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BEIRUT (Reuters) – At least 20 people were killed as Syrian tank forces battled opponents of President Bashar al-Assad in Homs on Monday, residents said, ahead of a planned visit by Arab League monitors to verify whether he is ending a violent crackdown on unrest.

A day before observers were to have their first look at the city at the heart of a nine-month-old revolt, there was no sign of Assad carrying out a plan agreed with the League to halt an offensive against protests and start talks with the opposition.

Amateur video posted to the internet by activists showed three tanks in the streets next to apartment blocks. One was firing its machinegun and another appeared to be firing mortar rounds. Gruesome video showed mangled bodies lying in pools of blood along a narrow street. Power lines had collapsed and cars were burnt and blasted, as if by mortar rounds.

An armed insurgency is increasingly eclipsing civilian protests. Now many fear Syria is sliding toward a sectarian war that pits the Sunni Muslim majority, the driving force of the protest movement, against minorities that have mostly stayed loyal to the government, particularly the Alawite sect to which Assad belongs. Fighting in Homs has intensified since a double suicide bombing in Damascus on Friday that killed 44 people.

"The Baba Amr (district) (of Homs) is being exposed to fierce shelling from heavy machinegun fire, armored vehicles and mortars," the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Right said in a statement.

"The violence is definitely two-sided," said a Homs resident who named himself only as Mohammed to protect his safety. "I've been seeing ambulances filled with wounded soldiers passing by my window in the past days. They're getting shot somehow."

Parts of Homs are defended by the Free Syrian Army, made up of defectors from the regular armed forces, who say they have tried to establish no-go areas to protect civilians.

The Observatory documented names of those reported killed in Monday's clashes sparked by a new wave of raids and arrests that also hit districts in Syria's second city Aleppo. That business hub had been spared most of the upheaval until recently.

The initial 50 of 150 Arab League monitors were due to arrive in Syria on Monday, and some will go to Homs on Tuesday, a source at the group's headquarters in Cairo told Reuters. Their job will be to assess whether Assad is withdrawing tanks and troops from Syria's third largest city as promised.

"The element of surprise will be present," said monitor Mohamed Salem al-Kaaby from the United Arab Emirates. "We will inform the Syrian side the areas we will visit on the same day so that there will be no room to direct monitors or change realities on the ground by either side."

The mission's objective is to confirm that the Syrian government is executing the Arab League initiative by withdrawing the military from cities, releasing prisoners and allowing Arab and allowing international media to visit.

Syria has barred most foreign journalists since the revolt began, making it hard to verify reports of events on the ground.

Other residents in Homs said they were running low on food as fighting left them trapped in their neighborhoods.

"We are hungry and cold. There's no food, and we're running out of fuel for heating," said Tamir, an unemployed construction worker who hid with his family in their basement as heavy gunfire rocked the city.

Syrian state television has regularly shown some areas of Homs, a city of one million, looking peaceful. But activist video on the internet shows other areas looking like a war zone of empty streets, crumpled bodies and blasted buildings.

SPLIT IN SYRIAN NATIONAL COUNCIL?

The Syrian state news agency SANA reported clashes further south on Monday. "Civilians and forces to preserve security have been exposed to attacks by armed terrorist groups in the village of al-Lijat in Deraa province," it said.

SANA said "a number" of the group were killed. One soldier died and eight were wounded. The agency also said Syrian forces disabled four improvised explosive devices on main roads close to the flashpoint city's main fuel station.


A source inside the opposition Syrian National Council said a growing number of its members are pushing to openly endorse armed insurrection against the government. But they faced resistance from those dealing diplomatically with Western powers and calling for U.N. support or foreign intervention in Syria.


The United Nations says at least 5,000 Syrians have been killed the revolt, inspired by other Arab uprisings this year that have toppled three dictators, broke out in March - and an estimated one-third of deaths have occurred in and around Homs.


The Syrian authorities blame the violence on foreign-backed armed Islamists who they say have killed 2,000 members of the security forces. After six weeks of stalling, Damascus signed a protocol this month to admit the Arab League monitors.


Assad, 46, succeeded his father in 2000 to carry on a dynasty that has ruled for 41 years. He has responded to popular calls to step down with a mixture of force and promises of reform, announcing an end to a state of emergency and promising a parliamentary election in February.


The first group of about 50 Arab League monitors, led by Sudanese General Mustafa Dabi, will be divided into five 10-man teams going to five locations.


