Metropolitan Police

Metropolitan Police released two computer-generated images of the same man seen in Praia da Luz around the time of Madeleine McCann's disappearance from the village in May 2007. Police created the images using two eye-witness accounts of people who were in the Praia da Luz area that night.

British police released descriptions and electronic images on Monday of a man they seek in connection with the case of Madeleine McCann, who vanished from her parents’ vacation apartment in 2007 when she was 3 years old.

McCann disappeared on May 3, 2007 at the Praia da Luz resort in Algarve, Portugal.

While Portuguese authorities closed their investigation in 2008, Madeleine’s parents and British officials with the Metropolitan Police “continue to believe that there is a possibility that Madeleine is alive,” according to a Metropolitan Police update in July.

At that time, the head of the operation, Detective Chief Inspector Andy Redwood, said that evidence enabled investigators to shift from “review to investigation.”

On Monday, the Metropolitan Police released two computer-generated images created from the descriptions of two eye witnesses who were near Praia da Luz on the night Madeleine went missing.

The investigators used a method called the Electronic Facial Identification Technique (e-fit) to construct the images.

Teri Blythe / London Metropolita / EPA

A file photograph showing an age progression image released by the London Metropolitan Police showing Madeleine McCann on the approach to her ninth birthday in May, 2012. Madeleine disappeared in May, 2007 while on a family trip to the resort of Praia da Luz, Portugal.

"This man may or may not be the key to unlocking this investigation, tracing and speaking to him is of vital importance to us…,” Redwood said on Monday. “There will be e-fits released of other sightings as well, who we are equally keen to trace. These people were seen on the day of Madeleine's disappearance and the days leading up to it.”

Additional e-fit images and a live interview with Kate and Gerry McCann also will be broadcast on Monday night on BBC’s Crimewatch, according to a news release from the Metropolitan Police, which called the revelations the “investigation's most complex and detailed public appeal yet.”

The program will also feature a 25-minute visual reconstruction highlighting the investigators’ newfound insights about the timeline of the night Madeleine went missing, according to the Metropolitan Police.

"The timeline we have now established has given new significance to sightings and movements of people in and around Praia da Luz at the time of Madeleine's disappearance,” Redwood said.

Real Madrid Tv / Handout / EPA

An undated picture shows the missing British girl Madeleine McCann, who was allegedly abducted in May 2007 from the resort apartment where she was on vacation with her family in Portugal.

According to the Metropolitan Police, detectives have a better understanding of when precisely Madeleine went missing on that May evening in 2007.

“This in turn has made the statements from the two witnesses far more significant,” to the importance of finding the man depicted in the e-fit images released on Monday, police said.

Last week, officials said they were examining every cell phone number used in the area at the time of the girl’s disappearance. 

The aired reconstruction will show Madeleine’s parents meeting friends for dinner down the street from where their daughter was sleeping in their resort apartment and revise the “accepted version of events that has been in the public domain to date,” according to the Metropolitan Police.

In a video released in advance of the program, Kate McCann, Madeleine's mother, provides an apparent response to some who have accused her and her husband for having a role in their daughter's disappearance.

“We’re not the ones that has done something wrong here, it’s the person who’s gone into that apartment and taken a little girl away from her family,” Kate McCann told the BBC.

Kate McCann said on TODAY in 2012 she was hopeful Madeleine would be found alive.

 “We know there’s a very good chance that she could be alive, there’s no evidence to the contrary,” she said.

In 2012, the Metropolitan Police released a picture of what Madeleine would look like at 9 years old in May of that year.

Related:

New timeline in Madeleine McCann abduction case to be released

Investigators find 'fresh, substantive' leads in Madeleine McCann case

MOSCOW - Rioters smashed shop windows, stormed a warehouse and clashed with police in a Moscow neighborhood on Sunday in the biggest outbreak of anti-migrant unrest in the Russian capital in three years.

Demonstrators, some chanting racist slogans, vandalized shops and other sites known for employing migrant workers in the southern Biryulyovo area after the killing of a young ethnic Russian widely blamed on a man from the Caucasus.

