Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will fight at all costs to crush the revolt seeking his ouster, a member of parliament who defected to Egypt said Tuesday.

“There is an open budget allocated to the crackdown on the popular uprising and revolution,” said Imad Ghalioun, who was a member of the Syrian parliament from the embattled city of Homs before he escaped to Egypt.

“There is no budget for the country but only money to serve the regime’s security forces and its ‘ghost hit men,’” he said.

The uprising, which is seeking al-Assad’s resignation, reforms and democratic elections, is in its tenth month. It has prompted a bloody government crackdown that has claimed at least 5,000 lives since in began in March, according to the United Nations. Opposition groups put the toll at more than 6,000.

At least 17 more people died Tuesday, including eight people killed when a bomb destroyed a bus in Idlib, according to the opposition Local Coordination Committees. The group said government security forces planted the device.

The ongoing violence has sparked calls by Qatar’s ruler to send Arab troops into Syria, a move the al-Assad regime warned against Tuesday.

Citing an official source in the Foreign Ministry, the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency said the government would “confront any attempt to undermine Syria’s sovereignty.”

Al-Assad, who has characterized the anti-government protesters as “armed gangs,” has said his security forces are battling terrorists intent on targeting civilians and fomenting unrest.

But much of the international community holds al-Assad’s regime responsible for killing dissidents.

“I say again to President Assad of Syria: Stop the violence. Stop killing your people,” U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said over the weekend. “The path of repression is a dead end.”

Although a number of journalists have been allowed into the country in recent days to travel with Arab League monitors on a fact-finding mission, CNN cannot verify many accounts of what is happening in Syria because the government restricts the activity of journalists.

But Ghalioun, the highest-ranking Syrian official to defect, said the reports of bloodshed by pro-government forces are true. He said Homs is a “ghost town full of horror.”

“The humanitarian situation is dangerous … no basic services, food supplies, or equipped hospitals. Residents cannot move from (one) neighborhood to the other because of snipers that kill people.”

Ghalioun said opposition forces need weapons and the enforcement of a no-fly zone by Western powers to take down al-Assad’s regime.

“I tell them to go back to your humanitarian values,” Ghalioun said. “Build on democracy. And I ask them to help us stop the killing and reach our own true democracy.”

A militant attack on a government vehicle in Yemen’s business capital, Aden, Wednesday, killed a political security officer and injured seven others, three senior security officials said.

The incident happened as the intelligence officers were heading to work. The injured were taken to a government hospital.

Eyewitnesses told CNN that heavy artillery was used in the attack. Security officials blamed al Qaeda.

“This is not the first time intelligence officers were attacked in Aden,” said a senior security official who is not authorized to talk to media. “At least 34 have been killed or injured since last September.”
A dozen such attacks have taken place in Aden over the last six months, he said.

“We believe that at least four militants were involved in the attack,” the official said. “The government will not give additional details before the investigation is complete.”

Large explosions were heard in Aden earlier in the day, however no casualties were reported.

Political experts have long doubted that al Qaeda is behind the attacks despite the government claims, and instead believe that members of the old regime are to blame.

“The government has been practicing a dangerous tactic by weakening the political security because its loyalty is not to the ruling family,” said Abdul Salam Mohammed, Chairman of Abaad Strategic Center. “These attacks were expected and many others will follow.”
Ansaar al-Sharia, an extremist militant group in neighboring Abyan province, has been clashing with government troops for nine months.

It controls large areas of the province after security forces evacuated from a number of its military bases there last year.

Ansaar al-Sharia has threatened to take over Aden and announce a crescent shaped Islamic emirate in south Yemen.

Damascus, Syria — At this funeral for a Syrian man allegedly killed by government forces, a grief-stricken sister wails uncontrollably.

Mourners carry her brother’s casket before thousands of anti-regime protesters, whose passionate anger against a brutal government crackdown is palpable.

“The situation is very bad. We only want to be like you, like the Western people. We want to be free people,” one mourner told CNN as the dead man’s casket passed nearby. “Look at him, 32 years (old). … The government is responsible. (President) Bashar al-Assad is responsible. Bashar al-Assad is killing us only because we want to be like you.”

The Arab League to this funeral and demonstration a few miles outside of Damascus for a rare opportunity to meet some of the protesters wanting to overthrow al-Assad.
Photos: Rare look inside Syria
One man partially covered his face before speaking on camera.