"We're waiting. Let's see," said Homs resident Mohammed. "We hope they work the way they should. We hope they will be neutral ... If they are neutral they will be condemning everyone but most especially the (Syrian) authorities because they are the ones who should be responsible for protecting people."


Arab League mission chief Dabi reached Damascus on Saturday while the capital was still reeling from suicide bombings the day before that marked an ominous escalation of the violence.


Assad's opponents say they suspect his government carried out the Damascus bombings itself to prove to the world that Syria is facing indiscriminate violence by armed Islamists and to intimidate the work of monitors.


"The Assad regime, through the two suicide attacks in Damascus on Friday, has given the Syrian people and Arab states two choices: Either it remains in power or it will confront them with killing and terrorism," said Paris-based Syrian National Council president Burhan Ghalioun.


"The explosions in Damascus carried the signature of the Syrian intelligence forces," he told Asharq Alawsat newspaper. "But these terrorist operations will not discourage people from continuing the revolution to topple this regime no matter the sacrifices. It is no longer acceptable to blackmail us through terrorism."


(Additional reporting by Ayman Samir in Cairo; Writing by Douglas Hamilton; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) – A light dusting of snow in north Texas delivered a rare white Christmas to this drought-stricken state, but the majority of the nation was seeing mild weather on Sunday.

Snow showers glazed parts of the Northeast as well, with snowy road conditions cited as a factor in a two-vehicle traffic collision that left four men dead in the town of Palermo, Maine, on Sunday.

But weather forecasters said 99 percent of Americans would see more green and brown for their Yuletide celebrations -- along with plenty of rain, according to Accuweather.com.

Other extreme weather included freeze warnings posted in the farm-rich Central Valley of California, gale warnings near the Great Lakes, and high winds that claimed the life of a young girl and left thousands of homes without power in and around Seattle.

Tobiah Leonard, 9, was killed when part of a fallen tree crushed the roof of the sport utility vehicle she was riding in with her family en route to a holiday gathering on Whidbey Island, about 40 miles northwest of Seattle, said Keith Leary, a spokesman for the Washington State Patrol.

Her father, also a passenger in the SUV, was flown to a Seattle hospital with injuries to his back and neck from the freak accident but was expected to survive, Leary said.

The wet Christmas in the Texas panhandle and Permian Basin brought some cheer for drought-weary Texans, who were seeing snow in Lubbock and Amarillo on Christmas morning and rain in the eastern part of the state.

The worst drought on record in Texas this year stoked devastating wildfires, killed as many as half a billion trees, and prompted the most serious urban water-use restrictions ever in the state.

By mid-afternoon on Sunday, at least 4 inches of snow had fallen in Amarillo, making it the second snowiest Christmas in that city's history, National Weather Service forecaster Stephen Bilodeau said.

And with winter weather advisories in effect until 6 a.m. on Monday, there was a chance that Amarillo's record for snow accumulation might be broken before midnight.

Bilodeau said he would have preferred that the snow quit early and left the afternoon safer for Christmas Day travel.

"It's a little bit too much," he said. "The white Christmas through the beginning of the day was good, but now these poor people are getting out into this stuff. There have been a few accidents, and it's ruining a few people's day today."

Not so for native Texan and conservationist Don Alexander, 55, who was spending the holiday with his wife's family in Midland, and enjoying his very first white Christmas.

"The snow is a nifty bonus," Alexander said, as his college-aged daughter posted snow pictures on her Facebook page. "The snow will certainly make this particular Christmas memorable. Winter isn't very scenic in West Texas, so the layer of snow is a nice effect. The bad part is having to wipe down the dog's paws every time he goes outside and then back in."

Far to the north, public safety officials in Maine said four men were killed in a head-on crash between an SUV and another vehicle on a road made slippery by light snowfall in Palermo, about 60 miles northeast of Portland. Police said the collision ranks as Maine's deadliest traffic wreck this year.

Very little fresh snow was expected to fall elsewhere throughout the day on Sunday, according to Accuweather.com. But a storm in southern Ontario was forecast to move into Quebec on Sunday night and drop snow near the Great Lakes, with some accumulation likely overnight.

Residents from Watertown, New York, to Bangor, Maine -- many of whom are off work on Monday in observance of the Christmas holiday -- could wake up to an inch of snow on the ground Monday as that storm moves East.