Several hundred residents had protested peacefully, demanding justice over the killing, until a group of young men began smashing windows in a shopping center and briefly set it on fire. A video posted on Youtube showed them chanting "White Power!" as they forced their way in.

When police in riot gear tried to make arrests, protesters threw glass bottles at them and the police fought back with batons. Video footage from the scene showed overturned cars and smashed fruit stalls.

Some in the crowd, which grew to number several thousand, set off from the shopping center and stormed into a vegetable warehouse employing migrants from the Caucasus and Central Asia.

Moscow police said several officers were wounded in the riots, around 380 people were detained and a criminal case was opened. 

Extra police were sent in but sporadic clashes and arrests continued into the night. 

Many Muscovites chafe at an influx of migrant laborers to the capital over the past decade.

The Kremlin has watched with alarm at frequent outbreaks of violence in Russian cities between members of the Slavic majority and people with roots in the mostly Muslim North Caucasus, ex-Soviet South Caucasus states and Central Asia.

Persistent tension
Some Biryulyovo residents criticized the police for the latest arrests, drawing a contrast with what they said was too much leniency in the treatment of migrants engaged in illegal activity.

"It's simply impossible to live here. There are fights all the time. The people working in this warehouse are no good - I'm sure there are criminals hiding among them," said local resident Alexander, 23.

The head of President Vladimir Putin's human rights council criticized law enforcement bodies for not doing enough to prevent the attacks on businesses employing migrants.

"On the one hand, I completely understand resentment among Muscovites who see people getting killed on our streets and law enforcement officials doing nothing," Mikhail Fedotov told the broadcaster Dozhd. "But that in no way justifies ... this pogrom."

The latest protest in Biryulyovo began with demands for more police action over the killing of Yegor Shcherbakov, 25, who authorities said was fatally stabbed while walking home with his girlfriend on Thursday night.

Russia's top investigative agency said it was looking into the killing. Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, a close Putin ally, called for a thorough investigation and said those behind riots must also be held responsible for their actions.

The rioting in Biryulyovo was the worth outbreak of unrest over a racially charged incident in Moscow since December 2010, when several thousand youths rioted just outside the Kremlin.

The youths clashed with police and attacked passersby who they took for non-Russians after the killing of an ethnic Russian soccer fan was blamed on a man from the North Caucasus.

Putin has frequently warned of the dangers of ethnic and religious violence in the diverse nation.

This month he said Russia needed migrant laborers in industries such as construction. But in a nod to anti-migrant sentiment, he suggested their numbers could be restricted in some other sectors including trade.

An American citizen who had been detained for violating the Egypt's curfew has apparently committed suicide in his jail cell, an Egyptian security source said Sunday.

James Henry Lunn, a 66-year-old retired American military serviceman, was found dead in his jail cell in a prison in the city of Ismaliya, according to Security Director of Ismaliya General Mohammed el Anani.

Officials said they discovered the body hanging after the came to deliver breakfast and it appeared that Lunn had hung himself with either his belt or his shoelaces. The body was transported to a nearby hospital for autopsy, the officials said.

Lunn was first detained on Aug. 28 in Northern Sinai for violating the country's dusk-to-dawn curfew. His detention had been extended by 30 days on Saturday for further investigation. 

The State Department said it was first informed of Lunn's case on Aug. 28, a day after his arrest, and had been in regular contact with him and with Egyptian authorities.

In September, a Frenchman accused of breaking the curfew was beaten to death by fellow detainees in Cairo, security sources told Reuters.

NBC's Simon Moya-Smith and Reuters contributed to this report.

BHOPAL, India — A stampede at a bridge leading to a remote Hindu temple in central India on Sunday killed at least 89 people and injured more than 100, police said.

Nearly 150,000 devotees gathered to celebrate the holy festival of Dussehra at the Ratangarh temple, in a forest outside the town of Datia, 240 miles north of the Madhya Pradesh state capital, Bhopal.

But pilgrims panicked when the railings broke on a bridge that led to the temple, triggering the stampede. Some devotees were crushed to death under the feet of fellow worshippers, others drowned after falling or jumping into the river Sindh.

"The death toll has shot up to 89 now and nearly 100 people are injured. Relief work tends to slow down after the sunset but will start in full swing from tomorrow morning," Dilip Arya, a deputy inspector general of police, told Reuters.