“I’m afraid when I’m talking to you right now. Why? Because I’m going to lift this scarf and go into my home, and I’m not 100% sure that I’m going to be safe,” he said. “Because if not today, if not tomorrow, they will arrest me.”

He said the defiance here is possible because of the presence of two orange-jacketed Arab League monitors on a fact-finding mission in Syria.

The league has called on al-Assad’s regime to stop violence against civilians, free political detainees, remove tanks and weapons from cities and allow outsiders, including the international news media, to travel freely around Syria.

Q&A: Syria’s divisions deepen

Al-Assad has denied the notion his regime commanded forces to fire on protesters, saying there “were no orders by any departments of the state to fire on people.”

But many of the protesters here pushed forward to show injuries they say were inflicted by government forces. They say they can’t go to government-run hospitals because they fear being arrested.
As the Arab League monitors leave the anti-government protest, they are blocked on a road by a pro-government activists. A banner emblazoned with al-Assad’s image stretches across the street, and demonstrators wave Syrian flags and pictures of the president.

And it’s not the only pro-government rally in town. Elsewhere, festive crowds clapped and danced to amplified music — sometimes dancing along with government troops.

Demonstrators here say they trust the president. And they believe the government line that the opposition is fabricated.

“This opposition is not legal or real,” one woman said. “I think large masses of it are fake.”

Few here will talk about the danger of Syria imploding into sectarian chaos. But one American woman and her Syrian husband are exceptions.

If al-Assad is forced to go, “it will be chaos,” the husband said. “It will be big, big chaos. He is the security.”

“He is a peaceful president,” his wife chimed in. “He likes to see all religions get along. He’s a peaceful man.”

For now, al-Assad remains in control — for the most part. But it’s hard to imagine his supporters and opponents can be kept apart much longer.

Two Nigerian trade unions accused the country’s president of using “armed thugs” to attack protesters, and urged demonstrators to continue their nationwide strike against fuel prices on Wednesday and beyond.

“In a Mubarak-style response to the peoples’ protests, the Jonathan administration brought into Abuja, thugs armed with various weapons including guns,” the Nigeria Labour Congress and the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria said in a joint statement late Tuesday night.

The unions were comparing President Goodluck Jonathan to former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s alleged response to anti-government protests last year.

“Labour warns the Presidency that it will be held responsible for whatever atrocities these thugs commit,” the statement said. “We call on Nigerians to continue the strikes, rallies and protests … Wednesday … and subsequent days until the Jonathan government listens to the voice of the Nigerian People.”

Wednesday will mark day 3 of the strike spurred by a government decision that has more than doubled fuel prices in the largely impoverished country.
So far, clashes have left at least 16 people dead and 205 injured, according to a tally collected by the Nigerian Red Cross Tuesday.

The strike, continued religious violence in the north and a long-simmering separatist movement are all issues that have created growing problems for Jonathan and fueled tensions on the street.

The southern state of Edo was a focus for much of the violence, according to the Red Cross figures, with five people killed and 83 injured.

“Revolution has come to Nigeria and the youth will spearhead it. Until our demands are met, we are ready to protest every day and make sacrifice,” said Eromo Egbejule, a Nigerian freelance journalist.

In a recent address, Jonathan tried to explain the need for the end of subsidies, telling Nigerians that the government would invest the money in the country’s crumbling infrastructure.
My fellow Nigerians, the truth is that we’re faced with two basic choices with regards to the management of the petroleum sector,” Jonathan said. “Survive economically or continue with a subsidy regime that will continue to undermine our economy.”

Some analysts say the changes could help Nigeria in the future.

“If they’re prepared to try this petroleum subsidy removal then perhaps they can push through electricity reform too. If they do that, Nigeria’s growth can be instead of 7%-8% a year, 10% or 11%,” said Charlie Robertson, a chief economist at the global investment firm Renaissance Capital.
But assurances from the president did not allay fears from many Nigerians who do not trust the government to use the money to improve the country’s infrastructure.

Many Nigerians view the subsidy as the only benefit of living in an oil-producing country that has little infrastructure, poor roads, high unemployment and intermittent electric power.

“Though we know that in the long run, removal of (the) subsidy will help the economy, for now it is a high-profile lifestyle that is unbearable for most Nigerians, and soon the poorer ones will die out,” said protester Diane Awunah.

