Miracle Baby in Russia

Thousands of Muslim pilgrims are flocking to the home of a 9-month-old boy in Russia's southern republic of Dagestan to see the verses from the Koran that seem to appear and fade on his body every few days. Koran Verses Appear Mysteriously on Infant?s Body A pilgrim shows off the leg of baby Ali Yakubov at his house in Kizlyar in Russia's Dagestan Region,... Expand A pilgrim shows off the leg of baby Ali Yakubov at his house in Kizlyar in Russia's Dagestan Region, October 19, 2009. A "miracle" baby has brought a kind of mystical hope to people in Russia's mostly Muslim southern fringe who are increasingly desperate in the face of Islamist violence. From hunchbacked grandmas to schoolboys, hundreds of pilgrims lined up this week in blazing sunshine to get a glimpse of 9-month-old baby Ali Yakubov, on whose body they say verses from the Koran appear and fade every few days. Picture taken October 19, 2009. Collapse (Amir Amirov/Reuters) Religious leaders in Dagestan say the verse "Be thankful or grateful to God" appeared on Ali Yakubov's right leg in Arabic script earlier this week, according to Reuters. By the time foreign journalists had arrived, the verse had faded to a single letter. In photos, the words look like pink birthmarks a few inches high. Ali's parents told reporters at first they thought it was in fact a birthmark or a skin irritation but doctors couldn't explain it. The lettering appears on different parts of his body and shortly before a new set is about to appear, his parents say, the boy's temperature spikes to about 105 degrees.

Haiti earthquake: how it unfolded

SUNDAY 17 JANUARY First reports from the epicentre of Tuesday's earthquake suggested the damage was even more dramatic than in the capital. BBC correspondents said the scene in Leogane was "apocalyptic", with thousands left homeless and almost every building destroyed. The UN said up to 80-90% of buildings in Leogane, about 19km (12 miles) west of Port-au-Prince, had been destroyed. In the capital, survivors were becoming desperate as they waited for aid being handed out by international agencies. But in a sign of hope, rescuers pulled a woman alive from the rubble. "It's a little miracle," the woman's husband, Reinhard Riedl, told the Associated Press news agency after she was rescued from a luxury hotel. The Pan American Health Organization put the death toll at 50,000-100,000, while Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said 100,000 "would seem a minimum". US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton , the first senior overseas politician to arrive in Haiti, said the US would be "here today, tomorrow and for the time ahead", asserting that "Haiti can come back even better and stronger in the future".