Without Borders. "Across the world, there is a heavy dependence on India to supply affordable versions of expensive patented medicines."

With no costs for developing new drugs or conducting expensive trials, India's $26 billion generics industry is able to sell medicine for as little as one-tenth the price of the companies that developed them, making India the second-largest source of medicines distributed by UNICEF in its global programs.

Indian pharmaceutical companies such as Cipla, Cadila Laboratories and Lupin have emerged over the past decade as major sources of generic cancer, malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS drugs for poor countries that can't afford to pay Western prices.

The 6-year-old case that just wrapped up in the Supreme Court revolves around a legal provision in India's 2005 patent law that is aimed at preventing companies from getting fresh patents for making only minor changes to existing medicines — a practice known as "evergreening."

Novartis' argued that a new version of Glivec — marketed in the U.S. as Gleevec — was a significant change from the earlier version because it was more easily absorbed by the body.

India's Patent Controller turned down the application, saying the change was an obvious development, and the new medicine was not sufficiently distinct from the earlier version to warrant a patent extension.

Patient advocacy groups hailed the decision as a blow to "evergreening."

But Western companies argued that India's generic manufacturers were cutting the incentive for major drug makers to invest in research and innovation if they were not going to be able to reap the exclusive profits that patents bring.

"This case is about safeguarding incentives for better medicines so that patients' needs will be met in the future," says Eric Althoff, a Novartis spokesman.

International drug companies have accused India of disregarding intellectual property rights, and have pushed for stronger patent protection that would weaken India's generics industry.

Earlier this year, an Indian manufacturer was allowed to produce a far cheaper version of the kidney and liver cancer treatment sorefinib, manufactured by Bayer Corp.

Bayer was selling the drug for about $5,600 a month. Natco, the Indian company, said its generic version would cost $175 a month, less than 1/30th as much. Natco was ordered to pay 6 percent in royalties to Bayer.

Novartis says the outcome of the new case will not affect the availability of generic versions of Glivec because it is covered by a grandfather clause in India's patent law. Only the more easily absorbed drug would be affected, Althoff said, adding that its own generic business, Sandoz, produces cheap versions of its drugs for millions across the globe.

Public health activists say the question goes beyond Glivec to whether drug companies should get special protection for minor tweaks to medicines that others could easily have uncovered.

"We're looking to the Supreme Court to tell Novartis it won't open the floodgates and allow abusive patenting practices," said Eldred Tellis, of the Sankalp Rehabilitation Centre, a private group working with HIV patients.

The court's decision is expected to be a landmark that will influence future drug accessibility and price across the developing world.

"We're already paying very high prices for some of the new drugs that are patented in India," said Petros Isaakidis, an epidemiologist with Doctors Without Borders. "If Novartis' wins, even older medicines could be subject to patenting again, and it will become much more difficult for us in future to provide medicines to our patients being treated for HIV, hepatitis and drug resistant TB."

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Wall Street mixed following jobs, ISM data reports

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks firmed on Friday after a jobs report showed the pace of hiring met expectations by easing slightly in December, but gave indications of momentum in the labor market recovery.

The market also reacted modestly to data from the Institute for Supply Management, which showed the U.S. service sector grew at its fastest pace in 10 months in December, boosted by a rise in new orders.

"The jobs number today was somewhat benign, it was pretty close to what estimates were, so there wasn't much to draw out volatility from that report," said Gordon Charlop, managing director at Rosenblatt Securities in New York.

"I get the sense we're just sort of going to digest the events of earlier this week," he said, referring to the "fiscal cliff" deal in Washington that averted a possible recession.

The S&P saw its largest gain in over a year to start 2013 on Wednesday, following the agreement struck late Tuesday.

The Labor Department said payrolls outside the farming sector grew 155,000 last month, slightly below November's level. Gains in employment were distributed broadly throughout the economy, from manufacturing and construction to healthcare.

Shares of Apple Inc dropped 2.9 percent to $526.20, continuing its downward path of recent months and pressuring the Nasdaq.

Adding to concerns about the iPhone maker's ability to produce more innovative products going forward, rival Samsung Electronics Co Ltd is expected to widen its lead over Apple in global smartphone sales this year with 35 percent growth, propped up by a broad product lineup, according to market researcher Strategy Analytics.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was up 3.99 points, or 0.03 percent, at 13,395.35. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> gained 2.38 points, or 0.16 percent, at 1,461.75. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> dropped 3.47 points, or 0.11 percent, at 3,097.10.

New orders received by U.S. factories were flat in November, missing expectations as demand for aircraft sank sharply, although a gauge of business spending plans gave a positive sign for the economy.