Local media said the police used batons to control the crowd, prompting many people to panic. A team of 20 doctors was been sent to help, the media said.

Pilgrims have died due to stampedes on previous occasions.

In February this year, a stampede killed at least 36 Hindu pilgrims, who were part of the world's largest religious festival which attracted some 30 million people. 

Related:

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Amir Cohen, Reuters

An entrance to a tunnel exposed by the Israeli military is seen near Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha, just outside the southern Gaza Strip October 13, 2013.

ISRAEL-GAZA BORDER — Israel displayed on Sunday what it called a Palestinian "terror tunnel" running into its territory from the Gaza Strip and said it was subsequently freezing the transfer of building material to the enclave.

"The discovery of the tunnel ... prevented attempts to harm Israeli civilians who live close to the border and military forces in the area," Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said in a statement, accusing Gaza's ruling Hamas Islamist movement of being behind construction of the 1.5 mile-long tunnel.

There was no claim of responsibility in Gaza but a spokesman for Hamas's armed wing wrote on Twitter that "the determination deep in the hearts and minds of resistance fighters is more important than tunnels dug in the mud."

Hamas, along with other militant groups, tunneled into Israel in 2006 and seized an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, who was held for five years before being exchanged for 1,400 Palestinians in Israeli jails.

The Israeli military said it found the tunnel along its fortified Gaza border last week near a kibbutz, or communal farm. It invited journalists to view it on Sunday.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who launched an eight-day war against militants in the Gaza Strip last November with the declared aim of curbing rocket attacks against Israel said the effort was "part of our policy, a policy of aggression against terror, with elimination, with intelligence work, with activities that we initiate and react to."

Jim Hollander, EPA

An Israeli soldier stands in the tunnel that the Israeli army reportedly discovered and seized on Oct. 7, 2013, near Kissufum, southern Israel, along the border with the Gaza Strip on Oct. 13, 2013. Israel announced it would halt the import of building materials into the Gaza Strip until further notice after it discovered a tunnel it said was built by Palestinian militants who wanted to launch an attack upon Israel.

Netanyahu also publicly congratulated the army "for uncovering the terror tunnel."

The military said the tunnel, dug in sandy soil, had been reinforced with concrete supports, and Yaalon announced that he was immediately halting the transfer of building material to the Gaza Strip.

For years, Israel had refused to allow these goods into the territory because it said militants would use them to build fortifications and weapons.

In 2010, as part of its easing of its internationally-criticized Gaza blockade, Israel gave foreign aid organizations the green light to import construction material for public projects. Last month, Israel resumed the transfer of cement and steel to Gaza's private sector.

Hamas seized the Gaza Strip in 2007, a year after winning a Palestinian election, from forces loyal to Western-backed President Mahmoud Abbas. The movement is shunned by the West over its refusal to renounce violence and recognize Israel.

Related:

Hamas frees Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in prisoner swap

KABUL, Afghanistan — A man wearing an Afghan uniform shot and killed one American serviceman in the East of the country Sunday, according to an Afghan security official.

Initial reports said the attacker was in an Afghan Army uniform, but the official who spoke to NBC News on condition of anonymity said was wearing the uniform of a related security agency. He did not specify which agency, however.

Slideshow: Afghanistan: Nation at a crossroads

Mohammad Ismail / Reuters

Twelve years after the beginning of the war, Afghanistan faces external pressure to reform as well as ongoing internal conflicts.

Launch slideshow

"A man wearing an Afghan army uniform shot at Americans in Sharana city (the provincial capital) near the governor's office," Reuters earlier quoted an Afghan official as saying, adding that two soldiers had been hit by the gunfire.

ISAF, the NATO-led coalition force in Afghanistan, did not comment on the victim’s nationality. 

According to Reuters, the "insider attack" in the province of Paktika is the fourth in less than a month, and would likely strain already tense ties between coalition troops and their allies. Most foreign troops are scheduled to withdraw by the end of 2014.

A spate of such so-called “green-on-blue” attacks in 2012 prompted ISAF to temporarily suspend joint activities and limit interaction between foreign and Afghan troops.

