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Battle for Ramadi continues

Syrian Christians celebrate in Damascus

Severed Heads Found in Guatemala

  GUATEMALA CITY – Found inside a bag on Monday were two heads that had presumably belonged to two minors whose decapitated bodies were found over the weekend down a ravine in the Guatemalan capital, authorities said.

The heads were found on bare ground in a gully that joins La Comunidad in Zone 10 to Las Charcas in Zone 11, paramedics said in postings on social media.

Found in the same area Saturday, stuffed in plastic bags and covered with sheets, were the decapitated bodies of the two youths.

Authorities have not yet established a motive for the crime.

This is not the first such case in this area of the capital in recent months. On Sept. 17, the bodies of an adult woman and a little girl were also found in Las Charcas. The victims were dismembered. The investigation into that crime is still ongoing.

Guatemala will end 2015 with almost 6,000 murders, or an average of 16 a day, thus maintaining one of the world’s highest homicide rates with 35 for every 100,000 inhabitants.

11 yr old boy dies at fruit stand in slum shootout

RIO DE JANEIRO – An 11-year-old boy and a teenager died and two other people were wounded in a shootout overnight in one of Rio de Janeiro’s sprawling shantytowns, or “favelas,” authorities reported Thursday.

The victims were shot by a group of armed men who entered the slum in several automobiles and opened fire indiscriminately before fleeing, according to a Rio de Janeiro Civil Police report.

The incident occurred in Cidade de Deus, a very poor neighborhood in western Rio made famous by the 2002 film of the same name that told the story of turf wars between rival drug trafficking gangs, who were expelled from the area in 2009 when police set up a permanent station and presence there.

The young boy, identified as Marcos Vinicius dos Santos, was helping his father at a street fruit stand when he was struck by one bullet in the chest.

The boy was taken to a nearby urgent care clinic in the favela but he died from his wound.

A 17-year-old teenage boy was also brought to the same clinic, but he also died, while a woman and another minor with bullet wounds were treated and are out of danger.

According to assorted witnesses, the gunmen entered the favela along a heavily traveled street.

Police suspect that the attack was staged by members of a militia, as parapolice organizations operating in different favelas near Cidade de Deus are known.

The parapolice outfits are comprised mainly of police officers, and they collect “taxes” for “protecting” people living in the areas they control.

After the shootings, many residents of the favela blocked the most important access routes into the area with burning tires and took to the streets for three hours to protest.

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Saudi Arabia Hospital Fire Leaves 25 Dead, 123 Injured

RIYADH - At least 25 people died and 123 were injured on Thursday in a fire at the General Hospital of Jazan in the southwest of Saudi Arabia, Saudi civil defense authorities said in a statement.

The spokesman of this agency in Jazan, Yahya al-Qahtany said in a note that the fire broke out on the first floor of the intensive care unit and the maternity ward.

The official, who did not specify the cause of the accident, said a total of 21 firefighters and medical teams were involved in efforts to extinguish the blaze and rescue the victims.

Civil defense teams evacuated patients from the hospital to nearby medical centers.

"Jazan hospital accident is now over and investigation is underway to find out its reasons," the civil agency said in its latest tweet