The lackluster economic growth indicated by the jobs data did not make a dent in the still-high U.S. unemployment rate, but it calmed fears about the possibility of the U.S. Federal Reserve ending its highly stimulative monetary policy.

Concerns about the endurance of the Fed's stimulus program prompted investors to pull back from the market Thursday after a two-day rally.

Minutes from the Fed's December policy meeting, released Thursday, showed Fed officials were increasingly worried about the risks of asset purchases to financial markets, though they looked set to continue with the open-ended stimulus program for now.

Some policymakers thought asset buying should be slowed or stopped before the end of 2013 while others highlighted the need for further stimulus. The Fed's policy of easy credit has helped push the S&P 500 to a 13.4 percent gain in 2012. Ending that policy would remove an incentive for investors to purchase riskier assets like stocks.

The S&P Energy sector index <.gspe> rose again, up 0.7 percent, led by a 3.5 percent gain in shares of Chesapeake Energy .

Eli Lilly and Co stock rose 3.9 percent to $51.68 after the pharmaceuticals maker said it expects its 2013 earnings to increase to $3.75 to $3.90 per share excluding items from $3.30 to $3.40 per share in 2012.

Shares of Mosaic Co gained 2.6 percent to $58.25 on the fertilizer producer's announcement that its quarterly operating profit fell 30 percent as international distributors delayed buying potash and phosphate to avert the price risk associated with the company's negotiations with China and India.

(Additional reporting by Angela Moon; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Nick Zieminski)

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Myanmar says jets used against Kachin rebels

YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar's military has used jets to attacks rebel fighters in northern Kachin state, the government said on Thursday, its first admission of an intensification of a conflict that has raised doubts about its reformist credentials.

Rebel sources have reported aerial bombings, shelling and even the use of chemical weapons since December 28 after the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) ignored an ultimatum to stop blocking an army supply route in the hilly, resource-rich state where more than 50,000 people have been displaced.

Official newspapers said that air support was used on December 30 to thwart KIA fighters who had occupied a hill and were attacking logistics units of the Tatmadaw, as Myanmar's military is known.

"The Tatmadaw troops cleared Point-771 hill and its surrounding areas where the KIA troops were attacking the Tatmadaw logistic troops," the New Light of Myanmar, a government mouthpiece, said. "The air cover was used in the attack."

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon voiced concern on Wednesday over reports of helicopters and fighter jets being used in the state bordering China. The KIA said the attacks were intended to clear the path for an assault on its headquarters in Laisa.

Ban called on Myanmar's government to "desist from any action that could endanger the lives of civilians" and reiterated demands for humanitarian aid groups to be granted access, U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said in a statement.

President Thein Sein's quasi-civilian administration insists it wants a ceasefire and political dialogue. It says troops have acted only in self-defense and on Thursday denied having plans to seize the KIA's stronghold.

DOMINANT MILITARY

The escalation of fighting has raised doubts about the sincerity of the reformist ex-generals running the government and the extent of their power in a country the size of Britain and France plagued by decades of internal conflict.

Some analysts and diplomats say central government is either not fully committed to peace with the KIA or unable to assert control over the military, which still dominates politics and the economy despite formally ceding power in March 2011.

Colonel James Lum Dau, a Thai-based spokesman for the KIA's political wing, said Kachin officials on the ground had reported up to 300 people killed in air strikes.

"We are in a defensive position. Right now more people are suffering not only bombings, but shelling and spraying of chemical weapons with helicopter gunships and jets," he said. "Only god knows what to do. We are praying."

It is difficult for journalists to independently verify accounts from the two sides.

Fighting erupted in Kachin in June 2010, ending a 17-year truce, and has continued even as government negotiators have agreed ceasefires elsewhere with ethnic Shan, Chin, Mon and Karen militias after decades of fighting in border areas.

Mistrust runs deep between the military and the KIA, which was once backed by China, and multiple rounds of talks aimed at reaching a ceasefire have gone nowhere. Analysts say a history of bad blood and a battle for control of resources, including highly lucrative jade, could be stoking the unrest.

Zaw Htay, a senior official in Thein Sein's office, told Reuters no air strikes had taken place but K-8 trainer jets had provided cover fire to protect ground troops from rebel attacks. The military, he said, had no intention of seizing the KIA's headquarters.

"The president has said this and at the same time he has invited KIA leaders to come and talk with him in Naypyitaw, but they still haven't responded," Zaw Htay said.