A Vietnamese man is recovering in the intensive care unit Friday, a day after surgery that completely removed from his right leg a tumor twice his body weight, according to the hospital.

The growing tumor had rendered the patient, Nguyen Duy Hai, virtually immobile until his surgery.

The excised tumor weighed 180 pounds (82 kilos), according to the hospital, a bit less than the 200 pounds (90 kilos) estimated before surgery.

Hai, 31, of Da Lat City, has Von Recklinghausen’s neurofibromatosis, said Dr. Jean-Marcel Guillon, chief executive officer of FV Hospital, where the 12-hour procedure was performed.

The autosomal dominant hereditary disorder is the same disease that afflicted the head of Joseph Merrick, whose story was dramatized in the 1980 film, “The Elephant Man,” explained Guillon.

The tumor “may return,” Guillon wrote in an e-mail to CNN, “but we can operate him again, and it won’t never reach such a size anymore.”

Doctors expect that Hai’s cardiac and pulmonary functions will return to normal during the next 10 days. After that, Hai faces rehabilitation, physical therapy and possible help from the hospital’s clinical psychologist to deal with issues pertaining to body image, Guillon said. “This patient lived all his life with this tumor. It was part of him.”

Hai also needs to learn how to do things that his body had forgotten, including using the leg he had never used normally, Guillon added.

The tumor was first discovered when Hai was four years old and had grown to its enormous size since then.

Hai had undergone a surgery to amputate his leg — and with it the tumor — in 1997, but in 2001, the tumor grew, and no doctors agreed to operate on him, according to the hospital.

Furthermore, his family could not afford surgery, and very few surgeons in Vietnam can treat neurofibromas, Guillon said.

The surgery was considered risky with a 50% success rate for a number of reasons, Guillon explained. “First, such a giant tumor has developed its own blood system with huge arteries branched out from the normal vascular system. Therefore, one of the main risks was abundant bleeding.”

Doctors used a “cell saver,” which suctions and filters the patient’s blood before re-injecting it into the body, along with extra blood for the surgery.

The second and third risks lay in heart function (“How would a heart react when a tumor with twice the weight of a patient is removed?”) and the effects of a long — more than 13 hours — anesthesia, Guillon said.

Leading the surgical team was Dr. McKay McKinnon, a specialist in plastic and reconstructive surgery from Chicago.

McKinnon has been credited with removing a 200-pound tumor from a woman in the U.S. state of Michigan in 2000, as well as a 176-pound (80 kilo) tumor from a Romanian woman in 2004.

Aside from McKinnon, no one else on the team had any prior experience with Hai’s condition or performed such a surgery before, Guillon said. “Though the surgical techniques used by Dr. McKinnon are usual and routinely used by our surgeons, the difference lays in his experience: he knows what to expect and what to do at specific crucial moments.”

Finally, the team of Vietnamese surgeons and anesthetists had never worked with McKinnon before, and communication issues could turn dangerous in an operating theatre, Guillon said, adding that two of the three Vietnamese surgeons also go by “Dr. Thai.”

Nonetheless, the communication among all in the operating theatre went “extremely well,” Guillon said.

During the surgery, FV Hospital set up a live video feed for other doctors and hospitals to watch.

Video during the surgery showed five people assisting in the disposal of the excised tumor from its own gurney into a yellow container, which was then sealed.

A small piece has been sent for examination; the rest will be incinerated as with all biological waste, Guillon said.

The cost of the surgery was estimated at $20,000, but the hospital said it will charge 60% of the cost, which will be covered jointly by the Red Cross of Da Lat City and sponsors.

The hospital said it is financing all the traveling costs and accommodation for McKinnon, who is performing the surgery free of charge.

London  — It sits in the ancient heart of Rome and is an emblem of the city’s imperial history as well as an icon of Italy.

But plans to restore Rome’s nearly 2,000-year-old Colosseum are causing rumblings among heritage workers and restorers, compounded by reports in December that small amounts of powdery rock had fallen off the monument.

The current $33 million (25 million euro) restoration plans to restore the Flavian amphitheater, which once hosted spectacular shows and gruesome gladiatorial battles, are being sponsored by Diego della Valle, of luxury Italian brand Tod’s, in exchange for advertising rights.