The Weather Service posted a wind advisory for western Washington state on Sunday, warning of gusts reaching 50 miles per hour through mid-afternoon.


Utility companies reported some 32,000 homes and businesses without electricity in Seattle and the greater Puget Sound region during the day, mostly from tree limbs blown into power lines.


Most of the Pacific Northwest was experiencing mild weather on Christmas Day, while states like Colorado and New Mexico had lingering snow leftover from a pre-Christmas storm.


(Additional reporting by Zach Howard and Laura L. Myers. Editing by Tim Gaynor and Steve Gorman)

For more than 50 years, NORAD — the North American Aerospace Defense Command — has used its high-tech missile-tracking systems to track Santa's progress during his annual Christmas Eve flight around the world.

For a 24-hour period, about 1,200 military volunteers take shifts manning the command center at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado; they monitor radar screens and field calls from excited 7-year-olds who ask for updates on Santa's location. They also update Kris Kringle's progress on the Google Earth map on the NORAD Tracks Santa website, as well as the Facebook page and the Twitter feed.

For the first time this year, people can even keep constant tabs on Santa's sleigh by downloading the NORAD Tracks Santa iPhone and Android apps. In other words, the program is a big deal, and it get bigger every Christmas.

But how do they do it? How does NORAD "track" Santa? [Is There a Santa Claus?]

When asked whether the volunteers plan the jolly old elf's route ahead of time, U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander Bill Lewis, a Santa tracker, was having none of that.

"We don't plan it, he does," Lewis said. "We just monitor his travels with our ground-based radar, satellites, fighter aircraft, and, of course, the Santa Cams — he passes over certain cities, and based on the track we're projecting, we've got cameras set up."

The NORAD team monitors a radar system called the North Warning System, which consists of 47 installations strung across the northern border of North America, for indications that Santa Claus has left the North Pole.

"Rudolph's nose puts off quite the heat signature," Lewis told Life's Little Mysteries.

The Christmas program isn't so out of the ordinary for the men and women of NORAD: "365 days a year we track possible threats to the homeland. So tracking Santa as an airborne object fits into our mission set," he said.

Through his experience as a Santa Tracker, Lewis was able to offer a bit of insight into an age-old question: How Santa manages to make it all the way around the world, sort through all the gifts for the good boys and girls and get home before dawn. "Santa has this way of transcending time. We've estimated that he travels at the speed of starlight," Lewis said. [Can Tech Help Santa Deliver the Goods? 5 Tech Upgrades for Claus ]

That's 671 million miles (1 billion kilometers) per hour, which means Santa can travel more than 16 billion miles (26 billion km) in the 24 hours allotted for his journey. A trip round the world is only 25,000 miles (40,000 kilometers), so at his estimated flight speed, Santa could technically circumnavigate Earth 650,000 times if he wanted.

He doesn't, of course — instead, he takes it slow and downs a mindblowing number of cookies and glasses of milk along the way.

This story was provided by Life's Little Mysteries, a sister site to LiveScience. Follow Natalie Wolchover on Twitter @nattyover. Follow Life's Little Mysteries on Twitter @llmysteries, then join us on Facebook.


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TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese and Indian stocks outperformed the rest of Asia in thin trade Monday, with sentiment partly lifted by signs of U.S. economic recovery, although trading was subdued with many markets closed for Christmas holidays.

Tokyo's Nikkei stock average (.N225) ended up 1 percent, above its 25-day moving average of 8,459, while India's main 30-share BSE index (.BSESN) rose 1.14 percent, as investors sought holiday-season bargains.

But MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan (.MIAPJ0000PUS) slipped from a two-week high touched earlier in the day to trade down 0.1 percent.

U.S., European and some Asian markets including Hong Kong and Singapore were closed Monday.

Wall Street stocks rose Friday, with the broad Standard & Poor's 500 Index (.SPX) breaking through its 200-day moving average after a four-day rally lifted stocks to bring the index up 0.6 percent for the year at last week's close.

The Dow Jones industrial average (.DJI) rose to its highest in five months Friday.

"The Nikkei is moving with New York. The gains in the U.S. and Europe gave some sense of relief to markets," said Hajime Nakajima, a wholesale trader at Cosmo Securities in Osaka, Japan.

In a sign the markets may be stabilizing for the time being, the CBOE Volatility index VIX (.VIX) fell to 20.73 on Friday, near a five-month low, reflecting receding investor desire for protection in stock index options against future losses.