(Additional reporting by Paul Carsten in Bangkok; Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by Alan Raybould)

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Why Is Jennifer Lopez's Housekeeper Playing with Her Red Carpet Gowns?

Stylewatch
Style News Now

01/03/2013 at 09:00 AM ET

Courtesy Harper’s Bazaar

No one will ever forget the plunging Versace dress Jennifer Lopez wore to the 2000 Grammy Awards. But the star herself still hasn’t figured out exactly what to do with the memorable gown.

“I have that at home. The other day, my housekeeper put it on a mannequin in my spa, where I get my hair and makeup done,” Lopez says in the February issue of Harper’s Bazaar. “She sent me a pictures. She was like, ‘You like this dress?’ Um, yeah, but I don’t know if I like it out in the house!”

Fashion problems aside, Lopez also dishes on her fashion tastes, which she realizes have changed over time. The singer says she’s gone from a “boyish, hip-hoppy sensibility: big hoops, sneakers, tank tops, and my big curly hair” to adding a “sexy element” to channeling “movie stars, Jackie O. And now all of these things mixed together, that’s my style.”

But behind that well-dressed façade is a mother who realizes she keeps a crazy schedule — and works to keep her children as happy and grounded as possible when on the road.

“I make [travel] as simple and as beautiful as I can because my life is kind of big,” she shares. “So I pack my luggage, or dress myself, or comb my kids’ hair, pick up their clothes — that makes our life beautiful, you know? There’s something very elegant in that.” For more with Lopez, pick up the February issue of Harper’s Bazaar, on newsstands Jan. 8, or visit harpersbazaar.com/jenniferlopez.

–Kate Hogan

PHOTOS: TAKE A LOOK BACK AT THE 50 MOST MEMORABLE GRAMMY OUTFITS EVER

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Flu? Malaria? Disease forecasters look to the sky

NEW YORK (AP) — Only a 10 percent chance of showers today, but a 70 percent chance of flu next month.

That's the kind of forecasting health scientists are trying to move toward, as they increasingly include weather data in their attempts to predict disease outbreaks.

In one recent study, two scientists reported they could predict — more than seven weeks in advance — when flu season was going to peak in New York City. Theirs was just the latest in a growing wave of computer models that factor in rainfall, temperature or other weather conditions to forecast disease.

Health officials are excited by this kind of work and the idea that it could be used to fine-tune vaccination campaigns or other disease prevention efforts.

At the same time, experts note that outbreaks are influenced as much, or more, by human behavior and other factors as by the weather. Some argue weather-based outbreak predictions still have a long way to go. And when government health officials warned in early December that flu season seemed to be off to an early start, they said there was no evidence it was driven by the weather.

This disease-forecasting concept is not new: Scientists have been working on mathematical models to predict outbreaks for decades and have long factored in the weather. They have known, for example, that temperature and rainfall affect the breeding of mosquitoes that carry malaria, West Nile virus and other dangerous diseases.

Recent improvements in weather-tracking have helped, including satellite technology and more sophisticated computer data processing.

As a result, "in the last five years or so, there's been quite an improvement and acceleration" in weather-focused disease modeling, said Ira Longini, a University of Florida biostatistician who's worked on outbreak prediction projects.

Some models have been labeled successes.

In the United States, researchers at Johns Hopkins University and the University of New Mexico tried to predict outbreaks of hantavirus in the late 1990s. They used rain and snow data and other information to study patterns of plant growth that attract rodents. People catch the disease from the droppings of infected rodents.

"We predicted what would happen later that year," said Gregory Glass, a Johns Hopkins researcher who worked on the project.

More recently, in east Africa, satellites have been used to predict rainfall by measuring sea-surface temperatures and cloud density. That's been used to generate "risk maps" for Rift Valley fever — a virus that spreads from animals to people and in severe cases can cause blindness or death. Researchers have said the system in some cases has given two to six weeks advance warning.

Last year, other researchers using satellite data in east Africa said they found that a small change in average temperature was a warning sign cholera cases would double within four months.

"We are getting very close to developing a viable forecasting system" against cholera that can help health officials in African countries ramp up emergency vaccinations and other efforts, said a statement by one of the authors, Rita Reyburn of the International Vaccine Institute in Seoul, South Korea.

Some diseases are hard to forecast, such as West Nile virus. Last year, the U.S. suffered one of its worst years since the virus arrived in 1999. There were more than 2,600 serious illnesses and nearly 240 deaths.

Officials said the mild winter, early spring and very hot summer helped spur mosquito breeding and the spread of the virus. But the danger wasn't spread uniformly. In Texas, the Dallas area was particularly hard-hit, while other places, including some with similar weather patterns and the same type of mosquitoes, were not as affected.