Restoration of the monument, which attracts up to two million visitors a year, is due to go ahead in March and will involve cleaning of the travertine exterior, the restoration of underground chambers, new gating, the moving of visitor service stations to an area outside of the building itself and increased video security.

But members of the Restorers Association of Italy are unhappy about the plans, which they believe has sidelined them in favor of non-specialist restorers and which “run the risk of causing irreparable damage to the monument,” according to the group’s President, Carla Tomasi.

“Having some of the best restorers in the world in Italy and yet turning to general enterprises is a choice that we do not share, and embarrasses both our work and the image of our nation in the world, in addition to causing risks to the monument,” Tomasi said.
A ruling given late December 2011 by Italy’s Council of State in favor of the Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities is however allowing the restoration plans to go ahead.

“Italian law states that restorers can restore things like statues, ceramics, mosaics and decorative surfaces but not architecture,” said Rossella Rea, Director of the Colosseum, adding that the workers employed to do the restorations are in fact “specialized in architectural restoration, they’re not just ordinary workmen.”

Rea was also quick to stress that the reports of the Colosseum crumbling were false and that only 8cm of tuff — a porous rock formed by consolidation of volcanic ash — had come off, something “that happens all the time to monuments.”

But she also added that the Colosseum has suffered in recent years from underfunding caused by government cuts and that the revenue from ticket sales only covers the yearly upkeep of the city’s ancient sites, which include the nearby Forum and Palatine.

Sponsorship, though difficult to obtain owing to sponsors having to pay VAT on donations, is much-needed.

Sneska Quaedvlieg-Mihailovic is Secretary General of Europa Nostra, an organization dedicated to protecting cultural heritage in Europe.

She said, “We at Europa Nostra and anyone dealing with heritage would say that it’s wonderful to have private companies and individuals wanting to support heritage at a time when public budgets are being cut.”

But she also warned against governments across Europe loosening restrictions on restoration work in the current economic climate, and of privately funded restoration plans not complying with strict guidelines.

And while the current Colosseum project aims to improve visitor services in addition to cleaning and restoring the amphitheater, Quaedvlieg-Mihailovic believes that its underlying problems also need to be addressed — the main one being the car traffic that surrounds the site and causes the exterior to be tarnished with pollution.

“You can do wonderful restoration works but you haven’t yet tackled the things that will continue to cause damage and this is an issue at the level of the urban management of the city,” she said.

“It’s a problem that’s been discussed with the City of Rome for many years,” said Rea, adding that she hopes that with the building of a new subway stop near the Colosseum, the roads around the site will be closed to cars — though heritage workers have long complained that vibrations from the nearby subway trains are also damaging the building.

It’s an ongoing struggle, Rea said, but one she hopes will eventually be successful.

After all, it’s only been 60 years since people parked their cars inside the amphitheater.

Michael Woodford, the former Olympus CEO who turned whistleblower on a $1.7 billion company cover-up after his October ouster, has abandoned his bid to retake the reins of the beleaguered firm.

He does, however, plan to file a lawsuit against his former employer for wrongful termination. “I will most definitely be suing Olympus,” Woodford said Friday at a press conference at the Foreign Correspondent’s Club in Tokyo.

The British executive, who spent 30 years with Olympus before he was named the first foreign president of the Japanese camera and medical instruments maker in April, said he is abandoning his proxy fight due to the stress on his family and the lack of support among Japanese institutional shareholders.

“The last 12 weeks have been the most emotionally demanding and challenging period in my entire life,” Woodford said in a statement Friday. “The brutal way I was dismissed as President on 14 October, and the subsequent lies and denials, have been traumatizing for all those around me, especially my family.”

Woodford was fired after he attempted to force out Chairman Tsuyoshi Kikukawa over exorbitant payments for mergers and acquisitions deals and fees. Kikukawa has since resigned, and a third-party panel analyzing the company books detailed how the company hid losses on bad investments from regulators and company shareholders dating back to the 1990s.

The scathing December 7 panel report that suggested the Japanese company “should remove its malignant cancer … the management was rotten to the core, and infected those around it.”
After the Woodford went to the press about the cover-up in October, the company’s shares were pounded — at one point, the company lost more than 75% of its share value.

“It´s been a frightening period for my wife, who has suffered a lot and every night still wakes screaming in a trance and it takes several minutes to calm her,” Woodford wrote. “I cannot put her through any more anguish.”