The move reduced the number of such incidents, but some in the armed forces say that they have also eroded the hard-won trust nurtured between the allies over more than 12 years of war.

In the country on Saturday, Secretary of State John Kerry said that the major issues related to a security agreement with Afghan President Hamid Karzai had been resolved as he wrapped up an unannounced trip to Afghanistan — but that the issue of immunity for American troops is still to be decided by a council of elders and leaders.

“We have resolved in these last 24 hours the major issues that [Karzai] went through. We have resolved those issues,” Kerry said. “And we have put ourselves in a position for an enduring partnership going forward in the years ahead, providing that the political process of Afghanistan accepts that.”

NBC News' F. Brinley Bruton contributed to this story

Residents of eastern India awoke to scenes of destruction on Sunday, after huge Cyclone Phailin slammed into the eastern coastline, uprooting trees, destroying homes and cutting power and water supplies to swathes of the region.

AP

A crowd runs for cover after a cyclone warning at Gopalpur beach in Odisha, India, Saturday. Hundreds of thousands living along India's eastern coastline took shelter from the massive and powerful cyclone Phailin.

“It looks so devastating, I could see all roads blocked with uprooted tree and response teams clearing the roads,” wrote Kirti Mishra, operations manager at Catholic Relief Services in the state of Odisha. “Houses made of mud and bamboo are worst hit, slums in the town are mostly affected, their houses have completely collapsed and roofs are blown away.”

“We could not make any phone calls as all mobile networks gradually went off. There is no power or water supplies,” she added.

Despite Phailin’s power and size -- it was the strongest storm to hit the country in almost 15 years -- loss of life appeared limited after the more than half-a-million people left home and traveled to shelters.  Seven people died in the hours before the storm made landfall, according to the state of Odisha.

The low number of casualties stands in contrast to the 10,000 killed by Odisha's last big cyclone in 1999.

Winds of more than 125 mph buffeted the coast, but the storm lost momentum as it headed inland. It was expected to dissipate within about 36 hours.

Although the storm was weakening, international aid group Oxfam said the next few hours remained crucial for the tens of thousands of stuck in the middle of one what it called one of “India's largest natural disasters.” The major challenge was to clear debris and to quickly restore communications, Oxfam said in an email.

Authorities cancelled the holidays of civil servants during the popular Hindu Dussehra festival, deployed disaster response teams with heavy equipment as well as helicopters and boats for rescue and relief operations. 

Officials’ preparation ahead of the storm garnered the praise of John Shumlansky country representive for Catholic Relief Services, who spoke to NBC News over the telephone.

"The government did a really good job on this, bringing people together a few days beforehand," he said.

As there are floods in India every year, CRS pre-positions supplies in at-risk areas.

"We purchase tarpaulins, ropes, buckets, water purifying tablets. This time we brought a whole bunch more in advance," Shumlansky said.

Roads in the affected areas are cut off until government forces were able to clear them, he added. The charity had been unable to assess which areas had been hardest hit but they people were already in shelters, which gave aid agencies more time to reach them.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Soe Than Win / AFP - Getty Images file

A Myanmar woman takes a can of Coca-Cola from a shelf at a supermarket in Yangon, the capital city.

YANGON, Myanmar — Consumers in long-isolated Myanmar are getting their first taste of globalization — and finding it is sweet, fizzy and comes served in a can.

An end to international sanctions after decades of military rule has brought Coca-Cola and Pepsi back to the country, which is also known as Burma, triggering a soft-drink stand-off featuring the giants as well as several local brands.

Although it's been just five months since Coca-Cola started production in Myanmar after a 60-year absence, the brand has already painted much of Yangon red and white. 

Until recently, Myanmar, North Korea and Cuba were the only countries where Coke didn't have an official presence. Wealthy people in the capital could find illicitly imported Coke in upmarket hotels and restaurants, but generations of ordinary folk had grown up without ever tasting its still-secret recipe. 

Moon, 22, encountered her first swig of Coca Cola just five months ago when she moved from a small village outside Mandalay to work in one of Yangon's most exclusive hotels. (Moon, like many in Myanmar, goes by just one name). 