"Why Dallas, and not areas with similar ecological conditions? We don't really know," said Roger Nasci of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He is chief of the CDC branch that tracks insect-borne viruses.

Some think flu lends itself to outbreak forecasting — there's already a predictability to the annual winter flu season. But that's been tricky, too.

Seasonal flu reports come from doctors' offices, but those show the disease when it's already spreading. Some researchers have studied tweets on Twitter and searches on Google, but their work has offered a jump of only a week or two on traditional methods.

In the study of New York City flu cases published last month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the authors said they could forecast, by up to seven weeks, the peak of flu season.

They designed a model based on weather and flu data from past years, 2003-09. In part, their design was based on earlier studies that found flu virus spreads better when the air is dry and turns colder. They made calculations based on humidity readings and on Google Flu Trends, which tracks how many people are searching each day for information on flu-related topics (often because they're beginning to feel ill).

Using that model, they hope to try real-time predictions as early as next year, said Jeffrey Shaman of Columbia University, who led the work.

"It's certainly exciting," said Lyn Finelli, the CDC's flu surveillance chief. She said the CDC supports Shaman's work, but agency officials are eager to see follow-up studies showing the model can predict flu trends in places different from New York, like Miami.

Despite the optimism by some, Dr. Edward Ryan, a Harvard University professor of immunology and infectious diseases, is cautious about weather-based prediction models. "I'm not sure any of them are ready for prime time," he said.

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Wall Street dips as profits booked after rally

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks edged lower on Thursday as investors locked in gains after a rally Wednesday, which was spurred by a deal by U.S. lawmakers to avert a "fiscal cliff" of austerity measures that had been due to kick in this year.

Losses were limited, however, by better-than-expected data that showed U.S. private-sector employers added 215,000 jobs in December. That was well above economists' expectations for a gain of 133,000 jobs, according to a Reuters survey.

"The report now sets the stage as we expect a strong non-farm payroll reading on Friday," said Andrew Wilkinson, chief economic strategist at Miller Tabak & Co in New York

The ADP report beat forecasts partly due to "a snapback from (superstorm) Sandy, although we prefer to stick to our line of thought that says the economy is gaining momentum rather than losing it regardless of the impact of fiscal talks in Washington," he said.

The key payrolls report is due on Friday. A Reuters survey forecasts non-farm payrolls rose to 150,000 last month, from 146,000 in November.

A separate report Thursday showed the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits rose last week, but the data was too distorted by year-end holidays to offer a clear read of labor market conditions.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was down 45.92 points, or 0.34 percent, at 13,366.63. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was down 3.62 points, or 0.25 percent, at 1,458.80. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was down 8.15 points, or 0.26 percent, at 3,104.11.

Wall Street began the new year Wednesday with a rally and their best performance in more than a year, sparked by a last-minute deal in Washington to avert a fiscal cliff of automatic massive tax hikes and spending cuts that, in the worst-case scenario, would have hurt the nation's economic growth.

The minutes of the Federal Reserve's policy meeting last month will be released at 2:00 p.m. EST (1900 GMT). The minutes will give details on the discussions of the Federal Open Market Committee's December 11-12 meeting.

U.S. retailer Costco Wholesale Corp reported a better-than-expected 9 percent rise in December sales at stores open at least a year, mainly helped by an additional sales day in the reporting period. Costco shares rose 1.3 percent to $102.80.

Gap Inc will buy women's fashion boutique Intermix Inc for $130 million to enter the luxury clothes market, the Wall Street Journal reported. The stock rose 3 percent to $32.28.

Family Dollar Stores Inc reported a lower-than-expected quarterly profit as its emphasis on selling more everyday items like cigarettes and soft drinks put pressure on margins. The stock fell 12 percent to $56.47.

(Editing by Bernadette Baum)

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U.N. lifts Syria death toll to "truly shocking" 60,000

AMMAN/GENEVA (Reuters) - More than 60,000 people have died in Syria's uprising and civil war, the United Nations said on Wednesday, dramatically raising the death toll in a struggle that shows no sign of ending.

In the latest violence, dozens were killed in a rebellious Damascus suburb when a government air strike turned a petrol station into an inferno, incinerating drivers who had rushed there for a rare chance to fill their tanks, activists said.

"I counted at least 30 bodies. They were either burnt or dismembered," said Abu Saeed, an activist who arrived in the area an hour after the 1 p.m. (1100 GMT) raid in Muleiha, a suburb on the eastern edge of the capital.