Woodford has led a very public campaign to get his former job back and has lobbied for the immediate resignation or the current Olympus board. “The fact that such a situation can exist despite the explicit findings of the third-party committee is depressing and totally disorientating to those looking in on Japan from the outside,” Woodford said.

A Dallas teen mistakenly deported to Colombia after she ran away from home in 2010 will be handed over to U.S. diplomatic officials Friday, authorities said.

Jakadrien Turner wound up deported to Colombia after U.S. authorities mistook the girl, who lacked identification, for a Colombian national.

In a statement Thursday, Colombia’s foreign ministry said it planned to hand her over to diplomatic officials so she can be transported back home, but did not say how it will happen.

The U.S. Embassy in Bogota is working with Colombian authorities, but cannot provide additional details “due to privacy considerations,” said a U.S. State Department official who asked to remain anonymous per department policy.

Family members are thrilled the 15-year-old would be returning home.

“It’s a giant step. I’m relieved, but I won’t be completely relieved until I get her in my arms again,” her mother, Johnisa Turner, said. “A weight has definitely been lifted.”

Grandmother Lorene Turner said U.S. Embassy officials called with the news that her granddaughter would be turned over to U.S. officials.

“When I heard those words I didn’t hear nothing else. I flipped out. I can’t wait,” she said.

But the teen’s family was still demanding to know why immigration authorities deported the teen — a U.S. citizen with no knowledge of Spanish — and why they simply took her at her word when she gave them a fake name.

The teen’s family had been searching for her since she ran away in the fall of 2010. Her grandmother scoured Facebook looking for her friends’ pages for any information.

“There’s no words,” her mother said. “It hasn’t been easy at all.”

The Colombian Institute for Family Welfare confirmed Thursday that Turner is in its custody, is pregnant and entered the country as an adult. The institute said Colombian authorities learned about the case a month ago.
How she got to Colombia is a mystery to the family. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency maintains she was arrested in Houston for theft and told them she was an adult from Colombia.

The agency says authorities believed her story because she maintained her false identity throughout the process. They handed her over to an immigration judge, who ordered her removed from the country.

“At no time during these criminal proceedings was her identity determined to be false,” the agency says.

It says criminal database searches and biometric verification revealed no information to invalidate her claims.

The family’s attorney, Ray Jackson, says it doesn’t make sense.

“They dropped the ball,” he said.

He says the immigration agency took her fingerprints but failed to match them to the name she gave. The name matched a woman wanted by Interpol, Jackson says, so they “shipped her on through.”

The agency says it is taking the allegations very seriously and is “fully and immediately investigating the matter in order to expeditiously determine the facts of the case.”

Pictures of the teen in Colombia showed her sitting on men’s laps smoking marijuana, her grandmother said. But she appeared to be reaching out for help, she said, listing on Facebook the names of everyone at parties, perhaps so she could be traced.

Jackson says he doesn’t believe she was trying to fake her way out of the country by using the false name throughout the process.

“I don’t buy that she had the wherewithal to be able to bamboozle the government,” Jackson says. “You know, kids are scared when they get around authorities. … To think that you could bamboozle them to create a new identity, it just doesn’t make sense.”

Colombia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Thursday that she first arrived in Bogota after she was deported on May 23.

The ministry said it was investigating what sort of verification its consulate in Texas requested before giving the girl an expedited provisional passport as part of deportation proceedings, and how she received work authorization for training at a call center as part of the government’s “Welcome Home” program.

Attorneys with the program made a sworn declaration in front of a notary with “inexact information” that allowed her to receive work papers, the foreign ministry said.

“Those lawyers are no longer providing services to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” the statement said.

The teen was placed in a protection program by the Colombian Institute for Family Welfare on December 1 after officials learned of her situation, the foreign ministry said.

Nigeria’s main trade union groups called Wednesday for a general strike and mass rallies beginning next week if a controversial government decision to take away fuel subsidies is not reversed.

Angry protests took place Tuesday after gas prices more than doubled following the subsidies’ removal Sunday, leading to the reported death of at least one person.

iReporters provide first glimpse of protests

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan and Cabinet ministers were meeting in the capital, Abuja, Wednesday to discuss their response to the crisis.

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trades Union Congress (TUC) urged the government to immediately restore the subsidies — or see the country grind to a halt starting January 9.