"I like it very much. When I was young I had only tried Blue Mountain [a local brand] and I found it too sweet. Also I like the thin cans that Coca-Cola have, not like the thick old-fashioned ones."

Outside Yangon's popular Bogyoke Market, soft-drink vendor Win has been selling sodas to customers and stallholders from a cooler for the past 20 years. Such is the demand for Coca-Cola that he has now stopped selling local brands.

"I'd say about 80 percent of people prefer Coca-Cola and 20 percent Pepsi or other brands," he said.

Coca-Cola usually sells for about 400 kyat (around 40 cents) a can, which is comparable with local brands.

One of his customers Yewin, 43, who has a store inside the market, said he remembers paying 1,500 kyat (about $1.50) for an illegal imported Coke in the mid-1980s.

"Now it is much more affordable and I much prefer it," Yewin added. "Star Cola [another local brand] is far too sweet. It is not good for children. I only give my daughter Coca-Cola."

However, Myanmar's indigenous cola producers are refusing to give up. They are waging a David and Goliath battle of the bubbles to remain the drink of choice in the newly opened country.

And while conventional wisdom suggests Blue Mountain and Star stand little chance against the might of the American giants, Coca-Cola and Pepsi face challenges in getting their message across to generations of consumers unused to the language of global advertising.

That has led to an unusual marketing strategy from Coca-Cola.

Rommel Fuentebella, Coca-Cola Myanmar's head of marketing, said the company had "delved into the archives" in search of ideas.

"We ended up getting inspiration from Atlanta in 1886," Fuentebella said. "When Coke was first introduced in Atlanta, the marketing strategy focused on what Coca-Cola tasted like – it simply described the unique flavor of Coca-Cola. We decided to use two words to form the core of the Myanmar campaign — 'delicious, refreshing' — which now appear, in the Myanmar language, on all locally produced products and advertisements.

"We also replicated another marketing initiative from the early days — free samples of icy cold Coca-Cola. We regularly host sampling events at festivals and gathering places in Myanmar, for it's a great way to get people to taste the product."

Although Pepsi started importing into Myanmar slightly before Coca-Cola in the wake of international sanctions being lifted last year, Coke has pushed ahead in terms of local production with two plants now operating in the country. Pepsi is still relying on imports but plans to start domestic production soon. 

Jeremy Rathjen, vice-president at Myanmar-based research and financial consultants Thuraswiss, said Pepsi had not yet managed to achieve Coca-Cola's level of brand awareness. 

"Although Coke was not here officially for such a long time, it was still being brought into the country on the black market, so it wasn't completely unknown ... and that has given Coke an advantage," he said. "Coke also seems able to tap into local taste better — promoting Coke as going with a certain local food for example — and are going to roll out labels in the Myanmar language with the local script."

So if even Pepsi is struggling to keep up with its rival, how can local brands compete against Coca-Cola?

Dr. Sai Sam Htun is president of the Loi Hein Group, which produces Blue Mountain Cola and other beverages that in June this year accounted for an estimated 30 percent of Myanmar's soft-drink market. Recognizing that his company will never be able to match the budgets of the global firms' sophisticated urban marketing he is focusing on the more traditional rural market.

He is optimistic that Coke and Pepsi's promotions will raise overall demand in a country where the the current soft-drink market is valued at just $100 million annually — compared with $1.5 billion in neighboring Thailand, which has an only slightly larger population and similar demographics. 

According to analysts Trefis, based on current economic growth and patterns in other countries in the region, the soft-drink market in Myanmar is estimated to reach over $500 million by 2025: a five-fold increase in just over a decade. Neither Pepsi nor Coke will release market share figures.

"I am confident," Sai said. "We're currently doing well and our market share is growing. If the multinationals come in and claim the A, B market then we will take the Cs and Ds. I hope to see a 40 percent growth next year."

He added the company is adopting modern marketing methods and both increasing and training the Blue Mountain sales force, while at the same time aiming to tap into traditional rural loyalties toward local brands.

Rathjen believes Sai's approach could work.

"In rural areas people don't understand the global brand of Coca-Cola so the local brands can be on the same level," he said.

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