U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay said in Geneva that researchers cross-referencing seven sources over five months of analysis had listed 59,648 people killed in Syria between March 15, 2011 and November 30, 2012.

"The number of casualties is much higher than we expected and is truly shocking," she said. "Given that there has been no let-up in the conflict since the end of November, we can assume that more than 60,000 people have been killed by the beginning of 2013."

There was no breakdown by ethnicity or information about whether the dead were rebels, soldiers or civilians. There was also no estimate of an upper limit of the possible toll.

Previously, the opposition-linked Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group put the toll at around 45,000 confirmed dead but said the real number was likely to be higher.

FATAL RUSH FOR PETROL

Muleiha, the target of Wednesday's air strike, is a residential and industrial area in the eastern Ghouta region of Damascus that also houses a Syrian air defense base.

Video footage taken by activists showed the body of a man in a helmet still perched on a motorcycle amid flames engulfing the scene. Another man was shown carrying a dismembered body.

The video could not be verified. The government bars access to the Damascus area to most international media.

The activists said rockets were fired from the base at the petrol station and a nearby residential area after the air raid.

"Until the raid, Muleiha was quiet. We have been without petrol for four days and people from the town and the countryside rushed to the station when a state consignment came in," Abu Fouad, another activist at the scene, said by phone.

In Damascus, President Bashar al-Assad's forces fired artillery and mortars at the eastern districts of Douma, Harasta, Irbin and Zamlaka, where rebels are active, activists living there said.

Assad's forces control the centre of the capital, while rebels and their sympathizers hold a ring of southern and eastern suburbs that are often hit from the air.

The Observatory said a separate air strike killed 12 members of a family, most of them children, in Moadamiyeh, a southwestern district near the centre of Damascus where rebels have fought for a foothold.

The family of an American freelance journalist, James Foley, 39, said on Wednesday he had been missing in Syria since being kidnapped six weeks ago by gunmen. No group has publicly claimed responsibility for his abduction.

Syria was by far the most dangerous country for journalists in 2012, with 28 killed there.

The conflict began in March 2011 with peaceful protests against four decades of Assad family rule and turned into an armed revolt after months of government repression.

Insurgents trying to topple Assad see his air power as their main threat. They hold swathes of eastern and northern provinces, as well as some outlying parts of Damascus, but have been unable to protect their territory from relentless attack by helicopters and jets.

In the north, rebels, some from Islamist units, attacked the Afis military airport near Taftanaz air base, firing machineguns and mortars at helicopters on the ground to try and make a dent in Assad's air might, the Observatory said.

The al Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front, Ahrar al-Sham Brigade and other units in northwestern Idlib province were attacking the base, which is near the main north-south highway linking Damascus to Aleppo, Syria's biggest city, the Observatory said.

In recent months, rebel units have besieged military bases, especially along the highway, Syria's main artery.

The Observatory's director, Rami Abdelrahman, said the attack was the latest of several attempts to capture the base. A satellite image of the airport shows more than 40 helicopter landing pads, a runway and aircraft hangars.

Syrian state media gave no immediate account of the Damascus air strikes or the fighting in the north.

"FOR GOD'S EYES"

Both sides have been accused of committing atrocities in the 21-month-old conflict, but the United Nations says the government and its allies have been more culpable.

In the latest evidence of atrocities, Internet video posted by Syrian rebels shows armed men, apparently fighters loyal to Assad, stabbing two men to death and stoning them with concrete blocks in a summary execution lasting several minutes.

Reuters could not verify the provenance of the footage or the identity of the perpetrators and their victims. The video was posted on Tuesday but it was not clear where or when it was filmed. However it does clearly show a summary execution and torture, apparently being carried out by government supporters.

At one point, one of the perpetrators says: "For God's eyes and your Lord, O Bashar," an Arabic incantation suggesting actions being carried out in the leader's name.

The video was posted on YouTube by the media office of the Damascus-based rebel First Brigade, which said it had been taken from a captured member of the shabbiha pro-government militia.

The perpetrators show off for the camera, smiling for close-up shots, slicing at the victims' backs, then stabbing them and bashing them with large slabs of masonry.

Syria's civil war is the longest and deadliest conflict to emerge from uprisings that began sweeping the Arab world in 2011 and has developed a significant sectarian element.

Rebels, mostly from the Sunni Muslim majority, confront Assad's army and security forces, dominated by his Shi'ite-derived Alawite sect, which, along with some other minorities, fears revenge if he falls.

(Additional reporting by Oliver Holmes in Beirut; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Alistair Lyon/Mark Heinrich)

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