“We call on all Nigerians to participate actively in this movement to rescue our country. The emphasis is on peaceful protests, rallies and strikes while refusing to be intimidated,” the unions’ statement says.

It also calls on “the police, armed forces and other security agencies to reject orders that they turn their weapons on fellow Nigerians.”
The unions accused police of using “unprecedented force” against peaceful protests held this week, leading to harassment, intimidation and arrests.

Eyewitnesses told CNN the demonstrations have been largely peaceful. However, relatives of a man killed Tuesday during protests in Ilorin, Kwara state, plan to sue the police and federal government over his death, their lawyer told CNN.
Computer student Muyideen Mustafa, 23, was visiting his hometown of Ilorin when he was shot by police during a demonstration, according to attorney Abdullahi Abdullateef.

Mustafa was not among the protesters but had just “mingled” with the crowd when he was hit by a bullet, the lawyer said. He confirmed that images circulating on social media Tuesday of a blood-soaked man lying motionless on the ground showed Mustafa.

“His friends took the picture and posted it on Facebook. They wanted everyone to see what the police had done,” Abdullateef said. Mustafa, a Muslim, was buried Wednesday in Ilorin. An investigation into his death has been ordered.

Police have not yet responded to CNN’s request for a comment.

Are you there? Share photos, video

Reports of Mustafa’s death on social media have helped stoke public anger over the removal of fuel subsidies.

NLC leader Abdulwaheed Omar warned that all sectors of the economy would be paralyzed, beginning Monday, if the government did not act to head off the strike.

“We shall shut down all petrol stations, banks, markets and every business premises to achieve our goal,” he said. “This strike will be indefinite.”

The unions’ statement urges Nigerians to stock up on basic necessities, including food and water, ahead of the industrial action.

The cost of a liter of gasoline shot up from 65 naira (40¢) to at least 141 naira (86¢) almost overnight after the subsidies were removed Sunday.

Nigerians say this is the last straw in a country rich with oil reserves but with poor infrastructure, wide corruption and huge numbers of impoverished citizens.

Union leaders say Nigerian workers are already experiencing unnecessary hardship as a result of the move, which they say is also affecting the cost of transport, food, medicine, rent and school fees.

The government says it believes the removal of fuel subsidies will have a positive impact on the country’s economy. It argues the money saved will be used to invest elsewhere, such as in refineries.

Despite being one of Africa’s largest oil producers, Nigeria — a country of 167 million people — has no functioning refineries and has to import fuel.

Freelance journalist and CNN iReporter Eromo Egbejule, 21, joined a portion of a march from Lagos to the city of Ojota Wednesday.

“People were protesting because thanks to this policy, the cost of living has skyrocketed,” he said. “Everything is now double its price. Or triple. They were saying their minds.”

He saw banners with slogans such as “We want good governance, not good luck,” a play on the president’s name, and “Tunisia will be child’s play,” an apparent reference to the ouster of Tunisian President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali last year amid mass street protests.

Car tires were set alight and gas stations blockaded in some places Tuesday. Video footage showed black smoke rising above crowds of marchers carrying placards or chanting, many of them young men.

CNN iReporter Alex Omamuli, a 35-year-old civil service worker from Abuja, accused the government of using force to try to stifle legitimate protest.

“Please let the world know that we have a right to demonstrate peacefully but our government shot tear gas at innocent, peaceful protesters,” he said.

“We, the youths of Nigeria, won’t stop until this insensitive and wicked act is reversed.”

Another CNN iReporter, who asked to remain anonymous, took part in protests in Lagos, the country’s economic capital.

“The aim of the protest was to disrupt vehicular movement, shut down gas stations, and ask people to go back home,” he said. “The mood was one of anger and frustration towards the government for doing this on New Year’s Day.”

Los Angeles  — A German man arrested in Los Angeles early Monday after a string of 52 fires — mostly in parked cars — was charged Wednesday with 37 counts of arson, prosecutors said.

Harry Burkhart, 24, appeared in a Los Angeles court Wednesday in connection with one of the worst arson sprees in the city’s history.

He is also under investigation for arson and fraud in his home country, a prosecution official in Germany said.