The VIX -- a measure of expected volatility in the S&P 500 over the next 30 days -- fell to its lowest since the global financial crisis of October 2008 at 14.3 earlier this year, before picking up to a year high of 48 in August. It has been slipping since hitting a high above 30 earlier this month.

CONCERN ON CHINA EARNINGS

The Shanghai Composite Index (.SSEC) fell 0.5 percent on concerns over corporate earnings outlook, pushing below the psychologically important 2,200 level in light trading.

The Korea Composite Stock Price Index (.KS11) slid 0.6 percent on doubts over the euro zone debt crisis getting resolved.

"Program selling was the main drag on the index today, and despite the optimistic U.S. data, foreign investors aren't ready to re-enter the market in force as long as the (European Central Bank) isn't taking more concrete measures," said Lee Kyung-soo, a market analyst at Shinyoung Securities.

Investors will be looking for clues over the strength of the U.S. economy from data due this week, including the S&P Case-Shiller house price index for October and consumer confidence for December.

U.S. consumer spending growth was tepid and a gauge of business investment fell for a second month in November, data showed Friday, but recent labor and manufacturing figures implied a more-lasting and fundamental strengthening of the recovery.

The U.S. Congress Friday approved a two-month extension of a payroll tax cut that will preserve income for most Americans, supporting their purchases of goods and services and helping sentiment.

The euro was up 0.13 percent to $1.3060, well above its 11-month trough of $1.2945 hit earlier this month.

The latest Commodity Futures Trading Commission data showed investors reduced their short euro positions slightly, potentially giving support to the single currency.


"Given a lack of factors to trade and low liquidity, activity is expected to be lackluster this week, but sluggish results of French and Italian government debt sales scheduled this week could pressure the euro amid an absence of progress in bolstering euro zone safety net," Barclays Capital said in a research note.


The 10-year Italian government debt yield stayed near 7 percent, above which many say is unsustainable for managing public finances and the economy, while 10-year Spanish government bond yield also stood at an elevated 5.40 percent.


Wariness about European banks' health and risks of another global credit crunch made banks reluctant to borrow to each other, pushing the London interbank offered rate for three-month dollars up further Friday to 0.57575 percent, its highest since early July 2009.


(Additional reporting by Dominic Lau and Mari Saito in Tokyo, and Joonhee Yu in Seoul; Editing by Richard Borsuk)

BEIJING (Reuters) – China's industrial output is expected to grow 11 percent for 2012, easing from an estimated 13.9 percent in 2011, China's industry minister said on Monday.

The forecast by Miao Wei, the Minister of Industry and Information Technology, will also serve as the official target for China's industrial output, China's state radio reported on its website (www.cnr.cn).

Miao was quoted by the radio as saying that China's industrial development in 2012 "would not be optimistic" partly due to an uncertain global economy.

China's industrial sector has lost steam in recent months with annual industrial output growth falling to 12.4 percent in November from 13.2 percent in October and down from the year's high point of 15.1 percent in June.

The annual rise of China's industrial output, which covers enterprises with a minimum annual revenue of 20 million yuan ($3.16 million), is closely correlated with GDP growth in the world's second biggest economy.

An 11 percent annual expansion in industrial output is regarded by Beijing as appropriate to achieve an annual 8 percent GDP growth rate. Miao's ministry had an 11 percent target of industrial output growth for both 2010 and 2011.

China's latest five-year plan targets an average annual GDP growth rate of 7 percent over the five-year period, with industrial output targeted at 10 percent.

Huang Libin, a senior official with the industry ministry, said at an online briefing last month that China's factory output growth may hit 12-13 percent in 2012.

CONSOLIDATION

Miao said China would try to cut energy consumption for every yuan of industrial output by 5 percent in 2012, and cut water consumption by 7 percent.

According to China's state radio, Miao's ministry has decided to launch a number of new initiatives designed to safeguard the healthy development of China's economy.

The focus will be put on consolidation of key industries.

"We will launch implementation plans for mergers and acquisitions in sectors like steel, automobiles and cement," Miao was quoted as saying.

In addition, the ministry would try hard to boost the growth of strategic emerging industries and small industrial firms. ($1 = 6.3364 Chinese yuan)

(Reporting by Zhou Xin and Kevin Yao; Editing by Nick Edwards and Ramya Venugopal)