“After reviewing the available evidence, we filed 28 counts of arson of property and nine counts of arson of an inhabited structure,” Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley said in a statement issued Wednesday afternoon. “The current charges relate to arson fires at 12 locations in Hollywood, West Hollywood and Sherman Oaks between December 30 and January 2.”

The criminal complaint filed Wednesday also alleged that the fires were “caused by use of a device designed to accelerate the fire,” Cooley said. “If found true, the allegation could mean additional custody time for the defendant.”

In court Wednesday, Burkhart appeared unable to stand on his own. Three deputies tried to steady him as he appeared to be leaning back with his eyes closed. Burkhart was wearing a special “suicide gown” designed to prevent him from harming himself, according to one of the deputies who escorted him.

A sworn affidavit from a Los Angeles arson investigator detailed Burkhart’s behavior a day before the fires began, when he was in a federal courtroom during extradition proceedings for his mother.

“While in the audience the defendant (Burkhart) began yelling in an angry manner, ‘F–k all Americans.’ The defendant also attempted to communicate with his mother who was in custody. Shortly thereafter, the defendant was ejected from the courtroom by Deputy U.S. Marshals,” investigator Edward Nordskog wrote in the affidavit.

A day later, on December 30, the arson fires began.

“The defendant set the fires by placing an incendiary device under the engine area of the cars,” Nordskog wrote in the affidavit.

“It is my opinion that the defendant’s criminal spree was motivated by his rage against Americans and that by setting the fires the defendant intended to harm and terrorize as many residents of the city and county of Los Angeles as possible,” Nordskog wrote.

Superior Court Judge Upinder Kalra rejected the prosecution request for no bail for Harry Burkhart and set his bail at $2.85 million He must also surrender his German passport.

No one was hurt in the fires, but property damage costs are likely to reach $3 million, authorities said.

On Wednesday, a German official said Burkhart was also under investigation in relation to a fire in Neukirchen, near Frankfurt.

A house owned by his family burned down in October 2011, said Annemarie Wied, the spokeswoman for the state prosecutor’s office in Marburg.

“The evidence points to arson,” Wied said, “because the complete inside of the house was devastated by the fire and two sources for the fire were discovered inside the building.”

“No one was inside the house when the fire department was called and a claim was made with the insurance company only a day later,” she added.

Wied said the investigation for arson and attempted insurance fraud was still in the early stages.

The fires began after police arrested his mother, 53-year-old Dorothee Burkhart, during a traffic stop December 28.

She was the subject of an international arrest warrant issued by a district court in Frankfurt, Germany, said court spokesman Gunther Meilinger, and is wanted on 16 counts of fraud and three counts of embezzlement.

The charges include an allegation that Dorothee Burkhart failed to pay for a breast enhancement operation performed on her, Meilinger said. U.S. court documents show she allegedly told the Frankfurt clinic in June 2004 that an advance payment of 7,680 euros was made by her husband through a bank transfer. As a result, the breast augmentation surgery was performed the next day.

However, the court documents said, no money had been transferred and the clinic was not paid for the surgery.

Most of the German charges, however, stem from phony real estate deals that Dorothee Burkhart allegedly conducted between 2000 and 2006.

In many cases, Meilinger alleged, she pretended to rent out an apartment she did not own, collected a deposit and then broke off contact with the prospective renters. In other cases, he said, she allegedly lived in apartments without paying rent. The embezzlement charges refer to instances in which she allegedly collected deposits for apartments and could not pay them back when they were due.

Under German law, the alleged crimes constitute “severe fraud,” Meilinger said. They typically carry a minimum sentence of six months in prison, although some defendants can receive suspended sentences.

The international arrest warrant is valid for the European Union and also in countries with bilateral agreements with Germany, including the United States, he said.

The Frankfurt court is readying paperwork for an extradition request, which should be filed in the next few days, he said.

The day after her arrest in California, the first of the fires began in Los Angeles.

On Tuesday, Dorothee Burkhart appeared before a U.S. magistrate judge and did not appear to know that her son had been arrested.

“What did you do to my son?” she yelled at the judge during the hearing. “My son is disappeared since yesterday. Perhaps the German Nazis know of our address.”

The mother left Germany in October for California, where she lived with Burkhart in a Hollywood apartment, according to court documents and authorities.

Wied said authorities have not determined whether Dorothee Burkhart could be involved in the German fire.

Investigators seized press clippings about arson attacks in Germany from the Burkharts’ apartment in California, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.